I’ve spoken at length about the Joy of Networking and how important it is for business.  In essence, networking is about meeting the right people, and staying in touch for mutual benefit.

Today, I want to talk about one of my principal pleasures in life – cake dates.  A cake date is a term I’ve stolen from Pete Jenkins over at e-Advantage and means going for coffee (and of course a cake) to find out more about a potential client/referrer/interesting person/business friend.  Or to keep in touch with someone who is already an old client/referrer/interesting person/business friend.

Here are the cake date tips

These are just my cakes!

Do make sure that you talk business as well as catching up on the gossip. Do your research, read their blog, check them out on LinkedIn for mutual contacts and to find out more about their background.  This gives you a better idea of what they’re about, and gives you chance to ask very specific questions about areas of their work which might have some synergy or overlap with what you do.

Be ready to tell stories about your business which shows how you work.  I often ask people who their ideal client is, so that I can see how I might be able to make referrals and help out.  And of course, then you can say who your ideal client is as well.

Be prepared to ask daft questions if you don’t understand something, and don’t be all British about asking about money.  If you’re going to refer someone, or ask them to make referrals for you, you do need to understand how much they charge, otherwise you’re going to be barking up the wrong potential customer trees for them.

Spend an hour on talking about business, and then be prepared to head off.  That way the cake date doesn’t eat too much into your day, and you can still afford 15 minutes for more social chit chat at the end of the date.

And do follow up and email to say that it was good to catch up so you’re reinforcing your message, and have a chance to be helpful again by sending them useful articles, contacts of other people who might be useful, etc.

And if you hit it off, add this person to your list of top referrers (see my Joy of Business system of networking) so you make sure you stay in touch and have a long and fruitful relationship.

Where to eat cake

I’m compiling a list of suitable cake date venues in Brighton, Hove, Sussex and London.  They need to have excellent coffee, good cake and be quiet enough so that you can have a conversation without having to shout, or without the rest of the cafe hearing what your daily rate or current business issues are.

Where would you recommend for a cake date?

The delicious cakes shown above come are made by the delightful Jen Lindsay-Clarke at the amazing She Bakes If you ever need a fancy cake, give Jen a call

Lots of my business support clients are busy people. We’re all busy people. But sometimes being busy stops us getting things done. There are lots of resources out there for managing your time better and I don’t want to just duplicate those, but to encourage you to do something other than work on your business for a change.

Rejuvenate yourself

What I see a lot of business owners doing is working very long hours to keep up, becoming very tired and then going home and only having the energy to slump in front of the TV. Why not do something with your leisure time which will bring you pleasure and rejuvenate you?

Go out with friends; have some human contact and some interesting conversations. When you’ve done your work for the day, why not go home and read one of the many business books which can inspire you? You’ll get ideas and a new lease of life for your business.

When you’re tired

Photo by Amy Messere

If you are just too knackered to think properly, or you want to switch off for a while and watch TV, you’ll probably enjoy it more if you’re watching something you recorded because you’re interested in it, rather than being drawn into the latest EastEnders because it happens to be on TV at the time.

Treat yourself to some proper relaxation, so you’ll bounce back in the morning.    I asked some friends what they do to relax, and they suggested, a good novel, Star Trek, folding towels, jumping up and down on a mini trampoline.  I guess that sums up my friends, but why not have a go?

Instead of seeing attendance at networking events in the evening as a necessary evil, why not see it as part of your social life? Get involved in running one of the events, or get active in politics or your kid’s school. Most business owners think that they don’t have time to do these things because they want to prioritise their business and don’t feel they have the energy for anything else, but my experience is that you get a lot back from being involved.

The successful business owners I know are people who are very active in their communities. Anything which widens your social circle is good networking; you never know what will come from your involvement with your local Amnesty group, or book group. At the very least, you’ll get a fresh approach which you’ll be able to take back to your business.

Friends and family

If you have a partner or family, then you’ll probably be focussed on making money in your business to provide for them financially. Which is great – it gives you an enormous incentive to develop your business. But, what about the time you spend with them? What about that quality time where you actually go out and do interesting and exciting things with your kids? If you did more of that, is it possible that you might feel more motivated in your business and see the point of all that hard work?

See this as investment

See all the wonderful things you do outside of work as an investment in yourself and your business and your business will thank you for it.

Image courtesy of jimbowen0306

I’ve just been watching a programme about the social rules which gorillas follow. This made me think about the business rules I follow, and why.

Why we have rules

People (and gorillas) have rules about how they treat one another because society works better if we don’t go round murdering each other and stealing other gorillas’ wives/bananas.

In business, we have rules for the same reason. As people do business with people they like, breaking these rules would mean that no one wants to play with you. And that means no customers, or suppliers, which leads to a lack of bananas in the bank.

Rules about money

1. Pay your bills – if you can’t afford it, don’t commission it or buy it.
2. Pay your bills on time – people love a prompt payer and hate anyone they have to chase.
3. If you can’t pay on time, arrange this in advance. That way you’ll still have friends, even if you’re a little embarrassed to ask.

Networking rules

1. Be courteous to everyone, even if they seem to be a bit boring. Maybe they’re just shy.
2. When someone you’ve just met at a networking event gets in touch to say hi, take the time to say hello back.
3. Do not attempt to sell anyone anything the first time you meet them, unless they’re obviously asking you to.

People rules

1. Don’t assume that everyone operates by the same set of rules as you do. See especially the first rule in the money section above.
2. If you’re going to say bad things about someone, think first about:
• Who you’re saying it to.
• Do you really mean it, or are you just momentarily annoyed?
3. If you’ve said you’re going to do something and you can’t then tell the people who are going to be affected by this as soon as you can. Don’t keep quiet; letting people down ultimately causes more sleepless nights than the minor embarrassment of saying you can’t make that meeting at 10:00.

Which rules would you add to these? Have you ever broken any of them?

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.

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