On today’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I’m going to go through the 10 biggest mistakes that I believe people make when they go networking.
When they go to networking events in an attempt to drum up business, to make contacts, to make referral partners, to get more clients and more business into their businesses.
I’ve been in networking for probably about 16 years now, and I’ve only really been good at it for the last four or five years, because originally I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’ve made a lot of these mistakes myself. So when I go through these 10 mistakes, I’m not picking on anybody else. I’m picking on me primarily.
These are the kind of things that people do when they go to networking events and they’re new at it, and they wonder why it just does not work.
The first one is selling to the room.
People turn up at networking events where they have multiple businesses and contacts in the room, and they go from one person to the next trying to sell their services to that person. If they’re an accountant, they go around shaking hands, passing out business cards, saying:
“Hi, I’m an accountant. I work for JB and Brown Accountants and I can do your accounts. Do you need an accountant? No, you don’t? Okay, I’ll move on to the next person. Hi, I’m an accountant and I do this…”
Selling to the room is very, very common, because it is what people think you do at networking. You go to a networking event to get business. That is what you do. You go to a networking event to get business.
Therefore, people think the people in the room are the ones who should become your clients.
That is not the way networking works.
Do not try and sell to the room. The people in the room are there to connect you with others, not to become your clients.
If you did sell to the room and there were 20 people in a networking meeting, what happens when they all become your clients? There is no one left to become your client. You have to move on to another networking group. That is called hunting. That is called hunting in a room, shooting all of the prey and killing it, then moving on when it is all dead.
That does not work. So do not sell to the room.
The second mistake. That was number one.
The second mistake people make at networking meetings, and this one should be obvious, is not turning up.
The number of times I have seen people register for networking events, promise to go to an event, somebody has invited them to an event and is going to introduce them to someone else that might be of use to them, and they just don’t bother to show up.
If you can’t be arsed to turn up to a networking event, what kind of message are you sending to everybody else? What kind of image are you conveying about your reliability, about your referability, about your credibility?
You’re basically saying you can’t be trusted. Don’t refer me. Don’t introduce me. Don’t pass me any work, because there is a very good chance I will not even turn up to the meeting.
That is what happens when you don’t turn up to a networking event. If you are expected, bloody well turn up. And if there is a facility in place where you can send somebody in your absence, send somebody in your absence. Don’t just not show.
No-shows are really bad for your credibility. You could not destroy it any faster by doing anything else.
So that is number two: not turning up.
Number three is saying the same thing every single week or at every single meeting.
I’ve been to a lot of meetings, a lot of networking events where you attend regularly. Maybe it is once a week, once a fortnight or once a month. You see people who have been there for a long time and every single time they stand up, or they have their round-table part where they do their pitch, they say the same bloody thing.
You know what they are going to say. You can probably recite it better than they can.
What possible use is there in saying it over and over and over again? Nobody is paying attention. Nobody has any interest. It did not work last time. Why do you think it is going to work this time?
You need to vary what you are saying for the different services you have within your business. Vary what you are saying for the people who are in the room, because there could be somebody in the room who is of specific interest to you for something that you do. You need to vary what you say so it appeals to them. Tailor what you are saying for the audience in front of you.
Do not say the same thing every single week or every single meeting, because it is just going to get dull. It is going to get boring. It is not going to work. You are not going to get any business.
So, number four.
Turning up late or leaving early.
Again, really common. I have seen loads of people in business who, for some reason, turn up after it has started, or after the open networking, or in the middle of somebody else’s talk.
Is there anything ruder than walking in while someone is stood up talking? Anything ruder? Well yes, there is. Somebody getting up and leaving while somebody else is talking. That is ruder.
If you are going to make an entrance for yourself where you embarrass yourself by walking in while everyone else is already there, or leaving while somebody else is doing a part of the meeting, then you are basically again telling everybody that you are a rude person. That you have no value for what they are saying. You have no value for their time. Your time is more important. You have pissed off somewhere else. Sod them.
That is what you are saying.
So do not turn up late. Do not leave early. If the meeting is 9 till 11, make sure you are there before 9, and you can stay till at least 11. That is just basic common sense, but so many people do not do it.
The next one, number five, is not understanding your USP, your unique selling point.
This one is actually quite difficult, because most people don’t have a genuine USP. They will say things like:
“Oh, we really care about our customers. We have got great customer service. We really value our clients.”
Bollocks. Everybody says that.
You need a USP that is unique to you, something that sets you aside from your competition. If you do not have that, then why should somebody refer you? Why should somebody introduce you ahead of somebody else?
You need to look at your competition. What is it they do? What is it you do? What is it that you do differently, that means you should be introduced and not them?
Number six:
Not knowing your niche or your specific referral request.
If you go to a networking meeting and say things like, “Oh, I’m a web designer. I do web designs for anybody. It doesn’t matter who they are, any business, I don’t care, anyone,” that does not help somebody refer you.
If you say, “I’m a web designer and we specialise in the property sector. We are looking for estate agents. We are looking for letting agents. We are looking for mortgage brokers. We are looking for builders, people that work in property, serviced accommodation, that sort of thing. That is what we do,” that is a little bit better.
If you have a specific person you want an introduction to, and I am going to mention a particular estate agent, for example. They are local, we don’t work with them, I am not looking for an introduction, but this is the kind of person. Carl Tatler from Tatler’s Estate Agents. That is a specific introduction. Don’t introduce me, please. But Carl Tatler from Tatler’s Estate Agents, that is the kind of thing you should be asking for.
Because if you have a specific introduction and people in the room know who they are, they are more likely to be able to help you than if you just go, “I do this for anybody, it doesn’t really matter who they are.” They are not going to help you if you do that.
Number seven, not knowing how someone can introduce you.
The number of times I hear this. Maybe you go to a networking event and you say, “Right, I have a specific introduction I would like.” Fantastic. I know that person. “How would you like me to introduce you?”
“Just say that I am an accountant and I want to speak to them.”
Great. That is not going to work.
We need a way to actually introduce you, something to get you in the door. What can I say to them that is good about you, that is going to make them want to speak to you?
“I don’t know really. I’m just an accountant and I want to speak to them because I want to do their accounts.”
Yes, that is crap. That is not going to work.
This ties back to knowing your USP. Knowing why you are different. Knowing why you are different to your competitors. You need to know what sets you apart, how you can be introduced. If you don’t know that, then you are not going to get the referral, are you? You are not going to get the introduction.
Number eight of ten, just talking about what you do, not what value you give.
This is a really common mistake, and I see it a lot with technical jobs. IT, joinery, building work. They will stand up and they will say things like:
“In my industry, what we do is we build software for our clients, and we use this particular platform and we code it in Perl or we code it in PHP and Ajax, and then we debug it and then we do like 10,000 lines of code and this is how it works.”
No one gives a toss. Nobody cares what you do.
They want to know what value it is to them.
Stop telling people the specifics of what you do and how you do it, because quite frankly everyone is going to forget it anyway, if they even listen in the first place. You are not there to run a seminar to your peers. You are there to educate people who don’t know the specifics of what you do, and don’t care, on how they can refer you.
So you need to be telling people the value that you add. This software that you build, no one gives a toss what it is built in. No one gives a toss how many lines of code it is, or how much you debug it. What they want to know is how much money it is going to save them. How much time it is going to save them. Do you have case studies to show people where you have put it into their business and it has saved them X amount of money per year?
That is what people want to know. The value that you offer, not how you do what you do.
Number nine, not following up.
Absolutely bloody criminal.
You go to all the effort of going to a networking event, talking to loads of people, making loads of connections, asking for a specific referral request, or asking for an introduction to somebody. You get it, and then you piss off and don’t do anything with it.
What is the point in you doing it at all?
Are you afraid you are going to speak to them and mess it up? Are you worried that you are just going to absolutely balls it up, make yourself look a tit?
Well, you have already made yourself look a tit by not following it up.
If somebody offers you a referral, bloody make that contact. Go and do that quote. Go and do that pitch. Go and do that talk. Whatever it is.
If somebody asks you for a one-to-one meeting where they get to know you and you get to know them so they can better refer you, follow it up and go through with it. Don’t just walk out and ignore them.
You can’t turn up to a networking event and expect people to give you loads of work, and then you just piss off and then come back three weeks later or whatever it is, and people will give you loads of work again. That is not how it works.
You need to follow it up. If you don’t follow it up, there is absolutely no point you being there in the first place.
And then finally, number ten of the mistakes I think people make at networking events far too often, and that is giving up too quickly.
If I had done this, I would never be going to networking events anymore.
The very first networking group that I joined, I was there for 12 months. It cost me, at the time, about £1,200. It took a whole two and a bit hours of my day every single week. Throughout the whole first year, I made about £800 back. About £800. It did not even cover the cost of being there, never mind my time.
Had I given up, I would never have got to where I am now, where in the last year I made £165,000 through that same networking group.
You cannot give up too quickly. You cannot expect to go into a group full of established connections and established businesses and have them instantly refer you and you instantly get a return on investment. It does not work that way.
You have to put the time, the effort and the workload in for it to work. So don’t just give up if it does not happen overnight, because typically it takes at least two years before you get a return on investment. One year is usually not enough.
I would say give it two years. If you have given it two years and it is still not worked, maybe there is something else not right. But give it two years. Do not give up too quickly.
So that is my 10 mistakes that people make at networking groups. I hope you haven’t made any of those yourself. Or if you have, you have recognised them when I have said them, you have identified them and you have been able to correct them and make the changes yourself.
Because if you can avoid all of these 10, you should be really good at networking, really good at getting business through networking and growing and scaling your business that way.
So, thank you for listening. Drop me a comment if you liked this. Drop me a comment if you didn’t, I don’t care. Leave me a review if you did. Don’t leave me a review if you didn’t.
You have been listening to The Engaging Marketeer and I will catch you on the next podcast.
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk
