Better Business Blog

7 Tips for Networking

Networking goes hand in hand with running a successful business.

But many of us dread walking into a room and introducing ourselves to a bunch of strangers.

I've been asked to share my best networking tips at a meeting today of the National Association of Women Business Owners in Philadelphia. Here are the most valuable tips I've come across – and put to work myself – over the years:

1. Resist the urge to arrive late. It's almost counter-intuitive, but showing up early at a networking event is a much better strategy than getting there on the later side. As a first attendee, you'll notice that it's calmer and quieter – and people won't have settled into groups yet. It's easier to find other people who don't have conversation partners yet.

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The 7 Pillars of Connecting With Absolutely Anyone

 

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” - Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

I don’t care what your goals, industry or interests are, there’s no getting around it: Personal relationships run the world. But why is it that some people seem to build instant rapport with most anyone they come across, while others are left with a network of one?

Over the past few years, I’ve conducted a study of exactly what sets these people apart. Turns out, the results are more simple, and more powerful, than you’d think. And they led me to interactions and connections with world-class CEOs, best-selling authors, professional athletes and other seemingly untouchable folks, including Tony Robbins and Warren Buffett.

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When It Comes to Networking, Farmers Will Always Beat Hunters

Has a complete stranger ever solicited you for a referral or business? I call this “premature solicitation.”

I’ve been its victim many times. I was recently speaking at a networking event, and before my presentation, a man came up to me and said, “Hi, it is a real pleasure to meet you. I understand you know Richard Branson. I offer specialized marketing services and I am sure his Virgin enterprises could benefit from what I provide. Could you please introduce me to him so that I can show him how this would assist his companies?”

Here’s what was going on inside my head: “Are you completely insane? I’m going to introduce you, someone I don’t know and don’t have any relationship with, to Sir Richard, whom I’ve only met a few times, so that you can proceed to attempt to sell him a product or service that I don’t know anything about and haven’t used myself? Yeah, right. That’s never going to happen.”

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5 Ways to Build a Solid Email Marketing List

Email marketing is a powerful tool that can extend your reach beyond your website and create new salesopportunities. If you simply sell to customers when they happen to visit your site, you have an all-or-nothing chance of making a sale. Should they leave without making a purchase, there's no guarantee they'll return later.

But when you build an email list of current and potential customers, you can reach out repeatedly to your prospects with targeted messages.

Here are five ways to integrate email marketing into your website and stay in touch with your best prospects:

1. Build an opt-in form on your home page.
Perhaps the easiest and most common way to create a list is to integrate an email opt-in form into your home page. To get attention, place your form "above the fold," so visitors can see it immediately and don't have to scroll down.

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The Realities of Successful Entrepreneurs

Today’s guest post is written by Mark Harai.

I often read articles about the bliss, excitement, and glory of being an entrepreneur.

Don’t get me wrong, these are certainly part of the overall journey, but typically just the icing on the cake.

Everything in between the start of the climb to the icing at the top define you as a person and shape your entrepreneurial career.

Dealing with bills, budgets, and payrolls isn’t glorious. Driving day-to-day operations, motivating the crew, and meeting crushing deadlines may sound exciting, but it can be daunting. It will seem as if everyone and everything is conspiring to derail you and your plans. It can really suck!

Pushing through constant resistance and overcoming challenges on a daily basis requires commitment, mental toughness and hard ass work.

Before you buy into the bliss of entrepreneurship, one must first understand and accept the realities to have staying power when the tough gets going.

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Learning to Network: Organized Study vs. Winging It

My colleagues and I, as co-authors of the new book Business Networking and Sex – Not What You Think, thought it would be interesting to see if men and women acquire networking skills in different ways. So in one of our surveys, we asked participants how they learned to network.

Most respondents--both men and women--cited multiple ways. More than one-fourth said they had been mentored, which is widely considered one of the most effective ways to learn anything. Almost half said they had learned on their own, but many of them also participated in networking groups or read books and articles. In fact, more than three-quarters of respondents cited their use of networking groups. Which isn't surprising. Such groups often provide training programs and materials. Their popularity also illustrates the old wisdom of learning by doing. Many people learn fastest by watching others, making mistakes and correcting them.

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Entrepreneurs Network for Success

Networking…as entrepreneurs we do this almost instinctively, but are we taking the wrong approach when networking for our small businesses? Here are some resources that may help.

Networking Advice

What Reid Hoffman can teach you about connecting. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, networking is the key to your success. Realize that as an entrepreneur your ability to connect will define the direction your small business takes. Bloomberg Businessweek

Even businesses without Websites can network online. A surprising number of small businesses don’t yet have Websites, but that doesn’t keep them from networking online. LinkedIn specifically creates a hub for entrepreneurs even without other Web presences. The Sydney Morning Herald

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A Guide to Ambient Social Networking for Business Owners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Ambient" social networks were all the buzz at Austin's annual South by Southwest tech festival. So what are ambient networks? They include social discovery platforms and "proximity"-based apps on a smartphone or mobile device that locate other app users within the same geographical area.

Unlike Foursquare, which connects people to places, ambient social networks aim to connect people to people. Startups playing in the ambient social networking sandbox include:

• Highlight
• Sonar
• Glancee
• Grindr
• Banjo
• Circle

Depending on the app, users can search for and connect with Facebook contacts and Twitter followers, or locate nearby app users who have friends in common or share their interests, hobbies, or even dating preferences.

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Top 10 Most Important Lessons from 13 Years as an Entrepreneur

Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to an entrepreneur?

I’m often asked this question as I travel around the country speaking to groups on 21st century capitalism and leadership.

I suppose this question is asked so one can get a head start down the correct path to entrepreneurial success. Except, of course, there is no correct path.

Read More: Top 10 Most Important Lessons from 13 Years as an Entrepreneur

Effective Networking Takes Commitment and Clarity

These days the word networking has any number of meanings and context.

There’s social networking, the kind of networking you do wherever two or more of you are gathers and of course that pesky wiring together of far flung computer nodes that might come up in a random search on the term networking.

I’m at SXSWi this week in Austin and hidden in all those tweets and posts from giddy geeks gone gonzo is the fact that this event is one of the premiere networking events for people in the online and interactive world.

Read More: Effective Networking Takes Commitment and Clarity

How to Harness the Power of LinkedIn – INFOGRAPHIC

A presentation on the topic of how to cook a chocolate tart is  going to “bomb”at a cheese maker’s  convention.

 

It will be the wrong audience for an interesting topic, but the cheesemakers didn’t pay $1,200 for a conference ticket to hear information about “Tarts”!

A paying participant at a car dealer expo will want to hear about horsepower and handbrakes and will either leave the hall or fall asleep if the speakers start talking about knitting and slipper making.

Read More: How to Harness the Power of LinkedIn – INFOGRAPHIC

What Drives Entrepreneurs?

Researchers have learned the half dozen motivations that drive people to become entrepreneurs. Take our interactive quiz to learn which of them (if any) matter to you.

Ask entrepreneurs about their companies, and they answer with alacrity and specificity. Ask why they wanted to start those companies, and they grow vague: "It's in my DNA." "I have a passion for it." "No one else would hire me."

Read More: What Drives Entrepreneurs?

Meet Joanne Wilson, Fred Wilson's Wife And An Investor In 17 Startups

When Joanne Wilson was in college, she rented a summer room in a fraternity from one of the brothers, Fred.

 

Now the two are married and they're a couple of New York's most involved, savvy startup investors.

Fred is a partner at Union Square Ventures; his investments include Zynga, Twitter and Foursquare. None of the companies in his portfolio are women-founded.

Read More: Meet Joanne Wilson, Fred Wilson's Wife And An Investor In 17 Startups

Guide To The Must Read Blogs For Entrepreneurs

In between attempting to produce great content, tracking down people to interview, looking for advertisers, and creating a deck to pitch for our first angel investment, I have been taking notes on all of the different sites in the community.

There are so many great founders out there; I find it extremely helpful to learn how they built a business, and hope to one day be at their level. As I was reviewing my notes, I thought that it would actually be a great post to share.

Everyone has different styles, but they all end with the same result: phenomenal content. Loquiveri hopes to put the different pieces of the puzzle together to create our own style, following the lead of the great companies before us.

Read More: Guide To The Must Read Blogs For Entrepreneurs

Connecting Minority-Owned Businesses to Corporate and Government Money

When it comes to running a small business, experts say that nothing replaces hard work, dedication and a smart idea at the core of things. But for business owners in a minority demographic, there's some extra leverage that can come with certification.

The advantage, according to certificate-supplying organizations such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council, is that Asian, black, Hispanic and Native American business owners can be matched with services, programs, and sources of work and revenue.

"Certification can provide entrée to the corporate supply chain that MBEs otherwise would not have," said Joset B. Wright, the Council's president. "For example, last year we introduced the Biz-Fit Challenge, a free online assessment tool to help certified MBEs diagnose the financial health of their companies."

Read More: Connecting Minority-Owned Businesses to Corporate and Government Money

What Zappos Can Teach You About Becoming Irresistible to Customers

What can a well-run shoe store teach you about your own online business?

Well, everything.

If you’ve ever bought anything from the mega online shoe store Zappos, or if you’ve so much as heard them mentioned, the word that comes to mind is probably service.

But there’s more to the Zappo’s secret sauce than free shipping and some nice people on the phone.

They embody three important lessons that any blogger, online marketer, or small business owner can learn … and start finding customers that don’t just like you, they love you.

Read More: What Zappos Can Teach You About Becoming Irresistible to Customers

The 7 Fundamentals of Building a Successful Business

First comes the idea, then a bit of follow-through and, ideally, in the end you have a business.

But if a company thrives, it's not because its founder filed all the right paperwork, got a P.O. box and had business cards made up. There's much more to building a successful business than those initial basics.

In fact, to make sustained growth more likely, small businesses need a smart, strategic plan. Whether a company is in its infancy or has been around for years, there are a few things every savvy small-business owner needs to keep in mind.

Read More: The 7 Fundamentals of Building a Successful Business

8 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty

Top salespeople use these simple rules to keep their customers buying from them--even in the face of steep competition.

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Customer loyalty is the key to profitability. The reason is simple. It costs more–geometrically more–to acquire a new customer than to keep a current one.

Without customer loyalty, customers leave. Then you can end up sacrificing as much as a third of your sales year just to get your numbers back to where they were the previous year. Ouch.

With that in mind, did you ever wonder how top salespeople keep their customers so loyal? It's not because they have great products or they're good at schmoozing. The secret to customer loyalty lies in putting the interests of the customer ahead of your own. It's really that simple.

Read More: 8 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty

Is Affiliate Marketing Right for Your Business?

Affiliate marketing is a sales strategy. Businesses or individuals link to a merchant's products and receive a commission if the affiliate partner gets a sale. The strategy is sometimes known as performance marketing.

How effective has this strategy been?

The 2010 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report showed that performance-based advertising models accounted for 62 percent of Internet ad revenues, up from 59 percent in 2009. In 2010, affiliate-marketing pioneer Amazon derived 40 percent of its more than $34 billion in sales from its program, according to Wikipedia.

Read More: Is Affiliate Marketing Right for Your Business?

6 Ways to Give Your App a Leg Up on the Competition

Paul Baldwin is the chief marketing officer of Outfit7 Inc., a subsidiary of Out Fit 7 Ltd, the leading entertainment app developer. Paul has more than 17 years of experience developing, marketing and monetizing digital entertainment content.

Spend a few minutes browsing through both the Android and Apple app stores and it’s easy to see the fierce competition for user attention. The number of apps has grown to more than 1 million, each vying for downloads and market share.

The app development world is still very top-heavy, with a very small percentage of developers controlling the majority of downloads and revenue. But that in no way means that a newcomer can’t build a successful app that captures the hearts and minds of consumers, and becomes the next big thing.

Since the app stores themselves control which apps are elevated and highlighted, how can you ensure your app gets time in the spotlight and the attention it deserves? Here are six tips drawn from experience

Read More: 6 Ways to Give Your App a Leg Up on the Competition

Announcing IGNITION West

IGNITION West intensively explores the future of mobile and is presented by Business Insider on March 21, 2012 in San Francisco. Through high-level discussions with executives and leading entrepreneurs and demos from emerging startups, 2012's IGNITION West will bring together people who are evolving and disrupting mobile to discuss what's happening now, what's next, and how it affects your business. Which platforms, products and business models will dominate? Find out at IGNITION West.

Topics include: Mobile platforms & consumer behavior; next-generation devices and services; who owns the Internet after search; the future of publishing, film and television on mobile; investing in mobile and mobile content; the gaming marketplace.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ignitionwest/2012#ixzz1ll5QKOES

 

 

Read More: Announcing IGNITION West

Classrooms With 500,000 Students

I am fascinated by the Stanford online courses in machine learning and artificial intelligence. My first inkling of them came when quite a few of my students started taking the artificial-intelligence class. Olin is very small, only about 400 students, so I realized that these online courses must be large. But I almost fell over when I saw that enrollment varied from 66,000, at the low-end, to 160,000.

Sebastian Thrun, who co-taught the artificial-intelligence course to 160,000 students, is now leaving Stanford teaching in order to teach courses to 500,000 students for free. What an inspiring goal!

Read More: Classrooms With 500,000 Students

10 Tips for Building a Strong Online Community Around Your Startup

Building a community around your startup can be one of the cheapest ways to create momentum for your product. A community is much more than a one-time marketing campaign, and can help you throughout your company’s life cycle if you take the time to grow it right.

Here are 10 tips for getting started.

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1. Look Before You Leap

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First, take stock of who is already talking about your product or industry and where they’re doing it. Mike Handy, a community consultant, suggests you seek out “pockets of users who are excited about your product or service.” If users are already talking about your product on Twitter, for instance, that’s a good place to start building.

Sumaya Kazi, CEO of Sumazi, recommends “It’s best to focus on one to two communities to begin with, and really focus your efforts to grow a community one at a time.” Take stock of where your efforts will be most useful and narrow in on those areas.

Read More: 10 Tips for Building a Strong Online Community Around Your Startup

How Cloud Redefines Our Most Important Business Technology Relationships

“May you live in interesting times.” For anyone involved in information technology development and delivery, these are very interesting times, says David Nichols, principal and CIO services leader for Ernst & Young IT Advisory Services. Cloud computing is reshaping the way businesses relate to technology, managers and professionals relate to each other.

In my previous post, based on my chat with Nichols, he outlined some compelling business cases for the cloud, and described the threshold many enterprises have yet to cross before they become cloud-intensive enterprises. But as they reach or surpass this threshold, what’s it doing to important relationships — between companies, IT managers, business managers, and even outsourcers?

 

Read More: How Cloud Redefines Our Most Important Business Technology Relationships

A Guide to Small Business Survival

Small business ownership can be a challenge, especially in the beginning. The rewards can be great but you may need a survival guide to get you through the tough parts or just to provide that simple advice that seems so elusive when the pressure is on. We hope the links below will help, and don’t forget to enjoy the journey.

Basic Resources

Small business blogger survival guide. A big part of surviving as a small business blogger involves being a social animal. Here David Leonhardt gives every small business blogger some great resources to keep you, your business, and your blog alive. ProBlogger

Tax tips for business. How you manage money once your business makes it can sometimes be as critical as your business model. Here are some basic deductions you must take to be sure you are saving all that you can. The One of a Kind Preneur

 

Read More: A Guide to Small Business Survival