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Archive for the ‘Networking’ Category
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Monday, May 2nd, 2011
Keren was attending Get Motivated Great Britain on Saturday the 15th – but they changed the date!
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
I was planning to attend this – but it changed dates. And now it’s planned for the 2nd April. Get in touch anyone else who is going.
The plan is that there are going to be so many high profile speakers (Including Zig Ziglar, Karren Brady, Mark Victor Hansen, James Caan, Julie Ziglar-Norman, Morris Goodman, Andy Hansen, Christine Hamilton, Adrian Webster and Rob Brown) and this is a weekend day in Birmingham – for learning and of course networking!
That’s why I do BNI – 11 things people will get out of BNI membership
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
I have been a member of BNI since the summer of 2002 and I am now at BNI Mayfair. During that time I have learned many skills, and I think it would be useful for anyone running their own business. BNI doesnt suit every one, as there are several rules to follow, it’s a big commitment, and the meetings occur very early in the morning. But a recent thread on Twitter inspired me to write this post.
For those who don’t know, BNI is a professional networking organisations where members meet weekly for breakfast and help each other by finding new business for each other and making referrals. These are tracked and statistics are carefully kept for attendance, participation and the amount of business passed.
I posted a Tweet with the hashtag (which is a clickable topic on Twitter) #ThatsWhyIDoBNI after doing some quick calculations.
But it’s important to note the other benefits of BNI so I have written a list of 11 things people will get out of membership. (more…)
Getting Your BNI Ducks in a Row
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
BNI is great – Keren has been an active member for 7 years, and has seen all sorts of people from all sorts of businesses come through the system. Many left without seeing the benefits, but there always seemed to be a correlation of INPUT and OUTPUT. Our business here at Top Left Design is built on referral and we still can track a majority of our incoming enquiries back to people we wouldnt have met if it werent for Keren’s membership at BNI.
The best members of BNI have a good attitude. This means they HONESTLY believe in BNI and understand that nurturing relationships takes time, effort and good intentions! Givers gain and all that!
My top eleven tips to make your BNI membership a sure-fire success!
(Important – these tips work for ANY breakfast group of a similar nature to BNI!)
- Come every week
- Have a clear speaking voice and a clear message when you do your 60 seconds
- Be specific in asking for referrals
- Consider who your introducers would be in your business – parallel companies who can partner up with you – and ask for those as well as direct referrals.
- Make an effort to help their fellow BNI Members – by making introductions, giving advice, giving feedback – and avoid conflicts if you can!
- Spend time helping the running of the chapter itself – by taking on roles like visitor hosts/commitee members or leadership team roles.
- Be welcoming to visitors and follow up on them – you may be the only one in your group who does so, and they may come back to visit again because of you – or become a good contact for you.
- When receiving a referral, no matter how small it is, make an effort to follow it up.
- Have regular 1-2-1s with other members.
- Spending time preparing your 10minute speeches, and doing a good job with this opportunity.
- Attend training, at least until you feel you are comfortable – there are plenty of great ideas given at the BNI training days, plus great networking with members of other chapters.
- Try subbing and seeing how other BNI groups run – it really helps to expand your network and make the most of your membership.
And even with all this, you have to have a good attitude and believe in BNI. Then it works wonders!
As a bonus for reading to this point, here are some 60 second specific tips for you – FREE!
BNI 60 second tips:
- Don’t sell TO the group – you are asking for introductions to THEIR contacts
- Stand up to do your 60 seconds and also for the rererral/contributions part of the meeting too
- Remember – the referral part of the meeting another chance to market yourself, so make an effort to speak clearly and be specific there too!
- If you are doing your 10 minutes that day, the worst thing is to say “I wont bore you with my 60 seconds” – the 60 seconds part is another time to promote yourself and you need to make the most of it! A very common mistake.
- Use your memory hook (also known as a tagline!)
- Be specific when asking who you need to meet and why – as for specific companies or sectors
Related links
Hook Line and Sinker – secrets to a great memory hook
Networking – combining online and offline
BNI Mayfair chapter website
Hook Line & Sinker – Secrets to a Great Memory Hook
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
At structured networking events such as BNI, NRG or Athena, we regularly do “60 Second” speeches about our business. Ideally this includes who we are, what we do, how we add value, and of course, what time of business we are looking for. Many people/businesses also have a “hookline” – a sort of tagline which is said at the end of the little speech. Ours is “Top Left Design – Improve your presence online” – which rhymes and says what we do!
The great thing about memory hooks is that they help you be remembered – just what we need in today’s competitive world!
Keren had an educational slot to do about this topic – and of course did proper research! Much of this was found through the founder of BNI – Dr. Ivan Misner and a BNI website www.memoryhook.com.
What makes a good memory hook?
- it has to be easy to remember.
- It should be short and snappy
- Don’t include anything you don’t need.
Really Bad Memory Hooks
Here are some examples of REALLY bad memory hooks – they just don’t work!
Using LinkedIn for business
Monday, July 6th, 2009
We wanted to dedicate an article to LinkedIn. Keren has a friend who works at the LinkedIn European office, but this article isnt just for that, but rather to highlight its importance in business life!
Each of the social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ecademy, BT Tradespace and the others) has their own purpose, and the main thing about LinkedIn is:
- it’s a trusted network - which means you connect to people who you have met in a business capacity
- its for business – so not really for sharing personal details but for sharing your business activitiesSo, it’s really for business contacts and business topics. Whether you run your own business or work at a company, it’s about your professional life – an online CV and profile. LinkedIn is highly searchable, so as people are in the habit of Googling you, it’s a good idea to make sure your profile is online and up to date and says all the things you want people to know about you, and none of the sordid details you may not want to share.
Below we have put some useful icons you can save off and use on your website pages if you want to link to your LinkedIn profile. We recommend if you own or work in a company, you get everyone in your team to update their profile and link to it from your company website, as this will extend the network of your company.
People use LinkedIn to varying degrees. The most active (and successful) users consistently participate by:
- Joining LinkedIn groups for specific topics and interests
- Setting up their own groups and keeping them going by inviting people and starting new conversation topics
- Interlinking their Twitter and Facebook and other Social Media profiles to their LinkedIn profiles
- Putttng little “LinkedIn profile” links on their website where they have their own bios or on the homepage
- Submitting forum posts to their LinkedIn groups and responding to other’s conversations
- Writing and adding blog articles which are useful and relevant for the specific groups
- Using other tools such as the slideshare tool to show PowerPoint presentations.
- Consistently keeping their profile up to date.
- Browsing profiles of other LinkedIn users and ask their mutual contacts for introductions.
Of course – the more you put in the more you get out – if you use this resource as a way of keeping in touch, keeping “in people’s heads”, and getting inspired to meet up in “real life” then you will see too the magic that can happen from connecting through LinkedIn.
At the very least, keeping your LinkedIn profile up to date is of utmost importance – as this makes up a big part of your online professional reputation.
Some people don’t know that there is actually a LinkedIn Learning Centre. – see www.learn.linkedin.com – this is a valuable resource and show you a lot of what is possible on LinkedIn as well as answer FAQs.
See http://learn.linkedin.com and let us know what you learn – just email us or comment in the comments box and let us know extra tips!
Networking – combining online and offline
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
We wanted to share our tips about Online and Offline networking and encourage you to use them in conjunction.
Networking can be interpreted in many ways
but activities should include:
- going to networking events, parties, trade shows, and other gatherings where you meet new people
- making sure you keep in touch with those people
- connecting those people with other people you know, where it would be of mutual benefit
- meeting people again for “1-2-1s” and finding out more about their businesses
- Joining a group such as BNI, NRG, Business Junction, Athena, or Chambers of Commerce where you meet regularly to continue to get to know other members.
- Building relationships with other business people and showing yourself as an expert in your field as well as a nice reliable and helpful person.
All of these are typical of traditional networking.
What we are seeing now is that there are a lot of online groups as well. These have been around for many years and their usage is growing. Examples include Ecademy, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
There are many benefits to making proper use of these:
Workshop on Websites
Monday, October 13th, 2008
Keren did a big 45min seminar/workshop on websites and we got great feedback, which we feel is worth sharing, as this may make you realise that if you missed it, you can attend the next one in November 11th at Marble Arch – Book Here at the NRG website!!
I thoroughly enjoyed Keren’s “9 Deadly Website Sins” presentation. Clear, professional, entertaining and to the point, demonstrating the key problems that take away from a website’s effectiveness. All done without resorting to “dumbing down” techniques for the less technically minded.
Keren from Top Left Design is Top Class!
Denis Cahill – Director
Scorpius Solutions Ltd
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I recently attended a seminar that Keren gave at an NRG networking meeting. The theme, “9 deadly sins of website design”, was enough to draw me in!
Keren delivered her presentation to a mixed audience, ranging from technophobes to web designers; it is my opinion that she held all present equally enthralled by the clear and informative content of her talk and by her honest approach to sharing her companies guidelines to impactful web sites. If you have the opportunity to attend one of her seminars…
…grab the chance, you will not be disappointed!
Mark Keatley-Palmer
Director – Sycamore Design
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“Great presentation Keren! Very informative, useful and understandable. I took a lot of notes! I am very impressed with all your work and the numerous websites which you showed. I’m so impressed with you that I will be putting my web design business your way! I will also confidently refer friends and clients to you. Now that’s the BIGGEST commendation I can give you! I trust you. I think everyone else in the room feels the same way now too. You converted the audience into raving fans! And your Net Promoter Score must have jumped through the roof!”
Very Happy Phil,
www.veryhappyphil.com
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“…How refreshing it was to attend a seminar with a potentially technical and complex subject matter, and to be presented with a straightforward user friendly approach which even the worst technophobe could have understood. Highly informative and effortlessly delivered…”
Thomas Gilder
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‘Keren’s presentation is a very interesting and informative insight into how to create a useful website, Keren uses lots of examples to demonstrate how a good site should work and it is clear she has a lot of experience with a flair for high quality design’
Peter Cordery
Networking – the ups and downs
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
Here at Top Left Design, we are active networking people! Its the most fun way to grow your business and you know what they say – “people buy people!”
Keren is a member of:
BNI Mayfair – www.bnimayfair.co.uk
NRG Marble Arch – nrg-networks.co.uk
Ecademy – www.ecademy.com/user/keren
Here are my thoughts on the Ups and DOWNs of networking:
I like to start on a positive note, so I will do the “Ups” first.
- TURN UP – BNI and Networking is a long term thing. Its simple. If you keep showing up you will be remembered and will remind people of your existence. Over time, you will develop a long lasting business relationships.
- SPEAK UP – with your 60 second commercial is an opportunity to clearly state who you are, what you do, how you add value and of course, what type of referral you are looking for
- SHUT UP – BNI is about Giver’s Gain, so you need to listen to what other people are saying to find out how YOU can help THEM get more business referrals.
- FOLLOW UP – at a networking events are not about doing business but making new contacts, but if you don’t follow up, those people will forget about you, you will be just another business card in their drawer. Always always follow up on anyone you meet. Write down on the back of their business cards something spoke to them about – and then email or call them and put them in touch with that person you said you would or invite them to another networking event.
- MEET UP – having 1-2-1 meetings is one of the most effective ways to build up your referral based business, if you focus on how to help eachother get more business and ask the right questions you can get a much better understanding of what people do, and how you can help them.
Now that I have told you about the UPS – its time for the downs. It’s not like me to be negative but I still need to tell you about these 3 last points:
- WRITE DOWN what referrals people have asked for in their intro talks
- HONE DOWN your own speech, the more clear and specific you are the better results you will get
- And finally GET DOWN and Relax! After all the hard work networking and helping other people, you will find you have much more success in your business and the work will come pouring in, and you need stop sometimes and enjoy the fruits of your labour!
Hope this has been useful for you! Dont be shy if you want to comment or send us a message:
keren[at]topleftdesign.com!
