During a hike on my recent trip to Necker Island, my friend, Mike Macedonio, and I had a great conversation about comparing the hiking trail to the solar system.
I invite you to watch this short video to learn more.
It reminded me that business networking is a journey and it’s all about relationships. Remember, networking is a marathon, not a sprint.
It is extremely valuable to understand your behavioral style and how it relates to your business networking. Most importantly, learning how to identify behavioral styles in others, and then learning how to adapt your own approach to those different styles, can make a significant difference in your referability.
I wrote about this in my book, “Room Full of Referrals,” with co-authors Dr. Tony Alessandra and Dawn Lyons. All customers and all networkers prefer communication in a manner that is most familiar to them. Knowing their personal style can help you customize an effective sales or networking approach for each unique individual.
Dr. Tony Alessandra calls this The Platinum Rule – the idea of treating people the way they want to be treated.
A key point to remember is that we are all a blend of the four styles with different intensity levels of each.
Oftentimes your behavioral style can be observed at a fairly young age. When I was 11 years old, I missed the bus going to school one day. The school was about two miles away and I had plenty of time, so I started walking.
Along the way I passed a fuel station with a small store attached to it. My eye caught some awesome looking lollipops – big, red, strawberry-flavored suckers. They only cost a nickel (five pennies) so I bought four or five of them and continued on to school. When I got there, a friend saw what I had and asked me if he could buy one. I said sure he could – for a dime (ten pennies). He bought it right away! That day I sold all the lollipops except for the one that I kept for myself . . . and I saw a great business opportunity.
The next day I decided to walk to school again, and this time I bought a dozen lollipops at the store. I sold them all before school was done for the day. I did this the next day, and the next… for almost a month. I was very happy with my margin and the money that I saw growing from my lollipop enterprise.
That was my first experience in business, and it was obvious from that early time in my life that I was a “Go-Getter” behavioral style.
The end of the story had another lesson in store. After a month of great sales, the Principal called me into his office and told me I couldn’t sell candy to students on campus. I asked him why and he said it was a school policy. Then I asked him why it was OK to sell candy bars for the school fundraiser on campus but not sell other candy for any other reason. He basically told me that was the policy and I could follow it or be suspended. Thus, the last lesson I learned was about government regulation. The next business I started was NOT on campus.
Do you recall your first business experience? How has your own behavioral style helped or hurt your networking and referral marketing efforts? I’d love to hear your story.
We’ve all been at business networking events where a conversation with someone takes much longer than we expected (or wanted). I am often asked about the best way to end a conversation in a networking situation. My answer is a simple solution with some easy options.
Some people want more ways to end a conversation. There are many “exit lines” out there and I’ve seen a lot of them. I strongly recommend that you do not use them unless they are absolutely true. I offer three efficient exit lines that work whether you’re ready to wrap it up immediately or you have time for courtesies.
Remember to keep it simple and keep it honest.
You can use anything that is similar to these three suggestions, as long as it is true. If you really have to leave the event to do something, tell them so. And then leave the event.
Otherwise, you can simply use the solution in #1 above. It is an effective way to end a conversation without offending anyone at your networking events.
What you do AFTER you meet someone at a networking event is just as important as the initial conversation you have with them. I recommend the 24/7/30 Follow-up System:
Drop them a note, text, or email within 24 hours.
Connect with them on social media within 7 days.
Reach out to them within 30 days to set up a one-to-one meeting.
This approach helps you establish a powerful routine to make your networking efforts more meaningful and successful.
When it comes to ending a conversation at a networking event, remember that you don’t need to overthink it. Keep it simple. Be polite, friendly, and honest. Don’t make excuses and respectfully move on from the conversation. And of course, be timely and professional with your follow-up.
I think that all networking groups, as well as other types of professional business organizations, can benefit from regular networking education moments at their meetings.
I personally think one of the greatest volunteer positions in a BNI® chapter is the Education Coordinator role because you have an opportunity to pour into people about the things that you’ve learned. Especially for those who have served on the chapter’s Leadership Team and had some advanced training, or if you listen to the BNI Podcasts, and if you read books on business networking (I’ve written several), you can share helpful information to help all members of the group.
I designed the BNI Podcast episodes to be easily utilized as networking education moments for business professionals. They can be presented as a short summary, highlighting two–three tips or best practices. The transcripts, or portions of them, can be copied and pasted to a digital or paper document to hand out to all members and guests at the meeting. You can also play a short clip to emphasize the topic.
I once had an BNI Chapter Education Coordinator say to me, “I am in a chapter where the members just aren’t listening to the podcasts. And we, the leadership team, recognize that for a chapter to be successful, everybody’s got to be working off the same playbook, we’ve got to be together as a team.”
He told me his solution. The very first week in his role as the Education Coordinator he stood up and said to the group, “I basically have two choices as Education Coordinator, and I’d like your opinion on what you’d like me to do. One, you can let me know the topics that you’d like me to talk about, and each week I’ll do a short lecture on that topic. I’ll pull material from BNI podcasts, Ivan’s books, his blog, and I’ll talk about that content for you directly. Or two, we can have a dialogue. We can share ideas on what works and what doesn’t work. Which one of those two would you prefer?” He said he knew what the answer would be, and they all said, “Dialogue, please. We want to talk.”
He then told them, “Great, I was hoping you would say you wanted a dialogue. So in order for us to have an informed dialogue, we have to do the reading. We’ll take topics that you would like to talk about, I will assign a podcast, or a blog, or some material, for you to read or listen to on that topic for the next week. And if you have listened to the podcast, or read the material, you can talk.
If you haven’t listened to the material or read it, you can’t join the discussion. And we’ll know that you listened to it or read it because you’re going to have to quote something from it. For example – Dr. Misner said this and that on the podcast, or his guest, so-and-so, made this point. But if you haven’t listened to it, you can’t talk.” And they all agreed to do it.
How did it work? Well, because the members knew that they couldn’t be part of the dialogue unless they read or listened to the material, they went from a chapter where almost no one listened to the podcast on a weekly basis, to having almost 100% participation!
This is a great way to get engagement while sharing information that will help the membership in the group and out in the business world. It is a fantastic way to help the chapter immerse in a culture of learning.
The truth is, if everyone listens to or reads the material, and then you spend a few minutes talking about it, it’s so much more real. It is much more engaging than simply sitting there listening to a lecture. And actively participating in a discussion helps people retain the information better, making it more likely that they will use it in their everyday business networking activities.
Imagine yourself sitting in an important meeting with your biggest client when you get a text message. Would you stop listening to your client and completely ignore them so you could respond to the text?
What if you got a phone call . . . would you stop in the middle of your presentation as you were pitching your most important customer about your newest product in order to answer the call?
The answer to both questions is – of course you wouldn’t! That would be a blatantly rude move on your part, and it would put your most valued client relationship at risk.
So, why in the world would anybody even consider looking at their phone during a business networking meeting??
To be clear, a good reason for looking at it, picking it up, or using your phone in any way during any type of networking meeting does not exist!
One of the fastest ways to ruin your credibility and earn a reputation of being rude, unprofessional, and undeserving of referrals is to use your phone during a networking meeting. It virtually screams to your networking partners: I don’t care what you have to say because I have better things to do right now, and this meeting is unimportant to me.
If you want positive results from your business networking efforts, then that is the last thing you would ever feel about, or say to, anyone in your network. And yet, if you are using your phone during meetings with your referral network, I promise you–not only is that the exact message you are sending them, you’re also wasting their time and yours.
Click the short video for the story of what I actually heard during an online business networking meeting.
I couldn’t believe it!
We all understand that there is a great deal of overlap between in-person and online networking. However, networking online only works when you are engaged during the entire meeting. You need to learn about your fellow members – their business, their best customers, and their target markets, so you will know how to recognize referrals that you can give to them. Effective networking and building strong business relationships both require active listening. To do that, you have to be fully engaged in every part of the meeting, giving all of your attention to whomever is speaking. Skip the multi-tasking, keep your focus.
Now, I do believe in taking notes. When someone mentions who a good referral would be for their products or service, and I immediately think of a person in my network, I’m going to write that down so I can follow up after the meeting.
Remember, great networkers go to networking events with the intention of building relationships. That means you need to be an active participant in the entire process to get any substantive results.
My recommendation is to check your phone one last time before your networking meeting . . . check that it is completely turned off and don’t turn it back on until you leave the meeting, whether it is in-person or virtual.
Remember, networking meetings and phones don’t mix!
It amazes me the number of people I meet who are at the top of their game in the business world, and yet they struggle with confidence when it comes to networking meetings. I wonder how they find networking so difficult when they are remarkably impressive performers in other areas of business.
The truth is, there are a lot of reasons people struggle with networking. Sometimes it is just confidence, and sometimes it is a lack of experience, organization, or time management.
This led me to create my Ten Commandments of Successful Networking. These are step-by-step practical guidelines covering everything one needs to do to be a highly confident and successful business networker.
Understanding and following these recommendations as a regular part of your business networking practices can help new and seasoned professionals network successfully. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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