Whether you see it as the golden rule, or being the change you wish to see in the world, sometimes you have to do the thing you’d most like to see others doing.
If you wish more people would ask your advice and seek your help, maybe it’s time to give that gift to others and ask for their help instead.
If you find yourself asking questions such as: What is the best way to use Twitter? How can I get more followers on Twitter? How can I get better results for my business on Twitter? …then you are asking the wrong questions!
In today’s video I talk about the single, correct question you should be asking about Twitter or any other tool you’re using.
Today I make an appeal to all owners of public restrooms to consider your customers a bit more and plan an adequate number of hand dryers…
On a more serious a productive note, I talk a bit about Dale Carnegie’s classic: How To Win Friends & Influence People. I had the opportunity to put a couple of his techniques to good use this evening, and was rewarded with the satisfaction of making a stronger personal connection. Definitely a must read and a frequent review.
While I have generally been horrible at social networking (it’s hard to believe how many of my emails begin with “sorry it took so long to respond,”) there is one strategy I’ve used successfully when I want to have more frequent contact with someone and build a stronger relationship.
This is a strategy to go from talking only occasionally, perhaps once a month or less, to talking as often as you want, at least weekly and even daily if that’s the amount of contact you want to have. The obvious problem is that you can’t just begin calling someone every day without coming off as a stalker. It must grow naturally.
Also, this strategy is not about the content of your relationship, or what you’ll actually say to the person each time you speak. If you want to learn more about that, there’s one book above all others to guide you: Make Your Contacts Count. This strategy is only about the timing of your contact.
Let’s say you currently talk to someone once a month or less. If you talk more than that, use whatever interval you’re currently at and go from there. But no matter how infrequent you talk, use once a month as a minimum amount to start.
Call the person up and have a productive conversation, based on whatever the current depth of your relationship is. If you took my advice and read Make Your Contacts Count (these aren’t even affiliate links, I just believe in the book that much!!) this will never be a problem and you’ll know exactly what to talk about.
If nothing else happens, plan to call back one month later (or whatever your current interval is) and continue doing that indefinitely, as long as you want to maintain the relationship at that level. However, if they call you in less time than a month, that amount becomes your new interval.
So, you keep calling once a month until for some reason they call you after three weeks, at which point you call them every three weeks. Eventually they’ll call after two weeks so you begin calling every two weeks, and so on, until you reach the desired frequency of contact, and depth of relationship.
Obviously, there are some common sense limits to this strategy. If you’re at a one month interval and they call you with some random question after 3 days, don’t immediately jump to a 3-day interval. Split the difference and set it at 2-3 weeks.
Also, no matter how much you want it, not every relationship can be built to daily or even weekly contact. Don’t push it. If your conversations become strained or awkward, or there’s not a great reason for you to call each time, you’ve probably reached the current limit.
If you blow it, and call too frequently, or in general screw things up in some way, wait for them to call and reset your interval to however long that takes. If it’s longer than a month, you’re back to the start. Try not to screw up again.
The main point of this strategy is to be proactive in making contact, while allowing the other person to escalate the relationship on their own schedule. This process can take many months if you’re following the proper intervals. That’s a good thing. The irony is that you’re implementing a very planned, detailed, even obsessive strategy, to appear to grow a relationship very naturally.
But that’s the strength of this plan. It keeps you from calling too infrequently and missing out on a more meaningful relationship. It also keeps you from calling too often and damaging the relationship. It’s a structured way to ensure it grows at an optimum pace. If you do this right, they will be glad to hear from you every time you call. If you can manage that, they’re going to have a positive feeling any time they think of you, exactly the type of relationship you want.
I don’t use this often (though there’s no reason you couldn’t if you wanted keep track of it all) but for the relationships that I really want to develop, it can’t be beat.
Last year in an effort to learn more about building relationships, I did some research to find a good networking book. The best I found was Make Your Contacts Count by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon. The information they present is right on. Their method is comprehensive, powerful, and clear. I can’t recommend the book highly enough, and it’s only $10.17 on Amazon. (I’m not making money from these links, I just love the book.)
There were some good responses to my question yesterday about having too many Facebook friends. Now I’m ready to move forward and test some ideas, and you can benefit by following along and trying some of them for yourself.
I’ll be using the methods in the book to organize all of my Facebook friends and the way I interact with them. The goal is to have a system that’s easy to implement, and very effective in managing relationships online. I want to walk away from Facebook every day knowing that my relationships, from the most casual to the most important, have grown a little bit more.
then the book, and this project, could be great for you.
So, I urge you to buy the book (just $10), study up, and get ready to become a Facebook power user who manages strong relationships with ease. (Ok, a little hype slipped out there…)
Is your News Feed a cluttered wasteland? Do you have the feeling you could be doing more with Facebook? Do you have trouble staying in touch? What have you found works for you?
Leave a comment and let me know!
