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I’ve been doing B2B sales for about 20 years now and have been running my own firm, for the past 10.
We focus on marketing, but we’re really a sales pipeline company. We help B2B companies build and manage their entire pipelines.
If there’s one thing I could go back in time and tell myself at 25, it would be to begin seriously building up my professional network early and often.LinkedIn has been instrumental in this process and it’s not just a platform, but it’s where these relationships live.
In my own business, just recently someone I met over 6 years ago reached out to start doing business with me.
Before that, we were just working on different things albeit in the same industry.
Because I fostered the relationship over the years, now that the timing is right I immediately came to mind as a potential business partner.
These days I’m proactive in who I’m connecting with. I have a daily networking checklist that I run down every morning as I dive into my work session.
I look at my calendar, prior meetings, and who I’ve been emailing and make sure I’m connected with them on LinkedIn and social media.
I do my best to be aware of what’s going on in their worlds. I’m also constantly connecting with people who’ve come to my website and downloaded our best practices guides and naturally want to connect further.
That’s just me practicing what I preach.
As a company, we’ve been aggressive at creating these new relationships and maintaining them over time via LinkedIn.
It’s not authentic if you’re not doing it yourself, so it does take some real dedicated effort if you want to do it right.
Let’s say you’re out at a conference or any event in life that is a networking situation. Then on some level your job is to make as many connections as humanly possible.
Even if they don’t seem like good business connections at the time, you never know how things could change.
You don’t know what their next job will be or who they’ll meet that’s perfect for you.
It can be as simple as always saying hi to the people in front of you and behind you in the lunch lines. Just be sure you follow up with them after the event.
There are no shortcuts to this it’s just energy and effort. If you just met briefly – keep it you casual and reference the food you shared or the environment.
Don’t mention sales or business and don’t use the auto message LinkedIn provides. Even a micro amount of personalization goes a long way. It helps if you do reference something about yourself that will help them remember you!
This is key after bigger events when everyone’s flying all over the place. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for the other party to say “yes” to you.
More connections for your network by being proactive and seeing everyone you meet as a potential connection.
This article is based on an EHQ interview with the mentor.
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