Frog Archives - Dr. Ivan Misner®

In generating referrals for your business online, you want to network more with a prince and less with a frog. You will kiss a few frogs at first before finding good referral sources. Someday, your prince will come. How can you be sure that you are a networking prince or princess and not a frog?

The Characteristics of The Networking Frog

Always asking for referrals, introductions, and favors but rarely reciprocates
Does not ask about your business, goals, and ideal customers
Often reschedules the appointment
Does not return your phone calls and emails
Rarely goes out of the way to help you
Inconvenienced when complying with your request for assistance
Talks excessively about their business
Rarely asks you questions and does not listen
Quickly turns the conversation back to their business.
Their attention is not focused on you with continued eye contact

Make sure that you are not a “Networking Frog” by displaying these characteristics when networking online. Just do the opposite of what a frog does to become a Networking Prince (or Princess).

A Great Example of The Networking Prince

Jerry is always giving referrals and making introductions for his referral partners, many times before they even ask. Jerry is constantly going out of his way to help people with their businesses because he has invested the time and energy to learn what his referral partners are looking for in a potential client. When you talk to Jerry, you feel listened to — he maintains eye contact and focuses on you. You almost have to force him to share about his business and how you can help him. You can count on Jerry to follow up on referrals you send him promptly, and he returns your calls and emails within a day or two. If you run into Jerry at a networking event, he’s greeting new people with a smile, introducing them to others, and just being generally helpful. After an encounter with Jerry, you feel like royalty!

Identifying if someone is a networking prince or frog can be difficult in your first meeting. It takes time to discover someone’s networking nature. Therefore, know and look out for the characteristics of a networking frog. Sometimes networking frogs pretend to be royalty at online networking events. Their scales and warts reveal themselves later in follow-up interactions with them. While networking online, you will kiss a few frogs before finding the true princes (and princesses). Just make sure that you are not being a Networking Frog yourself. Pattern your networking skills after my friend Jerry, and you will become known far and wide, throughout the land, as networking royalty.

I woke up today feeling strongly inclined to share this video featuring my good friend Brian Tracy. Why? Well . . .

I’m currently in Croatia meeting with my company’s Executive Management Team for a week and “busy” doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling right now. Just yesterday, one of my employees made a helpful suggestion that saved me a little bit of time and got a side project off my plate and I said to her, “Thank you so much–you have no idea how much I appreciate that suggestion because with everything going on I feel like I’m drinking water from a fire hose!”

It got me thinking about how unbelievably busy we can all get at times and how it can feel almost completely overwhelming–like we’re never going to be able to come up for air, so to speak. The fact is, time management is often one of the biggest challenges faced by business professionals across the globe and our ability to effectively manage our time can very easily be the single deciding factor between success and failure.

That’s why I want to share this short video with you. In it, Brian explains a simple time management strategy that I really believe can be life changing for a lot of people. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in, if you apply Brian’s strategy, I guarantee you will see an amazing boost in your productivity. I can’t promise you won’t still feel a little overwhelmed at times but I can say with confidence that using his strategy has at least helped me keep my sanity (which is something I’d like to hold onto for as long as possible, hard as it may seem sometimes 😉 ) and get more done than I previously imagined was possible.

So, what do you think of Brian’s strategy? Do you have any of your own strategies for time management which you’ve found to be particularly effective? I’d love to hear from you so please leave your thoughts in the comment forum below. Thanks!