Somehow, and I don’t quite understand why, the idea of networking has become dominated by business and chambers of commerce. There’s nothing wrong with their version of networking, but sometimes it seems like people doing chamber-type networking are only concerned about collecting the most business cards and working on their elevator pitch. It seems to me that networking should be more about just meeting people and getting to know them. If I meet someone and there is a chance to work together, so much the better, but I think getting to know people is reward enough. They don’t need to hear my elevator pitch.

I’ve been working with Jenna Schrumpf of Dobson Home Health Care the past few weeks and our pet project is creating an informal networking group for professional-types. We initially started talking about it because we were both surprised that the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce didn’t offer a young professionals group similar to the groups in Midland and Saginaw*.

Jenna and I decided that we’d go ahead and start a group of our own and see if anybody was interested. As we started talking to a few people about it, we were surprised that a number of people were more interested in a non-Chamber group. It isn’t anything against the Chamber, but people seem to want something a little bit different. So we created Bay City After 6.

My beef with many YP groups is that they all have an age requirement of something like 25–40. Maybe it’s just me being overly sensitive since I will be 40 years old in a few days, but I think putting an age limit—even if it’s just a guideline—is discriminatory. What happens when I turn 41? Do I have to go to Carnival? It’s kind of like refusing to call your group the Old Boys Club, but requiring a Y-chromosome to belong. 

Bay City After 6 is focused on the social aspects of networking. Maybe it will benefit your business, too, but that is only because growing your group of friends and acquaintances will benefit your whole life. Initially we are just planning on having a couple of happy hours and talking to everyone who shows up (assuming anyone shows up, that is) about what it is they would like to see happen both with the group and in the Tri-Cities (I still can’t bring myself to use the other name).

We aren’t planning any business functions, but if people seem interested in having meetings with actual speakers and such, we can do that (in fact, we’ve already had one professional speaker/motivator offer his services). It’s our group, we can do anything we like. 

Our first meeting will be held this Thursday, April 2nd, at Midland Street Jack’s (formerly Lumberjack’s) on Midland Street in Bay City. Anybody and everybody is welcome to join. Also, the link above takes you to our Facebook page. We are probably going to get a blog going in the next couple of weeks, so we’ll keep you updated.

Hope to see you on Thursday night.

I remember having a conversation with my cousin Jamey a year or two ago. Jamey is a senior in college now and we were talking about Facebook. She was saying that she didn’t like non-students on Facebook. Jamey isn’t an agist or anything, but I took her to mean that she felt like the newcomers were kind of ruining a good thing. I guess it’s like when your favorite band starts to make it big and suddenly everybody loves them. It sort of ruins it because they were your band.

It wasn’t until Facebook first began allowing non-students to join (much to Jamey’s chagrin), though, that the true power of this networking juggernaut became apparent. What was once solely a social tool opened itself up to allow people to use the network to promote themselves or their businesses in a friendly and comfortable manner. 

I will admit that I am a very reluctant networker. I go to the Chamber of Commerce events and I talk to people, but I’m not one of those folks who enjoys making the rounds and introducing myself to everyone. I enjoy meeting new people, I really do, but going around and handing out business cards to strangers feels awkward to me…it’s outside my comfort zone. Networking is not about closing sales, it’s about getting your name out there and letting people know what you do—Facebook is a great venue for doing just that.

A lot of businesses steer clear of networking sites because they write it off as something for kids. Facebook is definitely not the right venue for every business, but that’s okay because there are a lot of different networking sites. So it’s important to think about who your core customers and clients are. Once you have an idea of who you want to target, you can figure out what networking sites work best for you. Maybe it’s myspace (event planners, for example) or maybe it’s linkedin (great business site with a wide variety of individuals and professions represented). Maybe what you really need to to is to set up a blog to let potential customers about your business. 

Take the time to look into networking sites and decide if there is one that makes sense for you and your business. The best thing about these sites is that most of them don’t cost a dime. The only investment to be made is the time it takes to put the page together, so what do you have to lose?

If you think you would like to look into this further, but would like some help putting everything together, give us a call. We’re pretty comfortable with new media and would love to help you out in any way we can. We can make recommendations on which sites work best for you, create the pages you need, write the blog or anything else you need help with.