One of Kathy's business contacts asked her out for a coffee recently.

She ummed and ahhed. Said yes so as not to be rude, then we chatted about how she could minimise any time wasted at the meeting.

Not that there's anything wrong with “meetings over coffee” – if it fits your business model.

If you get lots of work via referral. And if individual clients are worth a lot to you. And if the people who want to have coffee with you are the right connections – then great.

But often I find there's a mismatch of business models. Because many people still only get clients through personal connections, they kind of assume everyone else's business revolves round time-consuming “get to know you” meetings.

For those of us who've learned how to get clients online, those face to face meetings are rarely a good use of our time. So frankly, we need to learn to be a bit ruthless and say no rather more often.

I've learned to be quite tough and say no pretty much all the time. Sometimes people get rather upset and tell me “networking is all about relationships” and try to convince me that they would have been able to refer business to me.

But my best clients come from people who've signed up, get my emails, and “get” me. It's a very different business model.

Your model might be different, but the key thing is to never let other people's views on how you should be running your business deviate you from what works for you.

If you don't need coffee meetings to win clients, stick to your guns and don't have coffee meetings.

If you don't need a website to win clients, stick to your guns and don't have a website.

Whatever works for you, do what it takes.