A bar owner in Nashville told me to stop pitching at their networking night

I was handing out cards and doing my 30-second spiel at The Local in Nashville until the owner pulled me aside and said people remember the guy who bought them a drink, not the guy who handed them a pitch. Has anyone else had better luck just being a regular person instead of a walking sales pitch?

3 comments

3 Comments

carter.gavin1mo ago

I had a buddy who tried the same thing at a brewery meetup in Austin. He kept pushing his app idea on everyone and the manager eventually told him to just buy a round and shut up for five minutes. He bought a pitcher for the table next to him, ended up chatting about fantasy football for an hour, and two of those guys became his first beta testers. So that owner's advice about buying a drink over pitching a card sounds dead on from what I saw.

joelt701mo ago

Isn't it funny how the direct approach usually backfires? I see this all the time, not just with business stuff but when people are trying to make friends or join a group. When you lead with what you want, you just put up a wall. But when you lead with just being a normal person, sharing a drink or talking about a dumb game, you actually make a connection. The goal gets met almost by accident because people want to help someone they like, not someone who's selling to them. It's a basic human thing we keep forgetting.

rowanharris1mo ago

Bet the app was better for it too @carter.gavin since they helped shape it.