RECENTLY at a business awards night for a local women’s group on the Central Coast in New South Wales — I was at a very entertaining table with some interesting girls. All of them run their own businesses and most of them are pretty successful.
The topic of why we go to women’s networking events came up and, although most of us had support from our families, friends and staff, we all knew we needed to network for our businesses to thrive.
We had all been to many networking events but found this one particularly helpful as it genuinely encouraged and supported women to get together once a month, in an environment where they could get to know each other and do business with people they like.
There was no hint of “transactional” behaviour, which we had all experienced at other networking events — whereby you felt as though someone met you, then thrust their business card into your face while they spoke at you rather than to you, while trying to determine if they should bother wasting their valuable time speaking to you. We all agreed that while we feel supported by the men in our lives, when networking with primarily male-dominated networking groups, we found them problematic. A few amusing stories were raised.
One girl, an attractive, successful accountant, recently had been asked out three times in the past month by men at networking conferences. The final insult to injury was when a man asked her to meet for a business meeting shortly after work, so she agreed to meet at a restaurant. It had turned into a bar by the time she arrived at 5.30pm so they had a few wines.
The gentleman spoke to her all about business and she was thinking it had been a very good meeting. Then the much older, rather unattractive man leered at her and told her that next week they could come back, have a few more wines and, if she was really lucky, he would drive her in his Porsche back to his place for the night. She was mortified!
A second girl, a very successful website and marketing expert, told us about the time she went to an IT conference, which was a very male-dominated event. She had her nametag on, which included her title and business name. A gentleman came up to her and, assuming she was a PA, asked her who she was doing PA work for.
She told him Bill Gates, that his presence was a surprise for the conference and she was so lucky to be his PA whenever he was in Australia. Later on when the guy worked out it wasn’t true, he came up to tell her, “You shouldn’t go around telling people you’re Bill Gates PA”, and she replied, “You shouldn’t assume I am someone’s PA”.
The final story, alas, is mine. I was at a broker event and another broker came up to me, a little tipsy, and told me that in his area the real estate agents were suckers for women who were “not a bad sort, like you”. In fact he said that they were so dumb they’d probably fall for me — so he was right there and then going to offer me a job as his assistant, letting me know I could just resign from my current employment, winking at me in a slimy fashion.
Luckily, a bank rep came up to him and told him I was one of his top brokers and introduced me. The man at least had the common decency to apologise and look horrified that he had thought I was someone’s assistant.
The bottom line is that networking is good for any business and there are mixed networking events that are great for everyone, but for women who belong to male-dominated fields, for them to have the support of one women’s network is helpful.
By Virginia Graham from www.modelmortgages.com.au
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