What Pizza and Networking Have in Common
and popular phrases that give you inflammation in a dopamine nation.
Pizza is like a business networking event. Offline or online you find the same ingredients arranged to appear intentional: heat, pressure, people awkwardly standing too close to each other judging the hell out of each others intentions. There’s a stench of desperation oozing off whoever showed up hungriest. But pizza, like networking, can also be a communal experience.
Networking is one of the most important ways you find a rewarding job, better clients — or even for some, a romantic partner. And most people, whether you are a food marketer or not, network online as much as off.
“If this is the case, why isn’t networking taught in schools?” I was thinking to myself while listening to a guy’s elevator speech at a Business Networking International (BNI) meeting. I mean, where do you go when you want to learn to be better, or more effective at networking? And, I’m not so sure I understand if getting “better” or becoming “more effective” are the ways to think about it.
What if there were Facebook (Meta) and Linkedin classes that taught “social skills,” and charater-building? I know, this sounds weird — but I believe my life across a decade would be completely different, if I could just understand how to use these platforms to my advantage.
Instead, I think all of us suffer the pain of being misunderstood or a victim of indifference. In fact, here are several pharases that come to mind when performing and practicing “networking.”
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The “elevator speech” takes away from the teaching and trust-building that happens when you describe yourself and what you do or sell.
And then you have your “schmoozer types,” who are nothing more than inauthentic, disingenuous, insincere, and a waste a person’s time. People run fast and far from these chatty types. They only talk to seemingly important people and will work a room until they’ve managed to corner one of these important people, that love getting their ego stroked, usually only by people they might be able to have sex with, should this important person feel bored, or of unequal status.
You’ve witnessed one of these interactions with the folks that are hungry gold diggers that “work a room.” What they don’t see is how this impersonal and unilateral behavior overlooks the human aspects of connecting. Often times, just because someone seems “unimportant” doesn’t mean they don’t influence the seemingly “important” people one might seek out.
And everyone in a networking situation better have a compelling “30-second commercial.” But, almost everyone is repelled when you force a person’s patience to listen through scripted, sterile, sales-y pitch.
You don’t have a solid 30-second commercial? You’re going to encounter the “Pick your Brain people.” And let me tell you something, no one loves an unsolicited psychoanalysis. Instead, we do love it when someone asks for “our thoughts on a matter.”
Then, in an hour of all this networking business, there’s always some kind of business card swap.” (Confession: I’m guilty of this). Exchanging cards before building trust flip-flops what could have been a great opportunity to connect, and learn about someone. Consequently, we waste time and suffer endless amounts of spam.
I blame all this pressure to network on “important people.”
Don’t you love it when you’re talking with someone and they start darting their eyes around in search for someone else in the room, that they intended to talk to. News alert: there is a lot of irony when you overlook people who act as a powerful influence (word-of-mouth) for someone you are trying to target.
