I remember sitting in a college lecture with a professor who was making a point around self-awareness, or the lack thereof. He asked everyone to raise their hand who thought that they were an above-average driver. Every single hand in the class went up – about a hundred of them. With that, the entire class burst out into laughter because they realized that everyone, of course, couldn’t be an above-average driver. Similarly, I think that if we were sitting in a training session with entrepreneurs, business owners, sales people and other business professionals and asked: Who thinks they’re an above average marketer? We would see, again, almost every hand would go up. But as we know, this can’t be the case. With 90 percent of small businesses failing within the first 60 months and almost the same percentage of salespeople missing quotas, clearly a lack of marketing acumen presents a big opportunity. One area this is particularly evident is around Personal Network Marketing.
Your Personal Network Matters
Effective marketing to your personal network is a goldmine of new business that is likely being missed. But to fully take advantage and develop this stream of business, it takes far more than simply posting on social media – it takes the ability to add value with education and the courage to ask for the business from your network on a regular basis.
Business owners realize that Social media has changed the marketing game. They want more Personal Network and Referral Business because converting total strangers to paying customers is so expensive and inefficient. Today, the power of marketing to a Personal Network and the ability to generate referrals is not only smart business but a necessity for survival in our competitive business world.
So let me start with the math. The average person has just over 300 people in their digital rolodex. So if you have 300 people in your personal network and each of them has 300 in their network, that’s 90,000 potential customers! Go ahead and grab your calculator as I know you’ll check my math (300 x 300 = 90,000). I’m sure there is overlap among the networks, but even a fraction of this number is more customers and clients then you’ll likely ever need for your business.
How Do We Approach This Opportunity Professionally & Effectively?
Here is a simple and effective plan. First, remember you are building your brand each time you communicate with your network. Avoid silly posts designed to only keep your name in front of your network that add no value. Silly posts hurt your brand. It’s a must to have posts that prove you know your stuff and add value to the reader.
Step 1: Develop 12 communication topics that answer questions around your area of expertise that position you as an expert. Then grow this to 24 and ultimately 52 communication topics. You’ll post or send them out via email monthly, bi-weekly and then ultimately weekly.
Step 2: Have a call to action on every communication. Ask them to visit your website, opt-in to your newsletter, call you, refer you or “like” your post. Make it clear you’re out to help and would like to do business with them.
Step 3: Have the courage to personally ask for their business. I don’t mean to generically ask for business though a post that says “Please call me if you ever need X.” I mean you must have the courage to call them up or email them personally and ask for their business! As you can imagine, this is where the system almost always breaks down. I see many business professionals post and provide great material who just hope they will get a call from that effort. If I can give you a brief commercial here, the automated referral and personal network technology system called ReferME IQ solves this problem because it removes the awkwardness of the face-to-face request. After the easy set-up, the system regularly reaches out to your personal network and directly asks them to do business with personalized plain text emails that you have sent via the system. Your Personal Network becomes a sales force for you 24/7. Learn more at www.refermeiq.com
Putting It All Together
In summary, your Personal Network is a goldmine of new business if it’s effectively and appropriately approached. You will not reach the full potential of this opportunity just by being in front of your network with low/no value added material. But when you add value with your communications on social media, have a consistent call to action, and have the courage to reach out and ask for the business, your network will not only do business with you but can become an evangelist for your business by sending you regular referrals. Having a personal network marketing plan in connection with an Automated Personal Network Technology system like www.ReferMeIQ.com will make you a well above-average marketer and help ensure you never become one of the business statistics referenced above. To your success!