There can be no question about this because if it didn’t, business networking groups like proNet’s wouldn’t exist and the whole concept of the business networking event or meeting as a marketing tool, would quickly diminish down to nothing.

Instead, there’s been a steady increase in a number of different types and models of networking events over the last few years. Granted some fall by the wayside along the path: perhaps because their ‘model’ isn’t quite right, or simply because their organizers lose interest and move onto other projects. In the two years that proNet’s been holding its meetings, we’ve seen a few start-up, shine brightly and then fizzle out; yet on the other hand we’ve seen some that have reached stratospheric heights in terms of popularity from a standing start during the same period.

It’s all swing and roundabouts, but generally it can be said that

Business Networking Works

It’s just a case of finding the right group and format that suits you and your business.

You’ve Got to be in it to Win It!

So when I hear criticism about the validity of our networking meetings in terms of them being able to generate ‘value’ for our members, I take it with a pich of salt because it’s an unjustified criticism that I hear time-and-time again about other successful networking groups besides ours.

A Pinch of Salt

So why do I say this when I hear this? Well firstly I know that proNet works for its members when it comes to delivering both tangible business and value in some other way such as  informing and educating, building confidence and creating business networks etc. The list goes on! Steady growth over the last two years with profitable meetings and positive feedback from members has demonstrated this by the spadeful.

So why would people not agree?

Let me paint you a picture of the member who may say this. This picture isn’t unique to proNet though and may be applied to the cynical members of any membership based networking organisations like proNet.

A Picture Painted

Here’s the characteristics:

• Attendance. As the headline above suggests, ‘You’ve got to be in it to win it!’. So by not attending on a regular basis, how does one expect to build trust and familiarity with other members? No one is going to pass anyone any business unless they know and trust them. This only comes through relationship building.
• Give Something Back. Even if one attends regularly, but doesn’t give anything back into the group – one can expect nothing in return. Start as you mean to go on by contributing to the networking group you’re in and it’ll pay dividends in the long run.
  ‘Contributing’ can take a number of forms: the obvious one is to actively seek out and pass referrals to other members on a regular basis. If that’s not possible, then why not volunteer to run a workshop, do a short presentation or take an organisational or administrative role within your group?
  Show enthusiasm about other members’ businesses, listen to what they have to say and actively go out of your way to promote them to your peers and associates. Do this and you’ll quickly build esteem amongst your fellow networkers.
  If your business has a product or a service that may be of use to the group directly; then why not consider offering your services either free or at a discount to the group itself. For example, if you’re a web designer – consider building or maintaining the group’s website. A graphic designer could offer to design some flyers or brochures for the group and the group’s printer could offer to print them. In all cases it’s an easy way to demonstrate your skills and credibility to other members as well as ‘giving something back’.
• Behave Yourself. People buy from people. It’s a cliché I know, but still rings true even in today’s online world. So it stands to reason when trying to foster relationships within a networking group that you should treat people as you would expect to be treated yourself. People talk and a reputation built over many years can quickly crumble within the confines of a small networking group. To illustrate, some of the unacceptable behaviour I’ve witnessed over the years in networking circles has included;
• Buying services from another member and then not paying their bill in a timely manner or in a few cases I’ve witnessed, not at all, without a good reason.
• Using inappropriate humour in an open meeting. Anything sexist or even slightly racist should be avoided at all costs.
• Acting in an aggressive manner towards other members. I’m not talking physical aggression here (although that goes without saying), I’m taking about being argumentative or demeaning to another member. I’ve seen this in action quite recently which resulted in the perpetrator being ‘sent to Coventry’ by the membership.
• Don’t be overly critical of others. The best way to motivate people is to praise them, so if one wants to influence and support your fellow networking members, don’t critise them in an negative way either on a one-to-one basis or God forbid, in front of the room! Try and be constructive if you do feel the urge to point out someone’s failings.
• Join In. This is similar to the ‘give something back’ element above but differs in that it means joining in with the actual networking process. I know some people are nervous or uncomfortable about making the first move when it comes to networking – that’s where a good visitor host comes into their own by encouraging people to join in; but if your intention is to sit on your own playing with your phone or reading your diary throughout the whole event without interacting with anyone, then you can’t expect to get anything out of the meeting.
• Give it Time. Business networking isn’t a quick fix! Expect to keep at it for at least six months to a year for a membership based group; give it some effort and avoid the pitfalls described above and I’ll eat my hat if you don’t get value out of your networking group of choice by the end of your trial period. In other words, keep your expectations of networking realistic and hone your networking skills and the rewards will come.

So there you have it. Just some of the reasons why some people may feel that networking doesn’t work as a concept.

This list isn’t exhaustive, perhaps you have examples of your own? Please post them as a comment below.

About the Author

Jamie Dobson of proNet

Jamie Dobson is the co-founder of the networking group proNet which meets fortnightly over breakfast in Liversedge, West Yorkshire.

He extends an invitation to any business owner to attend one of their meetings. Contact him on membership@joinpronet.com or on 07792 090 700 for further details.

Profile Pic: Roger V Moody

Jamie says,

The UK Government has confirmed that Agency Workers will benefit from increased protection from 1st October 2011 when The Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) 2010 come into force.

He continues,

These regulations aim to give agency workers fair treatment, pay, holidays and working rights that mirror those of the employee. So in other-words, if your company employs agency or temporary workers, then you can’t avoid not knowing about this important piece of new legislation for the employee and employers alike.

The Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) - 1st October 2011

To help employers come to term with these new regulations, THE Agency is running a 2.5 hour breakfast briefing on Wednesday 21st September in Cleckheaton.

This workshop is free of charge and includes a light breakfast which will be served at 8.00am on the day of the workshop. The main presentation will start at 8.30am and finish at 11.00am.

Places are limited so booking is essential.

To book your free place, call Kim or Catherine at THE Agency on 01274 869100 or email Kim on kimbarnes@theagency.org.uk

There is ample and free parking at the venue.

Further information is available online at www.eventsbot.com/events/eb223083986

This slot is handed over to a specialist in their field of expertise who helps inform or maybe educate, those people in the room. In the past we’ve had speakers presenting on the subject of social media, charity fundraising, computer tips, the use of imagery in marketing and making a successful cash-flow projection for your business to name but a few of the topics.

We’re now putting in place our speakers for June and July 2011 the scheduled list of which, currently looks like the one below.

If you’d like to present at a future proNet meeting within the KTS slot (you don’t have to be a member), you are welcome to do so if you think you have some value to add to our meetings. However, before you contact us; please review the information on the following page first.

• June 14th – Julie Biddle from Julie Biddle Associates, Gaining New Business Appointments Using the Telephone.
  This short presentation is aimed at business people who need to get in front of decision makers within existing or new potential customers to present their products or service . This is often a daunting task and one that we often put off. This short session will demonstrate techniques to get past the gatekeeper as well as tried and trusted ways of gaining the visit once we are speaking to the decision maker.
• June 28th – Christian Lister from Xpress Legal, [Title to be released soon]
• July 12th – Jamie Dobson from JD Consulting, Getting the Best from LinkedIn – Open Discussion
• July 26th – Julie Biddle from Julie Biddle Associates, Presenting Your Cost and Proposal for Best Effect
• August 9th - Julie Biddle from Julie Biddle Associates, An Insight Into Negotiation
• August 23rd – Sharon Senior from Sharon Senior Counselling, [Title to be released soon]
• September 6th – Daniel Watts from Yorkshire Business World, [Title to be released soon]

A full list of meeting dates for 2011 may be found on this page. all meetings which onclude the above presentations, start at 7.30am with open networking and breakfast and cost just £12 on the door (cash only please).

To book your place please contact Isabel on spenvalley@joinpronet.com

Led by former university lecturer, proNet co-founder and director of Solutions Bookkeeping, Vicky Newham: areas covered included the concept of business networking, elevator speeches, one-2-ones and generating visitors.

The whole session was felt to be highly interactive and enjoyable by all those that attended. A feeling summed up by proNet member Isabel Carter of The Work Well Partnership who commented afterwards,

This session was just what we needed to help hone our networking skills and gel us altogether as a group. A thoroughly enjoyable session which resulted in a real ‘buzz’ in the room.

Plans are afoot to develop further training for our members on different aspects of business networking, so watch this space for details or why not pop along to one of future meetings to see how your business can get involved and to learn how being a member of proNet can add real value to your business.

Finally, take a look at the short video below from business networking training providers Kintish on how NOT to network. Enjoy!

It’s frustrating when this happens, but the problem may lie with you. It may be, for example, that your introduction when you first meet people or when you give a presentation or elevator speech, just isn’t memorable and as such, simply doesn’t register with people.

The most effective networkers are highly memorable. They make it easy to remember and repeat what they do and what makes them different.

So to help you reach this status for yourself, here are four things to consider when preparing your introduction. Aim to make this no more than 30 seconds. And try to make your message as graphic as if you were burning it permanently into people’s brains with a branding iron.

• Describe what you do in benefit terms that mean somethingFor example, if you are an IFA you might say: ‘I help people build long-term wealth.’ Or if you offer computer support you might say: ‘We stop staff surfing the net on company time.’ If you write databases you might say: ‘We help people double the value of their data.’
• What is your target market? Find yourself a niche market. Avoid being too general – it’s harder for people to remember. Our IFA might say: ‘One of our target markets is independent professionals in their late 40s/early 50s.’The computer support expert might say: ‘Our target market is businesses employing 10-50 people around Leeds.’ The result is that your audience will instinctively start to filter through their contacts to see if they know anyone who fits the bill.
• What is their business pain? The trick here is to pose a question or statement that your audience might hear from one of their contacts (or even have themselves). For example: ‘I’m looking for people who are worried about their pension and don’t know what to do.’
  This sentence must have a ‘pain’ verb in it – in this case ‘worried’. 

  Or: ‘I’m looking for business owners who want to raise productivity. For example, if a dozen employees surf the ‘net for an hour a day on company time, that’s a whole year of lost production. Ouch!’

  Experiment with this. For example, in the above scenario, ten employees amounts to 291 lost days, but that’s not really a memorable figure. On the other hand ‘a dozen’ and ‘a year’ will stick.

• How do you fix this pain? You then say ‘what we do is ……’ Keep it to one sentence and focus on outcomes. For example: ‘What we do is talk to them and build a plan that makes their money work for them properly.’The trick here is to keep your introduction really simple and short but starting to build in what makes you different.

  A successful introduction is short, memorable and begs the question: ‘How do you do that then?’

Finally, don’t forget to practice, practice as they say, makes perfect and will help you become more memorable with your networking message.

These are something our group’s current chairperson, Isabel Carter of The Work Well Partnership, is keen to develop.

She comments,

Getting to know your fellow members and their businesses better pays you back in dividends. The more you know about a member’s business the better you’re able find quality referrals for them and vice-versa of course, in this way one-2-one’s are two-way exchange.

One-2-one meetings are a great way to get to know your fellow members, away from our fortnightly meetings. They help build rapport and that all important trust element that is essential for successful business networking. The better the rapport you have with your fellow members, the more leads and opportunities you’ll be able to find for each other. By systematically developing your relationships with each other, you will be systematically improving the chances of business opportunities being passed to you at future meetings.

That’s where the real of power of one-2-ones comes into play.

Get to know each other in a one-2-one meeting

Ask the Right Questions

during your one-2-one session, you may cover a whole range of topics, but remember a one-2-one session isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a chance to learn about each other, to this end, here’s some of the questions you might ask each other:

• What are your unique selling points?
• How are you getting business at present?
• Who would make a good client?
• How would I start a conversation about you?
• What types of leads do you get most often?
• What would make a really good lead for you?
• What should I listen or watch for that could indicate a possible referral?
• What professions or trades do you need to talk to?
• Who are you three best clients?
• Can I help you in any other way?

So get your one-2-one booked with a member, get the kettle on and get your notebook out to unleash the power of one-2-one meeting.

Good luck.

Although this presentation is entitled “Top Ten Tips” you may be a little bit disappointed. Sorry….

Like all good marketing people we’ve given you a big headline to suck you and now we’re going to let you down slowly and tell you the truth.

Well, that’s not strictly true. The thing is, this presentation was never intended to give you  ten tips to radically change your business through internet marketing – because that’s pretty much impossible. Despite what we’re all lead to believe there are no silver bullets in digital marketing – you can’t just take ten tips and change your business. If there were, I’d be writing this from my Yacht.

These ten tips are instead steps, processes or concepts that if applied to your digital marketing will make it and your business more successful and effective.

So, without further ado here are our tips:

1. Know your audience
   If you don’t know who you’re selling to then you’re on a losing streak from the outset. You really need to have an understanding of your customer – how old are they, are they male or female, what do they do for a living, how much do they earn, what do they expect from you as a business, who else do they do business with, where do they spend their time online…

   These are just a few examples of some good questions that you should know the answers to when it comes to your target customers. Why? Well, without knowing who you want to sell to or attract to your website you’re sure as hell going to struggle when you try to find them.

2. Sell to your audience
   Or in other words – don’t do anything with your digital marketing unless it will bring you money in. Ever so obvious but you wouldn’t believe how often this is overlooked.

   There’s really two sides to this point. The first being that once you understand who your audience is go out and market to them – don’t market to anyone else. The key word here is ‘your’ – sell to your audience.

   Secondly put the focus on selling to your audience. We’re in tough economic times so anything you do with your website or do with your internet marketing should be focussed around driving sales and making money.

3. Attract more visitors
   Sounds pretty obvious but this is so often missed as there seems to be this huge misconception that if you build a website people will just turn up and you’ll be the next dot com millionaire.

   Well sorry to be the the bearer of bad news but this just isn’t going to happen.

   Building your website is the first step along the digital marketing path but it’s no different to building and opening a new shop. Sure, some people will stumble past the front door and stick their heads in but without a marketing plan, and of course a budget, you just aint going to survive.

   So put a plan in place now (or even better before you start building your website) – it doesn’t matter whether you look at search engine marketing, email marketing or social media – but make sure you have a solid plan for attracting the masses to your front door.

4. Engage more people
   Engagement is the first step to converting a visitor to your website into a customer.

   Nobody likes buying boring products, from dull people in shops without any personality – and the same is true in the online world. You need to get your customers to engage with you, you need to get them to believe in your brand, your products or your service.

   Make sure that when customers come across your website, or interact with you on social media, or you email them that you are engaging and that they either want to read more of your website, talk to you more about your product or ideally buy more of what you are selling.

5. Convert more people
   So you’ve got lots of traffic, your customers are engaged and….. they’re not buying or enquiring.

   It’s probably fair to say that some of the previous points have been pretty obvious but this is one that evan most well established web businesses don’t do well enough.

   Turning a website visitor into a paying customer or a lead is a big challenge but I would say one of the most effective ways of improving your bottom line through online marketing.

   How you convert more customers will be dependent on your business, your products and your website – it could be through providing stronger calls to action (i.e. your add to basket button or your contact button) or it could be by redesigning your page entirely. The only way to know for sure is to try it out.

   But, to give you an example of how powerful this can be, and this really is a typical example not an extreme – one organisation we worked with spent over £30,000 in a 6 month period to increase their website traffic by 10%. When we looked to increase their conversion rate we undertook a subtle redesign of a key area of their site. For less than £1,000 and a week later they had 15% more customers converting.

   50% more effective and 97% cheaper. Pretty effective!

6. Retain more customers
   Come on, we’ve all heard the old tale – it costs 10 times as much to attract a customer as it does to keep an existing one.

   Then why if we all know that do we simply ignore it when it comes to digital marketing?

   The internet is by far the cheapest way to communicate with your customers so there’s really no excuse – start a newsletter campaign and contact your customers monthly with updates and new services or products, get in touch with them on social media, ask them to review your products – actually do anything, but keep them coming back.

   Above the more traditional ways of keeping in contact with your customers why not offer them a discount code for buying again or if you sell services incentivise your customers to spend above a certain limit by giving them cash/time back.

   A lot of people are nervous about giving discounts to existing customers – but why should you be. If you look at the cost of acquiring a customer for one sale I bet you’ll be surprised when you look at it in percentage format – for an e-commerce store selling electrical goods the marketing spend can be as high as 90% of the sale price.

   Looking at it that way offering a 10% discount off a second purchase is actually a very cheap way of selling more.

7. Measure your success
   One of the real differences that online has made to marketing is that everything in the online world can be measured. Now you’re reading this article I can tell whether you came from a search engine, if you did which keywords you used, I can tell whether you enquire after reading this content and I can tell what colour socks you’re wearing.

   OK, that last one’s a lie.

   With digital marketing the principle is that if you’re doing it you can measure it and if you can measure it you can do point 8 – improve.

8. Improve your performance
   Continuing on from point 7, once you know how your marketing is performing the next natural step is to improve your marketing.

   Please don’t pay attention to your competitors in the early stages. How your competitors perform with their website and digital marketing will be drastically different to how you could do with your business if you had an open mind.

   The worst that can happen is you either get led down the garden path in doing something you believe worked well for your competitors but actually didn’t or you limit your potential.

   Think about it – if you know your competitor gets 200 visitors per day to their website and converts 2% of them into a sale or enquiry doesn’t that make a great target? Not really is the honest answer.

   If your competitor isn’t doing their online marketing particularly well an 400 visitors per day converting at 4% is achievable you’ve seriously just limited what you could achieve.

   The best advice I can give is understand how your site performs and then work to improve it based on solid research and best practice.

9. Test everything
   Test, test and test again.

   Don’t be afraid of trying something and having it fail. Digital marketing can be fast and cheap so why not give something a go quickly, see how it works and then try do it differently to see if you can improve.

   Let’s say you’re fortunate to have a database of 10,000 potential customers that you want to email. I’d bet that most people reading this would love be able create a great looking email campaign and send it to all 10,000 and just watch the enquiries come flooding in.

   For easy maths let’s say 10% of the people we send the email to read it and then 10% of those click through to your website. You’ve just got yourself another 100 website visitors.

   But what if you could have had 15% of people open the email and 15% of them clicking through to your site? Sure, we could do this next time.

   Well with digital marketing all of this kind of testing and improvement can be done in real time to give you the best response possible from your marketing. Taking this email example further tools exist, that Squeeze can provide, that will intelligently send two emails and optimise the campaign in real time to get the best response for you. Here’s how it works:

   1. You design two emails and get them ready to send
   2. The system sends version A to 1,000 people and version B to 1,000 people
   3. We sit and wait an hour or so for the system to measure how many open and click on each email
   4. Your email marketing system then sends the remaining 8,000 people on the list the best performing email
   5. You get a better response than you thought possible.
      Although just one example, this level of testing can be done with almost any digital marketing activity.
10. None of this is about the internet
    Eh? I thought this was meant to be about digital marketing…

    Take a quick look back over the last 9 tips in this series:

    1. Know your audience
    2. Sell to your audience
    3. Attract more traffic
    4. Engage more people
    5. Convert more people
    6. Retain more customers
    7. Measure your success
    8. Improve your performance
    9. Test everything

Although in each of these points I may have talked about digital marketing techniques not one of them is specific to digital marketing.

They’re all good old fashioned marketing techniques.

So why is this point relevant? For that very reason – good old fashioned marketing techniques still apply in todays all singing all dancing internet age. Too many people get sucked into wanting to be top of Google, wanting to send out a whiz bang email or building a 3D animated website because it looks cool – all without considering whether it makes commercial sense.

So if you’re undertaking any digital marketing make sure the old rules still apply.

About the Author

Andrew Banks is a director with Halifax based Squeeze Digital Marketing and is a member of proNet’s Halifax Group.

Squeeze Digital Marketing are a relatively new digital marketing and digital strategy agency – but that doesn’t make us short on experience.

Squeeze is headed up by Andrew Banks, a Google accredited internet marketer with 10 years of hands on digital marketing experience working for some of the UK’s largest (and some of the smallest) brands.

Contact Andrew on 07817 407617 / andy@squeezedigital.co.uk and follow his musings on Twitter at twitter.com/squeezedigital

A consistent throughput of visitors helps keep meetings fresh, increases the networking opportunities for everyone in the room and maintain buoyant membership numbers thus compensating for any natural churn-rate that may exist.

However, getting visitors to attend any of proNet’s meetings can be difficult. So here’s the top 13 tips we’ve found that work when recruiting visitor’s to proNet’s breakfast networking meetings. If you know of any more, please post them as a comment at the foot of this page. We’d love to hear them.

1. Send a personalised email invitation (not a blanket one) to a select number of your contacts. Give them a reason to attend.
2. As you talk to people on the phone, invite them to a proNet meeting.
3. Create an Event on LinkedIn and invite your connections
4. If you’re on Twitter; Tweet an open invitation – use a link to the proNet website to help illustrate what proNet is all about.
5. Create an event on Facebook and invite your friends.
6. Organise a meeting with an associate directly after a proNet meeting and suggest that they come along with you to the breakfast meeting itself
7. Invite a work colleague/business partner
8. Invite one of your suppliers
9. Invite someone allied to your industry
10. Invite others you meet at other networking groups (strong contenders as they are already in the ‘networking’ mind set)
11. Ask an associate to substitute for you if you’re going to be away
12. Talk about proNet on your website, publish a blog article or news item and finish it with a call to action e.g. “…if you’d like to visit proNet’s next meeting then give me a call on XXXXX.”
13. If you publish a company newsletter or e-zine. Talk about proNet in that and invite readers to attend through you.

Note: Once you’ve gained the commitment of a person to attend the next proNet meeting as a visitor; then make sure you confirm the meeting with them the day before. Ideally this should be done by telephone just to make sure they’re still happy to attend or haven’t forgotten.

After reading this, if you’d like to attend a proNet meeting yourself, take a look at our operating groups and contact the group’s chairperson to arrange a visit.

Photo Credit: John Steel Photography

She writes…

I can’t be the only one to have noticed the ever-increasing number of euphemisms and PC phrases that are creeping into our everyday world.

Many of them are created in government and public sector agencies and by ‘do gooders’ who want to bend over backwards lest they might unwittingly offend someone. Much of it ends up drawing attention to issues that previously even those they are trying to avoid offending hadn’t given the time of day to.

The trouble is, the more we hear these phrases, the more we read them (especially those of us who work alongside these people – try ‘Education-speak’ if you really want to blow your mind!), however much we hate them, these words and phrases have a way of insidiously implanting themselves into our consciousness and before we know it we hear them coming out of our own mouths!

‘do gooders’ who want to bend over backwards lest they might unwittingly offend someone

Have you noticed, for instance, that new housing developments no longer have a sales office – they have a ‘Marketing Suite’. Surely when you’re thinking of buying a new house or flat (or should that be ‘loft’ or ‘apartment’?) you just want to see what it looks like, find out what fixtures, fitting and extras you get with it, and, most importantly, the price. Marketing is what should be done before you even get there – it’s the bit that the estate agent does, the advertising boards, the press coverage – the very reason you were attracted to go and look in the first place. Certainly you might want to take a brochure or other information away with you to think about – and, yes, that is part of marketing – but the main objective of the people in the ‘Marketing Suite’ is to sell you a property.

Then there’s ‘pedestrian refuges’. I remember when we called them simply ‘road islands’ or ‘traffic islands’. I guess using the word ‘pedestrian’ does tend to clarify their purpose but this new description conjures up in my mind images of cold, wet pedestrians in thick coats, huddled together like penguins, in the face of some terrible threat.

‘Cash back’ is another when using a credit or debit card to pay for goods. Sounds great doesn’t it? Like a kind of bonus – “While you’re paying for the goods, would you like us to give you a few quid for free?” Unfortunately not…. nice thought though! What we’re really being asked is “While we’re taking the money for your goods, would you like to draw some of your own cash too?” Surely it’s not beyond the realms of imagination to just ask, “Do you want to draw any cash?”, instead of wrapping it up in a nice catchy phrase that is totally meaningless. Computer-speak has also brought a whole raft of words and phrases. We now ‘access’ things instead of opening files, getting information etc. And we ‘key in’ documents and information instead of typing them but I haven’t noticed that it makes any difference to what my fingers do on the keyboard.

While you’re paying for the goods, would you like us to give you a few quid for free?

As for being PC, how daft is it to be called a ‘chair’ instead of chairman, chairwoman or even chairperson? Now, while I’m all for equal opportunities, I’ve never been one for burning my bra (in my case, it wouldn’t make much of a fire anyway!) and to my mind a chair is a piece of furniture that you sit on. Whenever I have agreed to take on the chairmanship of anything I have always been quite adamant that I would prefer to be called Chairman – but it’s a losing battle. Whilst this has actually met with cheers of delight in some quarters, few people are willing to go along with it and I’ve even been told that in official documents and on websites I have to be called ‘Chair’ in order to conform to what all the other ‘Chairs’ are doing. The worst part of it is that now I sometimes catch the dreadful word coming out of my own mouth!

‘Brainstorm’ is another word to have been declared non-PC as it apparently describes the electrical activity that goes on in the brains of epilepsy sufferers when experiencing a fit. We are now recommended to use the phrase ‘thought shower’ or ‘mind shower’, which just doesn’t adequately describe the (usually collective) process of firing a load of ideas out at random before considering the value of each of them. However, a recent survey of epilepsy charities and sufferers showed that neither had any objections to the phrase unless it was used in a derogatory or offensive manner against them.

It’s heartening, however, to hear that in some cases we have gone full circle. When preparing a press release about a particular piece of machinery that had adjustable height and was being used in a plant that employs disabled people, I said (trying to be PC), “So, the advantage is that it can be used easily by people with differing abilities.” “We just say disabled,” came the response. “It’s OK to do that now.”

Pupils will be able to hydrate during the learning experience

Finally, just to emphasise my whole point about saying what we mean, I’ll leave you with a whole sentence that for me ‘really takes the biscuit’ (which is a strange kind of phrase in itself). It is the response of the Head Teacher of a new City Academy to concerns that there would be no playground or outdoor recreational areas as there would be no breaks between lessons: “Pupils will be able to hydrate during the learning experience.” And him a schoolteacher too!

To find out more about Brenda’s business check out her profile on
LinkedIn . Read more posts like these on her blog at
http://brendahodgson.wordpress.com/

In my opinion, the most important skill you need when running your own business is the ability to sell. Now, lets be clear, I’m not suggesting that you should all go to college or night school and take a Sales Course, that probably wouldn’t help you at all. Even though Salespeople are often the highest paid people at a company (and have the most direct contact with your customers), sales is often looked upon with contempt when compared to strategy, leadership, finance, and other business skills. Nonetheless, if you want to be successful you need to accept this fact of life and learn to sell.

Many people I talk to about selling respond without hesitation by listing lots of reasons why they don’t need to learn to sell, but they are missing a basic fact.. Your always selling, whether you like it or not. Whether your selling yourself to an employer, your boss when your trying to get a pay, your colleagues on a new idea, your shareholders on a new business plan or your staff on a change in strategy. Even if you never interact directly with a customer, you still need to sell yourself and your ideas to all kinds of people.

I start all my Sales Sessions with a confession. I hate selling. I’ve been in positions where I’ve had to make cold calls and found myself stumbling awkwardly on the phone. It never really mattered whether I liked it or not, what mattered is what needed to be done. So if you are like me and quiet, happy to spend time alone, easily bored by chit-chat and small talk, but you want to learn to sell, this is for you. Over the years I have learned a few things, and while I am not by any means a good salesperson, I’m not a total clot at it either. Save this blog, and use it as a survival guide for an unpleasant task that you must learn to do.

Change Your Attitude About Sales

Part of the problem is we tend to associate sales with “convincing someone to buy something they don’t want or need.” This is a common problem for many of us, because we’re focused on our internal thoughts and ideas and aren’t used to pushing them out at other people. But convincing someone to buy something that they don’t need isn’t sales, it’s stupidity. Selling things to the wrong people is a sure way to make sure you end up with a bad reputation and eventually go out of business. Start with my basic acronym AQAL and you cant go wrong. “Ask Questions And Listen”. This is something I talk about with people and its amazing how this simplistic approach can massively improve your success rate and your customers perception of you and your business.

In my opinion, the most important skill you need when running your own business is the ability to sell.

Think of sales as providing a service. You are meeting the needs of someone, but it may be a need the person doesn’t realise they have. Think of sales as teaching, educating, and helping prospective buyers get to the root of their problems and realise how your solution is beneficial to them. Think of yourself as an informational guide. Think of yourself as a valuable resource. That one attitude shift can make a huge difference in your sales success.

Always Do Your Research

Whether you are sourcing leads for a regular sales job or pitching your boss on a new idea, ALWAYS do your research beforehand. Selling is much easier when you’re prepared. If you like cold calling, it might be efficient to just start pounding the phone and accepting the fact that most of the people you talk to will say no but that you will get a handful of good leads. But if each call is something that you intensely dislike why waste your time on calls with a low probability of success? Do your research first and figure out who best needs your product or service, and who the right person is to talk to at the target company. AQAL!

Warm Up With Informational Calls

It is so much easier to get past the receptionist when you ask for someone by name, instead of asking for “whoever is in charge of your stationary.” If you call and say that you want to email something, and ask who to mail it to so that I can get the right name and then call back. Using this principal you could make several calls to a company to ask various questions and gather useful information before making a call to make to ask for a meeting.

Selling is much easier when you’re prepared.

Focus on the Intent of the Call

You want to keep the call short, so don’t try to close the sale on the phone. Just get to the meeting. If your sales goal is to pitch someone internally on an idea, don’t try to sell them in one meeting. Spark an interest with a teaser version of your idea, then work on selling more thoroughly later.

Treat it Like an Experiment

For those of us who are not natural salesman we tend to approach sales with an inward focus, so treat calls as an experiment that you can use to increase your long-term efficiency. Set up multiple phone scripts, and work through them picking the best bits, keep a track of the success rates of each one. This will help you develop a friendlier approach to cold calls as you wont be worrying about the content of the call.

Use Warm Leads

The best strategy though, regardless of your score on the introvert-extrovert scale, is to use warm leads. Figure out who knows the person you need to talk to, and how you can get a warm introduction so the person will take your call and be at least mildly interested in what you have to say.

Role Play

It sounds cheesy and a bit awkward, but I do think this helps. Have your spouse or a colleague pretend to be a potential customer and work through your pitch so that it becomes more automatic. Then it requires less thinking on the phone. Now I don’t want to be a salesperson, and probably most of you don’t either. But that isn’t a reason to never learn to sell. It’s an invaluable skill, even if you don’t do it on a daily basis.

I hope these tips have been useful to you, and if you would like me to delivery a short presentation for you or your business drop me a line.

Connect with Andrew

To contact Andrew about aspects discussed in this essay. Give him a call on 07724 414915 or drop him an email using halifax@joinpronet.com Follow his musings on Twitter at @aelhawley