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Add You - Nine Ways to Network More Effectively
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream," and what followed was a vision that changed a nation. That famous speech is an excellent example of the power generated by a compelling vision of the future. A vision clarifies purpose, gives direction, and empowers us to perform beyond our resources. Unless you know where you are going you cannot get there. You don't "need" a vision, or a mission statement, but those people with clearly defined visions experience greater success than those who haven't any. Which one will you be? A vision is not about yourself or monetary goals, it is however personal. It should be imaginative, bold and audacious—representing a real challenge. It is an idea or image of a more desirable future and your articulation of a destination towards which you will aim. Keep in mind it should be written in the present tense as if it has already been achieved. The difference between a vision and a mission statement is that a mission statement answers the questions: Why does my business exist? What business am I in? What values guide the business? A vision, however, is broader and encompasses more. It answers the question, what will success look like? It is the pursuit of success that will really motivate you. When creating a vision statement first ans
You can follow this same strategy. Always provide information that is of value even if the prospect doesn’t schedule an appointment or need your services right now. The idea is to partner with custo
Let's face it: Most of us are stuck in jobs that make us feel bored and uninspired. We do it because we think that we have to. After all, no job means no money. Many of us feel trapped in trading time for money. We feel like a hamster running endlessly around the wheel. We either bang our heads against the wall trying to figure out how to change things or we resign ourselves to our current plight, hoping that the promise of a blissful retirement will make all of this worthwhile. But, the sad truth is that 95% of us don't ever experience a retirement that is as happy or fulfilling as we would have liked. The problem is that many of us are stuck in an old paradigm. The idea of working nine to five with benefits and a pension is slowly becoming outdated, as it was spurned in the industrial age, which has now passed. With the advent of technology and the internet, we have a whole new way to capitalize upon our interests. We can make money in new and exciting ways. The first thing required is to shift your consciousness into an entirely new way of perceiving money and how it is made. The truth is that in this day and age you don't need to rely on the steady paycheck in the job that doesn't serve you year in and year out. That will slowly kill you. So, please, allow yourself the privilege of seeing
1) Don’t describe what YOU do.
Let your potential client know how you can positively impact his or her life. Explain how your product or service will improve the life of your potential client.
For example, when someone asks me, “What do you do?” my first thought is almost always to explain, “I’m a writer and consultant.” Unfortunately that response rarely piques the interest of potential clients. Instead I’ve learned to answer, “I POWERFULLY communicate business messages to get results.” This answer not only grabs their attention but stimulates more questions about how I might help that particular prospect.
Action item: Develop your value response to the question, “What do you do?”
2) Turn interest into appointments.
Once you have developed your value response to the action item above, you are well on your way to more effective networking. When you describe what you can do for a potential client they are more likely to be interested in what you do. After all, it’s all about WIIFM – What’s In It For Me!
My friend Ray is a dynamic individual. Coincidentally he runs Interlink a faith based organization. I recently overheard someone ask Ray what he does. Ray quickly replied “I help seniors and others stay in their homes as long as possible.” The person asking the question was immediately touched and wanted to know more. By providing just enough information to increase curiosity, Ray quickly gained interest and a new volunteer for his organization. Ray also learned of a senior in need through this interaction.
You can follow this same strategy. Always provide information that is of value even if the prospect doesn’t schedule an appointment or need your services right now. The idea is to partner with custom
Imagine going to your local grocery store and having to ask the clerk behind the counter to get your groceries for you! If it hadn’t been for a man named Clarence Saunders, a grocery wholesaler from Memphis, Tennessee who took a patent out in 1917 for what he called “Self-Serving Stores” we all might have been at the mercy of store clerks who kept the goods behind a counter. He thought it would save time and money to have the patrons gather their own goods and bring them up to the front of the store where clerks would ring up the purchases.We generally take for granted the process of going to a grocery story or department store and collecting what we want in our baskets and checking out with the clerks, but if you’ve ever had occasion to visit a historic restoration site such as Gettysburg or Old Sturbridge Village, you’ll see general stores set up on the pre-1917 plan with long counters winding in front of stacked shelves.What is it with people like Saunders who see different possibilities when the rest of us just take what is habitually handed to us for granted? How do they see the value of change when many of us would argue for the status quo?Truth is all of us have the ability to look at our lives and our surroundings and choose to see them differently than from what they are. We have
For example, when someone asks me, “What do you do?” my first thought is almost always to explain, “I’m a writer and consultant.” Unfortunately that response rarely piques the interest of potential clients. Instead I’ve learned to answer, “I POWERFULLY communicate business messages to get results.” This answer not only grabs their attention but stimulates more questions about how I might help that particular prospect.
Action item: Develop your value response to the question, “What do you do?”
2) Turn interest into appointments.
Once you have developed your value response to the action item above, you are well on your way to more effective networking. When you describe what you can do for a potential client they are more likely to be interested in what you do. After all, it’s all about WIIFM – What’s In It For Me!
My friend Ray is a dynamic individual. Coincidentally he runs Interlink a faith based organization. I recently overheard someone ask Ray what he does. Ray quickly replied “I help seniors and others stay in their homes as long as possible.” The person asking the question was immediately touched and wanted to know more. By providing just enough information to increase curiosity, Ray quickly gained interest and a new volunteer for his organization. Ray also learned of a senior in need through this interaction.
You can follow this same strategy. Always provide information that is of value even if the prospect doesn’t schedule an appointment or need your services right now. The idea is to partner with custo
Ad agency 'gangbangs' happen every day at every agency. Everywhere. But before you splash on some cologne and get your car detailed...there's good news about them, and there's bad news about them.The good news if that if you become a copywriter, you too will experience this unique advertising rite. I can 100% promise you that. No question.However, the bad news is that it's nothing you might think it is.An ad agency gangbang is a fierce competition. Literally, it happens when some or all of the creatives work on a project and compete with one another to see who earns the right to produce the television spot, or radio campaign or internet ad blitz.Again, remember, lives are won and lost based on how often you 'produce' in advertising. Hence. ad agency gangbangs are INCREDIBLE opportunities for some.On a day to day basis, these competitions play out to 'breathe some life into the brand.' By having art directors and copywriters who do not ORDINARILY work on that brand every day suddenly competing with those creative who DO work on that brand every day...well, it can get ugly as you might imagine.Computers have been known to go missing. Stealing might just take place. Creatives will not ever speak to one another after these competitions place. Even partnerships have bee
Action item: Develop your value response to the question, “What do you do?”
2) Turn interest into appointments.
Once you have developed your value response to the action item above, you are well on your way to more effective networking. When you describe what you can do for a potential client they are more likely to be interested in what you do. After all, it’s all about WIIFM – What’s In It For Me!
My friend Ray is a dynamic individual. Coincidentally he runs Interlink a faith based organization. I recently overheard someone ask Ray what he does. Ray quickly replied “I help seniors and others stay in their homes as long as possible.” The person asking the question was immediately touched and wanted to know more. By providing just enough information to increase curiosity, Ray quickly gained interest and a new volunteer for his organization. Ray also learned of a senior in need through this interaction.
You can follow this same strategy. Always provide information that is of value even if the prospect doesn’t schedule an appointment or need your services right now. The idea is to partner with custo
Businesses nowadays are now aware of the power of the internet. Who would think decades ago that Yahoo, Google, Ebay or Amazon will became large corporations today? Twenty years ago no one would imagine that this would happen. Now even here in the Philippines there are some online entrepreneur from rags to riches made his way to success. So what is the most important thing to start a business? Is setting up a brick and mortar (this is a physical business like a grocery store for example ) comparable to an online business? It has similarities in some ways like both sell products or services. But the big difference for both to succeed is:Brick and Mortar -> Need Good LocationOnline Business -> Need Good InformationWhy did I say that? simple. A brick and mortar business should have a good location, for example, in a place where many people pass by like in a commercial place. A school perhaps. If you will build a store away from the crowd, no one or very few will have a chance to go to your store. Very few people will know that your store exist.I remember many years ago about my sister who has a general merchandise store. I was wondering why people flock to her store since it is very small and her items was priced higher than the competitor near her place. The other general merchandise sto
My friend Ray is a dynamic individual. Coincidentally he runs Interlink a faith based organization. I recently overheard someone ask Ray what he does. Ray quickly replied “I help seniors and others stay in their homes as long as possible.” The person asking the question was immediately touched and wanted to know more. By providing just enough information to increase curiosity, Ray quickly gained interest and a new volunteer for his organization. Ray also learned of a senior in need through this interaction.
You can follow this same strategy. Always provide information that is of value even if the prospect doesn’t schedule an appointment or need your services right now. The idea is to partner with custo
It seem that the only time people are open to change is when what they have always done no longer works for them. In other words when our needs are no longer being met by previous behaviors, thought patterns or procedures.Your task as a CEO or manager is to show your staff that this applies to your business as well. When certain procedures and practices no longer meet the needs of your business or organization change is needed.To facilitate this change you must show respect for both the needs of the business and employees. When your business needs for increased efficiency, profitability and productivity take priority over the needs of your staff you are bound to increase stress and create resistance to any proposed change. There must be a balance between the two.Here are thirteen suggestions to help you bring about change without sending your entire staff to a Psychiatrist.1. Keep your staff informed especially when the change you want to effect is going to impact them personally. Explain the why and the how of your decision to change.2. Stress how the proposed change will benefit your employees. When people begin to perceive a forthcoming change as a definite benefit to them and when they feel a sense of ownership in the process they more eagerly participate in, welcome
You can follow this same strategy. Always provide information that is of value even if the prospect doesn’t schedule an appointment or need your services right now. The idea is to partner with customers to help them - not to trick them into services they may not want or need.
Action items: Develop a response to further inquiries about your business or service and provide valuable information to potential customers that helps turn interest into appointments.
3) Give prospects more than they expect.
Sure, your time is valuable but so is the time of your potential customer. Maximize the effectiveness and value of your initial meeting by offering to meet pro bono (or for free). While I don’t advocate giving services away for free, a complimentary initial meeting is a good way to find out if your services are right for the customer…and if the customer is right for YOU.
Recently, Wade, an investment services broker contacted a marketing specialist to discuss ways he could increase his client base. The marketing specialist granted Wade a complimentary ? hour consultation and could have suggested all kinds of advertising and marketing placements that would have cost Wade lots of money. Instead, the savvy marketing specialist detected that it would be more beneficial for Wade to build networking skills and work on individual relationships to increase business. During this complimentary meeting both parties quickly assessed that they could probably work together in the future but the timing wasn’t quite right. Wade was grateful for the honest assessment and has since begun building relationships via the local Chamber of Commerce. When he’s ready to put together a marketing campaign, Wade knows who he’ll call.
Action item: Consider offering brief complimentary consultations to evaluate if you are a good fit with a potential customer.
4) Can’t
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