Please Train Your Brothers or Sisters!

This post is targeted to all the wonderful sales managers out there who understand that networking is not a sales opportunity but a relationship building exercise that will lead to future sales.

I want to thank you for being so enlightened!

Thank you for:

1.  Not telling your sales team to give out as many business cards as possible.

2.  Not telling them to collect as many business cards as possible

3.  Not asking them how many sales they made at an event

4.  Not asking how many prospects they sold to during an event

5.  For encouraging your team members to sit at different tables at a sit-down networking event

I appreciate that you understand the concepts of networking and share them with your team.

Now can you do me a favor?  Will you educate the other sales managers of the world?????

Will Ya' Get a Business Card

OK, right up front here I am going to admit that I have broken some very important rules of networking in the past and will probably do so in the future.  Just last week, I forgot to take my phone in to a networking event and thus didn't have my calendar with me.  Notice, the word FORGOT.  I had brought a guest with me and we were busy talking.  At least that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

So with that being said, I want to talk about a networker who made a conscious decision to not allow others to get back to her.  This person gave me her card and asked me to sign her up for our upcoming course preview.  I told her that I would be happy to do so and would send her the details via email if she would give me her card.  She did.  I didn't look at it.  Bad girl.  Both of us.

Later, I started to react to my promise with the aforementioned card.  All the information on the card front had been scratched out except for her name.  On the back she had written the URL of her multi-level marketing site, which I did visit in the hopes of getting a way to contact her.  It was just a general site with no apparent way to make that connection.

This person made a conscious decision to make it impossible for others to connect with her.  I have absolutely no reason why she would have done this, other than this might have been her subtle way of getting people to her website so they would purchase from her.

WRONG!

What do you think?

PS.  The card is now going in the trash so I won't have to obsess over it any more!

PPS.  I am not the only one she shared cards with as another networker made a comment to me about the same issue with this person.

The Business Card Shove

At a networking event this week, after the formal part was done, I was chatting with the woman I had sat next to. While our conversation was not earth-shaking, we were square-on facing each other. All of a sudden another networker interrupted us to give us his card.

Now I tell ya'.

That doesn't get you anywhere with me.

The message this person delivered, was, "I am so important that what you're saying to each other absolutely is beneath me."

Listen up.

People who obnoxiously shove their business cards under my nose are wasting those cards. If they go home at all, they are tossed into the trash.

I know, I know! Someone is going to get on my case about this and say that I should be more gracious.

Maybe so.

Maybe not.

So there.

Puzzlement

It makes me laugh.

Lot's of people still think that networking is all about handing out cards.

Recently, I was at a networking event where the participants were encouraged to network with each other at the end of the meeting. I had just finished chatting with one gentleman when a lady came up and breathlessly said, "I am not doing very well with getting my cards handed out, so I'm just going to pass them out at each setting."

I am always amazed when networkers (unschooled ones at that) have a goal of getting rid of as many of their business cards as possible. They obviously think that is the reason for attending an event. Little do they know that they could just save time and dump the contents of their business card holder into the trash bin.

A business card is a static object that doesn't tell me anything about the person behind the card. I am not going to blindly do business with a mystery man or woman. Most business people want to make a connection first and do business second.

If your goal is passing out as many business cards as possible, my challenge to you is to have one meaningful conversation at the next event you attend and only give a business card to the people who request it. What is a meaningful conversation? It could be several questions that you ask so you know more about the business of the person you are talking to. It could be finding out who their best customer might be. It could be asking them if there is someone they want to be introduced to. It could be just finding out what you have in common with each other.

IT IS NOT SELLING WHAT YOU HAVE TO SELL!

What suggestions do you have about this topic?

Are You a Pusher?

I think the weather had a bead on Certified Networker classes! Again today, we're having a winter storm, with already 8 inches of snow on the ground, more to come later with drifting and blowing to accompany it. But I am going to do all I can to get to Findlay to start another class of CNers! I'm sure glad I got new front tires over the weekend.

I have to comment on a networking situation yesterday. At the lunch time WEN meeting the format is that each person gets a chance to give a short introduction to the big group. Then, at each round table, we get two minutes to tell our other table mates more detailed information. WEN is an organization that is dedicated to the development of relationships.
Here's what happened at my table yesterday. Each person at the table would take her time to speak and during that time would send a pile of business cards, and sometimes extra literature too, around for each person to take.

Now, I'm sorry, but I didn't ask for those people's cards. For some of them, I already have their information. But I must admit that I felt funny not taking cards or info because it looked like I wasn't interested. (In some cases, I probably wasn't!) But to take a card and then just throw it away later, seemed wasteful. If, in fact, the two minute spiel interested me, I would have connected with the person later to schedule an appointment to find out more.

So here's my deal:

• Don't give me your business card unless I ask for it.
• I promise I won't give you mine, either, unless you request it.
• Be interesting enough that I'll want more info.
• Don't try to tell me everything in the two minutes.
• Think from my shoes. WFIM.

What's your feeling on all this?

Business Card Etiquette

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have a networking presentation entitled Six Steps to Purposeful Networking that I really like because I can change it to fit a specific situation even as I am speaking.

Several months ago when I arrived at a club to deliver this talk, a member of the audience walked up to me before I had even caught my breath and handled his business card to me, without asking for mine.

So that day, the part of the presentation where I talk about not shoving your own business card at people without asking for theirs first, was eliminated because I wanted to allow that eager beaver to save face. I am really conflicted about doing this, because it is an important message that many people need to hear -- especially the eager beavers of the world.

I know that I am invited to speak as the expert, but if I definitely make someone feel uncomfortable about how they acted with me, they will probably not hear much beyond that specific point of my delivery. And that is the good reaction. The less than wonderful reaction could be that they get defensive and combative for the remaining of the presentation.

Big dilemma. No answer.

Got any?