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It is a known fact among marketers that very few people, if anyone will buy from you at your first meeting.  To get prospects to commit you must send regular messages to reinforce your value and position your company as the one to purchase from. My rule is 8:16, eight communications within a 16 month period before a prospect will do business with you. It stands to reason that getting prospects onto your opt-in mailing list is critical. Doing so eases your prospect’s commitment anxiety (less fear associated with a newsletter than plunking down cash) and for you it gets them into your sales communication funnel.

A clever way to use your mobile phone to grow your opt-in list is to add a mobile-friendly version of your mailing list registration form to your website.  Now when you meet people at networking events, speaking engagements or while shopping at the mall you can use your phone to access your mobile page and easily allow your friend to join your list and willingly become part of your sales (or referral) chain.  In addition to feeding your list, I bet you get a few “wows” as well and you are certain to be remembered. When you use this tactic be sure to bookmark the mobile registration page for quick access.

What is your best approach to growing your mailing list (comment below)?

The last few weeks I have written a lot about creative ways to work with networking groups. No, this is not a lead in for a topic shift.  I want to continue by discussing an opportunity to turn your networking group member profile into a 24 hour referral generator by adding your company’s or your personal video.

After the home page of a networking group’s website, the member profiles are the most highly trafficked pages.  Existing members browse profiles to learn more about their referral partners and site visitors (your prospects) drop by to determine if your business can help them. By adding either a personal video or your company’s video commercial to your profile you can,

1. Teach:  Show and tell your referral partners about the mix of products and services your business offers.  Your referral partners cannot sell your business within their contact spheres without a working knowledge of who you are and what you do.
2. Stand out:  I can almost guarantee you that you will be the only company in your pod doing this.  Browse the Business Networking International (BNI) chapters right now and tell us how many of the summaries feature video…few to none I bet, so who do you think will be remembered?
3. Communicate efficiently:  You can put a lot more information into a short 1 minute video than you could usefully add to a networking group website profile page (narration, visuals, music and text).
4. Increase clickthroughs:  It is an established fact that web promotions that feature video have significantly higher clickthrough rates than those with text and images alone.  In order for you to get profile browsers into your sales cycle you will want them to clickthrough to links pointing to your company site, blog or newsletter and your video’s content will give them a reason.

Here is a link to my business profile for one of the networking groups I belong to (click here).  Is your company video featured on your networking group’s website?  Give us the link so we can watch it (add your link).

I was recently invited to speak to members of the National Sales Network on the subject of generating leads and referrals through effective networking.  I focused on the point that networking is first and foremost an exercise in relationship building.  Once a mutually beneficial relationship is established you must empower your networking partners with information about your company and easy to manage tools that will assist your allies in telling your story. 

Speaking of tools all of you BNI pros, entrepreneurs and sales professionals remember this. Your Blackberry, iPhone, windows mobile device or smartphones is one of the best networking tools on the planet. A phone equipped with your company’s promotional video can lead to explosive networking success.  Below are several ways you can use your cell phone to increase your networking effectiveness.

1. Show off your video at networking events:  Watch the eyes widen and the heads around you turn when event attendees see and hear your company’s story on your phone.
2. Web downloads:  Allow your networking partners to download your company video for use on their cell phones and smart phones.  This will turn your networking partners into walking commercials for you and unleash an army of evangelists to sing your praises.
3. Invite fellow partners to networking events:  Imagine the impact of having 2-4 people at a networking event showing your video to event attendees.  Your message will be in front of exponentially more prospects than you could meet on your own and you are sure to be remembered.
4. Video testimonials:  Even if you are a sales representative for a firm, you can establish credibility by adding video testimonials to your phone that speak to the worth of the company’s products and to your personal merit.

The bottom line is your referral partners are only as effective as their ability to tell your story.  Today’s cell phone technology can enable your networking partners to become an indispensable extension of your sales force. I am sure our readers would love to read your networking success stories (click here to submit yours)