Michigan Business and Executive Coaching Blog

Do These Effective Networking Tips

July 6, 2010 By Barry

What characteristics make for a great networker? In our series The Do’s and Dont’s of Networking, we are offering several recommended networking tips from Barry Demp. Here are a few that you can use at your next networking opportunity or event:

Use a scoreboards to track your networking activities and effectiveness.
Be a giver at networking events. Givers gain!
Have a plan for your networking activities.
Networking strategies should be intensively targeted on specific industries and professions.
Network everywhere.
Help prospects with their problems even if they cannot be a good lead for you.
Use the other person’s name often in your networking conversations.
Send thank you notes and follow up consistently.
Limit your eating and drinking at networking events.
Be very confident and comfortable with yourself and the value of your services.

Barry Demp is a highly-skilled business and personal coach focused on the areas of leadership, management, coaching, team-building, networking, business development, communication skills, relationship building, motivation, time management, life balance, and goal achievement. He specializes in working with business owners, executives, coaches, consultants, and high-potential professionals by helping them significantly increase their productivity, profitability, and life balance. For more information or assistance, please contact Barry Demp at 248-740-3231 or visit www.dempcoaching.com.

Personal and Business Networking Tips

June 30, 2010 By Barry

As a continuation of our blog series on the Do’s and Dont’s of Networking, we are exploring additional tips and strategies on how to become a more effective networker.

Have a great interest in others and have masterful listening skills.
Develop excellent relationships with the officers, leaders, and organizers of my networking venues.
Make requests for introductions to people who these leaders believe are a good fit for me.
Be specific when you make requests for assistance.
Networking only begins at the networking event. Go out of your way to set up follow-up networking opportunities on a one-on-one basis.
Consider a personal advisory panel that helps you build your business.
Networking is a mutual exchange of information, ideas, and resources. Be generous!
When you give something of value, politely look for a way the other person can help you in return (reciprocity).
Be very consistent in your networking activities.
Have a list of centers of influence and strategic referral partners.

The Dos and Dont’s of Networking Blog Series

June 22, 2010 By Barry

What Is Networking?

Many people think networking is the development of a system of personal and professional contacts that can be used to gain information and assistance only when needed. In reality, it is much more! Networking is a lifelong process that can enrich us professionally and personally in ways we never imagined. Networking expands our view of the world; helps us take risks and reach new levels of accomplishment; promotes “win-win” situations; and encourages bringing people together in ways that make 1 + 1 equal more than 2.

Networking provides the structure, support, skills, and strategies needed to bridge the gap between ideas and actions. It can turn strangers into friends and build a world full of people who will take our calls, give us their time, and answer our questions. Networking can be useful in helping us reach our chosen destinations, whether they be making a job change, working more effectively with customers and colleagues, or building our own business.

What is networking to you? Let us know by visiting here.

Networking is a learned skill build upon the personal values and attitudes inherent in all of us. Networkers know the world is interconnected and that when they give their time, talents, and energy to help others to satisfy needs and reach goals, networkers ultimately end up helping themselves.

Reputation

Your reputation is your calling card and your greatest asset. You build it by being your best and doing your best.

Responsibility

In today’s fast-paced, global economy, the ability to take charge, show initiative, make choices, and answer for one’s conduct are keys to leading a rewarding personal and professional life. Networkers understand that actions affect outcomes and have learned to deliver what they promise.

To what degree do you deliver on your professional and personal promises? Let us know by visiting here.

Relationships

Networkers understand the importance of becoming acquainted with people for who they are, not only for what they do. Establishing a sincere connection between any two people is the foundation of successful networking!

How masterful are you at developing professional and personal relationships? See how others are doing it.

Rapport

Rapport is based on having an genuine interest in learning about others and their world. Taking the time to learn about the needs of others provides you with an understanding of the common ground shared by you and others.

What are some of your best rapport-creating strategies? Feel free to share them with us.

Research

If you keep up on the world around you and current trends, others will seek you out as a knowledgeable resource. Networkers practice professional due diligence. They do their homework because the more they know, the better prepared they will be.

What do you do on a daily or weekly basis to increase your own value as a networking resource? You may want to check out some of these resources.

In the coming weeks, we will be providing a wide variety of networking best-practices for review and consideration. Here are a few:

Consistently arrive early to and leave late from networking opportunities.
Scan the sign-in sheet to learn who’s attending.
Be careful to not spend too much time with any one individual or group.
Always obtain a business card from people who interest you and write appropriate reminder notes on the back.
Focus most of your time at networking events on meeting new people and spend limited time with people that you know well.

Maintaining Relationships For Better Business Results

June 15, 2010 By Barry

I work with that person. I know that person. But do I really?

Reaching out to communicate and build relationships with a co-worker or contact should be embraced. Here is why.

In the time it takes for you to walk to the break room and pour yourself a cup of coffee, you can build and maintain some of the most fulfilling relationships that you may ever have.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Barry I hear what you are saying, but I don’t know what it all means”.

Well, imagine for a moment if your vision for the future were something like this:

My life is a happy, healthy, abundantly rich world of extraordinary relationships, great accomplishments and integrity. A world of faith and personal excellence where each person develops and goes the extra mile to contribute to their unique gifts and talent towards the fulfillment of a life of passion and purpose.

The reality is that having a world of truly fulfilling relationships, both business and personal, is very possible and very real. If you are willing to work at it each and every day.

10 Important Ways To Build Your Business Relationships

Go out of your way to let the people you are talking with express themselves fully. When people feel that they can express themselves they experience a high degree of relatedness.
Be “fully present” in each conversation and nowhere else. Make eye contact and listen completely to what the other person is saying.
Learn to say that you are sorry…and mean it.
Be generous and loving. It’s amazing what comes back to you.
Never rush a relationship. All good things come in time.
Empathy and compassion are two muscles worth building.
Be willing to forgive others and move forward. Being unforgiving is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.
Demonstrate kindness, caring, loyalty, and respect in all relationships. Doing so is like putting money in your relationship bank account.
Be trusting and trustworthy.
Be genuine and authentic. Andre Gide once said “It is better to fail at your own life than to succeed at someone else’s”.

Building Relationships for Better Business Results

May 19, 2010 By Barry

Think for a moment about the most important assets that you possess to help your business succeed. Some of the more common responses that we typically hear are money, tools, knowledge, or even a particular trade or skill.

However, when asked about the most important business building tool in a recent LinkedIn.com poll conducted by Barry Demp Coaching, LLC the majority of the participants stated that Relationship Building was the most important skill for business success.

There are several different types of relationships that you can have with different people as a business professional. Here are some examples:

Customer
Co-worker
Vendor
Employee
Business Partner
Trusted Referral source
Client
Contractor
Prospective Client
Former Client

Building and managing all of these different types of relationships can be quite challenging at times because they can each occur within a different context. Within each different context, it becomes extremely important to recognize how your behavior is viewed by the other person, and, how you expect to be treated by the other person. Remembering these two points will make your behavior top-of-mind and you will find yourself treating others the way you would like to be treated.

Top 5 Relationship Building Tips

Be genuinely interested in what the other person has to say, and use open-ended questions to demonstrate your interest. Remember, everyone’s favorite subject is themselves. In your conversation use the words who, what, where, when, and how but avoid using the word “why” because it tends to put people on the defensive.
Be a masterful listener. When we learn the art of “layering” (what a person said and using to create another open-ended question) we are honoring the other person and letting them know what they have to say is important.
Do your best to look for what is good for valuable in what others are saying. When our “inner voice” or our outward comments are judgmental and critical we damage the relationship.
Avoid interrupting others when they are talking. When people do this they are saying, “What I am thinking right now is more important that what you have to say”.
Take full responsibility for your role in why your relationship works or does not work.

Diary of a Barry Demp Coaching Client

March 30, 2010 By Barry

The most successful athletes on the planet all have coaches. These athletes know how to run, jump, hit, tackle, throw, think, pursue, react, and much more. With all of the unbelievable skills that they possess it appears that they already know what to do, and, how to do it. Yet they ALL have coaches.

With this in mind, I then asked myself, “If business professionals want to be the best in their industry, why don’t they each have a coach too?”

After thinking about this for a while the answer finally occurred to me. It’s not that business coaching doesn’t work. It does. But business owners frequently avoid hiring a business coach because the coach is viewed as someone who will only bring strict accountability to the tasks that the business owner believes he or she has already mastered.

Prior to engaging our coach Barry Demp, I did not have the same view as other business owners regarding coaching. I saw tremendous value in having a coach, but I had trouble envisioning how I would be coached and what the process would be like.

Now, I am sure Barry would confirm that there were plenty of places to start with me, but here are a few examples of where we began in the coaching process for my business:

– How to communicate with my internal staff to achieve breakthrough results that they would TRULY buy into.

– When and how to revolutionize our client communication process to increase inbound new business requests and lower customer service requests.

– In what ways can I build barriers for competitor entry into our market space?

However, the best improvement that I have experienced as a result of working with Barry has been that he has never once asked me to change our processes, or stop doing what we know how to do in order to service our clients. Instead, he has challenged me and everyone in my organization to perform our tasks better than we ever have before using a methodical process for success.

So if you are the star performer on your business team and you are considering what to do next for your personal or company game plan. Consider asking yourself the following question:

If all top performing athletes have coaches, what could I accomplish if had one to help me execute my game plan?

Barry Demp is a highly-skilled business coach focused on the areas of leadership, management, coaching, team-building, networking, business development, communication skills, relationship building, motivation, time management, life balance, and goal achievement. He specializes in working with business owners, executives, coaches, consultants, and high-potential professionals by helping them significantly increase their productivity, profitability, and life balance.

Networking Tips for Legal and Financial Professionals

March 22, 2010 By Barry

A shift has occurred with how businesses and individuals make their purchasing decisions for legal and financial management services. No longer do prospective clients blindly engage these services without first seeking the advice of a trusted contact or the critical review of third party comments on any social network.

Because of this trend, and now more than ever, professionals in the legal, banking, accounting, and financial sectors in the Detroit metro area are openly expressing the importance for creating a reliable new business development process for their practices.

As a Master Certified Coach in Michigan, I have had the wonderful opportunity to speak to and train professionals in all of these practice areas throughout my coaching career and have found that a formal process for sales definitely needs to be in their DNA.

Some of the key business development needs that I hear about from these professionals are:

Developing more effective networking skills
Having a proper process to use for qualifying prospective clients
Knowing what a good prospective client looks like

Here are some quick, but very effective tips, for to address these business development concerns:

Ask, “What is it that I can listen for that is a good referral for you?” to people that you meet at a networking or social event instead of immediately telling them what you do.
Are you asking enough good, open-ended questions in your discovery process to determine if the prospect is really a good fit for you? In my training sessions we call this technique layer. Learn more here.
Do a 5 minute inventory of your client base. Determine who your favorite clients are and what makes them your favorite clients. It may be that they pay quickly, have a unique product or service, or show great integrity under tough circumstances.

Where To Find and Connect With Barry Demp

March 9, 2010 By Barry

Barry Demp, a leading business and personal coach in Metro Detroit, can be found on the popular social networks of both LinkedIn.com and Twitter. Barry uses these social networks to provide a quality, relevant experience to his followers through the offering of sage advice on the topics of team building, time management, relationship development, and much more.

As a the first Master Certified Coach in Michigan and leader in the business community, Barry is able to provide in-depth feedback on issues and topics that are important to you.

Here are some of the more recent topics that have been brought to Barry for discussion and feedback:

I want to build a sales force for my business, but I don’t know how.
When I communicate important tasks to my employees, it goes in one ear…and out the other.
I want to break into new markets for my business.

For a complimentary coaching assessment, please contact Barry Demp today at 248-740-3231 or visit DempCoaching.com for more information.