From Mike Figliuolo at the Thought Leaders blog:
Your business needs all the help it can get. A big part of that help comes in the form of customers, partners, and associates you hire. The problem is, all of those things are hard to come by.
Sure it’s easy to find them on the Internet. LinkedIn brings you a bevy of new candidates, websites point you to potential business partners, and if you don’t know how to find your customers, you need to step away from the computer right now and go file for unemployment.
For many of you it’s hard to convert all this information into real impact. Sure there are thousands of websites out there and profiles to look through but it’s not clear how to move all that data into the real world.
Even worse, I’m sure you know that one person who’s a rainmaker. They’re constantly landing new clients. New partnerships pop up on every side of them. Their team is always fully staffed with great talent. And we hate them for it. They make it look so easy.
I’m here to tell you that you can be that rainmaker. What’s the difference between you and them? They know how to punch 10 digits into this odd little machine called a phone. Here’s how it works:
1. Find the person you’re interested in getting to know.
2. Call them.Seriously. That’s how magic happens. It’s not black art. No gigantic regression model for mining websites. It’s simply a phone.
First, let’s get to why you don’t do this now. Is it because you’re shy or not into making a cold call? Perhaps it’s just easier to shoot an email off into the ether and hope someone reads it. Maybe you secretly hope someone will stumble across your awesome LinkedIn profile and YOUR phone will ring off the hook (hmmm, we won’t call others but secretly hope they’ll call us? Ummm no). Or maybe you’re simply too busy researching and corresponding with multiple gatekeepers via email desperately trying to get to your key influencer.
None of those approaches will get you there.
