Networking Archives - Business Blogger

Go Crazy With Networking – It’s Worth It!

Networking isn’t about cables and technical equipment — that’s not the type of networking we’re talking about at all. We’re actually talking about the type of networking that can build your future — or destroy it if you’re not careful. If you’re trying to land a top job, you’re going to need to make sure that you have top notch networking.

The most common question that we get is simple — when do you start networking? This is not a question that really makes sense, as networking is something that starts right away. Networking is something that starts when you’re really ready to take on the world and you know it. Networking is something that should always be in motion. Every person you meet is a contact, and you need to figure out how you can make their lives easier.

It’s really all about them, you know. It might sound weird, but the more you focus on yourself, the less that people really want to deal with you. However, if you flip that around, you’ll actually find that the more you work on helping other people, the more that they will connect you to other pieces of their network. This is because everyone loves to get a helping hand. They want to feel special. They want to feel that you truly understand what they’re going through and what they’re dealing with. On the other hand, if you were to only think about what you were trying to get out of everything, people can pick that up right away. Everyone wants to be helpful, but very few people actually want to be used. You’ll learn this more and more as you go through life. You will see people be honestly hurt by being used up, but they absolutely love helping people. Do these things have to be one and the same? Not at all. It’s quite possible to get a working arrangement that’s satisfactory to everyone.

It can be hard to think about networking when everyone else is having a good time. But it goes right back to what we’ve discussed before — how bad do you want a good life? How bad do you want to be able to get all of the things that you want to get? With the right mindset, nothing is impossible. It is possible to get into all sorts of things that you might not have expected, because the world is so vast and filled with lots of opportunities. You just have to think about what you’re ultimately trying to do. It’s tempting to think that you will not have any trouble at all getting what you want, but the reality is that there will always be challenges along the way. [Read more…]

The business case for hospitality WiFi

By Marcela

Next time you’re out and about, take a minute to look around. The chances are, you’ll see plenty of people on their smartphones and tablets. We’re increasingly reliant on these handy pieces of technology, using them for everything from sending work emails to getting directions, keeping in touch with the latest developments on social media, checking the news, shopping, listening to music and more. This means that, as consumers, we expect to be able to get online virtually anywhere and at any time.

It’s no surprise then that a rising number of hotels, restaurants, cafes, bars and other similar companies are providing hospitality WiFi. There is a strong business case for offering such web access to consumers. If you’re wondering whether your firm could benefit from providing free WiFi to your customers, consider the following plus points.

Meeting customer expectations

The fact is, consumers no longer hope to be able to get online when they enter an eatery, bar or hotel. Rather, they expect to. This means that if your business does not offer WiFi, you could lose a considerable number of customers. Highlighting this fact, research conducted last year by data and analysis firm Technomic Inc found that many people want to be able to use the web even when they are grabbing a quick bite to eat in fast food establishments. Of the people it polled, 65% said they expect restaurants in the quick-service sector to offer WiFi.

If you neglect this issue, you risk putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. After all, at least some of your rivals are bound to offer free customer WiFi.

Boosting your brand

Another issues to consider is your business’ brand. Image matters in today’s competitive marketplace. Those firms that succeed in cultivating an appealing brand stand a better chance of wooing consumers. Public WiFi can play an important role in enhancing your enterprise’s image. By offering guests access to the web via your own branded portal complete with your company’s logo, promotions and localised content, you can create a slick user experience and give your business a professional edge.

Gaining valuable marketing insights

Marketers are relying less and less on guesswork. Now, rather than targeting consumers based on rough demographic profiles, they are tapping into the expanding range of available data to create tailored advertising messages.

Public WiFi can help with this. By offering such web access to your customers, you can collect a wealth of information on them, including names, email addresses, social interactions and more. Your marketing team can then use this to hone their promotions.

These are just a few of the reasons why it may make sense for your company to offer hospitality WiFi.

How to effectively outsource your admin

By Marcela

Contrary to popular (outdated beliefs) it isn’t just large companies that can afford to outsource. The Internet and its associated technologies, such as VoIP (such as Skype) and email, means there is an array of professionals available across the world. You just have to know how to find them, what to ask them to do, and how to monitor their effectiveness.

What kind of jobs should be outsourced?

The rule of thumb is that your core business must remain in-house. Don’t let the important stuff disappear from your reach. Whatever makes your business special has to be ring-fenced so that your competitors don’t overtake you.

Everything else can be outsourced if necessary. The costs are better than hiring permanent staff, because you only outsource the tasks you need to.

Split up the tasks you think may have outsourcing potential into one of three groups: repetitive work, specialized work, and executive or highly skilled work. Admin isn’t just data entry and filing. It comes with many flavors and qualities, as diverse as a Chief Finance Officer, an accounts payable clerk, or a project manager.

How to track down the best outsourcing providers

There are a heap of companies out there, some specializing in admin experts, others that offer a range of professionals. Whether it’s an umbrella company such as http://crystalumbrella.com or a bidding website, you’ll have to sift through the chaff and find the grains of talent.

Don’t grab the first outsourcing company you see, and expect it to be a one-size-fits-all scenario. It might produce a couple of good virtual assistants, but its finance staff may not be up to much; the upper executive-level contractors might be amazing, but the executive assistants not so good.

Networking is a great tool for business. A Chambers of Commerce might not be able to recommend one company over another, but they can give you a list of providers. Trade organizations may be able to recommend providers to you. Asking your Linked In and Twitter networks should draw a variety of well-informed answers, leading you to an organization with which you can work. Don’t just take your chances with any outsourcing website – check out a few recommendations. [Read more…]

50% use Social Media when jobhunting

By Marcela

According to a recent research study, 50% of the public are using social media to find a job, and 90% of companies are using it to find staff. There are also websites which aim to help job searching and recruitment through the use of social networking.

Abzuna, a job adverting website conducted a nationwide survey which asked over 1000 UK adults and collected data from their job index about how they use social media for finding a job.

Co-Founder of Abzuna, Andrew Hunter, says “It’s clear that the way in which people look for work has changed dramatically in the last two to three years and it’s hugely exciting to witness how social media has quickly become an integral part of the job hunting process.”

Tony Restell is the director and founder of Social-Hire.com, a website which started in 2011 aiming to help people find a job through social media. “Social media has completely changed the relationship between job seekers and employers, empowering candidates enormously and forcing recruiters to really up their game.”

Social Hire aims to help communication between employee and recruiter and does this for free, “Using existing social media to find a job can be quite costly. A candidate either has to invest a lot of time building up an extensive personal network – or buy subscriptions so as to be able to reach out to new recruiter contacts directly. The Social-Hire model allows you to privately contact every recruiter member, and vice versa. Many candidates want to be actively speaking with potential employers, without this being apparent to anyone else – a concern that’s particularly being aired by users of LinkedIn.”

Tony continues, “Until quite recently, candidates were largely ignored up until the point a company was interested in employing them. Candidates rarely had the chance to speak with someone when deciding whether or not to apply – and often would hear little or nothing back from a company after applying unless they were shortlisted.” [Read more…]

How to Avoid a Bad Networking Experience

By Marcela

If you’re a member of a networking group that meets on a regular basis, you’ll be very aware of the focus on keeping a steady flow of visitors coming along to the meetings. This needs to happen for a number of reasons;

One of the reasons we network is to expand our personal contact sphere and visitors help us do this.
New visitors always add energy to the room and will, usually, enhance the meeting.
Most networking groups are looking to grow and some of the visitors may well decide to join.
In a referral networking group, visitors do pass referrals – if they have a need represented in the room.
If a member has a need represented by a visitor, that visitor may receive an opportunity to do business.
A visitor may prove to be a great referral partner for one or more of the members – even if they don’t choose to join the group.
Strategic alliances can also develop between members and visitors providing excellent, ongoing business opportunities for both party’s.

This is not an exclusive list and all of these things are, of course, dependent on the appropriate relationship developing but you can see the great benefits that visitors bring to a meeting.

As members, we tend to judge the visitors that come along from our own perspective but it’s easy to forget that they, too, will be making their own judgements.

They will be judging us as individuals, judging our businesses and judging the networking group that we belong to – and all this from their experience at a single meeting.

A survey was carried out a few years ago asking people what their biggest fear is. Surprisingly, the fear of dying only managed to make it to No. 3! At No.2 was the fear of entering a room full of strangers and at No.1 was the fear of public speaking.

Given that many networking groups expect everyone in attendance to deliver a short presentation about their business, the results of this survey only highlight the fact that many of us are stepping way outside of our comfort zones when we go networking. Particularly when visiting a new group for the first time.

As members, it’s really important that we’re mindful of the fact that many visitors will feel very ill at ease when they come to a meeting and we need to treat them in a way that ensures that they feel welcomed, valued and included throughout the meeting. In fact, I think we need to make sure that they get a ‘warm and fuzzy’ feeling about their experience. [Read more…]

7 Steps to a Profitable Relationship – Part 3

By Marcela

To take a quick re-cap. In Part 1, we looked at Visibility in our relationship and the 3 steps on the ladder that we need to go through whilst developing the stage in the relationships that we have.

The first step is Awareness which is that time when we first come into contact with someone, which can happen in any number of different ways.

Familiarity is Step 2. Now we’re at a stage in the relationship where people start to recognise us or our name. And vice versa.

As people start to Know & Like you, you move on to Step 3. Just remember that knowing you is not, usually, enough. People need to like you if you want to move up to the next Step.

As people start to develop confidence in you you start to develop credibility and move up to Step 4. Inspiring people’s confidence in us is what it’s all about. And the activities we need to engage in are the same ones we need to be engaging in to move up onto Step 5 where people develop trust in you. It’s simply a process where people start to trust you as their confidence grows.

So. lets now move on to the final two Steps on the relationship ladder. Those two where we start to move into the realms of creating Profitabilty from the relationship.

Step 6

Once you’ve fully established your Credibility, once the Confidence and the Trust that people have in you (and in what you do) grows to a certain level, they will start to develop a degree of Reliance upon you. At this point you’ve now climbed up on to the 6^th rung on the Relationship Ladder.

Every step on the ladder is important but once you’ve got up to the Reliance step it’s essential that you work to maintain everything that you’ve now achieved and consolidate your position.

When people start to develop Reliance on you, you need to demonstrate that their Reliance is justified so that it continues to develop. Consolidation is the name of the game here and you achieve that by doing more of the same. Every step you’ve taken, everything you’ve given, every way that you’ve found to add value to the relationship, so far, you simply need to do more of.

When people become Reliant on you it means that, if they have a need for your product or service themselves, they wouldn’t consider using anyone else, at all. You would be their first, and probably, only port of call.

It also means that they would be highly likely to refer you in the event that someone asked if they knew anyone that does what you do. They have confidence in you and they trust you and they would refer you to the most important people in their personal contact sphere. However, on this Step of the relationship ladder, their referrals would tend to be reactive ones. That is, they will refer you when the subject of your product or service comes up. [Read more…]

7 Steps to a Profitable Relationship – Part 2

By Marcela

In Part 1, we talked about the 3 steps on the ladder that we go through whilst developing Visibility in the relationships that we have.

The first step is Awareness, that moment in time when people first come into contact with us. Either when they meet us in person or when they hear about us, in whatever way that may happen.

Step 2 is Familiarity. This is the point when people start to recognise you or your name. Interestingly, you don’t have to actually meet people to get on to this second step.

Step 3 is when people start to Know & Like you. This is when the relationship is starting to develop quite nicely, ready to move it on to the next phase.

The next phase is all about building Credibility and the steps we need to move through in order to gain credibility in our relationships.

Steps 4 & 5

You know when you’re on the 4^th and then 5th ‘rungs’ on someone’s relationship ladder when they start to display a level of Confidence and then Trust, both in you and in what you do. This is a very important development in your relationship and moves you in to the realms of having Credibility in this particular relationship.

People are very unlikely to refer a personal contact to anyone that they don’t see as being credible. At least, not without making that referral with lots and lots of qualification and, effectively, removing any endorsement of the person being referred to their contact.

Given that the type of referrals we all look for are those that are accompanied by a powerful endorsement of us, and of what we do. Having a high level of credibility is essential if we want to achieve this.

So what are some of the things that you can do to make sure that people develop Confidence and then Trust in you? [Read more…]

7 Steps to a Profitable Relationship – Part 1

By Marcela

For those of you familiar with Dr Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, you may be familiar with his formula for developing profitable relationships;

V + C = P

Where V = Visibility, C = Credibility and P = Profitability.

The key thing to note, here, is that relationships don’t just happen, you have to work at them to develop them to the point where they become profitable. It’s also worth noting that ‘profitable’, in this context, doesn’t necessarily relate to a monetary profit. The important thing is that there should be a mutual benefit gained by both parties in the relationship.

Yes, you can apply this philosophy to any kind of relationship, not just a business networking relationship. It applies equally to the mutual benefit gained through developing a relationship with your life partner, your children, business contacts or friends. In fact, it applies equally to any type of relationship you can think of.

For me, a truly profitable business relationship is one where the parties involved are keen to refer one another to business opportunities.

This is referral networking. You might think of a profit as obtaining a sale. And there is value to this, but building that relationship to the stage where there is a desire to refer one another is the pinnacle that we should be aiming for.

I like to break down this relationship building process into smaller chunks to help me understand and grade the relationships that I have with different people. And I think of these steps as the ‘rungs’ of a ‘ladder’ that I wish to climb – Hence, “7 Steps to a Profitable Relationship”.

It probably seems obvious to say this but I’m going to, anyway.

You have a different ‘ladder’ for each individual relationship that you have and you’re, almost certainly, on a different ‘rung’ of the ‘ladder’ with different people.

So, if you have relationships that you don’t think are bringing you the reward that you think they should be, whatever kind of reward that may be, understanding this philosophy will help you realise which ‘rung’ you’re on with those people and, more importantly, it will help you to identify what you need to do to move that relationship up the following steps to where you want it to be.

The first 3 steps on the ladder relate to building your Visibility.

Step 1

The first ‘rung’ on the ‘ladder’ is Awareness. It’s that point in time when someone becomes aware of you – and it only happens once. They say that you only have a few seconds to make a great first impression so this first step is quite important. However, if you don’t quite make the first impression that you’d like to, all is not lost.

Building a relationship is a process and all processes take time. You do have control over how long it may take because you can choose how much time and effort you put into building that particular relationship.

But, you shouldn’t be seen to be rushing it as that will send out the wrong message.

So, how do people become aware of you? That can happen in a number of different ways and, as I’m relating this specifically to the process of business networking, I’m going to talk about the ways people may become aware of you from a business perspective. [Read more…]

Networking Lessons from a Supermarket Assistant

By Marcela

When we think about networking, providing we’re looking at it from the right perspective, we think about building relationships with people.

I’ve seen this video several times but was reminded of it, today, when a friend of mine re-posted it in one of his regular ‘Positive Thinking’ updates on LinkedIn. I thought I’d share it with you because there are some valuable insights into what we can be doing to build relationships. Enjoy;

What a fantastic, heartwarming story.

For me, the lesson is this: The little things that we can do for people that are, truly, ‘from the heart’ are often the most powerful things that we can do when building a relationship.

So, get your thinking cap on!

What little things can you do that will endear the people you meet, to you?
What simple things can you do to lay the foundation stones for a great relationship?
What things can you do that show people how much you care about them?
What things can you do to make people want to get to know you?

And remember. These things don’t have to cost you much, if any, money. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the things that will have the most powerful effect will only cost you in terms of the time you invest in them and the quality of the thinking and intention behind them.

At the end of the day, if you want to be valued in a relationship (ANY kind of relationship) then you have to BE valuable to that relationship.