Professional Partnering The Key To Effective Growth For You and Your Clients

If you have been serving business owners for very long you have come to some important conclusions. You only know what you know, you can only see what you see, and there are other professionals with blind spots in different places than you.

Let's face it, if we all knew the same things - most of us would not be needed. And if we had productive relationships with other professionals - those our clients use who services compliment ours, our clients would receive our coordinated ideas and insights. Plus we would be in a position to refer business to these professionals - now that we know how they work, and they would tell their clients about us. This is a perfect scenario all the way around.

Partnering, on a case by case basis or in an ongoing relationship with consultants, financial planners, accountants, coaches, lawyers, and other professionals can be a very good idea indeed.

And of course there are many different workable business models for doing this. For many of us it works best when we to do it quid pro quo basis vs. referral fees. Here are a few quick suggestions that you should consider:

1. Always work with someone you trust. In over three decades working with business owners I have found that if there is any doubt in your mind about the person you are considering working with - no matter how casually or infrequently, do not do it. I am still reminded from time to time, in a nice way - about the time I partnered with the wrong person - years ago.

2. Be the one to give more than you think you have to, in time, money, energy, etc. The other professionals will appreciate it and the law of reciprocity will kick in. The one thing everyone will remember about you is whether or not you did what you said you'd do. If you always deliver more than they expect, and because of your example your project partners do the same - you will all be proud of the results.

3. There are lots of opportunities to work with other professionals these days. I would suggest that you not enter into long-term relationships until you have a lot of experience with each person. In fact you may find that your clients hold you in greater esteem when you become known as the person who can put the right people on the team - no matter the situation, and they may be different people almost every time. You are seen as the go-to person because you are the one with the connections, the one who fits the pieces of the planning team puzzle together.

4. Give, rather than look for, credit. It is as true today as it was the first time someone told me that there is nothing we can not achieve if we do not care who gets the credit. All relationships are give and take. Give more and you'll get more.

5. Think outside the box when choosing your partnering relationships. Naturally if you are in the life insurance business you think of partnering with an accountant and a lawyer, or if you are an engineer you work with architects and people in the construction industry.

If there is anyone you should consider putting on your team, in addition to the usual suspects, it is a workplace conflict resolution professional. Why, because where there is conflict - no matter how far they keep it under the radar, nothing gets done. Wills are not signed and we never know why, estate plans end up in the file cabinet when doing nothing is just dumb.

When nothing happens to your (team's) proposals it is either because of you or the client. If it is you - they don't trust you or your partner's recommendations, that's one thing. You may or may not be able to overcome that.

If it is them, it may be that there are unseen disagreements and conflicts going on that are keeping them from taking action. And you may not about them until later, long after the deal has gone sour and the proposals are taking up space on your hard drive.

When you are putting together your next planning team - add someone who sees what you can't see, both traditional number crunchers and workplace conflict professionals.

About the Author

Successful professionals are always on the lookout for ideas and resources to help them. They are also looking for creative ways of marketing their professional services. If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, learn more about marketing professional services and share your insights with others, visit us and join in the discussion.

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Benefiting From Social Network Sites

Of all the aspects of Social Media Marketing (SMM), social networking sites or profile sites have attracted the most attention from main stream marketers as they involve huge potential markets that run into tens and even a couple of hundred millions.A study co-authored by a Wharton University of Pennsylvania (USA) professor found that consumers are far more likely to buy a company's product if they are "network neighbors" of an existing customer.

The report continues to note that "results indicate that a firm can benefit from the use of social networks to predict the likely hood of purchasing".This study evidently has identified the network marketing potential inherent in these social profile sites.

Online social network sites enable people to create profiles, describe their interests, share thought and connect with other people.They are becoming a cultural phenomena with examples including MySpace, FaceBook, Frienster, Hi5, LinkedIN and more.Socially they provide a place to digitally hang out and make friends.Commercially it is a place one can potentially get some serious viral marketing using word of mouth as individuals rave about your product, company or service.

This is created as one online friend tells another online friend that tells another online friend and so on.Indeed an angle that has been identified for marketing profile sites include creating communities around a company or a product allowing customer and potential customers to discuss the company or product freely.Such communities can then be used to collect market intelligence, correct perception and direct discussions ultimately encouraging sales.Companies in the US like Helga and Burger King that have MySpace profiles have attempted this avenue with some level of success.

For smaller web business without much of a work force, marketing social profiles poses two major problems.First is that these sites tend to be mercurial.Since most are used by teenagers and young adults, they have the tendency to migrate to new services very quickly.For example Freindster was among the first social profile networking sites.By late 2003 it had over 20 million users.In 2005 it slipped to under one million members as many migrated to the formerly great MySpace which is believed to have built its membership to over 200 million members.

Then guess what, today Myspace is so yesterday.The new kid on the block getting reviews in international business magazines is FaceBook.These major shifts occur as new services come with better functionality.So a web business could take time to work a particular hot profile site only to see its efforts reduced to naught in a matter of months.

The second problem is that marketing social profile site takes time.It involves frequent blogging, updating of your profile, visiting tens of other profiles daily as you look for friends etc.Considering that all this effort may not get sustainable results as users shift to new services makes one wonder how can a small website benefit from social sites?

Just like news and bookmarking sites, the easiest means to benefit from profile sites is to target them for link popularity.If you can remember link popularity which is expressed by Page Rank (PR) can assist a site to improve its Search Engine traffic.Profile sites usually have high PR which you can "siphon" to improve your websites PR.And though this may take time, the effort has sustainable results you can count on.

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Why Exhibition Stands Make Great Marketing Tools

Marketing is all about promoting a product to the right audience, in the right way.There is absolutely no point spending marketing budget on the promotion of a product to people who are never going to buy that product, such as targeting children's toys at teenagers, prestigious cars at first time buyers or mortgage deals to people who aren't on the property ladder.The key to successful marketing is to make sure the right people are informed of the right products, and one of the greatest ways to do this is through the use of exhibition stands.If coordinated correctly, they can help to promote your business to thousands of potential customers at exhibitions and fairs, distributing your brand and increasing sales and potential leads.

Exhibitions attract many different kinds of people that can help make your product, or company a success.As a result, it is important to make the most of all exhibition stands connected to your business, from large scale productions to smaller roller stands.Their purpose is to attract the initial attention of the potential customer.Once gained, it's over to you to convince them that you could do business for them.

To do this, you should treat every visitor to your stand as a potential customer and therefore give them your full attention.If you were the consumer approaching your exhibition stand and were greeted by someone who didn't seem to care if you were there or not, would you really want to give them your business?Of course you wouldn't.Therefore, it's important to always be polite and treat all visitors as you would expect to be treated.

The main purpose of your stand is to get the attention of passerby's and transform their passing interest into a successful sale of your product.Therefore you should always assume that the customer is always right.Anyone visiting your stand should be given respect and attention.Showing disrespect or ignoring them will not yield the results you desire.You may think that your product is only applicable to a certain market however you shouldn't ignore the interest of people who may fall outside that category.
It could open up new avenues for your business and allow you to start marketing to new networks of customers.

Bearing this in mind, it's also important to adjust your sales pitch to each customer accordingly.For example, if you are selling textbooks, do not spend ten minutes trying to sell a Biology textbook to a Physics teacher, just because it's a new bestseller.It's essential to market the right products to the right people.You just need to be flexible and adjust to the different requirements.

Time limits are also important when planning your schedules for an exhibition.If you are planning on arranging meetings, you will need to arrange allocated slots for different customers.Ensuring you keep to these appointment times will be essential.If you run over by an hour and keep a customer waiting, it won't reflect well on your business ethic.You will need to consider this when designing your exhibition stands, and if you need meeting tables and extra meeting space, then this will need to be arranged at the planning stage.

In the age of the internet, busy exhibitors may just spend just a few minutes with each customer to gauge a basic understanding of their requirements and asks them to fill in a customer details form, so they can they follow up the lead by email after the event.Some company's even take a Polaroid camera to the exhibitions and take a snap of the customers to pin with their customer forms, to help recognise each customer when they refer back later on.Whatever works for you, however it's important if you say you will follow up with customers that you do, with every single potential customer.

It's important that exhibition stands look the part and play the part.They need to be attractive to grab attention; however they also need to practical in order to hold that attention.There should be enough space available and all the appropriate products being promoted should be available to view.If this isn't possible, you should be able to refer to catalogues or DVD's of your products.Everyone likes to visualise a product, before they buy it.

About the Author

Dominic Donaldson is an expert in Marketing

Find out more about Exhibition Stands and why they are a great way to promote your business.

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