Paws for Thought

I spoke to a friend yesterday on the phone. We talked about the speech I gave last week at the Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce Network Lunch. My friend was full of praise for how I had delivered this, and said I had included some valid points.

My friend still wanted to know how he could win business through Social Media engagement.

Ok, let’s strip back some layers……

Image courtesy of sunshinecity

A cliché, I know, but people do business with people.

When we go to networking events we ‘wear’ our business like a suit. We know that each one of us is there for business. We all try to impress and leave others with a lasting opinion. These are corporate events and we get the opportunity to talk about our business through a brief elevator pitch. Even when we mingle and network afterwards we ask and talk about business.

So, we hear about someone’s business first.

I think back to the days when I would receive numerous cold-calls a day. People trying to pitch at me with great offers and must have products. I have said it before, I will say it again – people only buy what they want, when they want and from whom they want. So when I am approached by someone wanting to sell me something, I automatically and instinctively re-coil and my defence mechanism kicks in. It’s the same for us all.

Engaging socially means we can develop a relationship with others first before business enters the game. A lot of people see this as recreational (which it is) and as a result do not see it as a serious option. The biggest challenge to me is convincing people that building relationships socially will pay off in the end.

Let’s look at the chain reaction of social networking…….

I talk to Laura on Twitter and we share some common ground – cats. Laura began looking for a kitten some time back which coincided with our cat having given birth to 6 cuties. Laura lived a little too far away to be able to take one of my kittens, but she told her friend Helen about them. Helen lived a little closer to me than Laura, some 45 minutes drive,  and she agreed to come over and pick a couple of them up.

Ok, so here my online friendship with Helen turned into an offline meeting. Priceless.

Helen and I caught up a few times on the phone afterwards, exchanging humorous stories of the naughty kittens and their antics. Business crept into the conversation, naturally, and it became apparent that we shared a mutual contact. Someone I had met briefly over a crowded room at #learnpod10 when Chris Brogan was in the UK earlier this year. I connected with TweetsbySkeet too.

Through my initial friendship with Laura I had now met two more people and by conversing with them I became visible to their network of friends too. This opened up a combined network of 3,801 new people to me.

I got asked to guest blog, I discussed the possibility of holding some Social Media workshops in a new area and was invited to a couple of events……all because my cat had kittens!

Getting to know people with some common ground, other than business interests, puts us at ease. We can really get to know what makes the other person ‘tick’. Business flows naturally without the need to force it on others. We become visible immediately to the networks of those we be-friend – something we cannot do offline. For me to make myself known to 3,801 people offline would take a lot of time, and perhaps a lot of money.

Is networking socially a waste of time? No.

Leave your business ‘suit’ behind, put on a ‘virtual’ pair of comfy jeans and interact. The more you interact, the more opportunities will come your way, the more visibility you will achieve.

What do you think? Do you ‘hunt’ business, or ‘gather’ relationships?

Please leave a comment below……