5 Questions to Ask Yourself About Social Networking

Linkedin, Twitter, FastPitch, BizNik,  Ecademy, Plaxo, HiveLive, Facebook, MySpace, and any of the 500 different sites online are all available to you if you choose to network online. However, how many and which ones should you belong to?

Make it easy for your referral sources

If you want to get more referrals from people in your network, you have to be able to make it easy for them to find and give those referrals to you.   They want to help you, but most will not step out of their comfort zone to make it happen,

What were they thinking – 4 Biz Card Don’ts

I went to a networking event last week, and it was really a very good event, lots of vendors, lots of people in attendance and a great deal of networking going on.  But the one thing that I found very interesting was the very large table going down the center of one of the rooms.  On this table were hundreds of stacks of business cards and people were going around the table picking cards up from each of the stacks.  As I watched this go on, I had to ask myself; “What are they going to do with all of those cards that they are gathering?”

Learn Somthing New

If you are not growing you are dying! Part of growing is the act of learning something new, consistently. So, let me ask you, what are you learning that is new right now?

Spend Time Working Your Network

Have you ever asked a referral partner to introduce you to a contact they have only to be put off or not introduced at all? Did you wonder why? You might be surprised to know, that your referral partner did not have the same level credibility as the level referral you were asking for.

Build Your Advisory Board

Are you Networking or……..

are you working your Network.  I asked this question of several of the students in our Referral Dynamics Class last week and I later asked the same question of several BNI members.  In every case they said that they spent a great deal of time working their networks.  They attended the regular meeting, connecting with their fellow members, and they indeed did work their network.

Ask, then Ask Again

I teach a series of Networking Classes to beginning Networkers here in Indiana.  As we were summing up the class I asked each student, what is the most important thing that you have learned in this program?  Shane, EyeDesign Graphics & Advertising Co., summed it up beautifully.  He said, “What I learned is to build a great network you have to learn to ask twice.”  “Ask, how can I help them, then ask for what I need.”  Right on target!