Fast Networking: A Fast Waste of Time

I am finding it harder and harder to believe anyone is getting absolutely any value out of a Fast Networking activity. My question is, what does anyone really get out of talking fast and gathering business cards? Other than this method of networking being of a social benefit for those who use these events as something to due during the fridge months I really cannot see it is worth the time, money or effort.

Online I see videocasts, blogs, podcasts, read articles and offline run into people offline who are going completely crazy trying to book their selves solid with one-on-one meetings at Starbuck. The only people who are making a profit from this method of business networking are the owners of Starbucks. I have studied this process of fast business networking so I can safely say it is a complete waste of time.

My critics will say this method of going around the room in two minute spurts is for people who are really passionate about their business and enjoy meeting as many people as they can. They explain to me that the more people you know the more chance you have of becoming a successful business person. Plus they also will say other ways of networking a person’s business take too much time away from the millisecond timeline business plan to success many business people are setting for their business. In other words, people who chose this method of business networking feel they need to make a million dollars a minute. Give me a friggin break. Is that anyone you want to do business with?

Well, I do not criticize anything unless I can factually report on why it needs criticism. My studies show that over 80% of the people who participate in the business version of the ‘one minute date’ have no idea why they are doing what they are doing. And over 85% of the people who go through the rig-a-ma-roar leave with contacts they cannot use nor have contacts to refer to those people who they just met.

Over 65% of the business people who attend Fast Networking events are with businesses that require them to make hundreds of cold calls a week to attempt to sell services they represent which are part of a very saturated market and nobody really needs.

Less than 5% of the business people who attend these events make a worthwhile business connection. My follow ups show that those business relationships lasted a few minutes after a sale was closed since one of the parties was not interested in keeping a lasting business relationship. These businesses who feed off making as many connections as they can are totally focused only on making a sale with no interest in providing continued customer service.

I could go on and on and I am sure I am going to get the usually feedback that I am out of touch with the way business is done now days and not to critize something that is working for others. Maybe I should and would probably take that advice if it was not for the fact that it is causing a huge negative image of business networking as a whole in the marketplace.

I am running into more and more people who are now concerned with conducting any type of business networking due to them being turned off by attending a fast networking event. Business people who are serious about their business and business’ image are not interested in going to a gathering where you have two minutes to find out what a person does before a loud horn goes off to stop the natural process of building a business relationship. Or at least a business should be concerned with the image they get from being a part of these activities. This method of showmanship networking does not work which pushes professional away from any type of networking due to the fear other methods of networking will be another one of these fast ‘trots around the room’ events.

I find it interesting and also a little disgusting to find golf groups who feel they need to use this method of networking. So far it seems they are using fast networking as a filler activity since their golf season is limited to three to four months a year. Since I know there are alternatives and activities that could be used instead of using a Fast Networking event I am now getting the impression the motivation behind the mission of these golf groups is not the golf, but using golf as the lure to draw in business golfers to hammer them for a sales lead.

Yes, without a doubt golf is the best business networking tool. Golf produces what other methods of business networking cannot. What playing golf with someone will do other business networking will not is building a solid business relationship. Again, yes, other methods of business networking build business relationships, but the difference in a business relationship and a solid business relationship is the solid business relationship is long lasting producing continuous sales. A regular business relationship usually results only in a possible single sale with no returned business.

Which would you rather have, 50 solid profitable business relationship, or, 200 business relationships that hit once resulting in you to having to take the time and spend more money to go to another fast business networking to gather another 200 business relationships?

My decision is to play more business golf.

Internal SPAM: Who is Causing It?

Great story in the Dallas Morning News on Spam being generated from people who love to Reply To All…

Why Business People Do Not Reply to Your Messages!

OK, I know it has happened to you at least once. If not then get ready, I am sure it will happen any day now.

What am I talking about?

I am talking about people you have met, done business with, played golf with, gone fishing with, had drinks with or have had any assortment of affiliations with do not return your emails, phone calls, personal letters or RSVP to personal invitations.

This unprofessional behavior is really starting to grow in most industries and unfortunately is starting to kill the business networking economy, not to mention personal and professional relationships. Why is this taking place?

Fortunately, my persistence ion finding out what the deal is has paid off, but not profitably. I have been able to encounter a few people recently who I have been trying to get in touch with them as they as me to by driving by their office to find out why they are not replying to my emails, phone message, text message or any other communications I have made at their request.

50% of these altercations resulted in finding out the reason was that any reply of any of the communications would have provided and the other half produced the same, but only after hearing a multitude of excused on how they got busy and forgot or just did not get around to replying.

What both groups were saying is they really didn’t care enough to take the time to reply or really did not want anything I was offering but was figuring that I would go away if they did not answer my communications. They finally admitted they just did not want to appear to be negative.

Yes, that ‘N’ word that business people are being told to avoid at all cost. And who is telling them to avoid the ‘N’ word or to appear negative? Well there is a group of business coaches out in the world who are coaching people to go out and meet new people but not to waste their time with people that burn up their energy or does not offer them anything that would help them accomplish their professional goals. This is a contradiction in itself, but is what they feel has to be done to be successful.

The main thing these coaches say needs to be the focus is to appear positive at all costs. There should never be a negative word come out of their mouth and all should be said with a smiley face. They even drill them and role-play how to go about staying positive for an entire day.
These misinformed professionals go as far as telling their clients what kind of emails, voice messages and invitations they need to avoid.

Why? Their point of view is that anytime you have to say NO to something you are seen as being negative. So to avoid saying No or appearing to be negative they advise their clients to not respond to message from people who fit the category of a ‘Time Waster”. They even provide them with scripts on what to say if they are encountered by the person who sent them the messages they are ignoring. Something like, “OH, my business has taken such a positive and exciting direction I miss must of overlooked your messages.”

Yep, my response was the same. WTF are they talking about and why do people think ignoring someone is placing them in a positive image.

Well, I encountered one of the coaches recently…I will not use their name or company name to keep from giving them anymore positive imagery, but they feel that there are some businesses that waste other business people’s time.

They also feel that in order for a business to become successful and profitable they need to avoid the negative image of being associated with businesses that waste their time and energy. They tell their clients to focus on keeping their scheduled full of appointments with productive business connections and to avoid any business connection that has the slightest image of not offering anything that would help them in being seen as a positive business to do business with.

Yaw, what drug are these people on? This attitude these coaches are instilling into their client’s head is being taking way out of context to a point that more and more business people are thinking it is normal to not return a phone call or email for any reason unless it is going to produce a sale or close a deal. Anything outside that scope of professionalism will lead to wasting time.

So, now that you are aware that there are business coaches out there who feel this way, it could explain why you are not getting emails and voice mail messages returned. I hope these business people who feel they need to book themselves solid are thinking about tomorrow when nobody wants to do business with them because they don’t return emails or phone calls.

Check out the IBGS Blog for more insight on Business Development.

The Evening News

In the news tonight there were a couple of issues I wanted to report on.

Social Networking’s New Direction.

MySpace Moves to Stop SPAM

Social Networking’s New Directions

Business Week reported in Scaling the Social Web, on social networking groups like MySpace and Facebook no longer being the places people are going to network or socialize. I find this rather refreshing since I have a profile on both and really have not found the worthiness of either of them. I am finding the smaller social groups that take control of who is a member or move to needing to be invited to join to be a more viable place to be on the internet.

Recently I was overhearing a late 20 early 30’s young man telling his early 50’s father how he would never allow his kids on MySpace after what he experienced. Seems he was a member when MySpace started and he was much younger and now he sees that the predators are all over the mega social groups hiding behind pictures of George Clooney and Britney Spears or no photo at all.

With the report NetCraft provided on there being 135 Million distinctive different web-sites on the internet with a 5% increase each month there are a lot of places for people to go see and spend time. The urge to see what can be found on the internet is pulling people’s interest away from being a member of a social group.

It is good to hear that things are changing for the better in social networking and that more people are finding the mega groups as not the place to HAVE TO BE.

MySpace Moves to Stop SPAM

Marshall Kirkpatrick over on Read/WriteWeb brought to my attention a change in method the spammers use to bug the crap out of you about being a friend. I agree, it has taken a long time for MySpace to take action, now if they can get rel photo’s maybe MySpace will move back on the radar as a place to go and meet real people.

Back to Business!

While I was away I did not stop my pursuit in learning more about how small businesses are doing business or not.  Over the past three months of writing on my next book on the problems in the golf world I took the time to play golf with or just sit and visit with, over 50 business people.  Their occupations range from top attorney’s to truck drivers.  The one thing they all had in common was they had problems with how to manage a business.

I am now finding why there are so many business failures.  Simply put, there are too many people trying to go it alone.  To make things worst, these business people I visited with feel their strengths are what will lead them to success.

Those with very strong marketing and sales skills quickly found that not having any operations background lead them to fail quickly.   Those with operations background and little marketing abilities fair a little better, but without the expertise or confidence in selling they too hit a wall quickly.

I speak on this issue frequently and usually draw a lot of fire from the sales manages and marketing directors who fear for their jobs, but if a business does not have a sound operations set up before they start marketing then the sign on the wall of the office saying ‘This Way Out’ indicates clearly how their business will go. 

It is true a business needs marketing and sound marketing is better.  However, without a sound operation set up before the marketing starts there really is not any thing to market.

I have two examples.  One is for a larger professional firm and the other is a one man show small business.

As was the case with the larger professional firm their marketing was done by word of month, but what they found soon after they started they were limited to the amount of work they could take on due to the time it took to process the client’s paperwork.  What was found to be the problem was the professionals were spending more time filling out redundant forms they felt had to be filled out by a professional in order to validate the legality of the information they were providing.  Once I pointed out they did not have an operation to support their efforts they quickly saw where their problem was.  So they hired an operations manager to set up a central process where all clients’ paperwork was processed before and after the visit with the professional.  This allowed them to take on a 40% increase in case loads for their business.

In the case of the one-man show, he was a truck driver who had a great outgoing personality and could talk up a storm.  This produced more loads for him to haul than he could legally make.  Again, once I pointed out that the paperwork he had to fill out and arrangements to pick-up and drop off the load was taking up a lot of his time he realized that he did not have a sound operations set up for his business.  Once he brought in a third party to handle his paperwork and scheduling of loads he was left to doing what he does well…driving a big rig and talking up a storm.

Here are two very simple explanations of how business people with strength in one area need to rely upon operations to make the business work.   The best bet for any business is to hire someone else to handle the operations.  They will pay for themselves over a short period of time.

Need I say what I recommend every business do before starting a business? If you need to know then you need an operations manager.

Let me know how I can help.

To read more on other subjects check out the IBGS site.