It’s often been said that “starting is the hardest part” of a project. Well, building your business through networking and word-of-mouth marketing for your business is no exception.
Here are four things you can do to get your program off to a strong start:
1. Don’t be a cave dweller: Get out and meet people!
2. Know how to ask for the referral. Learn and develop specific techniques that will help you hone your ability to ask for the referrals you want.
3. Consciously select at least three business or networking groups to join in the next three months (chambers of commerce, community service groups, trade associations, strong contact networks such as BNI, etc.).
4. Develop a creative incentive to encourage people to send referrals your way (If you’re a music store owner, for example, you might send music tickets to people who refer business to you).
The bottom line is: Get out there and make diverse contacts, be specific in your approach, and help others in creative and enthusiastic ways–so they’ll want to refer you business!
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Networking Education, Networking, Networking Prep, BNI, Marketing/Sales, Referrals, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.2 Responses to “Get Your Networking Program Off the Ground”
Leave a Reply
July 28th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Great advice. To be a productive member of society, we should never let ourselves become stagnant.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
This is great advice not only for new business owners but also for those of us who have been at it for years. It is easy to get distracted or to put it off but networking and developing relationship with others in the community is just too important to let the opportunities slip by.
Part of knowing how to ask for a referral is establishing some goals or targets for each networking event. If you go to an event with the mindset that you are looking to meet an attorney, you will be surprised at how many attorneys you will come into contact with. Also it make the event fun if you can make a game out of it.