10 Meetings a Week

Technology has simplified connecting with business contacts. Email, IM, text-messaging, and tools like LinkedIn are great ways to stay in touch. However, there is still NO substitute for the face-to-face meeting. In my previous job (sales), one of the metrics the sales team had to maintain was meeting with 10 prospects face-to-face each week. The meetings were critical to understanding a prospective clients business needs. Equally imporant was to get to know a prospective customer. After a face-to-face meeting, the email and phone calls to prospects are exponentionally more effective than a straight cold-call or email.

For GetQuik, the goal of business meetings tend to be more business development and partnership oriented. However, the 10 meetings a week goal is still applicable. The challenge is in maintaining this high level of contact and still being able to get everything else done. Fortunately, there are a ton of networking events in Silicon Valley and San Francisco that provide opportunities to meet new people. From these networking events, you can setup a few weeks of meetings with interesting potential partners and advisors. For enterpreuners, I recommend looking into the following networking groups:

- SVASE: Early Stage Startups

- Startup Epicenter: Early Stage Startups - Workshops

- Stirr: Networking Event for Technology Startup Founders

- SDForum: Technology Focused Networking Group

- Churchill Club: General Business Networking Group

- FountainBlue: Seminars Geared towards Early Stage Startups

There is a saying that business is a contact sport. This saying may be old, but still holds true.