Getting Jumped

Somewhere in my reading in the past couple weeks, I read a wonderful comment by Ivan Misner, Founder and Chairman of BNI. He was at a large networking event and he asked everyone in the audience to raise their hand if they were planning to sell something that evening. Many people did. His next question was telling. He again asked for a show of hands for those who were planning to buy something. I'm sure you get the picture. No one raised their hand.

Hence the conundrum.

Networking vs. selling.

I had this life puzzle happen to me at a recent networking event. The group was large and I wanted to introduce myself to a couple people and reconnect with a couple others.

One person introduced herself to me as if she did not know me. She was one of the networkers that I wanted to reconnect with. OK, maybe I need to let go of my ego and realize that I'm not so memorable to everyone! I did nicely say that I remembered her from a certain event where we had met. Oh by the way, I was the keynote speaker at that event.

So if we measure the relationship here, I wasn't even on her radar screen. There was NO relationship.

But without even the blink of an eye, she looked at me and then asked me to buy from her.

J-u-s-t l-i-k-e t-h-a-t. I was so dumbfounded that I almost couldn't speak.

Since this was networking event, my plan at the beginning of the evening was not to buy but to connect. Also, I do business with people I KNOW, like and trust.

H-m-m-m! I guess her plan was different.

What would you have done in my place?

Why I do What I do

Tom Fishburne, has hit the nail on the head again. His newest blog post is about company mission statements and it cracks me up. Tom bills himself as a marketoonist and his marketoons are great and yet they are even better because of his commentary.



In the Connext Nation, Referral Pursuit course, we help our students to get to the real why of what they do. Knowing that will help them each to have a REAL mission statement as opposed to one loaded with marshmallow fluff.

Read what Tom has to say about this whole mission statement thing here. The fourth paragraph of his post really rang true for me.

What about you?

When Will They Learn?????

OK, I have to vent tonight.

Today I received a phone call from someone I have met briefly twice and each meeting was several years apart. The most recent time was in December when I spoke to a group and this person was in the audience.

You probably know where this is going. This person wanted to invite me to "an event."

When I asked what type of event it was, you guessed it, you smarty pants! It was a direct sales opportunity that he was sure I would be very interested in.

Now I don't know how he would think so, because both times we met the conversation stayed very much on him. He didn't ask me a lot of questions, so at this juncture, he certainly wouldn't have an idea of my wants or needs.

I don't like to malign direct sales companies, because there are some good ones out there, but I do want to pick a bone with the ones who suck people in and tell them that 1) they don't have to sell and 2) they just have to invite "friends" to partake of this wonderful opportunity. I also want to chew the same bone with companies that teach people to recruit using these relationship-less tactics.

There, I feel better.

Was it a Good Lunch?

Recently a friend of mine, Tim Saddoris, asked me about a certain networking venue, Connect4Lunch. He wanted to know what I thought of it.

I told that I could not give him an opinion because I had never taken advantage of them. He said he was going to try it out and get back to me.

Several other people that I know had attended these monthly lunches, where four people are organized to one table in advance. I think each of the four knows who the other three are. I think it is up to the participants to replaces themselves if they can not attend. A couple people who had attended had given a thumbs down review because of boorish, overbearing behavior of another table mate.

But--drum roll, please.

Tim reports great success. He says that he met three other interesting people and he has an appointment with one and is connecting one to another organization. He said, "Overall, it was worth the $10.

If you have attended a Connect4Lunch event in your area, what has been you experience?

It's More Than Just an Alumni Association

Recently I was asked to speak to the Owens Community College Alumni Association board. They know they want to be more effective at connecting with alumni when they are at events. Many on the board had the same feeling all of us do when it comes to introducing yourself to strangers, but we worked through that and I gave them some steps to help them feel more comfortable.

I applaud this group, because think about your alumni association. When do they call you? Only when they want money? And how do you feel about that?

If, instead your alumni association acted as a resource hub for all the grads, they would have all kinds of people banging on their door WANTING to pay their dues. As I see it, as a member of an alumni association, you are just a few steps away from your best connection. But if you don't know that connection or don't know how to gain the connection it's unlikely that a link will happen.

Of course the members have to be open to helping each other.

Maybe this is happening out there already, but if so, I'm not aware of it. Well, it is probably happening indirectly though social networking, but not right at the association level.

So, if you have made great connections because of your alumni association please comment and let us know.

Pass it On!

Word-of-mouth marketing is about getting others to talk about you, not you talking about yourself. When others deliver your message, it is much more powerful and not so boring!

A great example of word-of-mouth marketing going viral in just my little sphere is CardCam, an app that can be downloaded to smart phones. CardCam uses the camera function of the phone to snap a photo of a business card to then instantly put that information into Google contacts. Nice! Sometimes it can be a little quirky, but I'm sure the programmers are working on making it even better. There is a free app, but for most of us we'd need to purchase and download the $12 app.

OK, don't leave yet. You can go get it when you finish reading this.

I first heard about it only two weeks ago at my Thursday morning BNI meeting, when A.J. Motter, AFLAC, told me about it. I immediately downloaded it. I next heard about it one week and one day later when it was brought up at a BNI Director meeting. The meeting actually got derailed for just a minute or two while we talked about it. I have had various conversations about it with several people. At BNI this week, Tim Saddoris, Infostream Solutions, our chapter educational coordinator gave an overview of it in the short educational presentation. I guess that perhaps more than 100 people in my sphere have heard about this application since I first heard about it. And now even more will.

Why did this message get passed on so easily?

1. Easy concise message (new app)
2. Easy to understand (takes picture of business cards and then enters them in your data base)
3. Useful
4. Twist on the old (business card scanner)
5. Inexpensive in relation to the value returned

So here's the question. What is it about you or your product/service that is so "talkable" that without you doing anything others will pass the message on for you?

Bump in the Middle of the NIght

Several months ago our city closed some streets that intersected railroad tracks. The reasoning was that the train would not have to blow its whistle at the former intersections. I can imagine that was a relief to those people living near the "tracks."

Of course, a couple nights later, a young man tried to drive over the tracks and got stuck. Luckily the car was removed before a train came through. There are huge concrete barriers that the driver of the car had to circumvent in order to make his attempt. I'm sure you get the picture.

Which brings me to networking.

Have you ever watched someone at a networking event trying to just bully ahead - not having regard for guidelines and maybe even body language. It is an exercise in watching an accident about to happen. These people just don't seem to see the barriers that have been set in place. They just figure that they are invincible. Or maybe they don't even think. And if you happen to be the unlucky target you get stuck in networking h__l.

If you run into one of the obnoxious networkers, the only way to protect yourself is to turn these people in the other direction. You won't want to introduce them to your best friend, but you could send them to the food table!