Lazy networkers can be very successful in bni
Word of mouth will spread like wildfire at successfully damaging the lazy networker’s credibility and trust factor. You probably already know this and was appalled at my title. I know this because a lazy networker would never take the time to read an article.
Lazy networkers think that referrals will fall in their lap like ripe cherries off a tree, they won’t. The one key word in networker is the word WORK! It takes work, hard work to be a successful networker and I would like to share some of this hard work with you.
I learned in a BOLD sales class, to be successful you should have a hundred face to face conversations or phone calls a week about your business. Texting, Facebook and leaving a message on a voice mail do not count. A hundred conversations a week about your business! And if you really want to be BOLD a hundred calls in one day, wow, now that is work! (BOLD is a training class through Keller Williams and BOLD means Business Objective a Life by Design)
If you cannot see yourself having a hundred face to face conversations or a hundred phone calls a week because you are too busy, you might consider changing your priorities. Maybe you are doing too much and you should focus only on the things you should be doing. Dr. Misner, founder of BNI says “it is better to do six things a thousand times than a thousand things six times.†I say that we should do ten things that we love and are good at and do them very well than do a hundred things poorly. This is another article all together.
If you absolutely feel overwhelmed with a hundred calls, may I encourage you to start with twenty five calls a week. Start with twenty five sales calls a week and then start to change your schedule and priorities and add calls until you get to a hundred calls a week.
Most people tell me that they don’t know a hundred people and that is why they can’t make the goal. That is a problem that needs to be rectified. Tim Templeton in his book “The Referral of a Lifetime†states that we all know at least two hundred and fifty people. He goes on to say that we just don’t keep in touch with them.
I want to encourage you to build your personal network. One way to do this is to keep in touch with the people you already know and the new people you meet. I want to break these people down into two categories. First are your customers or potential customers and second are your referral partners or potential referral partners.
We should buy or develop a customer relationship management system known as a CRM to keep in touch with our customers and referral partners. We should call our contacts at least once every three months. During the call we can talk about our business and make a sale or we could even upsell to them after our initial sale.
We can only make so many sales calls before we become annoying. I suggest after the appropriate selling has been made you use your phone calls for another purpose, and this purpose is to build your personal network.
I am talking about making twenty five to one hundred calls a week to your customers, potential customers and to your referral partners. All your calls will all be similar in nature. They will be based on the old adage of “what goes around comes around†or the golden rule on treating others how you want to be treated, or as BNI’s philosophy says, “Givers Gain.” © As BOLD says you “come with contribution†and you call with the spirit of “How can I Help You?
So start calling and start building your network of people and see how many people you can help. The vision of BNI is “Changing the way the world does business.†I say that we are changing it back to the way it used to be when people did business with people they know and trust.
I say “when we change the way we do business, we change lives!â€