Initiating Contact Part 2

March 3, 2008

Welcome back…

if you haven’t read Part 1 of How To Network With Other Bloggers: Part 1, this post won’t make any sense to you.

Yesterday, I gave you some homework, and these are some statistics you might be interested in.

If you did the homework before you read this, good for you. You have a 92% better chance of success. Why? Because its the Law of Action.

You can have the best intentions, saying to yourself ,”I’ll do it, I’ll get back to it. I will get it done.” But will you? The law of averages

says you wont. The reason people make it in business is because they take action on a decision, follow that up with taking action on

another decision.

I am not trying to beat you up if you haven’t done the “action” part yet… you will get it done - right?

Now that you have finished those tasks, let’s see what we are going to do with them. Now you have five new people who seem to fit your personality and your style, so you are going to take the next step in figuring out if they are the right match– before you spend to much time on this. Heres what your looking for:

As you read their site, can you feel what emotion they were experiencing when they typed that post? Do you agree with what they are saying?
Is there anything on their site that you would NOT put on your own site for moral or ethical reasons?
Do they post often? Are most of their posts in line with the niche they represent? They should be the same as your niche.
Are they covering their topics well? Short three sentence posts don’t cut it for every post. If more than 60% of all their posts are shorter than yours, move on.
What you’re looking for are people that resonate well with you, with how you feel and think. Your goal, ultimately, is to find people who you would have over for dinner, get to know, and become good friends with. Keep in mind that not all of the people you think fit, will. And yes, you may be disappointed from time to time. Just move on to the next. If you do this well for the next three or four months you will find the “right” people for your crew.

Alright, now let’s assess YOU based on where you are, where you want to go, and your “why” that you wrote down.

What is the end result you want to achieve in your niche? If you can clearly communicate that on the spot, in a passionate way, the rest of this will be easy. Yes, for most people, that really IS the most difficult aspect of building an inner circle. You will be on the phone with at least a couple of these people in the coming weeks and being able to get your message across is the key.

What do you have to offer? Even though these people are in the same arena as you doesn’t mean they have every skill set that you have. This is one of the big reasons to build a crew. So, what are the top four or five things you are better at than most of the people in your niche? Yep, write those down and get comfortable with explaining the how and why.

How about the four or five things you aren’t as good at? Write those down as well.

Now, how do you view yourself? Write that down. Just a quick statement. Add to that what you would like to learn that you haven’t had time to do yet.

You may think you know where this is leading, but don’t skip through this. It will hamper your outcome, I promise.

Take all of that info you just wrote down and put it together like this.“I want to share my experiences and my knowledge with at least five hundred new people this year. I plan on doing that by teaching and mentoring individuals through my blog and my membership site.

My goal is to create an authority site on the art of human interaction for the purpose of building my business and creating new relationships. I have a knack for meeting and opening up to people and can converse easily on most subjects. I find it easy to relate to most people in most settings and like almost everyone I meet. One of my favorite things to do is introduce people who I see have a connection and would do really well working together. I like thinking about new ideas with small groups of people because I like the interaction. I also really enjoy a challenge and like figuring out how things work, specifically when it comes to marketing. Testing is cool and learning CSS and PHP has been my main focus for the last 10 months or so, and though I’m not that good at it yet, I can figure out how to code something quick or make a change if I need to.

I plan on speaking in front of groups in the next year or so, and while I am really good one on one and with smaller groups the thought of being on stage scares the hell out of me.”

I didn’t have any of that written down beforehand, and I also used some thoughts other than what I actually have written in the last couple months, but what it comes down to is: how bad do you want it? Alright, now let’s do some doing! I know, I sound like a redneck sometimes… whatever I am true to myself.You should be too, but who the hell am I telling you how to be??? I dont know, take it how you will. So, you have five new people to go meet. Have you read a bunch of their posts and articles? Open a new tab, go to the one you want to start with. Read through a post again if needed, and then comment. Be thoughtful but don’t kiss ass - no one likes that. Put your two cents in, add to the discussion, answer a question, or ask one. BE YOURSELF! Above all else, just be you.

Find one more post on their site and do the same thing. Now, go through the other four and repeat the above process… I know it seems like blogging 101, the point is we are creating something, much bigger than most realize and creating anything starts with one step, followed by another, and so on.

This is your first day of doing; you should leave 10-12 comments today, but don’t go overboard with this or you will come off too strong. Leave these comments for two to three days, go back to those same five blogs and repeat this, but only comment on ONE post for each of the blogs. We are going to find out a little bit about these people by the way they respond to your attention. Like what? Here are some key things to look for…

How do they respond to your comments, or did they respond at all?
1. This will tell us a couple of things: Are they attentive to their blog and their readers?
2. What type of response did you get? If you didn’t get a response from them, see if they have commented on other comments since you left your., If yes, comment again and see if they will comment in turn. If they don’t, move on.
3. If they did respond ,did they comment in the same fashion they have on other comments? Did they respond in kind according to the comment you left? Did they say something that you would have or would not have said in response to a comment from one of your readers?
4. Does it seem like they are inviting you to comment and read their blog some more? Do they go read your blog?

If they did respond in a positive way, begin to visit their site two or three times a week. Grab their feed so you can be efficient with your time. Over the next three to four weeks, you will continue to seed this relationship in the same manner. Do not become a robot, and don’t seem like your wanting something from them - be nice, be yourself, and be an adult who is looking for potential friends and partners.

If you chose people who have a blog that has comments on a fairly regular basis, you should know if these people should stay on your list for further interaction or if you need to put them on a follow up list for next month.

As you are doing this, you will be doing the same thing in forums, but forums are a little different. I’m not going to go into this now, but if you have specific questions feel free to contact me through my contact page or leave a comment below. You should know how forums work by now, but if you don’t pay attention to the people who are most active in the new forum you joined… (This will be in an upcoming post in this series.)

As you are commenting, be consistent. Don’t comment and then disappear. If you wanted to date someone, would you show interest and then blow them off? No. Heres a little secret that most people don’t know… The people with whom you are interacting in this way want to meet new friends and maybe even partners just like you do. You are essentially dancing and courting each other as such, and make no mistake– they are making judgment calls about you too.

In the first month or two, don’t try to sell them on anything but YOU. You shouldn’t come off like your selling anything - that’s a unspoken understanding when people first begin to interact. Just be yourself.

Give, give, give. Think about how you made friends in school. That’s all you’re doing now.

Alright, go make some new friends. The next post in this series will be out in a couple days. We will be discussing interaction techniques in more depth as well as some lesser known ways to connect with people the right way. Keep track of who you are creating relationships with and to what degree.

Also, it might not hurt to take notes about what you discuss with whom.

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