So, what’s different about week 2?
I took a couple of interesting calls late on Monday – one from a “business partner” ie someone with a different product/service, looking at ways we can work together. I was reflecting that this isn’t that unusual – many conversations I have are with people with complimentary or overlapping services, not straight competition but not completely different.
Question who could you work with in a collaborative way, which might be more effective for both of you, than trying to compete? Who offers something completely different, which would complement your services?
Unfortunately, I have two negative thoughts relating to Tuesday
1 – the London Underground. The weather was quite bright and sunny, not very warm, but it was sweltering in the tube – eugh.
2 – a speed networking event with a host who didn’t keep to time. Speed networking is definitely not something everyone enjoys and I’ve seen it run in a number of ways. This wasn’t a particularly large group and there was plenty of time to fit everything in with their normal timings and, potentially, allow more open networking time at the end or finish a little early. We ran over time and I ran out of the door, on my way to another meeting. Not impressed.
Wednesday gets back to my theme – communication and collaboration – when I ran a webinar for The Lemon Club on LinkedIn company profile and why it’s important for your online marketing, whatever size your business is. The Lemon Club is an online personal development membership programme on all things communication and I have contributed resources to Month 5, Natural networking, as well as this month’s webinar. The whole club is a collaboration of 20+ contributors, led by Sally and Sue.
Thursday and Friday followed similar themes with the exception of a couple of nudges I received to try something slightly new. Like most people, I’m not mad keen on cold calls, mainly because I don’t think they are very productive. However, with a little nudging from two quite different conversations, I’ve started generating discussions with brand new contacts – where there was a great reason and connection for me to call them. So, although “cold” as in unknown, they were “warm” as in an existing connection.
Question Who do you already have a connection with, even if you don’t know them? Through shared interests, societies, professional groups, hobbies, children’s activities or family? Who could you call?
Call to action
If you’d like help with your collaboration or communication, or to identify where you have “warm” targets you’d not considered, please contact me on:
sue@suecohen.co.uk 020 8953 6477 / 07971 400653
Feel free to send me an invite on LinkedIn and let me know how you found me –
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suecohen01
And, let me know what you think of the ebook and the The Lemon Club / webinar – if you missed the webinar and would like information on future webinars, please let me know.
As always, your comments are welcome
suecohen 