I heartily agree with Chris King, who writes the following about storytelling and networking:
When we are meeting people at a Networking event, we are usually asked, “What do you do?” If we answer with a label (“I’m a consultant, lawyer, website designer, etc.) the reaction is blah. But, if we put our answer into a story form, “I help small business owners who are struggling to establish a professional presence on the Internet,” your questioner will be interested in hearing the story of how you do that.
I write about the same concept, which I call the Elevator Story, here.