Business networking seems so easy. Yet so may accidental sales people fail to generate as many leads as they could from business networking. In this article I list the top 5 reasons I have found for people not generating more sales leads from business networking.
Reason 1 – Insufficient action
Like any other business development activity, there is a direct relationship between action and results. Most networking activity takes time before any results arise and occasionally opportunities arise very quickly. The greater the activity levels the more likely that something arises both in the short term and the longer term.
Reason 2 – Networking for customers rather than advocates
When people network for customers they risk engaging in push selling. Networking for advocates will help avoid this and as a result you are more likely to get lucky. A good advocate is worth 10 customers. If you soften your networking approach you will get both.
Reason 3 – Too generalised
A common trait is to generalise what a business does or to talk about all the different products or services a business offers, rather than focus on one particular item. The more specialised and different you are the more people will both remember you and also think of you rather than someone else when a need arises.
Reason 4 – Not spending enough time developing relationships
Some people spend a lot of time attending networking meetings and exchanging cards but never spend any time nurturing relationships and trust. People do business with people they like and trust. You cannot nurture every relationship but you can nurture selectively based on chemistry. In his book ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ Steven R Covey discusses the concept of the emotional bank account. Spending time developing emotional bank accounts helps to be able to make a withdrawal at some stage.
Reason 5 – Making it difficult for people to help them
People who network well want to help each other and yet most people do not make it easy for other people to help them. They have a weak proposition, or they are not specific how other people can help them, or they ask for too much. The easier you make it for someone to help you, the more they will appreciate it.
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on Nov 28th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Sir, maybe you can help me. I’m unable to get any leads using search engine advertising. I am continually typing meta tags and appling them to all search engines. I am unable to generate a lead. I have several e-mail accounts but I can’t get them operating correctly.What should I do? Also, my business is computer internet marketing, and I would like to get started by generating leads through the internet, and then I will start building a business reputation in my community.
on Nov 28th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Take a look at the internet marketing category – there are lost of resources relating to generating leads online. On thing that is recommended is doing the research via google adwords. It involves some investment but then again most things in business does!
Also listen to the interview with Thomas Power of Ecademy.com – you can apply the wisdom to any social networking site. Unfortunately most people are too busy selling to connect with their potential customers!!
I cannot advise you on your email addresses. I am afraid I am a sales specialist and not a technical specialist!!! I am sure if you go onto a social network like Ecademy or Linkedin and post the question you will get lots of people who can help. You just need to ask in the right place and give some detail
Best wishes
Richard White
The Accidental Salesman®
on Dec 31st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I agree these are excellent points.
Used properly networking can be a very powerful way to get new business and its FREE so you had better get good at it and this article is a major contribution.
If you what more good advice on networking check this article:-
http://yourbusinessbooster.com/free-marketing-anybody/#more-546
Happy New Year
Richard Lockyer