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 and women invest differently, I know you are shocked by that statement right?  Probably not!  The following is from an article in the Chicago Tribune. 

In the financial services industry, the default language is male-speak. Women do not feel served. You look at the advertisements, lingo, acronyms. Even the client-engagement and retention process (sales) is a male model.

According to LearnVest.com, 87 percent of women would like to work with a financial adviser, but only 17 percent do. A big part of the reason is … women don’t meet the asset threshold to work with the advisers, so they get disenfranchised.

Several of the big companies have raised their thresholds recently, alienating even more women while they are spending their marketing dollars on the male market.

So, I went to my friend, TJ Couzens, of BrandX,  a market research firm who  researches the female market, to ask his opinion.  TJ wrote the following post in which he discusses the importance of  financial companies going after the female market more effectively.

Women control ALL of the purse strings. Women make over 68% of investment decisions. In the next decade, they will control over 2/3 of the total wealth in the U.S.

Consider this fact of high-end investing. All male investment clubs get an annual rate of return of 8% while all female investment clubs get an annual rate of return of 22%. (Source: Brand X Research, Investment Survey Analysis). Men are in it for the game while women are in it for the long haul. For men, it’s all about “me”. For women, it’s all about “we”. They invest not for their own wealth, but for the sole purpose of taking care of loved ones and friends.

In the area of retention, men change brokers about every 3 years, while women, if treated well, stay with their brokers for 10+ years (Source: Brand X Research). One of the reasons for this is men like bragging rights for great stock performance, so they will jump around if their portfolio is lagging behind their buddies. This leads to high client turnover for brokers. Women, on the other hand, invest based on her relationship with her broker. If they earn her trust and confidence, she will seek their advice and stay loyal because the relationship is valued more than bragging rights.

Another reason why all financial institutions should woo women is in the area of referrals. Men will refer their financial institution to 2.6 people on average. Women, if treated well, will refer you to 21 of her friends. This is huge and is worth billions of dollars over the long term. Right now the investment industry is doing a poor job of retaining women. According to a recent research study by Brand X Research, women only stay with their current broker 5-6 years. The cause of this is too many brokers cater to the husband and pay almost no attention to the wife.

What does this all mean? In essence, it means most financial institutions and brokers are spending marketing dollars on the wrong audience. They are sending out the wrong message. They still believe men make up most of the investment community and their marketing approach confirms this. It is male, ego driven themes based on competition and winning. Instead, they need to try to win over the women market through communicating, relationship building and mutual respect.

Companies need to realize they are losing by spending marketing dollars trying to win over male investors because it’s cheaper to do so. Men are easily persuaded, but are not loyal. You will always have a hole in your sales bucket. By marketing to women, you will spend more marketing dollars because she is harder to convince, but, once convinced, she is extremely loyal and will invest more money with you over the long-term. Remember 2.6 vs. 21 and 3 years vs. 10+ years. Who would you rather have?

If Financial Planners want more referrals they need to have a better understanding of the female market.  Changing your marketing message is not enough.

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!

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.

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.

Since time is limited, it is necessary that women make the best use of networking time. Men in general have more time to network and connect with others in the business world, so women need to leverage the time they have. Our study shows that the more time a person spends networking the more successful they are, therefore if a woman is limited by her life style on the number of hours she can network, she will also be limited in how successful she will be  at getting results from her network. Her only alternative is to find better ways to utilize the time she has. And to find groups that fit her and her families life. Predominately that has been groups that meet mid-day since morning and evenings have a tendency to be family and social time.

For most business professionals there is a great deal of time spent running from one networking event to the next, meeting more and more new people in hopes that we will sell a product or service to someone in the room. It takes a lot of time, and becomes frustrating to women when they find themselves behind the eight ball because they cannot make so many meetings. If you stop and take a look at quality networking over quantity networking you will find that as a busy mom and business owner you can have a positive result from your activities.
Networking is the activity of going out and meeting people face to face, adding new people to your Rolodex and often pitching your product or service to the people in the room or having their products and services pitched to you. This is not an effective use of the valuable time that women have,  if indeed it is our desire to create credibility and profitability.

Networking is an important activity and needs to be planned in advance,  how much time you are going to spend and what event you are going to attend. For most women being able to get our business act ivies and family act ivies on the same calendar will allow us to manage all of our options. Once we decide what events or functions we are going to attend we can then set goals for what we want to accomplish while we are there.

More effective planning will allow everyone to make good use of their time spent networking.  Look at your calendar and your contacts, and plan accordingly.

Every single day I see a new one, it seems that it has become very popular to call ones self an expert on various topics.  People with little skill or experience  can write a book or start a business  and declare themselves experts.  Most popular are;

I am a Social Media Expert – Really?  Who Says?  What makes you the expert?  People from all walks of life have decided to jump on this band wagon.  My mother, age 72 has decided that she is a social media expert.  Heck why not, she uses Facebook, and has for about 6 months, she tells all her friends how to use it,  when is the best time of day to use it, why it’s important to use it, and on and on.  Well all things considered she has as much experience as many out there calling themselves an expert.

People have decided that they can become professional speakers on the topic of Social Media, they can write books about it, blog about it, and get jobs with companies to manage their social media campaigns.  Reality is, they can because their clients are in a sea of confusion about the topic, and they cannot tell the difference between the real experts and the wanna be expert.

Next post popular I am an Expert category goes to the “Networking Expert” – Really?  Who Says?  They do of course.  People think that because they gather cards, build databases and attend events they are networking experts.  There are hundreds upon thousands of books, blogs, podcast, websites, organizations and speakers on the topic of “Networking”  most of them just repeating the same advice over and over.  Anybody can be a “Networking Expert” all they have to do is read books,  go to networking groups and regurgitate the material.

These are the two topics that are generating the most authors, speakers, and experts.  Not that most of them are really that skilled or offer up any new material, it is just more crap in the cesspool of crap.

Don’t get me wrong there are experts out there, those who have really created a name for themselves, who are doing the work and education it takes to be considered an expert, in his book   “Outliers” Gladwell  put forth some conventional wisdom; namely that takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything, and I question that.

Before you hire one of these experts there are some things you might want to ask them,  some hard questions.  Make them show you some testimonials, a client list and ask them, what makes them an expert.   If their prices seem really cheap, that can be a clue, they are not making money!  Where did they get their expertise?  How many hours have they invested in becoming an expert?  Make them show you their success!  There are really not that many experts out there, and the ones who are calling themselves that, don’t have the credentials to back it up, and have very little in the way of new information and concepts.

Use caution when hiring experts in these fields, ask hard questions, there are experts out there, people who are making a living doing it, who have invested the hours, the time and they develop new successful ways of doing things.

Remember, anyone with a book can call themselves and expert, and self publishing has created a lot of experts!

How many clients do you have who have hired you based on your expertise?

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.

Every now and then it bites us in the back side, and when it does we are often upset that we are being judged unfairly but it is our reputation so we have to take responsibility for it both personally and professionally.

Today more than ever those two reputations have a tendency to run together. There was a time that your private life was private or stayed within a very small community of people who knew you.

Not true today, millions of people are on at least one social networking sights and often on multiple sights such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. Not including all of the information that can be found out about a person by simply Googling their names. It is harder than ever to protect our reputation personally and professionally.

Today more than every it is imperative that you manage your reputation.  Be cautious about what you post online, be aware of what others are posting about you and your business.  If you are not on Facebook, Twitter, or other sites, then you need to find a way of monitoring these sights.  You can destroy your reputation, but it can also be destroyed by others.  Do you know what is being said to you and about you?

I know of many examples where friends have been denied a job based on information the employer has gotten via the internet, and business has been lost because the business owner has taken some very controversial stands in a very public way,

It is your reputation, hard to build, easy to destroy.  What are you doing to protect it?