The Biggest Mistake You Can Make in Networking

I used to think that networking was all about getting to know people. I thought it was supposed to be about two people having a conversation, sharing information about themselves and looking for ways to connect. But things seem to have changed.

Having been invited recently to an open event for a certain networking group, I’ve discovered that networking these days is very different. I started by asking one person about the social media courses that he runs. He spent nearly 10 minutes telling me, in great detail, about his courses – what they cover, why he thinks that all businesses should be using social media, how important social media is, the benefits of using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, how there are some other social media channels that should be used, like YouTube and Google+ and that his courses cover those to a certain extent, but not in as much detail as the other channels and that if you need to know more then he runs advanced and tailored courses too …!

So did I buy one of his courses? No, of course not. Why not? Because the reasoning behind my inquisitive question was to find out how much this chap knows, to see if he’s a competitor I need to worry about. At no point did he ask me why I was interested in his courses; he didn’t ask what knowledge I already had on social media; he didn’t even want to know what sort of business I run. If he’d asked me just one of these questions, he would have saved himself a lot of time talking to someone who was never going to buy from him. He could have politely excused himself and gone to speak to someone who was a real prospect.

So has networking really changed? Or is it that some people still just don’t get it? In my opinion, effective networking is really about asking questions of other people, to help you get to know them and how you might be able to help them. Or is it about seeing how long you can talk at someone before they die of boredom?!