Networking & Dating: How the Two Go Hand in Hand
Not sure how to get started using networking to help grow your business?
Building a professional network can often feel like dating: putting yourself out there to strangers, not knowing what to say and carrying that fear of rejection. But just like dating, there are ways to make networking much easier. Here's how.
Getting Out There
The first step in professional networking is simply putting yourself out there, but many of us don't know where to being — it's not like there is a Tinder app for professional networking, right?
Actually, there is. Shapr works just like Tinder, where users swipe right and left when matched up with others in their field. Many young professionals enter a room with little to no information about anyone inside, so Shapr takes the guesswork out of the equation by only pairing you with people you're interested in meeting.
But if a Tinder-like app is just too close to dating, there are always more established sites, like MeetUp.com, to connect with others in your business.
Making an Introduction
While apps like Shapr make it easier to find others, there is no avoiding introducing yourself in person every now and then. If that sounds intimidating, just remember that you're not alone in this endeavor — some of the world's most reputable entrepreneurs stood in your shoes, and found themselves not knowing anyone in the professional world.
Tim Terriss, speaker and author of Tools of Titans, spoke to a crowd at the South By Southwest Conference and Festivals about building a world-class network from nothing. He goes into extensive detail during his presentation, but the core of the story is very much like dating: be yourself, don't be afraid to say hello and ask people to tell you about themselves — people love to talk about themselves.
The First Date
You have a match! You met someone in your industry and the professional sparks are flying. It could be tempting to sell your service or product on day one, but you wouldn't propose on the first date, so the goal here is to take things slowly.
The best way to create a long lasting relationship — and make the sale — is to give, give, give and then ask, says investor and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk. A good example would be a graphic designer offering marketing advice for a company or group he or she knows. After some time, if the advice has value and the graphic designer gains credibility, some will eventually become customers willing to pay.
Going Steady
If you've ever played the game "The Sims," you know that maintaining relationships can sometimes be harder than starting them. And like dating, you often have to take the initiative to keep the relationship strong. Treating clients or close professionals to gifts or flowers will never go out of style, and many find the extra effort is appreciated by the recipient.
Once you've established a relationship, going back to the beginning can always be a pleasant surprise. Just like taking an old girlfriend or boyfriend to the place where you first met, a young professional remodeler might go back to their first industry conference to brush up on basics, or set up a few coffee dates with friends in their networking groups to chat about the market. Many great business idea can come from chatting with peers over coffee or a cold beer.
Guest Blogger: Jim Burch - Jim is a copywriter from Phoenix and avid admirer of alliteration. His goals are to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, see all 30 baseball stadiums, and eliminate the improper use of "literally," but he figuratively can't even.
You will need to know this info to create a unique solution and to have confidence in what you suggest to them when discussing options. You will also need to know this information to avoid becoming a commodity contractor by just giving them a price on what they thought they needed. You know, just like pretty much every commodity contractor does every day.
You need to get their commitment to discuss how they will decide about important project details as well as which contractor they will ultimately partner with. If you don’t know how they plan to make these decisions how can you possibly help them make decisions and why should you be surprised when they don’t or can’t decide? 
If you are Bechtel Construction, with more than $17 billion in operations, you need not worry about advertising under budgets in such a way that would prevent you from putting food on the table. After all, most in the construction industry, including designers and architects, are sole owners, with few if any employees. But for those of us who don't have a million-dollar advertising budget, we can turn to and rely on guerilla marketing and advertising to get our brand message out there.
Word of mouth is still one of the best marketing tools a business can utilize. In the world of social media, word of mouth is amplified by the power of the Internet.
Now that you have an understanding of the components for guerilla marketing, it would suit you well to examine the strategies of some of the more successful companies.
If you are still running free estimates and playing a numbers game of leads to appointments to sales then I have something valuable to share. In the past I believed that if I did not actively pursue new clients, and provide free estimates, I would have no income. It was a numbers game; 5 leads - 3 appointments -1 sale. Sound familiar? In this article I share my lesson in letting go; finding the faith to trust a system to qualify prospects, and the positive impact it can make for your business as well as your cash flow.
As a result of that temporary relationship I learned how to create a trained support staff at my own business and secured steady work for my team. By learning how to use and sell paid consultations our leads turned into project development retainers which then turned into profitable construction contracts. That temporary relationship was also a big success for the partnering firm; they had a record earning year and made a lot of money.
I no longer run around from appointment to appointment. I now have the time to focus on creating more ways to provide paying prospects with value early in the process. Our business is running with more consistency and cash flow has increased. For every consultation I go on now we have a 70% close rate to a full construction contract, a 20% conversion to a design/material contract and about 10% of our prospects don’t move forward. 
Guest Blogger: Cynthia Murphy, CKBR, is a Certified Kitchen and Bath Remodeler and co-owner of 
I constantly read forum posts about contractors’ being shocked to discover they are being re-directed away from their own company when searching for their own company online, and then are directed to a lead generation service. The issue is rampant – but unfortunately, the situation is typically inadvertently created by the contractors’ themselves.
We read the Terms & Conditions of numerous Lead Generation companies. It is important to note that every lead generation company views anything you submit to their site for content as their own. That includes your business biography, services, testimonials and pictures. The terms sometimes have a permutation of wording that states "the contractor agrees that a consumer MAY NOT be directed back to the contractor if the contractor does not have the appropriate spending limit and other limitations". 
The contractor is asked to sign up, pass along his/her identity to the lead generation company, and the lead generation company can use the information anyway it wants if you do not pay them forever. 
So in summary, there are only two ways to win at getting more online lead opportunities:
Most remodelers, but certainly not all, rely heavily on referrals and repeat customers as they grow their businesses. This may keep a contractor doing a low volume of work busy, but relying so exclusively on referrals won't be adequate if you want to become a construction business owner, break the $1Million installed sales threshold and develop a constantly growing business.
There are many customer types out there all with their own expectations when it comes to working with a remodeler. Successful remodeling businesses are those that strategically decide who they will be and who they will serve. If you choose to work for people who buy on price and expect more than they are willing to pay for, you will get more work from them. And because people tend to hang out with other people just like them, your past customers will refer you to more customers just like them. Before you do marketing to grow your business decide and define who you want as your customer. Also, think about the project types that make sense for the business you want to develop and grow. For example pull and replace kitchens and bathrooms may not be sexy or all that challenging to you, but remember you are building a company and a team of employees to complete what your company decides to sell. If you decide to build complicated and or highly detailed projects you will need the appropriate systems and staff to estimate, sell and produce that level of project to the expectations of your targeted client type. Choose wisely.
Your marketing should serve two very important purposes. The first is to help your target customer type(s) find you. The second is to convert leads into sales. The marketing tactics you use should support these two goals. One marketing tactic that can be really effective at accomplishing both could be your company web site. For example, done well, SEO can be used so prospects searching online for certain services and contractor types can find your business, and find it on the first page of search engine results. Goal #1 achieved. But once you get them to your site you also need to differentiate your business from other businesses in the marketplace 
The outside perception is what prospects come to think about your business by what they observe, much like looking at a picture. 
In a lot of ways testimonials are like referrals. If contractors wait for them to happen they will get some referrals and some business. On the other hand, if contractors are proactive in causing them to happen and are strategic about causing the inside reality they include, contractors can get great customers and a lot more business.
By suggesting these simple changes and others to the remodelers I work with, I have helped them maximize their ROI for the dollars they spend on their web sites. Using the right strategies they attract not just leads, but targeted qualified leads for the kinds of customers and projects they want to get.
In my opinion when any business seeks to be competitive it typically becomes a commodity. By that I mean the buying public looks at that business and or it’s offering as being the same as their other choices. When consumers see a product or service as a commodity they ultimately make their choice between available options based on price. By trying to remain competitive contractors playing in this sandbox become bidders in a reverse auction where the loser is the one who wins. 
When I ask how they know they are the most expensive most contractors tell me their prospects are the source of their assumptions. For those using their prospects' feedback to determine their price point in the marketplace remember, buyers are liars. The 11th commandment states that you can lie to a sales person and still go to heaven!
Now, if a contractor has done market research, for his or her local market, this may be true. Savvy contractors, those who know what price they need to charge, will sell at higher prices up to the point that a majority of protects stop buying. I would consider this to be true market research. However, these business not only know how to determine the true costs of doing business, they also typically have professional marketing programs to help them get in front of specific prospects and they employ professionally trained salespeople who know how to sell.
Each characteristic can make a difference regarding who they are and what it will be like to work with them. If you think back on past projects you can probably identify a variety of characteristics that make up the ideal customer type for you and your business. Who they are as people, and their personality traits, are definitely important. Also though, just as important as the personality of customers, can be other differentiating characteristics called demographics. Used in combination with personality traits, demographics can help contractors target market prospects who are also most likely to buy what they are selling. 
Marital Status
The goal of this marketing campaign is to build a customer list of people who will continually need more work due to the age of the home they live in, and or will refer the company to other people just like them who are willing to pay more to get the comfort and quality offered by a professional and legal business. We want and will use this customer list so we can market additional services to the same homeowners in the future.
I'll be back at the Remodeling Show again this year. 
