Networking Now:

When I ask people what they think the No. 1 trait of a master networker is, most people think it’s that master networkers, above all,  give referrals to others.

However, according to a survey of more than 2,000 businesspeople from four countries that was published in Masters of Networking, a book I co-wrote with Don Morgan, the No. 1 trait of master networkers is that they follow up on the referrals they are given. “Giving referrals” didn’t even make the top five!

The reason for this top ranking is that if you present opportunities to someone who consistently fails to follow up successfully–whether it’s a simple piece of information, a special contact or a qualified business referral–it’s no secret that you’ll eventually stop wasting your time on that person.  He’s an embarrassment to you as the referral giver and to the prospect, who ends up wondering if he did something wrong.

So if you strive to be a master networker, always remember: When it comes to business referrals, following up is not an option; it’s a life-or-death requirement.

Curious what the survey revealed to be the remaining top five characteristics of a master networker?  Come back next week to find out!

Rather than receiving a finder’s fee, for most referral sources  it is more important to be recognized as a person who can direct others to the goods and services provided by skilled, highly competent, trustworthy people.

Over the years I’ve witnessed time and again that most people will do more for simple recognition than for money. However, for those who expect a finder’s fee, this is a good thing to know in advance if you want to keep the relationship healthy, active and profitable.

You will find that different motivators will inspire different members of your referral team, and this is a matter in which understanding the various behavioral styles of people can be helpful.

People who are embarrassed by being in the spotlight, even for accolades and applause, might prefer their rewards low-key and private–perhaps a simple thank you or an evening cruise on your boat if you are a boat owner.  Those who like public recognition might prefer seeing their name showcased on your bulletin board.  Still others may be more highly motivated by an inexpensive but thoughtful gift than by a more substantial cash reward–a bottle of wine from a winery near their hometown or a coffee table book about their favorite travel destination.

The point is, simple recognition really resonates with most people and, more often than not, simply recognizing people in the way they prefer to be recognized is a far better reward and incentive for them to refer you to others than offering them a cash finder’s fee.

If you’re in the habit of recognizing people as a way of thanking them for referrals, please leave a comment about what’s worked for you and even what hasn’t.  Then check back next week to read my story about a way in which someone recognized me that kept me motivated to refer that person over and over again!

We all know that businesses grow through lasting relationships. There’s a book called Businesses Relationships That Last that gives some very simple, yet powerful advice on how to think about and build relationships that last.

The author of the book is  a colleague of mine named Ed Wallace, who has more than 25 years of experience being a No. 1 sales producer and vice president of business development for a firm that grew from $1 million to more than $120 million in revenue.  After achieving such significant success over the course of his career, he has concluded that creating outstanding relationships is, hands down, the true secret to success and Business Relationships That Last clearly and simply illustrates Ed’s proven, relationship-building principles.

The book outlines five steps to transform contacts into high-performing relationships and uses some pretty interesting real-life stories, examples and insights gathered from Ed’s success as a sales leader.  It’s a step-by-step program specifically designed to advance business relationships and, in my opinion, it’s a book that every serious networker should add to his or her library.

To find out more about Business Relationships That Last or to purchase the book, CLICK HERE.

OK, wait, let me rephrase that . . . ask me any business networking question–not just any question. If you’re thinking along the lines of embarrassing moments and possible blackmail material, then you’re out of luck on this one ( Sorry, I’ve still got disclaimers on the brain after my blog about the legal system! )

Anyway, I’m happy to announce that AskIvanMisner.com is now live, and this is your chance to ask me any question you have about how to build your personal and professional network.

On the third Tuesday of each month, beginning on Nov. 17 (10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern), I’ll be conducting a FREE, live teleseminar, co-hosted by my friend Alex Mandossian, where I’ll answer a handful of questions selected from those submitted on AskIvanMisner.com.

I’m encouraging anyone and everyone to log on and submit a question for me. You’ll be given the call-in number once you’ve submitted your question, and it’s perfectly fine with me if you invite any of your friends and/or business colleagues to join the FREE calls as well.

I’m looking forward to reading your questions, so log onto AskIvanMisner.com now and ask away!

Over the years, I’ve run into countless people who believe that joining groups and organizations and becoming active by volunteering, taking on responsibilities and working side-by-side with other people on a common goal will cause people to get to know them and refer business to them.  However, this is not how things work.

Granted, it’s easy to think that if you rub elbows with someone long enough he or she will spontaneously start sending you business opportunities. But that’s really nothing more than an entitlement mentality.

Getting referrals usually takes three things: visibility, credibility and profitability.  Ordinary participation in an organization, even a strong-contact referral group, will get you visibility and perhaps some credibility; it won’t automatically get you profitability.  That takes a much more focused approach, along with some explicit talk about the kinds of referrals you want.

By nature, referral relationships are rewarding and valuable when they are created purposefully and by design. If you are assuming that the idea of giving you referrals is going to pop into someone’s head spontaneously if you hang around long enough, you are definitely misunderstanding what a referral relationship is supposed to be.

Woody Allen once said that “90 percent of success is just showing up,” but he wasn’t talking about referral marketing.  “Just showing up” will get you a seat at the table, but you have to pass the food to others and snag your own steak whenever it comes around.  It’s not “netsit” or “neteat“–it’s network!“  If you want to build your business through referrals, you have to learn how to deliberately work the networks to which you belong.

You see, participating in a group is one thing; performing is another.  To get referrals, you have to perform.  If you don’t perform–talk specifics about your business, your specialties and your ideal referral, and refer business to others in your group–how are they going to know what you do and what you need?  You have to take specific actions to let people know how they can refer business to you.  Being a good citizen is the right thing to do, but it’s not enough to get you the referrals you need to run your business by word-of-mouth marketing–you need to actively feed and water your referral relationships, so to speak, in order to significantly grow your business through referrals.

My good friend Susan RoAne recently joined me as a fellow member of the iLearningGlobal.tv faculty and, as I was talking to her about the content she plans to contribute to the iLearningGlobal.tv website, I was suddenly struck with the memory of a great section from her book, How to Work a Room, which talks about casual conversation when networking.

If you have a chance to read the book, I highly recommend it because there are tons of great networking tips throughout the entire book. Not only will you get a great education on networking, you’ll be laughing from beginning to end. That’s one thing anyone who has met Susan knows about her–she’s hilarious!

However, since my blog isn’t supposed to be about my friend Susan’s witty sense of humor (Maybe I’ll start a blog devoted to that later . . . kidding, Susan! ) and it IS supposed to be about helping you become a better networker, I’ll go ahead and let the excerpt from How to Work a Room which I’ve been alluding to tell you about the five laws and five flaws of conversation:

Five Fundamental Laws of Casual Conversation

• Be a conversational chameleon. Adapt conversation to the individual by age, interest, profession.
• Be a name dropper. Always mention the names of people or places you could have in common.
• Borrow other people’s lives. Share the stories, comments and quips of your friends who have kids, have websites, are tai kwon do students, are Xtreme athletes, have opera tickets–even if you don’t.
• Be a two-timer. Give people a second chance.
• Be nice to everyone. Don’t judge tomorrow’s book by today’s cover.

Fatal Flaws of Casual Conversation

• Being unprepared by not reading papers, trade journals and information sources
• Controlling conversations by asking a barrage of questions, no matter how open-ended, or telling a nonstop series of jokes
• Complaining (kvetching); bragging
• One-upping/competing, interrupting, not listening, slinging put-downs
• Offering unsolicited feedback

It’s no secret that a master networker has two ears and one mouth and uses them proportionally. But even if you think you’re a good listener, you may be surprised at how much you might still be lacking when it comes to listening effectively.

My good friend Mark Goulston’s new book, Just Listen, will not only teach you how to make a powerful and positive first impression by listening effectively, it will even show you how to turn the “impossible” and “unreachable” people in your life into allies, devoted customers, loyal colleagues and lifetime friends.

The point is, if you want to maximize your networking efforts and build the strongest network possible, the skill of truly listening is crucial for you to develop; and Just Listen is the ultimate, must-read guide that you need to get your hands on.

Mark is a bestselling author, a psychiatrist, a business consultant, an executive coach and a hostage-negotiation trainer for the FBI. Over the span of his career in these fields, he has found what consistently works to reach all kinds of people in any situation. Any guesses as to what he’s found one of the most powerfully effective strategies for getting through to anyone might be? . . . Yep, you got it! . . . LISTENING!

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who could teach you how to listen more effectively than Mark, and I can guarantee you that you won’t have a problem focusing on reading his book (”listening” to his words as you read) because he’s not only a pretty darn interesting guy, he’s also remarkably entertaining!

CLICK HERE to visit Mark’s website

CLICK HERE to find out more about Just Listen.

Read reviews and purchase Just Listen on Amazon.com

Read reviews and purchase Just Listen on Barnes&Noble.com

My last blog, “Get Engaged,” brings up the point that dialogue about you and your business is going to happen with or without you. Whether it’s online or face-to-face dialogue, the basic point is that if you don’t participate in the conversation, you’re not in control whatsoever; if you do participate, then you can publicly say who you are and steer the conversation in a positive way.

If you’re interested in learning about this topic in more detail, I’d like to invite you to attend a free telebridge call that I’ll be hosting this Friday, Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. (U.S. Pacific Time); 1 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Time).

The topic of the call will be “People are talking about you . . . are you in the conversation?” and you can participate in the call by dialing 712-451-6150 at the above listed date and time. Be sure to use the access code: 585143# (don’t forget the # sign).

This is going to be a great call and I’d love for you to join the conversation and then come back and leave a comment about what you thought!

Get engaged in the conversation, that is! OK, OK . . . now that I have your attention, let me explain.

In my book Truth or Delusion I bring up the point that word-of-mouth marketing is always working, it just may not be working in your favor. Believe it or not, you’re getting word of mouth every day. It just may not be the kind you’re thinking of–the good kind. The thing is, negative word of mouth has legs and the average dissatisfied customer gripes to 11 people about his experience, and these 11 in turn tell five others apiece.

Therefore, you need to get engaged in the networking process and the resulting conversation by formulating a strategic plan to control what’s being said about you. Among other things, this is done by focusing on good customer service to reduce negative word-of-mouth and ensuring that your marketing message is conveyed accurately so your prospects know what to expect.

It’s especially important to be engaged in the conversation when it comes to online networking. Take the headline of this blog, for example. Say somebody were to see it, not read the rest of the blog, and then begin posting comments on blogs and social networking sites all over the web claiming that “Ivan Misner has a new blog urging people everywhere to get married!”

You may be laughing, but occurrences like I just described happen all the time. And guess what? If you’re one of those people who refuses to get involved in “that online/social networking stuff,” then you aren’t engaged in the conversations that are being had about you online. And when somebody says something negative or incorrect about you or your business, you can’t redirect the conversation in a positive direction to save face or correct what’s been wrongly stated about you.

Whether networking online or face-to-face, the dialogue is going to happen with or without you. The basic point is, if you don’t participate in the conversation, you’re not in control whatsoever. If you do participate, then you can publicly say who you are and steer the conversation in a positive way.

Check out this recent blog entry by my friend Dave Goetz, “They are Laughing at You.” It’s a perfect illustration of everything I’ve talked about in this blog and it tells a GREAT story about a college professor who refused to engage his students in any way as he endlessly lectured to them for hours. It’s no surprise that the students found a way to engage each other in conversation during class but the professor lost all control of what topics were being focused on as well as what was being said . . . Like I said, the dialogue will happen with or without you.

People often think that networking is all about talking business and exchanging cards, but that’s a definite misconception.

In a networking group, you should talk about more than just business. A referral relationship is more than just, “I do business, you do business, let’s do business.” A much better approach is to find common ground on a personal level, then relate your business to it.

The longer I’ve been involved in networking, the more I’ve seen the power of personal interests in making connections. Networking is about building personal relationships. If you remove the personal from the equation, you limit the amount of business that can happen.

In one networking group I worked with, I introduced an exercise called the GAINS Exchange, in which people share personal and professional information about themselves. Two of the participants in this group had known each other for more than a year but had never done business. During the exercise, they discovered they both coached their sons’ soccer teams. They quickly became close friends and were soon helping each other conduct soccer practices. After a few months, they began referring business to each other–two guys who had barely spoken to each other the first year because they seemed to have so little in common.

By finding a common interest and starting with that, we can make connections that have a very good chance of turning into business. Try this strategy out for a while and then come back and leave a comment to let me know what your experiences have been–I’d love to hear about them!

I had a conversation with an associate recently who was surprised that she’d gotten flack from a referral source for taking five days to follow up with a prospect that the referral source had referred to her. My associate explained to me that she doesn’t like to follow up with prospects for four or five days because she doesn’t want the prospect to feel like she’s too eager. I told my associate that I strongly disagree with her follow-up strategy and my reasons why are outlined in the following paragraphs . . .

When building relationships, it’s always important not to let much time lapse without following up the first contact. Within seventy-two hours, send your prospect a note expressing your pleasure in communicating with her. It’s still too early, though, to send business literature or make any move toward sales promotion.

Follow up early, but don’t push beyond the prospect’s comfort level. Once the prospect has expressed an interest in your products or services, provide information about them, but don’t force it on her. Continue presenting your products or services, but avoid the hard sell. Focus on fulfilling her needs and interests. Your goal should be to keep your prospect aware of your business without annoying her.

Remember, to secure the long-term loyalty of your prospect and convert her into a customer, you must first build a relationship, and that relationship must develop through the visibility, credibility and profitability stages. It may take a while, but if you’ve selected and briefed your sources well, you’ll speed up the process.

Always, always, always remember to follow up with people, in any situation, at the very least within seventy-two hours. There’s a reason people commonly say that the fortune is in the follow up . . . when you follow up quickly with people, your reputation will benefit, your business will benefit, and eventually your pocketbook will benefit as well.

Networks are coalitions of business professionals who, through a mutual support system, help each other do more business. Notable networking, when done right, is anything but superficial. On the contrary, it benefits all parties, not just one. If you want to build a word-of-mouth-based business, it must be based on the concept that givers gain; that is, if you want to get business, you have to give business to other business professionals. I believe the evidence to support this philosophy is overwhelming. People who are willing to give business will get business.

With Notable Networking, many of the people with whom you network may be friends or become friends. The key to building a word-of-mouth-based business is mutual support, relationship building, and the development of lasting professional friendships. Members of a network are there to further their own business by helping each other. By meeting regularly, networks allow business people to get to know each other. It’s through this exposure that people learn more about each other’s businesses and feel comfortable about referring one another.

There is also a network that extends beyond the members of a networking organization. Each member of a network knows dozens of people who, in turn, know dozens of others, and so on. As such, a group of thirty to forty may know thousands of other people throughout the business community. Thus, networks often have a greater impact than their size may initially indicate. This is especially true in tight-knit groups that meet regularly and track the quantity and quality of referrals given.

No matter what networking situation you may find yourself in, always strive to be a notable networker by remembering that the key to building a word-of-mouth-based business is mutual support, relationship building, and the development of lasting professional friendships. Do this and you can’t go wrong.