SELLING
DOING BUSINESS
Cast a wider net for prospects
10 tips for turning your network into a business generator
Ivan R. Misner
The art of working a room may not come naturally to you. But learning to be effective in networking groups—professionals from different walks of life who meet regularly to share business leads—can link you to a vast web of people outside your usual sphere. A business network can make word-of-mouth advertising your most powerful marketing tool.
Here are 10 ways to be effective in networking groups:
1. Learn to ask for referrals. One approach: Ask, Whom do you know who . . . ? Then list several types of people you can help. Whom do you know who is new to the area? Who recently got married? Who just started a business?
2. Diversify your network. Participate in a well-rounded mix of business referral groups—the chamber of commerce, community service groups, and trade associations. Avoid being in more than one group per category, such as two chambers of commerce, because it’ll divide your loyalties and you’ll make promises to too many people.
3. Develop a creative incentive to encourage people to send referrals your way. A northern California real estate practitioner offers his own estate-bottled wine as gifts to people who give him referrals.
4. Develop a 60-second message about your business.Think up a memory hook—a brief, ear-catching phrase that vividly describes what you do—and use it to help people remember you and your profession. One practitioner introduces herself at networking groups by saying, “If you know someone who wants to move, tell them to call me and start packing.”
5. Carry the right tools. Don’t attend a networking meeting without an informative name badge, business cards, and a card case to hold others’ cards.
6. Develop your networking skills.Read books and articles on networking, listen to tapes, and talk to people who network well.
7. Act like a host, not a guest, at mixers. You’re wasting your time if you visit only with people you already know. Meet new contacts and introduce them around. Offer to act as the ambassador or host in your organizations: It will then be your official duty to meet people and introduce them to others.
8. Connect with people outside regular meetings. Drop notes, letters, and articles that might interest contacts. Call to check in with them or invite them to other events you’re attending.
9. Monitor referrals you give and receive.It makes you focus on helping people who’ve helped you. Remember, word-of-mouth marketing is a two-way street.
10. Distribute your personal and company marketing materials—brochures, newsletters, promotional videos—in your network.If people can see, touch, and hear things about your services, they’ll be more likely to remember and refer you.
Misner is president and CEO of Business Network International, a San Dimas, Calif., referral organization. He’s on the faculty of California Polytechnic University, Pomona, and the author of several books about word-of-mouth marketing,
including The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret: Building Your Business With Word-of-Mouth Marketing (Austin, Texas: Bard Press, 1994; $14.95). Visit his Web site at bni.com or contact him by phone at 909/305-1818 or by E-mail at misner@bni.com.
