Professional Networking Groups – How to Find, Recruit and Retain Quality Members For Referral Groups by Beth Bridges 

Are you the organizer of a professional networking group? New members are important, especially if you want to keep the energy up and the business leads coming. Here are some tested strategies for making sure that you are finding people, recruiting them and getting them to stay involved in your leads club.

Find Them at Networking Events

People who are “good” networkers understand that it takes time to build relationships to the point where business can be done. Look for people at events who seem to be more interested in the other person. Their focus will be how they can help the other person and not how they can immediately qualify them as a prospect or sell them on the spot. These people will already have a philosophy that will contribute to their success in the referral group. It takes time, patience and a giving attitude to be successful in a leads club.

Find them by Referral

Your existing members who are enjoying their result are your best source of referrals for new members. They are probably either well connected or excellent at asking questions (that’s how they bring in many of their leads). They’ll be eager to show off their success with the group. Dedicate a part of each meeting to training your existing members how to find potential new members. Use good referral group language: “A good lead for this group is…” You may have specific categories that you want to fill. Or you might tell you members that a good lead for the group is someone who is a patient and giving networker who is looking to take their business to the next level. Make it a countable lead to bring appropriate (meaning their category is open) guests to the group. Recognize and reward your top referring members and encourage everyone in the group to refer.

Recruiting

You may have been part of the group for several years so you’re familiar with how much business gets done behind the scenes, but a first time guest will have no way of knowing. This may be one of the few times the meeting runs late, the leadership is sloppy, or members had a bad week with hardly any leads. But this will be the first and perhaps only impression your guests will have of your group. It is hard to tell someone that “It’s rarely like this” when 100% of their experience is like that. A well-run, consistent meeting with good strong leads passed is one of your best recruiting tools.

If your group is new or small with few leads being passed, emphasize education in the meeting. Show a new guest that you are working on helping each other learn and that you are all actively seeking to improve your lead-giving. It can be good to be on the ground floor as long as the group is actively working on building their foundation.

Explain every role, every agenda item and every step…every time. Your potential new member will understand the purpose, format and activities much better than if they were given a written sheet to read and follow. Plus it’s good for your existing members to be reminded and refreshed on the rules and agenda.

Make sure that someone is responsible for talking with the potential new member after the meeting. If they feel it is a good fit, don’t let them leave without a strong “close.” Ask them if they liked what they experienced. Would they like to be part of it? Then tell them what it takes to become a member.

Retention

Members will stay as long as they are getting “enough” business. Everyone is going to have a different amount of business which will be satisfactory to them.This can be tricky if people have unrealistic expectations. At the bare minimum, they need to be making back their monetary investment for dues, travel and meals. They also should make enough to pay for their time. If they could spend that same amount of time doing something else that makes them more money, then they should be doing that.

Of course, if everything we did in business was logically and thoughtfully based on the highest return on investment of the time, then no one would ever watch YouTube at work. Logic doesn’t always rule; emotion and feelings do. If your members FEEL connected to the group and if they get some of their emotional or social needs met by the group, they will be more likely to stay, even if they’re not making a great deal of money.

It’s up to you as the leader of the referral group to not only encourage and train members to find and refer business to each other, but also to make sure that members are engaged with the group.

Are you making one of these five networking mistakes that even experienced sales and business people make? Visit Beth’s business networking site to find out (without cost or obligation) if you are.

Looking for more networking tips, tricks, strategies & advice? Visit Beth’s Networking Motivator Blog

Beth is The Networking Motivator ™. She has helped thousands of people network more, network better, and improve their business relationships. As Membership Director of the Clovis Chamber of Commerce, she has attended over 20 networking events a month for the last 7 years. She has networked with thousands of people, encouraging and motivating themselves to get out there and network.

Copyrighted 2010, Beth Bridges   Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Beth_Bridges

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

Personalized Golf Balls are an advertising tool that many smaller companies are finding to be an affordable way to expose their brand to corporate executives.  As technology has grown over the years, smaller quantity orders are now being produced, giving smaller businesses the opportunity to use Custom Golf Balls in their marketing mix.

What many of us colder region golfers and marketers do not realize is that Golf is really a year round sport. This gives year round opportunities to use Golf Balls as promotional give-a-ways.  One of the more popular ways to distribute your custom branded golf balls is to focus on Golf Outings, giving a sleeve of three balls to each participant is one of the best ways. Or simply offering a dozen golf balls as a door prize to every event you possible can.

Titleist has discontinued the DT Roll and the DT Carry, replacing them both with the Titleist DT Solo Golf Ball.  The NXT Extreme as been beefed up and replaced with the Titleist NXT.  The popular NXT Tour and Titleist Pro V Golf Balls remain the same and two of the more popular balls available to date.

Click Here To Review Our Full Line Of Custom Personalized Golf Balls.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

A study has been released stating that Facebook has beat out Google as the top source of traffic for major portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL.  15% of traffic to these sites came from Facebook and MySpace, of which 13% came from Facebook alone.  This brings up a question; does your business really need a website or simply a Facebook Fan Page?

Although I believe you still need both, the future may steer many smaller to mid-sized businesses away from building expensive flashy websites.  If this trend continues the writing may be on the wall, Facebook makes it very easy and cost effective (Free) to get your business online in a matter of minutes.

Facebook recently released some staggering statistics that should make you take notice and get your Facebook Business Fan Page up and running as soon as possible.

- More than 400 million active users
- 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- More than 35 million users update their status each day
- More than 60 million status updates posted each day
- More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
- More than 5 billion pieces of content
  (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
- More than 3.5 million events created each month
- More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
- More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
- More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
- Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
- Average user has 130 friends on the site
- Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
- Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
- Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
- Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
- Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month
- Average user is invited to 3 events per month
- Average user is a member of 13 groups
- More than 70 translations available on the site
- About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
- More than 500,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
- More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
- More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since December 2008
- More than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month
- There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
- People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users
- There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products
 
There is a bit more to simply throwing up a Facebook Business Fan Page, to get noticed you must promote the page using prominent links on your website and including the Facebook Fan Box on your website and blog.  You should also include a link in your email signature, on your business cards, in your newsletter and pretty much on any offline advertising you do.

Another key factor in building fans is to offer up killer content, helpful tips, techniques and useful information this will lead to a huge following.  Self promotional sales tactics will turn your fans off and your following will dissolve quickly.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

I was blown away earlier this week when I received my very first full page Testimonial in letter format.  This October (2010) I will be celebrating 21 years at the helm of this Bizarre promotional products ship and it just hit me that I have never had a client go to this extreme.

Yes, I have received countless thank you cards and notes, hundreds of emails that were brief and to the point thanking me for doing a great job.  Phone calls, high fives, kudos’ on bulletin boards, and several recommendations have been posted on LinkedIn.  I am grateful and appreciate all of those clients that have taken the time to do so and by no means want to discredit any of them, the words thank you are very gratifying.

Bizarre Promotions has thrived on countless word of mouth referrals, those types of testimonials are without question very powerful and maybe even more powerful then a written one.  But seeing a testimonial first hand in writing with my own eyes really gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Here is the letter –

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

For years Tinyurl had been the preferred choice when it came to shortening long URL’s. Over the last couple of years Tinyurl has been pushed a side by Ow.ly and Bit.ly two of the most popular URL link shorteners to date. They will now have to make room for the newly introduced YouTube Video URL shortener.  Google has launched this link shortener exclusively for shortening YouTube Video URL’s.

Many people are concerned about were a shortened URL will lead them, new YouTube URL shortener offers a less suspicious alternative to sending people to your YouTube videos.

A normal YouTube URL looks like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL6QA23VLyc and can now be shortened by replacing the ‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=’ with ‘http://youtu.be/’ which looks like this: http://youtu.be/lL6QA23VLyc  the shorter URL redirects to that particular video.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc

Promo Items get a boost from PPAI

The Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) Suppliers Committee worked very hard to develop a campaign that conveys a simple but strong message relating to the power and benefits that promotional products offer to end buyers.

The committee has asked industry professionals like Bizarre Promotions, Inc. to help spread this message by speaking with once voice in a unified format.  They have requested that we display the logo below when ever possible.  Repeated exposure will help educate end buyers on how powerful promotional products really are.

End buyers will learn that promotional products allow them to stand out and be noticed with affordable, long-lasting and measurable results that are second to no other advertising medium.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

The 2010 calendar schedule for Wayne County Michigan has been finalized and posted on our website.  Review The Schedule Here.

After a very successful beta launch of our Email Marketing By Zip Code program in 2009 we have rolled out several zip codes within Wayne County Michigan.  We will be rolling out other zip codes throughout Michigan and the entire United States through various distributors.  Solo Email Blasts are currently available to any zip code in the United States.  (contact us if you are interested in becoming a distributor).

Advertising and Marketing are two necessary evils that we business owners must endure to be successful.  More and more companies are refocusing their ad dollars to include various online channels such as banner advertising on popular websites and full blow Email Marketing campaigns.  It is clear that one thing will not change in this some times confusing arena. You need to market and advertise your business using several different avenues, both online and offline and email marketing is one of the more powerful and cost effective ways to increase your online presence.

Email Marketing By Zip Code uses opt-in subscribers, that have requested additional information from local and national merchants.   You can deliver a targeted marketing message right to these subscribers desktop.  This is one of the most dynamic ways you can get your message read at an incredibly minimal cost per exposure.

Example of Group (10) Ad Email Blast:

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

In 2009 we sold a ton of custom printed pens, the Javalina Pen was by far the most popular pen that we sold.  5 new hot splash colors have been added this year (Lime Green, Orange, Pink, Purple, Sky Blue with White barrels), bringing the total color variations to 21.  The promotional products industry is an 18 billion dollar a year industry and Pens (Writing Instruments) are the number 2 category making up 9% of industry sales.

Pens Have An Average Of 7 Different Users

If you consider the exposures verse the cost per pen you really can beat handing out pens like there is no tomorrow.  Image 1,000 of your pens being used just every other day of the year (182.5 days), that is 182,500 exposures of your logo or message.   Now image every single day, now times that by 7 different users…enough said.

This special ends February 15, 2010 - order now and start exposing your companies logo or message.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions,Inc.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a changeling and daunting task.  Just when you think you have figured it out, powerhouses like Google go and change everything.  One technique that remains to be effect is high quality backlinks.  For those that do not know, backlinks are links for other sites that point to your site. You could sit back and wait for others to post links to your quality content, but this process if it happens at all, can take forever. With a little effort you can start building backlinks to your site that will help boost your search engine rankings.

Here are some powerful SEO Tips To Get Backlinks yourself.

Squidoo Lists

Squidoo.com has become one of the most powerful resources on the web to get links back to your site. Copy and paste the following into a Google search bar:

“add+to+this+list”+site:squidoo.com

This will give you a very large list of Squidoo Lenses, and you can add your site to these with very little effort.  Most of them will have a very high PageRank which is a key factor you want to look for in getting backlinks.  When adding your site to these Lenses, be sure to use custom anchor text with the keywords you want to rank for.

You can also search using +”keyword phrase” targeting your links for relevance. For example, if you were trying to rank a dating site you should do a Google search like this:
“add+to+this+list”+”dating”+site:squidoo.com

Web 2.0 Profiles

Creating a profile on Web 2.0 sites like Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com utilizing your website url gives you very high quality backlinks.  Other sites to consider are twibs.com and zoominfo.com.  You should also search out Web 2.0 portals in your niche, if you have a fitness website then search for fitness sites that enable you to create a profile and interact with other members.

Article Marketing

This is one of the more time consuming ways to get backlinks, but is actually one of the best ways to generate multiple backlinks from a single effort.  Be sure that you include a link to your site in the body of your article and yet again at the end in the author bio.  Every article that gets posted generates a backlink to your site. The more articles that get posted, the more links you can build.  Posting on article sites opens the door for other bloggers and site owners to use your article on there sites, giving you yet another avenue for getting backlinks.

Write good quality original articles and submit them to a few article directories. Here are just a few of the most popular ones EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com.

To maximize your efforts, you can submit your article to hundreds of directories using this great resource for automating your article submitting.

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.

I have been using Send Out Cards for just over two years now.  I often wonder what if I would have had this amazing business tool throughout my entire 20 years in business.  Were would  Bizarre Promotions be today if I had only send out a few greeting cards to clients and prospects alike on a regular basis.  That could very well be the million dollar question.

It’s Said That Customers Leave Because They Don’t Feel Appreciated.

Studies show the #1 reason customers stop doing business with a company is “perceived indifference,” meaning they feel taken for granted and neglected.  The numbers are staggering 68% of customers that leave did so because they didn’t feel the love.

Like most, I always had good intentions of sending thank you cards to my clients, but would get busy with then next project and simply not take the time to do this much needed task.  I even had greeting cards printed or even post cards printed with the same generate “Thank You” all with the same generic picture.  All I had to do is address it, stamp it and drop it in the mail box and I didn’t do it 75% of the time.

In regards to prospecting, statistics show most sales take at the very least 5 contacts or exposures – in fact 80% of sales are made on the fifth contact.  Most sales people never make it to number 5, most stop trying after the second failed attempt.  And in regards to trade show follow up nearly 65% of all leads are NEVER contacted, not even once.  I know I am guilty of this.

So why is this such a big problem?  We as sales people and or business owners know what it takes to grow a business, follow up, persistence and thanking those that make you and your business exist are all vital ingredients.  My “Why” is lack of a system, an automated system that does the heavy work for me? 

Since becoming a Send Out Cards distributor (not just a customer) I am able to follow up will all my trade show leads, thank my customers, send birthday cards, holiday cards and simple thinking of you cards. This system is the automation that I needed to fill the void I had struggled with for all these years.

One of the main features that sold me was the ability to set it and forget it by creating campaigns that will automatically send out cards when ever you want them to go out.  One of my favorite campaigns is my “Thank You” campaign.  The campaign consists of 3 greeting cards and 2 post cards.  First it sends out a thank you card, thanking the recipient for their business.  Then 30 days later post card featuring a promotional product tip hits their mail box.  Then 45 days later a motivational greeting cards arrives, 6 months out and 1 year out a reminder to reorder and or visit our website to check out the latest specials.  My customers are well worth the incredible low $4.36 it costs me to send these five exposures out (that’s $4.36 total).

Remember if you are not thanking your customers somebody else is ready and willing to thank them.

If you’d like to send out a few greeting cards on me using Send Out Cards contact me here and I will walk you through the process in about 15 minutes.

To Your Success!

Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.