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Casual Articles - Five Habits of Highly Effective Networkers
I recently ran a survey and asked people the question: "If you are not happy in your current work situation, then why haven't you changed it?" The top rated response was "fear of losing financial stability."The financial stability of a paycheck is a big fat illusion. If you are an employee, you probably have a salary, which is divided in monthly or weekly paychecks. Because you get the same amount in each check, you may believe that you have a stable source of income and can live your life without fear of financial instability.This is dangerous thinking that puts your financial life at risk.Layoffs, downsizing, mergers, takeovers and incompetent managers are a well-documented part of corporate life. I have seen all of them in my
Habit #1 - BE PREPARED
I often joke that every new business owner should be jailed for 30 days – so that they have time to think and develop a business strategy. You must take time to plan your networking activities or you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated. Here are at least three things you need to address ahead of time:
• Know what
You must be able to define the ultimate goals and find the holes before you can look for team members to fill the void. Without this definition of where you want to go and what additional services you want to provide, there is not point in adding Power Team members. Establishing the ground rules first and then seeking "partners" is the best route to take. One of the biggest questions that come to mind is where to look for your team members. I have always found team members through looking at my existing clients, people in organizations and leads groups that I am involved with. I never advertise for a team member, they are always referred to me by someone I know.
Once you find a potential team member, you will need to do a background check
Even though business networking can quickly put you in front of how new prospects, help you create life-long strategic alliances, get more referrals and simply find people you really enjoy hanging out with, majority of professionals have no clue how to make their networking count.
They attend the wrong meetings, use boring self-introductions, can’t recognize a good prospect if one stepped on their toe, don't know how to elicit interest in their service, give no value in conversations with those they meet, gobble down their rubber chicken, rush out and never follow-up…
Does this sound familiar? It certainly did for me when I was starting out. Instead of STRATEGICALLY SELECTING and LEVERAGING a couple of groups that could get me lots of local visibility I hopped around from one group to another getting little or no results.
I was frustrated, attending many of those meetings was no longer fun and exciting, and each time I collected a few more ‘useless’ business cards I was becoming more discouraged and jaded. I knew I needed to do something differently but I didn’t know how.
Fortunately, with time I discovered how to be a better networker, and that virtually anyone can easily master this business building strategy.
As a matter of fact, by practicing a few of the following tips you can turn your face to face promotional efforts into a powerful business building tool.
So here are Marketing Mentor’s Five Habits of Highly Effective Networkers:
Habit #1 - BE PREPARED
I often joke that every new business owner should be jailed for 30 days – so that they have time to think and develop a business strategy. You must take time to plan your networking activities or you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated. Here are at least three things you need to address ahead of time:
• Know what y
FIRE! Every manager knows there are fires to tend in the workplace. From smoldering embers to raging infernos they hamper our ability to manage the routine events upon which our operations depend. The world is not a perfect place and we should be proud of our ability to multi-task, to resolve issues and to maintain control whether in crisis or otherwise. But how often have you said (or heard) “I spend too much time putting out fires?” Keep these ideas in mind: 1) identify and manage the real fires, 2) identify and dispatch the false alarms and 3) prevent fires whenever possible.False Alarms
A false alarm is an event that is neither urgent nor of considerable import, thus it is of little or no concern to the business. Though f
Does this sound familiar? It certainly did for me when I was starting out. Instead of STRATEGICALLY SELECTING and LEVERAGING a couple of groups that could get me lots of local visibility I hopped around from one group to another getting little or no results.
I was frustrated, attending many of those meetings was no longer fun and exciting, and each time I collected a few more ‘useless’ business cards I was becoming more discouraged and jaded. I knew I needed to do something differently but I didn’t know how.
Fortunately, with time I discovered how to be a better networker, and that virtually anyone can easily master this business building strategy.
As a matter of fact, by practicing a few of the following tips you can turn your face to face promotional efforts into a powerful business building tool.
So here are Marketing Mentor’s Five Habits of Highly Effective Networkers:
Habit #1 - BE PREPARED
I often joke that every new business owner should be jailed for 30 days – so that they have time to think and develop a business strategy. You must take time to plan your networking activities or you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated. Here are at least three things you need to address ahead of time:
• Know what
Have you noticed it? More and more marketing campaigns are going over the top. They're trying bolder, more in-your-face tactics. And consumers DON'T like it.There's a growing resistance toward advertising. According to a recent study by Yankelovich Partners (a marketing company) 60% of consumers have a much more negative opinion of marketing and advertising than they did a few years ago. 65% already feel overwhelmed with too many marketing messages. And 61% feel the volume is out of control.Beat consumer negativity and resistance by precisely targeting the "tar-ket" of your audience. (Remember a "tarket" is the single person you write your copy to rather than the mob of your e
I was frustrated, attending many of those meetings was no longer fun and exciting, and each time I collected a few more ‘useless’ business cards I was becoming more discouraged and jaded. I knew I needed to do something differently but I didn’t know how.
Fortunately, with time I discovered how to be a better networker, and that virtually anyone can easily master this business building strategy.
As a matter of fact, by practicing a few of the following tips you can turn your face to face promotional efforts into a powerful business building tool.
So here are Marketing Mentor’s Five Habits of Highly Effective Networkers:
Habit #1 - BE PREPARED
I often joke that every new business owner should be jailed for 30 days – so that they have time to think and develop a business strategy. You must take time to plan your networking activities or you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated. Here are at least three things you need to address ahead of time:
• Know what
Nobody knows why dinosaurs died off, but there are many
intriguing theories.Dead dinosaur hypotheses parallel the excuses owners use
when their businesses fail.Reason 1. An asteroid or volcano caused a fatal disaster.
This absolves dinosaurs or businesses from any blame, since extinction was due simply to being a pathetic "victim of circumstances."However, this theory never explains why so many other forms of plants and animals survived when dinosaurs could not--or why so many competitors are thriving while you're dying.Reason 2. Dinosaurs were too nomadic and unwisely wandered away to strange new places, places where their immune systems couldn't function well.In business, a firm can wander into new unfamiliar
Fortunately, with time I discovered how to be a better networker, and that virtually anyone can easily master this business building strategy.
As a matter of fact, by practicing a few of the following tips you can turn your face to face promotional efforts into a powerful business building tool.
So here are Marketing Mentor’s Five Habits of Highly Effective Networkers:
Habit #1 - BE PREPARED
I often joke that every new business owner should be jailed for 30 days – so that they have time to think and develop a business strategy. You must take time to plan your networking activities or you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated. Here are at least three things you need to address ahead of time:
• Know what
None of us have enough time in the day to get everything done, but small business owners and entrepreneurs like you are particularly pressed. You wear so many hats; there is a seemingly infinite list of tasks to accomplish each day, from providing services to clients, managing product distribution and delivery, to keeping accounting in order.You try to fit in some marketing when you can, but you're not sure which activities are essential to do each week or each month to build a steady stream of clients. You make some calls, send out a mailing or put up a web site, but you still have that nagging feeling that if you knew which marketing activities translated into the most new business, you could be more successful.You want more clients or
Habit #1 - BE PREPARED
I often joke that every new business owner should be jailed for 30 days – so that they have time to think and develop a business strategy. You must take time to plan your networking activities or you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated. Here are at least three things you need to address ahead of time:
• Know what you are looking for. It’s like going fishing; you must know what fish you want to catch before you choose a fishing spot. Conversely, you must know who your ideal prospects, how to recognize them and what is the best 'bait' to attract them.
• Develop a magnetic ABC (Audio Business Card). It blows me away that smart business people spend days and weeks designing their printed business cards, but when asked what they do they quickly degenerate into a blubbering, brainless baboon!
Don’t bother going anywhere until you develop an attention getting Audio Business Card that clearly communicates who you work with, the problems you solve and the benefits of working with you.
• Find the right group (for you). Even the best marketing message won’t matter one bit if you are hanging out with a wrong crowd. Identify groups that are most likely to attract either your ideal clients or those who already have access to your ideal clients.
Habit #2 - BE INTERESTED
If you’ve networked once or twice before you inevitably had the displeasure of running into that self-centered, never-stops-yapping-about-themselves bore! What we don’t realize is that we often are THAT BORE!
Hey, it's only natural that we all get excited about our business. But frankly, what we do is boring to others. So stop trying to be interesting and become more INTERESTED. Talk less and listen a lot more! Dr. Stephen Covey said it best: “Seek to understand before you seek to be understood”.
Fact is, people never do business with you just because they
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