Day 3 – Marketing Arsenal

Networking Do-It-Yourself Tools

Previously we discussed why you should network and who you should network with.   While both of those areas provide key information you need to expand your networking arsenal, nothing provides you with the tools you need to network more that instructions on HOW to network.

No matter what level of networking you are building up there is one key fact to remember – relationships matter!   People want to work with others that they like, who they can trust and businesses that they feel value them on a direct level and want to work to meet their needs.   No one likes to be just another client or just another name in a database.  We all want a reciprocal relationship with those we do business with and those we do business with want the same from us.

How do we build that reciprocal relationship?  By creating opportunities to have one-on-one interactions with others or to socialize with them in settings that are not necessarily business related.

Working Lunches

Matthew Jones operates a successful accounting firm in the South and one thing he has learned throughout the years is that business lunches are a great tool to establish that relationship in his networking circle of people he “wants to know”.

During these lunches, he just meets with various business owners that he believes may be a potential asset to his business and he interacts with them.  He doesn’t pitch his products initially, he does not try to establish affiliate marketing with them – he just works on the personal relationship.  He learns about the other person.

Matthew explains that most of his meetings start with just 5 – 10 minutes of general conversation about their families or hobbies, then Matthew will spend time listening to the other person for about 15 – 20 minutes as they discuss their business or answer some of the questions he might ask.  After that, Matthew has about 5 minutes to pitch or to talk about his business.

While the balance of time seems disproportionate and it seems that if your final goal was to get people to talk about your business – why wouldn’t you spend the majority of the time discussing your business instead of listening to theirs?

In Networking, ultimately our goal is to expand our business, but in order to do that – we have to value the businesses and services of others.   As we tap into the resources of like-minded business owners who perhaps we have met through one of our associations or professional memberships, we can learn to offer our services to help expand their business and then in turn, others will naturally want to help us expand ours.

When you invite someone to lunch to find out more about their business for the point of being able to refer their services to others, it is important that you really focus on learning about their business.

Ask this person what their ideal client looks like?   This will help you to know who they like working with and who would be best for you to refer to them.

Ask how you can easily recognize their potential clients?   Often a client is recognizable by situations that define their life at that moment, especially major life transitions such as divorce, marriage, loss of spouse, birth of child, and so on.

Ask what information they would like for you to share with a potential client?  Some possibilities could be name, contact number, website address and key products or services.

This information will be gathered during the majority of 30-minute lunch time.  While it may be tempting, even if they are interested in learning more about your company, resist the urge to extend the lunch date beyond the 30 minutes and instead schedule a time to meet with them at a later date.

This values their business – which is why you invited them to lunch in the first place! – while also giving you more time to think about what aspects of your business would be best and most easily promoted by the other person.

What do you do with the information once you get it?

After awhile you are going to begin to notice that you are getting more and more contacts and more and more people are finding out about you as you utilize your growing network of contacts and referrals from family, friends and other businesses.

It is wise to establish a database or a spreadsheet with key information about every person in your immediate network so that you can complete easy filter searches or glean the specific information you need when you want to promote a new product or service that you believe they or someone they know may be interested in.

Additionally, a great way to build the personal relationship behind the professional one is to think about ways you can provide an ongoing service to the people in your network in addition to the occasional lunch or dinner get-together.

Maybe you would like to offer enrichment training, or host a special monthly meeting inviting a guest speaker to speak on a relevant topic for most business owners such as organization, changes in business tax laws or ways to increase profits through marketing.

While taking charge of that may seem like a monumental task, make the investment into the businesses and the success of others and in return watch your own business and your success grow.  Others will appreciate the time spent on their behalf and your efforts will continue to ensure that you are valuing their business as well as being valued for yours.

Breakfast Clubs

Another great networking tool is to establish a breakfast club.  While that may sound even more difficult that you imagined, can you really build your own breakfast club? Yes!

If you’re still trying to answer the question “How can I get more prospects? I’ve worn out my warm market, and new prospects take months to build a relationship with. What can I do?”

Welcome to the breakfast club concept. I’m going to show you how to easily start your own breakfast club.  Almost anybody can put a breakfast club together and have lots of presold marketing prospects coming to him or her on a weekly basis. It’s a great way to build a business without cold-call prospecting and rejection. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to build strong relationships.

You don’t get just a name or a referral with properly conducted breakfast clubs. You get a presold prospect asking to use your services. That’s every practitioner’s dream. Imagine a presold prospect calling you up and saying, “I’d like to use your payroll services. Could you show me how I could get started?”

You don’t have to be a super salesperson to sign up this kind of presold prospect.

If you are tired of prospecting the old way with rejection, expenses, wasted time and energy . . . well then, you’ll love the efficiency and the fun of building your practice through a breakfast club. All you need to do is learn how to do it.

Now, it would be easy for the president of the local Chamber of Commerce to put together a successful breakfast club. All he would have to do is pick up the telephone and invite a dozen or two of his good buddies. Unfortunately, most of us can’t duplicate that.

So here are the tricks and techniques you need to make your breakfast clubs the best in your home town.

Your Objective

You want to build a breakfast club of entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Why?

Because it’s one of the easiest and best ways to build your professional payroll practice.

Each member of the breakfast club will gladly presell and send you qualified prospects for your payroll service. Imagine that! Instead of looking for cold prospects, you’ll spend your time giving presentations to presold prospects who can’t wait to get started with your service.

Won’t that be a change from your normal prospecting activities?

And the best part is that you’ll never have to worry about rejection or embarrassment. These presold prospects want to use your services. They were presold by your fellow club members. All you have to do is fill in a few details.

That sounds great . . . but why will my breakfast club members send me these hot, presold prospects?

There are three reasons people use your services.

First, because they know you. Prospects only buy from people they know. They don’t buy from strangers.

Your breakfast club members will presell you, your background, and your opportunity to these prospects. When you actually meet the prospects, they will already feel that they know you.

Second, your prospects will instantly like you. Prospects only buy from people they like. They don’t buy from people they dislike. Your breakfast club members presell prospects on what a wonderful, likable person you are. And you are likable, aren’t you?

Third, your prospects will trust you. You don’t buy from people you distrust, do you? Neither will your prospects. Your breakfast club members’ high recommendation of you will give prospects instant trust in you. That’s one of the biggest hurdles in marketing your payroll service. If prospects don’t trust you, they won’t use you.

Breakfast clubs make prospecting easy, fun, and efficient. What more could you ask for in a prospecting method?

The Challenge

Location, Location, Location

The first thing you need to do is find a location for the breakfast club. No room, no meeting, right?

You can start by driving around town surveying restaurants, seeing which are closest to the main streets and had the best parking facilities.

Now you have to go into the restaurants, check out the interiors, and talk to restaurant managers.

How To Find That Right Restaurant

When you decide to start hosting a breakfast club, you will need to determine where to have it. Picking the type of restaurant and area becomes very important. If possible, the restaurant should have a private meeting room. That room must be able to accommodate the group size you would like to establish.

You might find a small restaurant that has just opened and would love to have more business from you hosting a breakfast club. Maybe you’ll find a restaurant that has small crowds for breakfast because they are known as a lunch-and-dinner restaurant. Or, if you’re really lucky, you’ll find the most popular breakfast restaurant in town that happens to have an empty meeting room every Tuesday and Wednesday morning.

If you have problems locating a restaurant, get in touch with the area Chamber of Commerce. They will know or be able to recommend a restaurant you can contact. This is their job. They want to help their member businesses, so don’t be shy about asking your local Chamber of Commerce for help.

Now you can arrange your meetings at the greatest restaurant in the city, but if there are no businesses in the area, it will be a lot more difficult to start your club. It’s too hard to make busy business owners drive extra miles to their breakfast club meetings, so find a location close to your potential members.

Conversely, if there are quite a few businesses in the area, some breakfast groups may already be meeting at that particular location. That’s okay. Most of their members will want to join your club because you don’t charge dues, are non-political, and you insist that members give other members presold, prequalified prospects. More about that later.

The Hunt Is On

Start talking to managers at the smaller restaurants. they’ll be a lot friendlier and might really appreciate the extra business. Plus, there are plenty of small restaurants. When you are building your confidence, it’s easy to start small. It’s easy to eliminate many restaurants. They weren’t open at 7:30 in the morning. Of the remaining restaurants you’ll learn two things:

First, the managers are underpaid and overworked people just like you and me. Most have less self-confidence. They will be a lot nicer than you expect. You don’t get promoted to become a manager if you’re an outright jerk, so your brief visits with the managers will be tolerable.

Second, most managers are afraid to make a decision. I guess they feel that if they never make a decision, then they can never be blamed for a bad decision. Most of your conversations will end with the manager saying, “Oh, I don’t know if we could do that. We have never done something like this before. I’ll get back to you.”

The managers will seldom give an outright “No.” They would rather think it over and never get back to you. They may be training for a corporate position. They certainly don’t run a restaurant like an entrepreneur would.

Some managers have complete control over what happens in their restaurants, while others have to check out every little detail with the owner. By the end of your initial conversation with the restaurant manager, you’ll know which type you are dealing with.  Be persistent about what you want, but don’t overdo it or irritate your potential host. That restaurant manager just might refer you some valuable leads of business people who will want to join your breakfast club!

Well, every restaurant in town won’t turn you down. Some of the restaurants really do want the extra business of professional people meeting for breakfast. The key to a good location though, is that you must really like the manager.

When you first approach the manager, ask, “I see you have a meeting room in the back of the restaurant. Is it busy every day? Is it busy in the mornings? Would you like a group of business people to have breakfast here every week?”

His reply will probably be something like …

“It’s open most of the mornings and Tuesday is our slowest day. I’m not sure we would want to commit the room to you every Tuesday, though. What if your new club doesn’t bring in many people?”

At this point you haven’t even contacted your first prospective breakfast club member yet.

Compromise.

See if you can at least have the room for one month. That’s all the time you need to see if the club is going to be successful.  If it is, the manager will give you the exclusive use of the room forever. If the club isn’t going to be successful, you won’t need the room anyway.

Start With A Small Commitment

When talking to restaurant managers, remember that they hate to make decisions and commitments. Help them feel comfortable by only asking for a small commitment. Ask to use the back room or the back of the restaurant for only one month, or for only two weeks.

If your club is successful, the manager will extend your stay. Even if the manager won’t extend your stay, it’s a simple matter of telling your breakfast club members that you are going to meet at a different restaurant the following week. It will be easy to get space at another restaurant if your club is already established.

What Are The Best Days? The Best Times?

The best days to host a breakfast club are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Weekends are the toughest. Mondays and Fridays are possibilities, but the mid-week days bring the fewest objections from your potential members.

However, don’t be discouraged if you have to negotiate a day that might not be convenient for some types of businesses. I know one Monday group which has over 20 active members!

Keep your meetings only one hour in length, and meet from 7:30 to 8:30 in the mornings. That’s not too early and you can always finish in plenty of time for the members to be at work by 9 o’clock. This gives you plenty of time to have your official meeting, eat breakfast, visit and network.

Now, let’s move on to the next step in organizing your breakfast club, getting some members.

The Membership Drive

With a one-month restaurant commitment under your belt, you are now ready to get your club’s first members.

You have your restaurant lined up, the meeting day is locked in, and now you are ready to start locating members for your club.

How Not To Find Members

Calling people from the Yellow Pages is not a good idea. However, if you enjoy a tremendous amount of rejection, then you have just found the ideal way to build your breakfast club.

The only positive side in using the Yellow Pages is that it eliminates all the driving around your city, looking for business cards on community bulletin boards.

Take the local Yellow Pages for the part of the city you live in and started calling the listed businesses. Logically, you may start with the letter “A.” You’ll call accountants, then the attorneys, and even move on to the bankers before you discover the response to be more than underwhelming. You’ll discover that all the hardest and most unfriendly businesses at the beginning of the alphabet.

Ask yourself, “What are the easiest professions to get interested in a breakfast club?”

That’s going to be insurance agents. They are always looking for prospects any way that they can get them.

Seriously though, most professions are good candidates for joining your breakfast club. It just depends on how you approach them and how many you approach. And your approach can be in two steps.

Step one might be the original telephone call or letter of introduction.

Step two might be an actual visit to the business owner to answer questions or just to let him see that there is an honest, sincere person promoting the breakfast club.

How Many Ways Can A Small Business Owner Say “No”?

Many small business owners don’t see and realize the potential benefits of networking with other small business owners.

Have realistic expectations. You will have some businesses say “Yes” (far-sighted deep thinkers, wanting and needing business) and quite a few businesses saying “No.”

There are some things in life most business people will not be interested in. One of those things is being the first person to join a new breakfast club.

Here are some of the responses you’ll receive:

* “That’s sounds interesting. Give me some time and I will think about it.”

* “So, what’s in this for me?”

* “I have way too much business right now.” (Yeah, I really believed that one.)

* “I don’t even like that restaurant’s food.”

* “Does anybody really get up that early?”

It will be especially hard if you learn that only a few people have ever heard of a breakfast club. Then you have to start from the beginning to explain what a breakfast club is before you can even talk about the benefits of joining. You’ll meet plenty of glazed-eyed, bored business owners before you get halfway through your presentation.

An Easier Way To Find Members

Watch your mailbox.  One day you’ll receive a “money mailer” in the mail.  What’s a “money mailer”?

Money mailer ad packs are packages of advertising brochures from some of the small businesses around your local area. In your area they might be called something else such as a card deck or value pack. Or maybe you have an advertising medium that’s a bit different in your area. Maybe you have a special newspaper or magazine that advertises local businesses that want more customers.

Every advertiser in the “money mailer” that you will receive paid to be there. These advertisers spend their hard-earned money looking for new customers. They want more business. They want more business now. These people may want to join your breakfast club.

Think about it. You may find a chiropractor or a florist from one ad pack.

The chiropractor? It may take a few weeks of coaxing to get him to even come to the breakfast club. When he does, he may bring a friend with him. Probably a friend who is also looking for a breakfast club.

You will find this will happen frequently. Someone will come to your breakfast and brings a friend along. Maybe it’s the safety in numbers thinking. Or, possibly people are afraid that no one will talk with them so they’ll bring along a conversation partner. No matter what the reason for bringing a friend, it makes your job easier.

The visitors see the low-key fun atmosphere of your breakfast clubs – and they join.Some advertisers will promise to be there the following week. Usually the ones who have just opened their business and want to join a club to promote their services.

These people will actually thank you for calling and inviting them to your breakfast club.

Look For Members Who Want New Customers Now

If a small businessman or professional actively advertises for more customers, they will want to join your breakfast club. Your next strategy should be to check out advertising boards where people place their business cards.

Have you ever been in the local supermarket and noticed the community bulletin board? Many small business entrepreneurs will have their card thumbtacked to the board.  Maybe they’ll even post a nice little ad.

You can find these bulletin boards everywhere. If you go to a graphic supply house, many printers, artists, designers and other related professions will have their business cards prominently displayed on that bulletin board.

Sometimes even a restaurant will have a bulletin board. The restaurant is happy to offer this free advertising to the small business entrepreneurs and professionals who eat at their establishment. Almost any retail business can have a bulletin board, usually at the store entrance.

Bulletin boards are a virtual gold mine of people who are looking for business. These business owners and salespeople went to the trouble of distributing their business cards. A lot of them will gladly check out a new way to get business, your breakfast club.

All business entrepreneurs and professionals are interested in a low-cost business campaign. When you explain to a small business owner or commissioned sales person that it is a free club (the only expense is his breakfast) he will usually make a visit to see if the club can work for him.

Never remove the business card from the bulletin board. You don’t want to be accused of trashing someone’s advertising campaign.

Simply take a pad of paper with you and write down the name and telephone number from the business cards that look interesting.If you develop a brochure or any printed material that describes your breakfast club, you could mail it.  This is an easy way to build your breakfast club.

Next, start calling the people from the business cards posted on the various bulletin boards. Most of these people will be genuinely thrilled to hear of your idea of generating presold prospects at a weekly breakfast club. What a difference you’ll experience when you call someone who deliberately leaves business cards around town and wants more business now.

You may also go to the Chamber of Commerce and get their membership list. If you invite people from the Chamber to your breakfast club, remember this. Chamber members might have a Chamber of Commerce breakfast one day a month. If this falls on your breakfast morning, you are apt to have a few missing members.

Chamber of Commerce members already trade leads among themselves. They are pre-trained and don’t need much explanation about your breakfast club and your benefits. However, they have been trading cold leads, just names and phone numbers. And these types of leads are barely more qualified than a cold call.

Your breakfast club needs to trade presold prospects. There’s a big difference. These are ready to buy, ready to join prospects. They are looking forward to your call. The selling has already been done. This fact will thrill Chamber of Commerce members who have been wasting their time following up unqualified leads. More about these presold leads later.

Finally, Chamber of Commerce members are only interested in one thing: their business. So, when you contact Chamber of Commerce members, simply talk about the breakfast club. Later on they’ll discover that your business is a payroll service, but then it will be okay.

At the breakfast club they’ll learn that you aren’t meeting to do business with each other. You are meeting to do business with each other’s warm market.

Later on, you’ll find many more ways to locate new members. However, you probably won’t have to expand your marketing much further beyond these three techniques:

1. “Money mailers” and small newspaper and magazine ads.

2. Bulletin Boards.

3. Chamber of Commerce.

These three markets will get your initial members. Once you have some initial members . . . magic happens.

First, many other small businesses hear about your free breakfast club. They want to join.

Second, other restaurant patrons will question the manager about your meeting. If they have a small business or profession, they’ll ask you if they can join.

And third, once your group gets settled, the members will recommend their fellow business contacts with just a bit of prompting from you. Yes, your members will fill up your breakfast club for you. More about that later too.

The Approach

In the beginning, I would tell the business owner or sales person, “I’m starting a breakfast club and you can be one of the charter members.”

If you enjoy eating breakfast alone, and you want to grow your breakfast very, very slowly, you can go this route. No one wants to be the first member.

It won’t take you long to change your approach. Start telling prospective members that your breakfast club is already up, active, and running. That one change in your presentation will reduce your initial no-shows from 99% down to only 20% right away.

What To Say On The Telephone When You Invite Prospective Members To Your Breakfast Club

The first thing you want to do is organize the business cards or names of businesses that you have collected. Let’s say that you have the names and telephone numbers of a banker, a florist, an insurance sales person, and a printer.

Pick up the telephone and call the banker and say, “We have a free breakfast club that meets every Tuesday morning from 7:30 to 8:30 at the Hard Biscuit Cafe. There are no membership dues. All you do is pay for your own breakfast. It’s a great place to network and get new, presold customers for your business. I’d like to invite you to come join the printer, the insurance salesman, the florist and myself next Tuesday morning.”

The banker thinks, “Hmmm. Maybe I can get some new customers and business contacts from the printer, the insurance salesman, and the florist. Plus, I have to eat some breakfast anyway. Maybe I’ll meet some interesting people. Sure beats grabbing a quick Egg McMuffin(tm) from McDonald’s.”

Next, you telephone the printer and say, “We have a free breakfast club that meets every Tuesday morning from 7:30 to 8:30 at the Hard Biscuit Cafe. There are no membership dues. All you do is pay for your own breakfast. It’s a great place to network and get new, presold customers for your business. I’d like to invite you to come join the banker, the insurance salesman, the florist and myself next Tuesday morning.”

The printer thinks, “Wow! Maybe I can get to know the banker on a personal level. That sure would help me if I needed a loan to expand my business and buy more presses. Sounds like a great idea to me. And that insurance salesman probably needs new business cards too.”

Then, you telephone the insurance salesperson and say, “We have a free breakfast club that meets every Tuesday morning from 7:30 to 8:30 at the Hard Biscuit Cafe. There are no membership dues. All you do is pay for your own breakfast. It’s a great place to network and get new, presold customers for your business. I’d like to invite you to come join the banker, the printer, the florist and myself next Tuesday morning.”

The insurance salesperson thinks, “Hey, hey, hey! Three or four hot prospects at one meal. It doesn’t get any better than this. These are qualified prospects with money. They’re business people. And I bet I can get a lot of referrals from them too!”

Finally, you telephone the florist and say, “We have a free breakfast club that meets every Tuesday morning from 7:30 to 8:30 at the Hard Biscuit Cafe. There are no membership dues. All you do is pay for your own breakfast. It’s a great place to network and get new, presold customers for your business. I’d like to invite you to come join the banker, the insurance salesman, the printer and myself next Tuesday morning.”

The florist thinks, “Hey, I’d like to get that fresh flower account at the bank. And I’m sure the life insurance agent needs to send flowers to all the funerals of his policyholders. Sounds like a great way to get some more business.”

You get the idea. Nobody wants to be alone. Your members will want to come to your breakfast club because of the other members they’ll meet. Let them know in your invitation about the different types of businesses that are represented.

Of course, not every member or every person you invite can show up that Tuesday morning. People realize business people have busy and conflicting schedules. However, your members won’t mind that many people are absent. In fact, they don’t even know how many people you invited. Your members are only concerned about the friendship and networking with the people who are present.

So, invite a lot of different businesses. The more you invite the larger the attendance. And, if you invite plenty of people, you won’t even miss the no-shows because you’ll be busy helping the members who are present.

The Reminder Call

If your breakfast club meets on Tuesday morning, guess what you’ll be doing on Monday. You’re right. Making those reminder telephone calls.

Busy business owners really appreciate that you remind them about tomorrow’s club meeting for the first few times. Your breakfast club is not their number one priority. So many things happen between the time of your initial invitation and Tuesday morning, that it will almost take a miracle for the new businessperson to remember about your club meeting.

So be kind and considerate and give each businessperson a quick reminder call on Monday. Once your members have attended a few meetings, you won’t have to give them reminder calls. Your breakfast club meeting will already have become an important part of their weekly schedule and marketing campaign.

And lastly, you will want to know just how many business people plan to attend tomorrow’s breakfast club meeting. You can get an approximate count of tomorrow’s attendance through these dual purpose reminder calls. If your response is underwhelming, there’s still time to jump on the telephone and invite a whole new group of prospective members.

“So Why Are You Doing This? What’s In It For You?”

On your first contact with your prospective members, expect them to be a bit skeptical or distrustful of your intentions. It’s a natural sales-resistant gene that all business people have.

Some of the questions you’ll hear on your first contact are: “You mean there are no membership dues? Then what’s in it for you? Why are you organizing and running this breakfast club? What’s the catch?”

I always answer, “I own my own marketing business. I get pre-sold prospects just like the rest of our members.” This seems to satisfy most people.

If you are brave (and masochistic), you can say, “I’m in the payroll processing business and it’s a great way to get more clients.” This answer will increase your no-shows at your next breakfast club meeting to almost 100%.

The people that you contact with this approach will naturally assume that you really want them to become your customers. Let me suggest that you do not use this approach. Instead, explain that breakfast clubs are an excellent way to get new customers, and everyone gets the exact same thing that you get from it: presold pre-qualified prospects.

Busy business people want to come to your breakfast club to further their business interests, to get presold prospects for their business, and to make networking contacts for their business. They do not attend so that they can listen to a dozen marketing presentations complete with an easel and product display. Save your marketing presentation until it is your turn to be the guest speaker at the breakfast club.”

That Sounds Pretty Good, But Just Mail Me Your Brochure.

“If your prospect is really skeptical, but still wants to be polite, he’ll say, “That sounds pretty good, but just mail me your brochure. I’ll read it and get back to you.”You don’t have to be a sales trainer to recognize that your prospect is putting you off. Your prospect is just looking for a nice way to say “No” without hurting your feelings and prolonging the conversation.

That’s okay. Not every person you contact has to join your breakfast club. In fact, you’ll only accept one person in each business or profession. So don’t worry about the skeptics.

Instead, concentrate on those prospects who jump at the chance to join. These are the enthusiastic and active people that you want. It’s not a matter of how many members you have in your club it’s the quality that counts. You’ll have a great breakfast club with eight members who consistently provide presold prospects each Tuesday morning. You’ll have a worthless breakfast club if you have 20 members who never provide a single presold prospect.

They also will ask you the name of your breakfast club, and they will want to have some written information on it.

So should you send the skeptical prospects a brochure describing your breakfast club?

Sure. Be polite. Maybe the businessperson just had a bad day or a bad experience in the past.

You can create your own brochure that focuses on your breakfast club’s benefits. I like the question and answer approach in the brochure as most people have a lot of questions about these breakfast club meetings.

You can start your breakfast club much faster if you already have a brochure. Why?

Here are a few reasons:

* It’s something to give a businessperson when you make a personal call. It adds credibility to your morning meeting.

* It’s perfect to stuff into an envelope as a follow-up to a telephone invitation to a prospective member.

* It answers the questions of a new member. It tells them what the club really does and what they can expect.

* Your present members can pass out this brochure to get additional members for your club. You’ll find a sample brochure at the end of this section.  You may use it as is or use it as a guide to help you create your own personal breakfast club brochure.

Last Thoughts About Your Brochure

If you had carry a brochure with you when calling on breakfast club prospects, here is what you should say when the business owner is interrupted with a customer:

“Looks like more business for you, so let me leave this brochure with you so that you can read it at your leisure. I’ll give you a call back in a day or two and see if you have any questions about how we’re going to help you get even more business, okay?”

The owner will appreciate your courtesy and have all the pertinent details to look at later. This isn’t, by any means, a high-pressure, force-somebody-to-join club. It’s a club for volunteers, business people who want more business and who are willing to trade presold prospects.

Your First Breakfast Club Meeting

It is only after you learned how to approach people, and what to say that other members will begin to attend your breakfast club.

When you get your first full meeting, you’ll be really excited. You’ll be confident and know that this breakfast club idea will work.

And best of all, the other new members will be glad to be there. After you explain what the breakfast club can mean to their business, they will literally thank you for the opportunity to join me for breakfast. Small businesses spend fortunes in advertising and promotion to attract just a few new customers. This breakfast club could get them more and better-qualified customers for the price of a single breakfast.

Now things were looking up, you’re on your way.Wrong.

Next, the restaurant manager will call and say, “You can’t have your breakfast club meetings here any more. I need your room for a larger group.”Oh well, so much for the manager’s part of the commitment.

So move the breakfast club. The next morning have your breakfast club meeting in the main dining area. You’ll have some new people, and lose some of the old ones, but you’re on your way!

Do you know what? The members don’t really care where you meet. They are more interested in the fact that you meet. So, moving to another restaurant is easy. The members just wanted to meet. Find a new location.

You’ll probably be able to get a new restaurant location for the following week easily because your breakfast club is already established and has active members.

Simply tell the new restaurant manager, “Our breakfast club meets every Wednesday. We need a private room. Last week eight of our members voted to get a new location, so I thought I would talk to you first in case you wanted the extra business.”

The Holidays

Your core group will grow but then break up for the holidays. Tell the group that you will meet again the second week of January.The day before the breakfast club is to resume (after the holidays) call to remind every member about tomorrow’s breakfast club meeting. Some people will respond that they might bring a guest, and some will say that they are too busy to continue.

The upshot, a bigger and better group. Here’s what happens.

Many of your new attendees will have been invited before the holidays. Since the holidays are hectic for most businesses, those people choose not to attend until after the holidays. But then, they are ready to join the club, and they simply show up!

The Holiday Lesson

The new members in attendance should really get you thinking. Don’t write off the people who tell you “No” or “I’ll think about it.” Don’t just assume that their decision was final. Not so. Don’t write off the people that you have invited if they don’t show up immediately. Sometimes the timing isn’t right for them. Maybe they are just busy, or cautious. Some business people will carefully monitor your breakfast club to see if it continues to meet regularly. Once they are convinced you are dedicated and stable, they’ll join.

The Co-Ownership Lesson

As your breakfast club grows, you’ll discover that the club means more to some members than it does to others. Some members couldn’t imagine living without a weekly breakfast club. They enjoy meeting other business people and talking about the challenges they face. It’s lonely out there if you’re an entrepreneur. These members look forward to the networking and trading of presold prospects. This breakfast club will mean a lot to them.

Sure, you will put the breakfast club together and guide the direction of the club. In the begiining you’ll run the weekly meeting. Even though all the members realize that this is your breakfast club, it will reach a point that you won’t even have to show up and the breakfast club meeting will proceed just fine without you. Dedicated club members will continue to network, share, and conduct business without you.

Making Your Breakfast Meeting A True Co-Op Effort

You want to always encourage your breakfast club members to invite new guests. The fresh new faces make every breakfast meeting more exciting. It’s hard for a guest to attend and not want to join. So let your present members feel like they are a part of your club and continuously remind them to bring a friend to the next meeting. You are effectively turning over your membership drive duties to your club. Your job gets easier and easier.

When asking members to invite a friend, remind them of your one member per business category rule. If you already have a printer who is a member, you don’t want anyone to bring a printer as a guest. Only one printer per club, only one life insurance agent per club, etc. Plus, inviting another printer would be unfair to the guest. The guest would see the wonderful benefits of the breakfast club, but could not join.

What do you do when a breakfast club member brings a guest that duplicates another member’s business? After the meeting, talk with the guest and thank him for coming. If the guest wishes to join, tell him you will put him on a waiting list and he will have first option to join when your present member quits.

Or better yet, if you have already started another breakfast club on a different day, maybe there will be an opening for the guest at your other club.  Interesting growth potential isn’t it?

Something Special for Friends and Family

While it is true that most of your networking will involve those who are not part of your core networking group – the group that helped you to get where you are at, it is essential to not let success interfere with you friends and family.   A great way to do this is incorporate them into the celebrations of your life at times other than major holidays!

There are many easy ways you can do this using formats that are already in place and successful, the first way is host a party!

Whether you have been in business for several years with little success, are launching a new product, or just opening your doors, a celebration with your family and friends for a Grand Opening or a Grand Re-opening is just what you – and they – need to keep the relationship growing for all involved.

With close friends and family, a great tool to use is to invite them over for dinner and conversation, host a backyard BBQ or host a good old-fashioned ice cream social and board games night.   Food, Fun and Fellowship are key ways to let the people you know realize that you appreciate their contributions to your success.

When you plan your networking social for your family and friends, make it special!  Have a printer design specialty products with your logo on them and give these items out to the people in your core networking group.   Think outside of the box of mugs, pencils and magnets – add items like t-shirts, bumper stickers or window decals, sport bottles – of these items are mobile marketing tools that allow your closest network of friends and family become walking advertisements for your businesses while just adding another level of fun and conversation to the evening.

Envision your nephew walking around with a shirt that says “I know the answer!” on the front and on the back has your website address.   The first question anyone is going to ask when they see your nephew is “What is it that you know the answer to?”  Of course his answer will be to show them your web address and says “What you need for your business!”  How about a shirt for the most outgoing friend of yours that says something like “If you think I look great, you should see my bottom line.” – followed by your website address.

Think of your products and services and get creative with the marketing tools you give to those in your core group.

Virginia Ranger might have a “dedicated service for your payroll needs” but she also has a catchy t-shirt for her friends and family that says “Get Paid” followed by her web address.   She even took her idea on step further and presented a year long challenge to her nieces and nephews.

For every referral they were able to generate, she put their name on a slip of paper and added it to a box.  At the end of the year, she drew a name and gave that person $1500!   Talk about an incentive to tell someone about your aunt’s business!

The Changing Needs of Marketing

Marketing has changed over the last decade with the boom of the internet and rise of rss feeds, blogs and podcasts, making every business have the potential for easy accessibility. (If you have no idea what I am talking about, don’t worry, in a few more chapters we will discuss electronic marketing and you will be speaking the latest marketing lingo like a pro!)

Like marketing, we also are moving fast and changing quickly with busy schedules full of more and more things vying for our attention.  If we want to succeed at what we do, we have think creatively in our marketing and networking and look for ways to meet the needs of others.

By taking the time to network and listen to others and value what they are doing we are establishing ourselves as someone who is also valuable and worth listening to.   As we continue to grow and establish our place of influence and leadership in our community and in our careers, we will use the feedback we receive from networking in a productive way.

We will keep adding to our networking tools so that we can keep pace with the changes of life, continue to connect with our family and friends and ensure that others and their businesses in our networking arsenal remain our greatest asset to our business success.

BLUEPRINTS FOR BUILDING:

Create a breakfast club or establish business lunches to help facilitate your ability to reach other businesses and their owners to generate a reciprocal relationship to help improve their business and yours.

Don’t forget your core network of family and friends!  Remember to host special celebrations throughout the year to share with them some of the rewards and fun of your success!

Tomorrow -  How Direct Are You?

Direct Mail is often a marketing tool that we take for granted.  Tomorrow in part 1 of 2 on direct mail marketing tools, I will show you key services that you can utilize to impact the bottom line of your financial business and provide you with the boost you need!

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