Here's a very poignant article I read from Ivan Misner about building relationships through networking. I thought it would be good to share so we call all take a look at how and why we do what we do here on Zoodango and at the events we attend.

-"When you tell entrepreneurs that relationships are the key to developing a personal and professional network, they often smile and acknowledge the concept without fully appreciating it. Let me put this notion into perspective.

Imagine you're standing in a large room full of people, and I ask everyone to pull out their key rings. Visualize everyone holding up the keys to their house, their office and their car as I ask everyone to show them to the room.

Now here’s my question: Would you hand over your car keys to a perfect stranger? What about those to your office or home? Of course not!

Now instead of a key to a car or a home, imagine you have a key that opens the door to an important relationship with a colleague that another person would like to connect with. Let’s say you hold the key to this relationship, but you don’t know the person who's asking for it. Would you give it to them? Of course not! Why? Because when you give a referral, you give away a piece of your reputation. If it's a good referral, it helps your reputation; if it's a bad referral, it hurts. Intuitively, you'll only hand over the keys to someone you know and trust.

What I love about this metaphor is how it works on two levels. First, you’re not going to hand over the keys to a relationship until you know a person well. But more important, others don’t even know what keys you actually have until you trust them enough to tell them.

It's not just you; nobody is willing to hand over the keys to important relationships until they know and trust the person asking. Unfortunately, when networking, some people expect perfect strangers to hand over the keys right away.

Take a look at your referral partners. Would it surprise you if they had keys to referrals they're keeping in their pockets until they trust you with them? It shouldn’t. So how do we begin this process of exchanging keys?

It all comes down to establishing credibility with your referral partners. I've seen many people who think networking is about meeting people and asking for business right then and there. That’s it. They meet someone and focus on telling them what they need or what kind of business they want. It’s like saying, “Hello, my name is Ivan. Let’s do business.”

Effective networking is about building relationships with others who can refer you once they've come to trust you, have confidence in you and feel loyal to you. This truly is the key to networking success. And this process takes time. This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.

If there were a single networking concept I had to identify that most entrepreneurs just don’t get, it would be building relationships over time. They listen, acknowledge its importance, then ask about the best way to close a deal when meeting someone for the first time. The short answer is, you don’t. OK, everyone has that one fluke story about meeting someone for the first time and ending up doing business, but that’s not the norm. The norm in successful networking is building a relationship to generate long-term referrals.

I think you'll be astonished at how powerful this concept is when put into action. Think of it this way: When you get to the place where you can, without hesitation, hand over your physical set of keys to someone, you'll be in the best place possible to begin asking for keys to their relationships."

For me, this article is about getting to really know one another & giving first, then receiving.

Jeff Collins
Professional Haberdasher
www.MyHaberdasher.com

While none of us are ready to let go of summer, the signs are here and the weather is changing. Luckily for me, Autumn happens to be my favorite time of year.

I've always enjoyed the chance to layer my clothing, bundling up to fight off the chill. While here in the Northwest we rarely get the opportunity to go as far as gloves, scarf & overcoat covering a suit on a day to day basis, it is still fun to go to the opera, a play or an auction dressed in the full regalia. Usually we have to be wary of precipitation so a rain coat often makes more sense than an overcoat.

One thing for certain is that Autumn is a time to dress warmer. Men can don their sport coats and suits, perhaps even a tie and not feel uncomfortably warm. Sweaters come out of a drawer or the closet and the layering begins.

If your winter wardrobe didn’t make it through the last six months without succumbing to ‘closet shrinkage’ or you want to recapture that first-day-of-school-new-clothes feeling it may be time to consider adding to your wardrobe. This is the season of navy & grey. Whether your suit is a classic solid or a stripe for a little more punch these colors are always appropriate. In suits and sport coats, one of my favorite colors is chocolate brown. It has the depth and tone of charcoal but it has a much warmer nature and tends to set people at ease.

For sweaters you can once again bring out the black, navy & grey, but why not have a little fun & show a little personality with a cinnamon, mineral blue or light sage? Cashmere is the ultimate in luxury for sweaters. Wool doesn’t have to be that itchy material you once thought it was. Cotton has come a long way in its lustrous look as well. For less weight, look for these materials blended with silk. And remember, even though your label may say hand wash that doesn’t mean you should attempt it if you don’t know what you are doing. When in doubt pay the $5 to have it dry cleaned.

I was recently interviewed for a blog by Amy Hedin of
People Performance Solutions
www.peopleperfsol.com

Amy: What is the most rewarding aspect of your role as a personal haberdasher?

Jeff: I believe the most rewarding part of anyone’s career is when you help a person who lacks knowledge by educating them; when you embrace the role as teacher or consultant. In my business that comes when a person who does not know how to dress well is taught the basics of creating a wardrobe and then adds key pieces of clothing to create multiple great outfits. As a result they gain an appreciation for dressing well and get compliments from people in an area they never would have before.

I also enjoy working with clients who buy higher end clothing by showing them they can spend the same or less and receive better quality & fit. They rarely realize that there should be a difference in quality, construction and fit when they pay more rather than the difference residing solely in a label, style or a fabric that caught their eye. These clients can have it all in design, fit, fabric and construction.

Amy: Do you think appearance is a factor in people reaching their maximum potential?

Jeff: Anyone inside or out of business can tell you about the importance of the first impression. I shouldn’t have to elaborate too much on this. It should be obvious that your grooming and what you wear will directly influence those around you.

However, one thing that is often overlooked is the ongoing opinions of your coworkers and business acquaintances. It’s hard to measure the impact of receiving compliments vs. the absence of compliments. I hear from my clients all the time about how they wore a certain outfit and had three or four people come up to them to compliment them. If that didn’t have an impact on their self-image then they wouldn’t have told me about it. What they think about themselves is a factor in people reaching their maximum potential and if what others think about them affects this then there definitely is a link.

Amy: What is one common mistake you see and how would you correct this?

Jeff: There are lots of little mistakes men make such as not matching belts and shoes, wearing ‘high water’ trousers, really old ties, coat sleeves that are too long, sport coats with ratty cotton pants, awful black tennis shoes with a suit (because they’re comfy), an ill fitting shirt, short ties, un-shined shoes, continuing to wear pants that they used to fit into… should I go on?

The thing I try to help my customers do is buy clothing in collections instead of one item impulse buys. To understand what I’m talking about here is an example. Most men have bought a suit, shirt or tie while they were out and about because they really liked it. When they returned home they couldn’t match it with anything they had. This is a Big Mistake, because unless they take it back to a store and buy clothing around it then that money was wasted. Often I hear from men, ‘I need to buy a couple suits or I need new shirts or it’s time for new ties.’ What I encourage my clients to do is buy these items together so we know they will coordinate well with what they have now as well as what we planning on them adding in the future. Perhaps instead of two new suits they would be better off with one suit, five shirts and five ties. This not only results in a well rounded wardrobe, but also less time and energy shopping. Most men can appreciate that.

Recently our web designer was forced to leave our LeTip group in Bellevue due to having too much business. We are really sad to see him go but his business got too big to keep coming to our weekly meeting as he was busy traveling the world, serving his clients.

During September our group of 40 local professionals will be interviewing web designers to take that seat. Only one person per category is allowed to join so we will hopefully find the best candidate. If you would like to visit please let me know and we'll buy you breakfast one of the Fridays in September when you check us out.

His company did a great job so not everybody will be signing up with you right away but we do look forward to building a lasting relationship. Certainly some of the smaller businesses will immeddiately enjoy having someone who can pay close attention to their growing companies .

Our group's site is www.letipbellevue.com if you would like to see who makes up our great family of business professionals.