Blaine’s Business Services attended the Business Opportunity Night put on by the Greater Portage Chamber of Commerce last night.  If you were there we hope you stopped by our booth to say hello. We stopped by as many other booths as we could as well. We meet several potential clients and the experience was better than anyone here at Blaine’s predicted.

This got me thinking, how many other businesses could benefit from networking events but don’t take advantage of it. Over the past few years I have heard people say things such as, “networking events are a waste of time,” or, “we don’t seem to get many leads at those things.” Of everyone that I talked to at the event none of them were disappointed that they had come.

It’s obvious with the state of the economy that businesses of all types are finding ways to cut back on their budgets. Usually the first area to get cut is advertising.  My only advice is that you scale back advertising/marketing not cut it completely because if no one hears about you they can’t find you.

Anyway shifting back to the point, the state of the economy may also be a good reason to go to local networking events.  Most businesses are taking on a “deal locally” attitude to help their local economy and are discovering opportunities ranging from partnerships and referals to new untapped client pools.  For the past several years everyone has been looking at the global picture to land the “Big Fish” clients and they seem to have forgotten that there are numerous clients right in their own back yards.

Don’t just rush out and attend every event after reading this.  You should still do a little research and see if the event has potential. For example, you don’t want to go to an event designed specifically for manufacturing when you business is hair styling. That’s not a good fit. However I think most networking events (especially local) are worth your time and effort.