Here are some great ideas on how to build your network:

6 Quick Ideas for Building Your Contact List:

1. Trade Show Marketing, Fishbowls, and Plexiglas Drawing Box
2. Register for free and inexpensive seminars from your local business journal.
3. Read the local business paper and scan articles written about successful small business owners.
4. Join two of the hundreds of networking organizations in the US (e.g. BNI, local chamber of commerce, etc.).
5. Go through the want ads and look for others promoting their businesses. Call them and say, “I am a local business owner in the … business, and I am looking to network with other business owners so that we might refer business to each other . . . would you be interested in getting together? I would like to learn a little about what you do and also talk to you about what I do to see if we might help each other get more business?” You may have to talk to 10 to get 2, but many will want to meet with you.
6. Ask 10 people that you know for 3 names and addresses of business owners that are in the process of building a business.

I hope this information helps you grow your list.

All the best,

The relationship between a business owner and her customers, employees, and partners is sacred and should be treated as such. In the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic holy scriptures, reference is made to the Ark of the Covenant.

However, this is not about that Ark, but about the ARC.

ARC is an acronym for appreciate, reward, and celebrate.

Here is the breakdown:

Appreciate

• Appreciate your customers because their patronage puts food on your table. In today’s world, there are endless choices, but your customers chose to do business with you. Appreciate them for that.
• Appreciate your employees. If those hard-working, dedicated men and women didn’t deliver on the promises that you make to your customers, you would not be able to compete in the marketplace.
• Appreciate your partners because they help add value to your employee and customer relationships by helping fill ‘gaps in your game’ or but offering a complimentary product or service.

Reward

• Reward your customers with outrageous customer care, and a very good product/service. Offer specials like reward dollars and other ‘frequent flyer’ like incentives.
• Reward your employees with public praise and other performance based incentives (e.g. extra paid time off, professional development, etc.)
• Reward your partners with what they crave most – new business referrals.

Celebrate

• Celebrate customers on special days like birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, holidays, and other special occasions
• Celebrate employee achievements and milestones. For example, throw pizza parties and such to celebrate birthdays, employee anniversaries (e.g. 5 years with the company, etc.), and other life-changing events like birth of children, marriage, etc.

Celebrate any successes that your partners may have like closing a new deal, a new product launch, and the anniversary of the partnership.

Ladies and gentlemen, hold fast to the ARC of the Covenant for Entrepreneurs, as it will set a chain of events, and put people in your path that will help you achieve success in uncommon hours.

THAT is the secret.

All the best,