Discreet Connections

If you have sensitive business connections – potential sales and acquisitions of a business division, investment procurement or executive searches and headhunting projects – by using your unique professional network, solutions are often found speedily and successfully.

Persistence Pays

To harness the power of personal connections you need to keep a few ‘P’ words in mind:

• Persistence pays, there’s no doubt about that.

 

• Relationship-building is like planting seeds – they take time to germinate.

 

• One of the most important factors in the process is preparation.

 

• You need to prepare the ground – it pays to know about your prospects.

 

• You have to persevere – sometimes for months and, in some cases, years.

 

• Try to be unfailingly polite and patient.

 

• A positive mental attitude and outlook is infectious.

 

• Persuasion tactics get easier with practice.

 

• Make sure you do some planning – it helps you to know when and how to keep in contact.

 

• Don’t underestimate the value of praise when communicating with your business contacts.

 

• Most people respond positively to flattery.

 

Say It With Feeling

What’s important is the way you begin to build business relationships. In effect you’re starting a process of persuasion. It’s not easy, and often using words is just not enough.

• You have to be able to hook the other party into the idea that there is something in it for them.

 

• To be persuasive you should offer people reasons that reflect their point of view.

 

• Benefits are things that do something for people.

 

• The benefits of reading this book include helping you with your strategy for building brilliant business connections!

 

Touching Emotions And Intellect

• To be an effective persuader you should not only offer good reasons for something but also create emotional goodwill at the same time.

 

• If you need to persuade powerfully, bring in stories to connect with people’s hearts as well as minds.

 

Referrals Work Wonders

• If you have mutual connections, it is much easier to persuade others when there are credible people to testify that your skills helped them in some way or other.

Use Several Sources

• If possible, don’t rely on one source for recommendations. Using several different parties gives further weight to your case.

 

• You increase your chances that one or other of your sources will be a powerful influence over the person with whom you’re building up trust.

 

Don’t Waste Their Time

• Think about how you want to come across to your business contact.

 

• Ask yourself why anyone should want to listen to you.

 

• List your reasons and then organise them.

 

• What are the most important things you are trying to say?

 

• How can you build rapport with one another?

 

• Can you arrange your thoughts into a logical sequence? You could start with something attention-grabbing and continue to maintain interest throughout the exchange. Perhaps you want to build up your case throughout the dialogue and end with some weighty fact that has masses of impact.

 

Check Progress

By using a simple achievement matrix you can check progress and remind yourself of your continual plan for refreshing and reviving your brilliant business connections.

Step 1

• Review your contacts database and list your achievements and successes over the last month.

 

• How many new contacts have you added?

 

• How many existing contacts did you manage to reach – and were these by telephone, email or face-to-face meetings?