Build Your Networking Skills to Get More Referralsstring(50) "Build Your Networking Skills to Get More Referrals"

May 29, 2023
BNI, Building Relationships, Networking skills, Referrals 5

There have been countless times over the years where I’ve heard of people who join a business networking group and then become disillusioned because the referrals don’t immediately start pouring in. The fact is, whatever you pay for membership when you join a networking group is only an admission price. It gets you into the room where opportunities may come your way, however, it does not entitle you to referrals. It is not enough to simply show up and participate in a meeting. You must make the most of these opportunities and the new contacts you meet.

Even with the built-in structure and focus on referrals in a strong-contact group, a member can fail to generate referrals or to receive referrals for themself. Why? Networking skills are the number one requirement for generating more referrals. The setting of a networking group simply makes it easier to use these skills. Being a member of a business networking group does not entitle you to expect or receive referrals. The following traits can help you build your networking skillset.

  1. Follow up on referrals. It is crucial to follow up quickly when you receive a referral, or even just a phone call, from a referral partner. If you don’t, you not only lose business, you also lose credibility. Likewise, it is important to follow up with your referral partners when you give them a referral to make sure they have contacted the person you referred to them.
  2. Have a positive attitude. A consistently negative attitude makes people dislike being around you and drives away referrals. A positive attitude makes people want to associate and cooperate with you. Positive business professionals are like magnets. Others want to be around them and will send their family, friends, and associates to them, too.
  3. Be enthusiastic and motivated. Think about the people you know. Who gets the most referrals? The people who show the most motivation, right? It’s been said that the best sales characteristic is enthusiasm. To be respected within our networks, we at least need to sell ourselves with enthusiasm. Once we’ve done an effective job of selling ourselves, we’ll be able to reap the reward of seeing our contacts sell us to others!
  4. Be Trustworthy. When you refer one person to another, you are putting your reputation on the line. You must have trust in your referral partner, and you must be trusted in return. Nobody will refer a contact to someone who can’t be trusted to handle it well.
  5. Be a good listener. Our success as networkers depends on how well we can listen and learn. The faster you and your networking partner learn what you need to know about each other, the faster you’ll establish a valuable relationship. Communicate well and listen well.
  6. Always be networking. Successful networkers are never off duty. Networking is so natural to them that they can be found networking in the grocery store line, at the doctor’s office, and while picking the kids up from school, as well as at the chamber of commerce mixers.
  7. Thank people. Gratitude is sorely lacking in today’s business world. Expressing gratitude to business associates and clients is an important building block in the cultivation of relationships that will lead to increased referrals. People like to refer others to business professionals that go above and beyond. Thanking referral partners at every opportunity will help you stand out from the crowd.
  8. Enjoy helping people. Helping others can be done in a variety of ways. It may be showing up to help with an office move or sending an interesting article to an associate or a client. Master networkers keep their eyes and ears open for opportunities to advance other people’s interests whenever they can.
  9. Be sincere. Most people can quickly spot insincerity. You can offer the help, the thanks, the listening ear, but if you are not sincerely interested in the other person, they’ll know it! Those who have developed successful networking skills convey their sincerity at every turn. One of the best ways to hone this skill is to give your give the person with whom you’re developing a referral relationship your undivided attention.
  10. Work your network. It’s not net-sit or net-eat, it’s net-work, and master networkers don’t let any opportunity to work their networks pass them by. They efficiently manage their contacts and have their referral partners’ contact information ready to share easily. They set up appointments to get better acquainted with new contacts to learn as much about them as possible so that they can truly become part of each other’s networks.


For years I’ve been teaching people that the networking process is more about farming than it is about hunting. It is about cultivating deep, mutually beneficial relationships with other business professionals. Developing and consistently using your networking skills will help you get more referrals from your networking partners.

Advanced Networking Skill: Edify Your Referral Sourcestring(54) "Advanced Networking Skill: Edify Your Referral Source"

April 27, 2023
BNI, Networking skills, Referrals 2

I think this is a crucial concept in business networking that is rarely discussed. When you get a referral and you meet with the prospect, it is very important that you edify your referral source. This is a great technique to use because you begin the discussion with the potential customer by talking about an area of overlapping interest and knowledge – your mutual acquaintance. 

Before you start talking about your business, or even asking them some questions, it is important that you edify your referral source. Tell them how much you respect the person that referred you; talk a little bit about your relationship with that networking partner and why it is important to you that you provide great service to everyone that they refer to you. Spend some time talking about how you both know this individual. It is a fantastic way to warm up the referral and more importantly, it is a great opportunity to make your referral source look good for having made the referral.

Remember, the number one rule for referrals is to make your referral source look GREAT. You need to demonstrate that you know how to sell to the prospect in a way that doesn’t embarrass the source of your referral. Your networking partner must have confidence that you are going to consult with the prospective client, discover their needs, offer solutions based on those needs, give them some options, and not push for a sale if you know you can’t provide a good solution.

Alternatively, if your technique is to hold the prospect hostage at their kitchen table or office desk until they break down and buy something from you, your referral source will not be pleased that you’ve abused your relationship with them and damaged their own relationship with that client. You may get the deal, but you’ve shut yourself off from further deals with that client—and from any future referrals from your source.

Always edify your referral source and act in a way that would make that person want to refer more people to you.

How to Start

So, you might say, “Ivan, that sounds like a good idea, but how do I do that?”
 Here’s an example.
 If my networking partner, Tom, refers me to someone, the first thing I would do is ask Tom some questions about the potential customer.

  •  How do you know them? 
  •  How long have you known them?
  •  What is the situation that they need help with?
  •  How did it come about?
  •  Are they expecting my call?

These questions help me get background information about the person and why they were referred to me. I can do all of that in one to two minutes at the most.

Now that I am prepared with information, I am ready to call the referral. Unless Tom tells me to wait until a certain day, I am calling the same day that I received the referral. Don’t sit on it; don’t wait a few hours, or a few days to call.

When I call the prospect, the first thing I say is, “Hi, I understand that you have been a friend of Tom’s for a long time.”  Then I would edify Tom by saying that I have known him for years, he’s been my electrician for a long time, I admire how he always thinks about ways to help others, etc. 

Why? When you give me a referral, it’s important that the first thing I do with that referral is tell them how great it is working with you. The reason I do that is because a third-party testimonial is incredibly powerful. Tom is my third-party testimonial. Instead of me calling the referral and talking and bragging about myself, what I want to do is brag about Tom because the one thing that potential client has in common with me is him. If I am talking about Tom, that helps warm up the relationship a little bit before I start launching into how I can provide whatever services that I need to do.

The person who gave you the referral already has a relationship of trust with the prospect and is lending you their credibility by referring you to them. This is why it is important to make them look good by edifying them and effectively fulfilling that referral, so they get great feedback about working with you and want to refer to you again.

Have you experienced this with your networking partners? Share your comments below.

Practice EFFECTIVE Networking Skillsstring(36) "Practice EFFECTIVE Networking Skills"

March 2, 2023
BNI, Networking, Networking skills 2

It seems that some people do better than others in life. Is it because they are lucky?
No, I think it’s because the harder you work, the luckier you get. And I believe that perfect practice makes perfect.

A friend of mine once told me about the time she went to a friend’s house for lunch. Her friend was a concert pianist, and after lunch, he said to her, “I hope you don’t mind, but this is my practice time. You are more than welcome to stay and listen if you’d like.” She emphatically replied, “Of course, I would love to.”

People pay big money to watch this man play the piano, and she got a private concert. She told me, “I had this vision that I would be listening to him play scales, or maybe something that was not finished. But while I listened, my gosh, it was incredible! It was so beautiful, Ivan. I sat there while he played, and tears came to my eyes just listening to him practice. After he finished, I said to him, “my goodness, that’s the way you practice?”  I was expecting something completely different, but this was like a concert. He replied, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. Every time I practice, I practice as though I’m in concert. That’s the only way I can improve my music.”

This story reminds me that practicing the skills necessary to become a successful networker is important, however, businesspeople can’t expect to become master networkers by simply going through the motions.

Avoid “Lousy” Practice

Having meaningful conversations with potential referral partners at networking events is a necessary skill for business networking success. And yet many professionals attend an event with ONE goal: giving their business cards to as many new contacts as they can meet before it’s over. Or worse yet, they confuse networking with direct selling and use the gathering as a face-to-face cold calling opportunity.

Yes, they could say that they were practicing having “conversations” with new people.

Consider this – I once heard a music teacher tell their students, “Lousy practice makes a lousy musician.” The same is true for business networking. You can practice day in and day out networking the wrong way, and what are the results? You’ll get really good at networking incorrectly and ineffectively. 

Networking Skills to Practice

I offer these suggestions when you’re ready to practice effective networking skills.

  1. Always maintain a positive attitude. This includes the way you present yourself to other people. Everyone likes to do business with an enthusiastic optimist. Avoid complaining and don’t participate in gossip.
  2. Ask questions. When you meet someone new, ask about their business, why they love what they do, who their target market is. Then LISTEN to what they say.
  3. Maintain eye contact. Stay fully engaged in the conversation you’re having with someone. This shows your genuine interest in them.
  4. Help other people. A passion for helping others is an unbeatable complement to a hard and focused business drive. Follow the philosophy of Givers Gain®.
  5. Be trustworthy. Do what you say you are going to do. Every. Time. It is much harder to regain trust after it is lost.
  6. Follow up on referrals. ALL of them. Then update the person who gave it to you. If you don’t follow up on the referrals you get from others, you are losing potential business AND you are also losing the trust of those who referred you.
  7. Thank people. Express your appreciation to those who help you. This sounds so simple and obvious, yet an attitude of gratitude is a crucial networking skill.


All of these skills are part of the main purpose of business networking – long-term relationship building.

Master networkers know that the key to networking success is to build mutually beneficial business relationships with other professionals over time. You can do this by practicing effective networking skills at every opportunity you have to do so.

 

 

 

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Perfect Practice Makes Perfectstring(30) "Perfect Practice Makes Perfect"

September 15, 2022
, , BNI, Martial Arts, Networking skills, Perfect Practice, Teachers 1

When it comes to business networking, practice alone is not enough. It must be effective practice. Simply attending meetings and going through the motions will not improve your networking or help you grow your business.

For those to whom networking doesn’t come easy, it is imperative that you continue striving to perfect your networking skills. The saying “practice makes perfect” comes into play here, but not how you might expect because that saying is only half true.
In actuality, only perfect practice makes perfect.

I once heard a music teacher tell their students, “Lousy practice makes a lousy musician.” The same is true for business networking. You can practice day in and day out networking the wrong way, and what will happen is you’ll get really good at incorrectly networking. 

Lessons From Martial Arts

In martial arts, the sensei (master) says, “Perfect practice makes perfect.” If you’re just going through the motions, you are not learning and growing. Each time you do a kata (a system of basic body positioning and movement exercises in karate), it must be done as though you were in a tournament, or as though the sensei were there observing you. It is only with that intensity of focus does one improve. The same applies to your business networking efforts. If you apply the techniques halfheartedly, you get less-than-acceptable results. 

Practicing the skills necessary to become a good networker is important. However, would-be networkers cannot expect to become master networkers by doing things in a perfunctory way, without commitment and effort.

Consider the short weekly presentation you make when you attend networking groups or various other organizations. Many people go to their meeting unprepared and unrehearsed, having only a vague idea of what they will talk about. While other members give their presentations, the unprepared person isn’t listening. They are thinking about their own upcoming presentation and how to say what they need to say. When their turn comes, they often stumble through an amateurish and marginal presentation. Yes, they practiced, but it was far from perfect practice, and the results prove it.

Lessons From Teachers

Do you think teachers wing their lesson plan? The better teachers set goals and objectives for what they want their students to learn. They spend time planning exactly what they are going to talk about in class. They prepare visual aids and handouts that reinforce the subject matter and facilitate learning from their presentation.

I recommend that, as a businessperson, you have similar goals and objectives. Ask yourself: What, exactly, do you want your listeners to learn about your business that they can pass along to prospects to create a possible referral for you?

If you are vague about your lesson plan, if you are unprepared to stand and deliver, your potential referral partners are going to leave the meeting without a clear idea of how to refer you to the people they know. You need to practice delivering your message. Standing up and winging it is not going to get you what you want. You must practice it perfectly to achieve your networking goals.

Business networking success comes with time and effective practice. You can do a review of your networking attempts and presentations with yourself or with a close business confidant after the meeting or event. What strategies did you use? Did you make a lasting impression on those you interacted with? What worked and what can you improve upon?  Perfect practice is a commitment – to you and your business.

How has practice improved your networking skills and your results? I’d like to read your comments below. Thank you.

 

 

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