Networking – One of the fastest ways to get customers and start-up your business.

Time Stamps for “Turn Networking Events Into Profitable Business Transactions With Amir Mahmoud”

1:00 —One of the Benefits of NETWORKING

2:16 —The Power of going out there

3:01 —Building a Casual Relationship

5:08 —How do you measure your ROI?

6:41 —The RELEVANCE of your offer

7:08 —Talk to as MANY PEOPLE as Possible

The Benefits Of Networking:

A Little to NO Cost way of generating leads to become future buyers or real time buyers for your business - An Easier and Faster way to build relationships and trust.

If you want to get a copy of the whole transcript from today’s podcast, click the button below:

Amir: Hey! Everybody it's Amir Mahmoud here and I'm about to show you "How to Turn Networking Events into Profitable Business Strategies." That's me right there at the bottom right corner.

 Why would you wanna do that? One of the fastest ways to get customers and start-up your business is by networking. It's by going out there, talking to people, finding out what the problems are, and being able to solve them. One of the benefits of this is that there's little to no cost...You know, many times you're paying in advertising lots of money. And you're spending all these money to acquire a customer. On this case, it's a little to no money. It's perfect to have lots of time. If you are in the position where you don't have a lot of money but you have a lot of time to go out there, this is an excellent way for you to generate leads and sales.

Building Relationship And Trust

Amir: And it is easier and faster to build relationships and trusts. I mean going out there networking with people; the trust is more immediately built. And then going online and trying to build that trust through the internet. The possibilities of treating sales immediately are there, as long as you ask the right questions and you're able to solve the right problems.

So what is it, the art of finding and attending networking events and speaking to people in your niche? That means going out to those locations. And then some of these people, they could be authority experts or they could be your ideal customer. In many cases, it's a combination of both, and you're in a space where it's happening. People are looking for problems to be solved. And people are there who are teaching and also other experts who are sharing the information. It's the power of going out there and then being able to turn them into leads and sales for your own business.

The Art Of Finding And Attending Networking Events

Amir: So, how do you do it? How do you find them? How do you properly network for leads? How do you properly network for sales? And how do you actually measure the ROI? So, how do you find them? You can go out to forums. You can ask questions in there. You can go see Facebook events and groups or LinkedIn group’s right? You can Google them. You can pick-up the phone and ask. There are so many times where you know people inside that industry, where you can just pick-up the phone ask people, "What's going on? When is the next event? Do you have any events that are happening and worth going to?"

So, how do you properly network for leads? Well, one of the ways you can do, and this is my strategy for doing it, is just building casual relationships. You're not in there to sell right away. You're there to build a relationship. You're going to show an authentic feeling of curiosity when you're asking about who they are and what is their story. You going to listen to them, you going to ask questions. And hopefully you've come to a point where you've identified some kind of need, right? And then you can offer them a free mini training course, which is a custom lead magnet, and ask if they'd be interested in learning more. Most people - 9 out of 10 times - will say yes. In this case I actually just pull up my phone and have them directly enter in their information - their name, number, and e-mail. It could be in a notepad of my phone or if I have a lead page set-up, I'll just have them opt-in automatically. Another way of doing it is collecting their business card and immediately importing the data into your CRM or auto-responder with the detail note. It's really important that you get it off paper and into your system as quickly as possible because many times after the events, you'll throw out business cards, and you'll be in the position where you will still have them or you'll remember who they are and what they interested in.

 If you want to get a copy of the whole transcript from today’s podcast, click the button below:

Properly Networking For SALES

Amir: So, how do you properly network for sales? So, I showed you how to do it for list but how you should do it for sales? The same process applies. The only difference is that the person who is looking for a solution, they're pretty much ready for a solution. You've identified a deep need and you actually know that you have a product or service that could immediately solve that problem for them. So, you proposed the possible solution but you actually don't tell them what it is. What you do is you schedule an appointment for follow-up. And you schedule that one on the spot. You pull up your phone, you book a day and time in the future and you say, "Hey! Let's talk next week at Tuesday at 11 am. Got a block out here. I'll send you an invitation. What's your name and e-mail? And I just confirm that on your side and I can't wait to talk to you. I'm really excited to show you what I have." This is how you actually close sales a lot more, at a higher rate and at a higher speed. And you're able to do it without actually coming off a sales or networking event.

So how do you measure ROI? Well it's really easy. Calculate the number of leads and appointments you've generated. You calculate the total cost to attend, the flight, the hotel, the event tickets, the meals, the taxi, etc. And then you subtract the total cost of revenue generated and you determine its profitability. If you know your metrics on how much your lifetime lead value is, if you already know what your lifetime customer value is, and if you've already generated some sales, you can measure these responses. And in some cases, you get, "Hey, this isn't that profitable. I'll probably not come to this networking event again in the future."

So, what if people aren't interested in signing up? What if, you don't know that you can solve their problem? Or what if you don't have a lead magnet created? What if you aren't free to ask them to take the next step? So these are the common problems. In many cases, it's easy. Practice. If you're afraid, practice. Practice networking and going out there and talking. You can hire a coach, that's another way to do it. I am a coach as well, so going out there and having somebody help you network is going to be very important. If you don't have a lead magnet created, you can go ahead and use notepad on your phone or some kind of way to save their information, so don't have to create it prio