Networking in Central Scotland – What’s gone wrong?

As a marketing expert I am regularly heralding the benefits of networking and its importance as a marketing technique. However, over the past few months I have spoken to a number of business owners who are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the networking scene in Central Scotland and in particular Edinburgh and Glasgow. The first thing you would have to say is that judging by the number of networking groups in these two cities you would think it was the only place in Scotland that was worth networking in. Why aren’t there more groups in the surrounding towns and cities?

One of the reasons I believe that the quality of networking is so awful Central Scotlandis all to do with the premise on which the network is set up on. Break away groups, companies trying to make a quick buck not to mention those who simply use it as a sales platform for their own business or ego. The result is a badly run pointless network that has no direction, format or results.

If I receive one more email about a new network or networking group that offers an event with a twist or difference I’ll scream because in fact I’ve yet to find many, if any, that actually do. What tends to happen is that you meet the same faces just at different networks. The majority of networking groups put little thought in to the format of the meeting, the quality of contacts or member benefits. All they do is concentrate on getting money out of business owners and up selling as many ‘advertising, sponsorship or marketing’ opportunities as they can to make money.

Consequently is it any surprise that successful, established business owners are rarely seen out networking? We need a revolution which can be started by us being honest with ourselves in terms of how much business we actually achieve from networking and from which groups. We need to look at the type of people and businesses we meet and demand more from our networking organisers.

What do you think? Am I completely wrong? What networks have you found work?