Squeeze Business Networking Parramatta tonight was a small, yet totally awesome group. It’s not about size, it’s all about quality in the networking game!
There you go! Coming from a Persian Man in a public forum, “SIZE DOESN’T MATTER”.
Well that is not completely true. In some respects (like Hard Disk Size) it certainly does, however when it comes to running Events I have found with strong leadership, size doesn’t matter one bit. Even though I would be classified as a “Marketing Mentor”, Business Networking is one of my key Secondary Skills.
I originally launched my business through the 4Networking Business Community which was outstanding and many of the groups where I get clients today, were started by myself and other leaders some years ago.
One challenge of “Group Leading” when it comes to Networking Groups is managing the mood of people with respect to size of the group. Talking with some experience over the years; anyone can get up and run a group of 30+ people and say “Look at me and how cool I am”.
The challenge for running a group is when you have 12, 8, 5 or even less people show up. The reality is that many networking groups that become massive start as once “Small Gatherings” this is where I find Group Leaders really show what they are made of.
Poor Group Leaders I have seen just get up there and go through the motions and get impacted by small group sizes and can’t handle it. Great Group Leaders make it even more special with less people which I have found amazing.
For example, tonight was our Squeeze Business Networking Event in Parramatta (Western Sydney). Tonight had about 15 x people which of course and at times we have had 60+ people!
I have found that when the group is “Smaller” I actually get more Networking Done, I really get to connect with people and generally speaking it becomes quite a great experience. I think the reason for this is quite simple – people may think “Oh no, there are only 5 x People” which is fair. However, if you deliver an amazing experience people say make 1 great friend that night – THEY REMEMBER THAT!
Talking more dollars and cents – and myself personally, I have gone to Networking Groups of 8 people and picked up clients. I have also attended events of 450 and picked up 0 clients!
My advice and learnings? When it comes to Networking Events, never be impressed by the “Size” of the group.
I was in a group of 50+ once and they got me to invite lots of people, help run it and then they kicked me out! To the contrary of that bad experience, I have been in awesome groups of 5+ in some cases where they loved and helped me grow my business.
Find the right place, with the right people and it all happens!
I hope this helped you Awesome Friends and love your work from Edward Zia!
P.S. If you liked what you read, I’d love you to continue your learning with my Online Course “The Awesome Marketing Vault by Edward Zia” – >> Access It Here!
2 Responses
This blog was amazing! Thank you so much Edward it was inspiring and insightful and I feel so confident moving forward with my events thank you!
Really appreciate your kind words and nice Giulia! It’s all happening for sure 🙂