Effortless Networking

It’s Thanksgiving this week and I’m taking a break.

And you still have a few more days to cash in on my “Thanksgiving special”!

I’ll be back with a new article again next week.

Till then,
– Sri

If you’re reading this article, you probably read a fair amount in general. And at this point I think you probably know a lot about business networking and what you should and shouldn’t do.

So the question is, are you doing everything that you already know?

We often know exactly what we need to do — like eating healthily, exercising, and so on — and yet, we don’t do it.

Can you relate to it? Yes, me too!

Well, the same thing happens in our professional lives also.

This is the “knowing-doing gap”, as described by the authors of the book by the same title.

A lot of my work with private clients focuses on helping individuals close this gap.

So instead of giving you yet another tip on how to network better, how about I share with you a simple process to help you use what you already know?

Here it is:

1. Pick ONE thing that you’ve been meaning to do, but haven’t done yet — for whatever reason.

   Make a commitment to do it this week.

2. Then, as the week progresses, pay attention to whether or not you actually do it.

   Either way, you will get useful information to help you close the “knowing-doing” gap for this one particular thing.

   So don’t worry about “failing” — just go through this 3-step process.

3. At the end of the week, answer these questions for yourself, and see what you get:
   
   - Were you able to do what you intended to? If yes, what allowed you to follow through? If no, what prevented you from doing so?
   
   - What did you learn about this particular “knowing-doing” gap? And how will use this information?

The last step of looking back at what happened in specific detail, and generating ideas about how you might leverage this information, is critical — so don’t skip it!

Let me know how this works out for you — you can post a comment below or email me. Either way, I’d be curious to hear about how doing this exercise affected your networking efforts.

Also, more about how to close the “knowing-doing” gap in specific networking topics — such as relationship management, asking for what you want, etc. — is covered in the Effortless Networking home-study program.

Till next week,
– Sri

“How do I connect with someone quickly?”

This may seem like a simple question, but it’s actually a little more complex — and perhaps you know that already. When I work privately with clients on such a topic, it takes a few months!

Still, here are two steps you can take right away, to connect quickly with someone, no matter what the situation.

1. What are you listening for?

   In other words, how will you know when you’ve “connected” with someone?

   For instance, will you recognize the “connection” when you hear the other person say something in particular? Or when he or she has a certain facial expression? Or when you feel a particular way physically (i.e. gut feeling)? And so on.

   If you take the time upfront to figure this out, when you’re talking with someone you’ll be able to more easily recognize these moments — and take advantage of them.

   This may not necessarily be a simple question to answer. But when you do, it’ll serve you well in many different contexts.

2. Listen for it!

   Pay attention and actively look out for opportunities to “connect”, as you’ve defined above.

   This seems obvious, but it can be a difficult step!

   When we start talking with someone, we start with the best of intentions.

   But then we get distracted.

   We start thinking about other things, or spacing out, or rehearsing in our heads what we’ll say next, and so on.

   If you’re doing this, you’re not really participating in the conversation you’re in. Not only that, you’re probably also missing big chunks of what the other person is saying — and along with it, missing opportunities to connect.

   So practice staying present in the conversations you’re having.

And next time you want to connect with someone quickly, follow these 2 steps.

It’s amazing how much mileage you can get from such a simple process.

By the way, more on this topic is in module 3 of the Effortless Networking home-study program.

Till next week,
– Sri

I write this in response to a question that Mel asked after reading my article on how to promote your business confidently.

Getting clear on what exactly you’re offering is the first step to promoting your business confidently. And this is not always easy to do. I know, because I took the long and winding road to my current destination!

But looking back, my “clarification process” can be boiled down to one event and 3 questions.

The event

It all started when someone asking me if I’d be interested in promoting a particular product.

After a brief demo of this product, I found myself daydreaming about becoming a spokesperson and reseller for this product — even though I already had my own business to run! By the end of that day, I had actually begun to identify people I could partner with to promote and sell this product.

At that point, I had to stop and wonder what was going on – because clearly, there was something very interesting going on!

The 3 questions

Answering these questions (which took a while) became my “clarification process”:

1. What about this product excites me so much? Why do I feel inspired to promote it?

   The product in question was an eCommerce software product.

   I found it to be an elegant yet practical solution to a very specific business need: it was a “turnkey” or “plug-and-play” solution for businesses that wanted to get into eCommerce without a big investment upfront.

   From the demo, it seemed that the product was easy to implement and use.

   It included all the basic functionality one might want initially, plus a few extras.

   And it was affordable.

   Most importantly, I could envision exactly the kinds of people who would find this product useful.

   So promoting this product to this group of people wouldn’t be “promoting” at all – it would simply be answering a question they had.

   For me to feel this way about my business, I realized that I needed to have similar elements in my products and services — which led me to my next question.

2. What would my offering look like, if I could incorporate all these components into my business?

   I had a 100% service business at that time. So I had to think about how to create “plug-and-play” versions of my services, which would be easy to use and affordable.

   That was the easy part: I could write books, create home-study programs, and so on, to “productize” my service.

   The difficult part was the topic.

   If I wrote a book, what would it be about? My home-study program would help someone learn what? And why should anyone care to learn whatever it was?

   In other words, just like the software product, my products had to be a clear and practical answer to a clear question.

   And I had to be able to envision the people asking the question, so I could provide an appropriate answer.

   The next question helped me with the selection process.

3. What ONE question can I answer, that’ll make a BIG difference to people like me?

   The answer came to me in the form of a casual remark from a fellow business owner.

   She said that she liked my approach to business networking, and that other people would benefit from hearing about my perspective. Those were more or less her words.

   I realized then that I had an elegant yet practical solution to a specific business need:

   An alternative approach to business networking for self-employed people who wanted to and needed to network, but had limited time and energy.

   So of all the questions I could answer, I picked the one that was practical, necessary for me as a business owner, and interesting for me personally: the ONE thing that made a big difference in my life as a business owner.

So how does this help YOU?

Find a product or service that you LOVE. One that you’re always telling people about.

Then use these questions to clarify and focus your own offering.

See if it makes any difference to how you promote your business after that.

Either way, please share your comments below — I’d love to hear about your experience.
– Sri