Andrea's Brain Drain

Networking - it's a marathon

How often do we hear parents complaining that their kids, "only call when they need something" --

Or get the feeling that our business contacts are really only interested in 'what's in it for them' whenever you cross paths --

The story that Seth Godin tells of his seeing "The Blind Squirrel Problem" in action speaks volumes to our typical marketing and networking efforts. Too little too late is an all too common reality.

An even bigger challenge to this, it seems to me, is the level of sincerity and good intentions behind most networking efforts in particular.

Just like kids calling parents only in cases of emergency or dire financial need, we fail to reach out to our customers, clients and connections when it's "unimportant" to us.

• We fail to be fair weather (our weather) friends.
• We forget to keep it "all about them"
• and less words more often is totally the way to go...

Makes me stop and wonder.

What sort of network do you suppose Mister Rogers had?

Could it really be that simple? 
Appreciate the people around you and the network will come?

Kinda makes 'ya think, eh?

I appreciate you!

Being Joe Girard

Hey hey, I'm liking that title -- anyone else see the movie "Being John Malcovich"??

Today I want to share a story with you.

A story and a tool.

The story is about a master networker, a King of referral marketing.

The tool is made for regular folks like you and me -- to make it possible for us be great at referral marketing too.

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Have you ever heard of Joe Girard?

Joe sold cars at a Chevrolet dealer in Detroit, Michigan. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Joe sold more automobiles (retail) for 12 years in a row on a one-on-one basis, than anyone else in the whole entire world. Every single sale that Joe made came from referrals.

So what was his secret?

He applied his law of 250.

Joe developed a system of keeping in touch with his customers and soon-to-be clients. For each phone contact or person that he met, Joe would make a new index card. On that card went any relevant information - bits and pieces of details of their meeting. He then mailed everyone on his list a unique greeting card each and every month! These weren't high pressure sales letters, quite the opposite, simply friendly reminders to let people know he was thinking about them.

He sent out gobs and gobs ...

In fact, Joe sent out nearly 13,000 hand written greeting cards per month to his customers, with the help of two assistants, remembering people on days that celebrated anything from groundhogs to ghosts and goblins.

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Now I don't know about you but even if I had two assistants, 13,000 hand-written cards a month sounds like an awful lot.

Heck, I just helped my cousin stuff and label (not handwrite) her Christmas letters (yes, for 2006 -- she's a little behind) over Mother's Day weekend. It took us a few solid hours and THAT was only about 150 letters. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around doing that in the thousands month after month.

Luckily, I don't have to and neither do you. There's this cool online contact manager/greeting card service that I've been enjoying for several months now.

I created this page to showcase it -- yep, I decided it was worth becoming a distributor there so I could share it with other people.

All you do is create the campaign of cards that you want to send out -- (it can even be in your own handwriting font if you want it to), tell the system which people you want to get the cards, add your signature (you send it to the company and they upload it into your system) and presto!

The exact cards you want will be sent on the exact dates that you have chosen to the exact people you want them to.

Imagine, now we can do what Joe did all those years and we can do it from our desktops (or have someone else trained to do it) in a fraction of the time.

We can each be Joe Girard.

Make it a great day!