When was the last time you sat down and evaluated where your referrals are coming from?
Do you get your referrals from Vistage/TEC corporate, cold calling, other chairs, or your existing network?
My guess would be that very few of your new members come from your existing network. Why? Because you’re probably not working the network.
For example, in my Chair Coaching Program, we step through the process of segmenting your network, evaluating the strength of each segment, and building each of those segments (Trusted Advisers, Community Influencers, Prospects, Non-profit Board Membership) to generate an abundance of continuous referrals.
Once you’ve segmented your connections into groups, you’ve expanded and built up each group, do you then frequently communicate with those different segments to provide useful value, information, help and be seen as a connector-influencer to your networks?
The process of just collecting “names” on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter is a USELESS exercise unless you are going to engage, nurture, communicate, challenge, help, guide, and encourage members of your network to help you.
ARE YOU ENGAGING YOUR NETWORK ALL THE TIME - OR IS YOUR STRATEGY TO PURELY COLLECT NAMES?
If you’re not taking advantage of some of the tools that have been evolving in social media over the last few years, such as LinkedIn and Blogging, prepare to be on the losing end of finding and attracting members. CEOs (along with every other business executive in every imaginable discipline) are using the Internet for discovery, due diligence, information gathering, and decision-making. The use of the Internet to find and acquire information (such as which Chair to call and which group to join) is increasing at an geometric rate. Think of your own use of the Internet – now apply that to CEOs considering Vistage or TEC Membership.
If you cannot be found, if cannot separate yourself from all the other competitive offerings available, and if you cannot move potential CEOs along a path of choosing you through original and curated content, you’ll end up getting the leftovers from the Chairs who are embracing these tools and techniques. Many Chairs who would consider themselves “old-school” and ignored social media for the past few years are beginning to see the value of learning and building their skill set in this area. Yes it is uncomfortable and at times humbling to realize there is a vast amount of knowledge and skills that need to be acquired or sharpened.
It takes about 18-24 months to master the techniques of using social media to drive referrals, obtain leads, and nurture those leads. When should you start down this path – when you need 2 more CEOs in your group or 10? Is it when you want to build your monthly income by $5,000 or $20,000? Should it be when you’re tired of not having a full group or falling victim to the domino effect of not one member leaving – but 3 at the same time?
We’ll be able to look back 5 years from now and realize the greatest mistake that Chairs made with social media was the process of starting to learn how to use it “too late”.
So, this is my “little boy crying wolf scenario.” Does it give you an incentive to get started? It doesn’t matter whether you sign up for my complimentary chair coaching program, or you jump onto amazon and buy “I’m on LinkedIn – Now What?” The key is to make that first step toward learning a new skill and technique in the process of finding and acquiring members.
A huge part of the success of any Chair is the ability to quickly, easily, and efficiently find and attract new members. Are you adapting to using the new tools like social media to accomplish this critical component of success? As one of my favorite authors, Steven Covey, termed it: Are you continuously “sharpening the saw?”
Barry Deutsch
Email me for a 15 minute check-up on whether YOUR NETWORK IS CAPABLE OF GENERATING CEO REFERRALS
