29/09/2026
NETWORKING IS NOT PROSPECTING
Last month, I attended a business event where one gentleman moved from table to table, distributing his business cards and introducing his services.
Within minutes of meeting anyone, he would begin his sales pitch.
He collected telephone numbers, promised to send proposals.
Someone described him as a great networker.
But was he really networking?
Not necessarily.
He was prospecting, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with prospecting. The problem begins when we mistake every attempt to identify potential customers for networking.
Networking is about building relationships for the sake of relationships.
You meet people, take a genuine interest in them, exchange ideas, offer support and remain connected without immediately calculating what you can sell to them.
Some of those relationships may eventually lead to transactions. Some may introduce you to opportunities. Others may provide knowledge, encouragement, friendship or access to people and places you would never have reached on your own.
And some may never produce any financial benefit.
That does not make them useless relationships.
The purpose of networking is not to turn every person you meet into a customer. It is to build a rich and mutually beneficial network of relationships.
Prospecting, on the other hand, has a more specific commercial objective.
It involves identifying and engaging people or organisations that could potentially do business with you but have not yet started.
When you attend an event because you hope to meet decision-makers who may buy your products, you are prospecting.
When you ask an existing customer to introduce you to someone who may need your services, you are prospecting.
When you research organisations, identify their needs and seek meetings with relevant executives, you are prospecting.
Networking and prospecting may sometimes involve the same activities: attending events, starting conversations, exchanging contact details, following up and staying connected.
But the intentions are different.
In prospecting, you are deliberately looking for potential business opportunities.
In networking, you are building relationships without making an immediate transaction the condition for sustaining those relationships.
This distinction is important because people can often sense when every conversation with you is driven by a sales target.
If you approach everyone as a potential transaction, people may avoid you. But when you build genuine relationships and consistently add value, business opportunities can emerge naturally from the trust you have created.
Therefore, someone who spends time building genuine relationships without immediately attempting to sell is not wasting time.
That person is networking.
The relationship may produce business tomorrow, five years from now, or never. But the absence of an immediate transaction does not diminish the value of the relationship.
By the way, I have studied and taught business and social networking for many years. I am also the author of "The Critical Pillars of Making Quality Contacts and Connections," a 270-page book I wrote in 2011.
So, before describing someone as a great networker, first determine if they are genuinely building relationships, or merely searching for their next customer?
Both are valuable.
But they are not the same.
