The Person to See

Wealth. Freedom. Influence

Networking That Matters Four Proven Strategies

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Does this sound like anyone you know?

I would venture to say that 90% of all networking encounters don’t amount to anything because of what I call “intentional inaction.”

Two people go to a networking event and meet each other. After some conversation, they exchange cards because they surmise there might be a reason to stay in contact. They go back to their lives the following day, put each other’s’ card on their respective desk and nothing ever happens again between the two people

Truth be told, this is most people. This kind of behavior is what I call “Unintentional Inaction.” We take no action after the event, even though they know there might be potential to build a mutually beneficial relationship. Our lack of action is not intentional but rather, because we are lazy, afraid or don’t know what to do.

I have good news! I am going to teach you the only four action steps that matter when it comes to networking. They are:

─ Asking for the business

─ Be a connector/resource

─ Set up a Starbucks meeting

─ Intentional Inaction

A bit about each networking action summarized below.

 

Asking for the Business

We always need to be prepared to take advantage of any opportunity to nudge our nose under the tent. By “asking for the business” language I do not mean it has to be a situation where you point blank ask for the sale. Those situations do present themselves occasionally, and when they do we must be ready. But, more often, it is a situation where somebody makes casual reference to a problem they are experiencing that we can solve. We need to be ready to advance the ball in these moments.

It might be a comment like, “Oh, we helped a client with a similar problem. Would you like me to share what we did?”

Maybe it is a suggestion to meet or an offer to connect to discuss the issue further after the event.

Here’s a great example, I was talking to one of my clients (We’ll call him Conner) and he shared with me that he was on a boat fishing in Alaska with a potential customer (We’ll call the customer Pete).

At the time of this encounter, Pete was not doing business with Conner or his firm.

While Conner and Pete were out on the river, Pete asked Conner what he did. Conner, being prepared, told Pete what he did. Pete casually responded, “Oh, I am working on a project like that right now.” There was no intention on the part of Pete to open the door for Conner. It was just a casual comment. Didn’t matter to Conner. He seized the opportunity and said, “Well, why don’t you give us a shot and see what we can do?”

According to Pete, Conner didn’t respond. It didn’t matter. Conner took the chance and who knows what may happen down the road. I suggested to Conner that he follow up with an email to Pete.

The bottom-line is we must always look out for the opportunity to push a little business. If we don’t exercise this muscle we will always be at the mercy of others, hoping they pick us.

For those who feel this approach is “too pushy” I say, “hogwash!” I never met a successful person who wasn’t at least, a little bit pushy.

If we do not advocate for ourselves no one else will.

 

Be a Connector/Resource

It is not always about us. We love it when people reach out to us, so we must be prepared to help in kind. It does not have to be just business – think personal life as well. I have actually set up two sets of people on a blind dates who eventually got married.

Zig Ziglar said it best, “Help enough people get what they want, and you’ll have everything you want.”

Here are three tips to help you be a even better giver:

  • Don’t give to get. Give just because you want to give.
  • Don’t keep score. It is not about, “I gave you three referral. You owe me three now.”
  • Go first. Give before you get. This goes a long way towards building good will.

The key is to be on the lookout for opportunities to help other people be successful.

 

 

Starbucks Meetings

This is the next key networking action I have found to be extremely effective. I built my business on this strategy. Whenever I meet someone who has a great network I always invite them to coffee at Starbucks (or Coffee Bean if you live in California) to see how we can help each other grow our businesses. I call these my pull-me-up meetings.

Here’s the language I would use. “It seems like you and I might be able to help each other grow our businesses. Would you be interested in grabbing a cup of coffee?”

When I first started out promoting my Rainmaker U. program, I tried to have 40 pull-me-up meetings a quarter. Most of them never went anywhere. But, I only needed a few to count. Remember, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find one prince.”

These meeting are not focused on selling the person you invited to coffee. The purpose of these meetings is to build relationships with other superstars who you can nurture into key strategic centers of influence.

Think long-term.

 

Intentional Inaction

This is the exact opposite of what I described above under asking for the business, connecting and scheduling coffee meetings.

In this situation, you have run through the three steps above and have determined that none of them apply so you are INTENTIONALLY deciding not to tack action.

It’s okay to do nothing as long as it is a product of critical thinking.

In those situations where no further action makes sense, we might say, “I have enjoyed our conversation. Why don’t we see if we can mingle with some other people?”

Key’s to excusing yourself:

– Be polite

– Honest (e.g. Don’t say, “Why don’t you give me your card and I will follow up with you?”)

– Smile, make eye  contact and shake hands.

– Pretty easy, no.”

 

Summary

To sum it all up, “Intentionality” is the key. If you get intentional and apply the above action steps to your networking, watch the quality of your interactions skyrocket!

If you want to put your business development on steroids, check out our new business development program, The Box System.

 

How Effort Impacts Your Career

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“Living Life is not for Sissies”

– Mariya Alexander

I wish I could take credit for this quote, but I cannot. It belongs to Mariya Alexander, the no nonsense executive assistant to one of my clients.

In his best-selling book, The Road Less Traveled, author, Scott Peck sums it up perfectly in his first line, “Life is difficult.” What is also true is when we work hard, take chances and get up after we fail, life is also amazing, exhilarating and exciting.

In my own life, I have endured my own fair share of hardships. But I always found a way to dust myself off and go on. Nothing heroic. Just made the choice.

 

If you don’t think success is about grit, consider these facts and statistics:

a) 80% of all sales are made after the fifth contact

b) 90% of the people you try to sell will say “No”

c) Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, started his business at 65 years old. He slept in his car for two years, traveling around the country until his idea caught on

d) Sylvester Stallone was offered $50,000 for his script, Rocky under one condition. He had to agree to not play the lead role.

e) In Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller, Outliers, Gladwell calculates that those who become experts in their fields, the Bill Gates and Wayne Gretzkys of the world, have practiced their skills for more than 10,000 hours.

 

This list could go on and on, but I think you get my point. Excellence takes effort. And along the way expect to fail and experience a lot of rejection.

The first year in business I cold called over 6,000 people and almost all of them were the wrong person! That’s right, I was prospecting the wrong people.

I could have quit. But, I didn’t. I knew the solution was out there. I just had to find it.

Since that time, I have built a multi-million-dollar business and have developed a blue-chip roster of clients. All because I knew what I wanted, and I was willing to do what it took to get it.

And I am only just getting started!

 

Check out some of my most read posts:

 

 

 

 

How to Select the Right Target Audience

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I was delivering a training session the other day for JLL’s retail advisory group in Chicago. The central theme of the presentation was the importance of creating a personal brand in the service sector. On a break, the president of the group, Naveen Jaggi approached me and shared what I thought was brilliant insight. He said, “You don’t own your reputation. Your community does.”

Those eight simple words pretty much sum up the essence of personal branding.

Personal branding has nothing to do with what we think of ourselves and everything to do with what others feel about us. This is why I call personal branding the great equalizer. Having power, fame, money or prestige does not automatically translate into a great personal brand. The depth and sincerity of our connection with our target audience is what matters most.

 

Go Narrow and Deep

When choosing our audience, it is best to go narrow and deep. The broader your audience the harder it is to meaningfully touch everyone. If your audience is too broad your message is likely to spread like a light mist as opposed to a laser beam. With all the noise out there, we cannot afford to be casual in who we are targeting.

Not too long ago I was visiting my printer, Michael Zokai, the owner of Printing Depot in Westwood when I observed a flyer that was literally a masterpiece of focus. His message was so simple. It included a photo of a man (presumably the business owner) and underneath it simply said his name and the tagline, “The Gay Man’s Therapist.”

Talk about focus. All this guy had to do was drive home one singular message, “I am THE therapist for the gay community.”

Unfortunately, my praise was short lived. I looked over and saw another box of flyers that said, “The Valley Therapist.” Another, “The South Bay Therapist.” And yet another, “The Westside Therapist.” And on it went. This genius marketing strategy went from being laser focused to a mish-mash of competing slogans, all of which, I am sure, turned into white noise.

 

Segment your audience

Picking your audience can be broken down by so many categories; revenue, number of employees, geography, industry sector, male or female, age and on and on. The key is to define it as specifically as possible.

I also counsel my clients to make sure the audience they define is large enough that if they captured just 10% of the total market share they would have a tough time keeping up with servicing those clients. We want to make sure that the market is big enough so there is plenty to go around. Lastly, I caution my clients to not move on to another market (i.e. Define a new audience) until they have captured 50% of the market they are currently focused on. The ensures they are not just going after the low hanging fruit.

 

Define your ideal market

Take a moment and define your ideal market. Not the one you are currently focused on. But the one you dream of, if you had no restrictions.

It all starts with self-belief. If you think you are worthy of the audience or you think you are not, you are right.

 

Check out some of my most read posts:

 

 

How I Went From a Lawyer to Personal Branding Expert

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I am often asked, “What made you transition from a lawyer to a business coach?”

The short answer is I decided long ago that I was not going to spend my life in a job I did not love. Instead, I believed, and still do, that you only get one shot at life, so you might as well do what you love.

I graduated from college with all kinds of accomplishments- summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, student body president and a member of the varsity basketball team. I thought I had it all figured out. I enrolled in Georgetown Law School. After graduating from Georgetown, I took a job with a firm in New Jersey. I ran and was elected to the Town Council in my hometown at the age of 26. Soon I would run for statewide office, then national, and who knows what else.

The problem was, I was unfulfilled and bored.

I was only a few months into my career as a lawyer and I dreaded it. Not the firm. Just the work. Nothing about it was me – head down in the library all day, billing in six-minute increments, fighting over other people’s money and having to navigate petty office politics. I knew there was something else out there for me. I just didn’t know what.

Do you know how some people attribute a seemingly random occurrence that carries a powerful message as a sign from God? Well, on this day, I think either God or my guardian angel was speaking to me through a songwriter who was being interviewed on the radio.

I heard his message nearly 30 years ago, but I will never forget it. Responding to a question from the host (I cannot remember what the question was) the songwriter said, “My Dad once told me, ‘Son, do what you love to do and you will figure out how to make money doing it.’”

That was it! That was the sign I was looking for! Now all I had to do was figure out what that “it” was and the rest would be easy.

Not so fast. What I came to realize was that our first move, while necessary to get us to take action, may not always be where we end up.

Three years into my career as a lawyer my opportunity presented itself. I was walking in New York City with my friend when we saw a flyer advertising acting classes. Immediately, I said, “let’s do it!” He agreed and the following night we found ourselves in the famed Actors Studio in lower Manhattan. Immediately, I was hooked. For many months I attended my classes in secret, too embarrassed to say, “I want to be an actor.”

Finally, I summoned the courage to let the world know my plans. I called my parents and told them I had some news I wanted to share with them. I honestly think they thought I was coming home to tell them I was switching jobs.

Instead, I said, “I am leaving the practice of law to pursue acting.” Being from a big, Irish, Catholic family, this did not go over so well. As a matter of fact, I remember my father literally having no reaction at all. He merely went back to reading his paper. I think my father thought, “If I just pretend he did not just tell me that, maybe we can pretend this never happened.” My father should have known better.

He and my mother raised a very determined son. Over the next seven years I gave it all I had. I went back to school, got headshots, walked up and down the streets of Manhattan submitting my resume and auditioning every chance I could get.

At the age of 31 I moved to California, not knowing a soul. Pound the pavement for every opportunity to audition. Nobody wanted to hire me so I partnered with another guy and we raised $500,000 and starred in our own movie. Unfortunately, I could never catch a break. But I have not an ounce of bitterness over not being able to make a living in the entertainment industry.

As I approached my 35th birthday something inside of me said it is time for a change. I could have easily defaulted back into being a lawyer, but it wasn’t me. During my time as an actor I was introduced to personal development (e.g. Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohm).

Some of the messages that stood out to me were:

“You decide who you want to be”

“Your greatest risk produces your greatest gain”

“Don’t let your fears hold you back”

 

I couldn’t get enough of it. I read dozens of books listened to as many takes and attended too many seminars to remember. All of this was, of course, for the purpose of preparing me to succeed as an actor. I had no idea my acting career was actually preparing me for my true vocation. Becoming a motivational speaker, business strategist, and personal branding coach.

Things seem to move slowly for me while I perused acting, but once I decided I was going to pursue a career in the professional development space, my life took off like a rocket. I can honestly say, I accomplished more from 35-40 than I did in my prior 35 years. I built a million-dollar business, wrote a book, bought a home, got married and had my first child. All because I never settled.

As I look back on my career I would say, becoming an actor was the most pivotal move in my life. Not because I succeeded. I did not. But because it was the necessary first step to get me to take action.

What necessary first step do you have to take? Your happiness may very well depend upon it.

Check out some of my most read posts:

 

Why Shaq’s Personal Brand is & was so much Better than Kobe’s

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I always found it odd that Kobe Bryant, arguably the greatest basketball player on the planet at one time, never really caught on as a brand the way Shaq did. Why?

The answer is simple. While Shaq understood his superstardom depended upon his connection with the fans, Kobe never took the time to develop a relationship with the people who made him famous. Shaq was your playful older brother. Kobe was a scrooge. You always got the sense with Kobe that he couldn’t care less about anybody but himself.

I was delivering a workshop not too long ago when one of the participants came up to me and shared what I believe sums up personal branding perfectly, “You don’t own your reputation. Your community does.” Wow! This is perfectly said.

Shaq went out of his way to engage with his fans. He gave himself fun nicknames – Diesel, Shaq-a-Clause, The Big Aristotle, The Big Cactus when he went to play for the Phoenix Suns, and The Leprechaun when he went to play for the Boston Celtics. Shaq’s great secret was he never took himself too seriously. To him, you could be great at basketball and still have a lot of fun.

Kobe, in contrast, was a mixed bag. No doubt he was a spectacular basketball player. And if things went well you would get the good Kobe. If things did not go as Kobe wanted them to you would get the not so good Kobe. His answers to perfectly reasonable questions would be curt and often full of curse words. Yes, he could get away with it because he was “Kobe.” But the best brands are those who can get away with self-indulgent behavior but wouldn’t dare do it because they know it isn’t right.

Even years after he has been retired, Shaq is still everywhere in commercials and print ads. People still love him.

I notice during the playoffs that ESPN was featuring an online program produced by Kobe wherein he would breakdown the days game. Nothing could interest me less than tuning into Kobe Bryant talking about basketball.

The way I see it is Kobe needs us now. The problem is, when we wanted to have a relationship with him, he wasn’t interested.

I guess the saying is true, “What goes around, comes around.”

 

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