Perhaps a result of ”kinder, gentler” times, the days of deliberately orchestrated business networking are on the wane.
”Hard-sell networking doesn`t work anymore,” Jacqueline Slivko of the Financial Women`s Association in New York tells Working Woman magazine. ”You can`t call up someone now and say, `I`m a member of this network, help me out.` ”
Traditionally, men`s networks have been soft-structured-connections involve friends, colleagues, neighbors and acquaintences, rather than alliances made during gatherings designed expressly to forge work contacts. Women`s networks, usually a venue for vigorous business-card swapping, now are taking on the same tenor, the magazine reports.
”In soft networking, the operative word is `friend,` ” it says, adding that prime soft-sell settings for women are likely to be weddings, childrens` birthday parties or meals, all settings where deal-making is merely the by-product of the event, but not the calculated goal. School often is a fertile environment for forging bonds that later figure into business benefits.
And while the framework has become less structured, the approach also has become more subtle.
Jane Stark, a marketing and promotion company representative, describes a casual dinner at New York`s Russian Tea Room where her companions were potential customers. Instead of making a deliberate pitch to clinch a deal, Stark waited until conversation turned to business and she was invited to arrange a sales call.
Softer, more mellow networking will overtake the old-fashioned structured approach as more women gain positions of higher professional status and influence, the magazine predicts.
”In the future, more women in the formal networks will have primo jobs, and everyone will be able to relax a little.”