The winter winds blow cold across the streets this time of year. The calendar has flipped to a new year and you made all these great plans to kick off 2026 right.
How do you plan to make that happen?
Studies continue to show that the strongest – and usually cheapest – way to build your business is through word-of-mouth promotion and recomendations. The basic premise is very simple. If I like you, and you like Bob, then I will give Bob the same level of trust and “like” that I give you. An offline word-of-mouth recomendation can be as good as gold.
How do we achieve that level of connections?
Experts tend to suggest joining three to six different networking organizations and “work” these groups to build a strong word-of-mouth experience.
“It’s not net-SIT or net-EAT, It’s Net-WORK.” – Dr Ivan Misner
Personally, with more than two decades building word-of-mouth marketing efforts through my own networking groups, DelCo Profit Buidlers BNI Chapter, and other events, I would lean towards three to start. In this case choose quality over quantity. Pre-Olivia, I was on every board and active in every organization that I could find. It led to a lot of over-extending and missing deadlines.
When we adopted Olivia, I put every group up against two questions:
- Did I like the group? This miight seem obvious. However, there were several groups that had run its course for me and I actually found myself “dreading” going to the meetings. Or the idea of the group was great but
- Did the group make money for me? This one was more about being strategic than it was about looking at things from a pure cost stand point. I was on the board for the Delaware City Women’s Club Foundation and there were three other licensed agents on the board. The other two had been active with the group for years, I was relatively new. The opportunity to get a referral from this group was very limited and put it on a lower level than anotehr group that had less “competition.”
In the end I narrowed my grouping to just two networking meetings – DelCo Profit Builders BNI and Columbus Business First Breakfasts – that I continued to work and develop connections through.
I went to the meeting, why hasn’t anyone called me?
This is where Dr. Misner’s quote about net-WORK becomes even more important. The meeting is simply where you set the stage for the true connection. Have you ever given a strong enforsement to someone you met for three minutes as an event? I haven’t either.
- Follow-up. My goal is to have a hand-written note in the mail the day I meet with every person I talked to at the event. Doesn’t always happen but the key is to get my name and information in front of them yet again. Personally, I am not a huge fan of emailing these because it becomes less connecting and more of a form letter. But you do you.
- Get Coffee, Lunch, Something. The single MOST important piece of the word-of-mouth networking is getting together one-on-one for coffee, tea, lunch, or whatever works. I prefer to do this in person, but virtually works in a pinch. The idea is that you need time to develop a connection with your contact and learn what makes them different than the thousands of other widget sellers in the market.
- Become a Resource. After a few meetings you’ll figure out where your worlds overlap and when the opportunity arises refer the new parter out. Ths goes back to the most basic BNI principle — Givers Gain — in that people want to do business with people that do business with others like them.
Rinse and Repeat
Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most time intensive ways to build a community however it is also one of the strongest ways to make a connection with your audience. Unlike online marketing it doesn’t “go away” when you stop paying the SEO company. It is being built for a lifetime.
Interested in more information on word-of-mouth networking, service selling, or a BNI one-to-one contact Toby at 419-618-8629 or toby@theexchangors.com.
Interested in BNI?
DelCo Profit Builders BNI chapter meets Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. at the Delaware Entreprenuial Center a Ohio Wesleyan University (70 South Sandusky Street) in historic downtown Delaware, Ohio. There are 16 other chapters around central Ohio and numerous chapters in Ohio and thousands around the world and Toby can help get you aquanted with any of them. Reach out to him at 419-618-8629 for more information.
