Everyone thought I'd gone out of business...
It was 2010. For years I'd been on the speaking circuit - doing lunchtime talks, weekend seminars, long training courses, teleseminars. But that had all stopped.
We'd had a son in 2006 and I kitted out a home office so I could work from home, take my son to nursery, pick him up later, even have lunch with him sometimes. I wanted him to know what his Daddy looked like. Previously I'd been living in a Vauxhall Vectra doing 3000 miles a month and I wasn't going to go back there again.
On one hand that was great for my family life, but there was a side effect I hadn't considered - it KILLED my visibility. Lots of people asked "Are you still in business?" and I was shocked. I had 28 websites, was all over Facebook and Twitter, but apparently in the offline world I'd turned invisible. Not good. So practising what I preach, I decided to go back to something I knew had worked before when I first went self-employed.
So I went online and typed "Glasgow networking groups". The nearest group met for breakfast on a Wednesday morning, 7 minutes drive from my house. It was hellishly early in the morning, but I needed to make money and get out there. Sorted.
In I went to a bustling group of local business owners. Now I'm an introvert, and I didn't enjoy walking into a room full of strangers. I'd learned how to put on a face and act confident, but inside I felt awkward and didn't really know what to say to strike up a conversation. Maybe you can relate to that? Lots of awkward small talk about the football and the condition of the lorne sausages as you shovel eggs and bacon onto your plate, trying to juggle your tea, shake hands and look dignified at the same time. A small morsel of my scrambled egg left my mouth and landed on the lapel of the solicitor I was talking to and I didn't break eye contact for fear that he'd notice. He didn't - he was too busy trying to sell me his services.
The chairman of the group opened the meeting and quite frankly I found him intimidating. He was older than me, sounded wiser than me and was certainly making more money than me. I was beginning to think I was out of my depth...
Not a very friendly bunch, but everyone got a chance to stand up and tell the group who we were, what kind of clients we were looking for. No one had warned me about that bit, so I bumbled some gibberish about being a one man band and social media marketing and wanting to talk to new start businesses or something.
Then one of the members gave a presentation where he forced us to endure "death by PowerPoint" - you know, where he reads EVERY word as it is on the screen.
Then I heard my name being mentioned - the builder passed me a lead to talk to a computer guy in Edinburgh. Holy shit! I've got a hot lead! As it would turn out that referral led to an 11 deep chain of referrals which led to me starting a weight loss business in 2013 which made me a lot of money.
And that was my introduction to networking in business.
Seven years later and I'm writing a book with a colleague of mine, and we need your help. If any of this resonates with you, or you've had similar experiences, we'd love to hear about it. Please take our quick survey to help us come up with the book title and tell us more about YOUR adventures in networking.
Thanks in advance :-)
