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In this episode:
00:04 – Improve business relationships through networking
00:10 – Join live events to expand your network
00:40 – Have someone introduce you
00:56 – Watch your timing
01:20 – Make specific requirements for referrals
01:51 – Best tip for networking
02:00 – Make a personal video
02:57 – Send your personal video instantly through email
Transcription:
James Schramko here with some tips on networking.
Expanding your business network
I’ve built a decent sized business from having great relationships, and a lot of those relationships have come through networking. Now, of course if you want to expand your network, a great tip is to turn up to events.
You should go to live events, online events, join masterminds or forums, and communities where you can actually mingle with other people who you should be mingling with, who have the contacts you need to have.
Even if you operate as a solo operator from home, there are still meet-ups and events that you can go to where other people hang out. Paid events generally get a better quality of customer as well or prospect so that’s a good one.
Expanding business relationships with networking
How to meet that person you want to meet
Now when you find someone who you really want to meet, the best way to meet them is to have someone else introduce you. Wait until they are talking to someone who you know, and then approach that party. Hopefully the person you know will introduce you and then it doesn’t look too desperate or eager.
The worst thing that you can do is to be in the face of someone you want to meet when they’re not ready to meet you, so watch out for timing.
When I have actually spoken at events, I’ve had people following me even into the men’s bathroom to introduce themselves. I don’t know about you but I think that’s kind of awkward and inappropriate. So I actually make sure to put extra black strikes against that person because they’re just a bit weird for my liking.
The kinds of people to meet
Now if you like having people come to you as referrals, tell your referrers what sort of person you can help the most.
I actually say to people “listen, if you ever hear of someone who needs this and that, then I’d be happy for you to send them to me. I’d be pleased to look after them for you”. For me that would be someone who wants to grow their business from six figures to seven figures, someone who has a seven-figure business looking to go to eight, someone who needs a WordPress website, or someone who would like to get more traffic to their website and have it convert.
A tip for networking with people
Here’s my best tip for networking. Get one of these phones (iPhone). Get a phone or an iPad mini and put it to self-video mode and make a personal video like this. You flick the phone on and go to the video option in self-mode and the video will look like this.
I’m going to make a video now as if I’ve just met someone (camera starts recording)… “Hey, James here and I want to say how awesome it was to meet you last night. Thanks for discussing your business and I found it really interesting. I’m happy to have a look at your website as we talked about and give you some recommendations. Anyway, I sent you this email so just hit “reply” and we can get started. And also, if you want to speak to me on mobile, I’ve put my mobile number there as well. Thanks. I look forward to hearing from you”… (camera stops recording).
So I’ve made my video and on my phone it actually has the option to click on the video and can edit the video right here if I want and I can hit “send” and mail that out to my customer and that’s it. It will crunch that video down to a nice little MOV. The customer will get that video, they’ll know what I look like, they’ll remember me, and I’ve done something that very few people will do as I’ve sent them a personal video. It’s a great method.
This has been another business news update, and if you enjoyed this be sure to subscribe to our mailing list and I’ll catch up with you next week.
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Please comment below.
As usual James, chock-full o’ value!
James, epic video & tips! Your last three videos have been super relevant to me.
Keep up the awesome work.
Thank you Thomas
James – I was thinking of your advice about getting our of our home offices and meeting real people when I was deliberating whether to go to San Francisco in February for an industry conference; now it’s ALL booked!
That is a bloody good tip about sending videos, simple & effective. Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks James, nice phone!
sometimes the simple things are the most powerful :)
Great tip about the video email! I recently met someone that I would like to follow up with and the video email will make sure he remembers me. Thanks!