Business by Referral I Take The Lead B2B 3-4-11 part 2

You Never Know Where Your Next Customer is at

The other day I was having coffee with a friend of mine and she told me about a story or someone that we both know.

This person owns a restaurant and is fairly well known with in the community.  This person was at a competing restaurant and was being fairly rude to the server.  How often have we been rude to the sales person calling on our office, the server at a lunch spot, or the person in the parking lot?  Have you ever considered that this person can be, could be, or will be a customer of yours one day?

Remember as business and sales professional and leaders that we are observed all the time.  The next person that you are rude to may be a current or a future customer of yours.

Business by Referral I Take The Lead B2B 3-4-11 part 1

How secure is your technology?

Yesterday a friend of mine had his laptop stolen from his car while he was having lunch.  The scary thing is on this laptop was not only his personal and financial records, but his company’s financial records too.  Fortunately he has everything backed up, encryption software, along with a tracing software to help protect the information along with help with the recovery.

This got me to thinking what would happen if I was to loose my laptop, or if it was to suffer a loss of data?  Some quick research shows that 1 in 10 laptops are stolen every year.  With Identity Theft on the rise the value is not in the laptop, it is in the information in the laptop.

Do you have any resources in place to protect your information on your laptop?  If not now would be a great time to get some resources to help protect the information that is on your laptop.

Keep your head in the game!

The other day as I was about to leave my office to go to a networking meeting I received some less then fortunate news.  Now it was not a family emergency, or someone that got injured it was something had not worked out between me and another person that I was hoping that we would have worked out.

Fortunately along the drive to where I was going to I was able to get myself back into “Game Mode”.  Things are bound to come up that takes the wind out of our sails, this is a part of life.  If there are no ups then there are no downs.  It is what you do when this happens that determine if you are going to have a great meeting, day, or sale or not.

Now don’t take this as when challenges come up that we just ignore them, we address them and understand the importance when it is time for a meeting, sale, or prospecting that we have our game face on!

How to use Promotional Products to get Referrals

Developing Referral Partners

There is a huge advantage with taking time out in the week to meet with other sales and business leaders in your area.  So often I see where people will only meet with individuals that compliment their business and never think about building relationships with people outside their industry.

Can a financial planner recommend a Realtor?  Can a CPA recommend an Insurance person?  Absolutely!  So not only should you focus on building strategic partnerships with those that compliment your product or service, you should also build partnerships with those outside your industry.

Commit for the next 4 weeks to meet with two people per week for coffee to learn about their business and you will be surprised at your business will grow.