EFGP workshop, part four: how do you make strategic relationships?
Ed DuCoin (pictured) of Freedom Builders Philadelphia was the final speaker in this workshop. HE has clearly had some success with strategic relationships, which he defines as "relationships with people who can give you residual referrals," or in other words can steer business your way.The thing we have to understand at the very beginning is "no-one cares about you." If you go to a 250-person meeting seeking to form a strategic relationship with someone, but you have no strategy, no plan, nothing to offer, what is the likelihood that such a relationship will happen? If you thought to yourself "extremely small," you're absolutely right. I found this out myself during several years of giving presentations at the Trenton Computer Festival. I met some nice people; they couldn't help me and I couldn't help them. And the Festival continues to grow, while nobody working on it remembers that I was ever involved. From the context of DuCoin's pitch, I see that the problem is that at the TCF I was one small fish in a big pond; but DuCoin also suggests that you use your creative energies not to make a single sale, but to systematically create relationships that yield more relationships, and sales as a by-product on the way. I was aiming too small and too near-term.
We are all tempted to tell others what we can do (aiming too near-term), and to tell them as soon as we meet them (aiming too small). But DuCoin says it's not about what we can do: it's about who we are, what we know, what we did for someone else. It's about establishing links and seeing where they lead.
Labels: consulting
posted by Ron @ 10:26 AM
Site Feed
1 Comments:
Lame!
Post a Comment
<< Home