Sales Tips >> Browse Articles >> Networking
Netting a Return on Networking
Featured Author:
Paul McCord
Author, speaker, trainer, consultant, and one of the country’s leading authorities on prospecting, referral generation, and personal marketing, Paul McCord has had a distinguished career in teaching, sales, sales training, and sales management. A magna cum laude graduate of Texas A&M University, Commerce, with graduate studies at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth, Paul began his career teaching literature at his alma mater. Though he enjoyed the challenge of teaching, his competitive nature lead him to the business world where he could more fully utilize his selling and training talents.
Paul’s Sales and Sales Management Blog is regularly picked up in syndication by Fox Business News, Nielsen Business Media, Hoovers, Reuters and other major business and industry sites.
More articles from this author:
Paul McCord
Networking. For many, if not most, salespeople and managers that word evokes images of the Chamber of Commerce networking nights, the breakfast lead exchange groups, and pestering mom, dad, the black sheep uncle, and anyone else that might be able to cough up lead.
That word may also conjure up memories—maybe really recent memories from like, yesterday—of wasted time, a room full of no real prospects, dad’s agonized tone of voice that belies his smile and can’t hide his unease with the request to give a referral to his friends and acquaintances.
Although there are many good books on networking, many salespeople are still spending a good deal of time and effort seeking to network in the wrong places, with the wrong people, and with the wrong goals. They view networking as a grazing activity, seeking out venues where they can find a sizable group of men and women, and spit out their ‘value proposition’ to as many of them as possible in as little time as possible. Favorite haunts tend to be the local chamber of commerce; the networking events of various local business associations and groups; lead exchange breakfast groups; and the proverbial family and friends.
Not surprisingly, few salespeople who approach networking in this manner find their time and effort to be well spent. Grazing for contacts and leads generally doesn’t work because it violates some key aspects of business and human nature.
Location, location, location.
The old real estate adage applies to networking as well. Where you network is of prime importance.
Although easy, floating into the chamber networking event isn’t likely to produce results. In most instances, these events are overwhelmingly dominated by other salespeople who are also looking for the opportunity to meet new prospects—and who are not the least bit interested in being sold to. Instead of finding yourself in a room of 125 prospects, it is far more likely to find yourself in a room of 100 salespeople and 25 business owners and managers—of which only a very small handful would be quality prospects for you. Certainly you can meet prospects. And certainly there are sales made from the contacts developed at chamber meetings. But the return on time and energy investment is usually extremely small.
Lead exchange groups can be very viable opportunities for those selling the right products and services. A mechanic or quick print company might find a lead exchange group to be an extremely valuable source of new business. On the other hand, a salesperson selling enterprise solutions or a management recruiter would more than likely find little if any success in one of these groups. Nevertheless, I’ve know management consultants, copyright attorneys, and financial services salespeople who sell money management services with a minimum portfolio size of a million dollars who invested their time and energy in these groups before they discovered it was a poor match for their services.
