Networking to Get Work - Small Affairs full of Small Businesses

Continuing the extracts from my recent article in The Sun newspaper providing networking tips for small business:

I’ve been to a couple of networking events and they’ve been small affairs full of small businesses. The people I want to sell to aren’t there.

It is a very common mistake to look at the numbers attending an event and who they are when judging how useful it will be to you. You must avoid such pitfalls.

Most people attending networking events are small businesses. If you attend your local Chamber of Commerce or weekly breakfast meeting, it’s very unlikely that you will find high-level decision makers from corporates there.

You’ll find a group of people with a very wide-ranging network. People whose clients, best friends or neighbours are your ideal prospects. Even people who may be married to your dream referral!

I once discussed this point with an attendee at a talk I gave at Milton Keynes Chamber of Commerce. She said that, when people ask what she does, she sometimes mischievously replies, “I’m a housewife”. At that point, she said, people can never get away quickly enough. They don’t even ask who she’s married to!