Don’t Be A Brick Wall

 

If you are not connecting people in your network to each other, you are a brick wall

A brick wall is where things stop. Nothing happens. Don’t be a brick wall.

Your network is a garden. Plant seeds (attend events and meet new people), water the plant (reach out to these new people immediately then follow up quarterly, annually or whatever makes sense), harvest the plant (give to get – after you have developed the appropriate bond for the relationship go ahead and ask for something). Win.

This post is about harvesting your network to provide introductions for others or “give to get.” Because if you introduce someone to your network, you will probably get into that person’s network.

On Monday, I met with a technology sales rep that will close about $2.5M in sales this year. Her contracts range from $30K to $1.5M. I’m very motivated to have her work with me and my team to develop new opportunities. Here are the steps I took to introduce her to the first account where I got her an appointment:

1. Emailed person in charge of technology for a global company and said “I’m sure you already have a vendor for XYZ, but you really should speak to this person. Can I have her call you this week?”

2. My contact emailed back and said yes.

3. I forwarded that email to the tech sales rep and they connected directly.

A brick wall is when someone emails a *target contact and says “here is so and so’s email address – you should contact them about XYZ.” Why is that a brick wall? Because target contacts are too busy to bother with requests for contacts from **arrow contacts (too busy for a lot of things). That “lead” will die and go nowhere while some person with good intentions thinks they have done something of value for you. Both approaches take the same amount of time. The method I suggest will result in a transaction or some other type of value. It allows the person you are helping to drive things. That is a major key to providing value to your network.

*Target contact is the person that has the opportunity.

**Arrow contact is the person that wants to speak with the target contact.

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