Your Current Network is Probably Not Enough

Last week I discussed the importance of strengthening your current relationships, even and maybe especially during a crisis like the pandemic. It’s also important to do more than just strengthen the relationships you brought into quarantine; you have to add new ones. It can feel like an odd time to outreach to someone you don’t know.  However, many business leaders are re-evaluating how they have done things in the past and know they will need to think differently to win going forward. To be successful in the future, businesses will be dedicating a larger percentage of their focus and resources to:

  • Sanitization and safety
  • Finding Revenue

If you believe your product, solution or service can help with either of these areas, then now is a great time to make a new connection. How do you know who will be interested? You don’t, but there’s only one way to find out if they are…  proactively reach out to them!

Who should you reach out to? Be strategic. Don’t randomly start calling some picked over leads list that has been called many times, based on a leads identification strategy that has been used for years in your industry. Choose the businesses that you think will be in a better position to win if they partnered with you. Make sure you do your due diligence on their WIFM (What’s In it For Me) and why they would want to talk with you.

What should you say when you reach out? This doesn’t have a simple answer. I would recommend trying different approaches that show awareness of the situation, the world, and their industry. Please DON’T be apologetic about your motivation to help move their business forward and to move yours forward. Be proud that your product and solutions can possibly help them. Let them know you want to learn more about their business, goals and challenges and your hope is that your product/service will help them reach those goals.

Obviously, we can agree reaching out to more people is good (pretty novel concept😊). The next issue is our calendars. Many of us have additional responsibilities personally and professionally during this time. You might have new challenges with current customers, not to mention the additional challenges many professionals face at home. Prioritizing time to be pro-active is not easy. It’s the easiest one to “push-off” because it doesn’t “have to” be done. The best way I have found to do this is to schedule time on your calendar to strategize a set number of proactive reach outs per day. Here are the steps I suggest to take if you want to make five pro-active ones per day:

  • Choose five contacts
  • Do due diligence on the contact, their company and any relevant connections you have to them
  • Schedule time to reach out the next day
  • Schedule time tomorrow to strategize the five reach outs two days from now

If you make five proactive reach outs to new connections per day, you are setting yourself up to move your business and many other businesses forward.

Businesses are ready to win differently than they were winning before quarantine. Will you give them an opportunity to use your product or service as part of that new winning formula?