Dan’s Surfing Snippets

Networking is about building relationships. However, it is not the quantity, but the quality of these relationships that actually help others and you to grow your business.

Networking is not hard but it does take time and effort for it to work. And, special attention should be placed on making better use of down time. A particular down time that many people overlook is the time you take for breakfast, lunch, a coffee break or dinner.

We get so caught up in our daily routine that it sometimes takes a conscientious effort to make room in our daily routine to prospect for new contacts, sales leads and additional business.

That’s why this book’s title got my attention. And, while I don’t promote trying to go crazy and schedule every meal with a possible client or referral contact, I do suggest that we all can ratchet it up a bit and make better use of sharing the time we eat with someone that can make an impact on increasing our business.

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (Hardcover)

by Keith Ferrazzi

Two good friends of mine, Elizabeth Riley of Insignia Signs and Jeff Senney of Pickrel, Schaefer & Ebeling, have been making use of this concept for a long time and I have personally witnessed their business grow by leaps and bounds.

Not only do I see them at every networking event in the Greater Dayton Metro Area but they also make use of Not Eating Alone.  Jeff often states that he doesn’t understand how some business people will eat lunch at their desk all of the time when they could be having lunch with a potential client or a great referral contact. And he remarks, It’s not fun to eat alone anyway!

He continues, Its one thing if you have a project that has to get out and you grab a bite to eat while working on the project. But this doesn’t happen all the time. You need to get out there and meet people. Get out there and make things happen.

Elizabeth will also do something called a tag team, which is, calling on clients with a colleague to serve both as an introduction for that person and also as a customer courtesy to see if they have any needs. Then the process gets reversed. They call on the colleague’s clients and Elizabeth gets introduced. This is a great sales technique and my hat is off to her for taking the initiative and time to get out there. She also meets with business people for breakfast, lunch, coffee and dinner!

Doug Barry of BarryStaff has also used this technique for many years.

So the next time you have lunch think about these thoughts and ask yourself if you are networking or just eating alone.