Next Level Executives

I recently developed a presentation titled “Integrating Your Offline and Online Networking Efforts” in which I outline the benefits of having your face to face and face in screen networking work in concert with one another. One of the key elements of the talk focuses on the “who” part of networking for business.

The people in your network are perhaps the most important part of the equation. If networking is all about word of mouth marketing then the mouth must be considered of supreme importance. In order to help you evaluate your networking team I developed the following list of five fundamentals for you and your networking partners:

1. Likability - It seems simple and logical but I am amazed at how many people fail the first test of getting into my network. If I don’t like you then I am certainly not going to open my contact list for you. So be likable. Not fake and annoyingly perky but rather someone who others enjoy being around. Below are a couple of dos and don’ts.

• Do: Smile, be friendly, and be interested in the other person. It also helps to be open and generous with your network. Remember he or she just may introduce you to a big client some day.
• Don’t: Complaining about your job, your spouse, your kids, or the economy and so on is no fun for your networking partner. Try not to dump on people. If you are having trouble with what is unlikable behavior read “The No Asshole Rule” by Robert Sutton and you’ll get the gist.

2. Familiarity - Have you ever had to give a referral with a qualification that sounds a little like this, “He seems like a nice guy. I met him at some event.”? The problem is that even though you like the person, you just don’t know him well enough to add much value to the connection. This is where familiarity comes in. You need to interact with your networking partners frequently enough to develop a level of comfort and to some extent business intimacy. Below is a short list of things you can do that will enhance your familiarity with your networking partners:

• Join or form a networking team that meets locally. Seeing people in person on a regular basis is the fastest way to develop a real relationship.
• Encourage your networking partners to participate with you in a common online social network. The more active each of you are the more familiar with each other (and your respective businesses) you’ll become. If you are looking for a free place to start head on over to the Next Level community site and set up your profile. We’ll get you up and running with some great people.
• Start using Twitter and invite your networking partners to do the same. Twitter’s fast moving and easy to use style makes it the perfect tool to keep up to date with your network partners for business and for fun. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com wrote a great primer on getting started with Twitter. Once you have set up your Twitter account be sure to follow me and I’ll follow you back. Note: As a side benefit your tweets can add some punch to your search engine rankings.

3. Trust - You’ve heard the saying that “it’s not who you know but who knows you.” I recently amended this statement to “it’s not who knows you but who trusts you” because when it comes to doing business it is all based on trust. Liking you and knowing you quickly become irrelevant if you prove yourself untrustworthy. And while many people say that trust is earned I actually believe that trust is assumed until violated. So be a good guy and act responsibly. This being said there are a few things you can do to enhance your trust metric within your network:

• Ask your LinkedIn connections for recommendations. Testimonials from customers and recommendations from colleagues here offer very public stamps of approval of you and your business.
• Get your link love on. Be sure to ad links to your networking partners’ websites and blogs. Links to and from your site are interpreted as an indicator of trust. Essentially links from other sites are an indication that others have validated your content and view your site as relevant and trustworthy.
• Take the hot seat. Open yourself up to the advice and input of your networking team. At Next Level Executives our members engage in mastermind sessions where they tap the collective intellect of their team to tackle a particular business challenge. You can also leverage online communities, Twitter, and LinkedIn to ask and answer questions of your network. Asking for advice demonstrates you trust others.

4. Competence - Greatness attracts greatness. When I network I look for people who are not only good at what they do but for those who are… well…reaching for their next level. Your network wants to know that you are good at what you do. But how can you demonstrate your competence to large numbers of people, many of whom may not be your customers?

• Start blogging. Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting said it best when she referred to her blog as a database of her ideas and expertise. When she talks to a prospective client or networking partner she can point to her blog site as evidence of her competency. Writers are considered experts so start writing. If you are unsure where to begin, start reading and commenting on other blogs in your field or related areas. Before you know it you’ll go from joining the conversation to leading the conversation.
• Speak! I call it presentation magic. Nothing turns a person into an expert faster than a speaking engagement. When you share your expertise with a group you become more than competent, you become a thought leader. And if you do a good job of getting the word out about your speaking gig via the tools I’ve mentioned in this post you’ll find it will pay dividends far into the future.

5. Relevance - Originally the list of four fundamentals above was it. The fifth one, networking relevance, came to me in one of those in the shower “ah ha!” moments as I was going through my mental notes for this post. The truth is that even if I know you, like you, trust you and think you are amazing at what you do you still may not be a good networking fit for my team.

A guy who owns a local lawn care business is unlikely a good networking fit for a room full of Fortune 500 C Suite execs. While the lawn care business may benefit by scooping up some good clients the executives may receive little networking value in return. This works the other way as well.

So how do you assess the relevance of a networking contact?

• Similar Business Size. As the example above illustrates, business size can be a big determinate of your networking relevance. This is certainly not a hard and fast rule as there are plenty of solopreneurs whose primary target market is the Fortune 500 crowd. What you are really looking for is a mutually beneficial networking relationship. Can you help each other?
• Geography - Where do you do business? Where do you want to do business? Seek out partners who have similar target markets.
• Customers - One of the top reasons people network is to get new business. Look for networking partners who have access to your target customer base. Be sure to keep in mind however that referrals often come from places you wouldn’t naturally anticipate so don’t discount a potentially solid person just because he or she isn’t in our target demographic.

Did I Miss Anything?

I am scheduled to give the full presentation of how to integrate your offline and online networking efforts at PodCamp Boston 3 in July so I would love your feedback. Are there any other networking fundamentals that I should include? Do you have any suggestions for social media tools or offline activities that can help people maximize any of the fundamentals discussed here?

Are you using all available brainpower to solve your business challenges? If you haven’t taken the hot seat in a mastermind session the answer is “NO”. And your business may be suffering for it.

Scientists and mathematicians long ago discovered that more brains are better than one brain when it comes to solving complex calculations. In recent decades more brains began to include more computers. And more computers has evolved into cloud computing which essentially represents a supercomputer comprised of thousands of individual machines working together in concert to solve virtually any calculation.

“But I’m a small business owner (or solo-preneur) and I don’t even like math. How is cloud computing going to help me?” Say you.

Well your small business is more like a complex math problem than you may realize. Think of the four main business processes that every business has, new product development, order acquisition, order fulfillment, and post sales service. Change what you do in one process and it impacts the result in another, which in the end creates a different value for your business.

Things get even more complex when we include the variables of business functions such as marketing, finance, HR and so on. Like the calculations facing scientists and mathematicians, some variables carry more weight than others. Identifying these weighty variables and engaging all available brainpower to solve your problem not only saves time but also tends to lead to results that your one brain would have overlooked.

So what do you say? Are you willing to take the hot seat?

To get a glimpse of the power of the mastermind session take a quick read of Heidi Brooks’s comments and my own personal experience this Wednesday.

Networking events are social but they are not birthday parties. You should have fun and enjoy the event but remember you are there for a reason.

Laura Fitton (aka Pistachio), of Pistachio Consulting, wrote a blog post this week titled “Make Conferences Rock More” that I think is a must read. She really got me thinking about how I approach my preparation for attending events.

While Pistachio’s post focuses on using social media tools to prepare for an event she more broadly hits on a challenge many people unwittingly face when they make a decision to attend an event for business.

The typical process goes a little something like this:

1. RSVP
2. Put the event on your calendar
3. Tell a couple of friends you are going. Ask if they are going?
4. Pick out an outfit
5. Do you have everything? Business Cards, cash for drinks at the bar, iPhone, breath mints….
6. Okay good to go!

With this kind of preparation, what are the chances of meaningful business resulting from the event?

Here are a few suggestions for making your next event a winner:

1. Decide why you are attending the event. Are you there to meet prospective clients or cement existing relationships? Maybe you are going to learn something new or take existing skills to the next level. It can’t hurt to remind yourself of the reason you are investing time in this event.
2. As Pistachio mentions early on in her post, take a look at the list of planned attendees. For each Next Level Executives event we post a list of who is coming on the registration page.
3. Make a note of who you want to meet.
4. See if you can let the person know of your desire to meet ahead of time. That way you can ensure you connect.
5. Promote the event to people who may benefit from attending. Note: this is not the same as asking your buddies if they are going. Take a look at your contacts with an eye out for people who should go either because they will make the event better or because they will get a lot out of the event. In short, do your part to raise the event’s profile.
6. Frank Damelio of Target Intellect says that most people frivolously waste their investment of time by not being prepared with a memorable introduction. Is there a chance that you will be asked to introduce yourself at this event? Do you know what you will say? Will people remember meeting you?
7. Have a post event plan. Rick Roberge of David Kurlan & Associates is a big fan of setting aside time after a networking event to follow up with the new contacts he met. If you have no plan to follow up with the people you meet then why bother to go in the first place?

Did I miss anything? How do you prepare for events? Feel free to leave a comment.