FPRA Member Ginny Cooper to Present At TWTRCON

On November 18th San Francisco takes center stage as the TWTRCON SF 2010 Business in Real-Time conference comes to town for a jammed-pack day of speakers, case studies and workshops on how to effectively use Twitter as a strategic business tool.

Southwest Florida will be well represented at TWTRCON with FPRA member and Past President Ginny Cooper having been selected to conduct one of the first workshops offered at TWTRCON. While it’s easy to see how Twitter may be strategically advantageous for large businesses and well known brands, it’s often difficult for small businesses to see the value and allocate the resources to emerging platforms such as Twitter.

Cooper will be bridging the perceived gap for small businesses and solopreneurs, sharing lessons she has learned on how to strategically use Twitter to manage reputation, generate leads, grow business, and nurture customer loyalty. You can follow Cooper on her TWTRCON journey on Twitter @GinnyCooper.

PRU 2010: Graphic Design Panel

Sue Lampitt, Homer Gaines and Shell Lamers Redfern

Shell Lamers Redfern, Creative Director at Get Groovy! began her portion of the presentation by discussing the up and coming graphic designer. The age range in her class is 17-60, so it is not always the youngsters. Technology has been a useful tool for graphic design. What used to take three weeks to do, now takes 30 minutes or less.

Designers express their ideas very differently now.  5, 10, or 15 years ago, people spent a lot of time doing sketches. Designs were purposefully thought out because the process was so expensive. With all of today's technology tools, you'd think we have more time to work on ideas, but it is not that way. We have less time.

She teaches her class how to create artwork that can be reproduced. They learn how to use Adobe Creative Suite and six other software systems.  They also learn the difference between RGB and CMYK. When working with a student or inexperienced designer, it's important to take the time to teach them why changes need to be made. They may have technical skills, but need the experience.

Logo design tips -- When designing a logo, always start out in solid black and white. You can always add colors and grayscale later. If it doesn’t look good in black and white, then it won’t transfer easily to promotional items. When your logo is the size of a postage stamp, can you still read it? If not, then it is too complicated.   Your logo should be designed in illustrator first because it is vector based. Then is can work in other programs. It is okay to have more than one logo if they all have the same elements and feel. Many companies have vertical and horizontal logos.


Sue Lampitt, Intech Printing and Direct Mail Marketing emphasized that print is not dead, although many people say it is. It is a changing industry. People still incorporate it into their marketing every day. Sometimes it is a less expensive way to go. Print has been around for a long time, and can have a lot of impact and power.

10 Reasons to Continue with Printing:

1. Print is for here for keeps. You read literature in an office; you leave with brochures; you can take it home and review while you think things over. You can hold it and feel the quality. Words are important when in print.
2. Print is portable. It can go anywhere with you. You don’t have to turn it off on the airplane, and the battery won’t die. It complements all your initiatives. It can drive people to your website.
3. Print Drives a higher ROI. It is persuasive as direct mail. It is a great way to expand business relationships and keep customers loyal.
4. Print plays well with others. It complements your electronic advertising. With direct mail you can be specific and speak to the right group or a more focused group.
5. Print is beautiful. It is art and the printer takes time to make sure it is beautiful. People have feelings that are evoked by beauty.
6. Buyers seek print. Stores send out catalogs. You can relax when you look over the catalog. A more relaxed atmosphere prompts you to go to their website or store.
7. Print is credible. It has a lot more value when it is in ink
8. Print is not rude. It doesn't call you during dinner. People still like to go home and check their mailbox.
9. Print is personal. With digital printing you can personalize each and every piece. Names and images can change with digital printing.
10. Print is Everywhere. It is at the trade shows, the theater, it is everyone. 

Lampitt added that it's important to prepare electronic files properly for printing, including vector logos and color adjustments. She also suggested getting copies of your files from your graphic designer and keep it on file for future use or adjustments.


Homer Gaines, Sr. Flash Developer/Designer for Chico’s FAS discussed design trends which can help your initiatives.

A logo says a lot about a company and its services. People look at the logo and form immediate opinions. Sometimes companies fail to get their logo right because they don’t have the education. It takes both the technical knowledge and experience.

GAP is a good example right now of a bad logo brand choice. Why mess with a strong brand? They had a good logo and went in the opposite direction.

Sometimes people want their logo to be bigger, so they can be noticed more. That's not always the best way to get noticed.  When you start showing up in search engines, people are looking for content, not the logo. When they search, the are searching for the content. If you are not saying anything of value to the person searching for content, the logo size doesn’t matter.

Get creative with your content. You can embed stylized fonts into web content now. It allows you to step outside of the standard fonts that come with everyone’s machines, and create text that actually looks like images. Keep in mind that some fonts only look good on a Mac or PC. They may look good on the Mac, but not on the PC. Stay away from those fonts. Macs look like everything was done in Photoshop, but on a PC you can start to see the jagged edges on some fonts.

Educate your clients about design and what will work on the web. Web uses RGB, but printers need CMYK. An AI (Adobe Illustrator) file is the basic vector file. A designer usually provides this to the client, as well as converting it to a JPG for web use.

WordPress is a great tool for blogging. Anyone can set it up. You can maintain all the content that is on it. The only thing you have to pay for is your domain name and hosting spot.  Gaines says to avoid Go Daddy because their admin tools are not the easiest to use. They host and offer domains, but it is really hard to understand and very easy to get lost. There are plenty of hosting companies out there that are easier to use. Gaines uses BlueHost. He also recommends regular back ups in whatever you are working on, and your websites.

Guest blogger:  Jessica Clark, APR, Shell Point Retirement Community, JessicaClark@shellpoint.org

PRU 2010: Butch Ward - Writing and Editing for a New Media Audience

Presenter: Butch Ward, The Poynter Institute

“Writing may be magical, but it’s not magic.” - Donald Murray, Writing Coach

The importance and value of strong writing skills have never been more hotly debated than they are today thanks to the pervasiveness of digital media delivery systems. Some have gone so far as to predict the end of writing as we know it as newspapers and magazines hit their projected demise and the written message is condensed into 140 character sound bites or less.

We live in a changing world in how the written word is delivered.

•  Communicators no longer need intermediaries
• Anyone with Internet access can reach a global audience with a message
• HOWEVER: With such access comes responsibility. We should always consider…How are we affecting the public discourse with the words we share?

The Hard Truth: When searching the Web, people spend less than 30 seconds on a home page and less than one minute on an interior page. And consider this: Most people bypass the home page and enter through a link, search engine, etc.

Which leads us to: Writing is Critical to GRAB ATTENTION and Writing and Editing are more important than ever and will remain important FOREVER! Especially for communicators.

Here are a few tips to rev up your writing and create stand out copy.

Follow the Writer’s Process

1) Conceive/develop the idea: What’s my story’s goal? Who is my audience?
First of all you need to understand where you get your story ideas: in the shower, while exercising, walking the hallway and talking to colleagues?

You can also collaborate with your audience, clients and colleagues and have them share their ideas and thoughts. Get them involved. In today’s words – embrace crowdsourcing.

Writer’s Block?
Try one of these two exercises to get the creative juices and ideas flowing:

The “Dining Room Table” exercise. Grab a few colleagues, set a time limit (say 20 minutes), select a topic and then start discussing it as if you were sitting with friends. Pick a subject that’s relevant to your business and share stories. These stories will lead to valid story ideas for future writing projects.

“The Wheel” exercise: Pull a group of colleagues and/or friends together and pick one topic and start throwing out story ideas based on every audience/stakeholder that touches that topic in some shape or form. For example: Topic: Black Friday. 20 possible story ideas (audiences) were identified. Everything from retailers to advertising representatives and daycare centers.

2) Gather your information (sourcing): What do I know? What do I need to know? The key is to get information that will “hook” the reader.

• Who are my sources?
• How diverse are they?
• Take advantage of using your audience as sources.
• Does my story have narrative tension, strong characters and action?
• Do I have facts, and not just opinion? Are they verifiable?

**It’s critically important to verify information – your readers want to know it’s reliable. Always source! There is a golden opportunity for communicators to deal in fact, not opinion. There is too much out there now that is passed off as fact when in fact, its opinion.

3) Focus: Draft/Revise: What’s this story about?

A good exercise to understand what your story is about is to start by writing your story as a paragraph, then one sentence and then one word.

Other elements to consider when telling a story:

• Photographs - elicit emotions
• Graphics – deconstruct complex information
• Video – present action
• Audio- trigger the imagination
• Words – communicate information with clarity and spee

4) Draft/Revise/Publish: How can I get my audience to notice it ----and read it?

• Help the reader find you. (Build in Search Engine Optimization)  Put yourself in the audience shoes and think about what words your audience would use to search your topic.
• Write to the link. Start the story on the “homepage” and jump it.
• How much text to use? Less is usually more.
• On the flipside: Not everything has to be short. A good story will hold a reader’s attention.
• Use more dialogue (it achieves action) vs. quotations all the time. Capture conversations if possible

When Writing for the Web Keep In Mind:

• Priority
• Clarity
• Efficiency
• Brevity
• Simple direct sentences
• Use active verbs
• One subject per sentence
• Use bullet points
• Use white space
• Pay attention to logical order

Quick Tips for Editors:

• Coach the idea
• Coach the gathering
• Coach the story
• Coach the writing

A good editor infuses himself or herself into the writing process. They shouldn’t come in right at the end of the process. Coach the idea from the beginning, coach the story and coach the writing.

At the end of the Day Remember: Write like Ernest Hemingway not Thomas Wolfe!

Guest blogger: Pamela Cox-Nulman, APR, CPRC, Nulman PR & Marketing  pamnulman@earthlink.net

PRU 2010: Suzanne Willis - Manners Matter!

What is a session on manners doing in the middle of a professional development seminar? Ensuring success! In a study conducted by the Stanford Research Institute, “85% of your job success is related to your people skills.” So yes, manners matter! And Suzanne Willis, APR, of Willis Consulting & Communications (http://www.suzannewillis.com/) has been minding her manners since the tender age of 11, when a trip to Europe with her beloved grandmother “Mimi” where she learned proper dining etiquette and how to enjoy Afternoon Tea.

As a member of management for some of the best known names in the hospitality industry (The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Group and South Seas Resort) Suzanne knows first-hand how important manners are in the business world. She shared some tips and tricks during her engaging presentation, including a secret to remembering which direction to look for your bread-and-butter dish and your drink when seated at the table.

There are 3 simple principles which guide etiquette:

• Respect
• Consideration
• Honesty

If you’re not sure what to do in any given situation, ask yourself if the action supports those three principles.

The concept of manners guides us in knowing how to interact with each other, whether those interactions are in your personal or professional realm. As Warren Buffet has said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

Body language is telling as well. In communication, the most important thing is hearing what isn’t said according to Peter Drucker. Willis gave an example of a non-verbal signal that a speaker is uncomfortable in a situation – sucking in your bottom lip. It’s a holdover from childhood when we sucked our thumbs for comfort, she explained.

One mannerism most often exhibited in business is the handshake. Why do we shake hands? To show we aren’t carrying a weapon. The ritual began on the battlefield in the 1500’s, as a gesture of peace and goodwill. The handshakes to avoid?

• The Bone Crusher
• The Dead Fish
• The Glove (putting your free hand on top of the clasped hands – politicians and preachers do this one a lot)
• The Lady Fingers (unless you expect to have your hand kissed instead of shaken!)

What’s in a name? Everything! It’s the most important thing someone wants to hear, and Willis cautioned us to get it right. And if you engage in conversation with someone whose name you know, but can’t remember, it’s perfectly alright to say so! Some tricks to remembering names?

• Ask the person to spell their name (this isn’t going to work well if their name is “Sam”!)
• Focus more on them than on yourself during the conversation
• Look at their face

Meetings have some additional manners attached. And it was during the meeting manners discussion that many questions were raised. Points to remember if you are in charge:

• Schedule the meeting with care, being considerate of others’ schedules
• Watch the clock, be considerate of others’ time
• Introduce yourself!
• Be aware of your posture/grooming/facial expressions
• Tune in, tune out – as a meeting participant, tune in to what is being said, tune out distractions
• Fond farewells – be sure to thank the meeting host; meeting host be sure to acknowledge others involved

The importance of manners does not stop when you enter cyber-space. Because everything you do is a reflection on you, little things like ALL CAPS, punctuation and spelling are important in your communications, whether they are letters, emails, posts or tweets. (There is a little leniency with Twitter and other micro-blogging channels given the limitations on the length of the message allowed.) And despite the advancements in communication, one old soul said it best; “Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who, with their soul, encourages another person to be brave and true.” – Charles Dickens.

Oh! The secret to knowing which side of the plate your bread-and-butter is on? Make the “okay” sign with both hands, and then look at them closely. The left hand has created a lower case letter “b” and the right hand has created a lower case letter “d”. Bread on the left, drinks on the right. Yep, it’s that simple – and so are good manners!

Guest blogger:  Ginny Cooper, The Cooper Group ginny@mycoopergroup.com

PRU 2010: Andy Robinson - The Importance of Personal Relationships

Andy Robinson of the CRG Leadership Institute LLC presented strategies and tactics on why it is important to tap into your personal relationships.His executive coaching focus is helping executives, business owners and leaders achieve and substation incredible career success. He also helps his clients to love what they do for a living.

The Other “PR” – Personal Relationships
What are they?
Why are they so important?
How do you develop and optimize them?

“Relationships are everything” - Brian Tracey, Personal Success Guru

“Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows” - Ben Stein, Actor, Lawyer, Writer

The “Wake-Up Call”: You have to be proactive about developing, strengthening, and deepening my personal relationships.

Personal Relationships by his definition:  friends, current colleagues, vendors, family, former colleagues, business partners, college alumni, clients and advisors. If you were to put circle around the ones that are true personal relationships, it will include friends and family, but the others will be on the edges/borders, some closer into the circle and some further out. The more you bring them into the circle the better, because you are improving your personal relationships.

The Relationship Pyramid
You are at the top
Inner Circle (one level closer to you than just personal relationships)
Personal Relationships
Non-personal Business Relationship Acquaintenances
Names and faces that you see out and about in the world around you
Everyone else

You want to move as many people up the pyramid as possible.

Andy's definition of personal relationships includes:

• Friendly cordial, respectful relationship
• Relatively frequent bilateral or unilateral communication
• Very likely to know certain details of each other’s personal life
• Share an interest or otherwise have something in common
• You do not mind asking them for a favor
• Would very likely give you a business reference or recommendation, if applicable
• You frequently “give” to them in some way
• You have no problem asking them for business and vice versa

Why are personal relationships so important?

• Advice, counsel and sounding board. You can seek this information out from these people
• They offer an amazing platform for learning, personal development, and professional development
• They can refer resources to us. Whether it is at work or home, plumber, IT, etc.
• They offer a constant stream of new business opportunities.
• They are very willing to spin positive PR for you in the marketplace. They will tell others great things about you
• They are a significant source of career opportunity referrals
• They are your advocates, cheerleaders, and VIP Influencers. They will stand up for you and tow the line for you
• They are a “friendly” ear to listen and be there for you. Sometimes you don’t want advice; you just need someone to listen to.
• They offer fellowship, comradery and personal fulfillment.
• They provide leverage to get things done – they willingly tap THEIR own network for you.

How do you develop personal relationships and optimize them?

Desired Outcomes:
Expand and Broaden
Deepen and Strengthen

5 master strategies to expand and deepen personal realtionships:

1. Give first, and give often in sync with your key branding elements. It is not always giving a present. You can share relevant and useful information. Making yourself available just to listen and offering advice when they ask for it. Celebrate milestones with them, send birthday or holiday cards, or sending a newsletter or note on a regular basis. Be a positive influence, lift others spirits.
2. Connect, refer and recommend others. Be that person in your network that connects other people together.
3. Communicate frequently and ongoing. If people don’t hear from you on a frequent basis, then how will you stay on their radar. They have to know you are out there somehow. Create a newsletter, or utilize status updates on social media. Send a just “checking in” email. Share your own good news with people, it brings them closer to you. Call occasionally to say hello.
4. Embrace social media and immerse yourself in the medium. You have to immerse yourself in it because it is becoming a mainstream of communication. Get active in it, LinkedIn is a good example of one that needs to be used if you are a business person. Facebook is a bit more open, and be active on Twitter. Expand your network, it doesn’t work if you only have 3 connections. Avoid “brand” confusion. If you are using it for business, make sure to always use the same type of message. Develop a strategy on what and how you will do it.
5. You have to have quality and meaningful personal interactions. It is not just about sitting behind a computer. You have to have personal interaction with them.

The next step is to take action!

Commit to a 30-day plan:

• Write down 3 goals that you will commit to in the next 30 days.
• Write down 2 actions that you will do in the next week that is focused on one of those three goals.
• Write down 1 thing that you will do before the end of the day today that will expand or strengthen your personal relationship.

Habits are what it is all about. Embrace excellent personal relationship habits. Try to ingrain a habit. Personal relationships create magic, but you have to have a habit behind it. They are simple but powerful.

Guest blogger:  Jessica Clark, APR, Shell Point Retirement Community, JessicaClark@shellpoint.org

PRU 2010: Josh Hallett - Social Media in the Trenches

Josh Hallett is currently director, Voce Connect at Voce Communications providing social media consulting and development work with brands such as Disney Parks, Playstation, Ebay, Best Buy, CBS, Yahoo, Intel, Logitech, NFL and Comcast, among others.

His presentation entitled “Social Media in the Trenches” focused on the strategy of social media campaigns and the measurement techniques that get the noticed as an effective advertising method.

No matter what size company you are, there is an audience you want to reach and that audience is online. All social media (even at companies like Play Station) started with one person, working part-time to develop initiatives. By having goals and initiatives in place, they were able to grow social media into what it is today.

There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. Media sharing, social networking, listening infrastructure, internal management, content planning and development, and community management are all things that make up the background of social media. Start with the basic things, such as listening and responding, and then build out. Customers want to get responses to questions they ask of your brand.

Earn to Play. Paid to Play. You are making the play.

There are three forms of media. Earned Media, Paid Media and Owned Media. Earned media consists of PR, investor relations, and customer programs. Paid Media includes campaigns, sponsorships, print ads and online ads. Owned Media, is original content that is shared with publishing tools. Hallett explained the three types as earn to play, paid to play and you are making the play.

Think of social media as a distributed system, where your corporate blog is the hub and where you spread your content from the blog are the spokes. Its often times hard to go back and find a link you once saw on Facebook days later, but if you replicate the link on your Twitter page and on your blog, others will be able to reference it easier at a later time. It is also important to distribute your content so that the content will gain higher search rankings.

Use the four P’s to successful at this. The four P’s include:
Preparation
Publishing
Participation
Performance

Use Radian 6 to find out what people are saying about your brand. Find out what is actual, what is trending, what is not trending and why they are talking, or not talking about this. At Voce a team of 6 individuals are doing this data research and analysis every morning and then they continue to monitor the results throughout the day.

Issue Flagging

Flag all issues that warrant a response. Determine whether you need to respond or whether you just need to look. If you will respond, track the timeliness in which you do so. Issue flagging and responding works much like a help desk system would.

Ed-Cal is Hallett’s Bible as it determines all the content that is going on everyday and is color-coded and time-scheduled to show the next week to three weeks of planned social media. Hallett also refers to a Twitter/Facebook Ed-Cal, which tracks links, which fan pages content will be posted to and where content would be going.

It’s all about timing. If you send a Tweet at 9 AM, be sure to retweet it every few hours.

The daily ebb and flow of communications is kept out of emails at Voce Communications, because email goes silent so quickly. This also enables work to continue at a steady pace, even if a co-worker is out of the office.

Use WordPress for all publishing. Voce recently redid the CBS sites all on a WordPress platform. Use Bit.ly as a tracking tool. For photo sharing, use Flickr. For videos, use YouTube, but you can also use Viddler, which provides more detailed analytics. Spredfast will allow you to schedule tweets and updates, but as Hallett stated, “automation is the devil” and should be used as sparingly as possible.

Even with the multitude of tracking programs out there, Hallett said that he still uses the good old-fashioned spreadsheet. He hosts the spreadsheet in Google Docs and makes sure to monitor and maintain tracking daily. This takes a lot of staff time, but measurement is important to tell where the company should be putting more money.

SEO

Seed the channel! If you are launching a new product, prepare three talking points prepared for the release. Three to four months before the release, start writing blog posts with those message points blended in there. Do a Google search on something you mentioned and look for the ranking. Once the content of your three messages points rank high on SEO, you have hit a home run. This is a way to tease out your new product announcement in a slow and steady, drip format.

Search for your product or service and take a screen shot. Launch your campaign and then do the search again to see where you are. People can cut PPC (Pay Per Click) by having a good social media platform. You can also save on email lists, since you can reach those people on Facebook. Social media will also help you to save on paying for focus groups or product insights.

Don’t forget HRO, or Human Reader Optimized content. Make sure it makes sense.

CNN makes sure to post something new all the time so that people will come back. Post your content as often as you want people to come back. Usually, 50-60% of the traffic to your website is coming from content released two weeks earlier.

Monitor what people are saying about your brand, because you need to respond to them. Mine for long-term effects on brand awareness and perceptions. How are you saving money? How are you making money?

Measuring social media is no different from anything else you measure.

A link is the most valuable commodity online. It is saying: please leave where you are right now and visit somewhere else. This is how Google bases their algorithm – on where people are going.

What’s coming?

Metricly is coming out and it will allow you to put all the analytics, Google accounts and social media accounts in one software that will build charts and graphs on your data.

Many companies are also starting to use Twitter as customer support to answer questions to reduce the costs of on site of off site customer support centers.

Getting Started

Set measurable goals on the tools
Align measurement tools
Start tracking sheets
Benchmarking
Reporting frequently

Going offline

Build an online community and get them together offline as quickly as you can. Get them in the same physical location. Meetups are a very powerful thing. It will get you huge increases in engagement.

Survey to find out where your customers are in the realm of social media. Is your audience there? If not, why are you spending your time there?

Comments and shares on Facebook have four times greater rank on Edgerank, which is organized based on commonality of friends. For a small business, test certain messages and find out what you are driving interest in. Once you have the audience, ask them what they want to receive from you.

Post status updates with a question. Get others to respond to it and friends will able to see the responses. Know when your audience is on Facebook. If you post at 9 AM, your audience may not be on until 10 PM. Use teasers such as: Make sure to check out our page tomorrow at noon. Do you see an increase around the hours that you are asking them to come back?

Guest blogger: Diana Sabino, Southwest Florida College

PRU 2010: Greta Schulz - Stop Selling and Start Building

With her friendly, professional approach enhanced by a bit of humor, Greta Schulz, President and CEO of Schulz Training shared her expertise by giving us practical advice on how to grow our businesses through building relationships. From her standpoint, growing your business should be your top priority and it is now a very popular topic. In addition to your PR work, you need to get out and network. However, we want to do it differently, putting relationships first in everything we do.

Specific tips from Greta on how you can build business when faced with some of the top sales challenges:

1. Getting “I’ll think it over” too often. Many people think calling and calling is follow up, but it’s “stalking.” Proposal shouldn’t be done until we know what needs to be done and what the budget is. If you put too much info in a proposal, that’s free consulting. If you sell properly, it doesn’t feel like selling. Interactive and consultative.
2. No time management system – you have too many things on your list and never get anything done. There is no such thing as time management – only priority management. We get the things done that we like. Also deadlines – we’ll figure out how to get it done. Everything else falls by the way side unless we set priorities. Figure out the things that MUST be done. It is too easy when at desk to check on email. Push the button to make email go black. Same with phone – even cell phone. Your business is first. Figure out what needs to be done and do it.
3. Not asking enough questions. Asking questions is really important – people become much more interested in listening to you when you ask them about themselves. If you talk too much you become Charlie Brown’s teacher: “Waaa….waaa…waaaa.” If you can engage someone, and then fit it what your advantages are to him or her, it makes much more sense.
4. Not enough referrals from existing members. Two reasons: we don’t ask, and we don’t ask properly. If we get brave enough, you might ask but it usually goes right over their heads. We have to paint a picture so when they hear it or see it, you will be top of mind. We have to get business through referrals.

Next, Greta introduced her STRAIGHT A’s for Success:

• Attitude: We have to believe that what we have makes sense. Have to stop believing that the economy is preventing business. Believe in yourself and your organization.
• Activities: To build our business or our clients’ businesses, we have to be networking, talking to reporters, and doing things that we need to do to grow our business. Growing our business is our top priority – even over our clients.
• Approach: What are we doing, what are we asking, what are we telling. How are we engaging people to achieve success?

Greta’s tips on NETWORKING: 
Most people don’t do it very well because we’ve never been taught. Walking into a sea of faces at an event can be awkward. You look around for someone you know or head for the three B’s: bar, bathroom or buffet. However, you don’t get business that way – there are better ways to network.

Follow the Plan: 
Identify your strategic alliances – someone you meet with in your community or industry – find out what they do and whom they are trying to meet. Explain what you do and who your trying to meet. There are three types we want to meet:

• Complimentary product or service
• Someone who has the ear of your prospect. Who else is getting in front of them – who are those people?
• Mover or Shaker – figure out who those people are, but you also want to be those people. Who everyone knows, likes, trusts. If you help them, they will help you. Help people first.

Where are you doing your networking? Don’t do it everywhere. Figure out what makes the most sense to you and build relationships in those organizations. May be chambers, trade organizations, charities for example. Figure out what you want to be involved in, jump in 110%.

Your Goal:  

When you go to a networking function, set a goal. Meet strategic alliances. Never leave without meeting two strategic alliances – the reason you are there is to find them.

The Conversation
What do you do?

How long have you been doing it?
Do you like it?
If I was to find someone who was a good referral, who would that be?

Be helpful. Asking about their favorite subject – themselves. You are looking for the 20% of people who get it. Suggest meeting outside of event to share those things – help each other. Amazing how much those relationships can build.

Follow Up: We usually walk out of events with pile of business cards which we generally ignore and eventually throw out. Follow up with everyone!!!! All the people you met – within 48 hours. Handwritten notes. Website called Follow up-cards.com – can customize and keep track. Then when you go to the next event, those people are going to come over to you….it’s about building relationships. Can put business card in there. Keep it simple.

Make Swiss cheese out of your newspaper – put clips in card and send to people. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Givers gain – look to help other people first.

When you meet with someone on Sales side, one of three positive outcomes you should always have:
PROCESS:
Always have one of 3 positive results:

• Have a “Yes”
• Get a “No” – so you don’t waste any more time.
• Get a Clear Next Step – has three things. Date of follow up, time of follow up and an agenda of what will happen when you do follow up.

ITALK (acronym for info below)
Incident: people aren’t spending as much money
Thought: have to give discount, make it cheaper
Actual feeling: if I don’t do that I am not going to make as much money, I’m afraid
Lead action: we do it
Known result: we close less business, and what we close is discounted. Your known result is what you think. What you believe is what happens.

To get over that, here is what you have to do:

Prospecting – number one thing that you do, Activities, build your business: cold calling, networking, past clients. This is NOT an option, need to do consistently.

Pre-Qualification – you have to pre qualify everyone before you meet with him or her. Make sure that person is someone you should be spending time with and make sure they know you are not desperate. Psychology of people is that they have to feel that they earned the right to work with you. If we see if it fits, it will make more sense. Plus prospect shares issues and is selling themselves to you. Ask good questions to uncover is they are a good fit. Get that person talking.

Interview – when you are with them on the phone or in person, you are asking more questions to see if they are a good fit. Tell about your situation, your organization, what are you trying to achieve. Perception, Competition, Ask thought-provoking questions. Asking as opposed to telling leads to a self-discovery process. They think it’s their idea. Talk about budget. Set clear next step.

Follow up Email – summarize everything you talked about and send in an email. Recap what they said. Add clear next step.

Recommendation: Last Step. Proposal. Only after you have done all the other four above. Do not propose too early. Discuss issues and money range.

Guest Blogger: Phyllis Ershowsky, MBA, APR, CPRC, PKE Marketing & PR Solutions  phyllis@pkecreative.com