Blog · Mistakes
Networking Marketing Mistakes
Sometimes it pays to start with how not to do it. Three behaviours ruin a meeting before it even begins, and all three are things the people who do them consider perfectly normal.
Published 11 November 2021 · revised 16 August 2026
The three
Don't sell, don't show off, don't take it for granted
DON'T sell
The most common mistake: meeting someone at an event and immediately switching into sales mode, without having asked a single question, without knowing anything about that person. For someone who behaves this way, everyone is a target — which is why a lot of people don't like those events.
The old image still holds: you cultivate, you don't hunt. And you listen.
DON'T show off
The self-centred monologue at a business gathering. You don't stand out by dazzling people: you stand out by showing genuine interest in the person in front of you. Someone who networks well resembles a good interviewer — they ask questions and let the other person answer.
DON'T assume they remember you
When you meet someone again, help them out: give them the context of where you met. People meet hundreds of other people, and not remembering isn't a judgement on you.
The remedy isn't to take offence: it's not letting things get to that point. Look for occasions to stay in touch — a message, a call, better still a meeting.
The thread that ties them together
All three come from the same underlying mistake: thinking the meeting is about you. It's about the other person, and this isn't a point of etiquette — it's the condition for there being a second meeting.
One word at a time
"You could become its centre of influence" is the part that needs revisiting
It was the original's closing line: build a referrer network that brings you clients, and become its centre. It describes a hub-and-spoke network — with you at the hub — and hub-and-spoke networks have a well-known flaw.
The flaw of the hub
Everything passes through you. Value moves only when you move it, and when you stop, it stops. It's work that doesn't scale and doesn't outlive the person doing it.
The sphere
In the discipline, this horizon is called Spherical Economy: in a sphere there are no corners and no outskirts, every point is equidistant from the centre — and at the centre there isn't an individual, there's the community.
In practice this means introductions don't have to pass through you: they're calculated between anyone, on top of each person's Relational Footprint, and produce a match. You receive them just as others do, and that's why the system keeps working even in the weeks you don't have time.
At the centre of a hub-and-spoke network there's always a bottleneck.
The first step
Where your company stands, in one number
AIRA-SCAN© measures the Relational Capital your company already has: ten questions, three minutes, no registration. Your browser calculates the score and shows it immediately, with the dimensions where you lose the most points.
The extended report then arrives by email, and within one working day someone calls you: you look at the result together and assess whether the Stoic Analysis AIRA-DX© makes sense for your company. It is free and limited to twelve a week, so it is not owed to whoever takes the check-up: it is decided together.
Prefer just to talk? The number is 0549 888808.