Networking

Your network is growing. You know lots of different business people and you are getting to know what they can deliver. And, of course, they are getting to know you and what you offer.

But does everyone know EVERYTHING about you? And do you know ALL there is to know about your contacts?

You need to know all this if you are going to seize every opportunity to build even stronger business relationships

Create Your Referral Matrix

The simplest way to keep an eye on what is developing is to create a Referral Matrix. The concept is very simple. The Referral Matrix gives you an ‘At-a-Glance’ picture of your business relationships progress.

You’ll do this for your own contacts and services/products and another for your contacts products.

Let’s start with your services and products.

1) Take a piece of paper.

2) Draw a grid shape. You need enough columns going across to list all your products and services in the top row; show one in each.

3) In the first column of the rows going down list your contacts.

4) Choose 3 different, strong, colors. One represents ‘Told‘, another for ‘Sold‘ and the third for ‘Referred‘

5) When you tell a contact about one of your products; have supplied information so you know he/she is fully aware of it, mark the color for ‘Told‘ against that company in the column for your product/service. (I usually fill in a third of the box).

6) When a contact has bought a product/service from you add the ‘Sold‘ color - you now have two thirds of the box completed.

7) When a contact recommends you to someone else, ‘refers you’, fill in the ‘Referred‘ color.

Some of the boxes may have the Told and Referred, but not the Sold color.

Now you can see, at a glance, which of your contacts do not know about some of your products (in which case you can inform them) and, just as importantly, if they have been informed whether they have bought from you or referred you to someone else.

Create a similar chart for each of your ‘Hot’ networking contacts - those you have a close working relationship with.

By doing this you take a pro-active stance to recommending their services to other people you know AND you’ll know if they do something that you may need in the future.

Do this and you are building strong relationships.

What’s more you’ll get a good reputation for being the ‘person who knows’ and your networking circle will grow.

(This works really well on a spreadsheet, such as Excel. If you would like to see what the grid looks like, send an email to excel-matrix[at]aweber.com, and request the Referral Matrix PDF).

©2005 Original Work by Carol Bentley

Learn more about Persuading People to Buy… Subscribe to your free reports, with no obligation, at http://www.CarolBentley.com

Carol is the author of ‘I Want to Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me a Letter Yet? (How to create powerful sales letters, advertisements, flyers, brochures, web pages and newsletters that persuade hundreds, or even thousands, of additional customers and clients to buy from you!) by Carol A E Bentley (Rated 5-star on Amazon.co.uk) This book is available at a special offer at http://www.CarolBentley.com/offer

Carol is one of the highest paid direct response copywriters available. If you would like to talk to Carol’s office about having her work on your current or next sales project you can use the contact form on her website http://www.CarolBentley.com/contact.asp

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Do your employees and staff really know and understand your core marketing message? How effective are they at sharing that message?

If you really want your business to grow the people in your organization need to be taught the most effective way to network.

You’re pretty good at representing your company. You believe that networking is a powerful business building tool. You understand the value of creating new business relationships. You attend business networking events. You are personable, professional, and you know your stuff.

What happens if you can’t make it to a networking event? What if you want to expand your networking activities but don’t have the time or the energy to do it all yourself?

How effective would your people be if they had to show up in your place and represent your organization? Do they know the right thing to say and the right questions to ask?

Networking is the most powerful form of face to face marketing. What you say can make or break your networking effectiveness. Your ability to get your story across in twenty seconds or less is a vital key to your networking success… and may be just as big a factor in your overall business success.

Banks, credit unions, real estate organizations, financial services and insurance companies, accounting firms, law firms, doctors, dentists, and other professional offices are all made up of people who, at one time or another, are on the frontline in the battle for business success. This networking army includes your employees and associates.

Do you know what your people are saying when asked about your company? Are they trained to deliver a brief and understandable version of your core marketing message? Are they capable of telling others what really sets your business apart from your competition?

In addition, networking is not always confined to a specific meeting or event. When asked about your company when they’re out enjoying an evening of, let’s say, bowling, or the theatre what do members of your organization say?

Do their words portray your company in the most memorable and flattering way, or are they just kind of winging it and saying whatever comes to mind (positive or not)? Saying the wrong thing can leave people cold or, even worse, actually drive business away.

Learning the right thing to say and the right questions to ask is an overlooked area of business preparation. Lack of training in this area can prove costly.

The flip side to the equation is that with a relatively small amount of guidance you can increase your profitability and distinguish yourself clearly from your competition. This is accomplished by a simple shift in the words you use and the words you teach your people to use.

Do you have the time to teach your people the “right thing” to say? For most business owners, sales organizations and professionals the answer is no.

I’ve been providing this most important training for over 20 years.

I’ve developed the Language of Success

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This is probably one of the most important things that you will ever do for you and your business. It will definitely have the biggest impact of anything you have ever done.

This activity is to help you not only create a 30 second elevator speech, but to better understand what you really do. It will define your USP (Unique selling proposition). This usually even changes my client’s vision of who they are and what they do for their customers.

See the worksheet on the back.

1. Column One - Products, Services or Features
List your products/services, probably what you are currently telling me what you do or sell. Write down all of them.

2. Column Two - Benefits

List the benefits that your products, services or features provide. Each benefit should be directly linked to the product identified in Column One. Look to answer the question “Why” should someone buy the product, service or features.

3. Column Three - Why Buy From Me?

Identify what makes you unique in the sea of sameness where you can find hundreds of businesses selling the same products, services or features. Avoid price as may become a losing strategy.

4. Column Four - Measurable Results

This is where the rubber meets the road, where the real power statement will be found. Review the previous 3 columns and list the measurable results that your products of services deliver.

This will turn the benefitsthe “Why buy the product?” and “Why buy it from me?” into a measurable result (make sure it is a result not an activity). This will do more than just improve your networking and marketing. It will make it so powerful that once you start using it you’ll have people running up to you after a networking event”How do you do that?”.”Can you REALLY do that?” And that IS what you’re trying to do isn’t it, Getting noticed?

For most of my clients there is someone just like you on every street corner. Imagine for a moment that you are standing on a street corner with hundreds of other people. They all are the same height, same hair color, same skin color, and even wearing the same clothes. Rather daunting to think someone could find you in that crowd isn’t it?

Well.that’s your job. To be found on that street corner. And, for most of my clients, that is where they, and their businesses, are standing.in that very crowd.

Our job from this point forward is two-fold:

1) Be the first person anyone sees when they walk up to that street corner.

2) And eventually, have people coming to THAT street corner just to find you. They know YOU are on that street corner so they come THERE just for you.

Does this your perception of the hundreds on the street cornerand your business? It does for those that find that measurable result from column 4 and start using it.

Most of your competitors talk about their products. Your job is to be different, to find what your prospect needs, what benefits and solutions your product provides to meet those needs, and then why buy the product from you. What are the products benefits, and YOUR benefits? And then turn that into something that is so visible, so powerful and grabbing but talking about measurable results that people can’t help but come up to you to ask, “How do you do that?”, or occasionally, “Nah! No way…Not really…Can You Really Do that?”

I want you to consider this worksheet as a work in progress. These questions and answers should generate thoughts that keep changing and getting better over time. For the first pass, get something down. Don’t worry about perfection. Get it down. We’ll come back after you’ve finished the entire sheet and probably change those answers. We will come back tomorrow, and weeks later with better and better answers. This exercise generates thoughts that will drive you to improve them and what you perceive as the deliverable to your customer.

Usually the first pass results in a weak, wishy-washy response to “Why buy the product?” and “Why buy it from me?” Once we are forced to put a measurable on it we start thinking differently.

More often than not my client says,

• “You mean I’ve got to actually COMMIT to that?” or

• “I don’t have any control over that.”

YES committing to that IS what will make you stand out on that corner, and ultimately that IS what the client THINKS you are delivering. Up ’til now you’ve allowed the customer to come to his own conclusion about what results he’ll get. People buy you on the value they perceive you deliver. So help them find your value and define clearly what you deliver. Your prospect will literally chase you to get that result.

Watch your networking and marketing results go through the roof!

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC
is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists working with clients to find what has held them back, and then breakthrough that barrier.

Check out website for continuous Hints and Tips that double businesses. http://www.leaders-perspective.com/hints-tips.aspx

Join us every Friday, 11:30-1:00 Central for our Teleluncheon series “Science of Doubling Your Business.” It realy is a science where we can define exactly how many dollars we want to make each and every year, how many clients, and actually do it over and over.

Send an email to AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com with Teleluncheon (webinar). We’ll send you a link and phone number to the next Friday session.

Helping Companies Worldwide Reach Further Than They EVER Thought Possible… FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/small-business-help.aspx
mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective

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