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I am always looking for cost-effective ways to benefit my clients as they seek to grow their companies.  With today's economy - it is critical that you communicate more frequently with your client base.  If you are new to using email campaigns, managing auto-responders and building your list...   the perfect compliment to your new business direction for 2010 will be to take advantage of this amazing opportunity to TEST DRIVE Constant Contact.

STAYING CONNECTED – Building Your Power Connections 

Power Connections work together with non-competitive professions.

Your Power Connections include groups of people who work with a similar target market as you and can give you referrals more quickly.

Everyone you know, you have met or received a business card or a sales letter from can be categorized in your Power Connection. By organizing your contacts, you will learn who you know, what they do, what your current relationships with them are and how you can improve your relationship with them if you choose.

To effectively increase your Power Connections, organization is the key. It may take a little time to get it all set up, but it will make your business and life much easier and more profitable.

You know more people than you know. By organizing the Power Connection of people you do know so you can easily refer to them at any time, you will be able to develop a system to increase your connecting power. To find out how many contacts you have and what the quality of those contacts are, break down who you know into 4-5 VIP groups

1. VIP CONNECTIONS. These are the people who you are closest to and with whom you have contact on a daily and/or weekly basis. Your family, co-workers, best clients and friends are the people you have the closest relationship with. These are the people you can call and ask for a favor, and they will do it for you. It is the people in this level of your Power Connection that you will develop a very strong referral based relationship with. You would have no problem recommending them, and they have full confidence in recommending you. You might even have a mutually exclusive relationship with each other's business. You are never out of contact with each other for more than six weeks at any one time.

2. GENERAL CONNECTIONS. These are the people with whom you have contact on a regular basis. You speak with them every two to six months. They are no less valuable to you than the VIP; they are just contacted by you less often. However, there will be a wide range of within your general connection relationships. Some may be in that every two months group, and others at that six month period. If they are in your general connection listing, they know you well and feel comfortable referring you, but they aren't quite ready to take the risk of going the extra mile for you by having their reputation on the line with their best client, associate, or family member. They are not willing to do favors for you yet by calling on people in their own Power Connection to go to bat for you.

3. PASSIVE CONNECTIONS. Your passive connections include those people you are in contact with every six to 12 months. This may be an old client, a college buddy, a non-immediate family member. As you go through your list of contacts, these are those people you've been meaning to keep in touch with on a more regular basis, but just haven't found the time. Even though you are not in contact with these people as frequently as you'd like, it's still likely that you could get referrals from them, just not as often.

4. INACTIVE CONNECTIONS. These are the people you haven't been in contact with in over a year. They are definitely inactive because you have pretty much forgotten about each other. Obviously the referrals you get from this group will be few and far between.

5. MAILING LIST CONNECTIONS. This is pretty much your "other" list. These are people who you received a business card from, a brochure from or haven't spoken with in over two years. They are pretty much on your mailing/e-mailing list but not active in any way of referring business to you.

Obviously the ideal situation is to have everyone you know in your VIP Power Connection; however, this is also unrealistic. There is a process to follow that will allow you to consistently move your contacts to the next level in your Power Connection and enable them to find better quality referrals for you. The first thing you must do is put the defined Power Connections above into action. Take the time to really set up your system.

First, let's put your Power Connections together. If you have a computer and feel comfortable developing your own database, that would be ideal. If not, use the form(s) created for your convenience and complete the task manually. Start with your VIP Power Connection Sheet and put down the name of every person you feel qualifies as part of your VIP POWER CONNECTIONS. Start with family, then friends, working associates, regular clients, vendors, etc. For the "Profession," if they do not work full time, put down their relationship to you, i.e. Friend, Family.

As you put down the names in your VIP Power Connection, if you come across people you don't feel fall into this category, then put their names in the categories you deem appropriate. Go through your address book, business card file, and wherever else you can think of to get names. When you come across a person and you're not sure where to categorize them, ask "should I put them in the GENERAL or PASSIVE CONNECTIONS?" then, always choose the lower group. This should motivate you to contact that person and move them up a level.

After you finish putting all the names of everyone you know, you should have a good idea of where your Power Connections stand. Then you can focus on building your levels.

The following two lists represent

1.       Samples of grouping POWER CONNECTIONS according to businesses that have a natural synergy with the clientele you serve, and

2.       Samples of the myriad of services required in both our professional and personal lives.   This list can be used to identify who you know in each category, or which categories you may have need of services and have no present contacts.

Take time to assess each of them, then create your own POWER CONNECTION Matrix of all related businesses that are non-competitive yet have a symbiotic relationship.

Map Books 4 U: Thomas Guides, Wall Maps, and Road Atlases

If you aren't sure what a "Power Partner" structure is all about, you might want to click through and review the matrix to decide what other businesses would be most likely to serve the same market.