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!

Men insult each other, but they don’t mean it, Women compliment each other and they don’t mean it either. I found that quote on my Facebook wall one day and I thought, wow, how profoundly true that statement really is. The last few weeks I have been thinking about how women treat each other, the back biting, gossiping, undermining way that we treat each other has a long term profound affect upon women as a whole and maintains a man’s view of women in the work place and in business.

 Women are often guilty of Crab mentality, and it is not just a corporate phenomenon. I see this mentality happen everyday with women business owners and on more than a few occasions I have even been the victim of the ladies in the crab pot. In all likelihood I have even been a participant in the crab pot.  Just as one woman rises to the top, all the rest of the women reach up and pull her back down.

 Women are often the first to criticize and sabotage one another. When one female business owner has a little success, others will pull her down, withhold connections, referrals and even ignore her. Recently after looking at a list of female entrepreneurs who had won awards for achievement, other women were being petty and unkind about the winners. With comments like “She must have nominated herself” “She is always in it for the glory” “She gets everything like she is the only female business owner out here” and “There are others who are so much more deserving that her.” Susan Tardanico had this to say in Forbes Magazine,  the same behaviors that wound and traumatize us as girls are alive and well in the workplace, undermining our career success.

 We worry that one women business owner is going to get further a head in her business than we are, so we don’t choose her to do our business with, we don’t give quality referrals to her so she can grow her business with our connections, we don’t build her up, talk her up, we don’t help her climb that ladder of success.  Worse yet, when she does succeed we will pay lip service to her success, but we will not show up to celebrate with her and we will not give her the credit for hard work to get where she is, we will just compare ourselves to her, find ourselves lacking and talk about how lucky she is.

If we are going to evolve as a gender, if we want to be taken seriously, if we are going to change the world,  then we all have to step into the space of change.

Correct yourself first – if you hear a fellow women business owner being demeaned or negatively talked about, don’t participate. Set the example and refuse to participate, leave the conversation. When we participate in running down another woman we do damage to ourselves and all women. We keep the stereotype alive.

Speak up – take a stand for other women. When you stand by and allow others to ruin the reputation or spread gossip, it is the same as participating in it. “Evil wins when good men stand quietly by.”  It is by our silence that others are allowed to continue.  Speak up and remind the ladies that it could be them that others are talking about.  Then offer 2-3 positive things to the conversation.

 Support – Build relationships, make connections, do business with and give quality referrals to the women in your community. Promote their business, show up at their events and give support whenever possible. Stop talking about supporting and start doing it.

Celebrate – Stand up and speak out for the success of other women, even small successes celebrated build spirit and momentum.

Pass on the information, change the conversation, we are women, we have the power to change the world,  but it starts with us.  We may not be able to change all women and how they behave, but we can certainly change how we show up and set the example

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/5-problems-you-could-avoid-by-having-a-target-market-as-part-of-your-referral-strategy/ http://hazelmwalker.com/5-problems-you-could-avoid-by-having-a-target-market-as-part-of-your-referral-strategy/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:40:36 +0000 Hazel http://hazelmwalker.com/?p=1459

I met with one of my clients yesterday and we talked about his target market, I had a conversation with a friend who runs her business and we talked about her target market.  I had a phone call with a potential referral partner  to discuss our referral strategy and we talked about our target market.

It seems that Target Market is an important subject, and one that every business should focus on clarifying.  So why does it seem so difficult, for businesses and solopreneurs to identify a target market?  Not having clarity on this topic creates a whole host of problems;

1.  You spend your marketing money using an ineffective shotgun approach that nets low value results.

2.  You find yourself networking at completely inappropriate places.  If I sell cars and I know that 65% of all new car purchasing decisions are made by women, then I am going to go network with women and other businesses who sell to women, not a room full of men.

3.  You end up having the wrong conversations with the wrong people at the wrong time.  Because you are looking for anybody who needs your services you waste a lot of time talking to everybody even when they are the wrong somebodies.

4.  You cannot develop a good referral partner and you end up with a lot of sources who are referring you low level, low value leads.  A good referral partner has the exact same target market as you do, you are focused and you have a strategy for developing referrals.

5.  You miss great opportunities because you are so busy taking care of the low value clients and customers that your high value opportunities are passed by.

10% of your clients create 80% of your income and 10% of your clients suck up 80% of your time and generate little income, why would you use shotgun approaches that only net you more of the latter?  If you focus on the top 10%, spend your time and money seeking more of them, the other 80% will just show up and you will be able to regularly clear out the bottom 10% thus freeing up your time to nurture the top 10%.

When I decided to write an article on Referral Mindset, I googled “referral mindset” and I got several pages of articles and videos from guys who talk about being in the habit of asking for referrals, getting referrals from your customers every time you sit down with them. Wowing your clients so they want to refer you. Those all seemed like strategies to me so I looked up “Mindset” by Carol Dweck and learned something completely different.

Mindsets are beliefs—beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities. Think about your intelligence, your talents, your personality. Are these qualities simply fixed traits, carved in stone and that’s that? Or are they things you can cultivate throughout your life?

People with a fixed mindset believe that their traits are just givens. They have a certain amount of brains and talent and nothing can change that. So people in this mindset worry about their traits and how adequate they are. They have something to prove to themselves and others.

People with a growth mindset, see their qualities as things that can be developed through their dedication and effort. Sure they’re happy if they’re brainy or talented, but that’s just the starting point. They understand that no one has ever accomplished great things—not Mozart, Darwin, or Michael Jordan—without years of passionate practice and learning.

A referral mindset is the belief that you can be good at networking and the desire and willingness to learn more about referrals. We often think that people who are good at networking are just born with a networking or referral mindset, but the reality of it is this, if you want to get referrals, if you want to build a strong network, you have to be open to learning more about the process. Your referral mindset is your choice, you can let your self talk tell you that you are not good at it, or you can let your self talk encourage you to learn more and get good at it.

This is part two of a post by my friend and fellow Tweeter, Greg Magnusson DVM is an Indianapolis Veterinarian and owner of Leo’s Pet Care.  Part one is on the Blog for Lipstick on The Rim.

Greg is a prime example of why it is important to have a good social networking strategy.  I met Greg on Twitter, later I met him in person at a Tweetup during the Super Bowl.  Of course we hit is right off, we already knew each other from our online connections.  When we met offline the relationship was already much further along.  One of the things that we had in common was our fondness for a good beer and how beer is often seen at networking events.  Below is a great post of what not to do when networking and drinking beer.

Here’s how not to network with beer:

1. You’re three brews in before the other party takes a sip. If you wanted to get drunk, do it in the privacy of your own home or at the bar with your buddies. Even off duty, you’ve got the same name, and the same reputation to uphold.
2. If the other party is holding a cheap watery beer, resist the urge to tell them how terribly said beer sucks. It does you no good to insult someone’s taste.
3. At no point attempt to demonstrate your superior knowledge of hops, barley and water. Nobody is at this function to learn how much you know about beer.
4. Never be the first guy with a lampshade on your head. Further, before you allow yourself to be photographed, consider that photo will end up on every screen in the city for weeks to come.
5. Don’t drink just to give yourself an excuse to say dumb stuff you’ve always wanted to say to someone but common courtesy had previously prevented you. Nobody buys the excuse that you called your boss a jerk “because of the beer”.
6. If beer makes you surly and rude, don’t drink at networking events. Be honest with yourself. Surely by now you know your response to beer, right?
7. Never drink so much that you don’t remember who you were talking to or what they said.
8. Mind your manners, hitting on the opposite sex is not a good idea when you are drinking at a networking event, it will damage your reputation.

Nothing can ruin your credibility faster with those who you are networking with than breaking the rules above.  How many times have you been at a networking event or even a party with co-workers and watched that one person get so drunk and do something completely offensive.  Drinking let’s your barriers down

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!

Men and women want to achieve the same things but they are not always on the same path to accomplish the goal.  For women it is often about the journey, for men it is about getting to the destination.  Here is a clip of a presentation that I did in California to a room of about 1000 people discussing this topic.

Same Destination – Different Paths

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.

“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.