September 2010

This month’s Golden Nugget comes from an excerpt from the book
Total Networking Success A - Z.
Bruce is the author of Total Networking Success A – Z, which can be purchased from
Amazon.com or the CFL website: www.clientsforlifeconsulting.com

Alphabet for Networking Success

“B” is for Barter

Bruce was a first-rate cartoonist and illustrator, even though he made a living as neither. Lunch hour often found him — drawing pad in hand — at a small, local restaurant where the food was delicious, the service good, and the prices reasonable. All the ingredients for a successful enterprise.

Except that business wasn’t all that good. Most afternoons it was just Bruce and a handful of others. What was missing? Total Networking provided the profitable answer for Arturo, the restaurant’s owner, and Bruce.

Arturo, a recent émigré to the United States, had recently bought the place. He knew nothing about focus groups, marketing, branding, or business promotion. Or thought he didn’t.

But he did ask his “regulars” what he could do to increase business. Someone suggested advertising. Another customer said that although the food was delicious, the look of the menu was boring. Someone else asked for business cards she could hand out.

Arturo asked Bruce to create a drawing to go on the restaurant’s new menus. Easy enough for a man as talented as Bruce, but Arturo had a limited budget. He had enough to pay for printing, but little else.

A creative approach was called for.

By the time they were done, Arturo and Bruce had created fresh, exciting new menus, a new logo, business cards, cocktail napkins and a handful of space ads for the local newspaper.

Business took a sharp upturn, and both men profited handsomely.

Arturo’s customer base has grown substantially, and Bruce collects his fee two or three times a week — lunch on the house! Plus, Bruce picked up a freelance illustration job from another customer!

They did it through Total Networking. Arturo was smart enough to ask his best customers how to increase business. Bruce saw an opportunity to showcase his talent. All it took was one-on-one contact.

Too many “Bruce’s” in the world would have continued going to Arturo’s place until it went out of business and then found a new place to patronize. Too many “Arturo’s” would have gone along on the same course until one day wondering why he couldn’t make a go of it.

Which “Bruce” or which “Arturo” are you?

The right answer could change your life!

Bruce Libman