I had a conversation today with a business contact and after chatting about the “state” of our respective businesses and what new projects we’re working on the conversation turned to our networking efforts.

“Crazy busy” he said, and shared that he goes to about 5 or 6 different events per week, every week.  I asked about the results that he was getting, not necessarily in terms of closed business but perhaps introductions to referral sources and new contacts, you know, the sort of circular networking that is ultimately very fruitful and valuable.

He looked kind of sheepish and admitted that not much was coming from his efforts either in terms of closed business or introductions and when I queried how long he’d been at it with this type of frequency, he said that it was a little bit over a year since he has really jumped into the networking pool.

Yikes! A full year and nothing to “show for it.”

Now before you get snarky about the use of the phrase “show for it” let me provide some explanation.  I do not mean to imply that “show for it” means that you will necessarily be able to recognize any booked business or serious revenue in that amount of time. After all, many of us do have lengthy sales cycles.  But honestly now, shouldn’t there be SOME sort of activity and positive response going on after a year?

So what’s going on?  Well, I can’t be certain but here are some possibilities:

• He’s going to the wrong types of events.
• He’s not doing the requisite follow-up on his end.
• He’s hanging out at the events with his friends (and not making new contacts).
• He’s not introducing himself effectively.

What I can be certain of is that he’s wasting time, energy and money and without taking a close look at why his outcome has been so poor there is little chance that it will change.

Remember that the true definition of insanity is doing something in exactly the same manner but expecting a different result.

So, if you find yourself networking more and enjoying it less and / or getting diminished ROT (Return on Time) I suggest you take a good close look at what’s going on and see what / how you can change things up.

If not, you might as well save your time and money.