I think you should try the local networking. The elevator speech gets better and easier with time. As networking people will tell you, it takes about 10 impressions to get to know someone well enough to bring them into your circle, so things take time and you need to start. Sure enough, one of the people I ran into at 6 or 7 different Chamber events in about 6 weeks is now one of my LinkedIn contacts and invited me to join the leads group she's in. (Leads groups are still a bit intimidating to me, but I see the potential for growth.) These things also help you build credibility.

The most surprising thing to me when I started going to networking events is how much other business people want to help you succeed.

Well, I'm off to a networking mixer tonight. I was invited by someone I met at another networking event. Networking seems to snowball.