Page 27 - MetalForming February 2011

Joining a group that represents an industry other than your own can put you in contact with a concentrated tar- get market, including many top-qual- ity potential contacts. Many of your best current clients, looking for their own competitive edge, may be mem- bers of industry associations. Ask them which open-membership groups they belong to, and try to join a few of them. This can give you an opportunity to meet prospects of the same quality as your clients.
Keep in mind, however, that you’re not the only person to think of crashing the party. Some of your competitors have probably joined as well, and for the same purpose. Full members some- times do not like being “sold” by asso- ciate members, so be careful in your approach. Remember that a master networker seeks first to help others. Go in with the idea of helping people solve problems and improve their busi- ness. By making friends first you will gain customers later, even if they are not the same people.
The other part of your knowledge network should be groups in your own industry. Yes, you’ll be rubbing elbows with competitors, but there are advan- tages. You’ll stay abreast of develop- ments in your industry, find out what your competitors are up to, study the competition’s brochures and presen- tations, and discover opportunities to collaborate with competitors whose specialties are different from yours or who need help on a big project.
Online Network
Networking is as old as civilization, and it changes and adapts as the com- munity changes; so, naturally, you would expect networking to show up on the web as soon as the world’s sec- ond computer went online. This is pret- ty much what has happened in the last several years. Online business net- working systems such as Ecadamy.com, Linkedln.com and Facebook.com put businesspeople in instant communi- cation with one another, making it eas- ier than ever before to pass along infor- mation, referrals and time-sensitive
opportunities, especially over a great distance.
The main thing that online net- working lacks is, with some exceptions, the face-to-face interaction that is so important to developing and deepen- ing relationships. Although telecon- ferencing is growing in popularity and technical sophistication, there’s noth- ing like sitting down to breakfast or lunch with a contact to deepen a friendship or a business relationship. For this reason, we recommend online networking as an adjunct to tradition- al networking, to be used after the rela- tionship is established and with the purpose of getting in touch quickly and passing referrals efficiently. Online networking is hard to beat when used for purposes best suited for communi- cating ideas, sharing knowledge and raising your visibility to a larger group of contacts.
Strong-Contact Group
Organizations whose purpose is principally to help members exchange business referrals are known as strong- contact referral groups. Some of these groups, BNI for example, meet weekly, typically over breakfast; others meet every two weeks or monthly. Most of them limit membership to one mem- ber per profession or specialty. If you’re a CPA and join a local BNI chapter, then you’ll have locked out the com- petition by joining; no one else can fill the CPA category in that chapter. Each weekly meeting usually lasts about 90 min., and you might want to stay another half hour or so to network afterward and solidify your relation- ships with other members of the group.
Joining a strong-contact referral group is one the best things you can do for your business, provided you’re com- fortable with two things:
1) You need to have a schedule that lets you attend most or all meetings. Regular attendance is vital to develop- ing a rapport with the other members of the group and getting to know their businesses. Otherwise, how can you generate a referral for someone if you don’t know him or what he does? How
is anyone going to get to know you bet- ter and generate referrals for your busi- ness? Attending every weekly meeting needs to be a priority. The good news is that since most of these meetings are held in the early morning, they won’t intrude too much on your day.
2) You have to buy into the team approach that defines these organiza- tions. You need to feel comfortable going to a networking event and being on the lookout for prospects who can help other members of your group. This can be counterintuitive for some, since businesspeople usually are focused on their own business. But if you’re a real-estate agent and you find out that someone just moved into a new home and is no longer in need of your services, you need the presence of mind to ask about other areas in this person’s life where someone else in your group could help (e.g., electri- cian, handyman, lawn service). This can be a little tricky at first, but the group will be watching what you do— take our word for it. If you’re not ful- filling either of those two requirements, either you’ll be asked to leave or refer- rals will stop coming your way.
A good strong-contact networking group typically tracks the amount of business that is conducted. This is an important measurement of its effec- tiveness. BNI, for example, tallies up the total number of referrals from the pre- vious week, the amount of revenue attached to that total, and a couple of other metrics that give visitors and members alike a sense of how the chap- ter is progressing. This is vital infor- mation; it tells you what kind of return you can expect on your investment. When you consider potential referral groups, find out how they plan to meas- ure your return on investment.
Another type of strong-contact group is the service club. Unlike the more business-oriented groups discussed previously, the service group is not set up primarily for referral networking; its activities are focused on service to the community. However, as a practi- tioner of the Givers Gain philosophy, the master networker is a natural fit. In
www.metalformingmagazine.com
MetalForming/February 2011 25