Today, I listened very closely to my own coach’s wisdom. She said, if you look at what worked and you expand on that you’ll find great success in growing your business. This was a “golden nugget.”
What worked for me this year was my social media strategy. I’m not an expert at social media like the amazing Mari Smith or Kim Garst, but I am an expert at building new relationships. This was a key asset to building my million-dollar team and taking that team to the #1 position in our company.
So, I applied that same strategy to building my social media contacts this year and it has paid off very generously. I find many of my private and group coaching clients find social media daunting, intrusive and time consuming. When I work with them on my relationship building strategy, it becomes fun and exciting especially when they increase their sales, or get new bookings and get messages from people who want to join their team..
One of the key’s to building relationships is being interested in others. It’s a skill I developed when I moved to three cities and hardly knew anyone. This was only ten years ago when social media was just beginning to emerge. Here I was with a fantastic product in the middle of a city of three million people and no-one to sell to. So, I had to come up with a plan. I did my research and joined these organizations :
- The first thing I did was join a Business Referral Networking group, similar to the popular BNI groups available today. I was new to being part of this type of group, but I found the weekly commitment of sharing my business commercial every week gave me skills to becoming an expert at networking and building friendships and relationships.
- Next, I joined a Chamber of Commerce. Wow, I was amazed at these people who were not only friendly, but were so interested in your “business.” They were keen to help you and keen to know more about your products.
- I also joined two very visible professional women’s groups, like the “National Association of Women’s Business Owners,” and “E-Women’s Networking Group.”
These four organizations helped me practice my skills in building relationships and growing business friendships with people who introduced me to hundreds of people who bought my products. I got to know the city well, because I drove all over holding parties with fabulous hostesses. Most of all, I was introduced to people who were looking for a business opportunity and became members of my very large million-dollar team.
As I said, I’m not an expert at using social media, but what I excel at is building friendships and relationships through networking, and it’s this strategy that has grown my coaching business both “offline” and “online” because I created a strategic plan.
The “online” strategic plan involves three steps.
#1 Post comments, “like” other people’s comments, retweet, share pins and be interested in others. It’s the same principal as I used in being interested in others at the networking organizations I mentioned above.
#2 Join groups in each of the social media arenas. Become a participant, and a team player in these groups and offer referrals and helpful information. For example, recently I sent someone a referral in a group and she was so grateful. She said so many people usually offer their “own” services first.
#3 Create friendly, interesting content that attracts people to respond to you and get to know who you are and what makes you tick. For example, people know I’m a positive person who coaches leaders who want more in their business.
Of course, there is so much more to the strategy like planning your time, what content to write and what’s important now. We work from a worksheet template that allows everyone to map out an outline on where to begin and what steps to take to keep building the relationships.
Growing new relationships is one of the consistent high revenue activities in growing your direct sales business. Companies spend millions of dollars to get people in their doors to buy their products. Our direct selling model allows us to do the same building important relationships one friend at a time, offline “and” online.
Is your social media strategy working for you? If not, then let’s book a 30 minute complimentary coaching session and work from my worksheet template . Email galebates@mymentorbiz.com and schedule your session today!
Want to get to know more about Gale? Get my FREE bi-monthly ezine “The Mymentorbiz Bulletin.” Download the special report “7 Ways to Maximize your Income in Direct Sales.” The next bulletin I’m sharing my handout on “10 Reasons why December is the best month to join Direct sales.”
