By As I write this email Max is watching something on T.V. that seems to have a character saying “Oh Raggles” every few sentences.
It’s surprisingly hard to focus on writing when there’s a blue bunny jumping around the screen talking about Raggles and wishes.
But hey ho.
Last Thursday I went to the London Lunch for the first time in an age, and what a great time it was.
Well.. I say I went to the lunch.
I actually arrived after lunch!
Everyone was still eating and I lurked outside in the bar like some oddball loner.
I was intermittently interrupted by the bar staff who thought I was being an asshole by sitting on tables with a Reserved sign on them.
About thirty minutes after I arrived, everyone started coming out of lunch and we got chatting.
But, as always, I walked away with a number of ideas of what to implement.
There’s no doubt about it, networking in person is one of the best ways to move your business forwards.
Just talking to people about what you’re doing and what they’re doing will give you a ton of ideas.
And, of course, there’s always the possibility that you may walk away with a JV or partnership.
With a ton of networking events, it’s never hard to find one that’s specific to your market.
However, and this is just me talking personally, there’s no point in going to the heavy pitch events.
Part of the reason for that is I absolutely hate them.
But secondly… usually everyone at them is in the mindset that they have to sell.
Which means you can’t sit down and just chat with people.
It’s the chatting over a drink, or meal, that’s really where partnerships happen.
There’s no magic to it.
Just a group of people, at different stages, sharing their ideas and aiming for a similar goal.
If something happens to click with someone.
If you can work with someone and both benefit.
Then that’s pretty friggin awesome, and you’ll probably do business.
If not, then you won’t, but you’ll still walk away with a ton of ideas.
My walk-away idea…
Create an autoresponder service, double-optin only, and let you folk use it for free.
Waddya think, is that something you’d use?
Ciao,
Michael
What do you think?