Networking
drives fear into most people’s heart, those awful B.N.I meetings where you
stand up for 30 seconds giving the same old rubbish about yourself and your
business whilst everyone tucks into the egg and bacon .. truly awful ... then pass referral notes around a room with
the anticipation of a 6 year old child on Christmas day morning waiting to see if
you had something. Or the thought of standing up for 10 to 15 minutes talking
about your lettings agency with a powerpoint presentation that is so awful it has more bullet points
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| Dont you just love a crap Powerpoint presentation .. especially when the presenter reads all the bullet points .. awful ..truly awful |
Networking isn’t a sales process but a referral process. You ask the average businessperson what’s the most important way to build your business, they’re going to tell you referrals and In fact, you can break it down, first you need to be conspicuousness, you need people to know you are there, being visible. After they have met you, this in turn leads to plausibility and from that you will get trust and from that the business.
Conspicuousness
is where people (landlords) know who you are and what you do; you have name
recognition in the town or suburb. Plausibility is where people (landlords)
know who you are and what you do, and they know you’re good at it, because
they’ve heard it from others or they’ve used your services. After that is where
people (landlords) know who you are, what you do, they know you’re good at it i.e trust – and they’re willing to pass you
referrals.
But if it were that easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? Because remember, it’s all about farming not hunting. You wouldn’t dream going on a first date and saying in the first 30 seconds, ‘Hey up you and I should buy a house and get married’. So why do people think it’s acceptable when trying to build BUSINESS relationships instead of ROMANTIC relationships, when someone walks up to you at a networking event, ‘Hi my name’s Bob. We should be doing business together.’ Wow tiger .. lets get to know each first before we get to the fourth base.
But if it were that easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? Because remember, it’s all about farming not hunting. You wouldn’t dream going on a first date and saying in the first 30 seconds, ‘Hey up you and I should buy a house and get married’. So why do people think it’s acceptable when trying to build BUSINESS relationships instead of ROMANTIC relationships, when someone walks up to you at a networking event, ‘Hi my name’s Bob. We should be doing business together.’ Wow tiger .. lets get to know each first before we get to the fourth base.
There are
many types of networking. The first type is B.N.I. and those sorts of groups.
Overt networking groups whose purpose of being there is to network. The second
in covert networking, a more laid back approach, quite casual in nature,
organisations like the chamber of commerce, Rotary club, Round Table and the
Masonic Lodge. Next up are online/internet
networks, like Linkedin, Blogging and Twitter; and finally landlord networks,
like the National Landlords Association
or the fab Simon Zutshi’s PIN meetings
and if you have never been .. you must go!
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| You know this dog is coolest dog in his neighbourhood |
You
should have your toe in all four streams, or at least three, if you want to
build a powerful personal network to get more landlords for your letting
agency. The problem is most letting agents don’t even do one of the networking types,
let alone three or four. Most letting agents sit in their little offices tied
to the desk, only hitting the pavement to go in and out of work, a couple of
inspections and a sandwich run to Marks and Spencer’s. Yes I know with the
tinterweb and social media, you don’t have to actually see anybody. Networking
is a press the flesh contact sport. You have to integrate the two; you have to
do face to face, because there’s nothing that beats a personal conversation,
eye to eye, shaking somebody’s hand. Use social media in lettings to stay in
touch with people you have met and to build visibility with people/landlords
you haven’t met yet.
Start a
local property blog and talk about the local property market on a daily basis.
Use my techniques to get the 500, 1000 or even 2000 email addresses of the
landlords in your town and send them a newsletter about the local property
market (see the example here that I posted on Friday,
..... recycle the same stories in the newspaper and
you will have evolved a clearly defined process to get landlords to trust you
and contact you. It takes time but when you go out networking, to the BNI’s,
Rotary clubs, Leisure clubs, you will have something to talk about and in fact
people will come up to you and introduce themselves, saying, “Hello, my name in
Jim, I was reading your articles about the local property market in the
(newspaper/blog/newsletter) .. tell me more” .. Now that is easy networking
isn’t it!
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| .. but not as cool as the Sheriff of Grantham .. Joey himself! |