Talk It Up!

Personal Marketing

When was the last time you evaluated your personal marketing statement?

At last week's Empowering Women Network meeting, Susan Fignar took time to lead us through a quick evaluation--how do we think we present ourselves? What are our personality traits and positive qualities that tend to garner leads and referrals? What are our passions? What principles do we live by? And how do we make partnerships and a positive difference in our businesses and lives within our communities.

If you haven't taken time to do this in a while, check out the podcast of that session. Walk along, scribble your own notes, and take a listen to how some very powerful women guide their successful businesses.

Building Effective Relationships

Heard a fantastic speaker at last night's EWN meeting, Debra Knupp of Akina, Inc., who spoke on building effective relationships. The full seminar is available for free download as a podcast through EWN radio.

Debra is a phenomenal speaker, and I think that my biggest challenge was to pay attention to her content instead of taking notes on her speaking style and presentation format!

Debra began by saying that her goal was to have us walk away with one thing that we could implement right away--a very plausible and reasonable goal for any presentation. That alone made me sit up a bit straighter. Tired as I was and worried as I always am about the tech (I record and podcast our meetings, and there is always the podcaster's fear of "the mic is on, right? it didn't pull out of the recorder, right? is that lapel brush going to be audible on the recording?"), her message was very clear and came through in a very real way.

So, Debra, here is the one thing I walked away with:

You don't have to have a one-size-fits-all approach to building relationships. You can choose the tool that works best for you.

I liked that one of her messages was this: do what you like. The reason we don't always follow up with phone calls is because some of us don't like to make phone calls. So what do you like to do? What feels natural to you?

• Clip an article and send it?
• Email a link for a funny or informative web site?
• Call and ask for advice with a problem?
• Invite out to coffee?
• Go see a ball game?
• Send a fun gift?

Which one or two of these is within your comfort zone? For me, when she said that for some of us, follow-up calls don't feel natural and that is why we don't make them, a light bulb went off. Doing things within our comfort zones and that reflect our own personalities makes so much more sense. And choosing tasks that we find value in and enjoy has the huge benefit of assuring that we'll actually DO them.

She points out that she doesn't like to email links--that's just not her style. But she loves to call and ask people for advice. So that is what she does to keep in touch with many of her contacts: when she hits a challenge, she calls up a few of them and says, "I'd like to run something by you. Could you give me a call back?"

For me, the one thing I took away was to be true to yourself and do what's in your comfort zone. If you were there, what did you take away?
 

Notes from Vicki Austin

Met with the fabulous Vicki Austin, Worldwide Business Coach Extraordinaire and fellow francophile yesterday. We sat at Argo Tea and chatted about everything from Paris to self-employment to the dearth of female CEO's in the Chicago area, and a few concepts solidified from our conversation:

• Make a contribution--to your communities, your business (if you work for someone else), your clients. To be happy, most of us want to be part of something larger than ourselves.
• We are ALL in sales, and we are ALL in customer service, no matter what our job description is! When you work for yourself, you are simply trading one boss for 20 bosses (or however many clients you have). And even in-house in a cubicle, you're part of the company image.
• When you're on the phone with a client, people shouldn't be able to tell that you're not talking to your best friend. You shouldn't sound "professional;" you should enjoy the personal contact as much as you do the rest of your life.
• Persistence + Sense of Humor = Success (by whatever definition). My first rejection letter from a company I'd love to work for is proudly tacked up on my bulletin board, awaiting future phone calls, emails and meetings before the acceptance letter arrives.
• Real people really want to help. The time I spend helping, coaching, advising, chatting and laughing with women and men, business partners and friends, is the stuff of which life is made. It's not a trade with expectations of a return, but a way of life.

Who will you have coffee with this week? Who inspires you? Whom will you inspire?

GBSBS: Client relationships

Check out the latest episode of the Great Big Small Business Show on client relationships! Download the episode here. In this week's episode:

Without clients we have no business, so this week our experts talk about building relationships before the first sale and maintaining relationships for the long term.

Steve Rucinski - Control your ego

Steve Rucinski talks about controlling your ego to focus on the client’s needs. He recommends the book Let’s Get Real by Mahan Khalsa.

Download Steve’s handout.

Becky McCray - Building client relationships one layer at a time

Becky McCray explains a process and a mindset of layering information as a part of building relationships.

Heidi Miller - 8 simple tips to keep client relationships alive after the first sale

Heidi Miller has a real world example of relationship building, plus 8 simple tips to make sure your customers don’t end up calling your competitors.

Colleen Wainwright - Relationship rules for business

Colleen Wainwright explains which rules for personal relationships also apply to business relationship building.