Michael,
Network! Network! I haven't attend the SQL server meetings in Alpharetta but that group is a good place to start. Honestly, ask the chapter president if you could let the group know if they have any advice, just like you did in this email. Actually I think more people respond face-to-face then over email. Also, attend a few SharePoint and Dev meetings to get feel for the groups to see if they will be a good fit for you. Alos develop a niche, like auditing, handling sensitive data, like PII, PHI, classified data, etc and/or working in the cloud.
Also, create a LinkedIn page (I need to update mines).
I hope this helps.
Akilah