Hi Kelly, I attend a monthly networking event in Dallas called Startup Happy Hour, and their policy on this matter is very simple: No sales pitches allowed. Small business owners and entrepreneurs are the intended audience, but they must check their salesperson hat at the door and enjoy meeting people doing interesting things without pushing products on them. If you make that policy clear to your attendees before they arrive, it will make enforcing the policy much easier. I've found that people who are unwilling to meet people for the sake of building real relationships are a drain on events, and should be asked to leave anyway.
Hope this helps, Chris On Dec 1, 11:51 am, Kelly Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > We just held an event and got a pretty good turn out. > We even got a couple solid leads out of it. > > BUT - invariably - when hosting an event like that we tend to attract > people who have no interest in our service and are just their to > pester attendees with their copier / insurance / answering service > sales. > > I don't want to un-invite people and I've tried to embrace everyone > one -- but am wondering if anyone has had success deterring these > folks so it's really more about community vs. 'networking' when we > have our events. > > Love any ideas that someone might have. > But am guessing it's just part of the deal. > > -kb > Office Space Coworkingwww.officespacecoworking.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---