By Gail Stolzenburg
During the past 20 years while interviewing some of the world’s most famous speakers, authors, trainers, and motivators, I found they all had one thing in common – they were willing to share their knowledge without any reservations. That’s one of the reasons for their greatness and another reason is they spent much of the conversation time asking questions.
In the last article, I talked about some of the questions during networking that you should ask to build trust and rapport and help you both decide if this could be a good business relationship. But, the real question you may want to ask is, “What words do you use to start generating business?” Well, you may be surprised at the answer. Most successful entrepreneurs begin by helping others rather than promoting their own products and services. It is called the law of reciprocity, servant leadership, tit for tat, do unto others, or Givers’ Gain.
My friend and mentor, Bob Burg, author of “Endless Referrals”, along with John David Mann, wrote a great book entitled “The Go-Giver” which is an inspiring tale about using the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success for putting others’ interests first and adding value to their lives which creates unexpected returns. They went on to write a second book entitled “Go-Givers Sell More”, a practical guide that makes “giving” the cornerstone of a powerful and effective approach to selling. I’d recommend that you read both of these informative books.
One of the core strategies of BNI, the world’s largest and only global business referral organization, is V + C = P, which stands for visibility + credibility = profitability. You can apply this technique by developing a matrix listing each of your business associates and rating them on your visibility, credibility, and profitability with them. Then determine the next step to move them from visibility to credibility or credibility to profitability. You can also apply this strategy to your customers or prospective customers. Men have a tendency to jump immediately from visibility to profitability by saying, “Glad to meet you, why don’t we do business together?” Women do a much better job of working on visibility and credibility and building trust and rapport, but sometimes they get so involved they forget to ask for the sale.
At some point, the other person is going to ask you about your business. This allows you to determine the other person’s needs and qualify them. One of the networking secrets I’ve recently discovered is generating interest in your business by creating curiosity using words like, “I just found out…” or “did you know that…” or “have you ever thought about…”. That allows us to discover what the person’s values are, what their focus is, and different ways that you may be able to provide solutions to their problems or help them generate income.
Would you join me in making a commitment to use the law of reciprocity while networking? In our next article, we will cover what you do and say to give a very effective presentation in 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, or even 10 minutes.
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Gail Stolzenburg, Chief People Connector, can be contacted by email at [email protected], by phone at 281-493-1955, or visit his website at www.GailStolzenburg.com.
