Can you do too much networking?

Someone raised the possibility that they may be doing too much networking on the 4networking business forum last week. So can you spend too much time networking?

There are many people who spend too much time attending networking groups & events because they are not really networking. They are really engaged in the face to face equivalent of cold calling. They attend loads of meetings & broadcast loudly, but don't listen. They meet as many people as they can, but never have any time for others. Their idea of following up is to add you to their database. I could go on, but you know who they are. They don't really engage, share or build long term mutually beneficial business relationships.

There are some people who are networking with the best intentions, but don't give themselves enough time for following up. They may need to improve the balance of their networking time and do more one to one interactions between larger meetings.

Those people that 'get' how networking really works invest their time in building relationships with other people they have things in common with. They know that it takes time and you have to know, like, rate and trust someone before you will advocate them. They know this time is worth it as one 'Advocate' is worth far more than lots of one off transactions. They attend meetings to strengthen existing relationships and build some new ones. They get to share business, support, knowledge and have fun doing it too. This sort of networking is legitimate and necessary work time stuff and you probably don't have the time to do enough of it.

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke