Networking that works

The first thing to note is that Business Development, such as networking, and Marketing, such as creating brochures, are similar but different. Marketing raises the profile of the brand to sell more products or services. It is rarely strategic. 

Persil, for example, markets its laundry powder through pictures of dirty kids in muddy clothes, showing how clean the clothes can be when washed in Persil. Business Development focuses on the client. Persil does not engage door-to-door salesmen because that would be too expensive. Instead, it makes sure that Persil laundry powder is stocked in all the most popular supermarkets and outlets, and it listens to the feedback of its customers on why they chose Persil.

Selling laundry powder is, however, very different from promoting your services as a professional adviser. Professional advisers need to be strategic because the client's identity makes a big difference. Persil's primary concern is increasing its product sales. Who the customer is is largely irrelevant. It matters not whether the customer is the mother of four young boisterous kids or a carer for an elderly incontinent relative.

For professional services, business development needs to be strategic to get the right client. Caroline’s Club’s methodology focuses on networking, which is strategic because it is more critical to the business than marketing.

Suppose you are a real estate boundary dispute specialist. In that case, your skills may be similar if dealing with an African country or resolving a dispute for an owner of No 4, Acaia Avenue, but the work involved, the time taken, and the amount earned could be very different.

Focusing solely on non-strategic marketing for real estate boundary specialists could lead to numerous boundary disputes between homeowners, potentially resulting in unprofitable outcomes. In contrast, a single country boundary dispute could yield significantly higher profits. The specialist may therefore want to work less for homeowners and more for countries.

Marketing your skill set rather than the type of client you would like to work for inevitably results in the 80:20 rule where 80% of the work results in 20% of the profits. This rule can shift for professional advisers, but only if the focus is on the client you want to work for rather than your expertise. 

Client Mapping is at the heart of Caroline’s Club. The Club works with its members to examine the type of client its members want to work with and identifies other professionals already serving this client. Strategic networking involves connecting with only these professionals.

But it is not enough to meet with your colleagues and your hand-picked network of other professionals at an event, swap business cards and hope that over coffee, business will flow - it doesn’t. Why not?

Psychology, the study of human behaviour, can assist. Why don’t we talk more about what we do for our clients, whether at an event or over coffee? Psychology points to our innate fear of the influence of strangers or disgust of ‘Product Push’. There are five ways to sidestep this fear or disgust they are reciprocation, aggregation, education, repetition and case studies.

Caroline’s Club integrated all five techniques into its award-winning methodology so that its professional members can convey what they do for their clients without resistance.

The most effective way to convey your message is through case studies. This is why Caroline’s Club has introduced an opportunity for you to submit your solution to our fictional client every week, allowing you to practice telling your message through stories. We would also like you to submit to Caroline’s Club your solutions so that we can share them with others.

Case studies also demonstrate that a client very often requires several professional skills to resolve a specific problem, whether from within the same organisation or from different disciplines, which is Client Mapping. A wealthy entrepreneur, for example, will always need an accountant to keep track of his wealth, a lawyer to move it around, and a banker to keep it secure.

Caroline’s Club works with its members to create mini-events, whether within an organisation - Marketing Clusters - or from different professional disciplines - Marketing Pods. Their case studies are then recorded and we give our members a profile on our digital platform where they can store, access and share their case studies with their contacts, colleagues and clients.

Caroline’s Club provides a button in its newsletter to share this article with your colleagues and contacts, allowing you to start a discussion on how to work together strategically using the Caroline’s Club methodology.

Of course, you can write your case study and publish it in your brochure or host it on your website. However, psychology indicates that more people will be attracted to your engaging marketing material if it is hosted on an independent website. This is why a digital platform for its members supports Caroline’s Club. It draws on the power of aggregation and is another well-understood psychological technique to sidestep the resistance to product push.

One of the frequently asked questions of Caroline’s Club is ‘How is Caroline’s Club different from LinkedIn’?

LinkedIn publishes the curriculum vitae of professionals and encourages them to recruit or find a job through their platform. Caroline’s Club publishes the effective marketing material of its members through public libraries of case studies, podcasts and blogs. There is then a private members directory where members can browse through the marketing material of the other members to find who they would like to network with and connect with them directly.

Although each LinkedIn profile may include facts about the services provided by a professional, these facts engage the right brain, immediately alerting the logical brain to resist the promotion. In next week’s newsletter, Caroline’s Club will dig deeper into the psychology behind the right and left brain and the resistance aroused by facts rather than benefits. If you are not already subscribed to our newsletter, sign up now and share it with colleagues and contacts who want to know more about how psychological techniques can significantly enhance their business.

For example, case studies engage the left brain. They are stories about other people and so do not create resistance. The mind is open to listening and remembering.

If you would like to learn more about Caroline’s Club and its Client First revolution through effective Client Mapping, please contact Caroline on 07979 188 288 or leave a message.