Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 5 No 1

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tools for LinkedIn. When you find your perfect connection, you need to extend a personalized invitation to connect. Connection requests need to include a mention of mutual interests and shared contacts.If you customize your connection requests, you can expect almost half of your requests to result in connections. 5. Read and Comment. Now that you have connected with someone who fits your profile of your perfect customer or contact, their postings will come into your feed. As you engage by commenting and liking others’ posts, you are figuratively putting

9. Phone. So here we are ready to try for 1 st base. The natural progression of the relationship that you have developed with your contact is to get them on the phone. This is NOT a sales call. You have to have another reason to talk. But once you talk, your relationship will be on a whole new footing. 10.The Small Ask. At this point, and only at this point, it is time to ask for something. Start small. No matter how small the contribution, or how insignificant the commitment (time or money), once someone shows up or opens their wallet, they have made the huge step from being a prospect to becoming a client. In the nonprofit world, that first step may be showing up to volunteer or bidding at an auction. In the sales world, it might be purchasing something for less than $100. Either way, your relationship is on a whole new footing after your prospect takes a real action, no matter how small. 11.The Close. I bet you thought that the close was going to be step 12, the home run, the big finish. Nope. Sure, all organizations need the close. But in the big picture, the value of your connections is not the money or time they can give you, but rather the multiplying effect you will enjoy when they begin referring others to you that will give you their money or time. So close the sale or commitment, but always with an eye toward multiplying your effectiveness by getting your connections to recommend you to others and help you close them. 12.The Referral. So here we are with a fully mature relationship. Cherish and nurture those who stay with you through all 12 steps. They are your greatest asset. Remember, your network is your net worth . Muricella Back to Muricella, like I promised. Muricella has been a diabetic since she was 6. When she arrived at the doors of the Hope Clinic, her blood sugar tested at 501 mg/dL. Her Hb-A1c registered 12.8. This is dangerously high blood sugar, and it had been that way for quite some time. (Hb-A1c measures blood sugar over a 2-3 month period.) Normal fasting blood sugar should be around 130 or lower. Muricella’s was almost 4X that level. The body begins to shut down and die at around 700 mg/dL. The life threats that Muricella faced in Venezuela were both political and medical. Among the formidable shortages of everything in the collapsing economy of

2. Refine Your Profile Image. This is where you exchange glances. It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words; I think that number under sells the im- portance of putting the right image on your social profiles. Little things make big differences when it comes to your profile images, so you need to split test. Here are two free resources you can use to refine your profile images: www.snappr.co and www.photofeeler.com . Look at the graph- ic to see the drastic differences in response that the two nearly identical images elicit when split-tested.

your arm around your new connection, letting them know you are interested. 6. Identify and React . Listen for buying signals from prospects in LinkedIn groups or Twitter threads. Is your prospect posting in LinkedIn groups or asking for purchasing advice? If so, that is the time to jump into the conversation.

Since 90% of all B2B buying decisions are influenced by peer recommendations, listening carefully to the chatter on social media can greatly help identify when a prospect is ready to engage. 7. Provide a Solution . This is when you come face to face with your new social contact. Share Content that Counts. Let’s be honest with ourselves: There is a lot of bad content out there. To make sure you are not contributing to the noise, only share and retweet content that brings value to others.This also means sharing content other than just what your brand publishes. Having a softer sales approach and sharing third-party content is essential to building your brand and demonstrating an unbiased point of view. 8. eMail. Moving your conversation to email is the next step in escalating your relationship with your connection. Just like putting a hand to face, emailing content is a clear step up from messaging content via a social platform. If you follow the above steps, you will find that almost 50% of your emails are opened and read by your social connections. Contrast that with the much lower than 1% open rates that unsolicited emails normally get.

It should go without saying that you should CAREFULLY monitor all images uploaded onto every social media platform. Never upload a beach, party, or personal image onto any social media platform. And tell your kids to do the same. 3. Post on Social Media. As you post, either written or video posts, you will take the next real step in social engagement. Posting is your opportunity to have your voice heard, and demonstrate who you are and what is important to you. Be strategic with your posts. If you are there for business, keep it all business. And just likeThanksgiving dinner with your family, avoid the topics of politics and religion. I have a friend who lost a quarter of his connection network and an opportunity to be included on an important national advisory committee over a political comment that he made on a post. 4. Follow and Connect. Connecting on social media is the first instance of real contact between two people and is the equivalent of holding hands. Take some time to think about your perfect customer or connection: where they live, what job title they have, etc. You can search for that perfect connection with some great

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