A good, short, sharp presentation grabs the audience by the throat and gets to the point fast. Then, when you have their attention, ask for the referral.

Don’t try to be cute or oblique, and you’re not telling a joke with a punch line at the end – remember you’re scrapping for your audience’s attention. Even if they look like they’re listening, it doesn’t take long for a person’s mind to go wandering.

Simple and succinct beats rambling every time.

A good formula is the proven AIDA principle – Grab Attention, stimulate Interest, create Desire and call to Action.

Three tips for establishing a good online reputation

Two out of three New Zealanders will Google a person before meeting with them for the first time. Which begs the question, what are your potential clients and business associates finding when they Google your name?

If you are not actively managing your online reputation, it will be developing organically which, it goes without saying, is a dangerous state to find yourself in. Image by jannoon028

"It's not what you know, it's what you know about who you know."

According to a report in ScienceDaily, "a study of the biotech industry has revealed that opportunities which arise, and whether or not they are exploited by biotechnology entrepreneurs, depends to a large extent on how well connected is an individual business person and how well they mobilise their social network. Photo by Ambro

If you need to drum up business fast you have to take marketing and sales action now. However, while your choice of methodology will depend on elements like target markets and budget, there is just one effective strategy that gets results fast.

Photo By Ambro

ScienceDaily — Companies that use the popular social-media site Facebook and its fan page module to market themselves to customers can increase sales, word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty significantly among a subset of their customers, according to new research from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. The study is featured in the March issue of the Harvard Business Review.
Research for the article, "How Effective is Facebook Marketing?," was conducted by Utpal Dholakia, associate professor of management at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, and Emily Durham, a Jones School alumna and founder of Restaurant Connections, a Houston‐based restaurant consultancy.

Photo by: Graur Codrin

It took an apparent failure to reach a corporate goal that taught one company that business referral networking is not a numbers game.

“Small and intimate should be the rule of thumb for business networks,” says BNI New Zealand Marketing Director Colin Kennedy. “At BNI New Zealand we have 126 chapters countrywide, and we wanted them all to reach memberships of about 40 businesses each.