I just finished a survey of more than 12,000 businesspeople from all around the world on the subject of networking. One of the questions we asked the respondents was “Which of the following is most important to you when referring business to others?” The choices were:
Knowing a person’s character.
Knowing a person’s level of competency.
Using the person’s product or service myself.
Knowing a person’s success.
Not surprisingly, “knowing a person’s character” ranked No. 1 in the survey. Interestingly, “using the product or service myself” ranked third out of the four choices! This is important to understand when building your own personal network of people referring you because it shows that people are definitely looking at more than just the quality of your products and services when they think about referring you to other people.
Often, we think that the best source of referrals must be our clients, customers or patients. Although they definitely are a good source, they are not our only source. In fact, based on this survey, personally using and experiencing another person’s product or services before referring business to that person was not as important to the respondents as other factors.
What this means to you is–you need to build your credibility with people who know you (whether they’ve used your business or not). If people trust your character and competency, they are likely to refer you regardless of whether they’ve actually used your products or services.
This is an important paradigm shift for many people. It means that many of your referrals may actually come from people other than your clients–if you learn how to network effectively.
Last week I promised I’d write a blog this week continuing the discussion on building networking skills. So, as promised, in this blog I’ll be explaining a little bit about a few things you should do once you’ve given some thought to your networking strengths and weaknesses.
As you read through these tips, think about ways you can develop these ideas into a networking strategy that makes the most of your strengths and helps you work on your weaknesses.
1. Become the host.
Whether you’ve scored yourself strongly in the area of being naturally outgoing or not, it will serve you well to volunteer to be an ambassador or visitor host for a local business networking event because it makes the networking process markedly easier–especially for those who consider themselves a bit introverted.
When you’re the host, your purpose is to make sure everybody is comfortable and you’re too busy fulfilling that purpose to stand by yourself in the corner, worrying about how much you hate meeting new people. Try it! You’ll find it much easier to meet and talk to new people.
2. Build your social capital at your desk
Thanks to technology’s continuing advances, you can also network without ever leaving your desk–online networking is an effective way to connect with potential clients and referral sources, and it can help you get more used to making connections and networking. This is one opportunity that absolutely everyone should utilize.
Keep in mind that it’s usually better to use online networking with people only after you’ve established a relationship with them by traditional means. To develop trust, respect and true friendship, it’s hard to beat in-person conversation and the occasional handshake or pat on the shoulder.
3. Offer advice to break the ice
Even if you haven’t had much practice networking, you’ll be great at breaking the ice in person or online by offering some free professional advice. Everybody wants to connect with people who can provide value to them. By offering knowledge that people can use, you make yourself a valuable connection.
For example, if you’re a marketing consultant, give your fellow networkers a couple of ideas on how they can increase the exposure of their business. Don’t go overboard; maybe share a technique you read in a magazine or tried with one of your clients. When it comes to building rapport and trust, few things do it better than solid, helpful information provided out of genuine concern for the other person.
4. Become a trusted source for quality referrals and contacts
One way to ease into networking is to provide a referral or contact. This could be a direct referral (someone you know who’s in the market for another person’s services) or a solid contact (someone who might be helpful down the road).
If you’re not sure what will come of the contact, simply state that right upfront, but then follow it up by saying that you think the connection could be helpful and briefly describe how. Doing this when networking is a great way to establish yourself as a great referral source.
Use these tips to help you start developing a networking strategy that plays up your strengths and lets you work on your weaknesses. Feel free to come back and comment about your ideas and/or experiences.
Social capital works for everybody, not just people who set out purposefully to become networkers. A colleague of mine works in a profession–writing and editing–that entails a minimum of day-to-day interaction with others. He handles a limited number of projects, usually no more than two or three books at a time, and works long hours and days in isolation. He surfaces occasionally to communicate with an author or publisher about details. You might say he works in a cave with only a few air holes.
How does a cave dweller build social capital? This particular editor, feeling the isolation, crawled out of his cave one day and went looking for company. He joined a small band of writers forming a professional organization. Energized, he joined their efforts to build the organization, attract new members, publish a newsletter, schedule presentations and speakers, arrange conferences with editors and agents, and even throw a few parties to lure other writers out of their caves. All of this work was done by volunteers who got a kick out of building a service organization that would help writers network with one another and achieve success.
The organization grew and became the largest writers’ networking organization in the nation. While this was happening, my friend the editor made several new friends among the organization’s founding members. One of them told him of a job opening that turned into a 12-year-long salaried position; this gave him the steady income he needed to support his family. Another friend, a low-volume publisher of high-quality books, gave him several editing projects and, after his salaried job ended, gave him a full schedule of freelance work.
Many of the authors this publisher referred to the editor returned again and again with other projects for other publishers. One of these writers was . . . me, author of more than a dozen books, most of which I have worked on with the same cave-dwelling editor.
Although the editor didn’t know it when he began this low-key form of networking, he was building social capital when he thought he was only having fun. Over the years, the interest on this social capital began flowing back to him in many different forms, with no direct connection to the benefits he had helped provide to other writers.
As you can see, venturing out of your cave can bring invaluable gains in social capital. It’s well worth the effort, especially if the nature of your job finds you working mostly alone. Follow the lead of my editor friend, and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
You’ve heard of financial capital, but do you know about social capital?
Financial capital is the material wealth, whether money or property, that is accumulated by individuals and businesses and used, or available for use, in the production of more wealth. This is the standard definition in economics.
Social capital is the accumulation of resources developed in the course of social interactions, especially through personal and professional networks. These resources include ideas, knowledge, information, opportunities, contacts and, of course, referrals. They also include trust, confidence, friendship, good deeds and goodwill.
Like financial capital, social capital is accumulated by individuals and businesses, and is used in the production of wealth. Unlike financial capital, social capital is intangible; but it’s every bit as real as financial capital. Although it is difficult or impossible to measure precisely, it can be even more powerful than financial capital in terms of eventual return on investment.
Social capital is built by design, not by chance. According to Wayne Baker, author of Achieving Success Through Social Capital:
Studies show that lucky people increase their chances of being in the right place at the right time by building a “spider web structure” of relationships that catch information . . . Success is social: All the ingredients of success that we customarily think of as individual–talent, intelligence, education, effort and luck–are intertwined with networks.
Thus, a key way that social capital is acquired is through the process of networking. Successful networking is all about building and maintaining solid professional relationships. The trouble is that we don’t live as they did on Little House on the Prairie anymore, so we no longer have these natural community-like business relationships. Many people hardly know their own neighbors, let alone the businesspeople who run the shops and stores down at the local strip mall. Yet, more than ever, networking is critical for an individual’s success in business.
Do you have balance in your life? Personal and professional balance in our lives seems to be the ever-elusive dream for many of us. Trying to balance home, work, health, spirituality and free time seems almost impossible. It is something that businesspeople have told me for years.
Well, I am pleased to tell you that I believe I’ve found the answer to creating balance in your life. Are you ready? Write this down. Here it is: Forget about balance, you’ll never have it!
I can hear you now . . . “What?! No balance?!? That can’t be! It’s just not right!” But wait . . . there IS good news. Although I don’t think balance is possible, I do believe you can create harmony in your life. This differentiation is more than just semantics. It is a critical approach to looking at life that can free you up to see the world in a different way.
“Balance” assumes that we spend an equal amount of time in all or most areas of our life. It is like the image of the scales (see the picture at right) where everything is completely in balance and equal. It assumes that we must spend a certain portion of each week devoted in some equal measure to every item important in our life.
Well, the problem with that is that almost no one can really achieve that. Especially entrepreneurs, professionals and salespeople. We tend to live such hectic, busy lives that it is incredibly difficult to fit it all in. Women often tell me that this issue is an even bigger problem for them.
So what do we do about this? For me, it’s about creating harmony. Just look at the image representing harmony in this blog (see the yin yang symbol at right). Even the image is lopsided when you look at one aspect at a time. But it is the whole that feels complete. This is a way to look at the issue that has personally worked for me. Sometimes I work crazy, long hours for several days in a row. Or I may be on the road traveling for business for many days at a time. On the other hand, I am a husband and a father. I need and want to be there for my family as well as have time for myself. Long ago I figured out that daily balance is almost impossible. But I found I could create harmony using a few core principles.
First, three simple words make a big difference to me: “Be here now.” Wherever you are, be there. If you are at work, don’t think about the time you did not spend with the family the night before or what you should be doing with you significant other right now. When you are at home, don’t think about the work you have to do at the office. Wherever you are, be there . . . fully and completely.
Second, make sure to set aside time to do all the things that are truly important in your life. Yeah, I know everyone says that, but here’s my twist: Be creative about how you manage this. For example, when I wrote my first book I didn’t want to be holed up in my office writing in the evening and not be available to my family. I found a creative way to find that time that was in harmony with my family time. A few evenings a month, I’d stay up with the family, put everyone to bed and then go into my office and start writing at 11 p.m. and work almost all night on my manuscript. I’d catch a few hours of sleep and get into the office a little late to start my day. I’m a late-night person and this worked for me. It may not work for you. However, my point is to be creative and inventive in finding ways YOU can accomplish what you need to do, yet still allow yourself to spend time doing the other things in your life that bring you harmony. Nothing pleased me more than when I showed my children the book when it was published and they said to me . . . “When did you write that?!” They had no idea I was up late working several times a month. That was harmony to me!
Third, find ways to integrate various elements of your life. For many years, I have spent weeks at a time up at my lake home in the mountains. Each year, I spend a week or two working from the lake house remotely. Now I bring up my staff and management team for short retreat/workdays. It is a great way to combine my work life into a leisure environment. Then, the last week or so, I take off COMPLETELY and spend time with my family. By integrating my two worlds, I create a sense of harmony.
Last, remember this: when you are 70 years old, you are not going to wish you spent more time at the office. You don’t need to be a workaholic to be successful.
Focus on creating harmony in your life. Be creative. Don’t try to do the things I do or that someone else does. Find ideas that work for you and the life you live. Make the time to do the things that are important to you and be innovative. Harmony is created where harmony is sought. OK, that’s a bit “new age” sounding . . . but it is true.
I’m very interested to hear what you think of this approach and/or what do you do to create balance in your life. Leave a comment and let me, and others reading this blog, know what has worked for you.
A few weeks ago I received a message from a BNI director in the U.S. It read:
“Ivan, I am working on a chapter kickoff in South Dakota. I had a salesman named Bill sit through the whole meeting then not get up to leave when I ended it. He sat there gazing into space. Bill is a 30-year veteran in the sales business. I asked if I could help. He said ‘you know this whole networking thing will never work if I am here for myself. I need to take off my bib and put on my apron and learn to serve these people.’ Now that’s a Givers Gain® aha moment.”
There’s not much I can add to that sentiment. Truly effective networking is about taking off your bib and putting on your apron. It is about helping other people succeed. Through the activities that go along with that process, you build your business and also prosper.
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.
If you want to create meaningful relationships and maximize your networking efforts, read below for three pitfalls that you must avoid in order to be an effective networker.
Delusion No. 1: You should always get a referral when you’re in front of the referral source.
If your strategy requires you to be present in order to get a referral, you’re putting severe limits on your potential business. Referrals happen when you’re in front of the referral source only if your system is dependent on your asking for the referral and getting it at the same time.
In a strong, fully functional referral system, most of the referral process is going to happen when you are not present. You don’t want the system to shut down when you’re not there; you want your referral partners to be out looking for opportunities to refer you at all times. You want them to be in the habit of recognizing good opportunities for you and persuading prospects to contact you. If they don’t think of you when you’re out of their sight, you haven’t done a good job of training your clients or selling yourself to your referral partners–which probably means you haven’t been doing them much good, either.
You should make it your job to equip your referral partners with information about you that can be easily communicated to prospects. You should be making sure they’re motivated to refer you when you’re not around. And you should have a tracking system that can tell you what happened when you weren’t there in person.
Delusion No. 2: To maximize your chances of getting good referrals, it’s best to move from one networking group to another at regular intervals.
This is called “scorched-earth” networking, and it’s about as friendly as it sounds. The scorched-earth networker burns and pillages for new business. He’s a hunter at business meetings, more interested in bagging the big sale than in building relationships and helping others. He does everything we say not to do if you want to build your business through referrals. He represents the absolute worst in networking.
The scorched-earth networker is constantly dissatisfied with the quantity and quality of the referrals he’s getting, so he moves on. He flits from one networking group to another, doesn’t establish any roots or relationships, networks relentlessly with everyone he meets (often inappropriately), believes that being highly visible is the key to referral success, and expects referrals from others even though he has done nothing that would make anyone else want to help him.
Serious networkers understand that, in order to build mature, healthy and mutually profitable relationships, they must devote a lot of time and effort to growing those relationships. Have you heard the old saying, “Time equals money?” This is never truer than when it comes to membership in a referral-networking group. The longer you are committed to building the relationships, the greater the results you will experience.
Delusion No. 3: Your best source of referrals is your customers. The reason people sometimes fall into this delusion is that they’ve been trained to believe it and have never pursued any other source of referrals. The only referrals they’ve ever received are from customers.
Don’t get me wrong: Customers and clients can be a good source of referrals; we know that. However, many businesses (especially big corporations) are out of touch with the fact that other referral sources are available that can be extraordinarily powerful. Clients, although often the most readily available sources, are not necessarily the best or steadiest sources of high-quality referrals. The best sources in the long run are likely to be the people you refer business to. When you help another businessperson build his or her business, you’re cultivating a long-term relationship with someone who’s motivated to return the favor by bringing business to you, who shares your target market and who will work systematically with you for mutual benefit.
Whether you’re a master networker or you’re new to networking, we all face challenging situations at times, and sometimes we need to rely on the help and encouragement of others.
I’m a big believer in learning to rely on the people who respect, admire and love you. Theirs are the purest motives for helping you. They are genuinely interested in you, mostly accept you as you are and will usually do whatever they can to help you achieve any goal. They may not have all the knowledge or information you need or the ability to bring you new clients, but if you direct their willing efforts, they can give you emotional, spiritual, physical or financial support.
The gift of time can be a valuable resource. Members of your network’s support component can help you at crucial times in your business. They can perform essential tasks, lend you money, encourage you, work for you, help you deal with an emergency, serve as a sounding board for your ideas, even fill in for you for a couple of hours. To make the most of this resource, learn about the talents, knowledge, and contacts these friends and supporters have to offer.
CATEGORIZE YOUR SUPPORT NETWORK MEMBERS
1. YOUR MENTORS
People who are or have been your mentors genuinely believe in you, care about you and your success, and can be counted on for honest feedback and encouragement.
2. PEOPLE YOU HAVE TAUGHT OR MENTORED
These people are usually excited to hear from you and will remind you of how much they appreciate your support. They also open doors to business opportunities by constantly spreading positive word of mouth about you.
3. PEOPLE YOU HAVE HELPED
People remember people who have done something for them. Can you identify people to whom you have donated money, time or other gifts? Most will go out of their way to support you.
4. YOUR CO-WORKERS, COLLEAGUES, ASSOCIATES AND CLASSMATES
Friends you have made in the course of your schooling and career are often friends for life. You know, like and respect each other. Of course, you may be reluctant to call upon a friend for help because you don’t want to admit you need it. But don’t let your ego get in the way; use these sources. A true friend will be eager to help and will not think any less of you, nor make you feel diminished for asking.
5. YOUR FAMILY AND CLOSE FRIENDS
You may take your family and personal friends for granted, but they are perhaps your most reliable source of support. Don’t ignore them. Keep in mind, however, that some may be more reliable than others.
6. OTHER MEMBERS OF NONBUSINESS GROUPS
People you have worked with outside of business–members of neighborhood watch groups, apartment associations, community youth programs–may be willing to support you in activities outside the group’s normal scope. Join, participate, donate generously of your time, and let others help you in your endeavors.
7. YOUR FORMER MANAGERS, SUPERVISORS AND INSTRUCTORS
These people are often familiar with your work habits, ethics, values, character abilities and interests. They know what it takes to get you to perform at your highest level. Often, like surrogate parents, they feel responsible for your success. Should you take advantage of this parental instinct? Of course!
8. YOUR CHURCH LEADERS, MEMBERS AND GROUPS
If you belong to a religious organization, you are bonded to others through a shared faith. It would be a mistake not to seek the backing of your church leaders and other members. If on occasion you need them, don’t hesitate to use the church’s support services and groups.
Whenever I turn on the news these days, it seems the media are pushing all of us to embrace a scarcity mentality. Embracing a scarcity mentality, however, will get you nowhere; there couldn’t be anything more pointless and counterproductive than to let your thoughts focus on lack and worry.
Because of this, I’d like to explain a much more valuable concept–the concept of AQ (Abundance Intelligence™) which my good friend Kim George introduced in her 2006 book Coaching into Greatness: 4 Steps to Success in Business and Life.AQ is different from IQ (intelligence quotient) in that we measure a person’s ability to perform at his or her optimal level consistently and authentically.
AQ measures masterful people by their prevalence of abundance aptitudes, patterns and beliefs.Successful people of all types have a high AQ. They believe there’s more than enough to go around and that the proverbial glass is not only half full but overflowing. They accept that life is not always easy and doesn’t always follow the straight and convenient path, but they don’t fight changes in the world or the economy. Instead, they adapt to those changes.
Based on Kim’s in-depth work with hundreds of business owners, here are seven key aptitudes you should adopt to gain a high abundance intelligence and resist being bogged down by a scarcity mentality:
1. Self-worth. Abundant people understand their uniqueness and how they add value to their customers, their networking partners and others in their lives.
2. Empathy. Abundant people do their best to understand and serve their customers in any given situation, and they sustain themselves through tough times by networking with supportive friends who are able to provide reciprocal support empathically .
3. Self-expression. Abundant people are convinced that they are the best with whom to do business and they retain a professional posture of sticking to their personal standards, which pulls people to them.
4. Actualization. Abundunt people don’t sit on the sidelines waiting for things to happen. They take action consistent with their skills and talents. They accept responsibility for their actions and don’t blame others for shortcomings. If they face a barrier, they ask for help and support to find an acceptable solution for all sides. They comfortably give and receive.
5. Significance. Abundant people are confident about their uniqueness, knowing they are the best person for a particular job. They demonstrate self-confidence when asking for business, building their social capital and following up.
6. Surrender. Abundant people don’t view surrender as a form of weakness, rather a sign of letting go of old habits, attitudes and behaviors that don’t serve them in a healthy way. They see potential opportunity in everything that passes by.
7. Inquiry. High Abundance Intelligence means high openness to other points of view. Uncertainty is a reason to thrive and be curious. Security in their curious and creative aptitude enables abundant people to move through all challenging situations. Learning while acting keeps them growing and improving while being pioneers in their industry.
Work the above characteristics into your own persona. Each of these abundant aptitudes contributes to purposeful actions and a well-defined goal orientation to the effort. Instead of being derailed by worrying about the past or the future, you will find inspiration and forward momentum in your immediate surroundings.
Membership in a good networking group can be worth a considerable amount of money. Especially if you calculate the time you spend each month and the business value of your time. Make your time and efforts worthwhile. Don’t squander your opportunity by doing the wrong things in those meetings!
Success in a networking group comes when the rest of the group members trust you enough to open up their best referrals to you. Until they’ve seen your work, you have to earn that trust by demonstrating your professionalism to them. Since I founded BNI almost 25 years ago, I’ve seen how people have truly succeeded in networks–and I’ve seen how people have totally wasted their time in them.
Here are the top 10 ways to waste your time in a networking group (avoid all of them):
No. 10. Go ahead, air your grievances among your fellow networkers and guests; after all, they really want to hear about your complaints.
No. 9. Wing it in your 60-second presentations; you’ve got plenty more chances anyway.
No. 8. Use one-to-one meetings to talk about your networking group’s issues instead of learning a lot more about each other.
No. 7. Focus your efforts on selling your services primarily to the members of the group.
No. 6. Don’t rush following up on a member’s referral. They know where you are.
No. 5. Use others’ 60-second presentation time to think about what referrals you can give that week.
No. 4. Why invite your own guests? Just focus on those who show up.
No. 3. Don’t worry if you get to the meeting late. No one will notice.
No. 2. Be absent; it’s no big deal. You can just call in your referrals . . . right?
And the No. 1 way to waste your time in networking groups . . .
No. 1. It’s OK, take that phone call or text message during a meeting. It won’t bother anyone, and it’s a real sign of professionalism that everyone admires.
So there it is–The Top 10 Ways to Waste Your Time in a Networking Group!Print this out. Memorize it. Share it with your fellow networking members. Above all–avoid these mistakes! You’ll get a lot more out of your group and so will your fellow members.
I’d love to hear some more ways that are big time wasters in a networking group. Please leave your comments below. Let’s add to this list.
Oh, and to visit a good networking group in your area, feel free to Click here.
Recently, when visiting our favorite Napa Valley winery, Chateau Montelena, my wife and I decided to take a tour of the agricultural side of the operation. The vintner shared with us the technique the winery uses to ensure the quality of the juice from the grapes year after year after year regardless of the climate–a technique known as “dry farming.”
As he explained the benefits of dry farming, I began to see a business metaphor emerging for how referral marketing works for those businesses that understand doing business by referral.
When vineyards are dry farmed, they are not irrigated, dry season or rainy. As a result, the roots of the vines must grow deep to get to the year-round underground supply of water, no matter the climate. This reminds me of how we teach business owners to develop deep-water relationships between themselves so that they can support growth no matter the climate–the economic climate.
Doing business by referral truly is not about getting rich quick. We want to be able to produce a bumper crop of referrals year after year after year regardless of the climate.
That is the gift of dry farming: the stability of the juice’s quality. Just like the dependability of Chateau Montelena’s wine, we feel that deep-water relationships ensure a dependability in our own business stability unavailable to the average business owner.
There is another metaphor from nature that helps to illustrate the strength of doing business by referral–that is the story of the giant redwood trees in Northern California.
The giant redwoods average a height of 85 meters or 250 feet! You’d think that with such an amazing height they would also have a deep, deep root system. But they don’t. They actually have a fairly shallow root system, much like our California eucalyptus trees. The California eucalyptus trees tend to blow over easily in heavy winds, but not the giant redwoods.
You see, the giant redwoods also use an amazing technique to remain upright when those around them fall. They intertwine their roots with the roots of their neighbor, thereby supporting one another when the winds come. When one is under the direct pressure of the wind, the others help to hold it in place, not allowing it to succumb to the destructive forces of that wind.
Relationship marketing puts you in a similar position as those giant redwoods. When you learn the intricacies of doing business by referral, you begin to metaphorically intertwine your roots with the roots of those with whom you are networking. When the economy pressures one member, the others help hold him in place!
This is why networking and relationship marketing are so important–especially in a tough economy.