Archive for 2010

3. Network with other vendors

The truth is that ads no longer work like they used to. We’re inundated with them. For real success, you need to be building relationships. And the best part is, the more you help other people, the more they will help you.

I realize that everyone is saying “network” right now, and I feel like the word “networking” has got somewhat of a bad feeling attached to it. I think that one of the reasons for this is people are just going through the motions because someone told them to. Often times they don’t really care about making real connections or really helping someone, it’s just about passing out as many business cards as you possibly can. Have you been to a corporate sponsored “networking event” where someone rushes up to you and says “Hi, my name is John, here’s my card, will you refer me?Thanks!” and then they immediately move on to the next person without another word? I intentionally left no space between the question and “Thanks!” because they didn’t even leave a second for you to even respond to them.

When I say “networking,” I’m not referring to the cold, lifeless cousin of speed dating that I just mentioned. I’m talking about real relationships. Have you had success in your business? Can you help another vendor who is struggling? Can you make some time to get together with other vendors and just go do something non work related? How many of you have essentially become your business? It might be a huge help to you to just go out and have some fun, and at the same time it could be a big gift to another vendor in your same situation who just needs someone to show up and make it happen for them.

What do you do with all of those extra leads that come in for days that you’re booked? Leads that are outside of your travel area? Leads that are outside of your beginning pricing? Make a strong recommendation that they check out your friends. It’s one thing to just send an email that says “we’re booked, good luck calling XYZ photography.” What if you actually talked to the potential clients to find out what drew them to your style? What if you found out some more details about their wedding—where is it? What sort of budget are they working with? Tell them you’ll make some calls and find someone who’s available for them, rather than sending them on the never-ending vendor search.

We’ve had people we’ve gone the extra mile in making personal recommendations for, and they were so thankful for the extra time we spent with them, that they referred their friends to us later, even though they didn’t hire us. This does take some extra time, but it’s more than worth it. We’ve also been developing the world’s first intelligent networking tool for wedding professionals that is designed to do exactly this, but it removes the legwork. I’m not going to go into details on that right now, but we’ve been beta testing for a few months now, and it’s been nothing short of fantastic!

I have ridiculous amounts of ideas on the specifics of how to go about networking with people, and I will be sharing those—this topic could go on forever. In the meantime, to get you started, just keep in mind the foundation: that it’s about real relationships, and really helping people out. “Go out to lunch” with other vendors is a great start that I hear all the time; but don’t expect that because you ate a sandwich with a wedding planner that they are going to magically start sending you a mountain of referrals.  Invest time and effort into people, and they will invest time and effort into you.

2. Be Yourself – Be Different – Be Remarkable.

“Be yourself” may sound cliche; however, this one is huge and definitely worth expanding. There are a lot of people out there right now saying “be different.” The big thing to be aware of is that being different does not mean “find something different and copy that.” The good thing is it’s so easy for people to fall into emulating what’s popular, that being yourself will already put you well on your way to being different.

Once you’ve got that down, let’s say you’re comfortable being yourself and now you’re specifically pursuing expanding how to differentiate yourself. The pursuit of different.  Once you find a way to differentiate yourself, and differentiate what you’re offering it, don’t stop there!  Things change so quickly in this industry that ‘different’ is an ever moving target. Once you do something different, it immediately becomes that target. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily; use that as tool to always continue to push yourself to innovate.

After you’ve ventured into being different, push it to the next level: Do something remarkable. What is remarkable? Things that are remarkable are worth talking about–worth noticing. Exceptional, new, interesting, etc.

In “The Purple Cow,” Seth Godin writes “The reason it’s so hard to follow the leader is this: the leader is the leader because he did something remarkable. And that remarkable thing is now taken—it’s no longer remarkable when you do it.” Well said Seth, I couldn’t phrase it any better myself. Although, I will add to it:

If you’ve done something remarkable, it will only be remarkable for a limited time. How long is that? I can’t say—and I’m sure it varies depending on any number of factors; but if you do something remarkable and expect to coast from here on out: think again. Be careful or you’ll wake up one morning only to find that you were passed by, long ago. And shouting “But I invented the piano key necktie!” no matter how loud you do it isn’t going to help you.