I totally agree with Mike, Andrea and the other commentors that what you absolutely don't want to do is to be a used car salesman, or a predator. You want to meet the people who are important to you and offer them something without expecting anything back. You want to build relationships. But the key question is: With whom? Depending on your business, there are a lot of people who go to networking events that are going to have no interest in your business. True, they may know people who do. But you're not going to meet everyone at an event that runs, typically, an hour and a half without coming off as really superficial. So why not focus first on the people that you really do want to get to know so that you can qualify them as a warm lead (or not) for your business. After that, if you want to hang around the event and talk to everyone, great. As a business coach I go to a great many events where I watch people walking aimlessly around trying to either sell their products or services to people who are (rightfully)disinterested under the circumstances, or I see them leave without having made one contribution to their business development efforts because they had no plan. With my clients, at least, I encourage them to have a plan. They then go to networking events far more relaxed because they know what they're there to do and when they are done -- or have done as much as they can do -- they can kick back and simply enjoy the rest of the night. And mind you, just to reinforce this, I NEVER tell my clients to try to sell to prospects at a networking event because it's not only rude, it's just plain ineffective. It's a guarantee toward NOT getting business.

Seems like my article is creating some controversy and so people are not responding to it. This could be an East Coast/West Coast thing, but in Fairfield County in CT, on any given night you can go to a half dozen networking events. If you have no plan for what you are going to accomplish at these events, why pay the money and why bother to go at all? It really is netWORKING. I'm all for paying forward and I didn't suggest that people adopt a no prizoners approach to working a room. But why wouldn't you want to know who you want to meet and at least determine if they're a lead worth pursuing? You can still do this in a casual/no-sales type of approach (as I suggested) and come away with a better understanding of your target market without being a bear about it. Hey different parts of the country have different styles when it comes to networking. But after spending 20+ years in Public Affairs and External Affairs in just about every state, I managed to accomplish a lot of goals for my former employer and later for my clients -- so I think this is simply a matter of nuances not strategies.