2. Choose quality business professionals to join your networking group. Don’t take the first person with a pulse and a check.

3. Follow the system! When a system is proven to be successful, there is a reason it works. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

4. Pass quality referrals. The only thing more important than passing a lot of referrals is passing quality referrals. Both are important, but quality must lead the way.  

5. Attendance is key to a group’s success. Networking Groups that have poor attendance always end up having problems down the road. Have you ever gotten a haircut over the phone? Of course not. We’ve learned that you cannot get or give referrals if you don’t show up.  

6. Pick great Leaders! Don’t settle for who’s willing, but select who’s best! Leaders can make or break a group. It happens all the time.  

7. Keep positive people with a solutions-focus attitude in your group. OK, here’s another way to say it—move out the constant whiners! Some people complain as though there were an award for it. Replace them. Find people who focus on building something great rather than complaining as though it were an Olympic event.Seriously, why accept mediocrity when excellence is an option? People, just like water, tend to seek the path of least resistance. The problem is that the path with least resistance may not be the best. If you expect the best from your fellow networking group members, you will get it. If you expect less than the best from your members … you will get it. Expect the best. You’ll get better results, really. 

After all, if following these steps could build BNI into an organization with over 5,000 thriving chapters in more than 36 countries, then I’d say it’s worth giving them a try!!

This story actually begins many years earlier when, as a young boy, I stayed up late watching old Twilight Zone episodes with my mother. There was one in particular that I loved about a little boy named Anthony who had incredible powers and completely controlled a small town. He would do horrible things to people and animals with his mind, and then his family would beg him to send the misshapen or deformed beast to the “cornfields.” As soon as he’d done it, one of the townspeople would inevitably utter the infamous words . . . “It’s a good thing you done that Anthony, it’s a real good thing you done that.” Then everyone would nod their heads in agreement in total fear that Anthony might do it to them next. This made for great science fiction and, because I love science fiction, it stuck in my mind for many years.

Fast forward some 15 years later when I worked as the general manager of a light-manufacturing plant. There, I had the misfortune to work for the absolute worst, most dysfunctional team of people I have ever seen. It was headed up by Sally, the co-owner, whose idea of good management was yelling at everyone who didn’t do what she said–immediately. This woman was Genghis Khan in female form.

As soon as I started the job, I realized it was a horrible mistake and I dreaded coming to work almost every day. Finally, after three months, it happened. “It” being the most surreal experience of my management career. I was in the middle of a meeting with some employees from the production department along with “Ms. Khan” when she went into an absolute tirade, screamed at an employee and then summarily threw the young lady out of her office.

At that moment, one of the horror-stricken production employees remaining in the room looked solemnly at The Khan, nodded, and said . . . “It’s a good thing you done that, Sally, it’s a real good thing you done that.” I couldn’t believe it! It was at that very moment that I thought, “Oh , my God ,  I’m in the Twilight Zone! I’m THERE . . . this is it . . . the cornfields have to be next!! I AM OUT OF HERE!” The very next day I gave my notice.

I have never regretted leaving the company. It was the experience that prompted me to start my own business. Leaving there and starting my own company was the best decision I ever made, and I’ve never looked back (except to chuckle from time to time).

Do you have a Twilight Zone Management experience? If so, please share it with us.

In the book, she names six networking essentials that are not necessarily the ones people might traditionally think of as the keys to networking success, but I think they can be of significant value–especially her advice on equalizing yourself with others. So I’d like to reprint them for you here, and I invite you to leave comments. Here’s Comaford-Lynch’s list:

1. Practice “Palm Up” Networking. When you network, are you giving or grasping? Palm up networking embodies the spirit of service, of giving and wanting nothing in return. When you network “palm down,” you’re grasping for personal gain. Palm up = heart-oriented interaction. Palm down = greedy grasping. Give to others; it’ll all come back to you in time.

2. Exercise Daily Appreciation. Appreciate at least one person daily. Sometimes I do this via e-mail so I can be thorough. And often, to my delight, the recipient will tell me that they are saving the message for when they need a pick-me-up. You can also express appreciation over the phone or in person. Simply tell someone how much you appreciate who they are or what they do–whatever about them moves you. They’ll be flattered, and you’ll feel great.

3. Equalize Yourself with Others. I believe we all have one unit of worth: no more, no less. No one can add to it; no one can take it away. We’re all equal. Just because someone is powerful, rich and famous doesn’t mean they are better than you. Practice equalizing yourself with others. This will enable you to more comfortably interact with others and to reach out to people of all walks of life.

4. Rolodex Dip. This is a fun practice when you want to connect with someone but aren’t sure whom. Flip through your contact database and pick a name. Then think of all the things you like about them. Now call them up to see how they are doing. They’ll be surprised and delighted.

5. Pick a “Sensei of the Day.” Each day I pick a sensei, a teacher. This is someone or something that has taught me a lesson or reminded me of what’s important in life. Your sensei can be a person, a pet, a plant; it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to acknowledge that there is much to learn and you are being offered valuable lessons constantly.

6. Do the Drive-By Schmooze. Parties and conventions–groups of all sorts–are great opportunities to network. But sometimes you’ll be tired, not in the mood or have too many events in one evening (like during the holiday season). This is when you’ll want to use the Drive-By Schmooze. Here’s how:

a. Timebox your networking. Decide that in 30 minutes you’ll do a check-in to determine if you need to stay any longer.

b. Set your goal. Determine the number of new connections you want to establish. Remember, your goal is meaningful connections, not simply contacts.
c. Let your intuition guide you. This may sound flaky, but it works! Stand near the door, in a corner, out of the way. Stop your thoughts. Internally ask to be guided to the people you need to connect with. Then start walking. You’ll be amazed at whom you meet.
d. Connect. You’ll always resonate with someone at an event. When you do, ask questions about them, such as: How did you get started in your field? What’s your ideal customer? We all love to talk about ourselves, and these questions will not only help you form a connection with this person, but will also tell you how to help them.
e. Offer help and follow through. If you can provide help, jot down ideas on the back of their business card, commit to follow up, and then do it. If you’ve had a fruitful conversation and want to take it further, offer to meet for lunch or coffee. People say life is 90 percent about showing up. Nonsense! Life is 90 percent about following through!

For more information on Christine and her bestselling book, Rules for Renegades, please visit: www.RulesForRenegades.com.

Here are George’s “Ten Truths”:

1. Be authentic: Be who you really are. Have an agenda, know why you’re there, what you want and need. Be on your best behavior–but always be yourself.

2. Be in the moment: Please … shut up and listen with your eyes and ears. Ask good questions. Roaming eyes (looking over and around someone) is an instant turnoff. Your task is to understand the other person first.

3. Find a need and fill it: Help someone with his or her child, health or wealth and you will CLICK quickly. Pretend you’re in a contest with the other person to see who can genuinely give, serve and add value first. Always look for the win-win.

4. Follow-up or be forgotten: Attention spans are short these days. Following up demonstrates that you care and helps build the connection. It also will impress people, because 98 percent won’t do it.

5. Give credit and take the blame: This is especially true when you lead a team. Remember that you have a limited amount of time; therefore, quickly rid yourself of toxic people and bloodsuckers–people who drain you of your time, energy and patience.

6. Make others feel significant and/or important: Give sincere compliments. Appropriateness is the key, be it the hair, jewelry, suit, tie, remarks, accomplishments, ideas, etc. Remember, insincerity is the highest form of B.S.

7. Don’t be boring: Talking only about sports, weather and/or business can be boring. Read! Lead with your passion/purpose. Self-depreciating humor is a great ice breaker. Do not prejudge people.

8. Have a great soundbite: It’s like having a hit record. Prepare a short 15- to 20-second statement that says: a. Who you are, b. Where you’re from, c. What you do, d. How you add value and e. Offers a quantifiable evaluation of your value. A great soundbite should pique people’s interest and give them something substantial from which to establish a connection.

9. Smile: You’ll attract more people. A gentle smile while standing, listening and/or talking is infectious. It signals openness, warmth, energy and interest.

10. Pay attention to appearance and hygiene: Yes, how you look matters. First impressions stick for a long time, so make a great one! Looking and smelling good go perfectly with feeling good and sounding good. It’s an unbeatable quartet if you want to be on the team.

For more information on George and CLICK, visit FraserNet or 10truths2click.com.

Sometimes I feel like saying to these people, “Yes, you are different than the people I am talking about. You will fail; they will not” (oh, sorry, gotta remember–must keep that as internal dialog).

I’ve been through three recessionary periods in my business. I don’t need a crystal ball; I have history. Here’s what my history tells me: People with a strong network will survive and even thrive during downturns in the economy. I’ve seen this repeated over and over. Here’s how it plays out in my networking organization, BNI .

[Cue music and fade away to a vision of the past].

The first three to four months of all the past recessionary periods, membership tends to slow. Not as many people join. They say things such as, the economy is bad, I can’t afford it, things are different in my universe, etc., etc. Then something amazing happens. People start to realize that they better do something and do it quickly! They finally recognize that a recession is here and their business is going to “hell in a handbasket” right before their eyes. At this point, the magic happens. They get “networking religion.” They realize that they better get out of their cave and really, really network to build their business and that they’d better do it quickly. Then we start getting more and more people trying to join the organization (some can’t join because they waited too long and their profession is already taken)!

[Cue music and fade back to today].

So here we are today. It looks like we are in the beginning of an economic downturn. You have a choice to make. Are you going to wait six months, like many of the people I’ve seen in the past–or are you going to take control of your business and get a head start on your networking efforts? Only the strong, smart, and “networked,” suvive a recession.

You still have time to start and/or improve your existing personal network. If you’ve been active in networking, now’s the time to get back to basics and reintroduce yourself to the fundamentals. If you’ve done some networking but need to really expand it, take yourself to networking school. Immerse yourself in materials that will help you. Here’s a good place to start for almost 80 free articles on networking: Entrepreneur.com Networking column archive. If you haven’t done much to build your personal network, what are you waiting for? The recession to be over? By that time, your business will be over! Start now!

There’s an old Chinese proverb: When is the best time to plant an acorn? The answer is 25 years ago. When is the second best time? The answer is today.

So, share with me–what are you doing to improve your network today?

A good friend of mine, Frank De Raffele Jr., recently launched a radio program called “Entrepreneurial Excellence.”  I wanted to take a minute to let everybody know about it because not only is it an excellent educational resource for entrepreneurs and businesspeople alike, it is also accessible from anywhere in the world because it is broadcast online.  Even if you miss a broadcast, the shows are all archived and available to download at any time.

I listened to the show’s premier last Monday and I am very impressed with the quality of the insights presented on how to start and run a successful business. A lot of the information that Raffele is giving for free on his show wouldn’t even be given to you if you paid a bunch of money to attend classes on this stuff. 

Besides the educational forum, the show features a series of entrepreneurial tips on legal matters, tax savings, marketing, web/internet, employee benefits and human resource issues, plus interviews with some of the world’s top entrepreneurs and authors such as Zig Ziglar, Jay Conrad Levinson, Harvey Mackay and Stephen Covey. 

But forget those guys . . . the best thing is that Raffele managed to land an interview with the most exciting guy on the planet—yep, you got it, I’m talking about yours truly! All joking aside, though, Raffele has managed to assemble quite the panel of experts, and I think that gaining access to the expertise of top entrepreneurs for free and from anywhere in the world is an opportunity nobody should miss.

For more information, to listen, and/or to download past shows, go to: www.EERadioShow.com.

This brings up a good point. Why do we sometimes ignore the lessons we can learn from others’ mistakes and doom ourselves to making the same bad decisions? People in business and sales do this all the time. There are “tried-and-true” sales techniques that are so simplistic it doesn’t seem as though they can be really effective. Many times, we try to re-evaluate, improve upon and complicate them. Oftentimes we end up making things harder than they really are.One of the biggest mistakes that people in business (and especially in sales) make is not listening to the people who have experience. For some reason, they assume that they have to know better . . . and the truth is, they don’t.There is nothing like experience. It beats education every day of the week. The only thing better is a combination of education and experience . . . or a willingness to learn from other people’s experience. There are many basic sales techniques that any good salesperson knows to be effective. They don’t look for something more complicated or involved because they know from their own experience, as well as the experience of others, what works in sales and what doesn’t work in sales.

If you’ve read my book, Masters of Sales, you may have read things that seemed too simple to be effective or you may have seen ideas that you’ve heard before. Instead of being dismissed, these tactics and ideas should be embraced. Masters of Sales learn from other people’s success. Learn from other “Masters” that sometimes the simplest ideas can have the biggest impact.

For more info on Masters of Sales, please visit: www.MastersBooks.com

1. I have business cards for myself and my team.
2. I have a distinct phone line specifically for my business.
3. I have a registered domain.
4. I have a current website.
5. I have an e-mail that corresponds with my business domain.
6. I have a dedicated office or business space (even if it is home-based).
7. I know what my target market is.
8. I have a contact database system in place to communicate with my prospects.

As obvious as this list seems, half the participants did not meet all the requirements. I spoke there again this year, and I’m glad to report that virtually all of the participants this time around met the above requirements (and more).

So here’s my question for you: Are you really in business?

[For those of you who are really in business, what would you add to this list, if anything?]

I wasn’t at all shocked to hear him say that because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard others assert that giving good customer service will guarantee that people will refer business to them. This is a common misconception, but it is not based on reality.

Many, many business owners believe that good customer service is the number-one way to cultivate word-of-mouth marketing and referrals. It’s not. It’s a good policy–one that’s vital to the health of your business–but it’s not at the core of building a referral-based business.

People have come to expect good customer service. In fact, they demand it in today’s marketplace. When considering customer service and its role in the referral process, it unfortunately works much more effectively in reverse: People are more likely to talk about your business when they’re unhappy with you than when they’re happy with your service.

So if you want to build your referrals, as I told the man I was speaking with on Saturday, you have to actively cultivate your referral sources and not rely on good customer service alone.

I went on to explain that I believe very strongly in the tremendous benefits that word-of –mouth marketing can bring. However, there are unique risks associated with referral advertising that are not an issue in commercial or other forms of advertising.

When you give a referral, you give a little of your reputation away. If the business you’ve referred someone to does a good job, it helps your reputation. But if it does a poor job, your reputation may be hurt.

As I said, the payoffs of referral marketing are immense—when it’s done correctly. But referral marketing involves a really big risk: giving away a piece of your reputation every time you give a referral to someone. When you tell a valued customer that a friend of yours is going to take good care of them, you must have confidence in that friend.

But what happens if your friend lets your customer down? It comes back to haunt you. Your customer begins to lose faith in you and, because of that loss of faith, you just might lose that customer down the road. This is why it’s so important to develop strong relationships with those to whom you’re referring business and vice versa. Once those strong connections are forged you can rest easy, knowing when you tell someone a business associate or a networking partner is going to take good care of him or her, that’s what will happen.