Some reasons why you might network – it might be any or all of:

• Part of your overall marketing ‘mix’ to attract more business
• An alternative way to cold calling to get business
• To access and tap into the support of a group
• To better get to know the needs of other businesses in your community
• To collaborate or find potential new business partner(s) to promote your business
• To raise your company’s visibility
• To raise your own visibility and look for job/ career progression
• To find potential employees for your company

Or is it any one of a number of other or additional ways you believe that networking will open doors for you and commercially propel you forwards and upwards?

Maybe you’re a sole trader who just wants to meet, mix and socialize with other business people.

Each and every reason is valid.

The point of this question is that, once we’re absolutely clear about what we want our networking activities to help us achieve, we stand a far better chance of getting the best outcomes (unlike the customer in the travel agency).

So it’s worth investing the time to get that clarity of purpose…

Linda

Extracted from Opening Doors

Technorati Tags: cold calling, collaboration, marketing, support, visibility

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Okay, it might seem a daft question at first glance, but it’s maybe not quite so daft when you think about it a bit deeper.

This is a lovely vignette that Phil Gosling (a respected British Home Publishing expert) uses to demonstrate the need to be a little clearer about what we actually want. Picture a scene in a travel agency, if you will…

Customer: “I want to go somewhere warm and sunny.”
Agent: “Certainly, sir. Where do you particularly fancy?”
Customer: “Oh, I haven’t really thought about it, as long as it’s warm and sunny…”
Agent: “And when were you thinking of going?”
Customer: “I don’t really know, it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s warm and sunny while I’m there…”

Let’s stop it there since we can probably all see that they’re getting nowhere fast which, of course, is his point. So let’s go back to the question about why you are networking:

If your spontaneous answer was to ‘get more business’ or ‘find a job’ maybe now’s a good time to try being more specific and focus on your purpose because “warm and sunny” isn’t likely to get you the outcomes you want.

Linda

Extracted from Opening Doors

Technorati Tags: job, networking, sales

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Selling

For a start it’s much more nebulous – we should never be selling directly to the person we’re networking with. We are exchanging information, experience and help.

Our networking chums may never buy anything from us. But if there is respect for each other and each other’s abilities, we have some kind of common interest and get on well, we don’t know what doors we can open for each other and what the relationship could generate over time.

It’s been said a million or more times yet it’s still good to remember that, in an age when it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between products, services or solutions on offer, people will gravitate to those people they trust and like.

A little point on social behaviour:

Nobody likes the man or woman who eyes us up at networking events to see if we have the word “contacts” writ large on our foreheads whilst looking all over the place to see if they’re missing out on meeting someone better – and then shoves a business card in our hand before moving on to pastures new.

What we do like is meeting someone who takes a genuine interest in us as individuals.

It’s pretty simple, really:

We all need to just remember never to sell to a fellow networker

Linda

Extracted from Opening Doors

Technorati Tags: networking, selling, trust

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It’s easy to think you’re the only person with challenges and problems… especially when something big and surprising, like being made redundant, hits you from nowhere.

That’s why it’s important to stop, take a moment and gather yourself together.

After that it’s about applying yourself.

You may or may not be sure about exploring how to go about Networking in a way that’s fun and gets results for you right now, and investing in our Networking Guide, even if is destined to become part of your armoury for securing your future, might not seem to be your number one priority!

So, for you we’re offering a free guide on how to deal with redundancy that represents the first steps you can take for turning what may seem to be a disaster into a great opportunity.

Believing in yourself and having a focused, determined positive attitude is the best and most important tool you will have for turning this situation to your advantage.

And you’ll get that advice for FREE along with practical ideas on how make that positivity work for you: This is your time to check out your strengths, broaden your scope and recognise or create more opportunities for you and others.

If you’re okay yet know someone you care about who’s been made redundant and needs to work to replace that income stream please send them along here to claim their free download.

And please give us your feedback to the guide!

Linda

Technorati Tags: income, networking, opportunity, Redundancy, work

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Does it work?

Do you think this is weird and maybe, just maybe, not the best medium for this particular message?

A letter arrived today from a member of the local BNI chapter which is obviously on a membership drive, the opening salvo is:

“‘Word of mouth’ marketing is a great way to generate new business. So come and see how your business could get more out of it.” (The sender’s bold type)

This is followed by four paragraphs extolling the benefits of BNI membership – one focuses on the exclusivity and (the personal bit) that they’re “right now seeking a Sales Trainer to refer all this business to”

… and then one saying there’s no obligation beyond the £10 meeting fee which includes breakfast “and a great opportunity to meet local professionals (so bring plenty of cards!)”

At the end the recipient is told that the sender or one of his fellow members will be in contact shortly to “confirm your attendance” (bit pushy that?) and there’s a number to call for more information meantime.

Some years ago this may have been seen as a real ‘opportunity’ and one not to be sneezed at!

Yet think about it for a minute if you will: This is intriguing: Someone who wants to build the business networking group he’s a member of by initially using direct mail rather than human contact? You either ‘bin’ it or investigate, don’t you?

…Couldn’t find him on LinkedIn and he’s been a member for 19 months and has a network of 4, yes you read it right: 4 people, on Ecademy.

A bit more searching reveals that this guy’s main business is web design and SEO marketing yet his website doesn’t have a blog – though he does post articles elsewhere.

So there are now questions on two counts:

• He doesn’t network online anywhere obvious or apparently, by phone with potential contacts if his letter to me is anything to go by, so what kind of networking does this chap feel happy doing and is he any good at it?
• There are already 2 people doing what he does who’d be top of any list for me:

  One I’d recommend because she’s helped me

  And the other I’d refer by reputation

  Each of them appears to be more ‘on the ball’ at what they do for a living than him

He’s going to be asking for a 6.45am start, once a week for a year. Yet there’s not one testimonial or reference from a member to chat to as to the potential value of being part of this group.

His Chapter seems to have taken a well-designed formula and mangled it. Is this a worrying sign of people ‘jumping on the business networking bandwagon’, do you think, or just a ‘blip’ from a well meaning soul?

Linda

Technorati Tags: business networking, direct marketing, word-of-mouth

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Someone I know has a different approach to business networking than most of us and here’s some excerpts from what he’s gone on record as saying:

…“Enthusiasm, a bit of self confidence and an ability to handle a bit of rejection and humiliation – you’d be surprised how far it can take you (or maybe not in this era of reality TV)…

…What I’m saying is with no significant qualifications to my name, no natural gift as an athlete and the attention span of a fruit fly it was unlikely that I was going to be headhunted for anyone’s “fast track” program any time soon, but then again there are few people to match me for knocking on closed doors until one finally opens.

…By the age of twenty-five I knew if I was going to get on I had to find a mechanism that suited me. And find one I did.

People!

People are really nice, people will help you, people will do the most amazing things for you. You just have to get past their outer defences, you just have to find a way for them to like you….

…Imagine all those organised networking events that happen every day in our towns and cities

…Why contribute to the costs of one of those events?…

Network where there doesn’t seem an obvious opportunity

…Do it right and you’ll have made some really great contacts and believe me they’ll remember you, unlike the 50 other people they’ve met, and forgotten, at a speed networking event that morning … ”

Not everyone can (or would want to) network the way this guy does – he approaches people in a way that would have most of us cringing with embarrassment – yet he’s always respectful and non-threatening.

Most of us, though, could easily be a bit more creative than relying on turning up to business networking events to get all the results we’re looking for: We just need to be more open to opportunities: What about travelling, cultural outings or sporting events?

Why not try something different this week? You may find it’s actually a lot closer to ‘easy’ networking than you think!

Linda

Technorati Tags: buainess networking, extreme networking

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It’s not the cold that our “iceberg” represents, it’s the allusion to the fact that 90% of an iceberg is below the water’s surface.

With so many networking platforms, clubs, events, and so on out there and available to people it can be easy to “put business networking hats on” for specific occasions and leave them off the rest of the time.

Yet is that the best way to go about it? Should the networking function (or frame of mind) be put into a slot to be trotted out specifically for an environment that’s labelled “safe for business networking” or “business networking is encouraged here”?

Sometimes the door to new opportunities can be right in front of us yet it won’t be noticed opening if we’re not sharing what we want to achieve with those around us.

Here’s one example of it – this one in propelling an exciting career development – and, if you have your own that this brings to mind, you might want to share your experience:

Some years ago my role as Consultant Telemarketer to a young Institute was becoming same-y. It had been challenging for the first eighteen months yet, with four times the original goal for Founder Members signed up and systems now in place for following up enquiries about all of their courses, the majority of the hard work had been done and anyone with a bit of nous could pick up the reins.

The Institute’s Board members knew this and the MD and one of the Directors each separately suggested a talk with the CEO of a European business to business advertising agency who lectured on their flagship residential diploma course might be worthwhile.

So a phone call followed by CV as requested, a couple meetings over the next months, during which time a project evolved to prepare a presentation of what was developing as a clear role. There was no money involved at this stage yet, as luck would have it (?), a temporary job came along at a company with one tiny, baking room in managed premises (it was one of the hottest summers in the UK on record) to keep the wolves from the door.

Within 6 months I was ensconced in fabulously quirky offices in London’s elegant Bloomsbury district, piloting and refining the questionnaire and recruiting telephone researchers for the agency’s first in-house client telephone survey of 1,000 companies across 3 European countries…

Then followed six glorious (and, as often as not, nail biting) years working directly for that CEO as Group Director of Business Intelligence. Working across the UK with the 2 other agency offices and their clients became the norm and visiting European cities for meetings with clients and as a guest of European partner agencies and having glimpses of those cities from an “insider’s” view was a wonderful bonus.

The point in this story is: I can’t for the life of me see how that career development would have come about through ‘normal’ application channels.

There was nothing in it for the MD of the Institute other than a little bit of lateral thinking to help someone out. He didn’t even make the introduction – just suggested it and allowed his name to be used.

So how about you?

What opportunities could be under your nose or round the corner, just waiting for you to notice them? Or maybe you could put two people together who could trade assets in some way and who wouldn’t otherwise have met?

It’s sometimes good to remember the saying:

“It’s not what you know – it’s who you know”… And, in networking, it’s also who they know.

Do you have a story of your own or somebody you know that you want to share?

Linda

Technorati Tags: business networking, career development

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You know how even big cities can be made up of lots of local communities? Well, it’s much like that round our way – in our case it’s probably just a triangle of streets.

A friend in the triangle, who lives about a couple of hundred metres along our road asked if I could feed her cat for a couple of days over the festive season as she and a closer neighbour, who usually helped out, were going to be away at the same time.

I got a phone call asking if I could help out a bit longer – her car had been stolen and she needed to stay away a bit longer and put the wheels in motion (sorry about the dreadful pun) to get it sorted out.

When she came to collect her spare house keys the evening of her first day back at work – journey by bus for now as no car – she looked absolutely miserable: Cold, wet, shattered…

“Do you want to come in and have a drink?”

We had a good old chat about all sorts of things and, during the course of the evening, the subject turned to work so I told her I’d nearly finished the book I was writing on business networking.  And she said words to the effect: “It’s all about networking.”

We realised then that this was our first ‘1-2-1’ in networking terms – yet we’ve known each other for years – have several mutual friends, been to many of the same parties, I was able to help her out some when she (along with several other locals) was flooded out a few years ago, she’s lent me stuff – all the usual things.

I thought I knew vaguely what she did yet it turned out I didn’t really have the foggiest idea.

She left a couple of hours later with a smile on her face and we’d set a date for me to interview her on networking and its impact on her success in life, to be included as a free bonus in the book’s package.

So here’s the irony

One of the early things the book says is:

“Network the easy way, with people you know”

Right, that’ll be a good idea for me to “practise what you preach” then!

Linda

Technorati Tags: business networking, relationships

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I came across this the other day, why not see what you think…

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Mary Oliver

What do you want to achieve and

Why is that important to you?

• What assets, skills and resources do you already have?

• What additional ones do you have access to or will you need to learn?

• How much are you prepared to invest – Time, effort and money – to achieve the results you want?

Who can help you?

Who can you help?

Think we can help each other? Or fancy a chat to start getting to know each other?

Let’s all talk to each other!

Linda

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, Asset, assets, results, success

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Back again!

Following on from playing and talking to some chums last night after a   l o n g   but good working week – this is back to the goals/ aims bit that my head wasn’t quite up to shooting back the answers on.

So I left it alone for a while and now came back to it this morning.

I was thinking how strange the English language is when exactly the same comment was made by someone on the BBC Breakfast programme I had on quietly in the background – spooky or what?

As it happens, they were talking about apostrophes whereas I was working on another ‘a’ word: How’s this as an acronym, aide memoir or whatever you’d like to call it -

Full

On

Concentration

Unblocks

Stoppages

Bet you any plumber, at the most practical end of the scale, and life coach or management consultant at the other end (think I’ll keep my head down on this)  would ‘get it’ immediately so I think I’ll copyright it straight away…

Got any of your own you’d like to contribute?

Linda

Technorati Tags: Acronym and initialism, words

1 Comment