I go to a lot of business networking events and I see different styles of networking. Some people want to meet as many people as possible, see if they wanted to buy anything, and if not, then move on to the next person. This is called working the room.

My experience

For me, this is a real misconception about networking. At most networking events, I’ll be able to talk to 5 or 6 people and say hello to a few others. For me, this is plenty enough people for one event. I want to be able to have in depth conversations with people, and to say hi (therefore reminding them of my existence) to others. I don’t know if there will be any direct business benefit to me from going to any particular event, but if I have some good conversations, maybe meet a couple of new people and can help out, then that’s good enough for me.

The risk of working the room

If you work the room, your desire to separate the wheat from the chaff means that you risk offending the people you discard. Those people are not going to want to be your friends. Very few of us sell anything the first time we meet someone, especially if you sell services (this doubles if you sell complex services). So if someone doesn’t want to buy right now, make sure that you establish a good relationship with them, because they might want to buy later. And of course, they might not want to ever buy from you, but you want them to remember you and like you, because you want them to recommend you to their aunt’s boyfriend’s best friend, who does want to buy whatever you’re selling.

Don’t be a doggie

The other risk with working the room is that you can look needy. You’re like a doggie, sniffing each person to see who is going to give you the money. And no one is going to trust you or buy anything if you appear to be desperate.

Don’t be tempted to work the room - networking is a long term game, with big potential results. Some of the people who have done me the biggest favours in business have been people who I’ve known for years, and who are very unlikely themselves to be my clients, but I’ve got to know them and they’ve been incredibly helpful, recommending potential clients, setting up speaking opportunities (where I do meet potential clients) and media opportunities. You only need a handful of great people like this to make the difference.