Stamford Connecticut is not only Market Research Capital but probably also Networking Capital of the US.
This morning I attended a talk at the Fairfield County Public Relations Association entitled “Networking: What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You”. The speaker, Richard Guha, is chairman emeritus of the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), an organization I’ve been a member of for the last couple of years.
Richard mentioned that MENG and several other of the most popular networking groups were started right here in Connecticut and that this area has more of these groups per square foot than anywhere else in the country/world. What’s interesting to me is that with the invention of online social networking, geography and other barriers to networking are diminishing.
Here were a couple of the key takeaways:
- Most LinkedIn requests get ignored. Go ahead and use LinkedIn to search, but then why not try picking up the phone.
- Gallup Poll “found only 6% of people are assholes” (uninvolved). Most people who are unhelpful or unresponsive simply don’t know how to network, you need to explain. “Do not ascribe to malice that which can be explained by ignorance”
- A large group of 500+ is better for networking than a small group of 10. Not necessarily so, a small group allows for easier/deeper communication.
- Power of a network is the total nodes squared (exponential value). i.e. size of 10 = 100, size of 20 = 400
- When meeting/networking, don’t be so focused on getting discussing your key issue. Just get to know people, then follow up later if it makes sense.
I asked Richard about the flip side of networking. As I’m quite engaged in LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook I often have connections contacting me to meet for coffee. While I don’t want to be rude, it’s impractical to meet someone for coffee every day especially if a clear mutual benefit is not apparent. He agreed and suggested not saying no, but at least putting it off a bit. Makes sense I guess. Wonder if anyone else out there has this issue and what they do?
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Hank Blank // Sep 22, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I have spoken to the local MENG Chapters on Networking and on a National MEMG Teleseminar.
Am very robust on Social Networks as they are an extension of my personal networking. In the end I believe though that Face time not Facebook leads to relationships.
2 Fred Ehle // Sep 23, 2009 at 1:34 pm
In response to your coffee request question, if I have time, I meet as you never know where it’ll go. But the key is whether I have the time. I try to set some time every week for these meetings as some of my best contacts have come from these meetings.
3 links for 2009-09-25 « burningCat // Sep 25, 2009 at 4:10 am
[...] Networking: What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You [...]
4 Bill Doerr // Sep 25, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Tom, good post.
I like your admonition to use the phone — networking is a contact sport. That’s too easy to forget. Many do!
Also enjoyed that ‘fewer and better’ connections may prove more valuable than ‘many but lesser’ relationships that lack the requisite depth of quality to be effective and useful.
As for coffee, I agree with Fred. If time permits, I seek to make new contacts because you just never know where they’ll take you.
5 Shawn Brazo // Sep 29, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Tom,
Great summary. I n my opinion, “networking gatherings” are very similar to “trade fairs”: imagine the attendees are vendors with something of interest to sell– As Richard suggests, rather than doing business at the gathering, it is indeed easier and more productive to collect business cards, make some notes then call later to set up a 1-on-1 discussion (live or by phone). In reality, at these networking events we are all vendors and we are all buyers!
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