One thing I must share with you is that in the 5 years since I wrote the networking manual "Speed Business Networking - The Manual", I've gone right off organized networking. Not because I think it's a bad thing. But because I'm yet to see a single organization that actually does it right. I'm yet to see a bundle of "members" use anything like truly effective networking practice.

The overwhelming majority of organizations are letting their members down by not teaching simple strategies that could double their business revenue extremely rapidly (and would make networking much more satisfying as well) and the members are letting each other down by their disinterest in learning and using more effective strategies.

I don't mean YOU of course! You're here, reading this tutorial, so I think we can safely say that YOU are interested in, and committed to, doing it better and reaping the benefits which are certainly there!

But in an online, anonymous survey of experienced networkers, the overwhelming majority said they did not want to learn more about their fellow members, and they did not want to learn more effective ways to network, to get more leverage out of networking. To my enormous surprise, the majority said that they did not want to network, and that for them the most important thing that they wanted their networking organisation to provide was passive entertainment!

This is definitely a major factor in the +95% failure rate of small business. You would NEVER hear the owner of long-term, healthy, thriving business say those things. Because NO-ONE achieves that level of success on their own. Without exception they achieve it because of the support and input of their business friends - their business network.

So that brings us to the point of asking "Well if this is the case, why aren't networking organizations trying to drum this into members' heads?" And the answers are "marketing" and "fees". If the networking organizations provided what members actually need in order to grow their businesses, if they had policies in place which required members to network effectively, they would lose members. That's the bottom line.

Want proof of that? Well we are number one on Google for the 2 most-searched-for business networking search phrases. And we have been for some time. We offer to use our position to promote, wholeheartedly and completely free of charge, any networking organization that commits to following effective and proven networking strategies. We even offer to help them to do that, also free of charge. We will "personally" promote those organizations on our site, and we won't take a cent at any time for doing that.

How many networking organizations do we promote in this way? None, zero, zilch.

Although we were the first networking organization to coin the phrase "Speed Business Networking" and we promote a speed networking component at nearly every meeting, that was only EVER a mechanism to get people in front of each other instead of in corners, to give them an opportunity to "click". (And we taught people how to look for the "click"!) The main emphasis was on the principles and methodology of ethical and effective networking. So we were NEVER saying that meeting new people was the key part of networking because it ISN'T. It's what you do with them afterwards that counts, and that's the ONLY THING THAT COUNTS.

Most people who join networking organizations do so because for one reason or another they don't have the ability to form their own networks. Some people think that members join for the efficiency of meeting lots of business people. As I just pointed out, that's false logic, because you can meet a million people at these functions, and if you don't follow up by building real and personal friendships with those individuals that you "click" with, to the extent that you become each others' raving fans and share expertise, resources, advocacy, joint ventures, and of course referrals, you may as well not bother.

I'll put this even more simply. The overwhelming majority of organized networking done today is a complete waste of time, effort and money. And the fact that it's usually done out of business hours means that it is simultaneously robbing people of their home lives, and robbing them of the time that they could be spending with a network that is at least genuine: family and friends.

So here I'm going to make a very big statement and it's your reaction to it that will tell you whether or not you're going to get the really big payoff from networking.

To get a really big payoff from networking you will have to BUILD YOUR OWN NETWORK, and although you will certainly enjoy some out-of-hours activities (probably including members' family and friends for the simple fact that these people WILL be your REAL friends) the majority of your networking will be done in business hours because IT IS A BUSINESS ACTIVITY.

Now, if you're going "I can't possibly do that because ....." then although you'll certainly get something out of this article, I know you're going to struggle to grow your business. If you're going "Sounds interesting, I'm prepared to commit" and you follow that up with action, you have a recipe for success!