My RSS Feed has a consistent personal brand on, well, personal brand and career topics. Maria Elena Duron has Just Posted the Following on her blog:

There are thousands (yes, thousands) of people who will write about networking. Most talk about everything from being friendly, to smiling, to having the right handshake and making sure you have your ‘elevator speech’ down.


And, I’m all for that. All of those tools are important to your success in connecting with people. Yet, I still find people utterly lost as to how to move a relationship further. How do you progress past the ‘grip, grin and graze’?


In working with coaching clients, I show you that with visibility, credibility, and connect-ability, you can get profitability.


Visibility


Visibility, first of all, are you visible to people? Because you can’t do the Dale Carnegie rules of engagement unless you’re visible to people(the best rules on the market)! If all you do is from your home office out to a client and back again and you’re not visible to anybody or your home office is all you do is stay at or at your office, you stay in your cubicle. You don’t come out or you stay within your department, then you’re not visible to anybody and if you’re not visible, then you can’t be remembered cause they don’t even know that you exist so are you visible? That’s number one, visibility.






Credibility


Credibility, that takes time. Are you building credibility with people? Are you showing that when you say something that you’re going to get this done, that you actually do it? Are you showing that you are a person when you say, okay, I’ll bring this newspaper by to you or I’ll bring this book that I read, do you actually follow through and do it? Or with your work, are you credible? Are you showing that you are a person who can be trusted? Because trust does take time. It can be broken down in moments but it takes time to build.



Connect-ability





And then while people may do business with people they don’t particularly like so much, maybe they’re the expert in their field but they’re not as likable, they won’t refer them unless they’re likable for connect-ability is truly understanding, are you connectable? Are you somebody who’s fun to refer? Are you great to get in contact with? Or are you somebody who’s doom and gloom? When they ask you, “How are you doing today?” you’re just, “Oh, it’s a horrible day. It’s this and this” and it’s always something negative. Because even negative people repel other negative people and it’s very hard for people to connect with you if they don’t feel that it’s good.


I see people who are great at what they do and they try to make the connection with someone and then they become what I call that ‘sales-y’ person and then all of a sudden, they just start bombarding them with the Dog and Tony Show information and “Hi, you need to know this about me and this and this” and truly, you do need to earn the right to be heard and part of that’s in dealing and delivering your credibility and also, are you connectable? Connect-ability, okay?

If you go to my web site, I have a Connect-ability Checklist there so it’s really easy, 21 questions and it’s a yes or no, true or false. Are you doing this or this? And you’re welcome to use that. There’s no cost at all. Feel free to use that and print that out and hopefully that will help give you direction to your SMART connections.

Maria Elena Duron, CEO, Buzz to Bucks, broadens the network of busy people through effective social marketing strategies. Buzz to Bucks provides online profile management services, social management and reputation management - helping key employees to establish higher visibility and provide consistency in branding as well as establishing the expertise in their industry for entrepreneurs.


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