How can power circles help you grow your business?
Power circles can be an incredible powerful opportunity for your business. What is a power circle? A power circle is when a group of individuals come together on a regular basis and work together to help improve one another's business. Power circles can also include a networking group of people who join together to share their leads, databases, Rolodex's and contacts.
If you are in business today you need to understand that the world is rapidly changing and that 2 (or more) heads are better than one. Leveraging off of other people's contacts, resources, ideas, and experience is essential to growing your business. You can learn from other people's mistakes and you can also learn from your power circle's experiences.
If you are not in a power circle you can always start one. What is the best way to start a power circle?
First, figure out the types of people you want to have in your group. You need to spend some time on this so that you can be sure you are getting people who will be good partners in terms of sending you leads and referrals. A lot of times it makes sense for individuals to be in different industries so you are not competing against another person in your group.
Additionally look for naturally occurring referral opportunities. If you are a mortgage broker then a real estate agent is a wise person to utilize as someone in your power circle. Ultimately, power circles will help you grow your business to become bigger and stronger.
Is there a way you can turn these cards into an asset?
We've all been there before. We've got stacks and stacks of business cards sitting on our desk or in a desk drawer. What can you do with these business cards and is there a way you can turn these cards into an asset? The answer is yes! Here's how you do it.
First and foremost you need to get your business cards into a usable format. It is no use having them sit on your desk. They need to be in a database. Now, in this database you need to not just have a list of everyone in your database, but identify different groups or segments into different categories. Some ideas for categories are: potential referral partners, strategic alliances, potential clients, clients, and (yes...) the black list.
Why a black list? Because having a stack of business cards on your desk will not get you anywhere if you don't know how to use them. Many times less is more. You cannot manage 5,000 business cards effectively, but you can manage a much smaller number.
After you get them into the data base then what? Well, you need to figure out a way to contact the people with whom you wish to work. Here are some strategies to do that.
1) Use the phone if at all possible. Email is convenient, but email is not personal. In addition, emails can easily be missed for multiple reasons.
2) Don't be a one-shot wonder. Most of the time people are busy and won't resonate to your request right away.
3) Differentiate or die. You need to be able to articulate what is in it for the person who refers you or works with you.
If you adopt these strategies you will quickly learn that your stack of business cards can become an asset instead of just cluttering up your desk.
