15 key things to find out while networking for Sales

The 5 stage process  of Sales Networking ( Opening – Qualify - Position – Close – Follow Up) requires a number of key skills- social and conversational , questioning and listening , relationship building , selling skills, presentation and writing skills.

5 stage process of networking

Here is an exercise  you could try  once or twice during a networking event to help you further hone your networking skills

It will also help you focus and be a better net worker.

The  Take Time Out Exercise

After you have met someone or a  small group of people and you have moved away, go to a corner of the room , table, coffee station, to  the washroom and run through this list to see how your networking skills are faring.

Some of the answers will be on the business cards you have captured. Put any additional info into you pocket notebook, smart phone or on the back of the card.

1.    What was( were} the names of the person(s) you just met?

2.    What were their companies?

3.    What was their job role?

4.    What were their reason(s) for attending the event?

5.    Who would be the ideal networking contact for them to meet ?

6.    Did you offer to keep an eye /ear out to connect anyone you come across at the event who fits that ‘ideal’ ?

   7.    What were their business priority?

8.    What if any personal priorities/obsessions did you identify?

9.    What personal and family background did you find out?

10. What were their career history/background?

11. What was their level of interest in you?

12. What potential business value?

13. What potential value might there be to any product partners?

14. First impressions of them as a personality ?

 Building effective relationships in selling          A simple client personality matrix

15.  Any other useful/relevant information to remember for the future

Related Links

Net working clubs - are they worth the bother?


5 stage networking process

Are Networking Clubs worth the bother for Salespeople ?

Networking clubs : why bother ?

Many salespeople hold that business networking is a more cost-effective method of generating new business than advertising or public relations efforts.

 This is because business networking is a low-cost activity that involves more personal commitment than company money.

For example, a business network may agree to meet weekly or monthly with the purpose of exchanging business leads and referrals with fellow members.

It's not unusual for members to meet outside this circle, in their own time, and build their own one-to-one  business relationship with a fellow member.

A Business Networking meeting facilitates groups of like-minded businesspeople to recognise, create, or act upon sales opportunities.

Sales Professionals who wish to demonstrate their presentation skills can attend both general and focused events.

 Many sales professionals prefer face-to-face networking over on line based networking such as Linked In forums  because the potential for higher quality relationships are possible.

 In addition many individuals prefer face-to-face because people tend to prefer to  actually know and meet with those they intend to do business .

Face to face business networking is often facilitated by referral networking clubs

There are several prominent business networking organisations that create models of networking activity that, when followed, allow the business person to build new business relationships and generate business opportunities at the same time.

Networking a 5 stage method

Here are some of the best of the on-line and reality networking clubs and resources worth looking at.

http://www.businessbiscotti.co.uk/   dynamic business networking community that powerfully combines local group meetings, with online business networking and real life

https://www.facebook.com/business  Facebook for business

http://www.meetup.com/  Some business clubs among its huge menu of offerings

http://www.ribi.org/ Rotary International of Great Britain and Ireland

http://www.fsb.org.uk/  Federation of Small Business

http://www.britishchambers.org.uk/  British Chamber of Commerce

https://www.gov.uk/  Gov.uk ( replaces Directgov and Business Link) Business and Self Employed

http://www.smarta.com/  Smarta  A  business support and advice network for start-ups, small business owners and entrepreneurs.

http://www.4networking.biz/  Social and Business

http://uk.linkedin.com/  Linked In

http://www.networking4business.com/  Networking 4 business

https://twitter.com/  Twitter

http://www.findnetworkingevents.com/  On line guide to events

Selling Classes The BBC Great British Class Survey 2013

“England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly.” ― George Orwell, Why I Write 

 

Many Brits are obsessed still by the ‘class’ thing. The success of TV’s Dowton Abbey attests to that.

In the last century we had Yuppies ,Chavs, Sloane rangers, DINKY ( double income no kids yet) the English have always loved to classify and reclassify.

If we really needed any proof of GB being a predominantly secular country the BBC Lab UK study  proves it. Its grading parameters were:-

 economic capital - income, savings, house value –

and social capital the study gives us 7 socio economic grades.  

The old A, B C1 C2  D and E have now been shelved it seems. ( perhaps)

No doubt Advertisers will find the survey of interest along with socio economists.

Since people and relationships are a key currency to selling , Salespeople need to take  note of this ‘new paradigm’ also.

Professor of sociology at Manchester University, Fiona Devine, suggests the survey gives a sense of class in 21st Century Britain. BBC Lab UK worked with Prof Mike Savage of the London School of Economics and Prof Devine on the study.

The findings were published in the Sociology Journal and presented at a conference of the British Sociological Association on Wednesday

The study also measured cultural capital, defined as the extent and nature of cultural interests and activities.

The new classes are defined as:

Elite - the most privileged group in the UK, distinct from the other six classes through its wealth. This group has the highest levels of all three capitals

Established middle class - the second wealthiest, scoring highly on all three capitals. The largest and most gregarious group, scoring second highest for cultural capital

Technical middle class - a small, distinctive new class group which is prosperous but scores low for social and cultural capital. Distinguished by its social isolation and cultural apathy

New affluent workers - a young class group which is socially and culturally active, with middling levels of economic capital

Traditional working class - scores low on all forms of capital, but is not completely deprived. Its members have reasonably high house values, explained by this group having the oldest average age at 66

Emergent service workers - a new, young, urban group which is relatively poor but has high social and cultural capital

Precariat, or precarious proletariat - the poorest, most deprived class, scoring low for social and cultural capital.

The above grading from fruits of success will still be useful :-)

The GBCS was launched on line in January 2011, but data showed participants were predominantly drawn from the well-educated social groups. I guess this also indicates that such people are the most class conscious !

To overcome this  they ran a second identical survey was run with a survey company GFK, with a sample of people representing the population of the UK as a whole, using the information in parallel.

Related Links:

The Great British Class Survey

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058

Take the survey ( if you dare)

https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/class/

5 stages of Networking at Networking events

Winner of the Business Card draw
Larry Adeyaemi
from EN Start-Ups being presented with his prize from

Nina Tukaj  at the March networking morning

 at Business Biscotti

 Networking and Schmoozing are not every body's 'cup of tea or coffee.'

"I have the social skills of a crushed hedgehog and the  soi-disante* literary types - on the whole- leave me more frigid than a warlock's tit.

I'd sooner have buttocks sawn off , varnished and sold as matching salad bowls in a provincial gift shop than attend any metropolitan literary salon."

So said  author Will Self in an interview to the  London Metro Nov 23rd  in My London - Will Self .
 ( *soi-disante = self proclaimed -I confess I had to look it up !!)

Although we may not have Will Self's vocabulary, I guess some sales people can be put off by business networking meetings in much the same way. Well Mr Self probably has an agent who does the schmoozing work for him .

We don't all have that luxury, so it is another skill that a salesperson has to develop.

As conventional cold calling and even the number of face to face meetings have decreased the number of networking clubs has exploded.

‘Networking’ simply means publicising yourself and your business by personal communication with as wide a selection of individuals as possible.  The more people you talk to about what you offer, the more business you are likely to pick up through referrals and contacts.

A typical structure of a network conversation  typically goes through 5 stages

1. Open     - begin the conversation and introduce yourself

2. Qualify     - quickly establish  what the business potential is (direct or by referral); ask questions and listen carefully; spend minimum time talking about yourself and your company but give enough information to test interest if you are unsure.

3. Position     -if there is business potential then 'briefly nutshell sell' the benefits your company can offer to customers in general and/or that person in particular.

   Nutshell sell

4. Close            -obtain all the necessary information to enable follow-up (usually just a business card is enough); make sure they have your information; then politely move on.

5. Follow-up     -information and initial relationships are only valuable if you do something with them; your most effective follow-up is usually by telephone and /  email/ maybe a Linked In invite; follow-up quickly so that they can still remember you, but most experienced networkers believe that you should leave a gap of one or two days so as not to seem too ‘pushy’.

There's a lot to find out and remember and all to be done in a soft sell conversational manner. Learning to converse charmingly ( rather than smarmingly) is a craft worth practising.

Related Links
Handshakes and exchanging business cards

http://fruitsofsuccesswithhugh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/handshakes-and-exchanging-business.html

Networking to generate business

http://fruitsofsuccesswithhugh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/networking-to-generate-business-17.html

Gulls eggs City Luncheon Charity Networking

http://fruitsofsuccesswithhugh.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/macmillan-gulls-eggs-city-luncheon.html
Bruce King's blog piece  for IOD on Business Card Design

http://blogs.iod.com/2013/03/11/is-your-business-card-losing-you-sales/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-your-business-card-losing-you-sales

Business Biscotti    http://www.businessbiscotti.co.uk/



Nina Tukaj  welcoming members

 at Gloucester Road Casino for Business Biscotti meeting

Donations collected for the Marie Curie Charity

Tidy desk tidy Mind Selling Observations of Buyers' desks

Here's a fun exercise to do.

What's on your desk right now?

1. Get out your smart phone and take a photo of your desk.
2. Go to your outlook home page on your PC and screen save it.

• How cluttered is your desk today?
• How does the 'desktop' on your computer look?
• What's the back log on your Outlook look like?

2,000 Brits were surveyed in a research published by journalist Hayden Smith in London's Metro newspaper and Daniel Hunting at freshbusinessthinking.com  and elsewhere. The study was produced for office stationery supplier Staples.


So much for the paperless office - apparently pieces of paper on the nation's  23 million desks would reach a 143 times the height of the Shard

60% of office workers experience  a rise in stress levels when faced with a messy desk in the morning

50% of workers only tidy their desks once a month. 10% said they last organised or cleaned their workplace six months ago

On average office workers' desks are cluttered with 19 useless pieces of paper which amounts to a 450 million pieces nationwide.

48% of staff lose important documents through untidiness.

If these were stacked into the air they would reach some thirty miles !

An untidy desk increases stress, leads to low energy, anxiety and a bad mood.

Half admit leaving dirty cups and plates around the workplace

A third of desks are strewn with half eaten food, empty sweet wrappers and bottles.

46 % admitted to leaving dirty cups and plates around their workspace,
6% leaving grubby crockery on their desk for three days or more.

 Debunking the popular myth that women are tidier then men, the study also found that members of the fairer sex have desks ...just as messy as their male counterparts.

 

An untidy desk increases stress at work,

 "A messy desk is not only bad for your own mind-set, it can also harm your relationship with colleagues," says Professor Tomas Chamorro (UCL Psychology).

 Well I admit tidiness is a challenge for me so I went to the Staples site Caryn Tolpa  has 8 suggestions to try.

1.       Manage your to read pile - files and using the waste paper bin

2.       Think before you print - Instead of printing, bookmark any interesting pages that you find

3.       Learn to filter and bin - because new and better information is constantly accessible to us via the Internet, there's less need to maintain all types of files.

4.       Create a record retention policy - what to keep indefinitely, for 6/ 4 / and 3 years

5.       Send them a away - benefits of off site storage

6.       Invest in equipment - scanners, business card holders, plenty of file folders, file labels, cardboard boxes and bins, plastic crates and carts, and file cabinets. And don't forget wastebaskets and recycling bins for the items that you choose not to file.

7.       Organise your corporate culture - an album or box of mementos ( photos etc)

8.       Think of your office as your kitchen treat the paper in your office as if it's perishable food.    

 
Desk tidiness can also perhaps indicate the desk owners perosnality.( this light hearted anecdotal observation yet ......)

Dominant Introverts ( lions) Tend to have tidy desks. Should their company have a clear your desk each night they do this. If you were to open their drawer the items would have been placed in an orderly manner

Dominant Extroverts ( Monkeys) tend to have slightly untidy desks. However they try to  diguise this ( usually because they have had to attend a time management course.) There fore at teh end of the day they will adhere to the clean desk policy by sweeping off all items at the end of the day and stuffing them in the drawer !

Submissive Extroverts  ( Rabiits /Dolphins) quite often have untidy desks. They look as though a bomb has hit. It is unlikely you will see there desk as a Salesperson as they will want to meet you anywhere other than their office such as a meeting room , a free tarining room, the canteen out of meal times even off site!

Submissive Introverts ( Elephants) Like huge amouts of information. They can ahve a lot of paper on desk. They may have an untidy desk but they know where everything is.

Great tips for a tidier desk from Staples

http://www.staples.com/sbd/content/article/c-d/clutterfree.html

According to Iron Mountain, the national records management company, approximately 5% of a company's records need to be kept indefinitely.

 The remaining 95% of your files can either be thrown away immediately or kept for a defined period of time, then discarded.


Related Links and Information

Barbara Hemphill's  book " Taming the Office Tiger " 

Simple client personality matrix

Aleksandr Orlov springtime visit to Kew Gardens, London

Greetings this joyful Eastertide


Sculpture installation at Kew,by David Nash
This could be simples solution for Aleksandr
 to avoid the new bedroom tax from the Coalitions Government

This Easter banks Holiday I Aleksandr famous Meerkat botanist took Mr Hugh to the world famous Q gardens.

 Despite the chillis weathers, we lucky to have Spring sunshines and blues sky.

 Royal Botanic Gardens,' Q' was founded in 1759, ( same year as Mr Hugh's favourite Liffy water drink) and declared UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.
(I am still awaiting a response from UNESCO for Meerkova Palace to get similar accreditations so I don't have to pay nefarious bedrooms tax of Mr Duncans Smithky and Gyorgy Osbornov of Coalition government !)

 Q Gardens also world leader in plant science and conservation. Q’s work helps to discover and describe  world’s plant and fungal diversity, safeguard  world's plant life for meerkat future, promote  sustainable use of plants and inspire  appreciation of plants and  environment.



Aleksandr testing out new daffodil camouflage coat



 

Throughout its history,  Royal Botanics Gardens, Q has made important contributions to increasing  understandings of  plant kingdoms with many benefits for man and meerkatkind.

 

Today  still first and foremosts  scientific institution. With its collections of living and preserved plantings, of plant products and botanical information, it forms  encyclopaedias of knowledge about  plant kingdoms.

Aleksandr bravely viewing Glasshouse from
 treetop walkway at 'Q' gardenings

Springs is still very cold in Englands but buddings are showing and the blue skies with sunshinings were a tonic for Mr Hugh’s soul.

 

 

 



To warm up from cold Springs wind
Mr Hugh and I go inside Glassy houses
 (where meerkats must not throw stones)
 to look at beautiful orchids



 

 

 

 

 

Mr Hugh asked me to include a poem about Daffodils and to mention that selling and meerkating never far away.

We read a sign in the gardens that said the British daffodil Industry is worth some  £ 31 million

To Daffodils

 

 Fair Daffodils, we weep to see

 You haste away so soon;

As yet the early-rising sun

 Has not attain'd his noon.

 

 Stay, stay,

 Until the hasting day

 Has run

 But to the even-song;

And, having pray'd together, we

Will go with you along.

 

We have short time to stay, as you,

 We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

 As you, or anything.

 We die

 As your hours do, and dry

 Away,

 Like to the summer's rain;

Or as the pearls of morning's dew,

Ne'er to be found again.

 by Robert Herrick




Left: still some crocuses about but the Daffodils take over at this point in 'Q'
Right:Aleksandr looks at Redwood tree bark .
 Maybe one day he and Mr Hugh will get to see sequoias in California




Aleksandr takes one last look at Glass House before home
 and treacle tart made with Hot Cross buns



 

Realted Links

http://www.kew.org/

Aleksandr's Spring budget

Aleksandr visits the Wallace Collection

Aleksandr at the National Portrait Gallery