Business Advice Tip #4 – Business netWORKING
How many business owners really view networking as netWORKING?
You work all day in your business, you bust your butt to get warm leads, you worry all the time about getting new clients, so if you are going to attend networking events, shouldn’t you have a plan BEFORE you get there? Why waste the money, if you could actually take some time to relax, spend time with your family, or plan your next vacation. Because any of these would be more productive than to meander around a room full of people without a goal in mind.
Networking is Not An Afterthought (and bad networking is the easiest way to turn off a prospect)
As with all business endeavors – and especially marketing and personal branding – you get out what you put in. So if you are going to get the most out of business networking you need to have a plan before you walk through the door. Here are some great tips from top notch networkers.
- Never go to a business networking event unless you know there will be prospects there that can potentially get you business. Your time is money.
- For every networking event you attend, identify five people you must meet, plus another five backups. Not everyone that you are targeting as prospects will show up at your event so you have to have a backup plan. Ideally, you want to keep the number small so you can ensure you really focus on the people that are absolutely your target prospects.
- Before you go to the event, rehearse what you are going to say to the people you want to meet. Practice in front of the mirror, or with a spouse, friend or colleague. Business NetWORKING is a business art that needs to be practiced over and over again. No matter how long you’ve done it, you still want to keep yourself at the top of your game.
- Read from the experts: If you’ve never read Zig Ziggler or any of the other true experts on sales, then you owe it to yourself to buy a couple of books and really study the science of salesmanship. The statistics say that less than 1% of the population are born as salespeople. The other 99% have to work at it. If you’re one of the 1%, then you’ve got it made. If you’re not, practice, practice and keep practicing.
- When you do get to meet your prospect and after you’ve introduced yourself, don’t start selling. There’s no greater turnoff than the bore that immediately starts pitching you for business – you’ve experienced this yourself. Instead, start asking questions. Ask them everything you can about them and their business.
- Once you’ve hit all five of your key targets, you can choose to focus on your backups, you can go home, or look for the random opportunity. The key thing is that you’ve accomplished your mission for the event. Mission accomplished, so go home because you’ve earned it.
Following these simple steps will make netWORKING more efficient and rewarding for you.
Written by Coach Josh Slavitt, pictured here with his son
Are you interested in increasing the leads in your business?
1.) Contact ActionCOACH NOW at 203 210 7003
2.) Attend one of our upcoming seminars
If you are looking for business advisors in CT, why not give your business a Business Growth Analysis and gain invaluable insights into four major areas of your business?
Your answers will be used to qualify you for a FREE Business Diagnostic Meeting.
If you don’t have a Business Plan – then what do you have? – Business Planning Tip #1
Business Planning Tip #1:
Why do small business owners consider business planning torture when Fortune 500 companies think it’s so important they devote whole departments to it?
If you really want to grow your business you need to plan at least once a year, better still once a quarter.
And you really should look at business planning as a luxury that you should enjoy because it is the one time a year that you get to stand back and look at how your business is doing rather than working IN your business. After all, it’s your business, so don’t you want it to run the way that you envisioned, generating the income you want and giving you the time that you want?
When you think of writing an annual plan for your business, do your palms sweat? Do you envision bamboo sticks being slowly driven under your fingernails? Why is it that so many small and medium-sized business owners think of business planning as nothing but pure torture, when in big business – especially publicly-traded businesses – planning is thought of so highly that most Fortune 500 companies have dedicated planning departments? Fundamentals still apply whether a business has one employee, or 100,000. And planning is still the most effective way to realize your goals and create more time to develop and grow your business.
As the Commander-in-Chief of your own business, you are certainly entitled to do what you want and most self-owned business owners prefer to focus on the doing far more than on the planning.
Which brings to mind the adage that, “everything worth doing is worth doing over…”
So the result is that most small and medium business owners know deep down that they need to plan, but find a million reasons not to and they let their businesses simply drift along, mired in the immediate events of the day.
Certainly, when you got started in your business, you never expected to deal with so many issues every day. So one year goes by and then the next and then five years go by and then ten years go by and you are still running on that hamster wheel wondering what happened to your dreams and your goals. Your spouse or partner vaguely remembers you and if you have them, your kids keep forgetting your name so they just call you “ma’am,” or “sir.”
Does it have to be this way? The answer, of course, is no.
Moreover, as the owner of your own business, you should consider business planning to be a luxury that you actually ENJOY doing at least once a year and even better, once a quarter. Why? Because it is one of the rare times when you can step back and look at your business rather than working in your business.
It gives you the chance to determine how to use your time to get the most value out of your business, so you don’t have to keep doing business the same way until you drop. It helps you define and grow your most valuable asset, so that one day you can give it to someone else to manage for you, or sell it at a price that will allow you to retire the way you want.
Written by Coach Josh Slavitt, pictured here with his son Liam
Are you interested in business planning and planning out the next quarter of your business? Here is how you can take the next step:
1.) Attend our GrowthCLUB – 90 Day Planning Session on December 11th to register CLICK HERE
2.) Contact ActionCOACH NOW at 203 210 7003
3.) Attend one of our upcoming seminars
If you are looking for business advisors in CT, why not give your business a Business Growth Analysis and gain invaluable insights into four major areas of your business?
Your answers will be used to qualify you for a FREE Business Diagnostic Meeting.
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