Speed Networking at The New York Times Small Business Summit

I was reluctant at first about the Summit.  I mean, "Entrepreneur" conveys a lot more business than I thought I had.  Most of my friends, starting their own businesses are of the healing arts and liberal arts nature, which doesn't usually seem to fall into that category.  It sounds so formalized.  However, Laura suggested I go.  She knows a lot more about marketing than I do, so if she thought it was worthwhile it must be.

I put on my most appropriate looking outfit and took a deep breadth stepping into the Sheraton.  I had been to this kind of event before, but usually on the other side.  During my Morgan Stanley days I had actually worked on the back-end, producing and supporting events.  Sure we had 500 people attend, but I wasn't usually the audience.  This was going to be fun.  I liked turning the tables.

My first workshop of the day was something called "Speed Networking."  I signed up for this because I'm not confident in my networking skills and figured I could use some pointers.  Perhaps it's good I didn't think about what "Speed Networking" would be.  Maybe, I didn't think about it on purpose. Turns out that this part of the day was a bit trial by fire.  It was like speed dating, but with business cards.  Of course, I didn't have business cards yet.  Deep breath.

The first group I met was difficult.  A life coach, a salesman who manages a company that cleans office space, and a woman who sells insurance to small businesses.  Two of the people in this group wrote me off immediately.  I had no pitch, they didn't need me, or couldn't market themselves to my needs.  The life coach was very nice and I considered sticking it out with her.  But I'm glad I didn't.  I think my instinct in the past was to support others, but my survival instinct took over.  Working around the room introduced me to more interesting and interested people.  A  creative director from an ad firm even told me to contact him about a job.   It was interesting to hear people's pitches, and here the way they spoke about that they did.  Interestingly, very few could tell me what made them unique.  By the end I felt more confident.  I honed a pitch for that immediate situation and stuck with it for the day.  It made me feel confident at least to know what would come out of my mouth.   From a nebulous "I make stuff" it turned to "I design one-of-a-kind jewelry from found objects and deconstructed vintage pieces."  Leaps and bounds were made.

The best networking happens in the ladies' room. The line went down the hallway, resigned to our wait-time, there was a lot of joking and bonding. The chatter came to a dull roar and I heard someone say her name was Florence.  Fresh from Speed Networking, my confindence up and not fearing rebuke, I turned in the direction and said "my name is Florence" Turns out she looks for jewelry designers, she has a couple of stores.  ... And here's the pitch.