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April 22, 2005
Of networking and networking jerks
I am in the situation, where I have to go to a lot of meetings, conferences, seminars and award ceremonies. It makes for a great evening, most of the time, since I get to know a lot of different people from a variety of businesses.
Here are my general observations, and I am sure that at least some of you share these with me.
Let's start with the networking jerk. There are two types of the networking jerks. One of them is the hunter. He (or she, but let's make him a he) doesn't really look at you, when you talk to him. He graps your business cards, let's out some predefined questions - what is your name, where are you from, what are you doing - but while talking, starts looking around for the next target. He basically looks through you and is a business card collector. I am sure he won't know much about the people he met, but is the one who sends you a promotional e-mail straight after the meeting expressing his joy to have met you. Most of the time, I throw their business card away straight away.
I am not sure if the other one is actually worse, but at least, they are not that widespread. They are the rushers. They approach you especially during the last few minutes of a conference. With a pack of business cards in their hand, they just go around, shake anybody's hand and move on, straight away after the exchange of business cards. I also have no recollection of them, whatsoever, but at least, they didn't take my time away too much.
Next, we also have the Promoters. A nicer group of people, since they are the ones that send you a Thank You note, shortly after meeting you. The pity is that they also want to sell you something, straight away, without having build any reasonable relation. I give them a chance and respond to them, anyway, since may be, they are nicer in "real life". There is another Promoter group, actually - they are the ones who start selling early, best, after two minutes of talking. Introducing each other, exchanging business cards, scoping, what I am doing, and they are doing, and then, straight moving on to the sentence ... Oh - we should meet and talk business. I am sure we have something for you in our business that makes my business so much better. Thank you - while they are nicer, I am not happy with those who sell straight!
It is actually interesting to see, how people react when you respond to their promotional e-mail. It is something like an acid test. Most of the time, I tell them that I was happy to have met them, and it would be great to meet them again, but that I wasn't certain that I could use their product or service immediately. You know that most of the time, I never get a response again.
If there are any networkers or aspiring networkers out there, please read this carefully - this is not networking, or relationship building. I would describe your as businesscard collectors. Nothing more. All you get with all your effort is a piece of paper with a name on it. Because, to repeat - this is networking gone wrong.
Or am I wrong?
Tagged under:
networking
rolodex
friendship
Posted by Andreas at April 22, 2005 01:27 PM
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Comments
A wise piece of advice. I'll keep that in mind when I'm trying to build up my network of contacts.
Posted by: xaph at April 24, 2005 11:44 AM
i agree. networking is when you go to wharton for a couple years to do a 200,000$ program called MBA. ha ha ha.
Posted by: Ivy at April 23, 2005 01:53 PM