This may be too much to ask for in random, one off events run by, say, a law firm. But it should be de rigueur for all membership networking organisations where the participants are paying a membership fee as well as a fee to get into a particular event. If these organisations do not know the basic information about their members, they should hang their heads in shame
7 This introduction service should be advertised at the time of booking and participants should be encouraged to ask (preferably beforehand) for introductions at the event
8 Prior to the event, each person booking should have access to the names of people who have already booked. Arguments that this list will be inaccurate because people book after the list has been circulated are specious: a list produced after booking has closed will be inaccurate too since, invariably, some people who book don’t turn up. So far, I have found only one networking organisation, NRG Networks, which provides this facility and it doesn’t extend it to non-members who book
9 A day or so before the event, the organisers should send an email reminder to each person who has booked. The reminder should include some tips about how to get the most form the event
10 At the event, a printed list should be given to each attender, naming all those who have booked, plus anyone else who has been invited, plus those who are running the event. This list should include: name, business represented, market sector(s) of the business (eg, construction), activities of the business (eg, recruitment), website url, personal business telephone number and personal business email of the attender.
No organisation offers the last of these (indeed, no organisation offers all but the last either). The excuse offered for not giving email addresses is that someone might spam everyone else who attended. This is, of course, annoying, but the disadvantage of not providing email addresses is greater in my view than is the irritation of a couple of spam emails. On booking, it may be necessary to warn prospective attenders that spamming the list will result in an immediate lifetime ban from that organisation’s networking events (one strike and you’re out)
11 After the event, those who attended should be notified by the organisers of those who didn’t attend for any reason
12 For membership networking organisations, the management should hold regular (eg, annual) one to one conversations with each member to ensure that they (the management) are up to date with what the members are doing in their business and what each member needs from the events they run.
None of these criteria is difficult or costly to provide. All of them are reasonable if the networking event is to best meet the needs of the attenders (who are, almost always, paying to be there).
Yet few are the networking organisations that do all of this, or even most of it.
Whilst it is possible for the experienced networker to make something of the pig’s ear that is often presented to them, it shouldn’t be necessary. Worse, these poor events discourage the nervous or inexperienced from repeating a bad experience; this therefore diminishes the pool of interesting people available to those people who do turn up to meet.
At worst, a networking organisation will fail because of the failure of the events they run to meet these basic criteria.
by Jeremy Marchant . © 2019 Jeremy Marchant Limited . subbed 7 may 2019 . image: Free images
Please see About this website for guidance on using this material.
Leave a comment: