When you belong to a networking group that meets regularly one of the aspects that makes or breaks that group is how often people show up or don’t show up. If you want to build a relationship with someone, one of trust, how you build that trust is through consistency. If people only show up part of the time, when its convenient for them, as opposed to actually making time to be at the meeting on a regular basis, you can;’t build a relationship with the no shows.
Networking is a commitment. And it’s not social time…it’s business time, which means that you are showing up not just for your business, but for everyone else’s business, especially if you are paying dues. The reality is that travel time, money spent on food, and dues is a significant investment that goes in, in the hope that each person will be doing their best to show up and also be looking for business not just for themselves, but everyone else. That can’t happen when you don’t have consistent attendance in your networking group, because you can’t really trust the people who only show up occasionally and don’t recognize that their lack of commitment is detrimental to your business as well as their own.
