With a networking event planned, I thought it would be a good time to get back into some of the local networking groups to promote it, and quickly, I remembered why I stopped.

One of the meeting groups is someone that I’m friends with and respect. He runs a weekly event, that has been done on a Zoom call since. The Zoom calls create a small conference room where 4-5 business people talk for a few minutes and then get switched around to other rooms. So in one of the rooms, I meet someone who is in the business of selling products with your logo to potential clients. Rather than trying to network with me, he immediately tells me that one of the logos in my virtual background would look great on one of his products. I know when you’re selling, you want to sell. The point is I want to network and plug my event, I think giving stuff away for free makes no sense when I don’t meet most of my clients live.

In my mind, the point of networking is meeting people and try to find out how to help me, not to sell people products directly. People know what I do and if I do, I tell them. If they know of people that could use my help, they will remember it. I just think the slick sales pitch way upfront is just cheesy and I just squirm. Don’t be that guy.