One of the problems with conventional networking groups is the cookie cutter approach to making offers of assistance or support. It’s not necessarily a problem if you recognize that large groups are one piece of the puzzle and that other puzzle pieces are needed. With a large group, you don’t really have a choice but to embrace a cookie cutter approach. You can’t custom tailor different solutions for 35 different people, at least not beyond a certain point. In a large group, you have a lot of people doing one-on-one meetings with different people every week, and as a result, you’re always starting from square one with each person. Trust is low, understanding of each other’s businesses is superficial, and airtime is limited (20 minutes for your business, 20 minutes for my business). Most of the time, people come to these type of one-to-one meetings with the foregone assumption that the other person is looking for referrals or introductions. The meeting will hinge around one question: “Who can I introduce you to this week?”
Introductions are very useful when you are clear who you need to be introduced to, and when you are ready to move forward with said introductions. Shifting gears to the real world, we swim in a bog of messiness as small business owners. For me personally, there are times when I don’t want to be introduced to anybody. I might be having the week from hell. I might be having my inbox blowing up with client emergencies and not have time for any more meetings. I might be trying to figure out some complex operational issues or how to pivot around the next corner with my business. At times like these, introductions just add noise to my calendar. There are times when I don’t even want anymore clients. I am not a salesperson working for a large corporation. My capacity is limited. I have to go get the work, and I have to get the people and the resources in place to deliver. Introductions and referrals are not always useful.
So, what do we ask for when we don’t know what to ask for? Sometimes we don’t know the answer. Other times, we don’t even know the right question. There is no simple formula for finding it. The best place to start is by working through a structured set of questions until you reach the first one you cannot answer. That is your brick wall.
The questions will depend on the nature of the problem. You might be facing a sales problem, a hiring problem, an operational problem, or a business model disrupted by AI. Since my work centers around finance and cash flow, I naturally begin with financial models. The decision tree below is one example of how a business owner can examine cash flow and financial capacity until the real constraint becomes clear.
One way to locate your brick wall is to think in the form of a decision tree. I’ll show you how to make a basic decision tree that will illustrate how to think more clearly about what you need. Each node on the tree should result in a clear, objective, yes-or-no answer.
Below is a flowchart that I have created for the purpose of getting clear on how your small group can help you.
If you go through this decision tree, you’ll find that you arrive at a brick wall, where you don’t know how to figure something out or don’t know what to do. This is what you can bring to a small group. Having gone through this thought process, you will be much better equipped to ask for the help you need. The goal of the exercise is to find where you hit a brick wall.
If you do this exercise before your next networking meeting, you might become much clearer about what kind of help you need—and whether an introduction is useful at all.
