Meet your colleagues 1-2-1 and set referral goals

As I gear up my networking education goals for 2010, here is a thought I thought I quickly share with everyone:

If you think you can harvest greater results from your networking, then you need to engage your colleagues in your networking groups for a 1-2-1s with them.

Meet your colleagues at their places of work or offices, or shop-lots, showrooms, workshops, and gain a deeper understanding of their businesses and the type of customers they deal with on a day-to-day basis. Also enquire what categories of customers are the most profitable for them.

With this understanding, both you and your 1-2-1 partner needs to set goals as follows:

1. A short term referral, and this could even be yourself to engage in the service for your own needs, or a family member or a closed friend. Have a time line to achieve this, and say, do not exceed a month.

2. A long term referral, and this is a referral that you need to get to work to qualify for your colleague. This could be a former partner, former boss, or anyone you know needs the service of your colleague and that the business and revenue should be channelled to your colleagues' business. Time line to achieve this connection, is say, 2-months.

What is the recommended frequency for this levels of communication with your colleagues?

The recommended frequency for this level of communication with your colleagues is one member a week. Which means, on a weekly basis, your calendar must be filled with at least one 1-2-1 meeting appointment already penned in.

If your schedule is not filled in with this appointment, means you are not networking effectively enough.

Shall we get this done, people?

It takes work, people!

I am now in the process of dealing with a networking group which has hit a lull.

The group which meets for the purpose of generating referrals for each other has hit an all time low with almost no referrals to pass lately, and this has caused a high absentism rate as a result.

So, I explained to the members there that there is much work to do, however, within a period of 8-weeks after the work has begun, they will see results.

I gave an example that if a person is having knee aches, and is prescribed to take the famous Glucosamine Sulphate supplements, it will not cure the pain right away, however, within say, 4-weeks of taking the medications regularly, the pain will subside.

That was the key word: regularly.

Regularly engage in 1-2-1s with their colleagues in their group and with some commitment of both short term and long term goals, their ratio of referrals will start to increase.

But everyone must have the stamina to run. If anyone decides to quit at this juncture, then they are seriously letting the group down.

As this muddles along, I am applying the same formula in another group to enable the members there to regularly conduct 1-2-1s, so that in their case, the quality of referred business takes a leap.

Either way, the key word is: regular.

And yes folks, it takes work!

Hey you, make that call!

In a networking environment, especially when participating in Referral Generation groups, where business people meet for the purpose of exchanging quality referrals, it is essential that all members in that group have some goals as a performance indicators.

For example, every member in that group must endeavour to bring at least 2 qualified referrals for their colleagues each week.

Imagine, if this group had 30 members in it, then this will generate 60 referrals, and at random, every member can expect to receive 2 referrals each week (of course, some will receive more and some lesser).

Alongside with your current sales and follow-up activity, these 2 new referrals will be a welcomed addition to your sales funnel so that sales in the next 3-months will at least maintain, if not increase in volume.

Each time your business is in a lull moment, it is because we were not prospecting at least 3-months ago, as in average cases, it takes 3-months to convert a lead into a prospect and then evolve it into a sale.

The good news is that, networking helps to achieve this in a leveraged manner: you also have your colleagues in your group, who are your eyes and ears on the ground to bring in new leads into your business.

So, on the average, how many phone calls are you prepared to make to develop new leads for your colleagues?

If everyone makes at least 2 calls, then we're there!

So, let's make that call.

'We've got to let it simmer'

Last week, I was at a team meeting where the subject of growing memberships in their group came up from the members.

This group had added 8 members in the past 3 months and they are feeling pregnant.

And one of the ways we grow a group membership is to organize a recruitment activity via a guest day where members invite their contacts to a meeting for an overview of the group's activity.

So, they solicited my view on the matter at the end of their discussion.

Now bear in mind that it's now November and we are approaching December, where it's the holiday season and many people, including the members in this group, not to mention myself, are on holiday mood, to wind down after a very eventful year.

So I said to them, 'Let's add another 4 good and established new members from our regular weekly meetings, and now, make the total new recruits to say, 12 (remember they had added 8 recently).

'Let's ride out the year-end period with some fun activities for members and their families, for example a dinner and gift-exchange nite out. That will keep members connected, and build bondings.

'Let's not boil this pot now. We should start boiling early next year, just a few weeks after the New Year, but for now, let this simmer.

In building networking groups, sometimes we push, sometimes we pull. It takes a bit of wisdom to figure that out, but for now, I like this: 'We've go to let it simmer'!

Plant the right Questions

I was having a conversation with some colleagues after visiting their networking group last week.

In that meeting, the speaker of the week was swamped with many questions from members, which was good, however, the only drawback was that all of the questions were of personal in nature with regards to the person asking them.

They were questions like: 'how much does it cost to....?', 'where can I get information about....?'.

It was like a personal coaching done publicly when the presenter was providing answers to the questions.

So here is my take on the matter: I asked the members in the group to think about the distinction between questions of personal in nature as opposed to questions about business development.

In a networking environment, you want to ask questions that will help you leverage the moment by focusing on business development.

So, what are business development questions?

Among them:

1. Can you please share with us what is your goal on new prospects with this product line?'
2. What kind of line of questioning can I use with my contacts to position your latest product in my conversations?
3. How would I know if someone I am speaking to is the right contact for you as far as this product/service is concerned?
4. What is the most profitable product in your offering that will make it worthwhile your time meeting a new prospect?

A wise person once said, that the quality of your life depends on the quality of your questions.

Therefore, in a networking environment, if you are the key-note speaker or the speaker of the week, then it is essential that you achieve leverage in your time presenting, and among an element to consider is the questions from the audience.

It is wise to plan two or three questions well ahead of time, where you have also prepared the response meticulously to achieve this level of leverage.

Hope this helps.