When you tell entrepreneurs that relationships are the “key” to developing a personal and professional network, they often smile and acknowledge the concept without fully appreciating its true meaning.
- leadership_ch,
- Entrepreneurship_ch,
- Marketing_ch,
- Featured,
- starting business,
- social networking,
- small business,
- products,
- product,
- of commerce,
- networking,
- invention,
- intellectual property,
- company,
- business startup,
- business,
- leadership,
- entrepreneurship,
- marketing
Just like fishing,
the
process of meeting people, staying in touch, and then asking for their business is something you can do time after time.
Do referrals happen by accident?
As a business professional, I can tell you from personal experience how effective referral networking has been in the success of my own businesses.
There’s a very good reason why referral networking is becoming an accepted and important marketing strategy in businesses worldwide: it works.
Imagine being dropped off in a foreign city with nothing but a few hundred dollars and told that the only way to get home was to start a business and make a lot of money—in six days. Well, you don’t have to imagine it. Just watch the BBC television show The Last Millionaire.
Has anyone ever said to you, “If there’s anything I can do to help you with your business, let me know”? And was your response “Thank you. Now that you mention it, there are a few things I need”? Or did you say, “Well, thanks, I’ll let you know”?
If you’re like most of us, you aren’t prepared to accept help at the moment it’s offered. Before you can do so, you have to make the connection between specific items or services you need and the people who can supply them.
Understanding cultural differences when doing business around the world is becoming more important in a global society. Even within large countries like the United States, there are differences from one region to another. When you go beyond that and look at one country vs.
Has someone you didn’t even know ever solicited you for a referral or business? I call this “Premature Solicitation.” (Say that fast three times and you might get in trouble!)I’ve been a victim of “premature solicitation” many times.
My colleagues and I, as co-authors of my most recent book (Business Networking and Sex– not what you think), thought that it would be interesting to see if men and women learned how to network differently. So in one of the surveys we created during the course of writing the book, we asked participants about the different ways they learned.
The realm of business today is global, not just local or national. When we set out to discover what people thought about business networking, we focused on businesspeople, but in a broad cross-section of the world.
The holiday party is a great time to meet people but… you should have a plan!
Everybody goes to parties, and the holiday season is full of them. It’s also a business
slowdown season for many of us who are not in retail.
