Networking your way to success

To enhance prospecting, it pays to network in target-rich environments. Quick, think of your target profile. Then think, who gathers these people? Right now there are groups and associations that are creating pools of prospects for you to meet.

Some of these will be a monthly meeting. Sure you could join and get active. Plus you could work to become a leader in the group. And, yes, you could serve on committees to form linkages. All great strategies.

But there is also the guerrilla mingle approach. These are the time-crunched sales people who know it is more important to attend the group's social hour than the meeting itself. When pressed for time they know they'll make more contacts and perhaps even learn more if they arrive promptly for the social period and cut out before the speaker.

Let's do the math. If the social period is one hour and the meeting is one hour, this is a two-hour investment. During the meeting portion you get to connect with the person on your left and right (let's assume you are not sitting next to someone from your own company). You don't get to choose the two people, so if you're lucky you maybe make one good contact and it will cost you 60 minutes of your life.

Now during a one-hour social period you get to do a recon of this target-rich environment. You can quickly excuse yourself from suspects and hone in on the prospects. Let's say you get to talk to four good prospects. Each prospect only cost you 15 minutes. That is a much better ROTI (return on time investment).

Networking your way to success

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Networking your way to success : Networking your way to success To enhance prospec...