A contact told me to skip the big Phoenix mixer and try a smaller Scottsdale group

They said the smaller events have better talks and I'd meet more helpful people. I went to one last week and got two solid leads for freelance design work. What's the best small business group you've found in the valley?

3 comments

3 Comments

rose_craig971mo ago

My cousin swore by those small groups until he spent six months going to one in Tempe and got zero real work from it. The Phoenix mixer might be a zoo, but I've met three of my biggest clients in that noisy hotel ballroom. You need the sheer number of people to find the right connections, even if most talks are just sales pitches. Sometimes a crowded room with a bad speaker is better than a quiet one with no one who can hire you.

price.tara1mo ago

Oh man, @rose_craig97, that is SO true. It's a numbers game, plain and simple. You can't get a yes if you never hear a no.

victorb741mo ago

Ha, yeah, that's a good point. I was the same way with those smaller focused meetups. Spent almost a year going to one that was supposedly full of decision makers, but it was mostly just consultants selling to other consultants. Finally tried one of those big chaotic mixers out in Dallas, felt like a total waste of time for the first hour, but then I ended up sharing a table with the operations director from a company I'd been trying to get into for months. Sometimes you just gotta wade through the crowd to find the one person who actually matters.