Business Growth Insights

The best way to increase the number of referrals you receive is to increase your worthiness of receiving them. Part of that has to do with your competence, i.e., how well do you know your stuff? All other things being equal, people prefer to work with experts, not amateurs. But that’s obviously beyond the scope of a single blog post to cover!

The other part of it is your character. Are you someone that people in your network not only know, but also like and trust? Do your friends and associates trust you to treat the people they refer to you well? Show and grow your character, and you’ll receive more referrals.

Character isn’t just what you are, it’s what you do. There is little that rings more hollow than for someone to say, in one form or another, that they are a person of “high character” — honest, a hard worker, helpful, easy-going, etc. — and then have their actions be inconsistent with that. Furthermore, one of the best ways to build stronger relationships is by helping people actually accomplish their goals.

In The Virtual Handshake, we introduced the idea of “Seven Keys to a Powerful Network”, one of which is your character:

Character: Your integrity, clarity of motives, consistency of behavior, openness, discretion, and trustworthiness. This is driven by the reality and the appearance: the real content of your Character, and what each Acquaintance thinks of your Character.

We also point out that:

As an absolute rule, credibility – your Character and your Competence – must underlie your network. A massive network will not aid you if you are selling an inferior product or trying to get a job for which you are unqualified. In fact, a big network will rapidly become a liability, as too many people will be aware of the inferior goods you are peddling. No matter how much your friends like you, they will not recommend you for a job if they see that you are consistently unethical, tardy, sloppy, or otherwise unprofessional.

There’s a line from an old church song that I remember from my childhood: “If your light’s under a bushel, it’s lost something kind of crucial.” If you are a person of character, you need to show that, and LinkedIn is a great opportunity to do that. Here are seven ways that you can actually demonstrate your character on LinkedIn, rather than just talk about it.

1. Answer questions well. Don’t just rattle off a quick opinion – put some thought into it. Provide some additional resources. Refer people to an appropriate expert from within your network. Most of the questions on LinkedIn Answers are from people actually trying to solve a problem or accomplish something, not just looking for something to talk about. What better way to be of service than to actually help someone accomplish something?

2. Add value to introduction requests. If you buy into the idea that LinkedIn is designed for “trusted referrals”, then you need to participate in that. A trusted referral isn’t just, “Joe meet Sally, Sally meet Joe.” A trusted referral adds context to the introduction which will help the two people get off to a good start. How do you know this person? How can you recommend them in the context of their request?

3. Make good recommendations. Don’t just wait for people to recommend you and then reciprocate – be proactive. Go through your network. Who among them do you feel strongly about that you could give a good recommendation to for their profile? When you add someone new, do you know them well enough to go ahead and recommend them? Also, recommendations on your own profile are a great way to show your own reputation, and the best way to ask for an endorsement is to give one. And don’t write empty, generic recommendations; write good ones.

4. Respond in a timely manner. Forward introduction requests right away. The rest, get to as quickly as you can. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m pretty slow in responding to invitations and to introduction requests for me if they are just general “I’d like to meet you” requests. It’s not that I think they aren’t important — I’m just plain busy, and I place my existing clients, business associates and family in front of new networking contacts. But forwarding requests I almost always handle within 24 hours, 2 days at the most.

5. Help your contacts learn how to use LinkedIn effectively. Most people don’t have a clue how to get beyond the basics of a simple profile with their last couple of jobs and connecting with a few colleagues they keep up with. Help them! Go through your contacts list and see which people have less than 10 connections. Drop them an e-mail asking them if there’s anything you can do to help them make better use of the system. Refer them to this blog and the LinkedIn-related Yahoo Groups. Doing so not only helps them, it also helps you and all of your network if more people become actively engaged.

6. Be proactive. One of the most important elements of networking is proactively introducing two people that you know. It’s not readily obviously how to do this with LinkedIn, but you can: from the profile of one of the people, choose “Forward this profile to a connection.” Address it to the other person, but also address it to the first person whose profile you’re sending. By default, recipients will be able to see each other’s names and email addresses, and they’ll both see the same message.

Now take it one step further and use LinkedIn to set up multiple introductions. For example, let’s say you meet somebody new and they’re looking to meet people with an interest in, say, process management. Now, even though you know your contacts fairly well, you may not be able to remember (or even know) which of them have a background in process management, and I’m betting that’s not in your contact management system either. But it is in LinkedIn. Search your network. Find the matches. Copy their profile URLs and send them to the new person you met and tell them you’d be happy to make an introduction. Or say someone you know posts on a mailing list or forum that they’re looking for someone to fill a certain position. Search your LinkedIn network and send them the list of people in your first and second degree and tell them you’d be glad to introduce the ones they’re interested in talking to. Great networking is proactive, not just reactive.

7. Use LinkedIn to enhance face-to-face networking. You can use LinkedIn to fill out a business trip, meet fellow travelers in your network, help you break the ice at a meeting or research a prospective client so you can communicate with them more effectively. Every one of these things helps show that you have a genuine interest in other people and are willing to make the time to develop those relationships.

Think of your character as being like a muscle — if it doesn’t get enough exercise, it will atrophy. So go give your character a workout at the LinkedIn gym!

Scott “Social Media” Allen is a social media strategist who’s been helping individuals and businesses transform virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He’s coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy, as well as a resident expert at American Express OPEN Forum and Business.com. In partnership with OneCoach, Scott will be presenting a six-part course on “Social Media for Business Growth” starting on August 18. Click here for more information.

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You know him. He’s the perfect networker. He’s at every event. He’s a brilliant conversationalist. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He follows up. He keeps his commitments. He’s always happy to make an introduction.

And yet he’s always broke. He drinks water at every event, not because it’s healthy, but to save money. He’ll spend hours on Twitter doing essentially nothing, but won’t spend $50 for a tool that will actually help his business. There’s always a hint of desperation hidden in his voice (or his blog posts) because his business really isn’t doing that well.

He’s drunk the networking & social media Kool-Aid. It’s a poison, and if you’re not careful, you might easily fall victim to it too.

Networking is fun. Furthermore, there’s rarely any rejection in networking. People can succeed at networking even if they’re not succeeding in their business. And if you’re any good at it at all, occasionally it will work and actually generate you some business. “See? Networking works!” That becomes a validation of whatever you’ve been doing. It doesn’t matter that if you did things a little differently, you could have had ten times the results with the same amount of effort – what you’re doing “works”.

It’s an addiction. And it’s an insidious one at that. Why? Because…

More networking is not necessarily a good thing.

First off, it can pull your attention and financial resources away from other, more important things. Secondly, more networking means more exposure of anything in your business or your relationship management practices that’s not absolutely rock solid.

Now I know you’ve all heard that “givers gain” – that you should give first in a networking context, without thinking about what’s in it for you.

I agree. I also think it’s often misinterpreted. Let’s qualify it and say that…

It’s OK to be selfish sometimes when it comes to networking, or at least to appear that way.

Let’s consider a few facts:

In order to take care of others, you must take care of yourself. On a plane, they tell you to put your mask on first – you can’t help your child if you’re unconscious. The more resources you have at your disposal – money, time, connections, etc. – the better you can be of service to the people you know. “Love your neighbor as yourself” requires you to first love yourself. Perhaps spend less time networking and more time becoming someone that people would want to network with.

Time is a zero-sum game. 24 hours, 7 days…that’s it…same as everybody else. An hour you’re spending networking is an hour you’re not spending with your current clients, your employees, your close friends, your family, or personal development. Sure, networking is rewarding, but really think about this when you consider attending a particular event or whether to spend an hour on Facebook – is it more rewarding in the long run than all of the other things you could be doing with your time? You can’t help everybody, and you shouldn’t feel guilty, or be made to feel guilty by anyone else, for saying “no”.

Your networking contacts are not the most important people in your life or your business, even for referrals. Who really gives you the most referrals (or at least the best ones)? New networking contacts? Or your current happy customers? If it’s not your current customers, “you’re doing it wrong.” The single most important thing you can do to drive referrals is to make sure your current customers are not just satisfied, but RAVING FANS. And your employees are what make your business possible. In most cases, clients are more easily replaced than good employees. And your family and close friends? They’re what make it all worthwhile. Don’t ever sacrifice those relationships on the altar of networking.

If your business isn’t solid, your network is a house of cards. More exposure means exposing the weaknesses as well as the strengths. If you’re stretched so thin that you can’t even begin to keep up with all the little commitments you make — “Sure , I’ll get that over to you” or that stack of “let’s talk next month” people – then why are you spending your time meeting a lot of new people? Do you really think all those new people will create value for you (or that you’ll be able to create value for them) greater than those opportunities that are already in front of you?

People who don’t understand the items above are not your friends. If a networking contact can’t understand that, in the event of a commitment conflict, you’re going to take care of your customer over them, do you really even want them as a customer? If they’re demanding now, how do you think they’ll act when they’ve paid you money?

Now I’m not suggesting that people start thinking “what’s in it for me” about every interaction. What I am saying is that you need to be selective with your time. You are going to have to make some choices. And sometimes the choices stink.

Once I was scheduled to do a teleclass and cancelled the day of the event. There were a couple of hundred people registered and a very good networking contact of mine had arranged for the event. I knew it would damage my reputation to cancel and put a dent in my relationship with the friend who set it up.

Why did I cancel? Because a client of mine had a meeting for a $2 million funding deal the next day, and we weren’t done with the presentation and prospectus. Taking even a couple of hours out for the teleclass could have meant a botched meeting for him. Or maybe not, but I also had to be able to give reasonable notice to the teleclass organizer and attendees, so I made the call.

Sure…in hindsight, I didn’t plan it all well. But as of the morning of the event, I had to make a very difficult decision. If I had it to do over again, I’d make the same decision. I’d risk my reputation with a couple of hundred people I don’t know and have never worked with to make sure that my current client knew I would do whatever it takes to keep the commitment I made to them.

So go ahead…put yourself first. Take care of your business. Develop yourself. Stay healthy. Sleep. Meditate. Spend time with your friends and family. Put your customers and employees ahead of your networking contacts.

Don’t be afraid to ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?” about your overall networking activities. If you’re not getting the returns you want, maybe it’s time to push away from the networking buffet table, spend more time getting your business into shape, and develop a focused networking strategy that is aligned with your current business objectives, so you’ll achieve more results with less effort.

Scott “Social Media” Allen is a social media strategist who’s been helping individuals and businesses transform virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He’s coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy, as well as a resident expert at American Express OPEN Forum and Business.com. In partnership with OneCoach, Scott will be presenting a six-part course on “Social Media for Business Growth” starting on August 18. Click here for more information.

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The way you handle obstacles in business and in life could be the difference between success and failure. Having an efficient way to tackle the problem and find a workable solution quickly and easily makes facing those challenges much less intimidating and overwhelming. One of the best problem solving tools you can use is creating a simple visual picture of your thought process.

Business leaders and management trainers have given this process several names. Whether it is called mind mapping, brainstorming, critical thinking or creative thinking, it is the same fundamental process. Creating a visual map of your problem solving process is unique to your and your business. Here are 5 tips on getting the most out of your visual map:

Organization
Putting your thoughts down in a systematized fashion will help you organize random thoughts into meaningful patterns. Use a large clean surface such as a whiteboard, flip chart, chalkboard or just a large piece of paper. Not only do you want to have room to write down all your thoughts, but you also want to be able to add to your map to the drawing board. Once you have written your problem in the center of the page, simply start writing every solution you can think of relating to that problem. You can write the ideas in any fashion you wish as long as they connect to the central issue.

Key Ideas
Once you have written down all potential ideas in the first step, study what you have written and look for the key words that most relate to the problem solving path you want to explore. Highlight these phrases.

Association
Now you want to focus on your key words and phrases and write down more ideas that you associate with them. Draw lines connecting the new ideas to the key words you have associated them with. Each time you associate a key word with a new idea, a door is opened to even more possibilities. Continue connecting ideas until you can no longer think of anything further.

Grouping
Looking at your diagram now, you should begin to see idea words and phrases that naturally go together. Draw a colored circle around these similar ideas and group them together. Once your ideas are grouped together you will be able to see where most of your information is leading you and should help you determine a path to follow. You will be able to pinpoint areas that need further research or more information.

Action
The simple task of writing your thoughts down creates a starting point for your problem solving process. The visual diagram you have created from random thoughts and ideas can now provide you with a way to see where your attention needs to be focused and what your best course of action should be. Rather than acting on impulse or just barging ahead without thought, you will be approaching your problem with an organized plan of action.

If you would like to share this article, feel free to use one of the share buttons above! We welcome your comments and feedback.

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Have you ever signed up for a networking event with the anticipation of making new business contacts? You pack extra business cards and head off after a long day at work. You circulate through the room exchanging cards and making notes. In the next week, you make some follow-up calls. And guess what? You fail to make even one solid connection!

We’ve all been there. This type of networking is frustrating and ineffective. Networking is not about meeting people and exchanging business cards. Networking is about making a true connection with people. It can be described as the difference between “met” and “net”. Many entrepreneurs avoid networking events because it has been associated with bad chicken wings — and even worse, self-serving sales pitches.

There is a much better way to network. Networking should be about meeting someone and positioning yourself in their mind as a solution. You are their answer to a problem, a source of pleasure or progress in some way. The goal is not meeting people. The goal is building a priceless business relationship. When networking is approached from an attitude of serving others needs you will find that you make real connections that serve as the building blocks for a relationship. The following tips will help you go from “met” to “net!”

1. Define your networking goals in advance.
Networking is about making connections. This is not confined to networking events. Once you have identified what you are trying to accomplish, who you need to meet and why, then you will find the best place to accomplish that objective. A networking event may have 1,000 attendees but you do not necessarily need to meet those 1,000 people. Know your target and then seek out the best place for open, face to face relationships.

2. Do not undervalue personal curb appeal.
Personal curb appeal is more than wearing nice clothes and having a great smile. Of course you should wear clothing that makes you feel confident, and make sure that your breath is minty fresh. The real value of personal curb appeal begins with believing that your product or service represents progress to people. You have to believe in yourself before you can communicate that belief to others. When you have self-belief you are happy to tell others how you can help them. Why wouldn’t they be thrilled to have the answer to a problem? Believe in yourself and share liberally with others!

3. Be interested in others.
Many people mistakenly focus their efforts on being interesting rather than being interested. People respond favorably to those that show a genuine interest in them. Creating relationships is not a one way dialogue but a genuine intent to create a give and take. Ask questions, listen intently, and consider ways that you can help the other person. Develop a “how can I help you” attitude rather than “what can you do for me” attitude and you will position yourself for a real relationship. Your interest will also uncover information about the person that can provide a true reason for follow-up. This is much more effective than calling someone after an event and having absolutely nothing to share!

4. Earn trust.
The first time you meet someone is an opportunity to make a progress-based impression. But it takes a series of progress-based impressions to go from “met” to “net.” A series of progress-based impressions will earn trust and build that priceless business relationship.

When you begin to approach networking from a helper’s perspective you reap immediate benefits. You will not only create a world class, solid network but you will also experience business growth. Having somebody truly in your network, not just somebody you met… well that is truly priceless!

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Every business, organization and individual needs passion. Without it, we are like robots… just doing a job and getting through the day. Passion is energy. Passion is dreams. Passion is what moves us to act. Passion is living life to its fullest. For some, it is a little more buried within than for others, but the capability for passion lies within us all.

Unfortunately, there are some obstacles that we encounter from time to time that hinder our passion. In order to live our life with passion, we must recognize these barriers and break them down. Here are some passion blockers to watch out for:

Fear is possibly the biggest passion blocker of all. Regardless of how passionate we may be about doing something, there is always that fear that we’ll fail. The funny thing is, if we don’t try we can’t ever succeed! Ignore that fearful voice inside your head and listen instead to that quiet voice of passion in the background.

Over thinking. If we were to act on something straight away without thinking about it, we would be acting out of passion. But rarely do we act without thinking, and that’s a good thing. But over thinking a situation to the point where we ultimately do nothing at all, is a bad thing. We need to include both passion and thought in our day to day decisions.

Conditioning. Having passion means being able to express our innermost feelings. It means being able to demonstrate, and act upon, our enthusiasm. Far too many individuals have been conditioned to believe that showing emotion or enthusiasm is a bad thing. The classic example? Boys don’t cry. Never be afraid to express how you really feel!

Pessimism. Passion breeds on success. Far too often we focus on the negative rather than the positive things in our lives, emphasizing what we haven’t done rather than applauding our accomplishments. If we focus on negative events, we’re bound to get negative results. Too much negativity will eventually squash any and all of the passion within us.

Our business coaching program teaches you that passion is there inside all of us, and there are simple ways to let it shine. Give yourself permission to feel. Be brave enough to take a risk or two without fearing failure. Surround yourself with passionate people. Cultivate optimism and a positive attitude. Be focused, but not obsessive. Celebrate every accomplishment no matter how small, and share it with others. Keep a sense of humor and develop the ability to laugh at yourself and at life. Be happy!

If this article has helped you think about driving passion in your business and your life, share it with your friends with one of the links above. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.OneCoach.com as the original source).

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