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Posts Tagged ‘Relationship building’

Networking Group Seat Territoriality

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

If you’ve ever been in a single-person per profession networking group, you already know what I’m talking about. It’s when someone joins with a certain set of core services, and then gets very possessive of visitors or prospective members that offer ancillary services similar to the member.

A good example is a situation I faced recently. There’s a real estate agent in one of my networking groups. He’s primarily a residential agent, but he occasionally talks about commercial services since we don’t have a commercial agent in the group. I invited someone who offers a very specific set of property management services. I received an email from the agent telling me there was a conflict and I should have notified him before inviting my guest.

Huh?

Okay, leaving aside that person, let’s break this down, looking at both the good of the group, and the good of the individual member.

Real estate agents often specialize in either residential or commercial, although they occasionally cross and do the other type of business. Commercial agents, by the way, are sometimes dismissive of residential agents who dabble in commercial, and for good reason. I once sat in on a commercial agent sales meeting, and oh boy! They have their own language and rules.

Residential agents tend to work with consumers, and they are a fabulous source of referrals for B2C businesses, especially contractors, home stagers and personal organizers. Commercial agents, on the other hand, tend to work with business clients, like doctors, dentists, attorneys and restaurants. Great for the B2B businesses.

So splitting this seat benefits many in a group, and being territorial really doesn’t benefit anyone, including the agent. Often, a residential agent refers the business to a commercial agent in the office. That’s not a bad thing, but if I’m referring you and talking you up to my referral, I might be just a bit peeved if my referral gets handed off to a total stranger. Then I might not refer said agent again, which can be a bad thing.

It can take some time to tease this sort of thing out of a potential member, but it’s worth the time up front to take the measure of a person and carefully craft the core services. You’re much better accepting someone who isn’t territorial.

In my next post, I’ll look at the flip side. Defining a seat so narrowly that no one wins.

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Tags: Networking Groups, Referrals, Relationship building
Posted in Networking Groups | No Comments »

Automate Your Follow Up

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Isn’t being too busy to follow up a terrible problem to have?

Actually it is. When you’re too busy to follow up, you’re not on people’s radar screens and today’s busy turns into tomorrow’s slow down. I was meeting with a client recently who had fallen into that situation. She needed an easy way to stay “top of mind” with her referral partners, and she wasn’t interested in using social media or creating a newsletter. That was kind of too bad because both of those are good ways to “drip” on her contacts.

So we had to get more creative. I suggested SendOutCards, but not sending out just any cards. She’s a voracious reader, so I suggested she send out quarterly cards with books she’d read. Each card could have the book cover on the front, and the message would be a short review of the book. She loved the idea, and immediately started creating her card calendar for the rest of the week.

It’s different, fun and useful. (I told her I’d be delighted to get a card like that.) And the best part? She can automate it. Each quarter, she can sit down, create the card and schedule them to go out. She can stagger them throughout the quarter, if she’d like. And once they are scheduled, she can go back about her business, confident that she’s top of mind in her network.

The best follow up systems are the ones that don’t take too much time and effort and don’t rely on us remembering stuff when we’re busy. I think this system will work really well for her.

So get creative and have fun with your follow up!

Anyone else have a good follow up tip?

Oh, and feel free to steal the book review card idea. Just make sure you put me on your list!

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Tags: Follow up, Referrals, Relationship building, time management
Posted in Referrals | No Comments »

Strategic Partnerships: What They Are. And Aren’t

Friday, April 6th, 2012

I’ve written before on this blog about finding and maintaining strategic referral partnerships. But some questions came up recently in a seminar, and I thought they was worth addressing here.

Always remember that true strategic partnerships are two-way. Both parties should be able to give and receive a comparable number of referrals. A good example of this is the partnership I had with a heating and air conditioning company when I still sold windows. We were addressing a similar need (comfort in the home), and we were doing it with different products. That gave us the ability to proactively uncover referrals for each other at a similar rate.

Now let’s take a different situation, for example a financial planner and an estate planning attorney. It’s an important relationship for a financial planner because his clients need wills and estate work. But there are LOTS more financial planners out there than estate planning attorneys, and attorneys generally get to clients once they already have a financial plan, so the referrals tend to flow one way.

It’s still an important relationship for financial planners, but they need to manage their expectations. They will be giving lots more than receiving.

So look at your relationships. Are you frustrated by some because they seem to be one-way? Examine the needs you both are serving and the point at which clients come to you. Is it a true strategic partnership, or is it more of a one-way referral stream? Knowing that allows you to make some decisions about whether to continue the relationship.

Anyone have stories to share about referral relationships that were (or were not) true partnerships?

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Tags: communication, Referrals, Relationship building
Posted in Referrals | 2 Comments »

Content and Conversation

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

On Monday I talked about how it doesn’t really matter who follows you on Twitter. What is most important is your content. Today I’m going to discuss conversations, an important part of content in any form of social media.

Step back from social media for a moment and think about conversations you have in person. What do you do when you see a good movie? You share, right? Or if you read an article that makes you think? Again, you share and talk about it. When you hear a friend is sick, you reach out with encouragement.

All of these things work in social media and should be part of a good presence. Remember my post where I talked about “1/3, 1/3, 1/3?” Let’s apply that to conversations.

1. About You

In a networking conversation, someone might ask what you do. Or you might want to share a recent accomplishment. But you won’t spend all of your time talking about yourself, at least not if you want anyone to continue talking to you.

If you spend about 1/3 of your time talking about yourself, that’s not a bad ratio, in both social media and face to face.

2. About Other People

Again, at a networking event, you might hear a need and connect two people who can help each other. You might talk about another networking event or a great book you just read. It might be appropriate for you to make a plug for one of your trusted vendors.

You can do all the same things in social media, where you share articles, refer others, promote vendors or other great accounts to follow.

3. Conversation

Okay, I’ve been talking about conversation in this post, so what do I mean here? I mean just talking. Did someone just win an award? Congratulate her, just to be friendly. Ask a question. Answer a question. Tell a joke. Laugh at someone’s else’s joke. Discuss something you really enjoy. Chat about a movie you just saw.

Some people tell me that they want an absolute barrier on social media between business and personal. Why? Ultimately, we do business with people not businesses. Why can’t we learn a bit about you as a human being? Use some sensible discretion. Don’t over share, but it’s okay to give us a view of who you are. If we like you, we’ll do business with you. If we don’t? Well, we won’t, and that’s okay. We probably weren’t a good client anyway.

So what do you think? Ready to go out there and have some conversations, both online and in person?

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Tags: communication, Networking, Relationship building, social media
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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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Posts Tagged ‘Relationship building’

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