How to get more referrals

I was speaking with a member of NRG in a 121 meeting last week.
He asked how he could get more referrals.
I shared a story about someone else in my network.

This person had spent a lot of time networking and in follow up meetings.
The results were disappointing from the time invested.
He had set himself a target for getting referrals and was not achieving this.
Then he changed his focus and set himself a target for giving referrals.
As he stretched himself & exceeded this target he began to receive many more.

So the the answer to getting more referrals - give more!

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
Get 7 networking secrets for business success

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Entrepreneurship In A Word: Part 2 – Discipline

Entrepreneurs, regardless of what industry they are in, tend to follow similar patterns as they establish and grow their businesses. If you want to be successful faster than normal or at a greater scale than normal, you will do well to understand the patterns that lead to problems and the patterns that lead to success.

 

Discipline…control gained by obedience and training…is the key to putting the knowledge of patterns into play. After all, successful development of your business depends first upon having a good strategy and then upon good implementation.

 

Many business owners approach starting a new business as though it is an instinctive skill. They think that if they know how to cook chicken, they are fully equipped to open a chicken restaurant. It is this pattern of following your instincts, flying by the seat of your pants, that causes so many people to run into the same problems.

 

The discipline of starting a business begins with the fundamental three planning questions:

 

1. Where are you now? This is about getting oriented to your current situation. If you have never owned a business before, you have a bigger learning curve ahead of you than the person who is opening their third business. If you have vast financial resources, you face a different starting point than the person who is already in debt.
   
   
2. Where are you going? This is where you define your objective? Do you want a solo opportunity that will grant you a few hundred dollars extra income or are you looking to be at the top of the INC 500 in five years? What is it that you want to build?
   
   
3. How are you going to get there? You might think of this as the bridge that you must build to cross the chasm between where you are now and where you want to be. You might call this your strategy.
   
   

Slow down to act with discipline. Begin by answering these three questions. You are likely to accelerate your overall success.

 

No one embodies the concept of discipline more than Marines. Look at how their discipline inspires us to think of them as super humans.

 

Talk with a drill sergeant. Ask them about recruits getting off the bus on day 1 of Boot Camp. Do you think they achieve becoming…one of the few…one of the proud…flying by the seat of their pants? Are you ready to begin your training? Will you inspire the people who must do business with you… your employees, your vendors, your lenders, your customers?

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Entrepreneurship In A Word -- Identity

Entrepreneurial success begins with knowing who you ARE. Unfortunately, many of the success formulas that will be dangled before you will be based upon HAVE/DO/BE.

These advisors tell you that you must HAVE stuff to be able to DO the right things. And if you DO the right things, you will BE a success.

The true formula works exactly in reverse: BE/DO/HAVE. If you will BE who you are in a genuine way, you will DO the right things. If you DO the right things, you will HAVE genuine results.

The best advisors to entrepreneurs focus upon having you plan your life before planning your business.

Michael Gerber, famed author of The E-Myth Revisited, calls this finding your Primary Aim. He puts it this way:

"I doubt that by now you’d be surprised to find out that I don’t believe your
business to be the first order of business on your agenda.

You are.

Nor will you be surprised to hear that I don’t believe your business is your life, though it can play a significantly important role in your life.

But before you can determine what that role will be, you must ask these questions:

· What do I value most?

· What kind of life do I want?

· What do I want my life to look like?

· Who do I wish to be?

Your Primary Aim is the answer to all these questions."

Startup Nation has the same message: “Plan your life, then your business.”

See their excellent discussion of how to make this plan at:

http://www.startupnation.com/steps/55/
3751/1/1/create-life-plan.htm

Look for the download templates of the sample life plan and the template to create your own life plan.

Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up!

A few days ago I mentioned a Radio Interview about what happens after the networking meeting, the follow up. Following up is the way to build those business relationships that networking is all about.

I found a great quote from Joy Weaver that sums it up perfectly:

"Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
This is the key to building relationships with others"

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
Get 7 networking secrets for business success

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A Symphony In Four Parts...The Art of Starting A New Business

Every business idea has to begin with a thought. That thought has to be developed. Regardless of the type business, there are certain universal principles that apply.

The 30 Day Challenge is designed to help an entrepreneur focus upon those principles to test the potential of a new idea. Ed Dale, the face of the 30 Day Challenge, shares the key concepts that he describes as a symphony. Like a symphony, it depends upon blending the right parts, in the right amount, in the right order, with the right timing.

Ed introduces the 30 Day Challenge and describes the four parts of the symphony:
1. Market Research
2. Traffic
3. Conversion
4. Product

A conservative estimate is that 95% of mistakes are made in the MARKET RESEARCH stage. This is because most people don't do the MARKET RESEARCH.

Following this universal pattern can't guarantee a success every time. The beauty is that it will help eliminate the stuff that will not work.

Whether you are doing a traditional business or an Internet business, the MARKET RESEARCH capability of the Internet opens new roads to success in starting a new business or growing an established business.

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Ed Dale's Free 30 Day Challenge In Marketing Training

The past 24 hours have been amazing to me as a lifelong learner. I have added a tremendous amount of marketing wisdom due to an absolutely free resource.

Ed Dale is a marketing leader who specializes in the Internet. He is offering his 4th 30 Day Challenge. This is a way of using Internet resources to market a business that is either online or bricks and mortar. It assumes that your total level of computer skill is to be able to open a browser and to use e-mail.

As a business coach, I spend a lot of time researching marketing issues and helping my clients. In the past 24 hours, what I have learned has at least doubled my efficiency.

Though the program began officially on August 1, you can still join. There are an amazing number of resources, particularly videos, to make it easy for you to catch up and work at your pace.

To get more information, follow this link:

http://www.ThirtyDayChallenge.com/challenge/25809

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Audio Clip - What happens after the networking meeting?

I was interviewed on the radio recently by Chantal Cooke of Passion for the Planet.
The main topic was what happens after you meet someone at an event.
The follow up!

You can listen at the following link:

Dave Clarke interviewed by Chantal Cooke of Passion for the Planet

To hear more Inspiring Good Business interviews from Chantal go to PassionforthePlanet.com & look for Passion Select.

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
Get 7 networking secrets for business success

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Quality or Quantity?

Last week I was interviewed for a research project on Networking.
One of the questions asked was whether I favoured a quantity or quality approach. My view is that the 2 are not incompatible although there is confusion.

If you start from the premise that networking is about building relationships then over time you will develop a number of quality relationships. You have a finite resource of time and so your capacity for these relationships is a limited number. As you build trust these 'advocates' will help spread your reputation far and wide. You will not get to like or trust everyone you meet so you need to meet a larger number of people in order to develop these 'quality' relationships. The quality is therefore an outcome of quantity. The right networking groups are an efficient way of filtering & building these 'quality' relationships.

Where I see confusion is amongst those people who seem to think that networking is about meeting lots of people once. People who attend different events with different people all of the time. That type of activity does not build relationships & misses the point of networking entirely.

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
Get 7 networking secrets for business success

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Sir Richard Branson Knows Joe Polish…Joe Knows…

Early this week, I received a surprise gift box from Amazon.com containing a DVD and a note:

Enjoy the DVD!
Best, Joe Polish

Some advice givers say, “It’s not what you know, but who you know!”

Others say, “It’s not who you know, but who knows you!”

Still others say, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.

Regardless of which advice rings true for you, you need to know what Joe knows. Joe is one of the world’s leading advocates of relationship marketing: the concept that people like to do business with people they know, like, and trust. And Joe proves the principle by investing in relationships, often by giving gifts like the DVD about the life of a famous man that he thought I would find inspiring.

Joe is one of the kindest, most generous people that I have ever met. Over the past three years that I have known him, he has expanded my horizons significantly.

Through such generosity in the form of charitable contributions, he came to know Sir Richard Branson. Not only personally benefiting from that association, Joe has opened doors for friends and clients of his company, Piranha Marketing, to gain access to that wisdom. He even recently arranged for a group to spend a week on Necker Island, Branson’s private island, to meet and talk with Sir Richard.

If you doubt how valuable an opportunity that can be, you need to know of the book, Millionaire Upgrade, by Richard Parkes Cordock. The book is inspired by the true story of an eight-hour flight with Sir Richard Branson. It describes the principles of success that a frustrated employee learned about becoming an entrepreneur when he was upgraded on a long haul flight and finds himself sitting next to a self-made billionaire.

The book shares eight principles and a “magic ingredient” that ties the principles together. Though I won’t share the details of the “magic ingredient”, I will share one portion of it:

“Never think you can do it alone – you can’t”

That is why I am thankful that Joe knows me!

Thanks Joe!

For more information on Joe Polish and to see him interview Sir Richard Branson, go to
http://www.joepolish.com/.

Why join a networking group?

Successful Networking depends on developing business relationships with others who place a similar importance on this approach. You probably have a number of these relationships in place, but it can be difficult to generate enough in a small business where you work with a limited number of clients & suppliers.

When you find a group that you feel may be right for you there is one huge benefit. The shared commitment to building those business relationships. If you are wondering about joining a group just ask yourself how long it would take to build that number of positive relationships outside one at a time.

As you develop a high level of trust with others in the group you are able to:

• Specialise in what you are really good at
• Reduce your costs of selling
• Reduce risks
• Work with other companies on larger projects
• Improve credibility
• Give & gain specialist information
• Give & gain hard to get business intelligence
• Give & gain referrals

The Networking groups that work well do so because of the high level of trust in the relationships.

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
Get 7 networking secrets for business success

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