Applying the 7 habits to your business networking

How many people will be there at your networking event?

Who is in your inner network?

Do you spend too much time meeting new people?
In a couple of seminars and One2One sessions this week we have discussed the amount of time spent on Networking. We have then broken that down into time spent in different aspects of networking:1. Meeting new people2. Getting to know existing contacts better3. Spending time with your Inner Network4. Building trust with your close contacts or advocatesMost people agree that before people buy from you or refer you they need to know, like and trust you and that takes time. You need to meet first, but then you need to keep meeting the people you like to really get to know them and build that trust.The people I discussed this with during the

How many business cards are in that desk drawer?
I was presenting the NRG Business networking Advocacy Model earlier this week when the question of collecting business cards came up. I was talking about the importance of following up and asked how many in the audience had piles of business cards from events that they had never done anything with. Like most audiences there were knowing and embarrassed smiles from a good number.I still meet people at networking meetings, who just collect a business card and move on. Sometimes all they do is just give out their own card! Most people are not like this at all. They are ge

Building your Pride
A couple of people recently have asked for advice on selecting people for their Inner Network. At the Referral Institute Conference last week Dawn Lyons and Jill Green spoke about the lessons you can learn from the different roles played by the members of a Pride of Lions in organising around a common goal. Networking is about helping others as a way of growing your business, but it is important to build your pride with others committed to the same approach and with access to the right markets. People who will share your pa

Ways of helping your advocates to refer you
I spoke at an event last night about the NRG Networking Advocacy Model*. The model suggests that effective networking is a result of building trusted relationships with your Inner Network. Others that share the same target market as you and provide a complementary service to yours. Over time you will actively refer and introduce some of these as you get to know, like, trust and rate them. Some of these will form your Advocate Network, the small group of people who regularly go out of their way to find introductions and referrals for you. The speakers at the Referral Institute Conference last week all reinforced this vi

Asking for referrals
The subject of when it is right to ask for referrals came up at a networking meeting last week. In 'Are you stuck doing lots of networking with little reward?' I wrote about Mike macedonio's talk at the Referral Institute Conference on the VCP process (tm). VCP is the acronym Dr. Ivan Misner uses for Visibility, Credibility, and Profitability.Mike emailed this 'nugget' to me afterward on this very subject: "I do believe that in order to get referrals we need to ask. The key, however, is to know how to ask and when it is appropriate to make the request. When is