Four Habits to Create and Monetize Your Business Relationships
“A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship”
-John D. Rockefeller
-John D. Rockefeller
The Four Habits
· Win the confidence of influential leaders
· Create a top of mind referral pipeline
· Viralize your messages
· Develop an ROI for colleagues and associates
Making the Case
At the end of the day, the business relationship, this fragile patchwork of rationalized organized emotional behavior is supposed to lead everyone somehow to a greater more rewarding success experience right? But, how can it when our every interaction is canned, manufactured and somewhat stale. I mean if I hear one more boring well scripted and unsuccessfully delivered elevator speech or presentation, I think I just might throw up! That’s right, I said it. What’s even worse and I know that you’ve experienced this even if you haven’t done it, the poor guy that actually believes that he can present his company flawlessly in perfect pitch for thirty to sixty seconds off the cuff. Yeah right! I often think of about how long it takes successful actors to learn and practice their craft. All the school plays and the variety shows. Then there were band auditions and chorus lines where every posture and tone was carefully examined over and over year after year. All the while being told “your not quite there yet”, “there’s a lot more work to done here” or “can you deliver that line just one more time, I think you almost nailed it”! What!?
No wonder you can’t deliver a basic sixty second introduction about you and your company. You’ve got to be Denzel Washington
But here’s the thing. If you can’t even articulate what it is that you are really about in an effective way, how on earth do you expect to get anyone to help you achieve what you want? In these next few lessons I hope to share some magic stuff that I’ve found to really work. It’s important to note that you can’t nor should you try to do everything all at once. Take your time, pick your battles wisely and try to learn as you do. So let’s get going.
Seek and recruit influence leaders in your market that don’t compete with you!
I can’t stress it to you enough how important it is to seek and win the endorsement of some of the key influence leaders in your chosen market niche. Win them to your cause or get them on your team. Before we get into why this is important and how you can do it, I think we’d better straighten out a few positional ideas. There are several reasons why you should get the most respected people in your chosen market niche to endorse you. It shows that you belong amongst the elite in your category and this is not just for the benefit of others, it’s for you!
Too many business leaders suffer from an obvious and blatant lack of self confidence. So much has been written about why it’s important to have a high self esteem, to know that you will overcome obstacles and that others have faith in you. Take a second to imagine what it would feel like to have The Chairman of The US Department of Labor recognize you as one of the best business leaders in America Oprah ” to pay attention to you. The good news is that if you seek it, today you can have that type of endorsement and credibility almost instantly. The first thing you must do is identify who the power players are in your world, observe them and start to engage in meaningful interaction with them.
You can use all kinds of tools to identify market movers, mavens and potential partners for yourself. I have to say here that one of my favorites that I’ll never do without is you guessed it…Google! That’s right myself and millions of others use this tool daily to find out more about just about everything. I recently wanted to help a friend in the title insurance business to find the areas top realtors for her networking purposes. Before I’d really thought about it, I just Googled it and eureka! We had our hands on the names, contact info and emails of the best of the best right here in our own back yard. Now we could see which of them are blogging, who was on FaceBook or LinkedIn and we could examine their friends or connections. We could check to see what endorsements that they were willing to share and what others were saying about them. None of that boring yellow pages stuff! Nothing is greater than taking a peak at someone’s bio or resume and then having the ability to reach out to their connections for some advanced information. Today we call them profiles and contacts(hint: yes, people are Googleing you too). Can you tell how important it is to get your profile done right? That’s another topic.
Three magic survey questions!
One of the best ways to wake up market leaders that I’ve found is the market survey approach. I really haven’t found too many mavens that don’t want to share their opinion or talk about their findings with others. Don’t believe me? Here’s a challenge! Contact the biggest procurement officer that you can find at some organization that buys a product or service that you sell and ask them these three magic questions:
- What do you like about the people that you’ve worked with in the past that sell my product?
- What do you see that they could do better and why would that be important to you?
- …and here’s the good one, If I could quickly show you how good we are at everything that you love and how we NEVER do the things that hate, would you consider giving us a shot at doing business with you at some time in the future?
If you think about it, aren’t these the essential questions in which you need to have answers to really get things going. Wouldn’t it be good to know that others want you before you open up your BIG presentation? You can use this strategy while open networking at a party or with an email. You can try a real survey using SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang. My favorite is just posting a well pointed question on LinkedIn and starting to engage those that answer. When you really get rockin, you can build your elevator speeches and postings around your findings. They use to call this market research back in the day.
If you are still afraid to get out there and get things going, it’s probably because you haven’t really cleared your “opportunity runway” for new relationships. You’ve got so many old outdated, has been friends and contacts just lying all over your tarmac! Let’s face it. It’s a mess out there. It’s true, we only have so much attention that we can give and attention is time. Since time is MONEY, I suggest you spend it wisely buy announcing to all of your existing contacts that you will be moving into some new areas of concern and that if they can see a way to enhance what you are doing, you’ll be more than happy to bring them along but if they can’t help, they are off your team! Be sure to carefully select the ones that you’ll be taking with you first. If you don’t understand this or think that it’s harsh, well maybe I’ll spend the time explaining it you later. I think that my time may be worth a little something to.
Keep in Touch to Create a Referral Machine!
Yes! I know that I just told you to drop the bad eggs from your roster and I really meant that. Still there are people that you simply must keep in touch with just because they’ve got potential or you’ve got some weird emotional obligation to them. Maybe they just refuse to leave! I can put my daughter in this category. It’s important to remember that there are people that already know, like and trust you. These are priceless resources that you should never take for granted. In our Wow! Factor workbook (exercise #5), we help you think through the collection of professors, colleagues, classmates and friends that can make up a beautiful mosaic of your life’s achievements and support your future efforts in unique ways. It’s important to not just have those connections but to nurture, build and leverage them towards your future.
You need to stay connected and FaceBook some would say is the perfect place to do this. It’s much more social than it’s highly professional all business cousin LinkedIn but still rather necessary. Here you can post pictures, video, blog posts, updates and more. You can share funny stories or news that you think is relevant. You can play fun games with your friends or chime in on interesting conversations. All of this exposes your connections to that which is most critical in you, your character and highest beliefs. In good measure, your character is exactly what’s at stake here. If you really believe in doing good and helping others, it’s going to show in how you handle networking both in social media and face-to-face. However any little quirk of negative behavior will also rear its ugly head so be careful. Understand that the internet logs are a permanent record of what we collectively share with the world, probably forever. We are the first generation of people to make this type of history and our only real judges are yet to be born.
So think through and dare I say “create a plan” as to how you will use these tools. Find out when the best times are to reach out to friends versus business colleagues. Be careful about how you break into someone’s day with instant messages, texts and emails. Keep up with the ideas that seem to be interesting to your close associates and engage them in conversation around those ideas. You are going to be able to share the hottest restaurants and find the best service providers. You’ll be able to design the perfect spaces to meet and chat using Skype or GoToMeeting. You can and should bring your whole world closer together in a well orchestrated symphony of connectivity and relevance. It’s all possible right now and it’s all at your finger tips. You’re out of the closet! Now stay out.
You’re going to need to create some space to reach out to people in your daily, weekly and monthly activities. It’s going to take some commitment of time and maybe a little money to fully integrate your social media and networking opportunities into your Outlook or other planning systems. I can’t stress enough the importance of dedicated well thought through activity here. In story after story people tell me of having their days and nights hijacked by FaceBook and Twitter. Let’s face it we are addicted to each other and when we connect meaningfully in almost anyway, it’s really hard to break the connection. I mean I’d probably be still hanging out in the cafeteria with my fraternity brothers in college if we never had to actually get up and go to class. Do whatever you can to stay focused on your work! Why not post your plan in a letter or blog on how you intend to use social media for the next year. It will keep you honest with your time and set a positive example for others in your network. As a child, my parents made it a point to make sure that I understood this rule…“Be in the house before the street lights come on.” The beautiful thing was that all of my friends new the rule too and my mother would often hold them accountable for sending little Marvin on home at a decent hour. Imagine what kind of socially engineered accountability you can create today using the tools that we have.
Having said that it’s important to note the need to get into a rhythm with social media and networking. Here are some examples of things that you can plan ahead of and do with consistency:
- post a beneficial idea from a current book that you are reading
- revue the high points of lectures or seminars that you’ve attended
- announce meetings that you plan to attend and why
- post links to your favorite podcasts
- ask questions that are designed to help others think and act positively
- post your weekly or monthly goals with a call to action for help
- let people know when your working on a great project and see if they have any ideas
- introduce new members of your networks, advisory councils or groups
People will come to expect and enjoy your postings the more you engage them. If you are really successful they will share your stuff with others!
Make it go viral!
A virus is contagious. It spreads like a wildfire throughout entire systems from person to person. It requires three elements a healthy environment, a dominating contaminant and on or more effective carriers. Understanding all three of these elements is critical to your effective use of any social media tools or networking skills. Remember, releasing a virus without a well thought through plan can be dangerous. Let’s explore them now.
A healthy environment is well researched and chosen market demographic. Yes, there are products and services that are good for everyone as I’m sure that yours are, but there are a few strikes against you when you think that way. One, just because everyone can use your product or service doesn’t mean they want it or will keep it even if you where to somehow trick them into purchasing it. Two, everyone can’t and won’t afford your stuff and you absolutely can’t afford to work with everyone if you are a small business. Three, “when every one is super, then know one is.” That’s my favorite quote from The Incredibles and it’s really important to know that your clients and contacts must feel special if they are to carry your message. And last, having too many of the wrong people in your environment cancels out your good vibes and destroys anything you create, so choose your markets wisely. Remember that it’s all about quality, quality, quality….quality of your products, quality of your clients and quality of your connections. If quality in any of these categories is not growing you have an unhealthy environment which will not support your viral message.
This brings us to that all too critical message or dominating contaminant. Your message can’t just sit their and be stagnant. It’s got to be more than just catchy or cute. No, it’s not good enough to be just attention grabbing or entertaining. Whatever you say or write or post about you and your brand must be infectious. If you’ve chosen the right market niche, this will happen quickly. It’s got to be easy to understand, easy to repeat and valuable to share. Essential elements here are passion laden copy, with good story telling, fantastic hooks and lots of drama. Remember that we shared stories with one another for thousands of years before we could write. The human family wouldn’t even have writing if not for the burning desire to share information to and with each other. Stories are absolutely the ticket and you should have quite a few prepared ones at the ready for any moment that you’ll need to select a juicy one and pull it out and let it fly. I mean what do you say when some inspired individual asks “well tell me, what do you do?” If you can’t smile and tell a good quick relevant story that meets the criteria that we just talked about, just forget furthering a business relationship. We can’t even get off first base without me having to do too much work. If the person that you are sharing with has a hard time getting you, you can bet that they won’t feel enough confidence in you to share your story. Your ability to communicate your message well while not necessarily correlated to your ability to render good service is absolutely connected to the perception that others have of your talent. If I even get a hint that you might make me look bad, there is no way, I’m going to risk damaging one of my relationships on your behalf. You can go to exercise #3 in your work book on how to do this better. In fact if you’ve communicated to the right person in the right way you’ll be guaranteed of success.
Your carriers are everything! These are your agents, your referral sources and sometimes yes, even your clients. They have to be ready, willing and able to carry your message at the right time to the right people. I know that I just said a mouthful but this is very important. They should know and accept that they are agents of yours. They should be well informed as to your demographics and armed with your contagious message. They should be in good communication with you and report any opportunities that they have had to share your message. How else will you measure the effectiveness of your viral program? Waiting to see what results show up is a very passive strategy that takes far more time than you probably have. On a side note if you are offering real quality that you can communicate here is a quick story that illustrates what can easily and often does happen. I once years ago had a friend share a writing of one of my client success stories with his bosses boss. Even though his big boss didn’t consider hiring me for months, my friend gained precious credibility in that he demonstrated his ability and willingness to look out for the health of the company. This made him invaluable to his organization and saved him from the downsizing chopping block many times over. Even better than that, my friend grew to a much deeper level of relationship with me and we do business together still. Remember just being great doesn’t get you far if you can’t share it. So ask yourself, what can you do to help your friends and contacts while helping yourself?
Can You Deliver the ROI!
This portion of our topic is by far the most important piece. I saved it for last because you need to understand all of the building blocks that came before it to really get it. So here it is the truth according to the gospel of Marvin . You must be willing to invest more than you collect in interest payments. You’ve got to put in more than you take out. You’ve got to deliver more value than you accept. Bottom line, share your talents, share them freely and often. What we have learned in every psycho social economic study over the ages is this everything works better when we all focus on being and doing better.
We all have unique talents and skills to share. Some of these are our god given abilities and some are the benefit of years of diligent hard work, training and experience. But everything that you do can do well can be useful to the right people. Maybe a part of choosing your market niche should be finding groups of people that can a will appreciate your unique skills and talents even if it’s not directly related to what you sell right now. Sharing your talents in the right market niche can only be good for your brand. Let me give you and example.
Most people that meet me get a sense of deep relationship with me right away. It doesn’t really take much time for me to earn someone’s trust. Over the years I’ve used this talent to help connect people, to break down communication barriers and to create new initiatives that people wouldn’t even think of but did so because they had faith in me. What they usually don’t know is that this talent came to me because of my background as a military brat growing up. You see, I had to figure out how to make a whole new set of friends quickly every two to three years. Because of the frequency in which my family had to makes its way through my dad’s duty stations I was always thrown into a new mix of kids. Social survival meant learning to get along with others quickly. This talent formed in the chaos of my youth has been a great benefit to me for years. I now leverage this skill well for the benefit of others. When clients or friends have dramatic changes in their lives they need to know how to hit the ground running and get as much relationship traction going as they can. That’s when they call, you know who.
So what is it that you do, that you have always done, that all of your friends and associates over the years would agree is you? If you don’t know I suggest you seek it. Make a project out of it with time lines associated with it. This is what you were born to share, it’s your special gift to us all. Once you’ve found it, I challenge you to use your talent in unique and interesting ways. Constantly ask yourself these questions. How can I get better at this? How can I leverage this on someone else’s behalf today? If you get what I’m trying to communicate here, this is a space where you can shine, where you can and do have instant credibility and drive a fair amount of success on your own terms. Now it’s time to take all of the social media and networking lessons that we have learned so far, create a plan for yourself and get to work!
Remember that no plan fails as much as the plan that was never executed.
Here’s to your success
-Coach Powell
“Your success is our focus”
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