A Lesson from Andy Lopata

Author of top selling book 'and death came third' on networking and public speaking Andy's article on 'Connecting is not enough' has some really good tips pn getting the best from networking. here is just a sample (Thanks Andy).

6 - They focus on the sale, not the relationship

Few people go to networking events to buy. So you have to ask yourself what the point is of trying to sell to people who aren't in buying mode. Think beyond the short-term gain and develop relationships. After all, wouldn't you prefer to get ten referrals from a long-term relationship than one sale from a passing contact?
RESOLUTION TIP - Go through your contact management system or business card file and pick ten people to whom you haven't spoken for a while. Re-establish contact and then stay in touch.

I suggest you read the rest too.

A 'lesson for kids' we should all take note of....

This was wrongly attributed to Bill Gates but actuall was by educator Charles Sykes. It's an excerpt from his book "Dumbing Down our Kids". It is a list of eleven things you did not learn in school and directed at high school and college grads. Perhaps we should take a step back and listen to this as adults.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents'fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Free or Paid?

The question was asked the other day whether it is better to attend a free networking event or a paid one. In my opinion how much it costs isn't the point.

Networking is all about building long term relationships. It isn't about meeting somebody once and scaring them into doing business with you. Effective business networking means meeting the same people on a regular basis and establishing a relationship with them that potentially leads to business for you both. It probably won't be immediate - trust takes time and patience.

When you recommend another business part of your own reputation goes along with it. A poor recommendation reflects badly on you and you lose a little face. A good recommendation makes you look great and increases trust in you too. So wouldn't it make sense to know more about the person you are recommending?

It might no be possible to see the work of the person you recommend but if you have taken the time to get to know them then trust can be built in other ways.

Relationships should be two way, they should have trust in you before they pass you work. You should encourage this. Mostly recommendations are of the person not the business - you recommend the person you have built a relationship with rather than the business they are in. People buy people and trust is a major factor in their choice.

So the question of how much should you pay for networking is a mute point. Cost is immaterial as any networking event is what you make of it. If you network effectively you build relationships.

Another Scam Warning

In these tough times we might well be tempted to earn a quick bob or two outside our normal job. I received several emails today asking me to become a Mystery Shopper to earn myself a substantial amount of dollars. Being such an dis-trusting soul I automatically checked out the so called company proposing the offer.

Now while there lots of genuine companies offering jobs as Mystery Shoppers they never ask you for money up front or to do money transfers. This email seemed so plausible but Michael McDowell of WA Surveys is a con artist. Taking up this offer could leave you with a huge debt or worse still a court case. More information is freely available on the Internet.

So remember the golden rule: if it looks too good to be true then it will probably get you in trouble! Don't be taken in by scam emails - if it's a fabulous offer then look it up on the Internet and you'll probably find that it's a scam.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is a term most of you will have heard of but some of you may not be too clear on what it's all about.

To put it in VERY simple terms, it's about getting your website ranked highly on the search engines - that is appearing on the first page. It's actually a very complicated subject and companies charge anything from £40 per page to £3000 before they will even look at your site.

But there are a few simple things you can do yourself to aid in the Search Engine Ranking game! Get links back to your site! That means asking other websites and directories to link to your website. But you don't just want any old link. Some links score better 'points' than others, especially for Google!

So what links are best. You want links from complimentary sites - those websites who provide goods or services compatible with your own. For example you might sell organic make-up, so a link from an organic vegetable provider would be a good link but one from a mortgage advisor wouldn't be as powerful, earning less 'points'.

And try to get links that use your keywords as the link text rather than your web address - e.g. Organic Cosmetics instead of www.yournaturalbeautystore.com or Keel Soft Toys instead of www.greattoys4u.co.uk . If your keywords are part of you web address it isn't so bad but a text link is still better e.g. www.childrensbooks.co.uk has the right words but a link saying Children's Books would score more.

This is only a very small insight into improving your rankings. There are lots of other things to be done but hopefully it's given you something to think about. If you would like some more info then ask us at the next WBa meeting on June 10th.

Learning from Experience

I've just spent a long weekend in Holland with the TKD team. The travelling was hard - coach and ferry and a very long day. Having to collect other team members for the BTCB combined British squad meant travelling to Dover via Southampton!

The competition itself taught our team a few valuable lessons. Life isn't always fair, sometimes you know what the true outcome should have been but the formal results show different. The answer is simply to accept this and move on.

Everybody has off days when they don't perform their best. Just accept it, tomorrow is a new day and a new beginning.

Sometimes you can throw everything you have at your opponent and still get beaten. Time to evaluate what you are doing right and what can be improved on. Sometimes the competition is just better than you are. So change tactics and work to your strengths.

So for me it's time to step it up a gear and make sure I organise my time better. I can do everything I set my mind to achieve - I just need to schedule it better!

Perfection!

Is it just that I'm a perfectionist or are some large companies guilty of doing a half hearted job just because they can. I was with a prospective client yesterday and he had an advert with a well known company. This company had access to the same information I had and a printed copy of the clients logo. Yet the logo they created for their advert bore a mere passing resemblance to the clients actual logo.

Now maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist but when I recreated the logo I made sure that the font (type face) was the closest I could get it to the original logo. I had taken a photo of one of the vans on my phone so I could colour match as near as possible. It took me about half an hour to create a top quality digital version of the logo for me to use in their new design. Wasn't difficult, just took time.

But do some large companies get away with a poor quality job because they are a large company - or do they genuinely just not care!

Caring about your customers is a must in today's climate and showing it can make a difference between winning the business and having to pitch to a whole new client. Now which do you think is cheaper? A bit of really good customer service, going that extra bit to show you care? Or pitching to lots and lots of prospects and hoping to get at least some!

OK. Rant over for today!

May Networking in Wirral

It was a great night last night with lots of new faces to go with the old ones. Lovely informal networking with a couple of Networking Newbies who had their eyes opened to the potential of face to face networking.

For those of you in the local area who haven't attended yet book the June meeting in your diaries now. It is on 10th June from 19:30 until 21:30 or if last night is anything to go by finishing nearer 23:30.

Just bring along your business cards an buy yourslef a drink. See you all next month.wi

Warning - Possible Scam

One of our clients was today approached by a company claiming that they were producing a magazine on behalf of the fire service to be distributed to schools in the area. The sales tactics were rather heavy handed and the client got suspicious.

I've taken a look around the net and concur with my client that his suspicions were well founded. These types of scams are common place and change little except perhaps for the good cause they are supporting.

Never accept any sort of deal over the phone. Check up on the company concerned and check with your local trading standards office - they have often already had complaints about the company approaching you. Don't agree over the phone to place any sort of advert and don't give in to bullying tactics that tell you you entered into a contract and they'll take you to court (yes they tried this on on my client).

** We have been asked to remove part of this post as it was leading to the confusion that a company mentioned was guilty of scamming They weren't to our knowledge and we have honoured their wishes and removed the paragraph linking them to this post.**

So be on your guard and if you get approached by suspicious sales people we'd like to know so we can warn our members.

...and Thank You for Your Knowledge!

After my last post it was kindly pointed out to me that we often give away far more than our time. We often give our "attention, consideration, information, the benefit of our knowledge and experience, advice etc" (thank you - you know who you are!).

I guess we should all be factoring the value of these things into our pricing too. How many of us don't? How can you put a price on knowledge learned over many, many years? I know I personally find it difficult. But all these things have a value that often isn't immediately recognised.

Maybe next time we finish a meeting we'll all remember to say thank you! A general thank you for everything shared and not just time! And when you put a price on that next job remember to include a sum for the more intagible things you give too! As well as pricing your time, put a price on your knowledge and experience too.

Thank You for Your Time!

"Thank you for your time!" A customer said this to me as I was leaving today and it made me think. How many of us put a value on our time? How many of us give away our time for nothing?

I'm guilty of it. I hope that the time I give away is returned 10 fold in customer loyalty and fresh business. But how many of us actually factor in our own time when pricing goods and services?

When you came up with that price for postage and packing did you think about your time? The time spent actually wrapping the goods? The time taken to go to the post office and wait in the queue? Have you worked out exactly how much that time is worth? It has a monetary value - do you know what yours is worth?

I challenge you all this week to calculate how much an hour of your time is worth in money. Then take account of all the things that you do with your time that don't pay anything. Some of the things will be unavoidable like doing the books. But how much time do you waste that could be spent better? How many times a day do you check your emails? Do you get distracted from important tasks by answering phone calls?

Time is a valuable commodity - how valuable depends on you. Manage it wisely.

A brand is a promise - you are the talent.

I read this in an article by one of my clients, Molly Harvey. Out of all the things in the article this was the phrase that stuck in my mind. Molly writes and speaks so brilliantly well it's hard to single out just one thing but this phrase shouted at me.

I suppose it made me think about our own branding and what it is telling and more importantly are we living up to the expectations the brand is setting. I hope so - I've always thought of myself as a bit of a perfectionist. In fact my work experience boy, Sean, described me as just that. He considers my standards are very high and aspires to be the same when he enters the real working world.

So what does your branding say about you and are you delivering on it's promises? Does it promise quality? People make a very quick judgement as to what they think of you - is your branding letting you down? Maybe it is time to take a fresh look at how other people see your company. And make sure you deliver on those promises.

The Meerkats

The current advert 'Compare the Meerkat' seems to be gaining a huge fan base. Alexandr Orlov even has his own facebook account and a there are such a lot of blogs and articles mentioning the ad. The people behind this sure have a hit on their hands and it's a brilliant example of simple but effective marketing.

We could all do with learning a leason from this - stand out from the crowd. A client of mine once gave the advice "Look at what your competition are doing and do something different." Simple but effective advice. We should examine our own business and look at what we do that is different from our competitors - then highlight that point to our prospective clients.

For example, Your Natural Beauty Store are not only cruelty free but operate in as ethical a mannner as is possible in business. They try to keep packaging to a minimum and use recycled paper and card where possible. One of their closest rivals delights in using lots of fancy packaging and including unnecessary marketing leaflets in every package. Not exactly a 'green' policy. So Your Natural Beauty Store need to highlight the 'ethical' in their business!

And to return to our Meerkats you can buy your very own stuffed meerkat from Great Toys 4 U along with other, more unusual teddy bears and soft toys made by the quality manufacturer Keel Toys.

So take a look at your business today and see if you can tell what's different - can't find something? Then talk to us!

What a 'European' Result

And I'm not talking about football either. One of the youngsters from my Taekwondo club has just returned from Belgium with a wonderful addition to his growing collection - a European ranking. Having got a silver medal in the Belgium International Open 2009, and at only 16, Ryan can now add a European medal to his existing British Medals. And next week he will defend his British National Champion title at the British Nationals in the Manchester Velodrome for the second year running. We wish him, and the other team members the best of luck.

What has this got to do with business? Well Ryan showed how determined he was to achieve his goal. He stayed focused and kept a positive outlook. He trained hard and equipped himself with the skills to win. That's what we should be doing in business. Are you focused and positive about your business goals? Have you allowed yourself to do the right training to equip you with the right skill set to succeed?

Disgusted of Wirral writes......

I was chatting with one of my clients the other day and was horrified to learn of the animal cruelty that still happens today as part of the beauty industry. With the advances in technology you would think we could find a way to test new products without the need to torture innocent animals.

I'm being a lot more cautious as to what brands I buy now as a result and will be switching a lot of the shampoo and conditioners I buy for my family to brands who don't test on animals. I think I'll be trying the John Masters Organics range from YourNaturalBeautyStore.com next. And I'll be looking for a new moisturiser too.

I'd love to know what you think about testing on animals - is it right or wrong? Please post your comments.