Friday, February 26, 2010

Are you making the most from the contacts your making?



How often do you go out, meet people, and for whatever reason, nothing happens?

Think about it. Do you consciously plan or map out what you looking to accomplish?

In most cases, people go out to network with no real goal in mind. They simply do it for the joy of interaction.

Now, I’m not putting down the concept of interacting because as you and I know, if it wasn’t for having some fun at it we would never do it.

So you make a lot of contacts but the relationship never really goes anywhere.

Did you ever think about why?

And while we can make all the contacts in the world, wouldn’t it be great to know more about how we can convert contacts into purposeful connection?

As a way to help you in the process, listed below you’ll find some tips on how to do just that.


13 ways to help you create impact at the point of interaction

1. Contribute – Always share ideas, information and your resources when with others.

2. Make it a small world – Everyone you meet has something in common with you. Your job is to find out what that is. In helping you to make it a small world, always mention the names of people, places and things. You’ll be amazed on how people will respond when they find that you have experienced something or know someone in common.
3. Take interest in others – By investing a little time in research prior to your following up of a contact you made, you’d be amazed at the impact upon your follow-up phone call. Go to any of your favorite search engines and be amazed at what might come up for you to read. Once found, mention to the person your following up with what you found as you were surfing the net. They will love that you took the time to learn more about who they are. In exchange, they will be more open to learning more about who you are.
4. Link one relationship to another – The power has been and always will be in making the connection for others. Do what you can to link one relationship to another.
5. Shorten learning curves – Learn to provide information to someone in need at that very moment that request is made.
6. Listen three times as much – When you speak, you learn what you know. When you listen, you learn what they know. Need I say anything more?
7. Look & comment about their business card – Quite often people exchange business cards and without even looking at it.

Consider looking at it and commenting on something you see on the card. The person in front of you will love the attention.
8. Be passionate about your work – Having a passion for the work that you do is contagious. Learn to express yourself as though you’re life relied on it.
9. Find your reason for being – If you going to go about building relationships with others, It’s important that you self reflect and strengthen the relationship with yourself. Find your reason for being.
10. Connect their goals to people you know – Another form of linking relationships to one another. Once you determine what their looking to accomplish, simply make the connection with others that you know that might be able to move what their wanting to accomplish forward. Think of this as an act of kindness.
11. Connect the dots – Connecting the dots is your ability to recalling information that helps to clarify one’s intention for moving forward.

12. Take the moment and dance with it – Being in the present will always create impact when being with others. Make every effort to be with the person in front of you. Eliminate any possible thoughts going through your mind that not directly related to the conversation and person your with.

13. Follow-up – Know that just being there is not enough. You must have a solid system for creating a persistent presence.

This is where most people fall down. They meet people and do nothing with the information. You must follow-up and do so within 48 hours or less. With you being one of the only people following up from the event you recently attended, you’ll surly get their attention for future opportunities.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Let’s take a moment and look at how networking has traveled over the years.


The 70s: It was all about how much we knew; an independent focus in creating our own success existed in the business community. We presented ourselves as experts and were less likely to share information for fear of losing our ideas, our competitive advantage, or our share in the market place.

The 80s: How much we knew and who we knew. We developed our ability to negotiate and compete, and still believed we were independently creating our own success.

The 90s: Who we could gain access to. We looked at six degrees of separation, and all the ways we could reach and develop a business network. We also began to see, with the explosion of the quality movement, information sharing, involvement, and a more global market calling for establishing solid networks of relationships. The philosophy of networking exploded within the business community.

The 2000s: NetBeing, a new intelligence of relationship building, adds to our learning from the 1990s on how well we are able to respond to the needs of individuals. When we are continuously paying attention to individuals, we can better help them. This new intelligence includes more than responding to the obvious task or project efficiently and effectively. It is also about how enjoyment is derived in the process. Most importantly, going forward is about deepening relationships and attending to a multitude of ever changing factors.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Relationshift - Relationships never end. They just shift


The spirit of the word relationshift reflects that a relationship never really ends, it simply flows to something else—through a relationshift, the relationship becomes relevant or figural again when time, opportunity and a mutual focus reemerges. The concept of relevance further expands the definition to consider the questions who, why, when, where, and how. We have changing needs and we need to ask a host of questions as we go forward in relationship. Paying attention to relevance in a given situation keeps an “on-target” focus toward developing that which currently aligns to what is most important to self and the other. In short, relevance is constantly changing. That is the very reason attention to the shift taking place in relationship is important.

While the relevance of the relationship is changing in the present, it is also imperative for all of us to understand that relationships, as a whole, always have been and always will be shifting! A collaboration ending now, may come back again twenty years from now. Relevance reemerges, if you will, around a common goal. Developing a meaningful and quality relationship is the lifeblood of taking your personal and professional relationships to the next level--lifting up and helping others along the way. When we look at a relationship with these eyes, we see that we can easily pick up again as we move forward in our personal and professional life.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

What are you doing to become more resourceful to others?


Resourcefulness

Webster defines resource as a source of information or expertise; a source of supply or support. Resourcefulness is the ability to effectively and efficiently respond to problems and determines resources that are important (people, technology, materials, services, time, et cetera.) Resourcefully, responding to the need in the moment calls for attention to ongoing and emerging needs. This constant reevaluation help answer the question what is needed now. The ongoing accumulation of knowledge and skills help you become more and more resourceful in relationships. Further, resourcefulness helps in the taking of a large network of contacts into purposeful connections.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Relationship Rules


Rules are defined by Webster’s New World Dictionary as an established regulation or guide for conduct.

The definition for the purpose of this blog is to reinforce that each of us brings rules to the relationship based on many personal factors and that rules also emerge in relationship. The personal factors, to name a few, may include personality characteristics, boundary preferences, time availability or urgency, level of experience, geographical or global factors, comfort level, life focus, or monetary needs/constraints. The rules that emerge are based on the reason for the relationship, the length of the relationship, the level of established trust, and the degree of confidence that exists. Rules constantly change as the relationship changes. While rules may become formal or contractual, rules are often informal. Relationship rules provide guidelines and clarify expectations for your own and your partner’s interaction. Simply put, rules are the conditions for relationship. Remembering to look at these rules from time to time helps uncover whether the relationship rule continues to serve you well, or whether suspending or replacing the rule would serve the relationship better.