Where does mentoring play a role for women?  When I needed a mentor, I could not find a female mentor who knew much at all about networking and growing my business by word of mouth.

I had to go to a male mentor which was great from the business point of view, but there was no one who could help me with how women go about connecting effectively.  I believe that we are called to reach back and help those coming up behind us.  Put our hand out and offer to show them the path that we have blazed.  When I asked Sandra Yancy, the founder of E-Women how women could become better at networking and connecting, she  stated that she believes that mentoring is a key component to women being more successful and she would like to brand the word “Femtor”  females mentoring other females.  While I am not sure if we need to add a new word to the english dictionary I am a firm believer in mentoring and women should be mentoring other women, I believe that we have to ask for mentors.  Our study shows that those people who said they used mentors and coaches were also the people who showed the most success in their networking and referrals.

Females often ask me how they find a mentor for themselves and here is the advice that I give them;  Ask.  Simply find someone whom you want to learn from, someone you hold in esteem and ask then if they would consider mentoring you. Let them know why you chose to ask them and what you want to learn from them.  If you never ask, you never have the opportunity to learn from great women all around you.  Most women are very open to mentoring.  Unfortunately most women are reluctant to ask, case in point, I am currently mentoring 3 men.  All three of the gentlemen came to me, ask me if I would be open to helping them via a mentoring process, told my why they wanted me to help them and have all followed up.  Not one woman has asked me even though I speak to women and women’s organizations consistently.

I remember sitting in a room listening to a group of very successful local women.  When it was time to ask questions I wanted to know if they were mentoring other women to be successful. Each woman told a story about one or two women they had helped.  One panelist was a business owner and had successfully opened several locations, when it was her turn to answer she stated that she mentored her daughter.  I remember being struck by that, as mothers are we not always the role model for our daughters?  Of course, I am her role model, but should we not be teaching them just as fathers teach their sons, how to connect and be successful at networking, shouldn’t we be teaching our daughters how to go out and find other mentors?   Shouldn’t we as women be reaching beyond our own family members and helping our employee’s, co-workers, or fellow business owners be successful at connecting and networking?

I would challenge every woman that we each have something of value to offer to those following behind us, and we are all very busy with husbands, children, social and professional lives, but we should always be open to mentoring someone who is looking for a helping hand.  It is what we are the very best at after all!

Are you a lazy networker?  I find that most people who are networking for the purpose of getting referrals are actually pretty lazy. Few people do any real homework on their target market, have no clue who they want to do business with or be connected to, have no systems for tracking, and most never even bother to follow-up.

There are so many things that you have to do to get good referrals, but somehow there is a belief that if you run around and spew enough knowledge about what you do, then people will trust you and send you business. It is lazy person networking. Here is a list of things you must do to be able to get quality referrals from your network.

1. You must know your Target Market.  If you do not know who you want to do business with then you cannot expect others to know either, most of my clients find this the hardest thing to come up with. Anybody who needs,  is not a target market. Hire a professional to help you
2.  You must be willing to go out and find referrals for your network. Everyone I meet just wants to spend all their time talking about themselves and their business. It’s easier to talk about me then it is to learn enough from my network members and talk about them.
3.  Track your activities, your time, your money, and your results. If you don’t track how will you know what is working and what is not. Who is giving you referrals, when was the last time that you talked to your network members, how many referrals have you passed to your network? All of these are very important things for you to know about your activities.
4.  You might have to make it to meetings, some in the morning, afternoon or evening. So many people do not want regular appointments just in case they don’t feel like getting up and going. Heck it is easier to sit at home and network online, I can do that in my jammies after all.
5. Develop a system for follow-up, stop being lazy and just using email. Step out and make yourself memorable. Drop a post card in the mail,or mail a thank you note. It takes a little more time and work, but it does pay off.
6.  Get educated about good networking and referrals. Most people believe that if they walk around and give out enough cards and talk enough about what they do, they are building credibility. Nothing could be further from the truth! There are programs being offered all the time that will improve your ability to make more money, but few people are willing to commit the time or the money to go learn more so they can earn more. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told by business professionals say they don’t read.

 Trust is the first step in the referral process, you have to slow down and build trust. Yea that’s what I said. slow down! Take the time to get to know me, what I want, how you can help me and what is important to me. When you do that, you will find out that I in return will feel better about you and want to learn more. Trust and credibility cannot be rushed, it takes time and work….oops there is that word again.

]]> http://hazelmwalker.com/are-you-a-lazy-networker-6-things-you-should-do/feed/ 0 http://hazelmwalker.com/who-has-more-time-to-network/ http://hazelmwalker.com/who-has-more-time-to-network/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:00:24 +0000 Hazel http://hazelmwalker.com/?p=1232

It’s 4:00 p.m. and I have worked a long day, starting my day getting the family and myself out the door and on time to our respective place, now I am running this child to soccer, and that child to baseball, picking up the dry cleaning , rushing home to get the kids started on their homework for school tomorrow, do a couple of loads of laundry, put the dog out, answer the phone and pack lunches for tomorrow, when suddenly I hear, from the far side of the house, over the TV, the following statement, “Honey what’s for dinner?” I stop in my tracks and think, “What is wrong with him, it’s like having one more child in the house.”

 As a mom, wife and business owner, managing my time became extremely important. I was always seeking some sort of balance between the 3 areas of my life. Most of the time I felt like the Ring Master of a Three Ring Circus, with lots of clowns running around me out of control. I knew that networking was important for creating visibility for me and my business, but I also had commitments with the kids schools, PTA, with family members and my spouse. If I was going to a networking event I had to make sure family was cared for in my absence. If it was an evening meeting and I left the kids with Dad, I had to make sure that he had something ready to feed the kids, leave notes reminding them to get homework done and when I got home make sure that their breakfast was set out and lunch money on the table. Time permitting maybe a load of laundry before bed. It can be overwhelming and may cause many women to network less than their male counterparts.

Networking events take place everyday of the week, at many different hours, early morning meetings, lunch hour meetings and evening meetings. Finding the right time to make it all fit together can be a bit of a challenge. Here are some findings from the American Time use Survey about how men and women use their time, there are no shocking results and ladies, there is nothing here that you did not already know:

1. According to the survey, among full time workers men worked slightly longer than women an average of 8.2 hours versus 7.8 hours for women

2. Chores: On an average day, 20% of men did housework – such as cleaning or doing laundry, compared to 52% of women.

3. Meals: 37% of men did food prep or cleanup compared with 64% of women, indicating that men are more involved when it comes to eating. (Is anyone surprised here?)

Childcare: During an average weekday, women spent 1.2 hours providing physical care such a s bathing or feeding a child while men spent 23 minutes and on weekends women provided about an hour of physical care to household children while men spent about half an hour. (taken from: Battle of the Sexes www.mysalary.com )

The US Census Bureau in November 2009 states there are approximately 13.7 million single parents in the US and nearly 84% of those are single moms and 16% are fathers. This group will find that they are in need of more flexibility when it comes to the time that they are able to commit to networking. Today more than ever women are starting businesses as a way of having flexibility for their lives and their families.

The very fact that we are so busy being the Ring Master for our personal circus, it is vitally important that we make the best use of the time we have dedicated to our networking and business activities. One thing that both men and women can do to help themselves is to develop good systems around their networking activities. Spending time going deep into the network that they already have instead of running around meeting more and more new people.

So let me challenge you here ladies, and gentlemen, before you put on your best dress, gather up your business cards and head out the door to meet more new people, stop, take some time and figure out who is already in your network.   Then spend some time working on the network you have.  Take those relationships deeper before adding more.

Women do not like to talk about their accomplishments, they feel that it is bragging which is unlady like and impolite.  Ladies, there is a big difference between “bragging” and sharing your accomplishments, and the latter is important if you are going to network effectively with men.  Listen to men talk to one another when they are networking and you will hear them tell each other about what they do, who they know, what schools they have gone to, what deals they have closed, even what things they have accomplished.  Here is a comment left in our survey;

#280 When I meet with women to network and discuss business I find we spend about 90% of the time getting to know each other, we discuss family, who we are, our backgrounds , etc. then we spend about 10% of time talking about business.    When meeting with men I find we spend 10% of our time getting to know each other and 90% of our time talking about business.   Both approaches are effective, but I enjoy networking with women more.

When women hear men talking they often think they are egotistical and bragging. The reality is they are building credibility with one another, when they are duly impressed they go off and do business with each other.

 Women on the other hand speak to relate to each other, they are looking to learn more about the person, who are they, what do they have in common, do they like each other, do they want to help one another? When they feel they have a connection they go forward and build a relationship of support.

#220  In my experience, women tend to network intuitively, but they tend to focus on relationship issues.  Men tend to network by design, and they tend to focus on business issues.

#178 I find that most women who network are definitely more interested in developing a relationship and then business later.  Most men get right into the conversation of  ”so what do you do?”

 Now, put a man and a woman together at a networking event and you will find they completely miss the mark when they are communicating to one another. He is telling her all about his accomplishments while she is trying to find a way to relate, he walks a way wondering why women cannot just talk about business, and she is wondering why they have to be so egotistical! They have missed the connection.

 It is important that we learn to communicate with each other more effectively, follow the lead of the person speaking.  If they are speaking about what they have accomplished, respond in a similar fashion.  On the other hand if they are speaking in a relational manner, respond in a similar fashion. When we learn to adapt to one another we can more effectively connect and refer each other allowing us both to do more business.

I encourage my clients to network in a variety of places based upon their target market. One suggestion I often give them is to sponsor an event then network with both the attendees and the other sponsors. My friend Jill Bode, with Designed Write PR, is my guest blogger this month. The following article is excellent information if you are looking to create quality visiblity for yourself and your company. Next time someone ask you to sponsor an event take a look at this article and decide if it is a good fit for you and your company.

The typical business is offered opportunities to sponsor various events and organizations. It can be difficult to decide if the proffered sponsorship is good investment and even harder to say “no” to a good cause, but as a businessperson, those types of decisions are paramount if you want to keep the doors open.

Here are seven ways you can identify if a sponsorship is a good fit for your company:

1) Does it put you in front of your key demographic? A sponsorship that puts you in front of a large group of potential prospects, is usually going to be the very best investment of your marketing dollars and will help you achieve that all-important visibility with your market.

2) What does your return on investment have to be in order to make the sponsorship profitable for you? If you need to set appointments with 50 people and the event only has 75 attendees, it may not be a good fit. Unless…

3) Is the event organizer willing to highly recommend your product or services to the attendees? If they are AND they have good credibility, they may help you get to your target and then some.

4) Will you be able to interact and talk to attendees during the event? On-site access is paramount if you are going to be able to create those initial impressions and start the sales process.

5) How many staff/fans/friends will you be able to bring along to the event with you as part of your sponsorship? These folks can be crucial to your success because they can say the great things about you that you could never say about yourself. The more people you can bring as part of your sponsorship, the more valuable it becomes.

6) Does the subject of the event deliver information or ideas that are useful to your company? If you get an opportunity to sell to your target market AND learn something new in the process, this a real home run for you and your business. Be sure to factor the expense of comparable training when figuring out your return on investment.

7) Will you be able to follow up with the event attendees? Is the organization willing to give you access and do you have time to reach out afterwards and convert attendees into customers? The day after the event is frequently when the profitability phase of the event begins, don’t forget to plan for it. After all profitability is the reason that you can stay in business.

Applying these seven criteria to the next sponsorship that is offered to you and your company will help you make profitable choices. And, although I may be biased, I think that the sponsorship opportunity below does a great job of meeting those seven criteria for a large number of companies, especially those who sell to women (and there must be a lot of those companies because 85 percent of all brand purchases are made by women*).

Click here to find out more about this limited sponsorship opportunity.

*figure provided courtesy of She-conomy.com

If you ask people to describe networking you will get a variety of responses, most often it sounds something like this, “going to events where business people exchange business cards and talk business with one another.”  While indeed that is a good description of what a lot of “networking” events look like, it is not the only way that networking takes place.  People get so hung up on the formal side of networking that they completely miss all the other opportunities to network.  I personally spend far less time at “networking events” and far more time networking in ways that I enjoy.

Recently, I was invited to be part of #Social46.  This is a group of social media minded people who have strong networks, they were asked to support the Super Bowl 2012 committee in welcoming guest and helping them out using social media.  I was honored to be asked, and took advantage of the opportunity. Many of these are people I have heard of but never met in person, some I knew and have relationships with and still others I have never met online or offline.  This is the kind of networking that I enjoy, a group of people bound together for a common cause.

It does not take long to build strong relationships with people who have a common cause because you are all working and supporting one another to achieve that cause.  For this group there was the added excitement of being able to connect the city and the visitors, and being the first city to ever fully use social media in such a large event. I have a strong affinity for many of the participants, they are my role models on Social Media, and they are so giving of their time and efforts.  These are the kind of people I want in my network, who I want to learn more about, and who I feel good about referring to others because their “Givers Gain” attitude make them so referrable.

Working with a small group of people for a common cause is often far more effective that going month after month to big “networking” events.  Take a look a the networking that you are doing, how are you breaking out of the traditional mode and finding new ways to connect and build relationships?  Share some of your ideas with us!

Flirting:  to court trifling or act amorously without any serious intentions

Flirting is a basic instinct, part of human nature. This is not surprising: if we did not initiate contact and express interest in members of the opposite sex, we would not progress to reproduction, and the human species would become extinct. According to some evolutionary psychologists, flirting may even be the foundation of civilization as we know it. (www.sirc.org)

Flirting as you can see is a natural way of interacting for men and women. It is what we do, sometimes just for fun, other times with the intention to attract. So what is the harm in flirting when we are networking? Go to any networking event and you will see flirting, both men and women. Is it a bad thing? That would depend upon what you are going to the networking events for. What are you trying to achieve? One of the  biggest complaints that women have when working with and networking with men is that they are not taken seriously.

As a woman if I want men to take me and my business seriously, then I must first take myself and my business seriously. When women are flirting, men begin to see them in a different light than the professional light they want. While these women may indeed be asked for an appointment the complaint that we here from women is that the appointment was nothing more than a pretense for a date.

Over time other women will begin to exclude the flirt from their circle of information and connections. The constant flirting can often cost the flirt the credibility she seeks build when networking. Unfortunately, men who flirt are not held to the same level of accountability by women or men.

So, ladies, if you are flirting, it could be costing you connections, information, and being taken seriously by the very men you are flirting with. Remember that business networking should be treated as business, flirting at business functions should be avoided if you are looking to create high lever business relationships.

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.

Ladies we all know that building a strong business network is key to being the most successful in life and in business. Building a strong network requires two things, time and education, with the key requirement being time. After all it takes time to invest in our education.

Here is one tip to help you, learn to have a strong No! No, I cannot serve on the PTA Board this year. No, I cannot chair that fundraiser. No, I cannot take on that project at work. No, I cannot be the carpool mom for this activity. It is better to have a strong No than it is to have a weak Yes. A weak Yes ruins your credibility, and shows you as someone who only half commits. A strong No shows that you know you limitations and how to give effectively.

Take a look at what you are trying to accomplish, do your activities really support that? Instead of taking on new activities, take a look at the things that you are already doing and figure out how they are supporting you in building that network that you need. How much time are you spending at unproductive events? Would your time be better spent going to events where you know you will be able to connect with people already in your network? Do you really need to add more people right now?

Next ask yourself, how much time have you set aside for your personal and professional development? If you want to build a network of people who help you build a business you love, you need to set aside time to learn the skills it takes to build the relationships that help to build a business and life you love.

This week, take time to list all of your activities, how are they serving you? How are you serving them? Which of them do you need to give up? Where in your life, are you doing things out of a sense of duty versus a passion for the activity? Where in your life are you not really giving 100%?

When you do that, you will know what you need to give up and what you should say No to.

 Last week I posted 3 Things that Women Do Better Than Men, today it is the guys turn. Can you believe it ladies, there are things that men do better than we women. Of course you can, it is designed by nature. Men are great at doing a variety of things while women are great at others, we are different in every aspect of business and life. In this case we are going to look at 3 things that men do better at networking that women do.

 The goal is for us to learn how to network with men and leverage our networks more effectively. Women are great at building strong long term relationship. Where we are weak is taking those relationships and turning them in to business opportunities, for referrals and even sales. Here are 3 things that men do better and we can learn to do it too.

1.  They can identify business opportunities quicker than women. Men can see opportunity and they are willing to go after in much quicker. In the world of networking, men can identify where they are most likely to be able to get and give referrals with someone.

2. They are more willing to ask for what they want. Their fear of rejection is much less than a woman’s fear of rejection. They are not afraid to ask people to do things for them, and they are clear about what they want and approach people in business with that in mind.

3. Men are much better at not taking things personally, they understand that it is about the business. They can have the business deal go bad and they know it should not get in the way of their friendship.

 These are great traits for women to be able to do also. My next post will discuss how we can benefit by learning from each other. What kinds of thing have you noticed about the differences in men and women networking?