TCTHH Biz Blog of the Week #2: Who Should You Be Networking With?
In continuation of our new feature for Twin Cities Thursday Happy Hours members to be able contribute their business thoughts and ideas on the blog, here is this week’s TCTHH Biz Blog of the Week, from Mitchell Hislop. Mitch touches on a topic that I have been thinking a lot about, as well as talking with others about. It is important to branch outside of your network and discover that there are more people to meet, as well as learn from, than the people you know, or the people within your industry.
Mitchell Hislop is a Social Media Associate with SMCpros, a blogger about all things business, marketing, and tech related, and a student at Hamline University. You can find his ramblings at mitchellhislop.com and at smcpros.com.
Who should you be networking with?
I tend to go to a lot of events. Some are “networking” events, some are marketing based, and some are ad-hoc affairs that get arranged with a days notice. I recently was at an event that was based on the startup culture of this state. One thing that I took away from that event is that some people spend too much time in their own little networks, and not enough time out meeting people.
I have spent the better part of the last 2 years networking, and some trends have come to light:
- Marketing people like to hang with marketing people.
- Coders like to hang out with coders, or not at all.
- Designers are somewhere in between.
The disturbing trend that I am seeing is that most people tend to stay in their own verticals, and then wonder why they dont get too many opportunities out of their events.
TCTHH Biz Blog of the Week #1: Door-to-Door
As the Twin Cities Thursday Happy Hours community has grown, I have been looking for opportunities to share different perspectives on business, networking, events, and connecting with other Twin Cities professionals. In doing so, I have decided to create a weekly feature called the “TCTHH Biz Blog of the Week”. This weekly feature will allow TCTHH members to share their own unique take on business topics relating to their business and/or work experience. This week’s post is from Laurie Lynard.
Laurie Lynard is Vice President of Telemasters, Inc and has been selling, managing, training and coaching for 30 years. She now specializes in working with the financial services Industry facilitating workshops, coaching, and consulting.
How Many Doors Should You Be “Knocking On” Daily?
People occasionally ask me where I come up with the ideas for my blogs. Well, like most people, it is usually something I experience that gets the blog juices flowing. Today, that “something” landed, quite literally, on my doorstep.
I was working in my home office overlooking the snowy, gray landscape with the junior-high kids dispersing from the bus stop, when my doorbell rang. “Who could that be in the middle of the day?” I wondered aloud. There wasn’t a UPS or FedEx truck in sight.
I welcomed the break so I shrugged and ventured downstairs to see who was there. It was a nice-looking 40-something gentleman with a briefcase. I figured he was with the census bureau or something so I opened the door and asked him to come in “so the cats wouldn’t go out”.
It turns out he was a Financial Advisor with a local investment firm and that he was “new in town” and looking to determine what people in our neighborhood were most concerned about when it came to their finances. A-hah! A sales guy.
