How subtle is your networking?

Probably too much as a modest accountant! 

And in the case of most professional marketers, insufficiently… 

True story 

I was recently invited to join a small B2B professional network group consisting of a consultant, accountant, lawyer, IT, IFA, coach, HRO, trainer, marketer.  

It started well enough with us all getting to know one another through weekly meetings and frank sharing of how we work with our clients, the issues we face, what we want to do better. And quite soon we had sufficient trust going to disclose frankly where we are stuck and what support we would appreciate. 

That was very nice, and we started to advise one another each with our unique expertise. 3 of us then introduced clients to others with confidence that they would get good value because we’d seen one another in action.  

Then all of a sudden, the marketer pounced. He introduced a pressure selling CRM wizard into the next meeting without warning who said “now he knew all our issues he would help us all by speaking to our best clients and told us to bring their details to the next meeting.” 

There was a deathly silence and the end of trust. 

The group has now splintered into 1:1 relationships. So not lost but neither built on.  

As in all of life, it’s balance that matters – finding the Goldilocks position and nurturing it.