Rainmaker #6 – Networking – Are you Being Served?

Definition: A Rainmaker creates a significant amount of new business for a company. The Sales Lab Rainmaker Series is one rainmaker technique for technologists during the first 300 seconds (five minutes) of the monthly Capital Technology Management Hub Meeting. This is the handout for our June meeting.

We're professionals! Somebody said we're expected to network.

What do you want to get out of a networking session? This may surprise you - 1 or 2 new relationships. Someone of interest – who they are; what their organization does; what's their role; and what interests them .

Offer some help if you can – by telling about results - from your customer’s viewpoint – from using your service/product (only if directly on target); or refer someone or something; describe a useful blog & send them the link.

Then – be quiet for a bit – if you offered some help, they may ask what they can do to help you (or you can tee it up for them “I've been trying to …”) - or - they may ask for more info about the results you mentioned. Either way - tell them something they can react to – not a sales pitch - and thank them for any suggestion offered – no rating, ranking, or refuting.

The key to successful networking is to focus on the needs of the other person as you learn more about them and seek a way to help. Zig Ziglar says: “You can have anything in the world you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.”

Please share your thoughts to help extend our learning - comment below:

Reserve your place for the next Capital Technology Management Hub Event, How to Transition a Small Business Into a Fortune 50 Company , June 14^th, http://smallbusinesstofortune50.eventbrite.com

The previous Rainmakers:

Rainmaker # 5 – Start With An Offer

Rainmaker #4 – Time, Talent, and Treasure

Rainmaker #3 – Process to Purchase

Rainmaker #2 – The Nametag

Rainmaker #1 - Gifts

The Doer

You know this person – uses hands, mind, eyes, ears, and creativity to contribute directly to the organization's results.

He is engaged and there to contribute. She supports the mission and works to the highest of standards. Doers are the tensile strength of an organization's operations.

The Doers do their part, are always ready to jump in where needed, quietly improve performance, and focus on outcome & results. They are on the direct path for producing results of the organization – not in a support function for those who are on the path.

Want ideas about how to improve the organization? Ask a Doer.

Know any Doers? Share a story.

Drucker Was Right!! And He Still Is!

Peter Drucker has taught us a lot about the development of management – and by extension, leadership.

Here's his view of what management must do to lead an organization, which he wrote in 1974 (for more, click http://bit.ly/Management_role, beginning at page 39).

Management has three tasks of equal importance which it must to create a successful organization:

• Establish the specific purpose and mission of the institution;
• Make the work productive and the workers effective;
• Manage the social impact and social responsibility.

This was the foundation for successful traditional organizations 40 years ago, but it also fostered some successful non-traditional ones as well.

Look closely at Apple and Southwest Airlines in the '70s -

Purpose and mission were simple and broadly communicated - useful computers for everyone and inexpensive air travel which is fun, respectively.

Their employees were highly productive and innovative - engaged in supporting the mission.

Both embraced social responsibilities and their impact on the community and nation – conserving resources in pursuing the mission, reducing wastage and trash, and working in the community for improvement and progress. Apple was noted for supplying schools with computers at little to no cost; Southwest was the first airline to recycle drink cans and research the optimal altitude and speed for the most economical fuel usage.

They remain in the forefront of their industries today.

The New Normal of doing business continues to evolve and the successful firms are built on a platform of these three tasks – lots of communication about purpose and mission to the market, media, and employees; workers are more engaged in supporting the mission and being innovative in ways to do things better; and conservation of resources and materials is the rule rather than an afterthought.

Drucker's three tasks of leadership remains valid after almost 40 years and they're a trait of the New Normal successful organizations - Google; Zappos.

Do you agree? Share some examples so we all can learn more.