Networking 101
Networking 101
Shifting gears a bit..from qualified leads and sales funnels (or cylinders) to Networking Your Way to Millions
There are many ways to generate leads. The best of course is referrals, who doesn’t want those? How do you network? Lets start at the very beginning. Mindset… many people are afraid to network. One of my networking mentors and former business partner in Networking for Success, Callum Laing used to tell a great story. When he first arrived in Thailand he wanted to get business going so what did he do? He went to many of the myriad of networking events in town. There is something going on every night of the week in Bangkok, well maybe except for the weekends with regard to Business Networking.
So Callum is off to one of the many networking events. He goes, he pays his entrance fee and guess what? Nothing happened. He said he would stand by the bar and eat/drink and play on his phone. He was as we call it at the first stage of Networking.. FEAR! Do you know what FEAR really stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real! Do you want to know how to get over the FEAR? Here are two very simple ideas for you. First, think of it this way. You are going to an event in Bangkok, say at the Sheraton Grande. It costs you 12 bucks US to get in (400 THB) and you get free flow of wine/beer/soft drinks plus a really nice heavy hors d’oevre spread of food. There are 150 people in attendance. Bit daunting right? How about thinking this way, ok? You just paid 12 bucks for 3 or 4 nice glasses of Wine, a nice dinner and maybe you only get to meet 1 or 2 people who are people you could potentially do some business with in the future. That is the worst thing that can happen to you as a result of attending the event. How bad is that? Didn’t think it was very bad at all. Get over the FEAR.
I promised you a second tip as well. I will introduce now…and we can talk about it more later…especially during the Networking Webinar during SuperStar Selling. I like to call it the Million Dollar Check game. You want to quickly get over your fear of meeting people at Networking events? Try this one.. think that when you go to an event the game is to find the person with the Million Dollar Check with your name on it. Would that motivate you to meet a few people if you knew that one of them had that check? Being in Sales that sure would motivate me! But it should motivate anyone, you are working in a non-profit, do you think having 1 Million Dollars would enable you to do some more good? Thought so. So get over your FEAR and get out Networking.