The Number One Networking Requirement
So many times, I hear of people joining networking groups and then becoming disillusioned because the referrals don't immediately start pouring in. The fact is, whatever you pay to join a referr...
Setting Networking Goals
Do you have goals for your business? Do you have marketing goals and sales goals? We all know that goals are important. The question is, how well do we apply that knowledge? If you don't have...
‘Notworking’ is Sometimes Good
It's not called "net-sit" or "net-eat," it's called NetWORK! Effective networking is all about learning how to work your network effectively and appropriately. I also believe that there are t...
What Percentage of Your Business Do You Get From Referrals?
We recently surveyed more than 3,000 people at BNI.com. We asked the participants what percentage of their business comes from word-of-mouth or referrals. We found that fewer than 5 percent g...
Friends, Family and Referrals
Last Saturday night, my family and I decided to go out to dinner and ended up eating at a brand-new restaurant in the town where we live. We hadn't actually heard anything about the restaurant a...
Networking for the ‘Difficult to Refer’ Business
After a recent speaking engagement I did, a woman appoached me and asked my advice on the dilemma of getting qualified referrals for a "difficult to refer" business. She was passing as many refe...
Where Does Your Business Come From?
Where does your business come from? In a survey of roughly 4,000 people at the BNI.com website, roughly 73 percent of the respondents said that they get most of their business from networking an...
Networking On Your Business Channel
I wanted to let everyone know about a great online resource called YourBusinessChannel.com that I recently started working with. Since the beginning of this year I have recorded seven online TV...
Entrepreneur in Space
I had the pleasure of witnessing the unveiling of WhiteKnightTwo at the Mojave Spaceport in California this week (yes, I said "spaceport," not airport). The WhiteKnightTwo is Virgin Galactic's c...
Prepare to Network
I attended a networking event last week where it became immediately clear to me that a few of the networkers I interacted with were not at all prepared. It really bothered me because, to be blun...