Wednesday 7 June 2017

LinkedIn Tip #95 - Why do I need to attend networking meetings?

Do you have a business that you are trying to promote online and off?

What are you doing to promote your business?

Are you just posting on Facebook, which is where so many people seem to choose to post things about their businesses these days. Twitter, Instagram, Snap Chat and Yelp are some other platforms of choice.

However, if you are choosing to post things about your business on these platforms, why not also choose LinkedIn?

Virtually all these platforms are good tools for you to use for marketing your business, but if you do not know how to use them to their greatest advantage, then you may as well not waste your time and money.

It has taken me years to figure out some best practices for using the different platforms online. Each platform is different and each platform has its own pros and cons. Mostly pros.

Remember that LinkedIn is the professional platform, Facebook is like the Backyard BBQ, Twitter is the coffee shop chatter, Instagram and Snap Chat are the off shoots of Twitter. Yelp is business recommendations and reviews that you invite your clients to take part in letting the world know about how they feel about your business. To be brief.

Are you using all or most of these?

If so, great! If not...not so great!

We as human beings still need the contact with other human beings. We are gregarious. 

That is just how we are built. We need the personal contact with each other.

So, here's the scoop. Go ahead and market online. Build those relationships you need and want for business.

Remember that real business gets done face to face.

My story is very simple.

I have been working hard to build relationships with people online. Then I invite them for coffee or a face to face of some sort, depending on how close we are located to each other.
When I moved to a new area, I started to attend networking meetings as well as utilizing my online marketing systems.

The first time I walked into a networking meeting, I met a gal there who asked me for my business. I got a client right off the bat. Mind you, this does not happen all the time, but very often it does, providing you have been blogging and building relationships correctly online.

For instance, it took me 6 months to build enough trust with a women's organization before I got my first client there.

The reason it took me so long is that most women are not on LinkedIn and do not see any value in using it. However, once they saw some value, they started flocking to me.

Now, I get most of my business through that very women's networking organization.

Personally, I attend a minimum of 6 networking meetings every month, and often more.

Start visiting some networking groups in your area. You can find many on MeetUp or your local Business Improvement Association (BIA), and Chamber of Commerce.

I would love to hear more of your stories about your networking experiences.

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress






What does Social Media Marketing mean to You?

In the marketing world today marketing looks entirely different from 20 years ago...or does it?

Having been in sales and marketing for 30+ years of my life, I have had the privilege of seeing marketing from the traditional sense of the word.

In the "old days" the daily routine was to be out meeting and greeting people in person, door-knocking and cold calling. It was called meeting people "face to face and belly to belly".
Well guess what! It is still the case.

Here is why.

Whether you meet people fact to face or online, they are all still...people. As human beings, we need to see each other's eyes and read our mannerisms in order to really know where to direct our conversations.

All too often I have witnessed people just getting online with their different social media platforms and then pitching their products and business all over the place. What this does is turn people off. It makes people want to delete your message and you from their platforms and from their entire lives.

It takes time to build trust with people, so we need to be aware of what we are saying and how we are communicating.

The first thing in our minds should be to build trust through our relationships. In order to do that, we need to educate, inform and entertain our readers just a tiny bit.

The statistics I have read by many different authors state that people need 6-7 touches before they will start to be interested in your product or service. There are some other statistics that mention that in order to close a sale, we need to get in touch with people 6-23 times.

Caution on this last statistic, however. There is a new rule that is coming out in Canada that states we can only call people 3 times, once we have made the original contact at a meeting or event.

If you meet someone at an event where they entered your draw for a door prize, you can only call them if they have checked off "Yes" to being contacted. All the "No's" need to be discarded.

Then you can take the "yes's" and contact them through phone or email only 3 times. After that, you need to stop calling, unless they have agreed to be on your email list for your newsletter.

Personally, I usually invite them to connect with me on my social media platforms, and that way, they can watch me from afar, so to speak. They can watch my posts and read my blogs that feed through my platforms.

Back to the idea of face to face.

We build the relationship online by asking people about themselves and what inspired them to do what they do. The conversation should be focused on them, not on you pitching your stuff.

Once they know and like you, then you bring them to a face to face coffee meeting if they live in your area, or a phone call or Zoom/Skype call at distance. Try to use a platform with video, so you can both see each other and read the eyes and body language.

Remember that real business always gets done face to face.

You might attend a webinar, but that is also a form of face to face as you watch the presenter.

Face to face is key to building the final trust you need and want for life and for business.

Building your business is not all about numbers. It is about how many people you can build a relationship with. If they don't buy from you, they will tell somebody who will.

Tell me, when was your last face to face meeting?

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress