SME Business Adviser | Small Business Assistance Australia

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Business Etiquette Tips

Get to meetings on time. When you turn up late you appear disinterested and inconsiderate of others. Punctuality is the key -being early earns even more brownie points. And turn your mobile off before you get there! One of my mentors once told me "A lot of decisions are made in the five minutes before the start of the meeting. Be there."

Dress appropriately, look like the professional you are. Your clothes need to fit, be clean and pressed. Look at what the successful people around you are wearing. Model yourself after them.

Greet people. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean you shouldn't greet them. A young sales representative was horrified to learn that the man he barely acknowledged in the lift was the company's CEO. It could equally have been a prospect.

Turn Old Stock Into New Money

Any business based on selling products usually winds up with a gradually mounting store of items that failed to sell and don’t look like they ever will. Even service businesses can accumulate large amounts of leftover materials and other items for which there’s no longer a use. This ‘dead’ inventory represents cash, and every day it’s left to gather dust is just more profit whittled off your bottom line.

If you’re a retailer you can always have a ‘special’ sale to get rid of old stock, but if it didn’t sell before there’s a good chance that it won’t sell now, unless you’re willing to take a substantial loss on the transactions. And if you’re not a retailer you can always ask the company that sold them to you to take back unused materials, but even if they do, you can count on booking a significant loss. Surely there must be some better ways to deal with dead inventory than these!

Go slowly

The only way to get rid of old stock quickly is by heavy discounting and taking a quick loss. If you want better then the solution has to be a longer term process. It’s a fact of life - old stock accumulates slowly, but to make any decent return on it it’s going to need to leave your inventory at the same pace.

Find the underlying reasons for dead inventory

Review your dead inventory and ask yourself how it got there in the first place. It may well mean that your purchasing policies need a rethink, or that your system of estimating sales is getting the numbers consistently wrong. Think about what isn’t there; what has sold quickly and never looked like being a slow mover. It may be time to review your product lines and make some deletions. There are important lessons for you to learn and apply to prevent any further buildup.

Analyse what you’ve got

Some parts of your dead inventory will be older and less saleable than other parts. Break dead inventory down into three categories, according to how quickly you believe it can be moved: (1) Salvageable; (2) Hopeful; and (3) Truly Deceased. Each of these categories will require a separate solution, and there will be recoverable value in some but probably not all of it.

Salvageable stock - This will likely be the stock you can move the quickest. It may be possible to bring it out into public view again with a big ‘sale’ or ‘reduced’ sign that highlights the former price and clearly points out the savings. If you don’t want to try offering it once more, there may be another outlet nearby that sells a similar product and will take it off your hands for something close to the wholesale price you paid. The most important thing is to get rid of it quickly and turn it into cash before it becomes a Hopeful or Truly Deceased.

Hopeful stock -You can’t be sure about this but you can still be hopeful of finding a buyer, either by drastically reducing its price and selling it yourself, or by finding another outlet that will take it off your hands quickly. It’s probably salvageable but will take much longer and require more thought or effort to come up with someone to buy it. Don’t waste too much more time trying to sell it; give it one more chance if you must, then get rid of it for whatever you can get.

Deceased stock- Into this basket goes the hula hoops, pet rocks and Rubik’s cubes of your inventory. You might be lucky to catch a wave of nostalgia but it’s highly unlikely and you simply need to get rid of it and stop it from cluttering up your storage space. It may be a mistake to expose this kind of merchandise to your regular customers, so your task becomes finding someone to take it for free. Charities and thrift shops are two possibilities, but do a search on the Internet and you might find someone who’s still selling them and would be willing to pick up your deceased stock.

It never hurts to ask

Instead of simply asking your suppliers to take back the dead inventory they’ve sold you at a loss to yourself, think creatively about what you can offer them. Do some thinking for them about what they might be able to do with it, possibly through other outlets or in other markets. Combine the return with your next order and make it a package deal. They’ll be doing you a favour so find something you can do for them as well.

The three step retail solution

It’s not always going to work but, depending on your own circumstances, you may want to try the ‘three step retail solution’ approach. Set aside a special sale area and give the ‘deceased’ stock just one or two days exposure there at a ridiculously low price under a heading like ‘special purchase’. If this doesn’t move it, put it into the nearest dumpster or take it to any charity that will have it.

Next, take the ‘hopeful’ stock and put it out in the same space. Price it as attractively as possible and give it a day or two more than you gave the deceased stock. Whatever remains unsold, sell it as a job lot to anyone who’ll buy it and take it away. Finally, put the ‘salvageable’ stock there with the reductions highlighted and give it a couple of days more than you gave the hopeful stock before selling it off as a job lot.

You may just find that your customers respond to a clearly identified ‘sale’ area and will check it out regularly to see what’s there. If so, you’ll never have to worry about building up a ‘dead’ inventory again; you can clear slower moving stock in that space.

Selling Services – It’s About Relationships

Because service businesses can’t talk about products on shelves, they often make the mistake of talking about themselves with messages like ‘the best car service in town’ or ‘speedy appliance repairs’. These may sound good to the owner of the business, but they leave out the most important person of all – the customer.

Most services operate through relationships

In general, services are more complex to price, to deliver and to evaluate than products. Defining the quality of service delivery is very difficult but it boils down to whether the customer feels well-served or not. So the key thing for a business that provides a service to do, is to build strong personal relationships. To do that you need to keep three things in mind.

Know what customers want - Giving customers what they want is the basis of your personal relationship as well as the most critical factor to address in your marketing. What value do they want to receive from you? What problems do they want you to solve for them? What are the benefits they want to enjoy after spending their money with you? Customers often expect your service to be delivered in a specific way or by a specific person. These considerations must also be taken into account when you’re trying to determine exactly what your customers want.
Give it to them - Are you meeting all their needs or just some of them? Are you delivering your service the way the customers want? Compare what you give your customers with what they really want and you’ll identify areas that need attention and see where you need to make changes to your offering to make it more attractive to prospects and build stronger customer relationships.
Know what your competition is doing - Make a point of monitoring the businesses that compete with you. Ask these same questions about them and compare the answers with what you’re now doing. It’s a good way to discover areas of opportunity for your company and to identify new services that can be added to your offering to build your revenues.

Market services with testimonials

Someone buying a service from you won’t know how good it is until after they’ve actually bought it. To successfully sell your services you need to convince prospects that they’ll receive the value and benefits they are after, and the best way to do this is to use the experiences of your existing customers. Testimonials are the most powerful means of overcoming any doubt in prospects’ minds about using you to provide the service they need.

Ask your existing customers to speak about their experiences with your business and how you’ve helped them. Concentrate on the points that are key issues for most or all of your customers. Use these testimonials in your marketing; even hang them on the wall in your reception area. When a customer comes to you for a particular service it is generally because they don’t have the expertise or ability to do it themselves. If they can see testimonials as to the quality of work you’ve done for others they’ll be a lot more confident that they too will have a positive relationship with your business.

Writing Better Direct Mail Pieces

Use a database to personally address your direct mail pieces
Have the envelope look like an invoice so it’s more likely to be opened or even hand-address the envelope to make it look more personal
Have a headline that reaches out and stimulates interest
Text is most effective when every word is written from the prospect’s point of view
Present the offer as an exciting and valuable opportunity for the reader
Always ask for the order

Common mistakes that kill businesses

Even the smartest business owner can make and some can kill a company.

Disregarding employee concerns - to ignore employees’ concerns about rates of pay, sexual harassment, working conditions or safety matters is an invitation to disaster.
Failing to delegate - if you spend too much time working IN your firm there’s not going to be enough time to work ON the firm and make it grow.
Offering something your prospects don't want - talk to your existing clients and make sure you’re offering services that the market wants.
Letting costs get out of control - it’s true that you ‘have to spend money to make money’ but you also have to maintain a level of profitability to stay in business.
Not providing for emergencies - insurance can provide the money needed to keep going but only if you’ve covered the exact circumstances that have closed your doors.

Be different – and quantify it!

The purchasing behaviour of human beings is fairly predictable. If they buy something once and it works for them, they’ll be inclined to repurchase it when the need arises again. And if they purchase something from a source that is acceptable to them and doesn’t let them down in any way, they’ll return to the same source for their next purchase of that item.

We learn from experience, and a positive experience is more easily duplicated by repeating the same factors that delivered it before. In other words, if you expect to take business away from your competitors you have to give prospects a really good reason to change because they already know where they can get satisfaction elsewhere.

One of the best ways to attract the attention of prospects is to leverage your existing customers and their satisfaction with your business. As a hypothetical situation, let’s say you publish a magazine and are trying to lure an advertiser away from a rival publication. Let’s also say that one of that advertiser’s biggest competitors advertises in your magazine. What can you do?

Testimonials are powerful tools

You can impress your prospect – and other potential advertisers, by compiling a case study of the success your present advertiser enjoys and using the information as a testimonial. “My sales rose 18% after I switched my advertising to Sportsman’s World” sounds pretty impressive. Provide some supportive details and you have a powerful argument for getting your prospect to think about using your publication.

Testimonials are also potent highlighters of savings if you’re a retailer and want to acquire new customers. “I save $28 on my weekly grocery bills at Buy-Rite”, and “Since I started using reloaded cartridges my photocopying costs have dropped by $54 a month” are examples of how your existing customers can be the basis of an attractive proposition.

The important things here are that it’s not you talking – it’s one of your customers telling about their satisfaction with your company, and the benefits are quantified. Statistics are impressive, whether it’s dollars saved, extra time gained, additional miles travelled or any other figures that can be quickly understood by prospects.

Gather your own statistics

Notice also that statistics are hardly ever even numbers. If they’re genuine they’ll probably be more like ’29.90’ than ‘$30’. If you have a statistic that’s down to the decimal point, use it. Rounding-off only make it look like it’s made up for the advertisement.

Statistics can be obtained in any number of ways. The first is obviously to talk to your customers. You can do it directly or appoint a market research firm to conduct a customer survey; having a third party as the source of statistics will add credibility.

Customer surveys can give you an excellent source of meaningful statistics that can be used to promote your business. “98% of our customers tell us they’d never go anywhere else for their furniture” and “Seven out of ten Mason’s customers have told their friends about us” show how to use this kind of information. If you ask the right kinds of questions you’ll be able to have your customers write your headlines.

It’s also possible to create a strong proposition by using industry statistics that can be obtained from the Internet, from industry associations or trade publications. “Our products perform 26% higher than industry averages” and “We clean more carpets than any other carpet cleaner in town” are examples of how this can work.

An offer too good to refuse

If you’re confident that you can outperform the competition and want to switch one of their customers over to your business, do it with a direct comparison. Go to your prospect and offer to supply them with your product for a period of time that’s sufficient to provide them with proof that you’ve got a better offering.

Supply them on the same basis as your competitor, on the understanding that if you prove that you can give them a better deal than the competition they’ll give you a testimonial you can use in your promotion. You’ll gain both a new customer and an advocate for your company.

Can you really create customers for life?

Ask most business owners whether they think any of their customers will remain with them for the life of their businesses and they’ll probably admit that it’s unlikely. They’ve seen customers come and go, and they know that their competitors are always trying to lure them away with offers that are sometimes impossible to match.

Yet the concept of ‘customers for life’ remains with us as a tantalising ideal that represents something we’d like to have if only we could. Perhaps then it’s best to view this concept as a target – something to aim for and do all we can to achieve.

First, understand that the business creates its customers and in many ways determines how loyal they are. Businesses that are forever chasing new customers and neglect their existing ones are the worst at generating real customer loyalty. Businesses that look after their existing customers, on the other hand, still gain new customers through referrals and word of mouth.

If there is a ‘secret’ to any business having customers for life, it’s there in the previous paragraph. Look after your existing customers and the new customers will find their way to your door.

Prioritise every customer

The proliferation of CRM programs and other customer-retention software makes it fairly easy to keep track of existing customers. For some businesses those customers represent the results of past expenditures that don’t require further investment – “We’ve got them and they’ll stay with us”, is the attitude.

But nothing could be worse if you’re trying to create customers for life. These existing customers are the very ones that should be looked after the most and treated better than someone who shows up at your door for the first time. How many businesses put off an existing customer to impress a prospect? Unfortunately, this is precisely how most businesses behave.

Make and keep your promises

Go out of your way to make promises to your customers. That way you can be seen to be honouring your commitments when your delivery is made on time or your serviceman arrives as promised. Customers really appreciate being given specific times and dates for things to happen, and they appreciate even more having someone who keeps their promises.

Always do a bit more

Consciously strive to do more than what’s expected of you. When one of your regular customers gives you a big order, surprise them with a free delivery or an extra six months of warranty. Let it become a part of your thinking to always do more than what your customers expect; you’ll surprise them in a way that nobody else can duplicate.

Invite your customers into the business

There are many ways to get your customers closer to your business, and we find time and time again that one of the best is to invite them in for a discussion about how you can serve them even better. This can be a kind of ‘market research’ session that gives them the opportunity to tell you how to become even more valuable to them – and of course, to become even harder to replace. We find there is even more success when you engage a third party to facilitate the session as your customers tend to be more constructive if they are passing on their comments to a person other than the owner who they have established a good relationship with, and don't want to compromise it.

Invite them to come to your office for a working lunch or perhaps for a drink and some nibbles after work. Show them around your office and let them see how many people are there to make sure they get what they want from your business. Introduce them to some of those people they talk to over the phone but would never meet otherwise.

Keep in touch with updates

Products are constantly improved, with better features and greater utility for purchasers. Whenever someone has bought a product from you that gets updated, contact them and give them a chance to acquire the newest version at a special price. They may not take you up on your offer, but when the time comes to replace their older model they’ll come to you for the latest one.

Not every customer will become a customer for life. Some will be lured away by a better price, and some will ‘shop around’ and find a more attractive value proposition elsewhere.

The most important thing is that you try to make every customer a customer for life and do all you can to keep them satisfied. Get close to them and don’t be afraid to let them become familiar with your business and your team. People like to deal with friends they can trust, and that’s what you become to your ‘customers for life’

Create your own customer strategy

Most if not all SMEs are aware of the need to acquire a customer focus, to make the business more customer-centric, and to really get to know their customers. Businesses know they need a strategy to harvest the full crop of potential returns from their customers but how can they go about creating it?

The interesting thing about the answer to this question is that the best source of background to use for developing a customer strategy is your base of existing customers and your team members who serve them. They’ll gladly tell you how to satisfy customers, how to generate higher returns from them, and even how to get more of them; all you have to do is to ask them the right way.

1. Talk to customers about how they see you

Select a sample of from five to ten of your ‘best’ customers. This will be those who have dealt with your business long enough to have formed opinions about your business, from the way it treats its customers to how accurate your monthly invoices are. You’re looking for all opinions, both good ones and bad ones.

Talk one-on-one with everyone who can provide insights into how your business is seen by those who support it. Why do they buy from you? What happens when they look around for other suppliers? You want to find out what you’re doing well and what needs improving, and these are the people who can tell you what you need to know.

2. Talk to your customer service team

Review the feedback you get from customers with the people in your business that interact with them. See where perceptions match up and where your customer service team’s opinions differ from those of the customers themselves. As with the customer interviews, do this one-on-one with your team. This will ensure you get everybody’s thoughts instead of just those who are willing to speak up in a group.

3. Assimilate the intelligence you’ve gathered

Organise the information you’ve gathered from customers and team members into positive and negative segments. From all this material some clear lines will emerge that can become the basis of your customer strategy. You’ll see problems that need to be corrected and you’ll also see where you’re doing things right and can build additional success from there.

4. Design the ideal customer relationship

What have you found that represents the ideal relationship to have with a customer? You should have enough information to know what will optimise your relationships with customers in such a way that both of you are satisfied and want to sustain the connection.

This will involve considerations of people and processes. What kinds of people serve your customers best? What processes need to be added or corrected so that customer satisfaction is created or enhanced?

5. Create the customer strategy your business needs

Look into every aspect of your own organisation that impacts on customer relationships and see what it would take to have this ideal relationship with every customer. It might be achieved through training or other staff educational programs, through the acquisition of a CRM system - probably through a combination of many actions.

Your goal is to replicate the ideal customer relationship across all customers of your business. How you do it will be the content of your strategy. Write down a plan of action that will structure your business in such a way that it has this ideal relationship with all customers. Whatever it takes, you have to do it.

6. Get your team on-side

When a business undergoes a process of self-examination and has to confront every aspect of its operations, both good and bad, it can be unsettling for team members who might feel threatened by confirming that all isn’t perfect in what they’ve been doing. An important part of your strategy has to be getting the team to accept the changes needed and to see the strategy’s goals as their own.

Give them opportunities to provide input into how the strategy will be implemented across the business. Don’t rush through the process of creating your ‘ideal’ organisation; move toward the goals carefully and monitor progress every step of the way. Keep team members informed so they continue to feel a part of the evolution.

7. Keep on top of things

Now that you’ve learned how valuable customer intelligence is, develop a plan to obtain it on a regular basis. This will be the best possible way to see if your strategy is working so that you can fine-tune it as needed.

Every time you hire a new team member be sure they will accept and work within the businesses’ customer strategy. Initiate refresher training courses that keep all team members’ customer relationship skills at a high level. A customer strategy is ongoing and needs to be maintained as carefully as any of the company’s equipment.

Unlock the hidden marketing gateways

Successful marketing is about planning, execution, and always a bit of luck. Sometimes this luck involves finding a ‘gateway’ that leads to an entirely new area of marketing opportunities that hadn’t been previously explored.

One of the classic marketing case studies is that of Kleenex tissues. In the 1920s women used Kleenex as a means of removing makeup. ‘Facial tissues’ was their positioning, until some bright marketer found that they could also be used by sufferers from the common cold who wanted a disposable material into which they could blow their noses. The company’s growth thereafter was exponential.

There’s also a persistent legend that someone once made a pile of money with two magic words on a piece of paper. The recipient of the piece of paper was the head of the Coca-Cola company and the two words were “bottle it”. True or not, this illustrates the kinds of ‘hidden gateways’ for products that often exist but aren’t always exploited.

These gateways are there for most if not all businesses. They can be new uses for old products or new products to meet an unfilled need. They can be highly lucrative and overlooked by the competition as well, but how can they be identified?

Discover your own gateways

Like the ‘discovery’ of other uses for Kleenex tissues, most of these gateways are well hidden. If they’re discovered at all it’s usually by accident, often as the result of a problem or some other urgent situation that stimulates a flurry of activity. But leaving it up to chance means you may never discover the hidden marketing gateways for your own business.

There is a way to stimulate things by causing your own ‘flurries of activity’ that lead to these discoveries. You might simply use ‘brainstorming’ with your team members, or you might conduct full-scale market research. The most importing aspect is that you are specifically looking for the hidden marketing gateways and not just waiting for them to be uncovered.

The first step in this discovery process is to identify everything your business is now doing. What products or services does it sell? How are these made? How are these delivered? What hours of the day apply to the business? Go through every aspect of what you’re doing now and be as thorough as you possibly can.

Next, identify what your business is not doing. This is harder than it seems at first. For example, you might have surplus manufacturing capacity that’s not being used. You might have the rights to a new product that you’re not manufacturing. If you’re open for eight hours a day then you’re not open for sixteen hours. Great opportunities lie in what you aren’t doing.

Now go through the competition. What are they doing that is more successful than what you’re doing? Are they doing something you’re not? If you’re doing something that your competitors aren’t doing, should you keep doing it? It’s questions like these that lead to surprising and profitable answers.

Go beyond the usual

Using this discovery process, a soft-drink manufacturer with a production line that shut down at night found it could very profitably bottle alcoholic cider on a contract basis after its normal working hours. The same thing happened when a manufacturer of cleaning products added a range of household insecticides to their offering by employing surplus production capacity to expand their range.

Another place to look is at successful businesses outside your own industry. Most industries typically contain a number of similar competitors. If you can find an approach or technique that’s working in another business area and can be applied to your own operations it’s highly likely that none of your competitors will be aware of it.

Banks used to be open from 10am to 3pm on weekdays only. It meant inconvenience for their customers but the practice was generally accepted and that’s the way things stayed for years. However, once other businesses began to extend their hours beyond ‘normal’ trading times the banks had to follow suit and found they actually became more profitable as a result.

Banks have continued their process of innovation by becoming early adopters of electronic technologies that have led to the proliferation of ATMs and widespread use of Internet banking facilities.

So, you have a choice to make. You can stay with things as they are and hope some lucky accident happens and propels your business to dizzying heights, or you can start looking around and conduct your own search for those hidden marketing gateways that are out there.

The Business Of Networking Events

Its important that you know how to make the most of networking opportunities. If you've just received an invitation to attend an event where there'll be a lot of networking going on, here are some useful tips that can help you get much greater and longer lasting business value from it.

Most people recognise that in business it's not just about what you know - it's who you know.

Anyone who's run a business knows it can be lonely at the top. Continually grappling with issues that impact the future of your team members and company is neither easy nor glamorous. However, help is available.

Networking may not offer structured programmes, but the contacts you develop may connect you with business peers facing similar challenges who can give you the chance to test your ideas and resolve issues.

There are numerous options for experiencing the benefits of belonging to interest groups, roundtable think tanks or industry associations.

By having a commitment to constantly improving your network of contacts you can expect benefits such as gaining access to an informal “board” of advisers offering years of business experience, developing valuable business relationships, exchanging your management skills and ideas with peers and picking up hints on avoiding business roadblocks and common mistakes.

The importance of networking and how it is put into effect depends somewhat on whether you operate in the business-to-business sector compared to the business-to-consumer arena.

In business-to-business, networking is more likely to lead directly to sales and positive word-of-mouth promotion. If you are a marketing consultant networking among small business people who are all potential clients, every contact represents potential new business.

In the business-to-consumer sector, networking is more important for support and guidance regarding business issues. A local gym owner networking within his local Chamber of Commerce may pick up an occasional new member, but is more likely to find his networking valuable for gaining insights into such things as local government business policies or local business conditions.

There are industry associations that coordinate more formal discussions where participants set their own agenda so that they get the information they need and the advice they want. Some groups prefer open and informal discussions while others select a specific issue to talk about. Recurring hot topics of interest include personnel issues, health care costs, technology challenges, managing growth, and marketing and investment strategies.

Guidelines for effective networking include the following:

Have a genuine liking for people

Good networkers are normally people who like reaching out to other people. It is important to have an interest in others and be willing to learn about their business, their industry and the challenges they face.

Get to know the organisers

Every networking event has been organised by somebody who knows the attendees and their backgrounds. Find out who it is and speak to them before the event. They can identify the movers and shakers in the crowd and help you meet them.

Get into groups that make up your target market

If you are a marketing consultant, getting involved in a local child care group will probably not be of great value, whereas joining a local branch of Rotary where the members are all traders and managers may be very useful. The groups you choose to be in (keeping in mind that most business owners or managers can’t afford the time to be in more than two or three groups) need to be lively, vibrant and relevant to you.

Contribute to these groups in practical ways

If you are in a group solely for what you can get out of it, it will become obvious and unappealing to other members. You need to contribute in some way, show that you can get things done efficiently and become an active member of the group. After that, you just have to let it happen. Worthwhile networking will take place in its own time.

Go out of your way to help

When you are talking with individuals, and the occasion arises, offer to help. On a particular occasion, the conversation may turn to problems with printing services. If you happen to know a local printer who gives you outstanding service, offer to provide his contact details. It’s a small act on your part, but it can mean much to someone else.

Look for groups within groups

Most networking events have their groups, people who know each other and meet regularly at these gatherings. It may seem hard to break into one of these groups but think of the advantages - meet one and you've met them all! If you know that someones a member of one of these groups you can have an informal chat and ask them to provide an introduction to the other members.

Have something to say

Be ready with something to say when you're introduced to someone new. They'll want to know a bit about your business and how its performing. Prepare a brief elevator speech about 30 seconds long, which presents your details and is both informative and interesting. Rehearse it so it sounds natural when you deliver it.

Show interest in others

If you're talking with a potential customer, try and keep the conversation on them and gather information you can use after the event. Show interest in them and offer to send them some information about your business. Even if they're not immediately interested they'll usually accept out of politeness.

Don't forget your business cards

One of the most important networking tools is the business card. You literally cant afford to be without one at these events, so come prepared with a quantity of well designed cards. For instance, have them printed in a second language if you'll be meeting people who speak a different language. You might want to have some cards printed especially for the event with more details about your products or services than your standard card.

Circulate!

Don't monopolise anyones time. After all, they didn't attend just to meet you. Get to know them and then move on. If you've got a small glass of juice then it's time to move on when you have finished it, if not before.

Do your best to be helpful

One thing that you can always do at networking functions is to help someone find what they're looking for. They might say they're looking for a supplier of office furnishings or a new source of plumbing products. If you can help them make a connection you'll be favourably remembered.

Look for the loners

Not everyone's gregarious and outgoing and there will always be people at networking events who look lost. Its a good chance for you to introduce yourself and see if they might want to have a conversation. You can be doubly supportive and introduce them to others you know in the room. Be enthusiastic and you'll be seen as someone who gets things done.

The follow-up

You meet a lot of people at networking events and its sometimes hard a week later to remember exactly what was said to any particular person. Collect business cards from everyone you meet and if you've made a commitment to do something after the event, make a note on that persons business card as soon as your conversations over. Never rely on memory alone, and be sure to follow up within a couple of days before the lead gets stale or you've been forgotten.

Susan RoAne, who writes books on networking, including How To Work A Room and The Secrets Of Savvy Networking, estimates that up to seventy percent of the population are situationally shy when it comes to networking events. Attending an event with strangers is our number one most uncomfortable situation (public speaking is number two). Just remember that the other networkers are there to meet you, even if you're new and they've been doing it for years. These events are your opportunity to meet people who can help you in your business, so don't hold back just because you don't know anybody. Be prepared and you'll enjoy yourself as well as increasing business revenue.

When you meet someone whom you want to develop a relationship with for the first time, follow up soon afterwards. Meet for a coffee or forward a relevant newspaper article that may interest them. Similarly, if you offer to provide information, be sure to follow up. Being reliable and becoming known as reliable is an essential ingredient when developing a network.

Ten Easy Tips For A Great Sales Presentation

Would you buy from a salesman who had a startled, rabbit-in-the-headlights stare? Or trust a presenter who kept scratching himself? Would you hire a team of consultants who interrupted their presentation to start debating with each other?

Probably not, because most of us judge the product, initially at least, by the packaging. If a sales presentation is poor, the product or service is automatically suspect.