10 Secrets to Relationship Marketing SuccessBy Elayne Lieberman

Relationship Marketing Results Coach

Being in business can be lots of fun. Being in business can also be frustrating, especially if you are not enjoying the success you dreamed of attaining when you started in business.

Times have changed in the world, not just economically, but also emotionally. It’s crucial to adapt to today’s rapid changes, being open-minded and flexible, ready to adjust and readjust accordingly.

To do that, you have to be aware of the changes in how people think, what they expect, what they want and need, and determine how they respond to what they see, hear, and even feel emotionally. You can only do this by listening, asking questions and getting to know people.

Relationship Marketing is all about how you relate to the market and how the market relates and responds to you as a Business Professional and as an individual. “The market” is made up of people – individuals who often respond with a herd mentality. It’s part of our nature as human beings to follow the crowd so we feel a part of the greater whole, a

member of a community. Sometimes individuals do respond uniquely, thinking for themselves and making decisions based on their own observations and research, seemingly outside of the norm.

Being ready to respond to both types of people is important to your success. And this is where Relationship Marketing can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing toolbox.

The Internet is today’s most obvious medium through which you can effectively connect with, get to know, inform and learn from others. Connecting at home, in your own community is also important. How you market yourself on the Internet and how you market yourself in the community in which you live are essentially the same. By this I mean that people are people and we are essentially all wired the same. We have our 5 basic senses – hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell. We have feelings and emotions that effect how we initially react to what we experience with our senses. We have our past experiences we use to filter how we react or respond to the world around us.

It’s up to each of us as Business Professionals to take these facts into consideration as we market ourselves, our products and services.

Relationship Marketing strategies and tactics, whether via the Internet or in person, face to face, is a powerful set of skills to have. It takes consistence, patience and time. Think of this activity as an investment in your business success. The time you invest in Relationship Marketing will be time well-spent.

The goal of Relationship Marketing is to build and strengthen word-of-mouth marketing resulting from building strong relationships and to ultimately get the referrals those relationships will generate. Once you get referrals, the idea is to build relationships with those people, close the sale and then get referrals from those people.

The 10 Secrets Revealed

1. Start by moving out of Invisibility. Staying in your office all day will make for one Invisible person! If others in your community, either online or in your community, have no idea who you are, you won’t get anywhere with your business.

Get out into the business community. Attend business mixers. Join a referral generating organization. Join a service organization, like Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, American Business Women’s Association, Optimist or Soroptimist Clubs. Attend ribbon cuttings. Join the Chamber of Commerce.

Be consistent. Show up, again and again and again. This moves you from being Invisible to being Visible. This is a crucial step in building your business and becoming profitable. This is an important part of your marketing strategy.

2. How you look and smell will affect your impact on others. Shower, use deodorant, dress appropriately for the event and as a representative of your business.

3. A note about cologne – don’t wear any. It can be overpowering and offensive. What your partner likes in private is not necessarily what the business community or your customers and clients like.

4. First impressions are, as always, powerful. Make sure your first impression on others is the one you want. You have some control over how others initially react and respond to you. Show up neat and clean, show up

with a smile. Show up being interested in others.

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5. Know how to appropriately work a business mixer by acting as if you are a host, asking questions and showing interest in others. The more often people see you, identify you as someone who appears important, self-assured, self-confident and kind, the more quickly you will move into Visibility and toward having Credibility in the eyes of your fellow business professionals.

6. Leverage the relationships you currently have, appropriately, and the new ones you start by getting together with them one-to-one. The more you get to know the other Business Professionals in your community, the more Confidence and Trust can be created between you.

From Confidence and Trust come those precious Referrals. From Referrals comes closed business and thus Profitability.

7. Patience is critical, because you can’t expect to jump from being Invisible to being Profitable over night. Realize it takes time for others to build Confidence and Trust in you (and you in them, because it’s always a two-way street).

8. Long-term relationships can turn into Power Team relationships. You never know who you can join with to create seminars, projects, workshops or other profitable ventures.

9. Actively seek out other business professionals to be a part of a Power Team made up of Business Professionals that share a target market with you but don’t compete for business. Imagine the referrals that can be passed between you.

10. Learn to develop hot referrals for your Power Team members. Just passing a name and number to someone does not make for a referral. That is a lead, a cold call. And who wants to make cold calls?

You want to do whatever you can to pave the way for your Power Team member to simply be introduced to the prospect and know that prospect is pretty much ready to hire them. This is the power of Relationship Marketing.

Two Bonus Secrets

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11. Your reputation is on the line when you pass a referral to a Business Professional. Make sure the Business Professional is in integrity, follows through with promises, delivers beyond expectation, is pleasant, friendly and honest. Or don’t pass the referral. And remember, this goes both ways.

12. How you show up out in the business community, at mixers and at your referral chapter meetings is how people will expect and think you will show up when you do business. So be on time. Arrive when you say you will. Call if you are running late or need to change the appointment. Go above and beyond what is expected of you and deliver with a smile.

You will find that your level of success will increase as you develop these basic Relationship Marketing skills. If you measure your success in dollars, make sure you track the actions you take and the results you get in dollars. Keep your eye on the goal.

And remember to have fun!

About Elayne Lieberman

Ms. Lieberman is a Master Results Coach. In business as a health and wellness consultant and coach for over 30 years, she realized the power and intelligence of Relationship Marketing early on. She now specializes in assisting small business owners in both traditional business and network marketing, to reach success with proven Relationship Marketing techniques.

Visit her at www.ElayneLieberman.com. She can be contacted by email at CoachElayne@gmail.com

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