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?

One of the first things I work with my clients on is the proper use of “Networking”, as well as the best ways to use their time and energy when they are networking. Over the last 15 years, I have watched people spend many hours networking. As a matter of fact I was one of those people. It is exactly how I got the moniker, “Queen of Networking”. One day, my mentor asked me to begin to track all my time. Time that I spent networking, time I spent answering the phone, emails, working on projects, surfing the net, and so on. This was an eye opening experience.   I found that most of the stuff I was doing was not having a positive impact on my business bottom line.

60% of all of my activities in a given week were around networking. Going to the events, following up with every single card that I collected, staying in contact via email and phone calls, screening and fielding emails and phone calls from people who met me while networking, signing up for other events, driving to events, preparing for the events and so forth and so on. You get the picture; I was a very busy lady. Busy does not equal profitable.

Once we had a clear understanding about where my time was going, it was now time to look at how much of that time was actually having a positive impact on my business bottom line. What became painfully clear is while 60% of my time was spent, adding people to my database, and networking, networking, networking, 80% of my income was coming from 10-12 people, 200 where people whom I knew, supported and referred and the other 3000 names and contacts in my database were just that – names and unfulfilled relationships.

The most important feedback that my mentor gave me was simply this statement; “Imagine what your business would look like if you spent 60% of your time nurturing the 10-12 people who are helping to grow your business.” It was a statement that would keep me up at night.

Today you will not find me at every event and when I attend a networking event, I do so very strategically. I have a goal in mind, a purpose to be fulfilled and connections to make for at least one of those 12 people who were helping me to build my business. When I network for others, my own business grows with very little effort on my part. I have the opportunity to see “Givers Gain” in action.   Before you go to your next networking event ask yourself the following questions:

• Where is most of my business coming from?
• Which organizations are producing results for my business?
• Who passes me the most business?
• What are my goals for the event?
• Who do I need to help?
• How can my networking activities help my referral sources?
• What is my networking budget in both time and money?

Welcome Guest Blogger - Tiffany Kellog, she is a friend, fellow Referral Institute Instructor and fellow Blogger.

Have you ever been at a networking event, and you were scoping out nametags, and you saw a name tag that had both a name and an industry. You think to yourself, I know what _______ does… for example, perhaps you see a florist, and you think that you know what a florist does… so why do you need to ask more? Perhaps you see a financial planner at a networking event… do you know what they do? (And are you now, while you are reading this, thinking I know what a financial planner does?)

Often times, by listing your profession on your name tag, you are painting yourself into a box, and it’s not always the one you want to be put in! The disadvantage of listing your industry on your name tag is that you are putting yourself into a category which will allow the people you meet to decide, before speaking to you, exactly what you do and who you are… and if they already have the answers to those questions, why continue on?

Instead of putting your professional category on the name tag, why not put something on your nametag that will have them asking you multiple questions about your business? The advantage is that you get to tell them EXACTLY what you do, and not have them fit you into their preconceived notion of your profession.

So, when you are at your next networking event (or ordering your next set of name tags), what will you be writing to describe what you do?

Having problems with filling in that blank? I recommend the Certified Networker Program, Module 1 & 9, to help come up with your Emotional Based Marketing Message and ideas on what you should put on your name tag.

This article comes from a friend of mine, Frank DeRaffele Jr. As host of the the top Entrepreneurial Radio Show in the country, Frank was asked the following question on his blog.  I felt it was worth sharing with each of you.  Question:  How do you get people who don’t know you very well to feel comfortable with you, trust you a little, feel some confidence in you, before they every meet you?

Answer:  Testimonials.
We seem to all know this but we don’t use this powerful marketing tool enough. When used correctly, this can be one of the most effective marketing tools today both online and offline.

Testimonials are:
1.  Free.
2. Come from various demographics.
3.  Praise the various solutions that you can provide.
4.  Honor your professional ability and your character. Your integrity…..your
personal reputation as a business professional

6 Simple, Easy and Effortless Steps To Get Started:

1. Pick 5 people whom you know and would like testimonials from.

2. Write a testimonial for each of them. Not the same one five times with different names in the testimonial. Write from your heart what you think is wonderful about this person.

3. Send the testimonial to them. Send a note with it.