I regularly attend networking events and the most common activity among them, besides eating of course, is the 30 second promotion. This is where the microphone is passed around for each attendee to give a 30 second promo for their business.
Outside of the meet and greet time earlier, this is the best opportunity to recruit links. However, 99% of the time this opportunity is squandered with the unprepared business-as-usual sales pitch.
I often see the eyes of those around me roll back as the facilitator finishes the directions and passes the mic to the first speaker. They then move on to checking their Blackberrys, going for seconds, or reading the handouts on the table.
This is the norm in almost all networking groups, and often by design. Chambers, associations, chapters, alumni groups – they all tend to get directions from their facilitators that sound something like this:
“For your 30 second promos, please tell us your name, the company you work for, what you do, and one thing people don’t know about you.” (more…)