This past month, I witnessed three examples of clients or colleagues following a simple marketing tip I shared with them to help them achieve their goals. I called it Vitamin N(etwork) and has to do with reconnecting.
- One person was thinking about switching careers
- Another was in search of new business leads
- While a third was trying to validate a new business concept
The marketing tip was simple. Pick up the phone and reconnect with your network on LinkedIn.
Your Network and Connections
Most of us have hundreds of LinkedIn connections. They consist of people we worked with, people we met at conferences, vendors who shared exciting ideas, people you worked with on a nonprofit and so on.
Many of them are inactive because we don’t feed and fertilize those relationships.
Still, reconnecting with people from your past can be a quick path to getting new opportunities.
The power of networking isn’t your direct connection. The power comes from connecting with a friend of a friend. Who does your friend know who may be relevant to your request?
For example, last month I reached out to a colleague I used to work with fifteen years ago. She and I talked, and I shared an unconventional marketing idea I have been thinking about for a few months. She gives me great feedback as she used to do years ago. She gave me useful, constructive criticism about my approach and offered me so invaluable help. She tells me that she knows someone in that field and can make a connection.
Boom, I’m talking to someone who can help me put my idea in front of a prospective customer.
Like Vitamins, Just One-A-Day
If you are in business development, exercising your network every day can pay rich dividends. Make at least one call a day to a LinkedIn connection. Think of it as Vitamin N(etwork) – make one call a day. After a year you’ll have connected yourself with more than 300 people. Last year I reconnected to over 450 people I have met in the last twenty years in phone calls and another 1,500 through email updates.
What to say?
Catch up. Don’t ask for anything. If you ask first what your connection is doing and how life is going, often they’ll reciprocate. Don’t fake interest – genuinely connect and listen to see how you might be helpful to them.
Then you can share what you are doing and ask them if you can run an idea by them or if they can help make a connection. Give first. Ask second.
Reconnecting with people who know you is a great way to search for a job, generate new business leads and get connected with others who can help with what you want to achieve.
Vitamin N(etwork) isn’t a complicated marketing activity. Just pick up the phone and take your medicine.
Need marketing assistance? Searching for alternative approaches to build your brand? You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free and we can explore if working together makes sense. Try my new chat feature on my site if you have a quick question.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
