A stop for caffeine today made something clear: not all networking is good.
Electric Pulp has been around for 12 years. And in the early part of that story, building name recognition meant focusing on certain regional / local markets.
So today when I dropped by the coffee shop and some random guy struck up an impromptu web needs discussion (his needs, not mine), I probably shouldn’t have been irritated. These strange encounters show we’ve done a decent job marketing inside the local market.
But as we’ve gotten busier we’ve had to put more effort into qualifying projects prior to engagement. And if we were going to pen out all of the characteristics of the right project or client, local proximity wouldn’t make the list (it’s irrelevant).
If location doesn’t matter, you have to wonder how much marketing / networking focus you really need in your local market at all. Especially if you consider that the monthly cost of a [local] advertising contract could equal the cost of attending a conference (as it does in our case).
No offense to the guy with the whipped cream coffee – I could have just as easily referenced the guy from the bike shop the other day or the creep at the airport last week. Whatever the case, it’s clear that I’m more interested in finding clients with similar goals than finding those with [just] similar zipcodes.
So, if you happen to bump into me before I’ve peeled the logo off my car, by all means, stop me. Just go easy on the “what can you do for me?” question. I’m sensitive.
4 Responses to “Double-edged networking”
If it makes you feel any better, I ended a 20-minute conversation/argument on SEM (a conversation that I did not start or desire to be in) with a guy at Scooters with the phrase “you’re an idiot” as he stormed out the door in angry haste. Now it makes me laugh as we still cross paths 1x a week or so. I should not have called him an idiot, but I still think he is…what the hell…he started it. It did remind me why local (business) can suck.
Yeah. I’ve been to McNally’s w/ you. You get it worse than I do.
Try being a meteorologist in a past life and see how that works for you. Everyone wants to talk about the weather…and since it’s routine “small talk” you can’t get away from it. Though, now that I’m in IT the people’s faces don’t quite light up as they once did when I was a weather guy.
-Bryan
@Bryan – I feel for you. You have to admit, though, it’s less painful talking weather patterns than talking DotNetNuke.