Powerful Women Rising - A Business Podcast for Female Entrepreneurs

The Value of Paid Networking for Building Committed Connections

September 09, 2024 • Melissa Snow - Powerful Women Rising, LLC • Episode 75

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One of the questions I get asked most often is, "Should I pay to network?"

There are many factors that go into finding the networking event or group that is right for you and cost is definitely one of them!  But does cost always equal value?  Is there a benefit to attending paid events rather than joining a free group?

In this episode, as we explore whether paid networking or free events are the better option for your business. Discover the pros and cons of each option, and learn how various costs and outcomes can shape your networking strategy.

We'll bust myths about the quality of attendees at free versus paid events and I'll show you how even a minimal financial investment can lead to more meaningful networking experiences - as long as you remain consistent!

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Register for our next PWR Virtual Speed Networking Event here:  https://powerfulwomenrising.com/events

Get our free list of the Top Virtual Networking Events for Female Entreprenuers Here!  https://powerfulwomenrising.com/

Learn more about becoming a member of the Powerful Women Rising Community here:  https://powerfulwomenrising.com/community/

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Episode Highlights:

00:04:00   What Happened When I Started Charging?

00:06:28    Are The People at Paid Events Higher Quality?

00:08:48    How to Find Your People

00:10:05     The "Revolving Door" at Free Networking Events

00:14:35      Lack of Committment and Engagement at Free Events

00:18:35      Expecting Immediate Results After Paying

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Powerful Women Rising, the podcast where we ditch the rulebook and build businesses with authenticity, integrity and a whole lot of fun. Join host Melissa Snow, business relationship strategist and founder of the Powerful Women Rising community, as she interviews top experts and shares candid insights on business strategy, marketing, mindset and more. Let's get real, get inspired and rise together. This is Powerful Women Rising.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Powerful Women Rising podcast. I'm your host, melissa Snow. I am actually excited to be back here with you today. You may have noticed some inconsistencies in producing episodes of this podcast. I don't know why I have such a mental block to doing these solo episodes. It's one of those things that I think my ADHD brain is like that is going to be so much work. That's the same thing that my brain says about laundry. It's the same thing that my brain says about mowing the lawn. And every time I do those things, I'm like that really wasn't that much work. And then I have amnesia. And the next time I have to do laundry or mow the lawn or do a podcast episode, my brain is like oh, my god, that's gonna be so hard, it's gonna be so much work. So one of the fabulous things that happens in the Powerful Women Rising community is every month we have a four-hour content creation co-working call, and it's happening right this second, which is why I am creating content. People can show up for any part of the four hours or for all of the four hours, but for the people who do show up and who need something like this, like me, hello, hi, I'm the problem. It's me. It really has been a game changer. Like it's so nice to get this stuff done right at the beginning of the month, not have to think about it for the next month, not have that like shame spiral hanging over your head of like you should be posting on social media. You should have done a podcast episode by now. You should have done all the things, because they're just done and you don't have to think about them again. It's really wonderful. So, if that resonates with you, I highly encourage you to click the link in the show notes and check out the Powerful Women Rising community. It has lots of benefits. That is just one. Encourage you to click the link in the show notes and check out the Powerful Women Rising community. It has lots of benefits. That is just one of them. All right, so let's dig into today's episode.

Speaker 2:

This is an interesting topic and it's something that I get asked about a lot, which is should you pay to network or can you get by only attending free events? Now I want to be clear before we start that I'm talking about a lot of things in general. Today, there are paid events and paid networking groups that run the gamut on cost right. Some of them we would say are very expensive. Other people would say that's not expensive at all. So I'm talking about paying $1 versus thousands and thousands of dollars, or I'm talking about an event or a group that you actually join that has no cost. And the other thing I want to make sure that you know is I am going to be speaking in a lot of generalizations regarding the people at these events, what happens at these events, the results at these events, and I want you to know that there are exceptions to all of the rules. So just because I say generally, most of the people at these events are blah, blah, blah, I am well aware that that is not true for 100% of the people all of the time. It's impossible for me to address every single person, every single group, every single scenario. So today we're just talking about it in generalizations. Take what is helpful to you and leave the rest.

Speaker 2:

Now, one of the reasons I've been thinking about this topic a lot is because I run a monthly virtual speed networking event for female entrepreneurs. It's freaking awesome. If you've never been, you've got to go to my website and check it out. But when I first started doing these events almost two years ago now. They were free and now they are $5, which is not a huge increase and I'll tell you a little bit about my thought process with that later on in the episode. But I did decide to increase the price for a couple reasons.

Speaker 2:

What I found at the best quantity, like the highest quantity, the most people who were registering. When the event was free, I had about 300 to 350 people registering in a month. Now you would think that's amazing, right? That's 300, 350 people added to your email list who now know that you exist, who you can communicate with. That's so awesome. It is. And also, I would rather have 100 committed and engaged people on my email list who are actually going to show up to the event than 350 people who are not that engaged and may or may not show up, right. So that was one thing that I realized and I saw a shift when I started charging $5. I no longer had the people who would register just so they could get the list of attendees and spam them with junk mail. I no longer had the people who would register and show up for 10 minutes long enough to plug their business and then log out and the ratio the percentage of people who were registered versus the number of people who actually showed up grew exponentially. Now that I charge $5 for each event, I would say there's probably about an 80% attendance rate versus about a 35 to 40% attendance rate when it was free.

Speaker 2:

So it's got me thinking a lot about free versus paid events and the benefits and the drawbacks of each. So let's break down some of the myths about free versus paid networking events and also I'm going to share some of the pros and cons of each as I see them. I am sure there are other pros and cons. I would love to hear your thoughts. If you follow me on Instagram, I would love to chat about this more over on my Instagram, but these are just some of the thoughts that I've come up with.

Speaker 2:

So the first thing that I hear a lot is the people that you will meet are different at free versus paid events, and a lot of times people have the assumption that the people who are attending free events are going to be like less serious, more low caliber, not as successful type of people, and I don't actually think that that's true as a general rule. I don't think it's true that free events attract lower quality people or connections. I've seen great audiences at free events. I've met some really successful, smart, awesome entrepreneurs at free events really successful, smart, awesome entrepreneurs at free events. Now I do think that free events tend to attract more people who are newer to business. Right, Because there's a lot less risk. They're not really sure. Like, what is this networking thing? Why am I doing it? Do I want to do it? Is this going to be horrible? I'm not ready to commit financially. Let me just show up and see what it's like. So that makes total sense and I fully support that. If you're newer to business and I also think if you're not newer to business it's not necessarily a bad thing to be attending these free events where a lot of newer business owners are.

Speaker 2:

We have people in the Powerful Women Rising community who have been in business for six months and we have people who have been in business for 25 years and it's really interesting to see all of the ways that they support each other and the new things that they learn from each other, because they are on such opposite ends of the spectrum. A lot of times, when we've been in business for a long time, there are things that we can't see anymore. When we are using industry speak or I call it life coach, word salad or you know those words that we love to use in marketing that real people are like I don't even know what that is. A lot of times, the people who are newer in business are the ones who are like. That doesn't make any sense. I know you think it sounds cool. I don't even know what you're talking about, and that's really helpful. I've also found that people who are six months or 25 years in business are still able to refer each other. They're still able to support each other in lots of ways.

Speaker 2:

So it's not necessarily true that you only need to be networking with people who are at your level. In fact, I think the more diversity that you have in your network, the better. I also think that the number of years that people have been in business doesn't really matter as much as whether or not the people understand the true purpose of networking, and I do think, for the most part, the longer you've been in business, the more you understand the real purpose of creating genuine connections versus just passing out your business card and creating these transactional relationships. So you want to be where the people who value connection over competition are hanging out. You want to go where the people who understand the power of the slow burn, of genuine relationships versus quick wins through those transactional relationships, and I think generally those are the people who are willing to invest to build their business.

Speaker 2:

And yes, I'm talking about investing money by joining a paid group or attending a free event, but I'm also talking about people who are willing to invest time, energy, effort, etc. And I find that the two often go hand in hand. You don't usually find someone who's willing to invest money but not willing to invest the time and energy that it takes to do something with it. And it makes sense, right? If someone is not even willing to invest $300 a year to join a networking group to support their own business, how much are they really going to be willing to invest to support my business? The other thing that I've noticed with the type or quality of people who attend free versus paid events is that free events tend to be more of a revolving door of people.

Speaker 2:

You're meeting new people every time you go, as opposed to consistently networking with the same group of people over and over again. Now, that isn't all bad, because it allows you to meet a lot of different people, but it can be harder to make deeper connections and it can make following up with everyone you want to very difficult. I think of it like if you are meeting new people every week, you are able to give them each a nickel, right. But if you are networking with the same people every week and you're giving each of them a nickel over five weeks, you've now given them a quarter. That analogy made so much sense in my brain and I still think it's a really good one. But I can hear it playing back to you guys and you're like and I still think it's a really good one, but I can hear it playing back to you guys and you're like that makes no sense. But you've now invested a quarter in a person as opposed to investing a nickel in a whole bunch of people. That makes sense, right? Yeah, see, I asked my dog and she said yes.

Speaker 2:

So in the Powerful Women Rising community, when I was creating that community, one of the things that I wanted to do was create a structure that allowed the follow-up to kind of be included in the membership, so that people didn't have to attend the calls but then also schedule one-on-one follow-ups with all of the people in the group over and over again to make sure they were deepening their relationships, staying top of mind, doing all the things right. So we have a lot of different calls that have different variety, but by showing up to the different calls you have an opportunity at every single one even if it's not technically a networking call to get to know people better, learn more about their business, share more about your business, see how you can support each other, and so that is one of the pros of being in a paid group. Where you are consistently with the same people over and over again, you are able to create real relationships and leverage those relationships over time to help your business grow without having to put in a lot of extra effort. The other problem with this revolving door concept at free events is that if you meet someone once or twice, they are likely to forget about you, and vice versa. Right, because you've only given them a nickel, not a quarter. I will remember you for a quarter. When you are meeting with the same people consistently, you're more likely to remain top of mind with them, and if you remember one of the main purposes of networking, you are meeting with the same people consistently, you're more likely to remain top of mind with them.

Speaker 2:

And if you remember one of the main purposes of networking, one of the definitions that I love for networking is a broadcast system of multiple transmitters. Your goal in networking is creating a broadcast system of multiple transmitters. This means you want to create a system of people who will say your name in the rooms that you're not in, who will volunteer your information for opportunities that they know would be a good fit for you, who will connect people who would be ideal clients or power partners for you, even if you're not there. And if people don't remember you, if they don't know you that well or if you're not top of mind with them, that's likely not going to happen. On the other hand, I often say that if you're networking with the same people over and over again, you're doing it wrong. You never want to stop building your network or the whole concept falls apart. Because, for example, if I have 10 people in my network, that is 10 people I can share your message, your business, your vision, your mission with. If I only ever have those 10 people in my network, the people that I can share your stuff with is very limited, but if I am consistently adding one, two, three new people, month after month after month, my network is growing, which means your network is also growing, and vice versa, right. So if you're in a group where the doors are only open one to two times per year, if they only take new people once or twice a year, you run the risk of your network becoming stagnant and stale. That is likely never going to happen.

Speaker 2:

Attending free events, because you've almost always, if it's a good event, got new people coming in to check it out. So, that said, one of the biggest challenges that I see with free events is the lack of commitment, which often leads to a high no-show rate and a lower level engagement. I mentioned this when I was talking about the Powerful Women Rising virtual speed networking events. I had a lot of people sign up but not a lot of people attending, and when people were attending, they weren't always as focused and engaged as they could be. So, in general, people tend to take things that they've paid for more seriously. If you've paid $50,000 to be somewhere, you're going to do everything in your power to be there, right? If you've paid a dollar for something, it's going to be much easier to blow it off.

Speaker 2:

I just went to Aspen this past weekend, over Labor Day weekend that was a couple weekends ago, I don't know, I have no concept of time and we had booked our hotel. We'd bought our tickets for this music festival a year ago, but my husband ended up having COVID and couldn't go, and we were able to sell our tickets to the music festival, but the hotel room was non-refundable and we'd paid like a thousand dollars to stay at that hotel for three nights. And so I'm like listen, I don't have tickets to the music festival anymore, but I am going and I am hanging out in that thousand dollar hotel room for three nights. And that's exactly what I did. Took my sister with me, we sat in there and colored on our coloring books, we watched Worst Ex Ever four episodes of it on Netflix we ordered room service, we went to the hot tub, we did things, we walked around.

Speaker 2:

If I had only paid a dollar for that hotel room, I probably would not have gone. Right, that's much easier to just be like yeah, I'm not going. At the same time, if you have paid $50,000 to be somewhere, you are likely going to be ready to rock, you are going to be engaged, you're going to be listening, you're going to be asking questions from the start because you want to get your money's worth out of the event. If you've paid a dollar, it's much easier to like half listen or listen while you're also doing something on your computer or listen with your video off or whatever. It is right. So I do find that the commitment and the engagement tends to be higher with paid events rather than free events.

Speaker 2:

I also think that when you pay for something, you usually value it more, and I don't necessarily mean like the event or the group and how much you value it, but how much you value the connections that you make there, and that is going to make a difference on how you show up for those connections and what happens after the call and vice versa for the people that you meet. I found, with the Powerful Women Rising virtual speed networking events, that charging just $5 for each event has weeded out the tire kickers and really attracted people who are serious about growing their business and who value the connections that they are making and treat those relationships accordingly. So obviously one of the pros of attending a free event or a free group is it's free. You don't have to pay, you don't have any financial risk. You really are only risking your time and your energy, and the worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to be like, well, that was terrible, I will never go back to that, right, but you're not out money and there you go, and there's definitely something to be said for that.

Speaker 2:

I also feel, though, as a general rule, that when you're going to a paid event or a paid group, you can have higher expectations of the event and of the host. I think, generally, when you're paying, you're getting a better, more elevated experience. There is an agenda, the host is prepared, things are moving along quickly. They don't want to waste your time because you've paid to be there. If you haven't paid to be there, it is possible that the host is showing up just as half-assed as everybody else is, because what have they got to lose, right? Are you going to ask for a refund? Probably not. Now.

Speaker 2:

In some ways, the fact that you're paying to attend an event or a group can also be a con, because when we pay for something, we're a lot more likely to expect immediate results from it, and that's not typically how networking works. Networking is always a two-way street and it requires consistent effort from you and the people in your network in order to grow that know like and trust factor, because networking requires consistent effort from you in order for you to see a return on your investment. If you're not willing to put in the time and effort and you're looking for more immediate gratification with very little work on your part, you're going to be wasting your money. By paying for a group or event, for example, I run the Powerful Women Rising community, which is an online community for female entrepreneurs, but I also run a in-person networking group here in Colorado Springs, where I live, and sometimes I will have people who don't renew their membership and I will have a conversation with them about why they didn't renew and they will say, well, I didn't get anything out of it. I didn't get any leads, nobody wanted to talk to me, I didn't make any money, it was a waste of my time. And then I look back on my records and I can see they only attended two events or calls or meetings in six months or in a year. And to me that's like paying for a gym membership for a year, going twice and then canceling your membership because you didn't lose any weight right.

Speaker 2:

There are some things that you can pay for and get the results without putting in any effort. The gym is not one of them. Networking is also not one of them. So, just to kind of wrap everything up, from my personal point of view, I love a free networking event. I love a free networking group and I do try to work one or two of those a month into my schedule when I can. But for me, the bread and butter of my business comes from being a part of paid networking groups or going to networking events where you have to pay to be there.

Speaker 2:

And, as I mentioned, I find that at paid events you're more likely to meet people who are aligned with your goals and values. They're not just random people looking for free advice or to pitch you on something. They're not the people that are going to ask if you wanna do a trade for your service or product. They are serious entrepreneurs who know the value of building real relationships. I also find that the commitment level tends to be higher at paid events and in paid groups. Those people are there with intention. They've put money down so they're going to show up, they're going to stay engaged and they're going to follow through, which is going to lead to deeper, more meaningful connections, which, let's be real, is the whole point of networking.

Speaker 2:

I also find that many paid events offer a more curated experience. There are specific themes, there are expert speakers who are actually worth listening to, or structured activities that help you get the most out of your time, so you're not just wandering around drinking wine, hoping someone starts a conversation with you and hoping that that person is actually interested or interesting. I should say there is a plan and it's designed to help you succeed. And finally, I find that, since the attendees are generally more serious about business, the follow-up game is usually much better. You'll find that people are more likely to reach out afterward, set up one-on-ones and actually follow through on what they said they were going to do. This is where the magic happens Relationships that lead to collaborations, referrals and more business.

Speaker 2:

So how does all of this tie back to our Powerful Women Rising virtual speed networking event which, by the way, is just in a couple of days If you're listening to this, on the day it comes out? Since we started charging $5 a session, I have noticed a huge improvement in the quality of connections being made. People come prepared. They have thought about how they want to introduce themselves, what kind of connections that they're looking for, and they're just way more engaged during the event. Their cameras are on, they're listening, they're laughing, they are asking each other questions. It's like everyone is there to play full out and the energy is electric. It's like everyone is there to play full out and the energy is electric. And because the caliber of attendees has gone up, the experience is better for everyone.

Speaker 2:

You're not just networking. You're building relationships with people who are serious about growing their businesses, just like you are. So, to wrap things up, there is no one size fits all answer to the question of whether paid or free networking is better. It really depends on where you are in your business journey, how much time and effort you're willing to put in and what you're looking to get out of your networking efforts. If you are serious about leveling up your business, paying to network can be a total game changer. You will meet high caliber people. You'll have more meaningful conversations and ultimately build stronger relationships that can drive your business forward.

Speaker 2:

That said, there is a lot of value to attending free events and groups, and you will find a lot of super cool people. You will meet a lot of variety of people and you'll have the opportunity to break out of your regular box and get some new insights into your business. So if you are ready to take your networking to the next level, I would love to see you at our next Powerful Women Rising virtual speed networking event. You do not have to be a member of the Powerful Women Rising community to attend. This event is open to the public. It's just $5 and it is worth every freaking penny. So click the link in the show notes, register for the next event and we will see you next time.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to Powerful Women Rising. We hope today's episode inspired you to keep rising. If you love the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review. It's like giving us a virtual hug and helps more awesome women like you find the show. Click the link in the show notes to get your free list of top virtual networking events for female entrepreneurs. It's time to make real connections and grow your business with integrity and authenticity. Until next time, keep rising and stay powerful.

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