Tour 8b: Up, Across, and Down
Did you network up? How did it go? I want to hear! Email me at [email protected] and tell me all about your networking UP meeting.
If the hardest direction,UP, has been achieved, networking ACROSS and DOWN is a cakewalk.
Networking ACROSS
Networking ACROSS simply means you are networking with those people whose businesses match yours in size, reach, number of employees (not an exact science) etc. Look for those people who have a lot in common with you, and set up meetings with them.
In our window cleaning business, I am always curious to learn how other husband/wife teams manage their businesses, so I seek out these types of business owners to get to know them better. I ask questions about family dynamics, about roles each spouse plays in their business, and how they keep excitement and momentum going.
Finding Your Networking UP Person
You might be looking for similarities besides family dynamics. You might look to network with businesses who go after the same clients as you, but don't compete with you.
An example is a daycare owner seeking out a swim school owner with whom to build a referral relationship. Both businesses serve young families, and would benefit from joining forces to attract their identical ideal clients.
Networking ACROSS means collaboration!
Collaborate and Celebrate!
Working with others to help you plan and build excitement about a joint promotion means you'll be more likely to take all the necessary steps for the promotion to be successful.
Pick a business owner with whom you've built up rapport, who has about the same size business as yours, and most importantly, attracts the same ideal clients but doesn't compete with you.
Plan to do more than half of the work, and give away more than half of the benefits. This will illustrate your generosity and trustworthiness, which makes for excellent odds he will want to work with you on another project.
It may be hard to go into a project knowing some of the benefits might tilt away from you, but be patient, the sacrifice will pay off. Think about all of the contacts you will have access to once the collaboration begins and what the future holds for you and your fellow collaborator.
When you pitch your collaboration, already have these details roughly worked out in your own mind.
The time frame, starting date/ending date of the promotion
The main objective of the promotion and how the business owner will benefit, specifically!
What you want the business owner to do, specifically, and remember, it should be less than you are willing to do
Are you willing to allow the business owner to bring their own ideas to the table (you should) and how true to your original idea do you want to stay? It's ok to keep boundaries on your original idea, while still accepting contributions from the business owner.
Once the business owner clearly sees how much thought you have put into the collaboration, and that you have laid out plainly the role he will play, he will likely say yes to the joint project.
In contrast, the quickest road to a "no" will be to throw some loose idea against the wall during the conversation and hope something sticks, or hope that something grabs his attention and he runs with it.
Be clear and excited about the plan, be gracious and humble about his participation, and your referral relationship will thrive. He will be chomping at the bit to work with you again.
I'll finish by telling you how I launched this blog. I knew for a while that I wanted to begin a blog about networking, but wasn't sure how to start. I started using a very powerful CRM for my window cleaning business, and noticed it had blogging capabilities.
Now I at least had a place for the blog. I had plenty of ideas for content, based on my years of networking in BNI and other organizations for Window Cleaning Plus. I had the digital vehicle for the blog, and I had the content. Now I needed a collaborator to help me launch the blog.
I reached out to the founder of another networking organization Mix and Mingle Business Networking, which hosts quarterly "How To" events. I asked its founder, Sybil, if I could bring a presentation at her next "How To" event, and she graciously said YES.
I worked out everything when it came to my presentation, and Sybil secured the location and set the date.
We promoted it together on social media, and the event was tremendously successful. I did everything I could during my presentation to brag on Mix and Mingle. I made things easy for Sybil, and the facility coordinator, and I was able to bring awareness to a whole bunch of people who already network (my target audience) about this blog. WIN/WIN!
Go network ACROSS my friend, and remember;
COLLABORATE so you can CELEBRATE!
Faithann Basore and her husband Dave have owned Window Cleaning Plus (WCP) for 10 years. Growing WCP through networking has given Faithann the desire to guide other small business owners through the networking terrain so they can feel comfortable and build long lasting relationships in their business.
Got networking questions? Email me at [email protected].
