| �
�
�
�
� |
About
Expert
C+Charge Prognose
Latest
Issue
Subscribe
FREE
Search
for Speakers
Trainers and Consultants
Article Archive
Resource
Directory
Expert
Infomercials
Send
this article to others
ASTD
MPI
|
|
THE
GOLDEN RULE OF NETWORKING�
by Bob Burg
The
Golden Rule of networking is simply this... All things
being
equal, people will do business with and refer business
to
those people they know, like and trust. That's it. That is
what
it's all about, and our goal is to develop new
relationships
with people on an everyday basis and develop
those
relationships to a point that those people feel so good
about
us, they know us. They like us. They trust us. They want
to
see us succeed. They want to help us find new business.
They
want to hopefully be a part of our business if that is
apropos,
but they definitely want to be a part of our lives,
which
means they will go out of their way to help us succeed
through
referrals.
So
what we want to do is - we want to develop personal walking
ambassadors.�
See, we know that it has been documented that
the
average person knows about 250 people.�
Thus every time
you
meet someone new on any given day for any given reason,
and
are able to cultivate and develop that relationship with
one
person to the point that one person feels so good about
you
- they know you, like you, trust you, want to see you
succeed,
want to help you find new business, want to be a part
of
your business if that is apropos, but definitely want to be
a
part of your life. Every time we do that with one new
person,
we've actually just increased our personal sphere of
influence
by about 250 people every single time. Do this with
enough
new people on a consistent basis and before long, you
will
absolutely have an amazing, enormous, humongous sphere of
influence.
Now
we are going to talk about one aspect of that,
some questions we can
ask
that will immediately cause this person to gravitate
towards
us and want to know more about us and want to have a
relationship
with us. If you use these few questions, you will see that the amount of
people
that you can quickly win over to your side just
multiplied
greatly, exponentially.
Now
when we are in a conversation with somebody, and
throughout
my Endless Referrals system, I talk about basically
three
things - how to find the right people, how to meet the
right
people and how to win them over. We are just going to
talk
about one three-minute aspect and that is asking some
open-ended
questions with someone once you get to the point
where
you've met them and this could be anywhere whether it's
one
on one, in a group, what have you.
You
see, what we know we want to do is invest 99.9 percent of
the
conversation with that person asking that person questions
about
themselves and their business. We all know that, right?
Because
the people we find most interesting are the people who
seem
most interested in us. No, really!� How
many times have
you
been in a conversation with somebody who let you do all
the
talking, and you came away from that conversation saying to
yourself, "Wow!� What a fascinating conversationalist that
person
is."
And
see, we have all done that, so I like to ask questions I
call
"feel good questions". Feel good questions are simply
questions
that are designed to make that person feel good
about
themselves, about the conversation and most importantly,
about
you. Now I have ten of these questions in my arsenal,
but
the good news is you will never have time to ask all ten,
so
you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it would be
almost
intrusive to that person if you did, but you'll usually
have
time to ask two or three.
Okay,
first question. The first feel good question is, "Dave,
how
did you get started in the widget business, whatever that
person
does? Say, "How did you get started in the real estate
business?
Or, Mary, how did you get started in the oil
exploration
business? Or, Steve, how did you get started as a
professional
printing representative?" I call that the movie
of
the week question because doesn't everybody want to tell
their
story? Doesn't everybody want to be the movie of the
week
in somebody else's mind and have you focus all your
attention
on him or her? And you might
be saying, "Well, Bob, that's not me. I don't like to be
the
focal point of anyone's attention? I don't like to talk
about
myself?" And my response to you would be that I know
that's
true with you, but everybody else in the world wants to
talk
about him or herself, so just go with it. Go with that
principle.
The
second question I will usually ask is, "What do you enjoy
most
about what you do?" See that is a feel good question. It
is
a feel good question that elicits a feel good response.� We
are
taught to immediately find that person's pain, so we can
cure
that pain with our perfect product or service or
opportunity,
but see the rapport hasn't yet been established.
They
are not ready to tell you all about their life's
mistakes,
so let's, instead of finding their pain, find their
joy.
"What do you enjoy most about what you do?" It is quite
the
opposite from the negative feel bad question like saying
to
the person, "Tommy, what do you just hate most about what
you
do? And while we're at it, how about the wretched excuse
for
a life you live?"� Not
going to have the results we want,
so
we ask, "What do you enjoy most about what you do?"
Now
after we've asked a couple of these questions, we've
developed
kind of a rapport and the person feels good about
us.
Now we are going to ask what I call the one key question. Now this is not
even
one of the ten feel good questions.� This
is a question that
is only asked after you've gotten the initial rapport
established,
and here is what I call the one key question that
will
set you apart from everyone else. And that is this, "Gary
or
Susan, how can I know if somebody I am talking to would be
a
good prospect for you?" "Mary that is really fascinating
what
you do. How can I know if somebody I am talking to would
be
a good prospect for you?" "Dave, how can I know if somebody I'm
talking to would be a good prospect for you?"
What
have we done when we've asked that question? We've done,
I
think, two things. One is we've said to this person, "I am
interested
in you first." We are being "you" oriented instead
of
what most people are being "I" oriented, and they really
want
to know, "What can you do for me?"� Now they may not come
right
out and say that, but isn't that what they are really
implying
when they hand the person ten business cards and say,
"Keep
one for yourself, and give nine to your closest
friends."
But we're not doing that.� We're
taking interest in
them.
The other thing we are doing is we are getting that
person
to help us to help them.
Very
quickly, here is what I mean. We're talking with Gary.
Gary
is a center of influence, a great guy and somebody we'd
love
to have either in our network or as a prospect or his
250-person
sphere of influence, what have you. Gary sells copy
machines,
those big copy machines to businesses, and we say to
Gary,
"Gary, I don't know much about this particular product.
I
am sure it is really good. Tell me, how can I know if
somebody
I am talking to would be a good prospect for you?"
�Now
Gary has to think about it for a moment because he has
probably
never been asked that question before. Okay? I mean,
people
who love Gary have probably never asked Gary that
question
before because people don't care, but we care. We
say,
"Gary, how can I know if somebody I'm talking to would be
a
good prospect for you?"� So
he has to think about it for a
moment,
but finally he says, "Well, I'll tell you what. If you
ever
happen to be walking in an office and you notice a copy
machine
and next to that copying machine is a waste paper
basket
which is filled to the rim and totally overflowing with
crumpled
up pieces of paper, that is a really good sign that
that
copy machine has not been working really well lately; and
that
would be an excellent prospect for me."�
So Gary has just
shown
us, he has told us how to look out for him, how to
prospect
for him which means we can introduce Gary to other
people,
we can edify him and talk about how they can know who
would
be a good prospect for Gary.
We
can follow up with Gary with a follow up system we use
which
is simple, nice and easy, and we are in a position
now
to be able to control the situation, to be able to work
this
relationship as we want with good feeling already
instilled
right away.
Excerpted from Bob
Burgs presentation at Jim Rohn's two day event.� Bob
Burg is an expert in business networking and positive persuasion skills, and
author of the best-selling audio series "Winning Without
Intimidation",
"Endless Referrals", and a 2 videotape
series
"Winning Without Intimidation".� For more information on Bob
Burgs audio and video tape series and Jim Rohn visit
www.jimrohn.com
Send this article to others
Reader feedback
top of page
All
articles & website � Expert Magazine
|
