How you look when attending business networking meetings can make a big difference. I know several photographers through business networking and only one of them always takes their camera to events. Guess which one gets the most work?

I have also met a couple of people doing pest control – one goes in a suit and the other goes in his branded work wear. Which do you think you are likely to remember when you think of pest control?

Some professionals have typical associations and you stand a better chance of being remembered for the right reasons if you look the part. For example, without knowing anything else….

Who would you rather trust your tax affairs with?
Someone dressed in a smart pin stripe suit, or someone dressed in scruffy jeans?

I know a marketer who gets remembered for the wrong reason. He does not take much care of his own appearance. He does not seem to get the irony that he is in marketing and yet does not realise his personal appearance is letting him down. It’s a bit like a slimming coach who is excessively overweight – people just don’t take you seriously.

You can get a little creative with looking the part. I remember a clever lady who sold office furniture and took along a bright orange mini office chair with her to networking meetings. A person selling office furniture does not have any particular look but add a chair and it gets noticed and remembered!

How we look is an important aspect of marketing and especially applies to business networking. People make judgements, good or bad, based on what they see. When your appearance matches what you are offering then you will not only seem more credible but you are more likely to get remembered.

I was thrilled and honoured when BNI founder Dr Ivan Misner agreed to write the foreword to my book – even though I was not even a member. A few people who were well known in the BNI UK structure had been on my networking masterclass and one wrote about it in his own book!

I followed my own advice and did quite a lot of research of BNI chapters in Surrey. As it turned out I already knew a few people in one of my local groups – Guildford Cathdral. I had done business with one of them in the past and could vouch for her expertise. The meetings over breakfast are fun, positive, and just the thing to keep me awake that early in the morning!

As mentioned in the previous review, BNI has a system that works…….. if you follow the system. Where a BNI chapter is working well the system seems to be in the background rather than being robotic. The first time around I assumed that the system did not apply to me – after all, I had built a successful IT consulting practice before starting up my sales training and coaching business. That was a big mistake and the bottom line is that I covered my costs but that was about it.

This time around I decided to follow the system 100% – even though I am now accomplished at winning business from networking. Actually it is because I have learnt from experts outside of BNI that I now appreciate why the system is there and that without it the group will never produce the kind of business needed to sustain it.

So far it’s only been a couple of months since I re-joined. In my book I stress that the money in networking comes from the 1-2-1 meetings and building social capital. Within the first month I invested time in meeting up with as many fellow members as I could. In one day alone I scheduled four 1-2-1 meetings back-to-back. These don’t have to eat into the working day although a popular time is immediately after the BNI meeting so that you can do at least one per week.

Part of the rush to get the 1-2-1s done quickly is that I knew I had a big project coming which is pretty much full-time for a couple of months. However, I have made sure I keep attending weekly meetings and passing referrals. My 1-2-1 meetings are now done over dinner – also recommended in my book as the solution to the problem of networking when you are very busy.

The first referrals I received were fairly small but encouraging. Mainly recommendations of my book to their contacts – I gave a free copy to each member at the end of our 1-2-1- meeting. Now I am starting to see one or two sizable referrals coming through for sales training and consultancy. These are with much larger organisations, one of which was on my dream list! You never know who knows whom!

When I first joined BNI I needed it to work for me but stupidly I didn’t follow the system. This time I don’t actually need BNI to work for me as I have referrals coming in from many sources. It was more for longer term benefit to further the speaking side of my business. However, I have followed the system completely and I can report that so far it all seems to be working as promised!

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had properly followed the BNI system 10 years ago! But there again I may never have written my book! Still, better late than never….

In business networking terminology, an advocate is someone who is a dream contact. It is what word-of-mouth marketing is all about.

An advocate will go out into the market place and sing your praises and recommend you whenever they spot a need for your products and services. An advocate will do this without you having to pay them a penny!

I always say that one advocate is worth ten clients and much of my business networking activity is about building up a network of advocates. It’s like having a team of agents but not having to pay them any commission. Indeed, the best advocates would probably be offended if you offered them money for their continued advocacy.

You do need to look after your advocates or they can stop advocating you – or worse still they can become an anti-advocate and advise people not to use your services. And a good advocate knows a lot of people and is very vocal. They can make or break your reputation overnight, especially in an online connected world.

So knowing what I do about the power of advocacy, I am regularly amazed at how badly some people treat their business networking advocates. I had one company who I had been advocating and had referred to them almost £50,000 of business over a couple of months. When I decided to use them for my own business they took advantage of the relationship and gave me a very sloppy service saying they were too busy with other clients. The clients I had referred to them by the way!

Needless to say, I did not recommend them again and actually gave my revised feedback of their service to several people who were interested in using their services. Because my needs were miniscule compared to the clients I referred I was given a second class treatment. As far as an advocate is concerned, the service they receive is the service they recommend so make sure you give them your best service.

Many of my biggest advocates have never paid me a penny for the help I have given them. They are not in my ideal audience and yet they are in a great position to recommend me to their clients who are my ideal audience. A good advocate will possibly want to check you out in some way. Maybe they will want to sample your services. Another option is to introduce them to your clients who hopefully will be happy to advocate you. When selling IT I used to judge the quality of a client relationship based on whether a client would be prepared to share the stage with me at a public seminar. I am pleased to report that many did!

So, if you want to make business networking very time effective then look out for and nurture your advocate relationships and do not take them for granted.

According to Cialdini, humans seem to have this inbuilt need to reciprocate. You buy someone a pint of beer and they want to buy you one back. You do someone a favour and they want to return the favour. Whether this is nature or nurture is very debateable because, in my experience, some people are just happy to keep taking without any apparent desire to reciprocate.

Fortunately enough people in business networking do get the concept of ‘Givers Gain’ that BNI have done so well to evangelise. In my experience, however, there is one thing you need to bear in mind:

People will give back what you give

They may give back in different ways but it will be something they consider equal value to settle the social ‘debt’. They will rarely give you massively more than you have given.

The way some people give referrals, it’s like they give someone a glass of tap water expecting to get back a glass of fine wine. Sorry but it ain’t gonna happen!

Some people, for example, give a referral by doing no more than giving a name and number of a contact with no effort to make an introduction. With Google and LinkedIn that information these days can be gained with little effort. In sales terms a referral like that adds little. Unfortunately people are often too polite to give feedback except by not giving referrals back.

So my business networking tip is to give as you would like to get. If you want to get more quality referrals or you want to continue getting quality referrals, make sure you are giving quality referrals.

In this business networking Interview Andy Lopata explains how to get better results from people you already know

Networking is a people business and for it to work you need to be the kind of person others enjoy being around. If you want to become influential with highly connected people then they need to feel comfortable in your company. If they do not then they are unlikely to do business with you or want to refer you to people they know – no matter how talented you are.

If you find it hard being positive and uplifting, I know how you feel. Please don’t tell anyone but there was a time, many years ago when I felt the same. I always looked on the negative side of life. Every silver lining had a cloud and I would regularly criticise and complain about things. The sort of person I would now give a very wide berth. I knew this was a problem but I did not know what to do about it.

What I found from reading personal development books is that negativity is a habit and so is being positive and optimistic. It all depends on what you pay attention to. I used to pay attention to the worst in people. Now I pay attention to the best in people. I used to think about what could go wrong. I now think about what could go right.

I am not suggesting that you put on a false positivity or become all happy-clappy and Pollyanna. What I am saying is that in the world of networking a negative outlook will hold you back and you may want to invest in some personal development. Books like ‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie is a good place to start.

Being uplifting is about making people you are with feel better about themselves. You just need to take the focus off yourself and put it onto them. Smile and find something you can sincerely complement and take an interest in. Give them your undivided attention and they will thank you for it.

When people feel good by being around you they will want to spend more time with you and they will be happy to introduce you to people they know. That’s not only good for business but it’s also great fun!

Reciprocity
One of the 5 major elements of influence identified by Robert Cialdini in his excellent book ‘Influence’ is reciprocity. It seems to be human nature that when someone gives us something we feel obligated to reciprocate. Cialdini describes in detail how the Hare Krishna sect use reciprocity to raise money. They give you a gift knowing that you will most likely feel obliged to make a donation in return. In networking this works well if you give someone a good referral that leads to lots of business for them.

Many will want to return the favour or pay some kind of referral fee to encourage you to give more of the same. They will feel uncomfortable taking without giving anything back in return.

Using reciprocity to manipulate when you are networking is not a good idea. If you have a hidden agenda people often can tell and it will get in the way of developing a trusted relationship. I believe it’s much better to be open and let them know what the deal is. For example:
“I will look out for referrals for you if you do the same for me”.

Group reciprocity
In groups like BNI you get the potential for a higher level of giving. This is where group members help other people in the group but there is not necessarily a direct exchange of giving. It’s a little bit like the idea of secret Santa where everyone buys someone else in the group a present at Christmas. Everyone ends up with a present rather than each one having to give each person a present in return.

If there is someone in the group that is giving a lot of referrals then other members of the group will want to help that person in return. It is not, however, done out of personal obligation. It is done out of a belief that when everyone in the group is contributing then everyone wins. It does not matter who gives whom the referral just so long as everyone gets what they need.

There is another level of givers gain which I call “Networking Karma” and is based on the saying “What goes around, comes around” – it gets a bit esoteric and so perhaps a blog for another life time!

This tip applies to any event and not just business networking meetings. You can add valuable contacts to your network anywhere and at most events there will be people who arrive before the crowds.

It does not have to be a business related event either. It can be any event where people gather. So consider arriving early for club meetings, committee meetings, and even parties and barbeques. As always you should be focusing on developing the connection and the relationship rather than talking about what each person does for a living but that inevitably comes up in conversation at some point.

If you find it difficult to start a conversation then use the fact you are early as an ice breaker. Say something like:
“I think I am a bit early, what time does it start?” or “I see you are early too. Have you travelled far?”

I must admit, I am not a morning person and so getting up at the crack of dawn to attend a business networking meeting over breakfast is hard work for me. Even so, I make the effort to arrive early for as I find it is always time well spent. The networking pros always seem to arrive early.

You know what they say about early birds and worms!

One thing you can do is to arrange to meet up with your contacts and focus specifically on helping each other win more business referrals. Being upfront about it as an outcome for the meeting will be refreshing to many.

Set up the meeting correctly to avoid any awkwardness by giving permission to ask for referrals. Say something like:
“It will be great to catch up with you. Can I make a suggestion? Let’s update each other with what we are currently doing and then see how we can help each other with introductions and referrals. Is that OK with you?“

Then make sure you always focus on the other person before asking for yourself. All the time you should be thinking ‘Whom do I know who will help them win more business.

Direct referrals are best but also bear in mind other people who could help them. For example, potential alliances and introducers, opportunities for free publicity and invitations to events where they can meet potential clients.

Before you start organising your referral meetings, make sure you can easily articulate your proposition and stories as described in ‘The Accidental Salesman – Networking Survival Guide’. That will make it much easier for the other person to help you.

The meetings are structured – it just does not feel like it as they are designed to be fun and light-hearted. The big thing that I really love about the 4Networking format is 1-2-1 meetings are a key part of the breakfast meeting.

At each meeting you are guaranteed to get three ten minute 1-2-1 meetings. At other business networking meetings you meet people and have good intensions of following up but other things always seem to come up. Here you can actually have a proper 1-2-1 meeting and see if there is any common interest.

In terms of the meeting format, each person gets 40 seconds to introduce themselves to everyone else in the room. That gives everyone a chance to decide who they would like to do a 10 minute appointment with. The smart people pitch to get a 10 minute appointment rather than pitching their products and services.

After the introductions are over there is a mad scramble to book the 10 minute appointments. Then there is a short comfort break followed by a 10 minute presentation by a member. The last and most important part of the meeting is the 10 minute appointments.

The meeting start at 8.00am and finish at 10.00am. If you are not careful it can really start eating into the day. As such, regulars tend to be people who sell products and services to smaller businesses and for them it’s a great way to get meetings. Others are people who are professionals selling to smaller businesses and business development is a key part of their role. What is often overlooked by members is that many people in the room will have larger businesses as clients or will be connected with them in some way,

The 4 Networking format tends to attract members looking to do business with other people in the room which is different from BNI where members are predominantly looking for referrals. Both are valid lead generation strategies and that is why there are many BNI members who are also big fans of 4Networking.

If you have not tried 4Networking then I recommend you check it out. It’s not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ but it certainly is a fresh and exciting new approach to business networking meetings.

Are you a member of 4Networking? Have you been a member? Please share your experiences below.