How To Deal With People and Leverage Your Networks

When I was a kid I was pretty shy. Very shy in fact. Eventually I opened up and became more people friendly but it was a long and slow process. As I started to run businesses I came to realize a fact that I’m sure many other business owners know too – sometimes, dealing people really sucks, but it is a necessary evil.

Okay, that’s not the most eloquent way of putting it. My point is that at some time you will deal with a customer or supplier or even just some random joe schmo who decides to make your life difficult.

One of the main reasons I have decided to become an information marketer is because there is very little people contact required and you are dependent mostly on yourself. Since I manufacture the information and distribute it using online systems I only have to deal with my customers. Since my positioning is on target my customers really appreciate what I produce so it is rare if I have someone who is difficult to deal with, most relationships are a joy.

It wasn’t always like this though with other ventures I have managed and I suspect most people reading this article have to deal with many people on a day-by-day basis. People skills are a very important ability that small business owners must possess. Your communication abilities, salesmanship and emotional intelligence can carry you and your business far, and your lack of these abilities can hinder your success, bigtime!

Networking For Business

If word of mouth is the best way to get business the next best way must be networking. Networking has elements of word of mouth since often your current or previous customers will invite you to network with their peers or friends. This often leads to new business relationships and customers.

In university one of my very first businesses was website hosting. Like many thousands of other young Internet users around the world I had bought a hosting reseller account and skilled up at HTML. This meant that I could build and host websites. Of course many family and friends of family would need a website and I received a few successful leads by simply being “that kid who builds websites”.

A work acquaintance of mine referred me to his aunt who operated a kindergarten (pre-school) and wanted a website built. Back then I had little knowledge of online marketing but I did know how to bang up a quick template website. I arranged a meeting, my first real business client meeting for my new website business, with the owner of the pre-school.

The meeting went well. As is usually the case my Internet knowledge while not being too advanced, was superior to the average person so I could quite easily sell the services. I closed the deal, probably made a few hundred dollars and locked in a recurring yearly hosting fee. My business started and I had my first successful meeting with a real client.

My First CEO Meeting

Fast forward a couple of years and I put down to the phone after speaking with a potential business client for my editing business, BetterEdit. The client was a fairly large educational institution and I had just been speaking to a top level manager and we had arranged a meeting with the CEO. By that time the average small business owner didn’t intimidate me, but meeting with CEOs was new territory.

I slapped on my rarely used tie and headed to the meeting in a somewhat nervous state. I’d like to say that my charm and skills wowed her (the CEO) but my first taste with the leader of a large institution did not go that well. A combination of her lack of time and patience and my lack of good sense and brevity created a couple of “uncomfortable moments”, including one point where I was told to “get to the point”.

I left the meeting certainly wiser, and despite my perhaps less than stellar performance, I had an agreement that resulted in a steady $1000 – $2000 worth of work per month for the next six months.

People Skills

These interactions helped me develop people skills. Regardless of the outcome, meeting, selling and interacting with people on all sides of the business fence helped me to become a better entrepreneur, and in fact a more well rounded person. While it’s not always fun to deal with people it’s important that you develop the skills to do so. Without them you miss opportunities.

Leverage Your Networks

If you are struggling for clients but you are not working your network it’s time to change that. Here are some suggestions for you to improve your people skills, enhance your network and attract more clients –

• Friends and Family – This is by far the most common and easiest network you can leverage since you are already a part of it. The best way to do this is make sure everyone knows what line of work you are in. Talk about the amazing things you are doing in your business, how much fun you are having and of course, what exactly it is you do if your service or product is unusual or not mainstream. It’s amazing how the word of mouth grapevine can bring you work.
• Join networking groups – I was once invited to a networking group specifically designed for small business owners. Most meetings are held before office hours, once a month, and one or two members at each meeting do a short spiel about their business. There are no duplication of business types and the main purpose is to refer business. While personally I don’t like this method because it’s very overt and you can never be sure about the quality of the businesses (not to mention the early starts!), it may work well for you.
• Attend industry events – This style of organized event is more to my liking because the premise isn’t focused on referring business, although it often occurs, it’s more about building relationships and staying informed about events in your industry. You will need to force yourself to meet new people and interact so it’s a good way to polish the people skills.

Whatever you do remember good communication skills are an integral part of good business skills. If you are ignoring that aspect of your own development today is a good day to start down a new path of experience.

Yaro Starak