Tough Love - Discipline - Ecademy

What My Clients Say About Me
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Discipline is something that many of us shy clear of for fear of reducing choice or being seen as autocratic. But isn't discipline important for the smooth running of any business, school, not and for profit? Isn't having reliable systems and processes more likely to produce practical solutions and avoid the chaos of leaving everything to chance?

How often do we put off the necessary in favour of the convenient, the important for the urgent, the right thing for a shoddy compromise?

Facing the challenges of the day is much easier if you know what you need to do to face them.

Managers who leave their people to "get on with it" are not practising laissez faire management, they are abdicating responsibility.

You are abdicating responsibility for your situation if you are not planning your business, your sales, your pipeline building activities, your account management and relationship maintenance activities. Don't whine when times are tough if you have done nothing to help yourself.

Turning up to regular networking may be a good habit if you use your time at the networking event or online productively. If you don't then it's just a bad substitute for a poor social life.

The discipline of habit, routine, regular, consistent behaviour is scary and not knowing where to start is paralysing for many of us.

So, the first discipline is to begin by defining why you are in business, what you value from your business, your client relationships and who you can help.

Next, design your customer. Yes I said design not define. Designing your customer requires you to think about who they are not just what they do. What kind of person do you want to do business with? What values will they hold dear? What is the common ground? What is troubling them? What problems can you fix? How does what you offer fit with what they want and need?

Take your time. You've waited this long to be this ineffective at networking a few more days isn't likely to hurt you. Take your time so you can let what you have written sink in. Tweak it if it doesn't sit right with you.

Then identify 3 networks (again, choose wisely not quickly); an online, on offline regular meeting (BNI, BRX, NRG, BRE, BoB, start your own and a trade network or professional body for example. Look for people who share your belief that to get more, you have to give more.

Now that's a tough nut to crack too. Giving when all you want to do is receive.

The Referral Institute came up with a wonderful helpful tool called the Networking Scorecard where you track your giving behaviours. You have targets to hit and that habit has caused me to be able to give about 10-20 referrals a month and in turn I receive 1-2 referrals a day. The habit of looking to help other people is possibly one of the most useful lessons I learned.

Another is the Platinum Rule. Do unto others as they would have done unto them. Treat others the way they would want to be treated.

So take a moment and remember a time when you have been at a networking event and the person you are talking to is trying to pitch you what s/he sells. You listen politely while they ramble on, looking over your shoulder to see if there's a more interesting prospect who they can go after in a minute. You never get a chance to speak and you're thinking "What a $&1%head!"

Chances are you didn't like being treated that way so why would you think anyone else might be OK with that. Get into the discipline of listening, asking questions, paying attention and being genuinely interested in the other person. Practice. Make a special effort when you want to speak to ask a question instead of spouting off your opinions. Seek to understand them.

Turn up with a plan. Plan the kinds of questions you intend to ask in advance. I know you can't plan all of them but the act of planning means you will turn up with your attention on high. And listen for where the other person want to take the conversation. They will open up if you let them.

Follow up, Quickly, not days, weeks or months later. Be a person of your word. If you say you're going to call them, call them. If you say you're going to act on a point you discussed, act on it and give feedback. If they introduce you, thank them; it's polite and courteous and who doesn't like being treated politely, respectfully and courteously?

Once you have started on the networking road, use that to attract and develop between 4-8 close referral partnerships. Agree what the referral will look like, what's expected and what each of you is willing to commit to doing to support the other. Meet regularly, have a system for educating them in how to give and receive a good referral, and where required correcting their misunderstanding when a referral hasn't been what you wanted. Constantly evaluate how effective your partnership is so you can feedback and adjust what isn't working.

Take good care of your referral partners. I know that my referral partners are the lifeblood of my business. I love them for that. And I want them to succeed too so I have my eyes and ears attentive to opportunities for them all the time.

The discipline of doing what you need to do, when you need to do it in the manner you need to do it, and do it consistently, do it well and do it over time will serve you even if the hard work pays off over time while procrastination always pays off now. Don't be fooled. The price you pay of doing nothing now or taking shortcuts to avoid the hard work now, is all the extra work you have to do chasing new customers instead of having them delivered and gift wrapped every month. The price you pay for lax discipline is a broken reputation for not meeting your commitments and wasting time chasing non-prospects, giving free consulting, working hard and not getting paid and other blights that ill disciplined "business" owners suffer from.

Perfect practice makes perfect, so make sure you do everything as if you mean it, it matters and commit to doing it to the best of your ability. Especially when it comes to helping others help themselves.

Regards

Marcus Cauchi

Launching Networking Works tomorrow, Friday 7th Sept 0800-0900 for 12 weeks. ?497+VAT for non-members of Wandsworth Chamber of Commerce, ?25 no VAT for Members of Wandsworth Chamber of Commerce

Source: http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=180378

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