Referrals Come From Not Being I-Centered in Your Interactions With Other People
Sometimes another person isn’t interested in doing business with you, but you can still use the situation to create a favorable impression that will bring you future business through referrals.
Here’s the real secret to how you can effectively network with your elevator speech so that it brings you future business from people who aren’t ready to do business with you immediately.
The key?
After you introduce yourself, focus on the other person in a conversation, asking questions about them and centering on what they have to say. Keep quiet yourself and have them do the talking. If you do that, they’ll think you’re a wonderful conversationalist and will generate good feelings about you. That’s what will generate future business.
When you meet someone, for instance, tell them your name and ask for theirs in return. Ask them what they do for a living and when they ask you, deliver your short elevator speech.
After you tell the other person what you do, don’t dwell on it if there isn’t any interest. Rather, go right back to asking him/her questions about themselves and their own business.
Be you-oriented rather than I-centered. Invest most of the time in the conversation asking about them rather than talking about yourself.
When you are talking to another professional who faces a sales situation where they need clients, customers or prospects, referrals networking expert Bob Burg says you should always end such conversations with the sentence, “How can I know if someone I’m talking to is a good prospect for you?”
When you get home, a great thing to do is send the other person a thank you note saying, “It was nice to meet you. If I can ever refer someone your way I will. Sincerely,” and then sign your name. The principle is to concentrate on helping the other person, follow through in actually helping them, and in time they will send business your way.
That’s the key.
