By Jane Bayler, The Smart Connector. Former MD of FutureBrand and 20+ years in global brand strategy.
Every general business networking group you join places you in the exact line-up you are trying to escape. That is the uncomfortable truth behind all the breakfast meetings, the “know, like and trust” small talk, and the endless 60-second pitches. Being in the room is not the same as being chosen. And in a general room full of people who describe themselves the way you do, being chosen is precisely what stops happening.
If you left a senior corporate career to build something of your own, this matters more to you than to almost anyone. You have deep expertise. What you do not yet have is a way for the right people to tell your expertise apart from everyone else’s. Networking, done the default way, makes that harder, not easier.
I learned this the slow way
When I started my business, I thought, right, I’m a marketer. I can help anybody launching or scaling a business, especially if it revolves around their own wisdom and expertise. That was my background: service-based brand marketing. It felt generous. It felt safe. It was also the single biggest thing holding me back.
Then certain people started coming forward, and I realised who I was actually for. I got results for high-level corporate professionals: smart, qualified, educated people who had run things inside big organisations and were now betting on themselves. They resonated with me because I come from that world and I understand them. The moment I stopped being for everyone, the right people finally recognised themselves in what I said. Nothing about my skill had changed. My visibility to the right buyer had. That shift, from “I help anybody” to a clearly defined audience, is the whole basis of my Ideal Client Success work.
General networking groups keep you stuck in the “I can help anybody” phase, because the room rewards being broadly agreeable, not being pointedly known for one thing. You blend in to belong. Blending in is the opposite of the job.
Why the networking reflex backfires for experienced people
Here is the mechanism, because senior professionals trust mechanisms more than pep talks. A buyer does not compare what is true about you. They compare what they can see and understand about you in the few minutes they spend deciding. In a general networking group, everyone is presented through the same flattening lens: name, business, vague promise, business card. Your twenty years of judgement and the beginner’s confident patter arrive looking almost identical.
So the buyer defaults to the easiest signal available: who is warm, who is around, who is easy to categorise. That is a game the loudest generalist wins, not the sharpest expert. You are not being overlooked because you are not good enough. You are being overlooked because, from where the buyer is standing, you look like everyone else in the queue.
| The networking reflex | The positioning move |
|---|---|
| Join more general groups to “get in front of people” | Get in front of fewer, more specific people who feel you are built for them |
| Describe yourself broadly so you never turn anyone away | Describe yourself sharply so the right person feels recognised |
| Compete on presence and likeability in a crowded room | Compete on being the obvious category of one for a defined problem |
| Measure success by contacts collected | Measure success by whether the right people can repeat what you do |
Read those two columns again. The left is busy. The right is chosen. Most experienced people spend their first year post-corporate living entirely in the left column and wondering why the work is not coming. Getting the right-hand column to describe you is exactly what my Message To Market Fit work is built to do.
What actually gets a senior expert chosen
You can only own one idea in someone’s head. Not five, not a service menu, one. The experts who win the good clients are the ones who decided what they wanted to be known for and then said it clearly, repeatedly, in the places their specific buyer already pays attention. That is not louder networking. It is sharper positioning, made visible.
This is why a smaller, well-chosen room beats a big general one every time. A group of forty people who all serve or sit near your exact buyer is worth more than four hundred assorted business owners, because in the specific room your expertise reads as expertise instead of noise. The goal was never to meet more people. It was to be unmistakable to the few who matter.
If you want a single test, use this one. After someone meets you, could they describe what you do, accurately, to a colleague who was not there? If the answer is no, more networking will not fix it. Better positioning will.
Becoming a category of one is a decision, not a personality
The word that scares experienced people here is “niche.” They hear it as “turn away work,” which feels reckless when the pipeline is thin. So they stay broad, keep networking, and slowly starve. The reframe that changes everything: narrowing is not about doing less. It is about being legible. When your buyer can instantly place you, they can instantly trust you, refer you, and repeat you. Breadth feels safe to you and reads as risk to them. Building that single, ownable position is the heart of my Chosen First System.
This is also why referrals from general groups so often go nowhere. A contact can only refer you as well as they can describe you. If the best they can manage is “she does marketing, I think,” your reputation travels no further than the room. If they can say “she is the person who repositions senior corporate leaders into their own consulting practice,” that sentence does the selling while you sleep. Specificity is not a constraint on your reach. It is the engine of it.
None of this requires you to be louder, pushier, or more online than you are comfortable being. It requires one decision about what you own, and the discipline to say it the same way, in the same few places, until the right people start finishing the sentence for you. If you are early in the move from a corporate title to your own name, that decision is the work I walk people through in Career to Calling.
Common mistakes
- Treating visibility as a volume problem. More rooms, more posts, more coffees. Volume without a sharp position just spreads the sameness further.
- Softening your message to fit the room. The more general the group, the more you dilute yourself to belong, and the less anyone remembers you.
- Confusing rapport with being chosen. People can like you enormously and still hire the person they can categorise faster.
Frequently asked questions
Is business networking a waste of time for consultants?
No, but general networking groups usually are. The value is in specific rooms where most people serve or sit close to your exact buyer. In a general group you compete on presence against everyone else. In a targeted room your expertise reads clearly, and referrals actually point the right way.
Why do less experienced people win work I am better qualified for?
Because buyers choose what they can see and understand quickly, not what is objectively true. A confident generalist who is easy to categorise beats a superior expert who blends in. The fix is not more credentials. It is making your specific expertise obvious before the first conversation.
What should I do instead of joining more networking groups?
Decide the one thing you want to be known for, then make it visible where your specific buyer already spends attention. Choose fewer, sharper rooms over many general ones. Aim to be the obvious choice for one defined problem rather than a passable option for many.
How do I stand out without being salesy?
Stop selling in the room and start being unmistakable outside it. Say a clear, slightly polarising point of view about your field, consistently and in public. The right people move toward a defined position on their own. You never have to chase the ones who were never going to buy.
Does this mean I should stop networking completely?
No. It means stop relying on general networking as your growth strategy. Use targeted rooms to deepen relationships with people already close to your buyer, and let sharp positioning and visible expertise do the work. Networking supports a position. It can’t replace one.
Isn’t niching down risky when I need clients now?
It feels risky and does the opposite. Staying broad is what keeps you invisible and slow to hire. A sharp position makes you the obvious choice for a specific problem, which shortens the decision and raises what you can charge. Narrowing your message rarely narrows your income.
How long until better positioning shows results?
Faster than most expect, because the change is in recognition, not reach. Once your buyer can place you in one sentence, referrals sharpen and the right enquiries start naming the exact problem you solve. The slow part is deciding what you own. Saying it consistently is what compounds.
The experts who get chosen are rarely the ones with the most contacts. They are the ones who are impossible to confuse with anyone else. If you keep meeting people and still feel invisible, the room is not the problem. The blur is. If you want help cutting through it, that is exactly what I do with clients inside my consulting and coaching work.
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