Filed under: Marketing
I recently went to a Chamber of Commerce networking meeting as a visitor. There was pretty good attendance of about 100 people. This meeting was structured in such a way that you meet for breakfast, some announcements are made and then each person takes turns doing a 30 second pitch on their business. During the meeting I had the opportunity to present my business and naturally the time went way to fast and I only said a quarter of what I would like to have said. While this is all going on, people are passing around a huge stack of business cards.
I am evaluating if the time going to this meeting was worth it and whether joining the CoC in general is worth it. It seems to me that it does give you an opportunity to connect with some people you might not otherwise meet but it depends on what type of business you do.
I think most people go there with the assumption that by showing up everyone will want to buy their product. The reverse is probably more accurate that by showing up, everyone will want to sell you their product. In general, you’ll spend more time listening to others pitch their products to you than you will have the ability to pitch your products. For me personally, there were really only a couple of businesses that sounded of interest to me to learn more about.
For some people, I am sure the Chamber has really had a large impact on their business. Perhaps web site designers, accountants and some other very common specialized businesses this would be the case. I can see the need for such a meeting and the organization in general decreasing in its current format with the advent of new online businesses such as myplace2sell. It provides a much faster way to network with more than the 100 people in the room, but to anyone world wide. They can be more selective in the services they review rather than being forced to listen to all of them.
What are your thoughts?
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