This morning, I attended a breakfast networking event hosted by the Mississauga Board of Trade. I only found out about the event yesterday afternoon, but decided to go because I hadn’t networking with non-techie people in forever, the location was right in my backyard and my energy is at its peak in the morning.

I drove over the a BMW dealership where the breakfast meeting was held at and was immediately struck by the elegance of the location. We were right on the show floor and it was just beautiful. Also, everyone was just so friendly. I love networking events where people reach out to meet each other and have no need for any prompts.

I think I said, “Hi, my name is Leesa and I help businesses promote their brand and make money with podcasting,” at least 100 times. And guess what? No one knew what podcasting is. I’m not surprised by that. Yet, being in a room filled with people who had no clue about podcasting was absolutely refreshing.

Here’s just a smattering of people I met:

• I met a real estate agent frustrated that cold calling and handing out flyers just isn’t working.
• I met a sales consultant who’s re-doing his website, but isn’t really sure that it will generate leads.
• I met a product developer who was insistent on meeting me over coffee to talk about possibilities.
• I met a woman who works at a copy shop who had no idea what a podcast is.
• I also met a chartered accountant who’s infectious energy would lend well to an audio or video podcast, yet he had no clue how to apply it to his business.

Wow! All these individuals had one thing in common – a need to do something different. And I feel their pain. I really do. I was there at one point. Buying yellow page ads, printing up brochures, chasing prospects and all of this was costing me mucho mucho moola.

Now, it’s so different for me. All because of blogs and podcasts. And here I am sitting on a gold mine of information that these small and mid-sized businesses need to hear.

This morning’s breakfast meeting has definitely confirmed what I’ve known all along – my strategy has to change. I’ve got to focus in earnest on helping these businesses understand how they can save $2000 next year using a blog. Or how they can land a book deal with a publisher using a podcast. Or…and on and on I could go.

I left that breakfast meeting excited by the possibility of turning a few businesses into new media success stories. As new media consultants, that’s what we need to do. We need to focus our energy on those who need to hear how effective a new media strategy can be to their sales, marketing or communications strategy.

While we can still attend BarCamps, PodCamps, DemoCamps, and blogging and podcasting expos to network with each other, we are doing a disservice to a wider audience by not branching out and educating non-techie people on the benefits of using new media. We can’t keep this to ourselves.

If you’re a new media or technology consultant, I urge you to attend a non new media or technology event and see if you don’t get the same rush as I did this morning. You’ll be as fired up as I now feel.