Slot 9: Networking Four Letter Words

This education slot doesn't take itself too seriously and can be a good way to raise a smile or two.  You will need a white-board or flip chart and a marker.  Before the meeting starts, draw out in four lines, four 'hangman' style spaces.  Each is going to represent a four letter word.

Good morning chapter.  I'm going to talk about sweaing this morning.  Its not appropriate in a business settings and there and there has been far too much of it in the 60 second presentations around the table these days so I thought that it would be worth while going over some of the networking 'four letter words' that you should never use in your presentation. 

Stride up to the board and take out a pen.  Then ask 

Can anyone tell me the first four letter word?

Whatever you do - don't let anyone answer.  Instead, write up on the board 'AN' 'Y' 'BO' 'DY' - in each of the spaces where one letter should go.  

Asking a referral from 'anybody who ....' is a sure fired way of blending into the background.  We meet anybody's every day of the week and 'anybodies' never remind of us our referral partners.  Instead we need to be far more specific.

'SO' 'M' 'BO' 'DY" - just as bad as anybody - somebody is equally bland and banal.  Instantly forgettable and won't help generate business for you.

'N' 'O' [you will have to make it stretch across the spaces.  We don't want to know about what you don't have.  It is just as bad as another four letter word 'NO' 'TH' I' 'NG'.  This is the 'I have ...' part of the meeting.  I have no doubt that you have contributed towards the chapter in some way this week - so now is a good time to focus on it.

So lets cut out the swearing in our 60 presentation today.

Slot 8: Attention Please!

Last week we went through how to break down your contacts into groups of people who could find you most work. We're going to figure out how we can best serve our 'A' listers with a simple tip.

So last week we learned how to break down our contact lists into A, B's, C's and D's.

Did anyone go through the exercise? Well - whether you have or not - I want you to write down on a sheet of paper at least a preliminary 'A' list. Just come up with 5 - 15 names of people you think are in the best position to refer work to you. Some of the people on your list will be sitting here right now in this room. Some will not.

No we know that the best way to stimulate and motivate these people to find work for us - is to find work for them. How do we do that? There are several ways. This week I'm going to show you just one.

[Now for this part of the demonstration I am going to use a youtube video. The video demonstrates how important it is to focus on what you are looking for. You can see the video at http://www.dothetest.co.uk/].

[Alternatly you can write this text up on the flip chart before the slot. Make sure it is covered by another sheet of paper. You will ask the audience to count the number of times they see the word success in the text . Uncover the text and then cover it again.

"There once was a time when people of the business network were sad. No mattter what they tried, they were never able to get the things they really wanted. Then one day they learned the secrets of success and the sale of Prozac and Zoloft came to a stand still"

Once covered- ask the room how many times the letter t was used. Few will get this right.]

Now what does all this tell us about finding work for our 'A' list referrers? It tells us that if we truely want to grow our business, and truely want to help doing this by finding work for our best referrers - we need to come up with a way of placing focus on them.

Now - lets brainstorm three ways you can place attention on your best customers EVERY DAY to start finding more work for them.

1.
2.
3.

Slot 7: The A, B, C and D's of networking

Networking like a maniac? Not getting the rewards - lets look at what might be going wrong and see how we can stop being so manic and more strategic about our networking activities.

At the begining of this BNI term I sent out a survey asking you what you would like to learn about. Second on the list, aside from how to invite more visitors, was "how do I get more referrals?". You guys all obviously get networking. You have a strong contact group here who can act as a core part of your networking strategy. You may be attending other networking events and be going hell for leather. Unfortunatly - its not just about paying up, turning up and sending out invoies. You need a strategy for networking - just like you would need a strategy for any marketing activity. I'm going to give you the strategy.

1. It all starts with a list. List out all of your contacts. You might have 100 or 250 of these. Where can you find them?
1. Your invoicing software
2. Your address book
3. Your social club
4. Your networking organisation
2. Don't stop until you have at least 100 names. In know you didn't do step 1 properly so go back and check out
   
1. Your mobile phone
2. Your phone bills (for numbers)
3. Your chamber of commerce
3. Now that you have your names we are going to prioritise them into A, B, C and D lists. Can anyone tell me what these lists are? [Wait for someone to claim they should be ordered by how much money they spend with you - then tell them they are wrong - aren't you so smart ;)]. We order them by their ability to pass referrals.
4. The A list are the top 10% (10 - 15 names) by their ability to pass you referrals. These guys are likely to pass you six referrals in a year. (one every two months).
   
5. The B list are the next 20 - 25% who have an ability to pass you one lead a year.
6. The C list is the remaining 50%. These guys you need to market to. They don't deserve your face to face contact but they do deserve some general marketing attention.
7. The remaining 10%-20% are wasting your time. FIRE THEM.

When you have a clear idea of who your top networkers are - you are in a position to spend your time more wisely. There should proabably by up to 5 of your A list in this room today. Maybe its only 1 but there should be at least 1. Then look after that A list. Focus on them. How do we do that?

By finding THEM business.

Givers gain.