Somewhere in my reading in the past couple weeks, I read a wonderful comment by Ivan Misner, Founder and Chairman of BNI. He was at a large networking event and he asked everyone in the audience to raise their hand if they were planning to sell something that evening. Many people did. His next question was telling. He again asked for a show of hands for those who were planning to buy something. I'm sure you get the picture. No one raised their hand.Hence the conundrum.
Networking vs. selling.
I had this life puzzle happen to me at a recent networking event. The group was large and I wanted to introduce myself to a couple people and reconnect with a couple others.
One person introduced herself to me as if she did not know me. She was one of the networkers that I wanted to reconnect with. OK, maybe I need to let go of my ego and realize that I'm not so memorable to everyone! I did nicely say that I remembered her from a certain event where we had met. Oh by the way, I was the keynote speaker at that event.
So if we measure the relationship here, I wasn't even on her radar screen. There was NO relationship.
But without even the blink of an eye, she looked at me and then asked me to buy from her.
J-u-s-t l-i-k-e t-h-a-t. I was so dumbfounded that I almost couldn't speak.
Since this was networking event, my plan at the beginning of the evening was not to buy but to connect. Also, I do business with people I KNOW, like and trust.
H-m-m-m! I guess her plan was different.
What would you have done in my place?
