If I keep talking to someone who I know will never be a client and will never recommend me to anyone else, does that mean I’m looking for new clients?
I say this because I have spent days talking to someone in the same industry as me on LinkedIn, constantly telling myself that this was part of my networking outreach strategy.
Then he pitched me.
But of course he pitched me. He’s on LinkedIn for the same reasons I am.
What the hell was I doing still talking to him?
I had a question to ask him about a strategy. He gave me a vague answer. And then I just kept talking.
It took some time I allotted each day to LinkedIn networking. But it wasn’t really networking. It might have been “horizontal” networking, but probably it doesn’t even deserve that. I mean, he thought I was a potential client.
(To my credit, I hope, I did not view him as a potential client. I was just trying to establish a relationship with someone on LinkedIn. I didn’t really have any of those at the beginning of this month.)
It’s so easy to trick myself into believing that unproductive conversations about not much are “networking”. Given that I hate “networking”, it’s especially easy.