«Network better» — the programme. Rationale

1 ‘Fred’

Most of the best clients are those who rang up out of the blue one day to say, ‘I’ve been talking to Fred. He suggested you could help me’.

Fred is someone whom your future client knows, likes and trusts. Fred also has:

a reasonable understanding of what you do
and he has reasonable confidence in your integrity as a business person (not just as a professional).

So, how many Freds do you know? How often does each deliver you a client?

What if you knew who all your Freds were?

What if you knew (rather than just hoped) that each Fred had some understanding of what you do and was confident in your integrity as a professional?

What if you could get business from other people whom you already know, and who like and trust you, but who don’t currently send you clients for any number of reasons?

What if you could get business from people whom you don’t yet know?

What if you could talk about Fred to your contacts in a way which might generate clients for him (thus motivating him hugely to carry on doing it for you)?

2 Getting the most from your Freds

Getting clients by referral from others will only ever generate a small fraction of the business you could get unless you use an informed systematic (and tried and tested) approach which addresses the points above.

But is there such an informed systematic approach?

Yes. Organisations such as Asentiv teach how to do it. It is normally referred to as ‘referral marketing’.

3 Why the Network better programme works

The programme recognises that many professionals are reluctant to ‘network’ with a random group of strangers in a poorly organised event. So are we.

And, we know that many professionals have a full address book but are unsure how to make use of it to grow their firm.

That’s why the Network better programme enables professionals to develop their business by tapping into their existing relationships.

It helps you to make use of the people you already know. It takes away the randomness of ‘networking’. If you need more contacts than your network appears to provide, we show you how to find them and form relationships with them, too.

People only learn when they are in their feelings. Giving people an experience is a good way of doing this. That’s why our programme has two strands of workshops and events.

And, people only decide to change their approach when they are in their feelings. That’s why this isn’t ‘chalk and talk’. It’s an experiential programme.

“OK. I’m doing what you told me. How come it it’s not working?”

The Network better programme is, we believe, better because it offers both training and coaching in getting more business through referral marketing. We do this by running, in parallel, facilitated events, in which work relationships can develop and thrive, and as well as delivering training and mentoring.

Developing work relationships which thrive is actually the most important thing to be good at. When the work relationships are sorted (and each person needs only a handful of such work relationships), everything else follows naturally.

And, if you’re good at developing productive work relationships when networking,. that ability will be applicable to all occasions when you deal with people, whether clients, suppliers, staff, other businesses and so on.

(Other training providers are usually merely behavioural: they hope that, if you do enough of the right things, good relationships will follow. They don’t address the client’s question, ‘OK, I’m doing what you told me. How come it isn’t working?’)

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