In the club: the joy of networking

I’m not a parent, but I suspect that starting a business is a bit like having a child. Life-changing. A shuffling of priorities. Being kept awake half the night.

Networking is the new sex. Or the new black. Or perhaps the new running. I’ve attended plenty of hand-shaking festivals in my time but what was, in a previous life, often an onerous, awkward duty, now seems like a self-reaffirming recreation. Mind you, this is based on just two experiences. Or perhaps three. Last night’s ‘speed networking’ session (a pleasure still to come) was cancelled, so I ended up in the local pub, though even this turned into a mini networking experience, and might eventually have more value than the others.

Last week I joined my local branch of the Chamber of Commerce.

Crikey, has it come to this? I asked myself that question, much as a new dad might as he finds himself queuing for Sainsbury’s to open so he can buy his very first trolleyful of nappies and baby food.

The very name: Chamber of Commerce has a gravitas and a grandeur that I don’t readily associate myself with. It isn’t cheap, but one of the benefits is a Regus gold card which allows me to use the ‘business lounge’ of any Regus office I want to. I already have one of these, but the cost of Chamber of Commerce membership actually works out less than I would pay over the year for the card, so that alone makes it a good decision. The other main reason is the chance to network. That’s the word of the moment. Everything I read about new start-ups stresses how vital it is to mingle with others. Conventional marketing tends to be scatter-gun, expensive, and ephemeral. Talking to people, finding contacts and building relationships, is where it’s at.

Last Friday I had my first experience of a dedicated networking event. At the horribly early time of 6:45 I was wearing a suit and tie for the first time in a long time (funerals aside), and making my way to Ascot racecourse for the chance to grasp a few palms and grin inanely at total strangers. Nice venue. I was here once before, for a Dell sales conference. It makes sense to use the smart facilities for these sort of events on the great majority of days when there’s no racing on.

About 200 of us gathered to hear Richard Robinson, Head of Business Markets at Google “dispelling the search engine myth”. At least, that was how the talk was headlined by the organisers. The invitation read: “At the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce’s most highly anticipated event of 2010, Google will be speaking on the intricacies of search engine optimisation and dispelling some of the mystery surrounding your Google “ranking”. This is a not to be missed and rare opportunity to hear best practice advice directly from the expert.”

Sadly, the event didn’t live up to its billing. Far from levering a few SEO secrets from the Google bod, we were served with a pretty bland sales presentation about Google Analytics, and some new products coming down the cyber track —  information which is freely and easily available already. Search engine optimisation wasn’t mentioned once. Two or three slightly awkward questions from the floor about online privacy, and the burgeoning tendency to give prominence in Google rankings to those who pay the most, rather than to sites which actually best match what the user is looking for, were batted away with a terse “I don’t know about that, so I can’t comment”.

Disappointing. I’ve always thought of Google as one of the good guys, and it’s impossible not to admire their technology and hunger for innovation. But increasingly they seem to be switching to a model where “you pay us more and we’ll promote you more” seems to be the philosophy. We were in Swansea recently, and stayed at the excellent Christmas Pie B & B. Trevor, the superb host and creator of the best range of breakfasts you could wish for, told me that they’d been called by Google and asked to pay them. He declined, and their Google ranking has since fallen from high on the first page to the bottom of the second, and sinking.

So the presentation was anti-climactic, but what about the networking? I’ve no previous experience to compare it with but I would give myself about 4 marks out of 10. In my new spirit of positive thinking, I’ll quickly point out that this is better than 3 out of 10. It was a slightly nerve-wracking but useful experience though I probably didn’t put myself about enough. I had a natter with 5 people in total, and came away with a couple of cards worth transferring to my ZoHo CRM contacts. The good thing about these events is that everyone is as anxious as each other not to be the silent wallflower, so it’s easy to fall into conversation.

Then yesterday, another opportunity. This one was a seminar I found out about through the Job Centre. It was run by an excitable and enthusiastic owner of a recruitment agency, and aimed at newly discarded professional types. I learnt little during the couple of hours that the 9 of us sat through, but it was good to have a few things emphasised and rebroadcast. Like the importance of networking. There was no networking time factored into the seminar, but a few of us lingered afterwards, giving me the opportunity to dish out some business cards, and have a chat with a couple of other people who are setting up on their own.

Perhaps most useful was my evening in the pub last night, when I got some support for an idea that has drifted in and out of my head for a couple of years now: setting up some sort of organisation for local businesses. A mini-Chamber of Commerce. There’s plenty of mileage in this plan, but I’ll talk about it another time.