Primal Sneeze

Networking as a means of making contacts has always been a vital component of  any business model. Chambers of commerce and associations such as ISME, while essentially lobbying groups, have a long history of providing the structures to facilitate this.

There are others. Since the recession began to kick in many, many more have sprung up and membership of existing ones have grown dramatically.

Business owners are reaching out for everything they can to stay afloat. I know one individual who is a member of no less than seven networks. With so many weekly meet-ups to attend it is beyond me how he gets any actual work done. Perhaps there is no work to do.

I draw a major distinction between organic and forced networking. It is the latter that has seen the greater growth in recent times.

Take a two-day course run by a county enterprise board or a weekend event like the upcoming WordCamp Ireland. There are interesting speakers, demonstrations and so on. The networking happens naturally during coffee breaks or over dinner/drinks. Attendees go to learn primarily and if business comes out of it that’s a bonus.

Take a sports club where members help each other out and share business. Passing on a lead is natural. It is being passed to a friend. A friend you made while having fun.

This is organic networking. If it happens well and good. If it doesn’t then nothing is lost – something has been learned or enjoyed. But when it does work it works very well and the bond that leads to repeat business is strong.

Forced networking takes many forms. There is the cabalistic structure of the Kildare Business Network where membership is restricted to one business per business sector. Likewise, Business Network International where not only may just one person from each professional classification or speciality join a chapter, but all the other members carry copies of your business cards around with them to hand out. It cannot be helped but read that as members are required to carry others’ cards. To me, a network that is restricted to the point of being incestuous is not a network at all.

There are the OpenCoffee Clubs, some of which work extremely well, with attendees hearing from speakers of interest and proving a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their businesses. After all, that’s what the OpenCoffee Club was founded to do – it was started to encourage entrepreneurs, developers and investors to organise real-world informal meet-ups to chat, network and grow. In short. the OpenCoffee Club was founded for Internet developers.

Others purport to be part of the wider OpenCoffee Club network yet their purpose bears no semblance of the above. The Open Coffee Club (that’s Open Coffee not OpenCoffee) nearest me explain how it works: You come along, buy a coffee and have a chat. There is no charge to attend, no agenda, no speakers, no badges or formal networking – just a chance to meet some familiar and new faces. So it’s a coffee morning. Nothing else. A hijacking of the OpenCoffee brand to facilitate forced networking.

That said, at least the agenda is clear. You are there to pitch your business and nothing else. Unfortunately the realisation come quickly that you are pitching at the same faces time after time.

There is also a growing number of serial forced networking individuals. I know of some who repeatedly take the same courses and seminars to network at breaks with new faces.

Trying to hard and being too pushy and you will fail. A forced laugh is immediately spotted.

The same parallels of organic and forced can be made in online networking. All too often business people jump onto platforms like Twitter shouting about how great they and their business are and wonder why they are being ignored. I am often approached by such people: I don’t get this Twitter thing. How do I make money out of it? You don’t, is the short answer. But I was at a talk and your man from Blacknight was mentioned as a good example of an Irish businesses using Twitter. How does he make it work? He tells us about his cats, I reply, to stunned silence. And sometimes fixes things, I add.

See the difference? Forced networking is taking the bus solely to walk up and down the aisle introducing yourself and pitching your business to everyone. Organic networking is taking the bus because you need to get somewhere and happening to strike up a conversation with the person next to you that leads to new business. Update: If you still wish to take the former route and expect to attain spontaneous success I suggest you enlist the help of a “social media guru“.

Update 2: John Cradden writing in The Irish Times seems to be rather a fan of BNI. Either that or the Old Lady now accepts advertorials.

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