Maverick Mastery®

Consultants and small business owners are being given the opportunity to learn the secrets of a successful networking strategy thanks to a new teleclass seminar from reputation specialist Judith Germain.

During the one hour teleclass which takes place on 22^nd July at 10.30am, Judith Germain, managing director of Dynamic Transitions, will be revealing how to leverage your personal brand and understand, define and design a networking strategy which gains more advocates and referrals.

Germain, who has over 15000 members in her network which spans Twitter, Ecademy, LinkedIn and as well as various offline networks, is also the Vice President of Blackstar Life Members Community of popular business social networking site Ecademy and has delivered networking strategy training to hundreds of businesses across the globe.

Recruitment Consultant David Shirley has taken one of Germain’s networking courses and says, “Jude covered a fair amount of ground in a short time and I have picked up several pointers around defining your circles of contacts (outer, middle, inner) and who populates those circles, linking together sites such as LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter etc, uses for Tweet Later and on, and on. This session was so useful to me as a newcomer to online networking.”

Germain believes that, many consultants and SME business owners forget that people increasingly buy from those that they know, like and trust and being credible and having a good reputational (personal) brand is essential in enabling the buyer’s decision making process to choose them over a competitor time and time again.

“Conducting business in the 21^st Century is substantially different than in the last century and brand perception and delivery is becoming all important. Many consultants and SME business owners dismiss this as a trend that affects big business only but to do so can mean the difference between winning and losing a sale. Brand reputation is becoming the ultimate decision maker and to ignore this trend will put your business and earning capacity in peril,” says Germain.

The Networking Essentials teleclass takes placed on 22^nd July 2009 from 10.30am to 11.30am. There are just 20 places on the course, which costs from just £20. For more details or to book your place visit www.networking-strategy.eventbrite.com/ or call 0208 208 288 0512.

Judith Germain is managing director Dynamic Transitions a leadership company specialising in working with Troublesome Talent ® and improving leadership performance within organisations. Judith provides strategic and network strategy mentoring for senior executives and business leaders and delivers innovative leadership programmes, leadership consultancy, training, coaching and mentoring to corporate clients. For more information visit www.developing-leadership.com or email jude@dynamic-transitions.co.uk

Having an effective networking strategy can make the difference in how quickly you can establish yourself as an expert, attract and retain loyal ‘followers’ and impact on your bottom line, according to reputation specialist Judith Germain.

Germain, MD of Dynamic Transitions and Vice President of The BlackStar LifeMembers Community on social business network Ecademy, suggests that for businesses providing services, it is particularly pertinent to be active on social networking sites where businesses are able to integrate into the community, develop a reputation and establish credibility.

“If your business (and/or yourself) has credibility and a good reputation, it is more likely to be trusted by your potential clients, therefore increasing your revenue and sustainability,” explains Germain, who has created Community Trust Systems™; a concept where products and services are exchanged on the basis of trust that has been conceived and conferred within a trusted community. Peer review and approval becomes the basis that services are bought and reputation is the determinant for selection.

“Many examples of Community Trust Systems™ already exist to buy and sell products, such as Ebay, Amazon and Ecademy. Social Networking sites, as an example of a thriving Services Community Trust System™, are now becoming essential places to establish your reputation and credibility. You cannot be active on these systems as a ‘broadcaster’, constantly talking about yourself or trying to sell your wares. To survive you will need to be having conversations with individuals (not push marketing), providing good quality content and aiming to help those that you are able,” explains Germain.

Germain says that to be an effective networker, you need to understand who is in your network and what relationship they are to you. In a Services Community Trust System™, your network is split into three sections:

# Inner Circle – these are your advocates and close contacts. This is a relatively small number.

# Middle Circle – these are your main referrers and people that you have conversations with. This number may extend into the hundreds.

# Outer Circle – these are people that are aware of your business and what you do personally. Introductions and some referrals take place with these individuals. This number may extend into the thousands.

“In a saturated and depressed marketplace where there appears to be many competitors selling the same service or product, having an effective networking strategy enables all businesses’ (particularly small businesses and consultants) services or products to be advocated. Enabling them to secure more referrals and for the business to cut their marketing costs, increasing their chances of survival,” adds Germain.

Judith Germain is managing director and principal mentor at Dynamic Transitions, a leadership company specialising in working with Troublesome Talent ® and improving business performance within organisations. You can download their free whitepaper ‘Having an effective Networking Strategy is essential for your future’ at www.developing-leadership.com/whitepapers.html

For more information visit www.developing-leadership.com or email jude@dynamic-transitions.co.uk

Conducting business in the 21st Century requires a different modus operandi as we increasingly move away from the trading norms of the 20th Century and towards Community Trust Systems™ (CTS). In a society where there are more suppliers than demand, increased scepticism exists and a lack of transparency breeds mistrust – Community Trust Systems™ are becoming a growing necessity for both suppliers and consumers.
Many examples of Community Trust Systems™ already exist to buy and sell products such as Ebay and Amazon and CTS™ for services are now coming into their own (particularly Social Networking sites).

Community Trust Systems™ are where products and services are exchanged on the basis of trust that has been conceived and conferred within a trusted community. Peer review and approval becomes the basis that services are bought and reputation is the determinant for selection.

Designing a networking strategy for Community Trust Systems™

For businesses providing services it is particularly pertinent to be active on social networking sites where businesses are able to integrate into the community, develop a reputation and establish credibility. If your business (and/or yourself) has a good reputation and credibility it is more likely to be trusted by your potential clients, therefore increasing your revenue and sustainability. Community Trust Systems™ require transparency, and the ability of the business to be clear in what they deliver and have an understandable niche. The community members need to be able to trust the networker and be able to advocate their services to others.

A good networking strategy has the following points:

• A holistic strategy designed around business objectives

• Clarity of what the business owner wants to be remembered for – what’s their expertise?

• A clear niche and ability to articulate what the business does

• An offline and online strategy – which networks should you be participating in

• A well structured network

• An understanding of your current reputation and credibility standing in the marketplace

• An ability to leverage time and assess results

When I have worked with clients in designing their networking strategy we have found that their ability to attract advocates and gain results from their networking have exceeded their expectations and has delivered bottom line results. One client saved £7k after one meeting.

The greatest results have come from those that have structured their networking contacts as part of their networking strategy. This allows them to leverage their time and seek a better return on the investment that they have made in the relationships that they have garnered. Referrals are when a contact has made a recommendation that one party meets or does business with another. This is often prompted by a specific request. Advocacy is where an individual, usually unprompted, recommends another with so much detail and influence that the advocated person is not required to sell their services. A good networking strategy enables a business to have many advocates therefore significantly reducing advertising spend.

Structuring your network

To be an effective networker you need to understand who is in your network and what relationship they are to you. For example I have over 10,000 business contacts although I do not know them all individually, I am aware of a vast number of them, refer a great many and advocate a few. Belonging to good social networking sites enables me to manage and maintain conversations with my network, therefore enabling me to extend my reach and help many businesses by making the appropriate connections and providing support where ever possible.

Below is a representation of my network split into three areas:

• Inner Circle – these are my advocates and close contacts. This is a relatively small number

• Middle Circle – these are my main referrers and people that I have conversations with. This number extends into the hundreds.

• Outer Circle – there are people that are aware of my business and what I do personally. Introductions and some referrals take place with these individuals. This number extends into the thousands.

Understanding who is in your network and where – helps to develop how the conversation takes place. ‘Conversation’ in this context means how you interact with them. This includes online messaging, blogs, newsletters, and face to face meetings to name a few.

Structuring your network and how it relates to your networking strategy becomes more pertinent when you consider the following representation of your network.

When designing your networking strategy you need to be aware of how you are remembered by your contacts to ensure that you are not confusing them and they take away the message that you want them to.
For illustrative purposes the second diagram shows how I am generally remembered by my contacts (in terms of business proposition).

My Outer Circle are aware that I specialise with working with Mavericks – the wilfully independent. It is important that when networking your message is clear and easy to remember. This is particularly true online where you may be networking within a Community Trust System.

My Middle Circle understands a number of my business propositions, for example I’m a CEO mentor and Leadership trainer/speaker.

My Inner Circle knows a lot more about me, for example that I come from a strategic senior operations background; I have a solid HR knowledge base and regularly provide expert opinion to the national and trade press.

As people get to know me – I aim to turn my Outer Circle into my Inner Circle etc therefore increasing my reach and ability to have advocates. A more intimate knowledge of their business enables me to help and assist them better also. By understanding my network I am able to engage with them more effectively – perhaps using some automated tools or by regular meetings. This enables me to achieve the other aspects of my networking strategy.

In a saturated and depressed marketplace – where there appears to be many competitors selling the same service or product, having an effective networking strategy enables all businesses’ (but particularly small businesses and consultants) services or products to be advocated, for them to secure more referrals and for the business to cut their marketing costs, increasing their chances of survival.

This morning I was taking advantage of the quiet of New Year’s day to browse the Internet. I came across the site Social Mention. The purpose of the site is to show you how often you are mentioned on the Internet.

When you are running a business and have decided that a good business strategy is to employ in part, an ‘attraction policy’ then being mentioned frequently on the internet can be advantageous to your business. How relevant (and accurate) such a tool as Social Mention is, is still to be determined but it does at least let you see where your content is being mentioned on the net, including the comments made by others about you.

According to Social Mention my social rank is 36/100 which means I’m mentioned once every 4 hours. Thomas Power founder of Ecademy Social Rank is 66.14/100 which according to Social mention means that he is mentioned on the Internet once every 30 minutes! Ivan Misner founder of BNI social rank is 26.71/100 which means he is mentioned once every 2hours.

Ivan and Thomas are established and effective offline and online networkers which may explain why they have such impressive Social Ranks. They are also talented and different displaying wilful independence from those that share the same space in the ‘Networking Industry’.

Are they good examples of mavericks that have understood and mastered their Industy specifics? If so should we be trying to follow their example and increase our Social Rank?

Judith Germain – Maverick Comment

If you liked this post you may wish to share it on Twitter by clicking here.

December can be an exciting time for business owners lost in a whirl of networking events and alcohol, often forgetting that this is also the time that their reputation can be damaged, having long term effects on their business.

For many new businesses Christmas Parties are seen as opportunities to let your hair down and fill the order books for the forthcoming year. Unfortunately this type of behaviour can be very damaging as well as disillusioning for business owners.

I would like to share with you the experience of a consultant entrepreneur. For simplicity I’ll call him Sean Rollar although that’s not his real name.

Sean set up his business 3 months ago in a flourish of enthusiasm and hope. However running his own business has been a lot harder than he anticipated and he is yet to secure his first real client. He still has some of his redundancy money left but he knows that he must secure a client by the end of January or he will have to return to corporate life, something that he wants to avoid at all costs.

Sean was looking forward to attending his local Chamber’s Christmas Party, there would be a lot of businesses there that could buy his services and it would be a great opportunity to socialise and enjoy himself after a hard 3 months. Securing a client there would be a great way to round of the year.

He took care to dress well and pack lots of business cards anticipating that out of the 100 people attending he would meet at least 50 of them. Sean practiced his elevator pitch and set off for the party. Arriving at the party was daunting as he didn’t know anyone but he was determined to make his mark.

He bought himself a drink to settle his nerves and strode confidently towards a couple of people talking. After twenty minutes he moved on and spent the rest of the evening chatting and drinking, eventually ending with a turn on the dance floor. After a successful night he returned home calculating that he had given out 40 cards. Sean was looking forward to the next Christmas Party he was attending that night, believing that if he was as successful at that party as the Chamber one he will have no problem filling his order book next year.

That night as he changed for bed he reflected on his experience at the second Christmas Party. He was surprised to see that there were many people there that he had met the night before but they had been very reluctant to talk to him. In fact he received a very strange reception and wondered what had happened to cause his experience to be so different.

Below are three things that Sean could have done which would have had a positive impact on his attendance at the party.

Sean needed to put the Christmas Party in its proper context

Whilst Sean understood that the Christmas Parties may bring work opportunities he did not consider it in the same vein as a work meeting. Having made that decision he did not consider that his actions at the party would or could have an effect on his business reputation. This meant that he did not watch how much alcohol that he had drunk, treating others to a version of himself that he would not present at a formal meeting.

The reason why he was being ignored might have been his boisterous dancing! It is important to remember that wherever your business contacts accumulate your behaviour is on show. People will make a determination on how likely you are to behave in a business by watching what you do in social events.

Not really networking – just bumping into people

Sean did not want to ‘waste’ the networking opportunity of the party so he handed out his business card to everyone that he met, in an over eager manner. To potential clients and advocates the manner that he did this made him look desperate for business. This is essentially ‘unattractive’ as well as damaging to his business over the long term. It also made him seem preoccupied to his own business and not listening when others were speaking about theirs.

Be clear how you want to be remembered

Whenever you attend networking events or business meetings consider beforehand how you would like to be remembered. For example in Sean’s case he wanted to be remembered as a Management consultant who specialises in change management. The problem he has is that his business proposition of ‘management consultant’ is not memorable. There are many management consultants out there so he needs to try harder and be more unique to be remembered.

Sean was becoming memorable for his behaviour and not his business, therefore reducing his ability to gain advocates and new clients. Sean needed to develop a networking strategy that ensured that he was around those that could provide him with referrals and advocacy and enabled him to articulate clearly his business proposition. Sean needed to stand out from the crowd for the right reasons.

Your reputation and credibility is key to your success, particularly in the current economic climate. It’s what makes you different from your competitors and whilst it can take years to build a good name, it can take just a few seconds to destroy it, so make sure your actions and behaviour during the festive celebrations work to increase your attractiveness as a potential supplier or business partner. Networking (even at Christmas) is about building relationships and not trying to sell to your network. Create the right impression and your network will do the selling for you!