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Do you have a Department of Human Freesources?\u00a0 If you don’t, you’re missing out on some of the easiest ways to secure business that exist.\u00a0 Small business owners who shrug off the possible upside of being active in the social networking scene are shooting themselves in the keyboard.\u00a0 Get on Facebook and get on LinkedIn and revolutionize the way you conduct business.<\/p>\n
LinkedIn is really the preeminent networking site for business but the value of Facebook cannot be diminished.\u00a0 Let’s harken back to my blog of almost two years ago when I described a way I received perhaps my most obscure referral to date.\u00a0 I had a voicemail from a brand new client in Arizona, three time zones and 2,500 miles from my home.\u00a0 This person with whom I\u2019d never interacted, mentioned that another person, with whom I\u2019d also never interacted had referred her to me.\u00a0 Please trust that the irony was not lost on me that this prospective client was calling me from an Alzheimer\u2019s Institute and so the notion that I could not remember either of these people was weighing on me severely.\u00a0 \u00a0Nevertheless, I went on this institute\u2019s website, found a photo of the person who apparently referred me and decidedly definitively that we\u2019d never met.\u00a0 My next step was to search for this person on Facebook and see if we had a mutual friend.\u00a0 Lo and behold we did, however even that mutual friend was a rather random acquaintance of mine.\u00a0 Both the best friend of the husband of one of my clients, and also someone with whom I went to rival high schools and debated on rival debate teams.\u00a0 So to drill home the lineage of my connection with this new prospective client – my current client\u2019s husband\u2019s best friend\u2019s cousin\u2019s wife\u2019s assistant called me!\u00a0 How about that!\u00a0 I would have never known that without Facebook and more notably, my referrer may not have referred me were it not for our connection.<\/p>\n
More than that, Facebook can also be used to promote small business – through status updates, pictures, blog postings, etc.\u00a0 And even better, it\u2019s a way to keep in contact with clients during the busiest of times.\u00a0 As an added bonus, now you get to learn all about your client’s hobbies, their families, their backgrounds and you have a better ability to sell to them.\u00a0 You simply get to know them better!<\/p>\n
LinkedIn is the real gem though, particularly for those who are either looking for jobs or looking for clients.\u00a0 Suppose you’re interested in applying for work at a particular company.\u00a0 Wouldn’t it be great if you had a contact there – or if not, that one of your contacts has a contact there.\u00a0 We’ve long known it can be about who you know, and not always what you know.\u00a0 But do you even know who you know?\u00a0 Or, take for example, you’re looking to solicit business from a prospective company.\u00a0 Through LinkedIn, you might be able to find the exact right contact to call upon, and using a simple Google search will often lead you right to that person’s contact information.\u00a0 The solicitation may still not be welcomed, but there’s a much better chance if the homework has been done ahead of time.\u00a0 LinkedIn is your study guide, your Cliff’s Notes, and if it’s not a bookmark of yours, you’re not serious about growing your business. Do you have a Department of Human Freesources?\u00a0 If you don’t, you’re missing out on some of the easiest ways to secure business that exist.\u00a0 Small business owners who shrug off the possible upside of being active in the social networking scene are shooting themselves in the keyboard.\u00a0 Get on Facebook and get on LinkedIn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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