As bad business news continues to build it is important to take a good look at your most valuable relationships. A great way to do this is over a cup of coffee or over lunch. Many business professionals and organizations are taking a hard look at expenses and want to make sure they are getting the best value for each dollar spent. As budgets are cut for advertising and entertainment, how do you market your services most effectively?
How about lunch?
Yes lunch. We all eat it and it is a welcome break in the middle of a hard day. Why eat alone. Find a good referrals source or former client to break bread with. Remember they are hurting too. Take the time to find out about their business and how to refer them. They will look to do the same with you. The relaxed atmosphere will enable you to tell stores about your business that will help you to be able to better refer each other. Here is a key to make your lunch more cost effective. Brown bag it and meet at the office. This will make your meal more affordable and allow you to see each other’s business from the inside. You will each be a little more relaxed as well. You will also get the opportunity to see the inner working of their business and show the inside of your business. You will also get to meet support staff and other key people who interact with their client. If they understand your business, they may see a referral for you before your friend does. The more people you meet the better off you are. In Business Network International this is called a dance card. Too keep it simple, call it a lunch and learn. Once you have had a couple of these lunches, invite a third person to join. This will help you to expand each other’s network of contacts. I had the opportunity to do this today. Gary Gogerty is a partner at Drake, Loeb, Heller, Kennedy, Gogerty, Gaba and Rodd, PLLC. Skip Weisman is a Peak Performance coach with Weisman Success Resources. They are each well-respected members of the community and intelligent business people with many contacts. The worst thing that could come out of this meeting would be that we had a nice lunch. We had an excellent meeting and shared many stories and ideas and agreed to get together again to pursue a possible joint venture. In the exchange I learned many things about each of them that may not have come up in a normal meeting.
Key to Success.
The key to success in these meetings is to limit your expectation to getting to know the other person and their organization. Bring a list of questions and make sure you ask them. You can email these questions in advance to make sure they understand you are there to learn. Business will certainly follow, but only after you sincerely take the time to learn about them. How do I get started? Look at the business you have closed in the last 34 to 6 months. How did they get referred to you? Why? What service did they purchase? Who else could they have purchased this service from? Were you chosen based on price or quality?
Involve your staff.
They will have insights that you are not aware of. They also interact with your referral sources. They may hear things about your performance that your friend won’t want to mention. When? How about now? Start small and build to big. Keep it simple. Don’t get involved in a lot of fanfare. You are there to learn. Be organized and keep it simple and fun. It keeps the pressure off and will lead to sincere, profitable results. Once you try this let me know how it works. I’d love to share your success stories here.
