Remember, every ingredient to creating a compelling connection with a prospect has just one purpose – to have them take the next step. Whether that step is to supply your organisation with ongoing referrals, add them to the database for regular news updates or preferably purchase a product is not important – the individual must act.
So it’s fairly obvious that if your front-line are failing to build effective and profitable relationships then your company may be haemorrhaging money at the sides without any indication.
This raises some very critical questions;
How do you measure your team’s relationship building skills?
Where exactly are your team failing to connect with prospects and alliances?
And…
What are the basic fundamentals of building profitable relationships within your industry?
The following networking fundamentals will provide you with a concrete basis in which your team will become more effective and profitable networkers.
Fundamental #1: Purpose
You must identify your team’s purpose for networking with the intention of it going from connection to monetisation. The biggest challenge business faces is the fact that networking isn’t taken as seriously as marketing. Networking is marketing and a purpose must be outlined as such to keep individuals on task and in focus.
Fundamental #2: Message
You must clearly define the message you are taking to market to ensure it is aligned with your customer’s values and most importantly, that your team’s messages are matching and representative of the larger organisation. Miscommunication on this front is disastrous to making a positive and influential first impression. If the message waivers and is unclear prospects will be unaware of your team’s individual role in the bigger picture.
Fundamental #3: Presence
Your team must establish personal presence to build credibility, trust and connection with prospects and existing clients on an ongoing basis.
Identity of ‘self’ is a basic facet of effective networking. If your team lacks ‘individual’ self confidence and ‘presence’, i.e. the X factor then this will inexplicably impact their sales results time after time. By simply uncovering the ‘identity’ that they can hold and own when they approach a networking situation they will immediately find an innate confidence that connects and produces outcomes on larger scales.
Fundamental #4: Package
You must package yourself and your team up as a ‘marketable’ product that establishes instant credibility with your target market.
Your package must include poise and presence. Do your staff understand the basic networking etiquette practices or do they go in blindly and ‘accidentally’ insulting others based on their actions, i.e. in Asian cultures you must accept a business card with two hands and acknowledge it before placing it in your pocket. These finer distinctions become even more important the higher you play.
Fundamental #5: Image
You must style yourself and your team visually to establish instant presence and credibility within your marketplace and be taken seriously.
55% of all communication is visual. If your staff fail to impart the correct perceived impression of themselves and your company whilst networking – put simply, they will fail to gain trust, influence and most importantly satisfactory outcomes from their interactions.
People won’t take them seriously which mirrors the companies values and beliefs and reflects poorly. Basic grooming policies need to be put in place and reviewed regularly to ensure teams are adhering to them. They are after all your front line in a number of cases.
Fundamental #6: Connection
Your team must learn the ‘real’ way to build connection within business relationships via energetic and emotional engagement techniques that assist in building lead streams.
We each have the potential to shift someone neurologically via our interactions – whether we anchor positive emotions with the business brand is another question.
Have your team interact and engage at varying levels of energy to better connect, i.e. company policy that all prospects and alliance partners must be greeted with a smile. You may think this is basic, however I can tell you right now that not all of your team are practicing this.
Fundamental #7: Action
Your team must leverage all of their skills, abilities, credibility factors and resources to streamline and automate their networking process to maximise their productivity.
Failure to follow through on influential connections is detrimental to the income of your business. Put in place a step-by-step networking and touch-point-system for your staff when meeting new business connections.
This takes the guess work out of the process to produce more effective outcomes.
