If you want my business, I’m going to have to get to know you.  It’s important that I like you (or at least that I don’t dislike you), and I absolutely have to be able to trust you.  That feeling of Know, Like and Trust isn’t going to come from a cold call, it’s not going to come from a marketing brochure and it’s not going to come from you just handing me your business card at a networking meeting.

It turns out that Diana Ross had it right a long time ago:

“You can’t hurry love, No you just have to wait.  She said love don’t come easy – it’s a game of give and take.

You can’t hurry love, No, you just have to wait.  You got to trust, give it time
No matter how long it takes”

But if you look at how most people approach networking, it’s the exact opposite.  Quick handshake, impersonal small talk and a quick rundown of what you do.  A rush relationship just isn’t going to cut it. 

Effective networking isn’t about just showing up and it isn’t about the number of cards you can collect (or hand out).  You’re not going to connect with everyone at an event – and if you don’t take things slow, you’re not going to connect with anyone (at least not in a positive way).

You have to think big picture!  The big goal is to develop customers and referral partners who love you…or at least love doing business with you.  Getting them to fall in love takes time and effort and often that starts with meeting someone at a networking event.  However if you try to rush through that first meeting, if you skip the getting to know you phase – all you’re going to do is annoy and alienate the people around you.

Most successful business owners would agree that some form of networking is critical to their business, which is why it’s surprising that it’s continually done so poorly!

Remember…it’s a game of give and take.  At a networking event, you are simply starting the process of building a relationship with a small number of the right people.  Really connecting with 1 person who can actually help your business is a lot better than exchanging business cards with 20 other people.  Spend your time finding the right person or two (no more than 3 or 4) at an event and start building a genuine relationship.

You’ll be focusing on the other person.  Get them to talk.  Ask great open-ended questions that they’ll be excited to answer.  Be interested in what they have to say.  Ask them what they need…not in terms of your products or services, but in terms of their success…and then try to help give it to them.  In short…you’re working to become their friend.

If it’s a promising contact, then set up a follow-up meeting, connect with them on LinkedIn.  Keep looking for ways to help them.  Make a great introduction for them.  Point them towards a strong resource – do something to positively start building a relationship.  Make sure you’re following all 10 Steps of Effective Networking (especially the follow-up)

It can be  a lot of work and it’s an ongoing effort but the payoff of building a close network of great resources who will drive referrals to your business is worth it.  Imagine getting 50% or even 80% of the business you need from referrals!  It all starts with taking your time (not hurrying) and finding ways for the right people to start knowing, liking and trusting you.

What are you doing to help people get to know you?  Why would they like you?  Am I way off base here?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Photo by orangeacid

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If you do much networking, then you’ll quickly realize that everyone starts to blend in…which does absolutely nothing for you.  Garet King – a branch manager at CoreFirst Bank here in Kansas City shared the following article with me that does a great job of addressing this situation – take it away Garet:

If you pay attention to the conversations you are a part of and that happen around you, you will notice that we are all saying the same things. We talk to people on a daily basis. Collectively, we talk to a lot of people on a daily basis and most of these conversations happen in the same way. These dialogues may be about the weather or how the kids are doing. Conversations may drift towards a golf game or other sporting events. Comments are made about weekend plans or future vacations. On fewer occasions, people will open up about their life. Regardless, almost all of these conversations start the same way. “What’s new?”

“What’s new,” is an opportunity to talk about anything that you are working on. Whether this person is an advocate or acquaintance, they are opening the door and most of us waste the opportunity. The typical responses are, “same old, same old,” or “just work.” If you are having a challenging day, “same crap, different day,” might come out of your mouth or, “not much,” if you’re feeling indifferent. Regardless, these answers are a waste of a golden opportunity to create another connection.

Maybe you’ve spent some time researching and learning about social networking. When you’re talking to one of your contacts and they say, “So what’s new,” this is the perfect opportunity to talk about your LinkedIn page. Your response could be, “I’ve been diving into this crazy world of social media,” or “I’m scheduled to go to this seminar about how to get the most out of LinkedIn for my business.”

The topics you could talk about include problems you are facing at work, goals you are working towards, or even current renovations of your house. Your responses to “what’s new,” can range from, “I have this employee that I’ve been trying to coach, but they just don’t get it,” to “I’m really trying to connect with medical professionals.” Not only have you created an opportunity to talk about what is important in your life at the current time, but this person is now educated about the challenges that you’re facing and they can help or potentially refer you to someone that can help.

But, “what’s new,” is not the only opportunity we waste on a regular basis. When we meet someone new, the same question always comes up: “So what do you do?” A typical response is to say your position and the company you work for. This is a missed opportunity to tell people what you actually do. Again, the person you’ve just met is putting the ball in your court. In a world of sameness and in a competitive business environment, a generic response groups you in with everyone else. By working on a set of responses ahead of time, you are prepared to differentiate yourself and your business – You are taking advantage of an opportunity to stand out.

You can talk about any pressing aspect of your job – Maybe a goal of yours is to increase your network. That conversation may start off like this…

Acquaintance: So what do you do?

You: I focus a lot of my time on attending events in search of people I can bring value to. A couple months ago, I met someone at a Leawood Chamber of Commerce event and now we’re putting together a young professionals networking group; a real win-win situation.

You have just turned what could have been a set of generic responses into a quality conversation. If someone wants to know your title, they can look at your business card; it is up to you to tell them what you do.

By taking some time and working up responses to these two questions – What’s new and what do you do? – You are taking control of your everyday interactions to solve your problems, achieve your identified goals and let people get to know you. Taking the time to reflect on what you actually do could also be an eye-opening experience.

Feel free to e-mail me your responses at gking@cbtks.com. I’ll share other responses I’ve received from other individuals.

Garet King

Garet King is an Officer and Branch Sales Manager with CoreFirst Bank & Trust.

Have you taken advantage of the every day opportunities to stand out?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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A lot of business owners talk about growing their business by networking.  You imagine a crowded chamber after hours meeting and it’s hard to picture generating business in that kind of setting.

The reality is you can’t (or at least it’s unlikely).

What you can do at those kinds of events is meet new people and determine if they have any potential to collaborate with you in the future.  If they do and you can develop a mutually beneficial win-win relationship  over time with someone you get to Know, Like and Trust.

THEN you have some good potential to generate new business from networking!

I had a great demonstration of this the other day over coffee.

Networking Referral demonstration

The situation was coffee with a networking contact of mine who I’ve gotten to know over the last year.  We work with similar types of small business owners and we recognized early on that there should be opportunities to help each other out.

However we hadn’t really tangibly made anything happen to this point.

The end of the year rolled around and I received an email asking about catching up and getting together since it had been a while (clearly a scheduled and planned approach for my contact).

We had a good meeting, a chance to catch up on mutual acquaintances and then he moved into his referral process.  He started by explaining what his company was up to and what had been working for them with customers recently (giving me his best target market) and then mentioned that it would be helpful if I could introduce him to 1 prospect who fit his target.

From there, he asked me how things were going, what was working for me and what kinds of things I was looking for.  He suggested a couple of possible introductions that he could make and then he came back and very simply asked if i knew of anyone that was a good fit for him – and could the 3 of us get together for lunch sometime?

It turns out we both had some ideas for potential introductions.

Networking Referral Success Factors

What made this work?

For starters, we already had a relationship established, including a level of trust and credibility from previous meetings and mutual acquaintances.

The timing was good – we hadn’t talked for several months and although I had passed along a lead during that time, he wasn’t top of mind the entire time so it had been awhile since I had brainstormed who might be a good fit for him.

He clearly laid out what he was looking for, with a focus on the type of prospect that I was likely to know and explained the next steps he would be looking for (mutual introduction over lunch followed by a no-cost, painless review to see if they would be a good fit.)

He was only looking for 1 introduction (took the pressure off and made it easy to brainstorm a best solution).

He asked what I was looking for and genuinely looked for ideas on how he could help me, recognizing that the process needed to be mutually beneficial.

And finally he followed up a second time, even when I didn’t have a great idea right up front.  By giving me time to think and brainstorm some specifics, I was able to come up with a good fit – and potentially a situation where they can help each other out.

Finally – follow through right away.  We both took action after the meeting to get things started.

Results

Although it’s only been a couple of days, we have both gotten the ball rolling on mutual introductions and invitations to meetings.  At this point it’s unclear whether either set of introductions will turn into any opportunities, but a warm introduction to a business owner that fits my target market and is actively trying to grow their business is like gold to me!  I’ll take that situation all day.

What could this type of thing do for you?

What if you held a similar type of coffee meeting with 20 people in your network, that you Know, Like and Trust and that have some access to your target market (and vice versa)

To be conservative, let’s assume that only 12 of your contacts could come up with anyone to introduce you to and only 1/2 of those actually turned into clients.  With very little cost and effort, you generated 6 new opportunities for your business!

And the kicker is that you could repeat the process every 4 to 6 months – potentially generating 12 to 18 opportunities in a year!  What would that do for your business?

What would it take for you to give this a try?  What would be the hardest part?  Are you actively building up your contacts (working LinkedIn, other networking) so that you can be a valuable partner to others? 

Share your thoughts in the comments below, I’d love to hear if this would work for you?

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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Networking for your business is about making friends (you don’t have to kiss them…).

Unfortunately most people don’t really ‘get’ the whole networking thing, which makes going to networking events sometimes very painful.  As an example, at an event I was at last week there was a woman that was waiting in a corner and if anyone made eye contact or walked to closely to her she immediately jumped into her sales pitch.  Sadly she may have felt like she had a productive meeting – she cornered at least 3 different people that I saw, but I guarantee none of them left with a positive impression of her.

Networking is a great strategy for small business owners – people want to do business with other people (that they know, like and trust) not with some faceless company, so the playing field with the big guys is really leveled.  Networking is a marketing strategy that facilitates developing relationships that can generate referrals or business.

But what’s the right way to go about doing that?  Read the rest of this article and feel free to download my in-depth (18 page) report if you’d like to learn more.

10 Steps to Effective Networking

Although I’ve got 10 steps listed here – the reality is that there are 3 that are extra critical and generally get missed, so cover the whole list (and download the report) but make sure you pay special attention to #’s 1, 7 and 10!

1. Develop a Networking Mindset

Free your mind and the rest will follow! There are plenty of techniques and tips to make you a better networker, but the real key is approaching it in the right frame of mind.

2. Develop a Great 30-Second Commercial

What’s your unique selling proposition? Can you get across what you do in an interesting and concise way? Just like on television, you need to grab attention quickly.

3. Identify Your Target

Have you ever seen a fly fisherman that pulls in fish after fish? He knows what he’s fishing for and he knows what those fish like. Do you know what you’re after?

4. Identify Where to Network

Sure you can network almost anywhere, but there are only so many hours in the day so you should identify what will work best for you.

5. Prepare Your Meeting Strategy

One of the best ways to overcome fear is to be prepared – decide what you want to do.

6. Work the Event

You weren’t planning on just showing up, having a few drinks and throwing your cards around were you?

7. Ask Questions

People enjoy being listened to. The secret to being a great listener is to ask the right questions.  Go with open-ended questions that will get people to talk.

8. Don’t Sell

Don’t do it…at least not at networking events, it doesn’t work and it’s likely to annoy people!  Don’t be ‘that’ guy (or person)!

9. Go With a Team Approach

Not only is there safety in numbers, you can get a lot farther with teamwork than you can on your own.

10. Follow-up

If you were a farmer, you would have spent a lot of time determining the best thing to plant, preparing the field and going to pick out the seed. However there will be no crop if you don’t actually plant the seed and water it.  There are a lot of ways to follow-up, including phone, email or even LinkedIn – the key is to make sure you do something with the contacts that you make to keep the ball rolling (when it makes sense).

Obviously this list is high level – but it should give you some ideas on what to focus on.  Remember the end result that you’re looking for is developing relationships – mutually beneficial, win-win relationships and that starts by helping other people out first.

If you’d like to learn more about this approach – please download my free report on Explosive Networking (I was looking for a catchy title).  If you like it, feel free to share it (and let me know your thoughts).

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business CoachSimilar Posts:

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photo by Ben Alford 

I was at a networking event the other day and one of the people that I was meeting with remarked “You’re a Connector, aren’t you?”.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term Connector in his best selling book The Tipping Point a few years ago.  Simplistically Connectors are people that know a lot of other people, although a more complete explanation would be people that actively build connections with an intention to find win-win situations.

On a more generic level, I look at connecting as the evolution of networking – the goal for connecting is to actively listen to the people you meet and do your best to help them out – often by introducing them to someone that can potentially help them, either a prospect, a collaboration partner of some sort or a solutions provider.

My approach to networking for the last year or so has been to work hard at becoming a connector, so it was nice to be recognized (although that’s not why I’m doing it).

Why do I want to be a connector (and why do I think you should be a connector?  Read on!

Connectors are Problem Solvers

The primary reason I got into business coaching (and consulting before that) is because I’m a problem solver – whether it’s a flaw or just how I’m wired, I am constantly looking for ways to make things better.  (My engineering background might play into that as well…).

I like to solve problems on my own, but the world’s a big place and it’s pretty easy to figure out that I’m not going to be an expert at everything and in fact, I don’t want to be an expert at a lot of things.  That means the best answer to a lot of problems is most likely an introduction to someone else.

Which is exactly what a connector does.

My job as a Business Coach is to help my clients win, and I help them win by helping them identify their problems (not just the symptoms, but the root problem), prioritize them and solve them.  Often a critical part of the solution will involve introducing them to the right resource.  Since I’m doing that for my clients anyway, it just makes sense that I would do it for other people I meet as well.

At the end of the day, I win when my clients win (or even when people I’m connected with win).  By consistently looking for win-win solutions, I get to be in the middle of a group of people that are constantly doing better.  And I believe the best way to succeed is to surround yourself with smart, successful people.

Why should you be a connector?

Ivan Misner is a famous author and speaker and the founder of Business Networking International and his mantra for BNI is “Givers Gain”.

“Givers Gain” because the best way to get help from someone else is to help them first…with a caveat that you need to help them because you want to, not because you’re expecting something in return.

On a more tangible level, imagine having a strong network of friends, co-workers, associates, networking partners, clients and others that Know, Like and Trust you.  The kind of network that will gladly introduce you to their friends (because they know, like and trust).  The kind of network that keeps you top of mind for referrals when they see people that need the kind of help you can give them.  That’s the kind of network that generate huge amounts of business for you.

The best way to make that kind of network is to help other people (are you sensing a recurring theme)?  Not because you’re trying to trick them into ‘owing’ you something but because you genuinely like them and want to introduce them to win-win situations.

The best way to make that kind of network is to be a connector.

What are you looking for?

My network isn’t complete, but it is pretty comprehensive…in other words, if you’re looking for some kind of help I bet I can help you find someone that I would recommend that can help you.

Try it out – let me know what problem you need to solve and I will hook you up with the right introduction!  Share your comments here or drop me an email.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

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