If you want to become a masterful strategic networker, you have to be the one that makes it happen and that means taking a proactive approach to referral marketing.  “Don’t wait for the good luck referral.  Good luck if you get one, good luck if the person referred to you will talk to you, and good luck if you close it,” states Tim R. Green of Referral Institute of Michigan.

If you’re not getting referrals from your networking, it is likely you need to change your approach.   Many business owners take a haphazard approach to networking and wonder why they don’t receive a steady stream of referrals. 

Common missteps include:
• Attending every networking opportunity regardless if you will connect with your ideal clients or if there are referral partners who can connect you with your ideal client.
• Not giving any referrals.
• Gravitating toward the people you know at events.
• Not making yourself clear in describing your ideal referral.

These common missteps lead to major frustration when trying to grow your business.  The next time you attend a networking event, consider a new approach:

1. Assess the Room
As you enter the room, identify who you know and who you don’t know.  While the temptation is to gravitate toward people you already know, approach the individuals you don’t know.  Find out about their business and their target market.  Connect them with the people you do know.  They’ll appreciate that you showed an interest, connected them with others in their target market, and made them feel welcomed especially if they are a newcomer.

2. Ask
Business owners think they need to “sell” their services when they network.  But effective networking is not about trying to sell people you meet on your services.  The next time you attend a networking meeting, focus on the other person.  Ask questions to the person you’re networking with about their target market.  Ask them what they do for a living and why they are in business.  Ask them to describe their ideal referral. 

Then, set up the meeting between them and their ideal referral.  What a great way to start creating a relationship.  They’ll surely remember that you proactively helped them out.

3. Be Prepared
When you’re asked by your network that age old comment, “If I can ever help you, please let me know” be prepared to answer it!  Have an idea on what you need:

• Do you need a referral into a specific company you’ve been trying connect with for years?

• Do you need a supplier to help you bring a product to market?

• Are you looking for a panel speaker for an upcoming nonprofit event you’re planning?

A strategic approach to networking creates long-lasting relationships and helps you identify partnerships by design.  With some focused effort on your part, these partnerships will help you create a referral system that does the work for you helping you grow your business in a snap.

Picture this:  you just brought in your biggest income level this month and you’ve made a positive impact on a lot of people’s lives.  You swell with excitement.  Then your computer crashes, you temporarily lose your customer data, and you quickly get caught up in the issues of the day.  Your entire mind is focused on fixing the issues and you quickly forget about that biggest win of the month.

Someone asks how you’re doing and you answer “I’ve had better days” leaving the person who asked wondering just how your business is doing.  In the rush of fixing the issue of the moment, you don’t take time to think of your biggest accomplishment and focus on the day-to-day problems. 

It’s a gradual process where you are consumed with daily activities and don’t take enough time to celebrate the big things, the little things, milestones, or anniversaries. 

Yet, regularly celebrating on-going accomplishments is a way to build a positive, growth-oriented business. Researchers also suggest that positive exercises in celebrating accomplishments engages the pleasure and reward centers of the brain releasing neuropeptides that reinforce motivation for new learning and play a role in unlearning, both required for change and growth. 

Take five minutes today to identify the five things you’ve accomplished, including:

1.      Accomplishments in Life – were you able to make it through a week of exercise?  Nothing is too silly or too small in celebrating accomplishments that enrich your life.

2.      Accomplishment of Special Times of the Year – whether you’ve conquered a serious health condition or are celebrating a wedding anniversary, these are accomplishments that can remind you of the important things in life.

3.      Accomplishment of the Person You Are – some of the greatest accomplishments are not the result of something we build, but rather who we are.  The biggest reasons to celebrate in life is as simple as the impact you’ve had on others where you were just being you and it helped someone else.   

4.      Accomplishments of Moments – were you able to work outside of your comfort zone or put aside a fear and move beyond it?  Perhaps you invested in something that would move your business ahead in a really big way and it was a stretch for you.  These moments help push you outside of your norm and it deserves to be celebrated.

5.      Accomplishment of Years in Business – are you celebrating a milestone anniversary for your business?  Remember, it’s a great time to schedule a ribbon cutting ceremony and get additional press coverage.  This is a great reason to write a press release and celebrate your achievement in a big way.

Celebrating accomplishments also forge valuable bonds and help develop relationships and trust with colleagues, co-workers, and those important in your life.   Just five minutes a day to acknowledge your accomplishments can help balance the day.

What accomplishments are you celebrating?  Share your accomplishments on my blog!  Let’s hear what you’re celebrating!

In its simplest form, communication in business is conveying a message through a channel.  It can link ideas and things and is a mechanism for connectivity and interaction.  Communication is expressed in words, pictures, gestures, signals, and colors.  In its most basic context, there is a sender and a receiver.  Every day, small business owners receive messages, decipher the message and decide how to respond or if to respond.

With the day-to-day demands on a small business owner, you get into a routine of responding to the daily priorities.  It’s no surprise that in triaging messages, miscommunication or missed communication occurs.  You even find yourself hearing a message several times before you even take action.  But missed or ignored messages can prevent a small business owner from moving ahead or seeing big profits. 

Ask any seasoned business owner about missed opportunities and they will share with you the messages or signs they missed because they weren’t paying attention or were working so fast that they had to hear something multiple times before making the connection. 

The next time you find yourself missing opportunities or messages, consider these tips to stay in the moment and get those messages the first time around:

Take time out for ‘reflection time’ each week.  Recently, a client took some reflection time and got clear on her niche.  After writing down the titles of her preferred clients, she realized that there were similarities with all of the titles she wrote down.  Coincidentally, she had also been receiving a subscription to a magazine she had not subscribed to.  She held on to just one issue.  That one issue contained an article about that very niche client she identified during her reflection time.  A magazine she received months earlier coupled with her reflection time made it all come together months later.

When you take time to reflect, you’ll see those messages coming in your path.  If you listen and pay attention, you’ll see that message delivered in different ways.

Pay attention to similar messages.  You can get caught up in the day-to-day priorities, but when you hear the same message or when separate individuals are saying similar messages, it’s time to pay attention.  You very well may be getting a message you need to hear. 

When I was writing my book, Me, Myself, and Why? The Secrets to Navigating Change, I was asked by three different people in a matter of a few days if I would have a chapter on faith.  I listened and today the chapter on Faith is one chapter many people have said helped them in getting through a difficult time.

Establish your Foundation.  Many entrepreneurs don’t have a clear idea of what they want from life.  This leaves the entrepreneur visionless and confused.  Establishing your foundation includes understanding your purpose, having a clear vision, as well as aligning both the vision and purpose with the work you do.  I remember how confused I was when I started my own business.  It wasn’t until I had developed my Life Vision and really understood my natural gifts and purpose that I became clear in my direction.  I used to have to hear the same message three times before I realized that maybe I should pay attention to it.  With these foundational tools, it is much easier to spot messages and determine their fit immediately.

Whether you receive messages from the marketplace, other people, or notice coincidental messages coming your way, paying attention to them can pay off in many ways.

Do you have an interesting story with a set of circumstances or messages received from different sources and you finally got the message that changed your path or helped you with a decision?  I’d love to hear about your story – and the impact it had on your life or your business. Post your story!

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Lisa Mininni is Best-Selling Author of Me, Myself, and Why? The Secrets to Navigating Change and President of Excellerate Associates, the only national program for small business owners taking a systems approach to profitability.  Learn more at http://www.freebusinessplanformat.com

Hello Everyone!

I’m excited!  I can’t wait to show you a new video series I’ve been recording to help small business owners grow their business complete with strategies and tactics!  The series is coming out in the near future so stay tuned!

By the way, get ready to schedule a not-to-miss radio segment!  Referral Marketing is one of the most effective ways grow your business and next Wednesday, July 28 at 9 a.m. Eastern Time is your chance to tune in to my Blog Talk Radio Show, Navgating Change, and listen to my special guest, Tim Green of the Referral Institute who will spill the beans on how referral marketing systems can grow your business by $100,000.        

Mark Your Calendar for “Get Emotional About Referral Marketing.”  Remember to mark us as a Friend on Blog Talk Radio or subscribe to the RSS Feed so that you are notified of our upcoming events at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/navigating_change!

Now, on to this week’s article:  Four Steps from Apathy to Accomplishment

There are many definitions for apathy, but generally it is a state of indifference and the feelings of powerlessness to change.  For small business owners, this state of apathy kills a small business in record time.

 

The journey to apathy often comes out of a constant struggle for clarity of direction.  One day you find yourself at a crossroads because you feel that you’ve “tried everything” and “nothing” seems to be working!  You start that internal conversation, “maybe I’m not meant to have the same lifestyle I did before.”  “Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am.”  “Are people really going to pay for that?”  These self-limiting conversations leave the entrepreneur stuck more than a horse in a mud pit.  (And if you’ve ever seen a horse in a mud pit, you know what I’m talking about.)

 

One thing is certain, each small business owner has a present and a future.  Everything in between is the process.  So even though your present situation may not be where you want it to be, there’s good news.   There’s a way out of the stuck place of apathy and you can change that feeling of “I don’t care anymore.”

  

A small business owner can move from apathy to accomplishment by taking four simple steps:

1.       Embrace Powerful Choice

As mentioned in Me, Myself, and Why?  The Secrets to Navigating Change, “We make choices every day about what will inspire us and what we will allow to get us down.  We have a choice to move ahead or allow ourselves to stay stuck in a rut.”   I have noticed that effective business owners make good choices, and their choices are enhanced by their level of awareness about themselves.  Awareness pushes a small business owner beyond any self-limiting comfort zones.  The most powerful is the choice of whether or not you will choose to have PAAR (power, accountability, authority and responsibility) over the results you intend to achieve and the life you want to lead. 

 

If you don’t think you have a choice, (and think you lack personal power to change your circumstances) your self-limiting actions will follow.  Successful entrepreneurs choose and use their personal PAAR to move beyond any feelings of powerlessness or apathy.

 

2.      Create Your Vision

The most successful leaders even in the most desperate times created a vision for the future.  They spoke that vision and engendered that vision in others.  This creative power of vision overcomes apathy when you can imagine an ideal future.  When you start imagining your ideal future, you can use your imagination to build on your innate strengths and motivations that overcome often irrational fears.   If it were not for my own vision, I might have quit in just my first two years of business.  I’ve observed that small business owners who have not committed to a vision, burnout, quit, or live with unsatisfying outcomes.

 

Overcome apathy by creating and sharing your own vision statement, identifying solid goals, and writing down your list of those things you intend to attract into your life.

 

3.     Recognize the Power of Positive Thought

Have you ever known someone who sapped your energy? Conversely, have you known someone was an energizer and made you feel good when you were around them?  Chances are, the energizer had a positive outlook and was often focused on the strengths of others or made it a point to help others.  But if you’re in apathy, you’re likely focused on yourself and your own problems.

 

When you shift to positive thought, several things will happen:

 

• It Boosts your Self Confidence.  Self-confidence makes doing business with you attractive.

 

• You Attract Your Ideal.  When you’re focused on what it is you do intend to attract, you’ll invite more of it into your life and your business.

 

• You Attract More Business.  When you focus on the strengths of others, helping others, and display a positive self-image, it counterbalances any force of apathy.  People enjoy being around people who generate creative ideas, not only for themselves, but for others around them.   You become a trusted source and people send others they know to you.

 

4. Choose Courage
To offset apathy, choose courage even in the face of adversity.  David Byrd, author of The Tipping Point, writes that the most important type of courage is emotional courage.  “Emotional courage is your personal, conditioned capacity to respond with positive actions rather than negative beliefs to all life events.”  For many people, their positions have been downsized and they are choosing to start new businesses.  While this career shift may be emotionally difficult for some people, this choice of responding with positive actions rather than negative beliefs about self or the future, is part of developing that emotional courage.

 

Byrd suggests exercising your emotional courage by:

 

• Believing in Your Potential – Make a list of your top strengths and build on them.

 

• Develop a Healthy Attitude Toward Mistakes, Failures, and Negative Outcomes – Take imperfect action.  The more you take, the more you build up your capacity.  “…start with a healthy attitude toward all life events, the good and the bad,” states Byrd.

 

• Break out of your Negative Past Conditioning by Exercising your Power of Choice –  Consciously choose to act courageously.

 

• Redesign your Attitudes by Displacement –  The fear of failure causes many small business owners to blame or procrastinate then rationalize those excuses.  Afterall, you can’t lose a game you never play.  So entrepreneurs remove themselves from ever playing.    To develop emotional courage, shift your rationalization.  Instead of talking yourself out of not playing next time, redesign your attitude, and, in its place, define what you can do, rather than rationalizing what you can’t do.

 

The next time you feel the weight of apathy enveloping you, cancel it.  Choose to believe that you have the power to let go of what weighs you down, the power to change your reality and the power to be:  be all of who you were designed to be. 

 

 

Lisa Mininni is President of Excellerate Associates, home of The Entrepreneurial Edge System^TM the only national program for small business owners taking a systems approach to profitability.  To discover how your clients find you, choose you, and buy from you, visit http://www.freebusinessplanformat.com.

When it comes to marketing your business, are you staying open to the latest trends?  Are you adjusting your strategy to incorporate them?  Not every trend will be right for every business, but there may be new developments that can take your business from humdrum to hot.   

Check out the social and technological trends that are happening and decide what’s best for you:

Social Trends

According the latest data, the Hispanic population is the fastest-growing segment of the US.   This population represents approximately 25% of new births so expect them to have an impact on your future business.   Businesses will accommodate this fast-growing market with more localized websites and localized online marketing.

Video

According to Comscore.com, over 78% of the US internet audience views online videos and you’ve probably noticed more video blogs.   You’ll also see both online and mobile-based video especially with new improved phones.

Mobile and Text

With nearly 50 million people in the U.S. accessing the web on a mobile device now, some researchers predict that by 2014 over 20 billion mobile applications will be downloaded yearly.  While there’s been a lot of hype about mobile use for years, the mobile web market is here.  Start planning now on how this technology will change the way you communicate with your customers and leverage this technology.

(My Virtual Assistant was proofreading this article and snickered as she viewed it from her digital phone!  How people get work done is rapidly shifting!) 

Targeted Marketing

With massive online traffic overwhelming the inbox, there will still be a market for regular mail but it is expected to be used to develop relationships with prospects you’ve already met and as part of a follow up to business you’ve already secured.

Just a little over two years ago, marketing became more social and 2009 saw the social elements of marketing accelerate.  Social media went from being on the cutting edge, to approaching the mainstream with word-of-mouth relationships.

Businesses realize they need a social online media marketing strategy and will want to make sure they target the right social media platforms for their specific target market.

Authentic Marketing

People want to know the people they are doing business with.  The logo will continue to play a much less central role than it did years back especially for the small business owner.  Customers want to see a face so they know who they are dealing with before engaging services.

Business people are connecting one-to-one through social media sites and this activity will continue.

Consider these ideas to take advantage of these trends:

• Using video to record testimonials from your satisfied clients is only one way to add value to your prospect’s experience.  Give your business an added boost for your visitors.  Invite your customers to videotape themselves using your products.  Have a jewelry store?  Show the latest wedding proposal on your Facebook site.  Have a restaurant?  Show a short video on your YouTube page of customers enjoying their special occasions at your place. 

• Use your real name on sites like Twitter.com.  People like to do business with people they know, like and trust.

• Conduct market research with your customers to find out what’s really important to them.  Use free tools like Google docs or SurveyMonkey to collect your data.  For larger companies, you may want to use more robust analytics, like Infotool-online.com to get to the root cause of your customer (and employee) wants and satisfaction.

• Membership sites are great ways to work with your customers and are in line with the trend of creating an online community.   While consultants, coaches and financial service providers use membership sites to educate their clients and provide special online events, a growing trend is among restaurants and jewelry stores who use memberships to successfully even out cash flow and consistently entice customers with special member benefits.

Savvy entrepreneurs who continuously grow their businesses keep track of these trends and engage their creative thinking to see how the trends can be applied in their own unique businesses. 

What creative marketing are you doing?  Share it!

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Lisa Mininni is President of ExcellerateAssociates.com, home of The Entrepreneurial Edge System showing entrepreneurs how their prospects find them, choose them, and buy from them.  Get tips, techniques and resources to grow your business at www.freebusinessplanformat.com