A critique of the "Johnny Shotgun" approach to networking, where people hand out stacks of business cards without real conversation. The speaker describes calling a contact named Kelly after an event, only to find neither remembers meeting. Effective networking means intentional follow-up, not volume.
And so we realize that it's a numbers game. The first thing we do is get really big business cards because we want to win all the prizes in the drawings the Chamber has, right? And then we go around and we go to the event and we go, "Hey, how you doing? Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Call me sometime. You got something for me? Got something for you? Here's something. Hey, how you doing? How you doing? Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. I'm sorry, you already have my card. Nice to know you. Hey, I know you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you." They go to networking events and before it's over, they've been there 35 minutes and they've got 50 cards. You ever known anybody like that? First thing that happens, here's my card. Right? We call him Johnny Shotgun, 'cause he's just shooting everybody with his card. And at the end of the day, he comes home and he's got 50 cards too. He's feeling pretty good until he looks down and goes, "Oh, don't remember him." Don't remember her. Oh no, no, no. Oh look, there's a picture on her card. I remember her. Right? They pick up the phone, they go, hey Kelly, nice to see you, this is Glen Gould. I met you at the networking event the other night. And Kelly goes, who? You know me, Glen Gould. I met you at the networking event the other night. We talked and— no, I don't remember you. Of course you don't. I just threw my card at you and went on my merry way. The fact is that it doesn't matter how many business cards you collect, if you're not using them, you might as well not have them. So here's a tip for you. It might go in one of your segments here, it may not, may just be an extra tip, a bonus. How many of you have a stack of cards on your desk about this big that has been growing for the past year or so, right? You go to events and you don't have to confess, I know you have them. Here's a simple tip for you. Go home today, throw them away. Seriously, because see, right now every time you look at them you feel bad. You go, "Oh my goodness, there's those cards I should have done something with." You're never going to, because you and I both know those leads are dead. They don't remember you, you don't remember them, you don't even know why you got their card. The best thing you could possibly do is throw them away. But here's—
