networking | Julia Chanteray talks

In Depth, Targeted Networking For Your Business

I often recommend that my business support clients build their networks to build a strong set of relationships with potential customers and referrers. Sometimes this can be done simply by joining a networking group and getting involved so people know who you are – that’s been my strategy in getting so involved with the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce.

Sometimes though, your customers aren’t on your doorstep, or they’re more difficult to reach. If you’re selling to corporates, or in a specialised area, you need a more in depth strategy. And even if you are building up a good network around you, you still need to be able to target the right people.

Target Sign by Mr T in DC

So here are some ideas on how to do that:

Who do you want to meet?

Often we’re networking for the sake of networking. This can be good because of course the person you meet at a business breakfast may have a cousin who is married to someone at the BBC who is looking for the expert to host a show about how to grow businesses, which is going to transform your career forever. Do let me know if your cousin’s wife works at the BBC and is looking for that person.

My point is that random connections can work really well. If you have a group of people who like you, understand what it is that you do, and want to recommend you, you’ll probably do well. But sometimes we need a bit more structure to make this work.

The first step is to be very clear about who you want to meet. Who are the decision makers who are going to give you the sale? Which companies do you want to meet with? You need a hit list, either of specific individuals (usually for high value sales of 50k+) or the types of people, e.g. HR Directors of companies with more than 350 employees.

Where do they hang out?

You need to find out where these people are likely to be. Consider specialist trade conferences, seminars and training events, private members clubs, geographically specific networking groups. Dig deep into your target sectors and find out where the people on your hit list are likely to be. You can use LinkedIn to find specific people, and then find out who could introduce you to them, or find LinkedIn groups which have these people in them.

And ask. This is where your slightly more random network of people comes in really handy. Last year a client needed to find people who worked at Virgin in their sponsorship department, and when I asked around, someone I knew put me in touch with the very chap I needed.

Create something

If there are not really groups or networks which your target market decision makers are part of, or if you can’t get into those networks, consider creating something. I’ve worked with a couple of clients who have created networks or seminars for the people they want to work with. They’ve done this as pro bono work, seeing it as an investment in the future. And sure enough, after a little while, my clients have been able to create some good relationships, and then say, Oh, by the way, we’ve got this thing… would you be interested in buying it? Large cheques have followed.

The lessons

Work out where the people you want to meet will be, online and offline
Find a way to get there
If you can’t find them, create a space where they will come
And ask people for specific introductions to the right kinds of people

The Myth Of Hard Work

Many people believe that one of the keys to success in business is to work really, really hard. There is a compelling idea that if you put in the hours, you’ll be successful. However, in my experience of working with hundreds of businesses, this simply isn’t true. If we judge business success by my idea that running a business should make good money, and be lots of fun, working long and hard does not seem to correlate at all to the amount of money you make, and it certainly doesn’t make it fun.

Where does this myth come from?

The idea of hard work and long hours is deeply embedded in our culture. It seems to come from a mixture of Protestantism (you can debate for yourself whether the Protestant religion has been better or worse historically than other religions at making people believe that it’s okay to be exploited) and a historical culture where you had to work incredibly hard just to survive, usually because you were a wage slave in an industry which paid very poorly.

But this is the 21st century now, in the West. We don’t have to get up at 6am to go down the pit, or milk the cows – despite all the talk of recession, we still live in a land of plenty where the economy is expanding.

What does the myth of hard work do to us?

In many ways, working hard can be very detrimental to a business. Working too much means that you don’t question your strategy for the business, and you just carry on doing the same thing over and over again. I see many businesses where the phrase “flogging a dead horse” comes to mind – people are caught in a hamster wheel of sending out the same old special offers, discounting, or even worse, not doing any proactive marketing because they’re too busy looking after the customers who aren’t paying them enough money.

How to have your cake and eat it

When I see a successful business, I see one where the business owner is not doing excessive hours. I see a business where the business owner has a clear picture in their head of where they want to be, and I see someone who is very focussed on what needs to happen, day by day, in order to get the business to the next stage. I also tend to see people who are relaxed, who have enough time to spend with other people (and therefore be open to new opportunities) and who can wear the responsibilities of the business lightly.

In a successful business, the business owner is quite happy to delegate big chunks of the work to other people, and sees their role as supporting others.

So don’t feel guilty about how many hours you’ve done, or haven’t done. Don’t take your work home with you this Friday, just make sure that your to do list for next week is written and prioritised. Then you can have some fun, and when you come to work on Monday, you’ll be focussed on the important things.

Why You Don’t Want To Work The Room

A couple of days ago someone wanted to give me some feedback about the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce breakfast event that morning. I’m President of the Chamber, so I always want to hear what people have to say.

The main point from this guy was that he didn’t feel that there was enough time for networking at these events. In case you haven’t been to one of our breakfasts, the format is that everyone comes in at 7:45, has coffee and pastries and circulates and chats for about 30 minutes, then we sit down and have breakfast. After breakfast there’s a speaker for about 15 – 20 minutes, usually someone who is talking about their own business journey and passing on some ideas and inspiration. By 9:30, we close the meeting and some people go off to work, and some people hang on and have a bit more chat.

Mr Feedback’s problem was that he didn’t get to meet enough people. What he wanted to do was meet as many people as possible, see if they wanted to buy anything from him, and if not, then move on to the next person. This is called working the room.

My experience

For me, this is a real misconception about networking. I had been at the same breakfast that morning, and I’d spoken to Peter, Rosie, Toby, Rebecca, Rebecca’s friend, Robert and Mark.

I’d said hello to about half a dozen more people, and I’d been able to get hold of the guy that Rebecca wanted to speak to and send him over to her. For me, this is plenty enough people for one event. I want to be able to have in depth conversations with people, and to say hi (therefore reminding them of my existence) to others. I don’t know if there will be any direct business benefit to me from going to particular breakfast, but I know that I learnt some interesting things from the talk, found out something new about Robert which might be of use to one of my clients, and that I had fun. Again, that’s plenty, and well worth the twelve quid.

The risk of working the room

If you work the room, your desire to separate the wheat from the chaff means that you risk offending the people you discard. Those people are not going to want to be your friends.

Very few of us sell anything the first time we meet someone, especially if you sell services (this doubles if you sell complex service). So if someone doesn’t want to buy right now, make sure that you establish a good relationship with them, because they might want to buy later. And of course, they might not want to ever buy from you, but you want them to remember you and like you, because you want them to recommend you to their aunt’s boyfriend’s best friend, who does want to buy whatever you’re selling.

Don’t be a doggie

The other risk with working the room is that you can look needy. You’re like a doggie, sniffing each person to see who is going to give you the money. And no one is going to trust you or buy anything if you appear to be desperate.

Don’t be tempted to work the room – networking is a long term game, with big potential results. Some of the people who have done me the biggest favours in business have been people who I’ve known for years, and who are very unlikely themselves to be my clients, but I’ve got to know them and they’ve been incredibly helpful, recommending potential clients, setting up speaking opportunities (where I do meet potential clients) and media opportunities. You only need a handful of great people like this to make the difference.

Why do I get random invitations on LinkedIn?

You’ll know that I’m a big fan of using LinkedIn to develop your business, and you’ll see from my profile that I use it a lot to keep track of all the lovely people I meet and want to stay in touch with.

Because I find LinkedIn useful, and pay attention to what comes through from my network there (I even have a special folder for their emails), I find it particularly annoying when people spam me. Recently, I’ve received a rash (I think that’s the correct collective noun) of invitations from people I don’t know, inviting me to join them on LinkedIn. I click through, thinking that I must have forgotten someone’s name, but no, it’s either someone completely random, or it’s someone who is connected to other people I know, but I’ve never met this person. I’ve been trying to figure out why this is – forgive me if this is me being a bit slow, but I’ve finally figured that these are either:

People trying to get a look at my address book. On LinkedIn, you have to have your connection accepted before you can see someone’s contacts, so these people are pretending to be my friends, so they can take a sneaky look at my real mates. This one made me say naughty words out loud. I’ve spent years building up my social capital, and I’m not going to just give it away so that these lazy people can spam everyone.
People who have been recommended by LinkedIn’s software that they might know me, so they send me an invitation to join them. I’m not swearing so much about these people, but I do wish they’d read the instructions before pressing the button. It says, “you might know Julia”, not “this is a good way to meet Julia”. If you want to meet me, send me an email, or ring me up (especially, but certainly not exclusively if you think I might be able to help your business).

LinkedIn explicitly explains that you should only invite people you know. And if you invite too many people you don’t know, you’ll get banned.

LinkedIn is just a networking tool

LinkedIn is there to help you to network – it’s just a tool. It doesn’t do the networking for you – it doesn’t build relationships unless you already have a real relationship with that person. Otherwise, they’re just going to think “who the hell is that?” And when you’re trying to build a personal brand, that’s the last thing you want people to think.

So don’t be lazy – get out there, meet people, make friends, and stay in touch with people. That’s networking. Adding lots of people on LinkedIn that you don’t know is like stamp collecting, but less interesting.

Other articles about how to use LinkedIn for business:

A guide to using LinkedIn for business – the starter’s version

LinkedIn for business – the advanced class

I’ve already written about using LinkedIn for business and this article is great for people who are just starting out with LinkedIn. Now I want to talk about using LinkedIn as one of your essential tools to really lift your business, and help you make the most of your networking.

You can use LinkedIn as a business development tool in many different ways. Here are the three I want to concentrate on here:

Developing your status as an expert and a lovely person
Reach out with your brand
More direct business development

Developing your status as an expert and a lovely person

I’m assuming that you have already given some thought to your profile, and that you’re keeping it up to date. Lovely photo, you look good there, by the way.

The next thing to do is to develop a good number of testimonials on your LinkedIn profile page. I just had a look at a handful of my LinkedIn contacts, and they averaged 3 recommendations, which is not enough to form a decision on. 3 recommendations looks a little half hearted. Potential clients will be looking at your LinkedIn profile, and trying to decide if you’re the person they should work with. So you need to make sure that other people are telling them that they should give you lots of money. LinkedIn is the perfect place to get people to write good things about you.

Remember that you want a good handful of recommendations, don’t be one of those people that have hundreds of recommendations as no one will ever read them, and it’s either going to look like complete overkill, or like you’ve spent your life asking people to recommend you. I have 20 on my page, which is more than enough to tell you that I’m one of the good guys.

Reach out with your brand

You want people in your network to remember you, understand what you do, and think well of you. That way, they will recommend you, buy from you and create opportunities. And LinkedIn can be a fantastic tool for reminding people of who you are, and getting a chance to get your brand in front of some new people.

If you’ve only really been using LinkedIn as an online cv, and a way of collecting some contacts, you’ll probably have missed some of the great new features they’ve been adding. Have a look around at some of the LinkedIn groups and work out which ones apply to you, and are relatively active. By joining up, you’ll be able to see what other people are up to, and learn what’s going on. It’s better to lurk a little first to get the hang of things, and then start joining in debates or helping out with referrals and advice.

More direct business development

One of the things I often recommend to clients is to put together a hit list of the people they want to work with – your target clients. I’ve just done this with a client who wants to sell to businesses based in Brighton who do business outside the city, for example. We’ve now got a spreadsheet of names to start contacting. Now, I wouldn’t advise using LinkedIn to contact these people – you need to be a lot more subtle than that in your hunt. However, LinkedIn is invaluable in finding the people you want, and getting lots of interesting information about them.

Maybe you know that you want to sell something to Giraffe Ltd. You know from their website that Mr Frog works there. So you look up Mr Frog on LinkedIn, and find out that he used to work for Hippo Ltd, and where your friend Ms Lioness still works. So not only do you know exactly what Mr Frog and Giraffe Ltd do, and that he is the right person to talk to, you can also ask Ms Lioness to either introduce you, or if this isn’t appropriate (maybe Ms Lioness doesn’t know him that well) she can give you some more really valuable information, such as does he like phone or email, or where does he hang out.

This approach only works well if you’re looking for high value business to business sales, but in this area LinkedIn can be a remarkable tool.

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