How Not to Network

 

Had I been born a century or two ago, I would have been an Ehestifterin, a matchmaker.  And I would have been good at it too.  I suffer from the borderline obsessive need to know what everybody does, who they know and who they should know.  Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched has nothing on me.

In this day and age, I am called a networker.  To be an excellent networker, you need to have a genuine interest in other people.  Let me repeat that – in other people.  So this brings me to my latest pet peeve, because somebody has to say something.

Last night, Dave Rather, owner of Mother’s Federal Hill, was gracious enough to host the quarterly member mixer for BACVA*. Mother’s has recently expanded into the former bakery space under their building and now can host 300 happy people in addition to their original space for 100.  I was thrilled to be there.  I like the hard-working people of BACVA and have long supported their efforts to spread the good word about what a great town Baltimore is to host a convention in – or two.  I look forward to the mixers because I get to catch up with so many of my industry friends.  People that understand hospitality and have chosen it as their profession.  And I get to meet new people, see who has changed jobs, been promoted, and so on. 

So, imagine my chagrin when I was “netwacked”!  It goes like this,

“Hi, my name is Susan and I work for ABC Company (the names have been changed to protect the dolts).  Call me for all your Audio Visual needs.”

“Hello.  How do you know if I have audio-visual needs?  You don’t even know me or what I do.”

“Here’s my card,” and thrusts card at me.

“I could be a competitor”, I say.

“You could still call me”.

Who is out there unleashing these so severely poorly trained salespeople on the world?  I had another similar experience at another industry function recently.  “Working the room” does not mean forcing your card on everyone in the room regardless of who they are (she did).  And to make matters worse, neither of these people asked for MY card. 

Networking in its highest form is similar to the Golden Rule…”refer unto others as you would have them refer to you”.  Because in networking, what comes around, goes around.

 

*BACVA is the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association – but that’s a mouthful so we just say BACVA.