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Posts Tagged ‘Relationship building’

Networking During the Holidays

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

James Meyers of Celestial Cheesecakes requested this one. Happy to oblige!

We’re winding up 2011, and many people will be working a light schedule the rest of this week and next. But networking doesn’t need to end. You’ll have some excellent opportunities, if you recognize them and take advantage of them.

As I indicated in an earlier post, Networking at a Funeral, there’s no place you can’t network. Holiday parties and family gatherings are no exception. Honor the occasion, leave business cards in your pocket until requested and listen for needs. Do those three things, and you can do some good networking at any event. Family and friends should be willing to help you out, so use them as sounding boards for ideas. Or just as a way to share the awesome things you did this year. They’ll be happy to be involved, and who knows? They might even have contacts for you in the New Year.

What about next week? Definitely, you should take some time off and relax, but it can also be a good time to catch up on some coffee meetings. Some people are easier to tie…err…track down at the end of the year. Having a hard time getting on the calendar of a busy, key contact? See if he or she is available next week.

Remember that networking is something that can occur whenever two or more people are in the same room. Don’t ignore opportunities just because it’s the holiday season.

Anyone have good holiday networking stories to share?

FYI. I am taking my own advice. I do have a few coffee meetings I’m setting up for next week, but mostly I’m taking the time off. This is my last original post of the year. There will still be blog posts, but they’ll be reposts of some popular entries from the archives. Enjoy!

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Tags: Networking, Relationship building
Posted in Networking | 2 Comments »

Claim Your Place

Monday, November 14th, 2011

You’ve got a website, Twitter account and Facebook page. You’ve set up your LinkedIn profiles (both for yourself and your business), and you’ve created your Google+ profile and business profile.

You’ve even been an overachiever and created a YouTube channel, Flicker and Tumblr accounts.

Whew! That’s it, right?

Well, maybe not. If you are a business with an actual address, there are a few other things you’ll want to claim and monitor. I know, not what you wanted to hear, but if being a small business owner were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Don’t forget about Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo Local and perhaps Foursquare. These are other places customers can find you and talk about you. Some reviews will be good. Others maybe not so good, but you need to know about them.

Why do you care? Two reasons.

1. If you don’t claim it someone else, like your competition, might

Let’s take Yelp for an example. A Yelper can create a page for your business to review it. Also, Yelp spiders roam the web, looking for business listings and creating basic pages for them. Once a page is there, anyone can stop by and review you.

They can also stop by and “claim” the page. What does that mean? It means they have set up a user name and password to access and make changes to your business information. If that person is you, great. If not? Do I really need to spell it out for you?

If you claim your own page, no one else can claim it for you.

It works basically the same for Foursquare, Google Places and Yahoo! Local.

2. If you don’t know it exists, you don’t know what people are saying about you

If people are complimenting you, don’t you want to know about it? If they are saying you suck, you need to know that so you can fix the problem. But you have to go to where they are commenting, and the four places I’ve discussed in this post are the ones I suggest paying attention to. Yes, there are others, but until you have a large staff working for you, apply the 80/20 rule. Those four places, plus your social media channels, will hit 80% of the places people are reviewing you.

What if someone says something bad? Respond. Ask what happened. Offer to make it right. If someone on your staff received the bad review, discuss what happened. Maybe the reviewer is a jerk. Maybe your staff member was having an off day. But you, as a business owner, need to know about it so you can address any problems.

Respond publicly when you can. People notice and appreciate it. If you’ve made something right for a client, ask them to update their review. We understand that things can happen. We love it when we know mistakes will be fixed!

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Tags: communication, Relationship building, reputation, social media
Posted in social media | 2 Comments »

The Flexibility of Social Media

Monday, September 19th, 2011

I was meeting with someone last week about using social media, and she got me thinking about different ways to get value from social media.

Let me start by saying her attitude toward Twitter was…umm…less than positive. She said she considered it a waste of time because it “was just celebrities and other people talking about where they are and what they’re doing.”

True, there’s an awful lot of that happening on Twitter (and Facebook). We talked some more, and she told me some of her challenges in marketing her business. The three that relate to this post were:

1. Blogs and other content in her industry generally contained uninspired content
2. She wanted a source of indexed content
3. Some of the people she wanted to meet are hard to get to

As we talked, I realized Twitter could help her with all three.

1. Better content

As a blogger, I rely on Twitter to point me to good content as a source of inspiration. I’ve added to posts, disagreed with other posts and synthesized information to create my own analyses. Sometimes, I even repost material on my blog. I’d guess that 1/4 to a 1/3 of my content comes from inspirations gleaned from my reading.

I’m sure she and others could use Twitter as a similar source of information.

2. Indexed source of information

Well, no Twitter isn’t indexed, but the search feature isn’t bad. If you are looking for information on a particular topic, you can create a search and then follow that search instead of following a person. As you follow that search, you’ll likely find certain names popping up over and over. If they’re stuff is good, you could start following them.

3. Access to people

Maybe some of the people you want to meet are on Twitter. It’s funny. I’m noticing some people are more likely to respond to a Twitter @Mention than a phone call or email. So search Twitter. If the people or companies you want to meet with are present, build a virtual relationship. If you do it right, the virtual relationship can be transformed into a face-to-face relationship, giving you access to someone you might not have been able to meet otherwise.

See, social media can be good for a lot more than pushing your product or service or keeping up with the antics of your favorite celebrity.

How about you? How have you used social media to grow or add value to your business?

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Tags: blogging, marketing, Relationship building, social media
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How Apple Forced Me To Buy A Nook Color

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

This post is about how loyalties can change and actions can have unintended consequences.

Until a few months ago, I did all my reading on my iPhone. I had a ton of e-reader apps: Kobo, Nook, Kindle, Stanza, iBooks and Overdrive for library books. Yes, it was a pain to keep track of what books I had in which app, but I liked the freedom to get books from anywhere.

Most of my e-book money went to Amazon because they had the best selection and usually the best prices.

Then the Sony app was rejected by Apple, who decided to finally enforce their in-app purchase rules. Everyone said the sky was falling and that there would be no e-reader apps in the App Store, and on top of that, Hulu, Netflix, Dropbox and other, similar apps were probably going to vanish as well.

Did I believe the sky was falling? No, but all of a sudden, having a bunch of apps seemed to be a pain, and uncertainty made me uncomfortable enough to consider a change.

Before all this, I was likely to have entered the tablet world with an iPad. I already knew Apple and liked their products. It was kind of expensive, but I could have justified it.

Not any more! I wanted an option that didn’t involve Apple. So, there was the first unintended consequence. Apple lost money on me.

Naturally, I looked at the Kindle since I spent most of my e-book money at Amazon. But I’ve never liked the look and feel of the Kindle. I prefer a soft keyboard to a hard one on a e-reader. And I love touchscreens.

The Sony products were beautiful but too expensive.

So I looked at the Nook. I could root it and still run the Kindle app. It supported all the other bookstores, except iBooks, and I wasn’t interested in buying from them anyway.

So I bought my Nook Color. And still haven’t rooted it. I like the stock operating system. I like the way the reader functions. I like having all my books in one place!

So I still buy a few books from Amazon, but only ones that are DRM-free, and I convert them to Nook format. I can buy from Kobo, Sony and Barnes and Noble. I can get library books, and I don’t have to mess with a bunch of apps.

So where do you think I spend most of my e-book money now? Yes, at Barnes and Noble. They are the easiest. I can buy, download and be reading within minutes. All the other stores require me to hook my Nook up to my computer. Not hard, but why bother if I don’t have to?

You know what’s ironic? I had been right. The sky didn’t falling. All the e-book apps are still available, without direct links to stores, but I never cared about that. But now I have my Nook, and I’m not going back to reading on my iPhone.

So what’s the moral of this story? Well, Barnes and Noble provided a good product that meets my needs. But that’s the small part. Understand that customer loyalty is fickle. I was loyal to both Apple and Amazon. But they didn’t meet my needs, so now I’m loyal to Barnes and Noble. But that could change in the future as well.

Customers are only loyal as long as you listen to them and meet their needs. Stop doing those, and you’ll lose them. Maybe not right away, but eventually something will make them uncomfortable enough that they will look for another option.

That’s good for your competitor. But not for you.

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Tags: marketing, Relationship building, reputation
Posted in General | 3 Comments »

Think Outside The Box!

Monday, July 18th, 2011

I met with someone last week, and we started talking about other businesses that could refer him. He said there weren’t any. I showed him that there were. In fact, I came up with several.

Strategic referral partners are tough to find. Good one are even tougher, but they are worth it. When you find and cultivate a few of them, you’ve got a mobile sales force of people looking for referrals just for you. And naturally, you’re looking for referrals for them.

But you have to get creative. Your competitors are already wooing the obvious ones. How do you find the less obvious ones? Follow the money.

Who else do your clients pay each month?

This is the easiest one to research because you can ask your clients. Talk to them and find out who else is marketing to them and what services they purchase/hire on a regular basis. Then ask for the introduction. Your client should be happy to introduce you, assuming he or she is on good terms with you and the other service provider.

Once you’ve been introduced, get to know the person. Discuss strategy. Are there any specific questions you can both ask your client to uncover referrals for the other? Make sure you are both clear on what is a good client. And what is a bad one.

Then refer each other. It may take a while to find the right people, but when you do, you’ll have a new referral source, motivated to work to find business for you.

And best of all? Your competitors are blissfully ignorant because they didn’t think outside the box.

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Tags: Referrals, Relationship building
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Managing Relationships

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Making referrals and introductions can be risky, even when you know all the parties well. Yesterday I got one of those phone calls you just dread.

“Hey, Juli. Can you give me your perspective on a mutual contact.”

Uh oh. That was code for “One of your referrals didn’t go the way I expected. What now?”

All turned out well in the end, but it was an interesting conversation. In this case, the referral was potentially a good contact but required a bit of maintenance. Should I have been up-front with that when I made the introduction? Hard to say. Remember that you are referring people, and people are unpredictable. This person doesn’t always require careful handling, and I could have sent the wrong impression if I’d given a warning up front.

What to do? Follow your instincts. Stay in touch with all parties to see how things are going. And be willing to take that phone call and intervene if needed.

When you receive a referral or introduction, always remember that you are referring a person. Not just a product or service. People have good days and bad days. Keep that in mind when things don’t got quite as you expected.

And never, ever be afraid to pick up the phone to try to work things out. Talking can ease a lot of ills!

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Tags: communication, Referrals, Relationship building
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Patience and Persistence Pays Off

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Networking (both online and off) is not a quick fix. If you don’t have a good sales pipeline now, don’t expect networking to give you one right away.

Networking is an excellent way to plant seeds for a future sales pipeline, but you must be prepared for it to take time.

I’ve experienced this recently in my own business. I met a potential strategic partner late last year, and we’ve been exploring how to work together. Last month we had a great meeting where we worked out most of the outstanding issues, and I’ve sent him a proposal with some real numbers.

In addition to that strategic partnership, I’ve had two prospects hanging out there for some months. I’ve patiently and persistently dripped on them. One is starting this month. The other should be starting next month.

In all three cases, I was thanked for maintaining communication and working to build the relationship. I could have given up on all of them for not “closing” right away. And if I had, I would have lost all of them.

I have a section in my upcoming book on “bothering” the people in your network. It’s not bothering if you’re adding value and building a relationship. So don’t be afraid so stay in touch with prospects. Respect them and their busy schedule but find ways to add value, and most of them will eventually begin to work with or refer you.

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Tags: communication, Relationship building
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Your Changing Networking Needs

Friday, May 6th, 2011

It’s likely that your networking needs will change over time. Perhaps you were looking for a job and landed it. Or your business has grown over time and you are targeting a different market. Situations like this can lead to you needing to reevaluate your networking goals and sometimes your groups and venues.

It’s not a comfortable decision to leave a group, but it might be the right thing to do.

First, you need to be certain about your decision. Look at the contacts you need. Is this group or venue providing them? If not, check your message. What are you asking for? Have you changed your message? If not, try that first. Maybe your group didn’t realize your needs have changed.

If a change of message doesn’t work, it might be time to leave. You need to be careful. The group may not meet your needs, but you have built relationships, and you don’t want to lose them.

Consider what you say when you leave. Telling them they can’t introduce you to the right people might sound harsh. You might want to look at phrasing it a different way. It might be prudent to give a more complete explanation to key people and send a more general message to the group as a whole.

The most important time is right after you leave. If there are relationships you want to maintain, it’s your responsibility to reach out. The group will likely move on to the next new member, and without any malicious intent, you will slip in their thoughts. Identify the key relationships you want to continue and look for ways to stay in touch. Referrals are always good. Keep referring someone, and he or she will be happy to stay in contact.

Moving on from a group can be done, if you are careful and sensitive. Do it well, and you’ll keep them in your network. Do it badly and you’ll burn bridges you might need later.

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Tags: communication, Giving, Networking Groups, Relationship building
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Posts Tagged ‘Relationship building’

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