xena373•22d agoProlific Poster

PSA: The "networking breakfast" circuit in Phoenix is a waste of time for introverts like me

I went to those early morning Chamber of Commerce mixers at the Hilton in Scottsdale for 6 months straight and all I got was a stack of business cards nobody ever followed up on. The real connections started happening when I skipped the formal events and just hung out at the co-working space on McDowell Road after 3 PM. Has anyone else ditched the structured networking thing and found better luck with casual meetups out here?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_sam22d ago

I gotta push back on the "stack of business cards nobody followed up on" part. See, those early morning mixers at the Hilton work great if you show up with a game plan instead of just grabbing coffee and hoping for the best. I used to walk around with a specific goal - find three people who mention a problem I've solved before - and I'd follow up the same afternoon with a short email referencing exactly what they said. The real issue isn't the event itself, it's that most people treat it like a social hour when they should treat it like a focused sales call. The casual co-working scene is fine for chatting but it rarely leads to the kind of serious business conversations you get when someone's dressed in a suit and ready to talk dollars and deadlines.

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thomas.tyler22d ago

Three years ago I went to a breakfast mixer at a Marriott in Columbus and out of fifty people only three were actually buying anything that day. The rest were consultants trying to sell each other services or people just killing time before their real jobs started. You can have the best game plan in the world but if the room is full of tire kickers and hobbyists, all you end up with is a full calendar of follow up calls that go nowhere. Those suit and tie events feel serious but half the people are just there to look busy for their boss or network for a future job, not to write a check today. Co-working spaces might feel too casual but when I sit down next to someone who's actually working on a project, we skip the small talk and get straight to real business stuff.