Small Business Forum Magazine Online | Page 2

I hate to network. Seriously. Attending networking events is a full time job and takes a bit of planning to pull it off effectively. Think about it. First you have to decide which event to attend. Then you must decide if the attendees are your target audience. Next you must decide which attendees you should network with out of 100 or so people in attendance. You introduce yourself, trying hard not to sell anything while putting your best foot forward, exchange business cards and move on to the next victim. After which you have to decide (and we all do it) yes this was a good event and I’ll attend the next one or no I will never go to another event hosted by this planner. You then take your pocket full of contacts and skip back to your office with a sense that you will surely turn one or two of these contacts into a client. The next day, you send a ”nice meeting you” e-mail to the contact with basic info on your business in case they would like to contact you. And then you wait. And wait. And wait. After say 2 weeks (because you don’t want to seem desperate) you make the dreaded follow up call to remind them about meeting you. “Would you be available to get together for coffee” you ask pensively? And upon agreeing to a one on one for coffee you carefully lay the groundwork to try and conduct business with the prospect. Finally the day of the meeting you spend an hour getting to know one another reassuring the prospect that there is a need for your services. You leave the meeting promising to follow up with the prospect over the next few days to see if you can do business. Two days later you follow up with a phone call. And then an e-mail followed up by another phone call weeks later. And another phone call. Only to never to hear from the prospect ever again. Does any of this sound familiar? If so I’m going to share some of the secrets to….

1.Minimizing your networking activities so you have more time to run your business and spend less time attending networking events that result in card collecting.

2.How asking 2 questions can turn you into a networking superstar and revitalize your business overnight

3.How developing reciprocal relationships can minimize the need for card collecting.

Whenever I meet someone I ask 2 questions. What do you need and how can I help? What I’ve learned by asking these questions over the last few years is that very few people actually know how to answer them; mostly because very few people ever ask. When you meet someone new you should be thinking about the following…

1.How can I be of service to the prospect and what is it that they need? Keep in mind that everyone has something to offer but not everything you have to offer is something the prospect needs. The only real way to determine the need is by asking the right questions. If you approach networking and sales from a place of service then you’re signally to the potential customer that you really do want to help them.

2.You can help indirectly. Sometimes the prospect won’t have an interest in doing business with you directly but that doesn’t mean you can’t be the “go to person”. Being someone the prospect can rely on for information, contacts, what have you sends a message that you are a valuable resource and someone worth keeping in contact with. Why would I remain in contact with someone who brings nothing to the table? So even if you can’t help them directly, chances are you know someone who can.

3.Give to get. I look for reciprocal relationships and have no tolerance for people that are only interested in what I can do for them. When I launched my radio show, the question I got most often was whether or not I could book said person on my show. I get it. Everyone is looking for their 15 minutes of fame. It comes with the job of having a hit show. But what was interesting to me was the fact that many of these people did nothing to promote their own segments, never bought a single issue of one of my magazines( about$10 per issue) to support my work, never even sent a “thank you” for getting booked on the show. MORE NEXT ISSUE

When you network with people that are only in it for themselves it can be like any other one sided relationship… frustrating and unsatisfying.

Just my opinion-Tony Wilkins

What do you need and how can I help. How asking these 2 questions can help you create more useful contacts, build your brand, generate more revenue than ever before and make you a networking superstar.

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