As a small business owner who helps out other local small business owners with my photo services, I find that networking can be beneficial to me but you are right, I can't go to these meeting with the mindset that I am looking for new business. I go to Chamber of Commerce mixers for the free drinks and food, lol, and naturally I end up having a great time meeting and getting to know other locals. They can be a lot of fun if you are there to have a good time and not worry about passing out business cards. Yet sometimes, business relationships do happen.
I also go to a weekly networking meeting that is more focused on teaching each other about our businesses so we can all help each other try and find new customers and clients for each other. I really don't need any new clients at this point but I keep going because there are some ridiculously funny people there that make it a ton of fun, even though it is at 7am. We are also encouraged to have one-on-one meeting with each other and that is where the real magic happens. Getting to hang out with new people away from the meetings has led to some genuine and awesome friendships. Coffee and lunch meetings do happen but I've also gone snowboarding, mountain biking, fishing, backpacking and more with members. When those kind of great times happen and genuine friendships are made, it's more natural to want to help each other out.
There's always those types of people though that try to sell to everyone at the mixers and meetings and in my opinion, they are wasting their time. Nobody likes to feel that kind of weird pressure.
Great topic Lea, cheers!
Awesome to hear about the friendships you've built and cool people that you get to interact with through these types of events. Maybe I just haven't plugged into the right group to yet to have this kind of experience.
Most of the networking events I have been to, end up feeling too salesy. Thanks for offering a different perspective! I know my friend that is the president of that young professional group (actually through the chamber) has made a lot of close friends through the organization - so maybe I should I should give it another shot. :)
Happy to share my 2 cents! I think you are definitely on the right track to making networking more fun and helpful by directing the conversations away from business to a more "real and raw" conversation. Hopefully you have a great time if you do give it another shot!