For most people, prospecting for new clients can be challenging—not to mention intimidating. While I’m not involved in sales for RainToday.com, I face a similar challenge when it comes to finding people to interview on our weekly podcast show. I need to make the calls and send the emails to people—highly regarded and influential people—and hope they don’t reject me or RainToday, that they’ll return my call or email and want to learn more.

Lining up podcast interviews might not seem like a big deal, but for an editor who prefers to work with words, it puts me out of my comfort zone. I feel vulnerable putting myself out there—networking and reaching out to complete strangers. And waiting for their replies is a nerve-wracking experience. Then when they do reply, a whole other set of nerves kick in. I think, “Yes! They replied! But what if they said no? I bet they said no. But they could have said yes. Do I want to read the email now? Of course I do, just go read it.”

It’s so much easier when potential interviewees come to me, asking if they can be on our show. They know about RainToday, our podcasts, and me. I don’t need to convince them of anything because they already know about us. The hardest thing is scheduling the interview.

The same can be said for prospecting and business development. If prospects come to you, rather than you having to seek them out, the process is so much easier and less stressful. So, how do you do that?

You can do what Joseph Riden suggests in his article, Don’t Push: Create a Content Marketing System that Pulls Buyers to You.

With content marketing, you set aside traditional prospecting methods in which you push information about you and your services onto prospects. You publish quality content online so that when prospects have a need and begin researching solutions, they find your content—advice, explanations, possible solutions, etc.—and call you to learn more.

“Content marketing holds the key to entering easy, natural dialogs that build trust and connections with potential clients,” Riden says. “Content distribution enables you to sell by simple demonstration, without self-conscious sales calls or pressurized closes. Your content stream is like a tastefully decorated store window. This approach not only brings more billable hours, but it positions you to pick and choose clients you most want to work with from inbound inquiries.”

Putting the Content in Content Marketing

Your content can include white papers, case studies, research, advice columns, and podcasts.

Your podcasts can simply be you giving advice and tips. But if you interview people, people you’d like to do business with, you have a very good chance of turning those interviewees into clients. That’s because the interview helps you develop rapport with the person, says Todd Schnick in his podcast interview, Get Prospects to Come to You–Start Podcasting.

“They gave us an hour of time, and they spilled their guts and said all kinds of things during the broadcast that was wonderful information to gather and use as you begin to articulate and craft your sales pitch,” says Schnick as he describes his experience with podcasts.

“And the real beauty was how we built an immediate relationship because all of the sudden all of you are friends—you survived the broadcast together, they begin to trust you, you have immediate rapport, and it just became very, very easy to transition to the conversation that you really wanted to have with that person,” Schnick says.

Then, as more people hear about your interviews, they want to be interviewed for your podcast show. Soon you have people calling to talk to you instead of you trying to get in touch of prospects. Pick the people you’d like to interview, and use the interview as a way to get to know the person and their company better while at the same time giving them an opportunity to talk about their news—a new book, research report, white paper, etc.

Schnick says not to worry about the number of subscribers you have or the number of times your interviews are downloaded. Your concern should only be with the conversation you’re having with the person.

“The only audience I really care about is that prospect sitting across from me in the studio because I’m using this as a vehicle with which to generate a relationship, expedite a relationship with this prospect,” he says.

Getting the Word Out

As Schnick happily discovered, word about his radio show podcasts spread and it didn’t take long for people to start coming to him to be on the show.

There are other things you can do to get people talking about you and wanting your services, adds C.J. Hayden in her article, Promoting Your Business with People Power.

For example, you can find people who are centers of influence—those individuals whose recommendations carry weight with many others—and connect with them on a regular basis. The idea is to develop a relationship in which they automatically think to refer you should they come across someone who needs services like those you offer.

“The best way to begin creating this kind of buzz about your business is to identify a core community of people who might become champions for it. Your current and former clients, colleagues who admire your work, and any centers of influence you already know are ideal candidates for this. Get in touch with your community often to share your excitement about the work you are doing,” Hayden says.

You should also ask them to introduce you to other people. Even better, ask if they will pass on information about your business to those who might be interested, Hayden says. For the most part people like to help, and will happily do what they can to spread the word about you. But you can’t wait for it to happen, you have to ask.

Check Your Attitude

No matter what you do, successful prospecting and business development starts with the right attitude. You have to be committed to networking and reaching out to people.

It also helps if you are optimistic, says Colleen Stanley in her article, Your Bad Mood Is Affecting Sales. There is evidence that shows optimistic salespeople make more money, she says.

Psychologist Martin Seligman “followed the progress of the new sales hires [at MetLife] for one year and found that salespeople who scored high in optimism sold 33% more insurance than those who scored low. After two years, the optimistic salespeople were thriving in their positions,” Stanley writes.

How optimistic is your organization? One optimistic trait is that you learn from adversities you face and recognize that such challenges are temporary, not think that they are the end of everything.

“If business is a little slow, optimistic salespeople speed it up by taking care of their best assets: existing clients,” Stanley says. “They invest more time in consistent prospecting. They know the economy will turn, and when it does, the prospect will call them, not their competitor who has been sitting in his office comparing sad stories with his pessimistic colleagues.”

Optimism is a choice, Stanley stresses. You can choose to do something good in your day and in your business or you can take the doom-and-gloom approach and think nothing you do will make things better. Misery loves company, but it will do nothing to help you succeed. Resist it.

Photo by Josh Fassbind

From lead to client: Do we have a deal?

We all love referrals—if they’re good. When they’re good, they can lead to satisfied clients and long-lasting relationships. But it takes a little work to ensure you get good referrals, starting with the people you get them from.

In fact, when looking for people to give you referrals (or referral partners), you have to put on your sales hat, says Colleen Stanley in her article, How You Could Be Hurting Your Referral System.

“Good [referral] partners are like good prospects; they must be qualified or disqualified. One of the key qualifiers for referral partners is how well they align with your company values, goals, and objectives,” she says.

For if they don’t align and don’t follow the same client practices as you, you may find the referrals they give you aren’t worth a dime. It’s imperative, therefore, that you make sure their target clients match yours, that they have good relationships with their clients, and that you trust them.

Prospecting via LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be another good source for leads, but again it takes some effort. You can’t simply join the social network and expect prospects to find you. You must reach out to others, and there are some simple ways to do so, writes Kristina Jaramillo in her article 3 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Attract More Clients:

• Update your status regularly
• Start discussions in groups
• Answer questions in the Q&A section
• Publish content and share it with your groups

Do those things, and “you will begin to build your list of connections and prospects. Continue the conversation, and you will turn these prospects into paying clients,” Jaramillo says.

Prospecting Phone Calls

You might prefer generating leads via referrals and social media, but do not discard prospecting phone calls. They might be the most dreaded tool in your selling toolbox, but they are powerful. Again, that’s provided you do them correctly. The key thing is to avoid sounding like a self-serving salesperson, which many service professionals accidentally do in their attempts to not sound that way.

Consider this example from Jill Konrath’s article Are You Making This Prospecting Mistake?

Hi Pat. This is Jane Kerry calling. I’m with Big Deal Strategies, a leading marketing firm in the Minneapolis area. We offer a wide range of services, including branding, collateral development, as well as packaging and web design—one-stop shopping for all your marketing needs.

I’d love to set up a time to find out about your needs and tell you a bit about how we might help your company. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience. My number is 123-456-7890. I look forward to meeting you. Have a great day!

It sounds gracious and far from pushy. But guess what? You sound self-serving.

“When you talk about your company, you’re selling—even if you do it nicely. You really cross the line if you use verbiage like one-stop shopping, industry leader, user-friendly, scalable, best-in-class, robust, or innovative,” Konrath says.

If you want to get more sales, you have to stop selling, she says. You have to sound like a professional who brings substantial value and is worth meeting.

Build Relationships with Clients

Konrath’s sentiments align with what author and speaker Michael Port says. If you want new clients, you have to develop relationships with prospects and get them to trust you.

Use marketing to create awareness for you and your services, but then have a system that allows prospects to get to know you and your services over time. Give them an opportunity to earn your trust, Port says in his podcast interview Marketing Doesn’t Get You Clients. Trust Does.

“Then once you’ve earned enough trust to make sales offers, you will make sales offers that are proportionate to the amount of trust that you’ve earned,” he says. “If you know how to price your offers in the in the sweet spot of the customer’s desire, and you know how to have simple sales conversations that work at the right time, then you can book the business.”

Consultative Approach Draws New Clients

IT company rackAID, LLC applied a similar approach when it saw its business steadily dropping off. Overseas firms and freelance IT professionals were charging significantly less, but founder Jeff Huckaby didn’t want to be the cheapest IT firm, providing sketchy service and trying to make a living on volume. So he reinvented the firm to be far more consultative. He decided he would differentiate his firm by truly partnering with his clients, looking at the long-term needs of these businesses and making recommendations and sales based on a deep understanding of his clients’ needs.

“We use consultative calls in our question-based selling process,” Huckaby says in Gwen Moran’s case study IT Company Reinvents Itself for Growth, Increases Average Deal Size by 46%. “Instead of initially saying here’s this package and here’s what it is, we listen to that person’s needs and you definitely connect those needs to a package that we have that says, based on what you have described to us, this is the package that fits your needs.”

Huckaby says that by uncovering the client’s goals, he is able to better adopt that partner model that has transformed his business. In addition, he can spot opportunities to sell additional services that the client might need.

Learn more about getting referrals in Colleen Francis's on-demand webinar, Unleash Your Secret Sales Force

Referrals—they can make selling your services so much easier. Yet often professionals don’t get them. Why is that?

In a recent interview, Colleen Francis, President of Engage Selling, told me two things stop service professionals from getting the referrals they deserve: 1) they don’t ask, and 2) they ask incorrectly.

“Study after study shows that referrals are the preferred way to generate leads and to win new business, yet well over 80% of salespeople just aren’t asking,” Francis says. “They worry that if they go to their clients and ask for referrals that they will appear to be desperate and needy, and they don’t want their clients to think they need help.”

If professionals get over their fear of asking for a referral, the next step is to figure out how to ask correctly so that they see success every time, Francis adds.

Listen to the full interview here:

The Correct Way to Ask for a Referral

The key to asking for referrals is to be specific and to help your clients give them, says Francis. Don’t make it too much work for them.

“For example, you never want to say, ‘Who else do you know?’ And that’s such a common thing for salespeople. We don’t ever want to say that because that is going guarantee that you will not get any referrals,” she says. “The key is to be very specific and to give direction and to be directive with your clients. The last thing you want to do is make more work for your clients.”

Make sure your clients understand all of the services you offer, they types of companies you want to do business with, and give them something good to talk about. And make sure you reward them for their help. It could be a simple thank-you note, a Starbucks card, or free admission to an event you’re presenting. The key is to make them feel good for helping you.

Studies show that 80% to 90% of clients, when they’re satisfied with your services, are happy to give referrals. So, go ahead and ask, but ask correctly.

(Image by Mohamed Ibrahim)

The uncertain economy is making it difficult for many firms to break out of the economic doldrums that have been sitting over us for what seems like a really long time. Every once in a while we get a peek at the sun coming out from behind the dark clouds, but the clouds won’t move completely out of the way. The result is worried professionals trying to get business from companies whose leaders are also worried, stressed out, over worked, and bombarded with offers.

What does it take to get through to those buyers, who don’t see an end in sight to the chaos? It calls for analysis, planning, and old fashioned hard work. No one is going to give you a magic wand to wave.

You want to start by acknowledging your buyers’ predicament. They are, as Jill Konrath writes, suffering from “Frazzled Customer Syndrome,” and you need to approach them differently than how you have handled other prospects and leads in the past. In fact, “traditional sales strategies actually create insurmountable obstacles that can derail your sales efforts,” Konrath writes in her article, What to Do When Clients Suffer from ‘Frazzled Customer Syndrome’.

Following Konrath’s SNAP Rules, however, you can change how such prospects react to you. Start by keeping it simple. Make it easy for them to buy from you, she says. You also want to show that you’re invaluable, align what you do with what they want to achieve, and raise priorities.

Colleen Stanley adds that successful selling starts with having the right intent. Enter each sales call with a sincere desire to understand and help your prospects and clients, not simply make a quick sale.

“A salesperson who enters a sales call with a sincere desire to understand the prospect’s business and challenges will close more sales than the articulate, polished, lower-priced competitor,” Stanley writes in her article, The #1 Factor to Increase Sales Results. “Human beings are wired to sense dishonesty and lack of authenticity. Likewise, they can spot a person who is genuine and desires to do the right thing. Whom would you rather do business with?”

If you follow Stanley’s advice, not only are you more likely to win that sale but chances are high the client will refer you to others—the sweet spot for generating new business. They key is to make sure they’re quality referrals, which can be more challenging, writes Daniel Kehrer in his article, 7 Steps to Better Client Referrals. And that calls for first implementing a referral-generation plan, Kehrer says.

“Referrals aren’t automatic. Some business owners assume that a great product or terrific customer service will generate referrals by default. Not so. You have to learn to ask, and make sure employees are on board as well,” Kehrer says.

Follow that with giving clients some ammunition to help them refer you: business cards, brochures, link to your website or blog, he says.

If those items are content from your thought leadership platform, that’s even better. Those pieces of content—blog posts, white papers, bylined articles, articles in which you are quoted—help establish your authority.

You can also use those content pieces to build up your brand and become a go-to person in your industry, says Craig Badings in his podcast interview, Stop Practicing Random Acts of Content. But they must be part of a thought leadership platform that your entire firm adopts, says Badings, author of Brand Stand: Seven Steps to Thought Leadership.

“If thought leadership is not a part of corporate culture, then that thought leadership campaign is going to limp along and will never really achieve any great height,” he says.

Doing otherwise is just a PR campaign to drive coverage that is dressed up as thought leadership, Badings says.

Photo: Jason Gulledge

Last week, I had a long-overdue chat with a former colleague, a marketing director. We met in her office, and as I sat down at her work table, she scooped up piles of papers to make space for my coffee.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m in major overwhelm mode here. Juggling too many writing projects and a new product launch.”

Well, I know that feeling, so I jumped right in.

“What are the writing projects? Is there anything you could hand off to a freelancer?” I asked.

“Well, there’s a white paper that needs writing, and we have no sales collateral for the new product launch,” she responded. “Why, do you know someone?”

“Sure.” I rattled off the name of a writer who specializes in writing white papers for the IT industry and another who would be a good fit for the sales collateral.

My friend was thrilled. I was happy to be able to help. And, importantly, those two writers each just received a referral. And, not just a generic “I need a writer referral.” I didn’t simply offer my friend the names of some “writers;” I gave her the names of an “IT industry white paper writer” and a “sales collateral writer.” Professionals who specialize in solving the exact problems she was facing.

Despite the growing number of ways to generate leads for professional services, e.g., direct mail, cold calling, email, online, webinars, and more, research shows that referrals are still the top way professionals generate leads.

Yet many professionals I speak with wonder why they don’t get more referrals. They wonder what they’re doing wrong—Not doing enough networking? Not going to the right events? Not asking for referrals? And often, those are indeed real problems. However, in many cases the lack of referrals stems from something else.

How did I know whom to refer to my friend the marketing director? Well, each of the professionals I referred did the groundwork for me.

Each has a tightly defined niche. They describe the work they perform in terms of the types of writing they specialize in, as well as the industries and clients they serve. Not only have they clearly defined their niche, but they communicate and reinforce that message.

• One is a frequent speaker at events that showcase her white paper expertise and industry experience. She reinforces her niche on her website and in her tweets. She writes blog posts and articles about white papers on related industry sites.
• One keeps in close contact with me, with phone calls and email updates. She lets me know about projects she’s working on, recent successes, and her availability to take on new work. Her email signature includes her special focus, a link to her blog and website, and association awards she’s received.

Unlike some professionals who try to be all things to all people, neither is afraid to define the niche they serve and devote all their energy to cultivating that niche.

They make it easy for me to refer them.

How do you make it easy for your contacts to refer you?

Are you letting leads fall through the cracks? (Photo by Ti.mo)

In conversation after conversation with services firm leaders, I hear the common lament:

“We need more leads!”

However when I start asking them about their lead management and nurturing process and what happens when they have a new lead, I quickly learn that it may not be new leads they need, but a better process to handle the leads they already have.

In my experience, services firms are particularly bad at staying in touch with leads over the long term. They attend to short-term leads and work them hard only to let their long-term leads fall through the cracks. There are a number of ways to stay in touch with these leads and nurture them (read this blog post I wrote on the topic: Your No-Nonsense Lead Nurturing Plan).

There are also a number of places to look where you can find a whole slew of leads that you already have. So, you may not need new leads; you may just need to do a better job of handling the leads you already have.

5 Places to Find Leads

1. Lost proposals: A lost proposal is not the end of a relationship. Even when you lose a proposal, you should make a point to stay in touch with the prospect. Every three months or so check in and see how the project is going. Just because they didn’t choose you for phase one doesn’t mean they will not choose you for later phases of the project or other projects. If you keep in touch and remain up-to-date with what is going on and with the new challenges they are facing, you will have the inside track.

2. Leads that aren’t ready to close right now: These are the most common leads to get lost in the shuffle. On our priority list, these long-term leads fall to the bottom and receive little, if any, attention. The relationship is damaged and future opportunities disappear.

3. Current clients: Don’t neglect your current client base. They are the ones that, through repeat business, are going to make up a large portion of your business. (That is unless you are a turnaround consulting firm—in that case, you hope not to see any repeat business.) Just because you work with a firm doesn’t mean they know all about you and the various ways you can help. Often your client knows very little about your firm past the people and projects they are directly engaged in.

Tapping your current (and past) client base, introducing them to other services, and networking your way through the client firm are all ways to grow and get new projects. Your direct contact can act as an internal champion for you and your services to introduce you to other decision makers within their organization. Plus they can refer you to other businesses that may need your services.

4. Prospects that may not have been the perfect fit (two years ago): Businesses change at an amazingly fast clip. Maybe you had a conversation with a business two years ago that at the time was not ready to make the investment for your services, or was not the right size, or didn’t have the urgency to act right away. That doesn’t mean that they are in the same position today. Unless you stay in touch with these folks, you have no idea if their situation changes.

5. Web leads: What’s your firm’s process and policy for handling web leads? Does every lead that comes in over the web—every download, contact us form, email inquiry—get a response and get added to your database? If there are any gaps in the integration between your website and contact management system, you can be sure that leads are dropping out through them.

Long-term nurturing programs help you stay in touch with these leads on a regular basis. It keeps your message and brand in front of your prospects. Email, direct mail, and periodic phone calls are all great ways to keep the relationship alive so when the need does arise, you are the first ones they think of.

So, go run a report on your contact management system searching for lost proposals, old leads, current and past clients, and web leads. I’m sure you’ll find leads that have been sitting right beneath your nose this entire time.

With so many tactics to choose from to generate leads, and so little time to decide (if you don’t want to lose prospects to faster-moving competitors), how can you create conversations with the most qualified buyers for your services?

You can speak at conferences or seminars. Take advantage of the many PR opportunities available. Or you can cold call, send direct mail pieces, set up affiliate or referral programs—the list goes on.

Not knowing which tactic to choose and what to expect from your lead generation efforts can be a service provider’s worst nightmare. You have to zero in on what’s going to make the biggest splash in your pool of prospects. But how do you know?

Over the course of 2010, Wellesley Hills Group has conducted research from over 800 professional services providers; they’ve told us what’s worked, what hasn’t, and how they plan to generate leads in the future.

Join us on June 15 as Mike Schultz will be sharing findings from Wellesley Hills Group’s yet to be released What’s Working in Lead Generation 2010 report.

You will learn the answers to those sticky questions such as:

• How can I fill the front end of the pipeline with qualified prospects that will buy?
• Which tactics look good, but don’t work well for lead generation?
• How does lead generation work with other marketing and business development activities?
• Which tactics will work for my firm, given the dynamics of what I sell?
• What are the keys to developing a culture that supports ongoing lead generation success?

When: June 15, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. (continental breakfast and networking begin at 7:30 a.m.)

Where: Newton Marriott – 2345 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA 02466

All attendees will receive a complimentary executive summary to the What’s Working in Lead Generation 2010 benchmark report.

Register for Lead Generation Success for Professional Services>>>

Sometimes small dogs can take on and beat big dogs (free myspace layouts)

You might think large professional services firms always do things better than independent providers, but that isn’t true, says Andrew Sobel. In fact, large firms can learn a thing or two from successful small practitioners.

Sobel, a consultant who has experience with both large global firms and small practitioners, describes in his article, Where Independent Professionals Succeed and Large Firms Fail, eight practices that large firms can “learn—or relearn—from the most successful professionals who have small or solo practices.” One practice that stands out is that of building a sustainable practice by building your personal brand.

With a large firm, “the firm brand gets you in the door and into the competitive bids, but the personal brand gets you sole-sourced business,” Sobel says.

Practitioners can build their brand by sharing their expertise via articles, presentations, and blogs. Use those mediums to build relationships with prospects and clients. Step back from simply describing your services and instead give prospects information that will help them.

Ian Brodie has taken that approach to heart and has ditched his traditional website for a blog site. In his podcast interview with RainToday publisher Mike Schultz—Is the Traditional Website Dead?—Brodie explains how he uses the blog site to share his expertise and show people what it’s like to work with him. By developing relationships with prospects before they’re ready to buy, chances are they’ll turn to you when they are ready to make a purchase.

Another way to build a sustainable practice is to get referrals from clients. Referrals are more accessible, and there’s less competition to close the deal. But you don’t want just any referral; you want quality referrals. As Kendra Lee points out in her article, How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline with High-Quality Referrals, to get quality referrals that lead to new business you must guide your clients and help them understand who your ideal client is.

Firms can also increase their revenue by taking advantage of less-than-obvious marketing opportunities. Have you ever thought about what prospects and clients hear when they’re on hold waiting for you or someone else in your firm? Rather than listening to music or dead air, Michael Weiner suggests filling the space with information about your firm and services. In Increase Revenue with ‘On-Hold’ Marketing Messages, Weiner says “on-hold” marketing messages add value, inform callers, and could lead to more sales.

Another marketing avenue that many firms are still evaluating is Twitter. Is it really worth your effort, you might ask? For many B2B marketers, the answer is a resounding yes. This week’s chart, How Twitter Tactics Work for B2B Marketers, shows B2B markets are finding success using Twitter to monitor their brand, invite prospects to in-person events, and drive traffic to websites and blogs. If you’ve been holding back on using this tool, you might want to reconsider.

Use your social network to spread the word about your events (CC BY-SA 2.0)

If you’re selling a complex service in a crowded industry niche, you know how challenging it can be to establish your firm. It’s doubly difficult when you’re the start-up in an established space.

That’s one reason this story about Avature is instructive. In 2004, this firm entered the crowded field of customer relationship management (CRM) technology and consulting and the company’s leadership was looking for a way to differentiate.

They already had a lot going for them: the founding team had previously launched and sold a successful jobs website. With their new company, the experienced team members wanted to position themselves as thought leaders in the CRM field. They did this by co-creating content with other industry leaders and then distributing it through free webinars, video, and slide presentations. What’s most interesting is the approach they took—combining social media and partnerships.

Here’s a snapshot of the Avature approach:

Find your audience: Avature started by identifying which social media networks would be most effective for spreading the word to their target audience. They listened to who was participating on these networks and what they were saying.

Find partners: They partnered with industry leaders (through existing relationships) to create compelling content. They didn’t want a thinly veiled sales pitch, so they created content around a timely topic (web 2.0 technologies) with recognized names (Pixar Animation Studios). They positioned the webinar events as two industry leaders speaking on an issue the target customer valued. In addition, they sought out very active participants on the social media networks they targeted to help spread the word and create buzz around their message.

Find the right platforms for social sharing: Avature kept its message available and circulating after the live event by posting the recorded event online. (They used the free Blip.tv to host the hour-long recorded event and posted the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied each event on SlideShare, another free service.)

The approach proved to be a success. In one six-month period Avature ran five webinars that attracted more than 200 people—with more than three times that number viewing the recordings and presentations online following the live events. Beyond being a thought-leadership platform for the company, each webinar generated a minimum of 10 qualified leads for the company’s software, and of those, 20% turned into sales. In addition, new business from referrals increased by more than 50% in the three months following the webinars—with many non-customer referrals from people who referred business to Avature based on what they had heard about the company.

“You have to think about your messages as something someone is going to want to read. They want to be educated, and the message needs to tie back to your product or service.” says Michael Johnson, director of sales. “We weren’t interested in just saying, ‘Here’s what our product or service is.’ That would die on the vine and not get very viral.”

Has your business used webinars in your content mix? What kind of results did you see?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/_dchris/ / CC BY 2.0

If you’re a services professional, you know how important networking is to maintaining relationships and referrals. Here are some tips (excerpted from RainToday’s Face-to-Face Networking Guide) to help you improve this all-important skill.

1. When it comes to networking, use the resources you currently have available, then broaden them by expanding your efforts. Be precise, but don’t overlook the hidden potential that is all around you.
2. You can network anywhere, with anyone. When looking for organizations to join to help you build your relationships and connections, choose groups where you can make a contribution and will be interested in what is going on.
3. Communicating your message is a means of gaining credibility that is best accomplished through substance, not style. Listening and asking questions helps you build rapport and trust. Practice your communications until you feel confident that your message will come across as genuine and unscripted.
4. Most of us can’t just show up at an event, stand around, and expect people to come up and talk to us. Be proactive and start conversations with others. This does not mean you have to be the center of attention and the life of the party. Simply be yourself and the rest will fall into place.
5. Keep the conversation fresh and interesting. Balance the amount that you talk with the amount the other person is talking and ask open-ended questions.
6. Exit quickly from conversations that aren’t good matches. When you find good conversations with people who could be the right fit, don’t be too quick to leave. A few rich conversations and good new connections can make for a very successful event.
7. When it comes to networking, knowing what not to do is as important as knowing what to do.
8. No matter which method you choose, follow up is crucial to your networking effort. Follow up turns a casual contact made at a meeting, party, or event into a potential long-term relationship.
9. In the end, networking is all about building relationships that are honest, sincere, and of value to both parties. As you work to stay in touch, try to develop relationships that benefit the other party as much as they do you. Build relationships for the long term.
10. The best part about building relationships is that whatever you put in comes back to you. More and better relationships mean a greater likelihood of generating leads that you can convert into great opportunities for your business.

Make a commitment to improve your networking skills this year, and you’ll see that “givers gain” is more than just a nice saying.