10 Networking Secrets To Flood Your Business With Clients
10 Networking Secrets To Flood Your Business With Clients
by Donna Willon
Networking with other business people and professionals can bring your business a steady stream of new clients.
In many cases just one key contact can transform your business life forever.
But to get the most out of your networking efforts you really need to be prepared and employ a series of effective strategies.
This report will help you with ten of the best techniques I know of to help multiply your networking results and bring you all the highly qualified prospects your business can handle.
The 10 Biggest Networking Secrets:
# 1 Offer To Give Qualified Referrals
Create goodwill by asking what are the perfect prospects for the business people and professionals people you meet. This turns the whole process around. If you’re out actively trying to learn exactly what prospects are perfect for the people you meet you’re achieving two major goals:
# 1 You’re educating this contact on the importance and method required to really help another business person with quality referrals.
# 2 You’re offering something without asking for anything in return. By providing a valuable service first you’ll be far more likely to get a whole list of business people who’ll refer highly qualified prospects to you.
# 2 Define What High Quality Prospects Look Like
Here are some simple questions you can ask your business contacts to ensure you send them the highest quality qualified referrals. You must also be able to answer these questions yourself so you can make it easy for others to send you high quality referrals.
Answer the most appropriate questions:
What does your ideal client look like?
Age?
Sex?
Income range?
Profession or business type?
Specific problems?
What do you do?
Exactly what product or service do you provide and what makes it unique?
What do you do with any referrals receive?
What process do you go through with referrals?
How do you contact them?
Do you give them a gift or a report?
Do you have a couple of testimonials from satisfied clients?
Write out two to three testimonials from clients thrilled with your service and explaining the benefits they’ve received.
# 3 Have A Perfect Prospect Sheet You Can Pass On
Simply having a sheet of paper describing who your perfect prospects are, what product or service you provide, what makes your business unique, what you do with the referrals you receive, a couple of excellent testimonials and your contact details makes it very easy for your networking contacts to send you referrals.
# 4 Have A Business Card With An Attractive Offer On The Back
Your business card should effectively display your unique selling proposition – what you do that’s unique.
Just as important your business card should have an attractive offer on the back.
A gift consultation, a gift report, gift products – anything that’s low or no cost for you but has high perceived value to your prospects.
Why is this so important?
You can pass your business card on to your contacts and when they recommend you to qualified prospects they can pass on the “gift offer” business card.
They’ll be giving a valuable gift to their friends and associates – making them and you look good.
# 5 Have A Report That Leads Into Your Product Or Service
The document you’re reading now is an example of a highly valuable report leading into a service (membership to Focused Networking groups).
By giving highly valuable information you position yourself as an expert in your field and you create goodwill from your prospects.
You can charge for a report or you can give it away as a gift.
If your contacts know you’ll be sending a high quality gift report as the first method of contact they’ll be far more comfortable sending you high quality referrals.
Other alternatives to a report are a valuable audio CD, DVD, CD-Rom or even a physical, information-packed presentation targeted to your ideal prospects.
# 6 Offer To Do Endorsed Mailings
If you know of a business that provides excellent products or service you can offer to send an endorsed mailing to high quality prospects you know.
What is an endorsed mailing?
Basically you send a letter of recommendation to highly qualified prospects written by you explaining the benefits of a particular product or service this business supplies. Also their exemplary service and your personal experience with them.
Endorse mailings are inexpensive and very effective.
Again by offering to do an endorsed mailing you turn around the usual process – giving to other business people first and building good will and trust.
Do exercise caution though. The greatest asset you have in business is the trust you’ve built in your clients.
Be absolutely certain any product or service you provide is exemplary, excellent value for money.
# 7 Ask For Endorsed Mailings
The quickest way to get another business to give you an endorsed mailing is to provide a high value gift offer in the mailing.
This gift offer – often a high value report as mentioned before – leads into your product or service.
The best people to ask to do an endorsed mailing for you are people who’ve already used your product or service and know the excellent quality you provide.
You can also ask these people for testimonials which you can use to provide a compelling case for other business people to recommend you in an endorsed mailing.
One last technique is to offer low cost or free trials of your product or service to a key business people with substantial influence and respect so they can recommend you with confidence in an endorsed mailing.
# 8 Actively Seek Out Quality Contacts For Your Networking Partners
In your daily dealings be constantly aware of the kinds of businesses capable of sending any one of your networking partners a steady stream of clients.
As you develop trust with these businesses you can recommend your networking partner as a business worth endorsing.
You can also encourage these high quality business people to join your networking group.
By actively seeking out high quality contacts for your networking partners you set the scene for them to do the same for you.
# 9 Identify Key Businesses Capable Of Sending You Clients
Some businesses provide related but non-competing products or services to your own and would be an ideal source of referrals for you.
If you’ve taken the time to identify these businesses you can educate your networking partners about which businesses are the ideal referral match for you and what you can offer those businesses in return.
The easier you make it for your networking partners the more likely they’ll be to find you exactly what you need.
# 10 Be Of Genuine Service
The more you give in a networking group the more will come back to you.
If you work extra hard at sending excellent high quality referrals to your networking partners and freely give the best marketing and business ideas you can you’ll soon have an army of business people working hard at sending you referrals and feeding you with excellent ideas in return.
Concentrating on giving first is the biggest key to successful networking.
Donna Willon
President Focused Networking Ltd.
I help You Generate More Business Through Networking Relationships, LinkedIn Training and Business Coaching
604-328-2290
donna@focusednetworking.com
www.focusednetworking.com