On Wednesday evening, I had the opportunity to attend a fun and really interesting networking event called “The Beehive Networking Game”. To me, networking was always about “meeting and greeting”. You know, “smile, shake hands, compare notes on mutual acquaintances, chat about your needs and what they can offer you, and vise versa”. Pretty standard.
In the Beehive Game, the 60+ people in attendance were divided up into small groups and each person was given an envelope and a piece of paper, on which you were to write a question that would be used to generate leads FOR you. That’s right, YOU weren’t the one talking to your prospective leads, so it forced you to be very specific as to who you were looking for! In each of four rounds, each member of the group had the chance to be “Queen Bee”, the one who’s question was being asked. One “Worker Bee” from each group would run around for two minutes, asking the Queen Bee’s question to the groups of people who were still sitting down. The game works on the assumption that everyone has a personal “network” of at least 200 people that they know. If the question being asked applied to you or anyone that you know, you would give the Worker Bee one of your business cards. These cards were given to the Queen Bee at the end of each round and it is up to them to later contact each person who gave a card and find out who the lead is that was referred.
The game was arranged by the Owen Sound Chamber of Commerce and the Business Enterprise Centre and facilitated by Neworld Coaching.
It was exciting to see how involved everyone was and how generous they were with their leads. “The effort you give is the effort that you will receive back” was truly at play and I hope that everyone sees some great things happen as a result of their participation. Working together allows us all to succeed in business and in community.
