Connect, Connect, Connect

When I first started my business it was a very niche business. I was a one-stop solution for mid-sized builders who did not have their own in-house marketing and sales department. The thought was that these guys were getting hammered: they were paying the realtors, the marketing company, the PR firms, the web design company, the staging firm, etc. The Robbins Group real Estate Marketing and Sales was able to take care of all of that for them and more, with a single point of contact, effectively becoming their in-house marketing and sales department without the payroll costs, the insurance, etc during the times that they did not have an active project. That was the premise.

So out I go networking, and for 2-3 years I am explaining my company to blank faces, but I am making appointments, I and meeting with people I am building a network. And while a lot, let’s be truthful, most of these people cannot make connections for me Very quickly I can make connections for most of them. I become known as “Gail’s Gotta a Guy” and I do. For just about any situation I can make a connection. I have spent 2-3 years listening and meeting people and getting to know their businesses better and sometimes they can connect me to someone, but mostly they can’t and that’s okay.

So the housing market crashing. Kaput, overnight. Now as I talked about in “We Cannot Grow without Change” I sent out the Adapt or Die letter to everyone in my pretty extensive contact list explaining that we would now be offering our marketing services to anyone in any business and we were no longer limiting ourselves strictly to the real estate industry. Well, within a very short amount of time emails started coming in with referrals and explanations stating thank goodness that they could now pay me back for the connections I had made for them over the past several years.

Our transition from Real Estate only to Marketing of any and all industries was an incredibly smooth one in large part because I had laid the ground work by simply being a good networker and taking the time to listen, meet and most importantly connect, connect, connect. I cannot stress the importance of these 3 networking fundamentals and how they will benefit you and your business. I am still known as “Gail’s Gotta a Guy” and truth be told, I am proud of the nickname, because it means I am doing something right.