Liz Lynch Smart Networking – Official Website
Founder of the Center for Networking Excellence
On a trip to Atlanta a few months back, I sat down for a quick chat with my friend and personal branding strategist Walter Akana to ask him about personal branding, and specifically, the power of a brand story.
Your brand story helps you stand out with your network. It’s also an engaging way to share your business purpose with prospective partners and clients, and get their support.
Learn more in the latest issue of “Smart Networking Success.”Enjoy!
Do you need new customers or clients but can’t seem to get enough of them? People generally want to make referrals when they can. It feels good to be able to connect those who can help with those who need that help. But, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. We’re all busy, faced with too much on our plate and not enough hours in the day, so the more painless you can make it, the greater your chances of getting the referrals you want. Here are four key questions to ask yourself to test the strength of your “referability.”
Before LinkedIn, it was easy to lose touch with people as they moved around and changed companies. And despite the fact LinkedIn has over 50 million members, there are still a great number of professionals still not on it. Last year a friend asked for a recommendation to a commercial banker in New York City for a real estate deal he was putting together. The only one I knew had worked at one bank but had subsequently moved to another. Although he did send out updated contact information, it never made it into my address book. When I couldn’t find him on LinkedIn, I couldn’t make the referral. Being easily reachable is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, condition. Your business card in someone’s desk drawer or a connection to them via social media is not enough. The next three questions are even more crucial.
Is your elevator pitch clear? Do your contacts really understand what you do? Not what your title is, but what problems you can help solve? By leading with your title as opposed to your solution, you lose people because they have either no idea, or an inaccurate idea, of what it means. Instead, focus on relaying the benefits of what you do so nothing gets lost in the translation. 3) Do they know whom to tell? Have you clearly described your target customer? This is where job titles may come in handy. Talk specifically about the kinds of people who are involved in the decision to hire you as well as the kinds of companies. Give examples of both job titles (e.g., “I usually work with the vp of marketing”) and company names (e.g., “Consumer technology companies like Dell, Iomega, and HP)
Once they have all of this information, the big question is will they act on it when they see an opportunity? This comes down to two things. First is their belief in the quality of your work. Because your contacts put their reputations on the line when they make recommendations on your behalf, they have to know that you’re the best person for the job. Second is the strength of your relationship. Have you developed enough rapport so they’d want to take the time to help you? I’ve said in Smart Networking that you don’t need a huge Rolodex if you have aresponsive one. In next week’s post we’ll talk about more about point #4 and how you can build closer bonds with people you meet right from the start of a relationship so when opportunities come along, they think of you first and make the referral.
Assessing Your “Referability” Factor
1) Are contacts able to reach you?
2) Can they describe what you do?
4) Will they?
All things being equal, we prefer to do business with those we know, like and trust. And all things not being equal, many of us would still prefer to do business with those we know, like and trust. I heard this said at a panel discussion recently and I couldn’t agree more. The question is: How can we allow that know, like and trust to happen effortlessly and automatically so that networking doesn’t seem forced, fake, or time-consuming? Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored how we can tap into the natural ability we each have to build relationships organically, letting nature take its course without injecting anything artificial into the process to force them to blossom more quickly. And we’ve seen in this series that the more we get it right up front–with who we connect with and how we connect with them–the easier it is to converse, and ultimately convert that connection to a true relationship. Those who realize this, for example, understand why you wouldn’t send a Facebook friend request or a LinkedIn invitation without crafting a personalized note, any more than you would phone someone you’ve never met and start chatting away without introducing yourself or mentioning a reason for calling. This week we’ll wrap up the series with a focus on the third step of the organic relationship building process: conversion. Conversion is about evolving from simply being known to someone, to ultimately being trusted by them. Trusted enough to buy from you, trusted enough to tell their friends and colleagues about you, trusted enough to offer their help to you when you ask for it. Supporter: Where there’s a natural chemistry and mutual respect. Anyone who likes you will usually be willing to help you out with a favor or spend time with you to give advice and feedback. Partner: Where there’s a natural synergy between your respective goals. These are folks who can help you expand your business by collaborating with you to develop new markets, products and services. They help not just to feel good, but also because there are direct and tangible benefits to them for doing so. Customer: Where there’s a natural need someone has that your product or service can fill. For example, corporate training managers, event planners and others who hire speakers for their organizations would be potential customers for me. Endorser: Where there’s been an actual experience of working with you. These folks can give a whole-hearted recommendation based on their hands-on knowledge. They can help answer questions the prospect may have, thereby serving as your mini-sales force. The reason some people struggle with networking is that they focus on meeting only those who fit into the Customer category. Or worse, trying to push everyone they meet into the Customer category even when it doesn’t make sense. Realistically, only a small percentage of folks you’ll come across will ever buy from you. But that doesn’t mean they can’t play a crucial role in your business success as a supporter or partner. So the key to successfully converting initial connections into productive relationships is to focus your conversations on winning people over as supporters first. Build your know, like and trust factor by finding out what’s important to them, what they’re pursuing, and how you can help. When you work on gaining someone’s support rather than to trying to leapfrog over into the sale, not only will you put less pressure on yourself with networking, but you’ll also put less pressure on them. And in that natural, relaxed state will the most robust, productive and profitable relationships take root and flourish. Read original post in Personal Branding Blog.
** This concludes our series on how to build natural and authentic relationships in every day life. **
Step 3: Convert
Conversion
But there are different categories of conversion:
In fact, when you have supporters, partners and endorsers, winning over customers becomes a lot easier because other people are doing the selling for you.
You are one conversation away from your next opportunity. One conversation away from learning of a key way to re-position yourself for your next job; from gaining a deeper understanding of the needs of a potential new client and how you might address them effectively; or from finding the ideal joint venture partner to help expand your business. You can get what you want if you just talk to enough people. One of the key ways to uncover hidden opportunities and gain an edge over your competition is through the information you glean through conversations with your network. The trouble is sometimes we just don’t talk to enough people. We’re so used to turning to the Internet for everything, that if we can’t find it there–on a job board, in a news story, on a company’s website–we think it must not exist. But the need is definitely there. It’s just that we haven’t yet discovered who needs us most or the best way to approach them. Conversation is also the way to advance relationships. Last time we discussed the first step of building relationships organically by Initiate more conversations. When you’re at a networking event, don’t wait for people to approach you, start more conversations yourself. One of my strategies is to position myself in a place where people tend to gather but not engage in deep conversation, such as the registration table or buffet line. With your online network, pay attention to what they’re posting and find opportunities to engage. Even simply asking “What’s new with you?” for example, is an easy way to start the conversation. Make conversations productive. I did a free teleclass recently called the “Top 10 questions of Six-Figure Job Seekers” and asked people to submit questions to me and I’d answer the 10 most popular ones on the call. One of the questions I got was from a gentleman who said, “So I went to a networking event the other night. I met three people and we talked politics and a little bit of shop, now what?” I told him that wasn’t enough. Small talk helps to break the ice and build rapport as you uncover things you might have in common. But don’t stay there. Move on to having more robust conversations by asking more thoughtful questions.
Listen openly. I’ve written in the past about the importance of listening. When you listen to what others are saying, really listening and not just pausing before jumping in with your next comment, you show that you know that the interaction is not all about you.Listening helps you gain a deeper understanding of others’ goals and can help you uncover how you might possibly help. That’s how you build on the rapport you established through small talk and start to turn that into a relationship. Connections deepen through conversation, and next week, we’ll conclude this series on building relationships organically by delving into the final step of moving seamlessly from conversation to conversion. Read original post in Personal Branding Blog.
Step 2: Converse
Converse and connect
connecting with more people around us. This week, we explore how simple conversations can move those relationships forward naturally. Here are some key tips:
Ask thoughtful, relevant questions. Questions keep the conversation open. Questions help you enhance your professional knowledge and get to the insights. But they also help you enhance your people knowledge. In addition to asking broad questions about what might be happening in the industry, ask specific questions about what someone might be working on that they’re excited about. When you get people to talk about what’s important to them, they grow to know, like and trust you more than if you did all the talking yourself.
We started this series by exploring the concept of building relationships organically, the natural way nearly all of us follow when we aren’t trying so hard to get something. Without thinking about it, we do go through an instinctive process of connecting, conversing and converting. We connect with the people around us at work, at school, in our community. We converse with them, learn who they are and share something about ourselves. And then through conversation over time, the interaction converts into friendship. You don’t have to change how you relate to people to network successfully if you just tap into your natural instincts with this natural process. This week, we cover the Connect step in more detail. How can you connect more organically, without the uncomfortable feeling that you’re forcing yourself on others? A big part of the solution is to connect more deeply with more people who are already around you, those involved in the same activities, interested in the same issues, or pursuing the same goals. When you already share a common purpose with someone, the rest of the process of conversation and conversion flow more easily. Here are some things you can do to increase the number and improve the quality of your organic relationships.
Be inclusive. Rather than eat lunch every day with your usual cohort of colleagues, or hang out with the same three people for every meal at a multi-day conference, invite others to join you. Explore the circumstances that brought you to the same place and you may discover common goals and values on which to build meaningful and productive relationships. Don’t go it alone. Get involved in things that interest you but do them with other people. In the book Bowling Alone, Robert D. Putnam chronicled that the percentage of Americans joining organized groups–whether they be sports leagues, professional associations, political committees, etc.–has declined dramatically over the last 30-40 years.
Step 1: Connect
You already know people
Increase and improve
Make a list. Identify people around you whom you should get to know. For example, people in other departments, those whose work is linked to yours, where more cooperation and an open line of communication can help both of you do your jobs better. Learn more about the interdependencies and brainstorm ways to better support one another.
Yet, when we share experiences with others, we can’t help but grow closer. You might really enjoy your independence, but mixing it up every once in a while and doing the same activity in a group environment is an easy way to build relationships organically.
Take advantage of whatever environments you’re in to bond with the people around you. Effortless relationships are all around us, ready to be made, if we just open the gates.
Stay tuned next week for more detail on Step 2: Converse.
Read original post in Personal Branding Blog
When we don’t need anything and simply interact with the people around us–with the other students in our classroom, the other players on our sports team, the other professionals in our office, our neighbors next door–we build relationships organically. Proximity leads to conversation and shared experiences, which brings us closer and leads to more conversation and shared experiences. Over time strong bonds form, without force or fakery. The relationship you had with your best friend in college, for example, didn’t come about through a series of calculated moves and scripts, but through interaction, open communication and common goals. Even at work, the people we socialize with most are likely to be those in the surrounding cubicles or co-workers on the same project team. We all have a natural ability to build relationships organically, letting nature take its course without injecting anything artificial into the process to force them to blossom more quickly, or sprout in otherwise inhospitable terrain. If we didn’t have this natural ability, we wouldn’t have any friends or colleagues who like being around us. Here’s how it happens. First we connect, then we converse, and finally we convert. That’s it. We’ve done this hundreds and thousands of times “by accident” in our personal lives. We connected with those people who happened to be in the same place we were. We conversed with them, we learned about them and shared something about ourselves as well. Through conversation over time, the interaction converted into friendship. There are different degrees of friendship, of course, and every relationship settles into a natural level. One side might try to push it further, but without a mutual desire on the other side, it’s not likely to happen. Yet, when it comes to trying to build relationships purposefully through “networking,” many people say that they just don’t know what to do. They think it’s a completely different process requiring different skills and talents. But it’s really the same, and holds true whether you’re building relationships online or face-to-face. Still, you do need to inject some thought and direction into how you network so the relationship can lead somewhere for both of you.
Interaction not manipulation
Connect, converse and convert
Over the next few posts, we’ll dive deeper into the Connect, Converse and Convert formula. What’s important to know now is that if you’ve built any relationships at all in your life, even by accident, you can network successfully. It doesn’t take a certain personality, it doesn’t even take a certain number of hours, and it certainly doesn’t have to feel fake.
It’s abou
t understanding that there is a process, knowing how and where to focus your efforts, and getting more in tune with your innate ability. That’s the key to building lasting, productive relationships more easily and naturally.
Read the original post at Personal Branding Blog
The latest job figures released two Fridays ago showed that the U.S. unemployment rate inched up 10 basis points in September to 9.8 percent. Many companies continue to reduce headcount, and those that are hiring are being very cautious and taking their time to find the right candidate. Yet, many job seekers are still approaching their job search like it’s 1999, when the unemployment rate was just half of that–4.9 percent. While I realize some of this blog’s readership was still in high school back then, those of us Gen X and older can remember the heady days of the last decade. Ten years ago, I had been working for the same company for 4 years and while I loved the industry, I wanted more variety in my job. When I started looking around for other opportunities, I wasn’t firmly committed to leaving so I didn’t push myself very hard. I surfed around a few job boards and submitted my resume very selectively. Even with that half-hearted attempt, I still got three job offers in just a few weeks in industries I had never worked in before and in roles I had never done. But the job market was very different then. The tech bubble hadn’t burst yet and even when layoffs did start to come in 2000, it usually didn’t take workers very long to find that next position. Median duration of unemployment was only 6 weeks in 2000, a fraction of today’s average of 18 weeks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So what does this mean for today’s job seeker? At a minimum, you have to show yourself as a perfect or near-perfect fit for the job in terms of qualifications.
A different market
Perfect or near perfect
While you’ll certainly beat out 85-90% of job seekers who don’t even do this much–again, those who still think it’s 1999, or at least, wish it was—you’ll still find plenty of stiff competition. It’s like going into college as va
ledictorian of your high school and realizing your freshman class is filled with them.
While the tangibles are the minimum price of entry, what will often break the tie are the intangibles:
The bar you have to jump over to land a job is so much higher today than it was 10 years ago. Accept that reality and adjust your job search strategy accordingly. Instead of half-heartedly applying for jobs on job boards and hoping you’ll get a call back, spend more time proactively building your case to position yourself as close to the ideal candidate as the company could hope for.
Read the original post at Personal Branding Blog
NOTE: If you’re frustrated by your dead-end job search and ready to ramp things up, read more about my groundbreaking new program, the Job Search Marekting Blueprint.
Networking is something many job seekers get into reluctantly. It can feel awkward if you haven’t done much of it before. What do you do, where do you start? Losing your job, especially, can make you want to hold back from meeting new people and talking about yourself. What will you say when they ask what you do, and more importantly, how will you project confidence when so much of your identity had been wrapped up in a job you were forced to leave? It’s understandable then that as soon as you do land a job, you’d want to stop networking. The desire to dive into your new cubicle or office and bury yourself in your work can be very strong. And it’s easy to use the excuse of being too busy learning your new job to get out there and network. In an ideal world, you’d keep up some networking momentum, perhaps shifted down a gear or two. What this current job market has illustrated is that having a strong network on the look out for opportunities for you, and willing to recommend you for them, is the key to minimizing your time in the unemployment line. Since you never know when you’ll need your network again, before you withdraw back into your comfort zone, there are a few things you can do to make sure your network is ready to go again whenever you are: 1) Close the loops
2) Start making internal inroads 3) Maintain your outside network All of these activities keep you visible and in the flow of new ideas and opportunities that can help advance your career. They also keep you in the right mindset for networking. When you’re not putting pressure on yourself to get something, you put less pressure on others, and at the same time, become more comfortable with networking overall. Read original post and comments at Personal Branding Blog.
An ever ready network
When someone seems stuck in their career and unsure of their next step, a question they’re often asked to answer is, “What are you passionate about?” That seems like a logical starting point. After all, when you’re working on your passion, whatever it is, the belief is that you’ll enjoy yourself more and be more willing to do what needs to be done.
They lived day-to-day on Dorothy’s salary as a librarian and spent every penny Herb made on art. They bought pieces that they liked, were affordable and could fit into their tiny living space. You could say they had a passion for art, but I also saw a very deep commitment to it as well. They spent every single dollar and every single free moment they had immersed in art, learning about it, talking about it, visiting galleries, meeting artists. I really didn’t get Herb and Dorothy at first. Early in the film, I was disturbed by what seemed like an extreme art addiction. But then I thought about the other extreme, that group of people who work and live without either passion or commitment. Going through the motions, caring very little and giving up at the first obstacle. That actually bothered me more. And it should bother you too because those people could be working for you, interacting with your customers, influencing your staff, or involved in something much more critical to your life. You can’t really control the actions or motivations (or lack thereof) of others. You can’t manifest a desire within someone to do well; only they can do that. But what you can do is be a role model and develop excellence in yourself by re-committing to commitment. If you’ve already identified what you’re passionate about from a work standpoint, ask yourself next how you can also remain committed to it for the long term, because that’s the true turning point towards excellence. How can I be committed to being the best at what I do? How can I: Being passionate about your work is for your benefit. Being committed to your work is for the benefit of others. Only when both elements of the equation are addressed can you be truly excellent in your field. Read the original post at Personal Branding Blog.
But is passion really enough? I thought it was until I saw a movie this weekend called Herb and Dorothy which chronicles the true story of a Manhattan couple, who over a 40-year period amassed one of the most impressive collections of Minimalist and Conceptual art–nearly 5,000 pieces–all on a postal worker’s salary, and all from a one-bedroom apartment.
No matter how much they collected, they kept wanting more. What was the point of collecting so many pieces? When you had to start stacking works under the bed shouldn’t that have been a signal that enough was enough? It seemed like a constant thirst that couldn’t be quenched, and that bothered me.Just getting by
t’s needed?
Playing host to family visiting me in southwest Florida recently I took my guests on a tour of the winter estates of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford in Fort Myers. I had never realized before that that the two men knew each other, much less had homes right next door. But what fascinated me the most was hearing that Ford actually worked for one of Edison’s companies in Detroit. And in fact, Ford had been tinkering with an invention he called the Quadricycle when he met Edison, who saw the potential and encouraged young Henry to “Keep at it.”The power of belief
It made me think of how important it is when you’re building your personal brand to have someone who believes in you to cheer you on, to support you. Because when you’re building your brand initially, before you’ve really established yourself, all sorts of fears and doubts can creep in. Is this the right direction, who am I to attempt this, is this really going to work, etc., etc.
Turning to successful people in your network for help in developing your brand and identifying ways you can leverage it can greatly accelerate your success.
Too often we don’t engage our network early enough, getting out there only when we’re ready to forward a resume or ask for specific referrals. But seeking out their help earlier in the process can help you reach your goals much faster.
Here are 5 ways your contacts can advance the development of your personal brand much faster than you could possibly do on your own:
They can show you the path. Seeking advice from someone who’s already gone through the kind of evolution you’re trying to make can speed up your journey. They can point out pitfalls to avoid and show you shortcuts that can flatten your learning curve and save you an enormous amount of time.
They can recommend the right resources. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know or what you’re missing until someone who’s been through it before points it out to you. And more often than not, they can help you find what you need to plug the gap.
They can give you a shot of confidence. Henry Ford would likely have been a success even without Edison’s words of encouragement, yet having the moral support of someone you greatly respect can be very motivating, and help keep you going even in the face of setbacks.
They can connect you with opportunities. This is the very essence of networking–when someone who knows you and what you can do sees an opportunity that would be a perfect fit for you. Your contacts are your extra eyes and ears in the marketplace. But the more you keep your goals and your intentions to yourself, the fewer people will be available to help you.
They can recognize your best qualities. Recently I told one of my coaching clients that based on our discussions over the past few weeks, I thought what really separated her from her competitors were two things–her inside status in the industry and her strategic mindset–and that she should play these up in her marketing materials. She was dumbfounded. She had never placed value in those traits because she took them for granted. But I could clearly see these were major strengths that her competitors did not have and that she should definitely capitalize on to win new clients.
But if they start to proactively engage in your ideas and particularly, if they start to give voice to bigger visions that you’ve been too timid to even dare think about, then you know you’re on the right track.
Read the original post in Personal Branding Blog.
