I am called “Condor Man!”

Networking meetings are low ROI (return on investment) ways to generate business and leads and raise funding for most people.

They attend.

They wander around aimlessly.

They drink a few drinks.

They pitch their product, idea or start-up.

And then they go home.

And if you read any of the terrible articles you find online about how to network, everyone says you should follow-up after the event.

But nobody ever does.

If business cards were collected they are inevitably thrown in a pile on the desk and the collector feels guilty about not doing anything with them for a year or two before finally throwing them out.

Here’s a neat trick to increase your ROI – hire a wing man and take them with you.

When you go networking its really awkward to break in to a conversation, its difficult to talk about yourself “I’m this fantastic software developer and designer and you should hire me to fix your dumb project. By the way don’t bother talking to me because I am slightly introverted, socially stunted and want to act like I am aloof from all this and not desperate for more work, no, not at all.”

But it is incredibly easy to talk about someone else “Ohmygosh! Have you met Justin yet? He’s this brilliant software developer and designer and project manager. I absolutely need to introduce you to him if we can just get a few minutes of his time. I know he is super busy, but let’s see if we can talk to him.”

It’s why I have 10x Management representing me.

I cannot imagine my agent, Michael Solomon, talking about how awesome he is and why you should hire him.

But I can imagine Michael talking about how awesome someone else is – “yeah, we have this brilliant Python developer, he’s one of the best in the field, worked at eBay and Facebook and was an early hire at Google.”

Hire a wing man.

It’s not hard, not terribly expensive (if you are serious about networking), and really helps to break the ice.