Quite often people contact me to enquire about attending one of our Groups, or, more recently, one our new afternoon networking events. (Here’s more info: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/afternoon-networking-tickets-136617202731?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch )
We talk about various aspects of our networking, membership (or not), virtual or face to face (All virtual for now, and always will be for the afternoon meetings). However, at some point some ask the following question, ”…and how many people attend?”
To be honest this is where I lose some interest in the conversation. Why? because I have always worked on the ‘quality not quantity’ principle when it comes to networking. Some people seem to think that the more people there are, the better any event is. Not true in my experience. I was once invited to an event in London and I was told afterwards that there had been over 600 people at the networking event. It was horrendous: so noisy you couldn’t hear yourself think, and people were so packed in that, being short, the taller people took away my air and light. After about 15 minutes I gave up, I left the room and wandered around the hotel till I found a small bar, and guess what? There I met other people who had ducked out of the main event.
I had a great time. I met some people I knew, they introduced me to some people I didn’t know, and I reciprocated. In the end there were about 5 small groups of people getting to know each other, either with initial meetings or building deeper relationships with people we already knew. Fantastic networking. We exchanged cards and kept in touch and from that small number of people I have grown my contact base and the relationships have been mutually beneficial. That’s what networking about: quality not quantity.
If you would like some more ideas to make your networking work, go to: www.ebn.uk.com and download my top 20 tips.
Have fun.
