DEEPENING NETWORKING THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS: Howie Gershman

Deepening Networking Through Relationships

with Christine Sotmary

Let me tell you a little about how Howie Gershman and I met.

I was just coming to the end of 7 isolating years of taking care of Alan, my sweetie, who sadly acquired early-onset Alzheimer's disease. I was introduced to my first BNI meeting by my friend Barb Bodnar (see last month's article), who encouraged me to bring Alan along. Howie was one of the members of this BNI chapter; he invited us both to the table and made me feel welcome. I’d come nervous about delivering my weekly 60-second presentations for the Life Coaching Business I have, but the warmth in the room helped me to relax.

I learned much from Howie and the others about how to present my business but also how to trust that these new found BNI friends would soften my re-entry into a busy, plugged-in world.
Howie has been networking for years and years both for his catering company and now with his financial planning business. These are his wise thoughts on networking:

"When I hear the term 'networking' my thoughts easily picture a room of sleazy, slick-looking salesmen throwing business cards at each other and promoting their product or service. Networking in the 21st century is as different from that image as an iPhone is to a rotary dial phone.

"Today networking is about building tight relationships with real people and becoming a center of influence. Become the 'go to' guy (or gal). Be that person to go to who has valuable information and knows important people.

"Here are a few steps that keep me focused in that direction. Keep in mind that all these steps can take a significant amount of time to accomplish, but it is worth your while to spend the time:

1) Become an expert in your particular industry or at least a niche within that industry. In conversation, be able to provide interesting facts about your field. Have ready 6 – 8, “Did you know that…”

2) Keep a database of people and companies. Not just names, phone numbers, and emails, but also hobbies and info about their families. And more important: whom can I refer them to, and to whom can I refer them, to facilitate positive connections?

3) To be respected by your contacts, provide them useful information (not sales information about your products) by email, blogs, or even 'snail mail' if appropriate.

Eventually, you’ll get to know who should contact whom and you can act as matchmaker.

But that’s only the beginning...Taking your database online with tools such as Linkedin, Plaxo, Twitter, and Facebook can bring your matchmaking possibilities to a new level. These online tools not only help you find new connections but also help your connections to find new connections.

As people connect with each other, new ideas and collaborations naturally develop. There’s no telling where it all can lead.

I know the owner of a new quick serve restaurant. The restaurant theme and menu attract 18 - 30 year-old customers. The owner decided not to advertise his new restaurant for a while because of a lack of funds and because he felt his demographic didn't respond that readily to newspaper ads.

Knowing that the relatively young customers did spend significant time online, I felt that there ought to be a way to use online marketing techniques to promote the restaurant. I know some online techniques, but I don't know everything about the newest technologies. I asked several people for advice on whom I could talk to about an online marketing plan. Each person I talked to led me to another person. Each step added to my knowledge, focused my marketing ideas, and added people with specific skills to my team.

We now have a team in place and are ready to launch the first phase of our marketing plan. If successful, we'll be able to expand our marketing system to other restaurants both locally and nationwide. "

Thanks to Howie, I'm all over Facebook announcing book signings, radio interviews and information about my memoir. Since I have started focusing specifically on supporting caregivers and ex-caregivers going through re-entry once their task is complete, my internet life has taken off. Howie's right about having statistics ready. "Did you know that there are 50 million nonsalaried caregivers each year, saving our country around 400 billion dollars by providing volunteer services?

Adam J. Kovitz suggests that we may not need money some day in the future. Well, caregivers have learned that lesson only too well. The 8 years I spent in the trenches as a caregiver have prepared me to reach out to my audience with useful information, inspiration and connections to fabulous resources. So all in all I'd say Howie is right on with his advice about quality networking.


You can contact Howard Gershman at:
Primerica Financial Services
845-531-9222
www.primerica.com/hgershman
Come join Howie online:
Linkedin profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hgershman
Plaxo profile: http://hgershman.myplaxo.com

You can contact Christine Sotmary at:
Getting On Track Coaching
www.gotcoaching.com
917-273-1308
sotmary@gmail.com
www.livingontheverge.com
www.christinesotmary.blogspot.com
www.sotmary.com

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DEEPENING NETWORKING THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS: Howie Gershman

PEOPLE, POWER AND POSSIBILITIES: You Never Know . . . Until

People, Power and Possibilities with Donna Fisher

I'm one of those people who "like to know". I like to know what's going on. I like lots of information. I like to know the "why" behind the "what to do".

And yet with networking, one of the things that I like is that "you never know"! You never know:

• Where you might meet someone who can be a great resoure and/or customer for your business.
• Who might turn out to be a great resource and/or customer for your business.
• When a conversation might lead to a great new opportunity and/or lead.
• What you might be able to offer someone that could make a huge difference in their life.

And you'll never know what's possible until you:

• Engage in conversation with the people all around you.
• You ask people for help, support and information.
• You listen for opportunities to be a resource for someone else.
• You stop prejudging others and take the time to get to know them better.
• You are open to new possibilities.
• You stay aware of the people all around you.
• You are willing to accept the support of others.

Networking is living with the awareness that new contacts, opportunities and possibilities can appear at any moment - and you never know ahead of time when, where or who!

_______________________________________________________

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PEOPLE, POWER AND POSSIBILITIES: You Never Know . . . Until

CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Will you be my Friend?

Connecting is Not Enough with Andy Lopata

Have you experienced that strange sensation recently? A feeling of importance, of celebrity, of previously unmatched popularity. It’s the feeling that the lucky kids at school all understood but that the rest of us could only dream of.

All of a sudden everyone wants to be your friend.

From Facebook to LinkedIn, from Plaxo to Fastpitch and from Xing to Friendster, people are asking to be friends. And they’re not just people we know, have met or who share mutual friends. They are people from all over the World, with varied backgrounds and different interests. Yet they all want to be our friends and share in our lives.

Do you embrace each and every one of these new-found friends? Or do you find something uncomfortable and disconcerting about all of these requests from strangers?

Once you have befriended them, your popularity knows no-bounds. They want to follow you to every party you go to, and want to invite you to the ones they’re attending. All of a sudden you are a member of countless social networks…….and your network is the same on each one!

There are many people who embrace this method of networking. They believe that the more people you connect with, the broader your network, the more successful you are. For the more extreme, they count success in terms of ‘notches on the bedpost’. Others do take a more level-headed approach, recognizing that they do need to interact with many of these new ‘friends’ but that there is value in broadcasting to everyone else they are connected to. Not so much networking as marketing.

It might not surprise you that I favour a different approach to my online networking. My approach takes three stages, each one making it far easier to manage my time on each network effectively, interact with people in the best way possible and able to connect with everyone who genuinely wants to connect with me.

Stage One –

Understand WHERE you want to be

With so many invitations coming through now, there is a danger of stretching yourself too thin. I have received two more invitations to new networks in the short period of time I have been writing this column. Unless you plan to make membership of social networks a full time occupation, it would be impossible for anyone to be an effective, active member of every network available, so be selective.

There are probably four types of online network for me. Those I will never join; those I join, upload a profile but never visit again; those I join, upload a profile and visit occasionally and those I commit to.

The networks that I commit to are the ones who draw me in, encourage me to contribute and demonstrate a value to being there. For a long time LinkedIn was a network on which I had a profile and visited infrequently as there was such little apparent activity on the site. Over the last 12-15 months two things have happened to change that. The network themselves have added more functionality, allowing you to achieve more through the site, and more people have been drawn to LinkedIn, making activity there more rewarding.

Therefore, you do need to join a few networks and try them out to find out where you are at home, where you feel most comfortable and which ones demonstrate that membership will deliver a return for you, whatever that may be.

That leads us nicely onto

Stage Two –

Understand WHY you want to be there

In my opinion, the most effective way to exploit the sheer number of networks is to use each for a different purpose. If you simply join a lot of networks and use them in the same way, you will find yourself repeating the same activity again and again. Can you really afford to spend your time doing that?

People have talked for a long time about wanting a site, or some software, that replicates your content and profile across networks. I know such software is being developed and wouldn’t be surprised to find out it already exists. You can already post a ‘tweet’ on Twitter and see it duplicated on Facebook and elsewhere.

That’s all very nice but doesn’t it take away the ‘human’ element of social networking? Have a look at the Facebook page of someone who feeds their tweets through. You will see a lot of activity, much of which doesn’t make sense in isolation and using jargon from one network (Twitter) that makes no sense to Facebook users not accustomed to it.

The redesign of Facebook into a Tweeter-style feed is going to encourage this activity more. It means that people using this technology will have fewer reasons to visit Facebook and will no longer be ‘networking’ on it. Facebook will simply be reduced to another broadcast mechanism, rather than a tool for effective engagement and interaction.

If you want to broadcast, that’s fine. My approach takes a slightly different direction though. I believe that each network can play a different purpose. For example:

Facebook is a very human network and provides the opportunity for your professional network to find out about the person, and for your personal network to find out about your profession. It is a great tool for deepening relationships and, used wisely, building trust.

LinkedIn’s primary purpose is to aid connections. You can find out how you are connected to the key people you want to meet, and secure the introductions through your existing network.

Networks such as Ecademy, Xing and FastPitch encourage you to build the breadth of your network by making new connections. These are great fora for meeting new people, finding out about them and developing the beginnings of a relationship. They also allow you to build on those relationships through various events, clubs and ongoing conversations.

By taking that type of approach to your online networking, it means that you can be more selective about

Stage Three –

Understanding WHO you want to connect with there

Following the approach above, you would only invite existing contacts to link to you on Facebook or LinkedIn, while having other networks you can direct newcomers to. Let them develop the relationship on one of the other networks before taking it to the next stage.

An additional benefit to this approach is that it is easier to find and connect contacts in your ‘deeper’ networks. One of the problems of building mass connections is finding people if you’re not looking by name. Keeping these networks smaller makes that task much easier.

The numbers of social networks is going to continue growing as niche networks become more popular. With the increase in popularity of Ning and similar sites, more of your contacts will develop, and invite you to, their own personal social network, while face to face networks you belong to and industry bodies will all invite you to theirs.

Without a strategy to approach these invitations, you run the risk of becoming overwhelmed and turning your back on social networking completely.

Now, that wouldn’t make you too popular!

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Are you struggling to put an effective networking or referral strategy into place? Do you want to know more about how to ensure you get the maximum possible return from your networking?
Andy's new Audio programme 'Networking in Ninety Minutes' will give you the tools you need to make the most from your networking. Available in CD or mp3 format here.

Andy Lopata's newsletter archive
Andy Lopata's LinkedIn profile
Tune into Andy's weekly networking tips on yourBusinessChannel

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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER.



To subscribe for your free newsletter, go to www.TheNationalNetworker.com.

For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free, continuous RSS feed (available either by traditional RSS or by direct email), go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com.


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CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Will you be my Friend?