Networking, schmetworking
Sometimes, I'm amazed that Typepad still remembers my username and password after so long!
Yup, I've fallen into the path of spending so much time doing and creating that the blog has gathered virtual dust and gotten a bit lonely without me.
But there is so much going on, and I've got a lot to share!
First, a brief comment from yet another fabulous meeting of the Empowering Women Network group last night. Our speaker was Susan Fignar of PurSue, Inc., a business and personal coach. As she was walking the room through a series of exercises designed to help us reasses our strengths, weaknesses and business value systems, I was paired with a new member, Sue Kirchner, who runs the Chocolate Cake Club. (This is actually not what it sounds like; she promotes products that make life easier for busy parents--so families can have those "chocolate cake moments.")
During our discussions, she mentioned a contact of hers who will undoubtedly be a solid-gold, once-in-a-lifetime, couldn't-be-more-perfect lead for me in my current situation. I've already followed up, and I'm darn excited about meeting this lead.
What's the point? Well, I was thinking about the speaker from two months ago, who impressed me significantly less than Ms. Fignar. I won't name her, but her networking "activity" was to have everyone dance around the room while she played rock music and do the "business card dance." This involved handing out your cards to as many people as possible while the music played. Until you ran out of cards, in fact. Afterwards, applause was given to the person who collected the most cards.
At that time, I had to work to avoid rolling my eyes where others could see--thought it might be rude. But I'll do it here, because that ridiculous dance represents everything I hate about "networking." Networking is NOT, I repeat, NOT about papering the room with business cards in the shortest amount of time possible. How many cards you give or get has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR NETWORKING SUCCESS. What matters is how you connect with people. Guess what? Ten one-minute meaningless exchanges will yield you nothing. But one ten-minute honest exchange with ONE person can make a bigger difference than a stack of business cards. I don't know about you, but I value a decent, honest conversation with someone who is being real with me a helluva lot more than a myriad of 20-second elevator pitches.
Who cares about the elevator pitch? Sure, it's useful for summarizing, and hey, I use mine all the time. But eventually you need to get real and just be yourself. Have an actual conversation. If you're interested in the person as a person, keep talking. If you don't especially like the person or the conversation, then either dig deeper or go meet someone you do like. Forget collecting business cards and take time to have a real conversation. It will be far more valuable than that stack of names and faces you can't even remember once you get home.
