I stopped attending chambers of commerce meetings and joining popular networking groups about ten years ago. I had no problem with mingling with and meeting people and enjoy being around people. I would not work in the sales industry if I had issues with people.

This podcast episode is from a productivity perspective. For white-collar small business owners, their time is worth $1,000-$3,000 per hour or more. Attending a networking event typically uses most of the morning driving to and from the event including plus the hour or two at the event. So these 3-4 hours could be worth up to $12,000 or more in lost revenue attending the networking event.

Every attendees’ ultimate reasons for attending network events is to get referrals. And are referrals provided to others? Absolutely…but not enough to justify 3-4 hours and losing $12,000 or more in revenue.