This blog is based on an excerpt from our webinar, Cultivating your Network for Maximum Profit, hosted by renowned sales coach Mitch Harris.
Turn People Into Supporters
The first thing you want to be aware of when working with your network is turning these folks into supporters. What that means is that when they think of your niche, industry, or field of work they also think of you as someone respectable to work with in that field. In essence, you’re competing with the other people they know that work in the same area you do, so when it comes time for them to refer someone, they think of you first.
In addition, when you turn people into supporters they’re happy and excited to support you. The most important thing to look at for both developing an amazing network and cultivating it is to turn people into raving fans, waiting to jump through hoops for you.
The key to turning people into supporters for you is to be a supporter for them. Get to know them and ask about their life and their own career. Make it a habit to ask if there’s anything you can do to help them. See if there is any way that you can add value to their life, whether that’s through your own work, a kind word, or a simple favor. As you help them, they will in turn want to help you.
The Power of Reciprocity
If you remember nothing else from this blog, please remember this! This can truly be a game-changer across the board. I call it the “power of reciprocity”. This is not a technique or a tool, it’s much deeper than that. It can be honed as a skill, make no mistake, but this is the dynamic of human nature, and how people collaborate and work together.
I think we developed this need to work together thousands and millions of years ago as a success mechanism. Realizing that when we are living in a cage or in tribes that if you’re going to survive, to get what you want you have to help people get what they want.
Quite candidly it’s not just about being a good person or a nice guy or gal. It goes deeper than that. Many codes of honor, whether in business, government, families, or even criminals operate this way. “You do me a favor and i’ll do you a favor.” It is simple dynamic that if you go out your way to help someone, they feel compelled, or even driven on one level or another to return that, to pay it back.
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What Can YOU Do For THEM?
This power of reciprocity can be a very powerful dynamic that can bring success and help from everyone around you. So that’s the question.
What can you do for them? How can you help them?
When you come from that place, you don’t even have to have the right verbiage, or the perfect language, or even be the sharpest sales pro. When you constantly think about how you can help others, It’s amazing how it will come back.
One example of this is when I released a book recently. What I’m really blown away by, perhaps more than anything else is, is how people I know have been jumping out to support me. Whether it was buying the book, or sharing it with their network and friends, the people I had cultivated this relationship with went out of their way to help, and it has really made a huge difference.
I have been very touched and moved by people that are going out of their way to support me and I promise you that a big part of that is how I have shown up around them for years. They have known that if they needed anything, I would take the extra five minutes out of my day to support them, to see how I could help them, to spread the word on what they were doing, and they get that.
So the question is what can you do for the other person or the other organization? It’s like the famous motivational speaker Zig Ziglar used to always say, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”
Click here to view the on-demand webinar now, or view the previous blog post.
