Branding Yourself

Last week I was was presenting in Sydney Australia, when I met a young lady named Natalie. She introduced herself to me and said that she had read about me in a book that she recently downloaded. I of course found this very interesting and began to inquire about the book. It’s a book about branding yourself, she says. The light bulb went on!  The authors of that book are friends of mine in Indianapolis, Erik Deckers and Kyle Lacy, both of whom I met on a networking site called Smaller Indiana, and on Twitter.  I make it a habit to always follow locals on Twitter, this allows me the opportunity to meet them in person and to stay connected.  I also get to stay up on what is going on in the area, which is a bonus!

I had the opportunity to meet both Kyle and Erik face to face and over the years we have served on panels, and spoken at events together.  Both of them write great blogs and both are experts at using social media, so I was honored when Erik asked to interview me for the book.  I love his sense of humor and his ability to stay connected to the people in his network, I was happy to participate.

I had actually forgotten all about my part in that book, and never dreamed that someone on the other side of the world would be telling me about it.  Natalie and I had a great conversation about the Branding Yourself, the case study about me, and instantly had rapport with one another because we had something in common. Furthermore, I could hardly wait to let Erik know about the connection. It made my world feel small and comfortable, even on the other side of the globe.

Social media allows us to create a small world when combined with our face to face network.   It is not going to go away so pick up a copy of the book, you will not only build your brand, your world will become smaller and connected.

I love to help people be more successful with their networking activities.  Most of us are networking because we are looking for more referrals for our business.  Unfortunately over time people come to realize that it takes more than meeting, greeting, and exchanging cards.

Here is a list of common issues that business people have around generating referrals for their business.  This is not a complete list, but does cover many of the issues.

• I spend more time networking than following up on referrals.
• I find that I give a lot of referrals to people but get very little in return.
• I don’t know the right place to networker.
• I don’t know the right time to ask a person for a referral.
• I get a lot of low level leads that do not amount to business.
• I often don’t have time to follow up on the referrals I am given.
• I tell a lot of people what I do, the they just don’t seem to understand.
• I don’t attend networking events because I really don’t know what to do when I am there.
• I feel like I have a lot of visibility but it is not leading to referrals.
• I don’t know the value of an appointment.
• I try to build a power team but no one follows through.
• Following up after a networking event often falls through the crack.
• I cannot figure out why some people will not refer business to me.
• I don’t know exactly who is in my contact sphere.
• I don’t know who I want my next customer to be.
• My database is unorganized and not sortable.
• I would rather just make friends and hope they buy from me.
• My referral partners do not participate at the same level I do.
• I don’t know how to qualify a referral for others in my network.
• When I have a one to one it becomes too social.
• When I get a referral, it often does not convert to business.
• I cannot get my fellow network members to educate me how to refer them.
• I am not sure how to educate my network.
• I am spending too much of my time with low value prospects.
• I cannot get clarity around my target market.
• My referrals are unpredictable.
• When I get a referral, I am often disappointed in the quality of it.
• I spend too much time working on my network versus in my network.
• I don’t understand the six steps of the referral process or if I am missing any of them.
• I don’t understand how to move a person into a  proactive referral relationship.
• I get some referrals from my clients but that is about it.
• I know I need more business by referral and I just don’t know where to start.
• I am confused about the role that Social Media plays in my network.
• My company has offered reward for referrals, yet get few of any quality.

Building your business by referral is Simple, but it is Not Easy.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn

If we are going to be the best that we can be in this life, then it is important that you surround yourself with others who are striving to be the best that they can be. When you are developing referral partners this is also very important. The relationship between referral partners becomes very close, when the relationship is working well you are meeting and developing referral strategies, sending your best customers and building strong relationships with this person. After all you are helping each other to succeed.

• Do they have a positive and supportive attitude.
• Do they have a giving attitude
• Are they open to learning and growing
• Do they support you and your vision

Surround yourself with people who are going where you want to go. When you have people on the path with you it makes the journey so much easier..

Have you ever ask 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.

I once had a referral partner who boasted a very large database, we decided to sit down and do a little identifying out of each other’s databases. He had great contacts in his database but when I began to rate the level of referral I was looking for against the level of relationship he had with the contact, there was great disparity.

He quickly realized that his network was wide, but not very deep and he had some work to do to build higher levels of credibility with some of the people in his database. You see he spent most of his time networking, very little time working his network. Once, he had done some of that work, he became a much better referral partner.

Having a very wide network that is only an inch deep does not make you a solid referral partner. If you spend time, working your network instead of being out there networking you will create a much deeper network. One that will produce results for both you and your referral partners.

Have you ever ask someone for a referral or introduction to one of their contacts only to be put off or not introduced at all?  Did you wonder why?  You might be surprised to know that your referral source did not have the same level of credibility as the level referral you were asking for.

I once had a referral partner who boasted a very large database.  We decided to sit down an do a little identifying out of each others database.  He had great contacts in his database, but when we began to rate the level of referrals that I was looking for against the level of relationship he had with the contact, there was a great disparity.

He quickly realized that his network was wide, but not very deep and he had some work to do to build higher levels of credibility with some of  the people in his database.  Once he had done some that work, be became a much better referral partner.  Most people spend a lot of time adding to their network instead of building relationships with their network.  They are always collecting cards and adding them to their list, but they take little time to go deep and develop strong credibility with the right people.

The reality is for most of us, we already know all the people we really need to know to accomplish the things that we want to accomplish.  Get to know the people you already have in your network.  Spend time building credibility with them before you go adding more people to your network.

When business people tell me that they do business with anybody, everybody or small businesses, I know that they have not spent time identifying who they want to work with and they are hoping that someone else will figure out for them. They are aiming at the sky hoping to hit a bird and every now and then, a flock will fly over a few get hit, and now the businessperson thinks their network is working. Reality is the flock just happens to fly over at the exact same time that the bullets fired. This is reactive and requires you to use a lot of time and energy with unpredictable results.

If you are going to build a business by referral, you have to narrow the scope so that you can identify referral sources who are working in the same target market, you will know where to spend your time networking and you will be able to collaborate with referral partners.

Look at your current clients, what do they have in common?

Survey your clients and see if you can find a common denominator? Surveymonkey is a free tool that you can use to customize a survey, go to www.surveymonkey.com design your own survey. You can get a great deal of demographics in a very short period, this can give you a snap shot of current clients and allow you to find the common thread.

Working on your target market takes time and energy; it will pay off in the end.

When I was a teen I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents.  My grandfather owned his own business, JR Custom Floors and I learned a lot from he and my grandmother as they ran that business.  Today as I was putting some dates and times on my calendar for some local “Tweetups”   I was brought back to a time when my grandparents did much the same thing with their coffee meets.

My grandfather belonged to a club, it was called the “Metro CBers”.   You know, those guys who had two way radios known as Citizen Band Radios and they talked to each other all the time.  There were many a night when my grandfather would be on the Radio until 1:00am in the morning talking to his friends.   They talked about everything on those radios and they all had “handles”  like “Floorshine”, “Qupiedoll”, “Bigbelly” and so forth.  Once a month they would meetup and have coffee, introduce each other, welcome the new CBers and handout their CB Cards with their handles on it.  It was a lot of fun and I always looked forward to going with my grandparents.  I did not know then that I was actually learning to network and those lessons would follow me into adulthood when I would start using a tool called “Twitter”

Oddly, the more things change, the more they stay the same!  Oh, and my grandmother reminds me, that I was “Qupiedoll”.  The handle that my grandfather gave me!

Over the years I have developed a pretty deep network and one of the things that I spend a lot of time doing is up dating my database.  In the process of doing that this week I noticed that my strongest referral relationships are with guys.  So I began to think about that, why are there more males in my strong contact network instead of women and here are some of the things that I came up with.

When I sit down with a guy to build a referral relationship the conversation tends to be straight forward.  When I ask the question, “What can I do to help you grow your business?”  They almost always have a response.   They let me know exactly what it is I can do; “You can help me get more speaking engagements” or “If you do a newsletter it would be great if you would let me put an article in it.”

On the other hand if when I sit down with a female referral source and ask the same question I am often given this response; “I can’t think of anything but if I do I will let you know.”

Women seem to be challenged at knowing what they need and asking others to help them.  We feel that we cannot ask others to do things for us.  After all, have been raised to believe that it is our responsibility to take care of others, we do things for our spouses, our children, our family members even our co-workers.

One of the tough things for women to do it is ASK for what they want, clearly, succintly without guilt.  It is something that we really must learn if we are ever going to be good at leveraging our networks.  Keep in mind, we are not going to ask anyone for anything that we wouldd not do in return for them if they would ask.

Take a moment and ask yourself the following questions:

1.  What 2-3 things could I ask others to do to help me?  If you know in advance what kinds of things your networking members can do for you it will be easier for you to ask them when you are sharing a cup of coffee.

2.  List 3-4 people you would like to meet or be connected to.  Your network members are happy to connect you if you ask for someone specifically instead of “Anyone who needs my services.”  These might be professionals you want to add to your network, possible referral sources or potential clients.

3.  Make a list of the 4-5 people who might be willing to help you.  Most likely these are people in your network whom you have a relationship with.  They are people whom you are also willing to help if they ask you to.

It is important that you ask for what you want, there are members of your network who are more than happy to help you but they will not figure it out for you or take the initiative.  Our beliefe that “If they like me or if I do a good job for them, they will help me, refer me or connect me” hurts us.  We get what we ask for, if we wait for people to help us it may never happen.

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?

I am often asked  if I am able to track back any income from the social networking sites that I am on.  I am certain that I have indeed generated exposure and branding and I have been able to generate referrals for others in my network because of my membership.  I can track income because I have booked 2 speaking engagements via the sites.  and a couple of new coaching clients.  That being said, does the income match the time spent.

I do know that I easily spend at least ten minutes per day six days per week on the site for a total of one hour weekly.  At my current billing rate that is $125 per week multiplied by 52 weeks for a total of $6500. On average most people belong to 5 social networking sites, doing the same math above for all 5 sites I would spend a total of $32,500 per year on my social networking site.

Therefore, the question is how much is too much.  It really depends on what results you are trying to achieve in your activities.  I recently had a man who paints homes ask me if he should be on all of these sites promoting his business. If he were going to join one or two sites, which ones should he choose?   Here are the five tips that I gave to him.

1.  Find a local networking site, for instance, I am on Smaller Indiana. This would allow him to promote his business to people who might be willing to hire him.  Smaller Indiana is predominately people in Indiana who are in a variety of businesses.  Not for Profits, Professional Services, Business Owners, and Employees of companies are all members of this site.  The key is, they are local, so I can sit down and have a cup of coffee with anyone of them at any time and build a stronger relationship.

2.  Find an online networking group that has people with common interest.  Ning has a variety of these kinds of networks.   On Linkedin I belong to a Group that is made up of other BNI Directors.  We are able to share information, help one another and arrange to meet with each other at conferences.  I may or may not generate new business from this site, but I am able to build stronger relationships with those who are members because we have a common interest.

3.  Know why you want to join the group. Is it for information, connections, to sell your product or services, to develop your expertise or just to socialize?   I am a member of Ecademy.  This is the only group where I actually spend money to be a member.  Ecademy has a very international flavor and I want to make connections with people who can help me land more speaking engagements in the UK.  Last year when I spoke in Bristol, England, I had the opportunity to meet several of the people I had been networking with online.

4.  How much time do you want to spend online?  Online networking takes time just like face to face networking.  If your intention is to be known as an expert, you will have to spend time online blogging, spend time in discussions and commenting on other blogs.  Do the math, even if you are not paying to be on the site, you are paying in valuable time.

5. Free or Fee?  Most sites like Linkedin have a Free and a Premium membership. With the exception of Ecademy I am on the free memberships for all other sites.  Try the 30-day free trial that most sites offer, if you like it and want to get more involved, then you can purchase up.  Ecademy has two different levels that you can purchase; power networker and black star each are vastly different both in price and in access to the network.  I recommend the lowest priced level to start and once you know for sure that you are going to be consistent and use the site, then consider moving up.  Otherwise, it is like joining a gym; you make the payments every month and never go.

Just like face-to-face networking, you can waste a lot of valuable time and money if you do not have a plan and a system to utilize your network.  For me this is Visibility Networking, and some Credibility Networking.  I have been able to connect others in very powerful ways and that goes a long way to building trust with those I have made connections for.

If you are going to jump into this arena, you must have realistic expectations.

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,

Here are 5 things to help you start the process of making it easy;

1. What should I listen for? I am with people all of the time, and many of them are complaining about something, or sharing great news, or contemplating a decision. Each of these conversations present opportunities to develop referrals for you.

2. What visual clue might I see that would lead me to recommend or refer you? Are there things that are common to signals that a person might need you? Such as someone who’s car has a dent in it and you are an auto body shop owner.

3. Are there things that I might see that would help me recognize someone as your target market? Like a motor cycle or boat in a drive way for the insurance agent.

4. What kind of things might be happening that would lead me to believe that someone is in the market for your services? A child being born, and child going to college, or a new business that just opened?

5. Is there an activity that you clients often engage in? Such as running in mini-marathons, jogging, bike riding, working out, skiing, or any number of activities that would help me identify our clients?

The more you can paint a picture for your network members the easier it is going to be for them to help you. Unfortunately, this means that you have to give some thought to what and who you are looking for as clients. Anybody or everybody will not be as effective. Profile you clients and teach your network members how to spot the clues.