BITCH - Slang
a.  a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, especially a woman.
b.  a lewd woman.
c. a person who whines

Does that word still bother you? Does the fear of being called a bitch or categorized as bitchy stop you from negotiating for the better deal, or getting things done the way you want or need them? Do you realize that one of the reasons that men make more money than women is because they negotiate more pay when they are hired and women don’t?

I read an article in Forbes magazine; Want to Grow the Economy? Change Four Attitudes About Women Entrepreneurs, following is one of those attitudes,

Women’s assertiveness is perceived as “bitchiness.”
No one likes to be a “bitch,” but when women leaders make tough decisions, the response is critical and personal. When men make tough decisions, they are “strong” or “assertive” but women … that “b” word crops up. “If you want everyone to like you, you will have a hard time doing what is necessary,” Elting says.

I was sharing this article with several female friends many of them made this comment, “women use the term Bitch for other women even more that men do.” Ouch! What does that say about us?

I have two daughters, I taught them at a very young age that the words like bitch were used as a way to control or hold them back. One day my daughter came home from school, she was suspended for decking a young man,when I asked her why she said it was because he called her a Bitch. I looked at her quizzically, she shrugged and said, “Oh, he had not earned that right yet!” My daughters do not let that word bother them, they know that whatever opinion that someone else has about them is not their problem, it is the problem of the opinion holder. They are strong self assured women who do not mind taking a stand and speaking up for themselves or others.

Being successful in your business and your life means that you cannot let your need for approval get in the way of your need to do business. As a woman I have as much right and power to negotiate better pay and better deals as a man does. When I was in China I learned just how powerful and important negotiating really was, they negotiate for everything! Women are hardball negotiators in many countries and there is no reason at all that we cannot do the exact same thing.

If I choose not to use that skill because I am worried about being seen as pushy or bitchy that is my weakness and I should not keep complaining about how men get better deals and better pay. Men expect to negotiate it is just a competition, they don’t take it personal, and they don’t worry about being called a “pushy bastard.”

So ladies, if you want to make more money, sell more business, or get a pay raise,  learn the art of negotiation and stop worrying about the names you might be called, your need for approval will always hold you back.  Don’t let someone else define you.

Women business owners have reason to feel good. According to the survey, in the most recent 10-year period, the number of women-owned businesses in the U.S. grew by 44 percent (twice as fast as men-owned firms) and, women-owned firms added 500,000 new jobs.

Women are growing business twice as fast as men, they are employing thousands of people.  It is crazy for men to neglect his market when they are hitting the networking circuit.  It is not that men do not network with women they just don’t do it well.  Not that they really don’t want to and not that they don’t try, there are just little things that cause the connections to go south.

Here are 3 things that men can do to make their chances of connecting with women better.

1. When opening a conversation with a woman, don’t go straight to business.  Ask them to tell you something about themselves.  Women are looking for ways to connect, some common ground that will allow for a relational conversation.
2. Listen to the women that you meet at networking event. Yes women talk more than men, they have deeper conversations that men do often sharing a great deal of information in a very storytelling way.  Men can learn a great deal by asking questions and just listening.
3. Never under estimate how serious a woman takes her business. Just because she may be selling a product or a service that seems soft and fluff, like cosmetics, clothing, child care or any other personal service, does not mean she does not take her business as serious as any man may take his.

Women are creating business, they have a need for services, they know other women who need products and services but they are not going to share that information with someone who they do not have a trusting relationship with.  Building those relationships will take time and work, but if you are not willing to invest both, men and women can connect and refer to one another very successfully.

“In this economy, developing a strong referral strategy is a fast, easy cheap way to build a strong business,” Palzewicz said. “Referrals are more important than ever because people are more careful where they buy and the words of satisfied customers, especially customers that are their friends, can be very powerful and more impactful than any other type of advertising.”

As is my habit, I was reading blogs, press releases, and other material on networking, when I ran across the above quote in a press release. I become very frustrated when I read information that is incorrect or misleading, not intentionally misleading but written by someone who really does not understand what the referral process is.  McDonald’s is fast, easy and cheap, but you cannot apply that to a solid referral strategy.

 “In this economy, developing a strong referral strategy is a fast, easy, cheap way to build a strong business.” Nothing could be further from the truth. While networking might be considered fast easy and cheap, building a referral process takes time, it is a skill that must be learned, and requires a budget of time and money. When a client comes to me and wants to develop a referral strategy they must have a developed network that we can then develop into a proper referral strategy for their business.  McDonald’s is fast, easy and cheap, but it is not the first place you want to go if you are looking for a high quality meal.  While it is nice to sometimes have low level leads from fast, easy and cheap networking, it is not the way to sustain your business.

Let’s take a look at why the words of Fast, Easy, and Cheap cannot be related to developing a referral strategy.

 Fast – A solid referral strategy is based on a relationship built on trust. Trust takes time, you have to be willing to take the time to build the trust. People are not going to refer business to someone whom they do not trust to make them look good. How long it takes someone to trust you depends, ask yourself, do you trust fast?

Easy – Once you have your systems in place for your referral strategy, it does feel pretty easy. Getting those systems in place and maintaining them is not easy, fast, or cheap. If building a strong referral strategy were easy, there would be a lot more very successful businesses generating high quality referrals. I know this is not the case by the number of businesses that hire me to help them implement a strategy and systems.

 Cheap – Another big myth. If you are going to develop a referral system you must set a budget of both time and money. It is not cheap to belong to multiple organizations, have one to one meetings over coffee, lunch and even dinner, set up and implement a system of rewarding your referral partners, pay for travel to events and meeting, and get educated. Is it cheaper than running a TV Ad over and over, yes, is it cheap, no!

Anytime you go at something with the idea that it is fast, easy and cheap, you are bound to disappointed with your outcome.  Developing a referral strategy that works takes time, money and effort, but when it starts paying off, it pays in a big way.

In this economy everyone is looking for fast, easy, and cheap ways to build business, but if you apply that concept over a long period of time you are left with less that desired results.

Rather than making assumptions, ask more questions. This was a piece of sage advice that has been given to me both by my spiritual mentor, and my sales coach! No, they are not one in the same, but both have expressed the importance of asking more questions, as well as asking better questions. Over the years as I have developed my networking skills I have come to learn the importance of not only asking questions but ask good questions.

I often teach people how to network effectively, to get beyond face to face cold calling, to do quality networking that allows you to build relationships with people whom you want to refer business to and who may want to refer business to you. One of the most popular questions I get from my students is; “How do you start a good conversation with someone I meet at a networking event?” My response is always the same, “Ask Questions”

 People love to talk about themselves, their businesses, what they are doing that is important to them, and what is going on in their world. If you are shy, or timid, asking questions will allow you to interact and find common ground with people. It will take you out of your shell by allowing you to focus on something other than your own fear.

 Here are a few tips for asking questions:

•  Never ask yes or no questions, otherwise you just get yes and no answers and there is no conversation started. Make sure your questions are open ended.

•  Ask thoughtful questions that you would really like to know the answer to. People respond better when they know you are genuinely interested. We are accustomed to hearing questions like, “How are you?” “How’s business?” “What brought you here?” “What do you do?” The truth of those questions is that no one really wants to know the answer, they are just being polite.

•  After you ask a question, listen to the answer. It may lead you down the path of the next question or you may learn that the person you are speaking to would be a great connection for someone else you know if the room.

•  Don’t be a Drill Sargent and pummel the person with questions, it is far better to have 2-3 well thought out questions that draw the person into conversation with you, than it is to have a barrage of pointless questions.

 One of the finale questions I will often ask people is this, “As I continue to network and meet people here is there anyone you would like to know or anything I can do to help you?” In fact I almost always finish any conversation that I have with this question, “Is there anything at all that I can do to help you going forward?” If there is, I make a note of it, if there is not, I let them know that I am an email away if they can think of anything I can do for them, just drop me a note.

Remember to have a sense of curiosity about people, learn more about them, and they will want to learn more about you too!   Often I can go to an event and say very little, but I learn a lot simply by asking good questions.

It is said, that a wise man listens and questions, a fool rambles on and on.

As I have been working on the book, Business Networking and Sex, I have been reading more and more studies about women in business. While women are making great strides in the business world, there are still studies being released that say women need to step up their game and be less passive. Here is a small article that I picked up from Woman’s World

 Speaking out ups your on the job success!

Quick, which type of female employee do you think a boss is more likely to reward?

One who’s………

A. Nice and focuses on getting along with co-workers

B. Assertive and stands her ground when debating ideas

 The answer is B! Women who are assertive at work earn 4% more than their more passive peers, reveals a recent study of more than 5,600 workers. Turns out, women who are overly nice tend to sacrifice their own career success to please others, back down to easily in conflicts and are less likely to ask for a pay raise! The takeaway: While you should not stop being polite at your job (the same study shows that angry employees earn less that everyone else!), try sharing your point of view more often and negotiating pay increases during performance reviews.

This article goes directly to the point I want to make to women who are networking, building relationship, going to events, and who want to grow their business by referral, you have to speak up!  I had a young lady, a client, come to my office upset with one of her friends.  They had been friends for a long time, when her friend was putting together a fundraiser for a local charity she ordered T-Shirts from a local company.  That company was not my clients company, even though they were friends she had not been asked to give a bid.  I suggested that we talk to her friend and find out why she gave the business to someone else.

We called Susan up and we asked her why she had not given the business to her friend Karen. Here is what she said;  “I did not think that Karen was interested, she knew I was doing the fundraiser and never asked me for the opportunity to bid on the shirts.  I just thought maybe it was not the kind of business that she wanted.”  Karen was stunned, it never dawned on her to ask, she thought it was enough that her network knew what she did and they would come to her when they had a need.

Passive networking does not work. If you are not willing to tell people what you want or how they can help you then you will likely not get the help.

 The same holds true with referrals, if you want a referral or connection you have to know who you want to be connected too, (not just anybody) and you have to be willing to ask for the connection or referral. Women are great at building relationships that create strong networks, where they drop the ball is knowing and asking for the connections and referrals from that very same network.

 So, ladies the next time you are sitting across from someone in your network, speak up, ask for the connection! And always be prepared with three things that others can do to help you. When you are asked, “How can I help you?” by someone in your network, you will be able to let them know just what they can do!

Shortly after finishing one of my monthly Referral Success 101 classes I had a gentleman participant approached me with a concern and a question. His concern was a very familiar one to me;

“I have spent so much of my life always trying to get the deal, looking for the next customer, that I now realize that I have become that person whom others avoid at the networking events I attend. Whenever I had a one to one with someone I met I would spend the entire time pitching my service to them. Many of them I closed so I did have some sale success. Now I realize, I really do not have a network of people whom I can turn to for help to grow my business or frankly any other thing I might need them for. So, what do I do, where do I start?

My answer was simple, “Begin again, and start from where you are”.  It is never to late to start again. This was the very same answer that I was given when I found myself not doing my yoga and meditation practice. I had lost much of what I had learned, I felt defeated and my friend simply said, begin again, from where you are now.

Don’t be defeated, don’t think that you have to scrap what you have and start over, and don’t give up. Take a look at your database and decide who you know and how well you know them.  Are the members of your support network, your knowledge network, your referral network or simply a contact or customer.  If you can’t remember who they are or when and where you met them, removed them.

Now you know where to start, start connecting with those you know and make a list of the people whom you want to reconnect with or build a deeper relationship with. Reach out and begin to start building your network with stronger relationships. As time goes by you can add to the network and deepen the relationships.

Start from where you are, get educated, help others and your network will flourish.

I came across this question on Linkedin. So I thought I would share it. It is important that we pay attention to what we are doing in our networking activities if we want to get the best results.

Here is the one you have been looking for. The last step in the referral process is a relatively easy step for your referral source, assuming they have been trained properly. This is the step where the work you have done thus far turns into the possibility of business. It is the appointment. When trained correctly your referral source can now set up an appointment for you and the prospect to meet. They have done a good job identifying need and building your credibility when they offer your company as the solution, now they set the appointment.

This is your opportunity to meet the referred prospect, build some rapport with them and possibly close a deal. If your referral source has done a good job they have passed you a level 10 referral, which means the deal is done, all that is left is the paper work! The higher the level of the referral, the less work in the sales process you will have to do to close the deal. With proper training and preparation your referral source should be able to pass you high level referrals consistently.

Note: Anything your referral sources are doing for you, you should be doing the same for them.

It is important to remember in this step you have one key commitment to your referrals source, you must leave them looking good to the prospect, no matter what. That is what they trust you to do, if that means, walking away from the deal because it is not a good fit, that is your obligation to the referral source.

Remember: A referral is an opportunity to do business, it is not a guaranteed sale.

Once you have had the appointment with the prospect, don’t forget to call your referral source and let them know how the meeting went. Review your referral process and discuss what went well and what might have been done differently in the process.

Passing referrals is a business process and you should have a carefully constructed strategy around the getting and giving or referral. The process is much like dancing, you both must learn all the steps and practice them often. Both the referral source and you must be in sync with one another, constantly going over the steps and making sure the process is working for both of you otherwise, you may be stepping on someones toes.

If you would like to learn more about the five step process, check out your local Referral Institute Programs.

Getting the steps right in the referral precess is key to passing referrals and not leads. When steps are missed, you end up with low level leads not quality referrals. Step four of the referral process is the solution step. Once trust is built, you have given your referral partner the knowledge about your business, and you have taught them how to identify need, it is time to offer the contact a solution.

What do you want your referral partner to say about you when they are offering you and your product or service as the solution to the contacts problem? One way that I teach my clients to do this is with a quality testimonial.  This is where your GAINS Profile is very important, your accomplishments around your business is what you want your referral partners to pass on to the people they are referring to you. Your accomplishments build your credibility and you want your referral partners to be fully armed with as much information as possible for building credibility on your behalf.

Here is an example of what I say when I am offering one of my referral partners as the solution to a problem;

Susi, I was in a very similar situation as you, I needed to get better at bringing in business. I had the opportunity to sit in on Kevin’s sales classes and decided to take some of his advice and put it to work in my business. As a result I have seen a 33% increase in my business. (I give some of Kevin’s accomplishments in his field) Then ask, “Does this sound like the kind of person you would be interested in working with”?

Once Susi says yes, it is time for the 5th step.

In this post we look at the third step of the referral process. Without step three there is no referral, you cannot pass a referral if you cannot identify a persons need. In step three, you teach your network members how to identify the need for your product or services.   Few people ever teach this part of the process to their network members. They assume that if they pass enough knowledge about what they do and how they do it, people will pass them referrals.  If you stop at steps one and two you will only receive leads or reactive referrals.  While reactive referrals are good, they cannot be predicted and depend on.  Reactive referrals required a lot of “If’s” for them to happen.

If someone calls me and ask me who I know that can fix their car, and if I can remember to pass your information on, and if they pick up the phone and call you, then you get business.  Companies pay a lot of money to develop top of mind thinking for just this kind of business. Companies like Nike, Coke and Budwiser.  Word of mouth works, it brings this kind of business in and you can make a living doing it.   But, it will not get you proactive, predictable, high value referred prospects.  For that to happen your network must understand how to identify need on your behalf.   What questions can they ask their clients when they are talking to them, what might be happening in their lives that will trigger your network to ask the questions.  What pain do fix for your customers and how will you teach that to your network members?

The more you teach your network the higher the quality referrals you will receive from them.