Read this and turnover of your business will increase by 100%!
Guaranteed to get you new customers!
The only solution you need for a successful business!
I can make you a millionaire by this time next year!
All these promises sound familiar? We, at Acorn Support, get many emails every week and read many articles claiming to be the next big thing to make your business a success. But ultimately there are only 3 ways your business is ever going to be any good and that’s through hard work, focus and having a product or service that people want and know about.
The hard work and focus is up to you but you can get help with getting your product or service known and that’s something we can help with. We are passionate about the benefits of effective networking (not just networking for networking sake), which is why the following article by Saffron Grant (http://www.changegives.com) we received by email yesterday was one of those that we did find beneficial, which is why we wanted to share it with you:
How to enjoy networking (Yes, I did say ENJOY it!)
- I’d created a belief for myself that I couldn’t stand networking meetings. So I’ve actively avoided them over the years until I decided that it was time to blow that belief out of the water and discover what I was missing out on. After all, there must be benefits or they wouldn’t exist, right? So here’s what I did:
Used the ‘As if’ frame
From the moment I decided to go to the meeting I acted ‘as if’ I loved networking meetings. So far, surprisingly easier than I thought! I simply said to myself ‘I love networking meetings and people really love me!” and then acted from that position from that moment onwards.
I worked out what was in it for me
So I asked myself, if I am in a room full of complete strangers, what can that get for me? Again, surprisingly easy. I can make new friends. I can observe how other people behave and learn from it. I can practice explaining what it is that I do. I can practice rapport building. I can meet potential collaborators or people who offer something that I need. I might even (dare I say the F Word in this context?) have Fun.
I set myself a little project
I thought about a few things that I wanted to learn about that would genuinely help me. I wanted to learn how other people approach networking and I also wanted to find out how I can write a blog more quickly (it had previously been taking me a couple of hours per blog and I had heard from other people that they spent about 15 minutes!)
So this gave me something to start a conversation about that I was genuinely interested in. I was open about the fact that I wanted to learn what other people get out of networking and asked questions like “What does networking get for you?” This seemed to really get people thinking and also helped me discover other benefits that I hadn’t even thought about, for example to pick peoples brains for a new point of view or ask for advice, which I realised is what I was actually doing.
Unexpected bonuses – Light bulbs galore!
I came away from the meeting with a load of fantastic ideas for my business that I would not have had if I hadn’t been in that room at that time, bouncing off a completely new group of people.
If this has made you think differently about networking but you are still a little nervous then Acorn Support offer one to one coaching on the subject and have a public course planned for March 2015 – see our website for more details.