Keep It Up

So we listened to the experts and started going to networking meetings. There we met lots of other business people who were seeking to build relationships with other attendees. All of us have learned that referrals are the lifeblood of the business success and that these networking partners will also give us advice and suggestions which will prove valuable to our business marketing.

We followed the advice that we should schedule meetings with these networkers and get to know them. We also did not try to sell them what we have but worked to discover what these other people needed or wanted. Then we attempted to help them attain whatever that was or introduced them to others who might know someone else who could help them.

It was a great plan that we developed, and it brought us very productive karma with lots of business success. We took what others have taught us, applied all the steps, and developed relationships which have brought us great results.

Then we stopped going to networking events, stopped meeting with the people whom we met there, and stopped building the relationships which we needed. To make it worse, we did not maintain the relationships which we had already built. We broke off all contact with anyone who was not a prospect, who we believed we could sell our products or services.

Did we think that this garden of success would just maintain itself? Did we really believe that the effort that we put into developing these contacts and relationships was a one-time effort? Did we misunderstand that all these people would remember us if we forgot them? We ourselves would think that we had been taken for granted if we didn’t hear from someone for a period of time, especially when we had developed a relationship which seemed to benefit both parties.

How many fair weather friends have we known in our lives? How could we expect others to not believe that we were just that type of networking partner when we act like we don’t have the time or an interest to keep a networking relationship moving forward to even more success? We fall into this fair weather category when we stop maintaining our relationships and stop helping others.

If we attend a seminar and never try to apply whatever we learn there, we have wasted our time and the money that we paid for the seminar. If we receive a referral from one of our networking partners, and never follow-up on the information, we have wasted the referral and maybe damaged the relationship with the referring partner. Allowing our work that we have spent developing networking relationships to be wasted is just as wrong, just as stupid. We have to keep maintaining the garden and reaping the results.

Gratitude Marketing is a great philosophy for the success of any business. We can reap great success from applying it to our prospects, customers, clients, and former ones. We also can reap great success from the application of Gratitude Marketing with our networking partners and keeping those relationships strong and viable. We must never waste the work that we have spent establishing networking relationships with laziness or smug inaction. Please leave me your comments, or email me at Jim@JimTeasley.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.