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People Networking - Mike Segall

Networking - Discussion between Michael Beale and Mike Segall, November 2007.

Mike Segall FICM is a Marketing Consultant with over 23 years experience in running his own 6 businesses and networking for a living

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http://www.ppimk.com/nlp-podcast/Mike_S.mp3

Michael : Good afternoon Mike. Would you introduce yourself and let everybody know a little bit about what you do.  

Mike : Yes of course, it’s a pleasure to be speaking to you. My name’s Mike Segall, I network for a living, I’m a marketing consultant who has seven different business’s.  

Michael : Would you give us an idea of just one or two of those business’s? So people have a flavour of the sorts of things that you do. 

Mike : Yes, they’re very different – they range from marketing through to debt management and networking. 

Michael : Just to kick off - what does networking actually mean to you?  

Mike : Networking to me, is all about meeting people, being curious about people, finding out what they do – its very important. I come from the school of giving unconditionally, which means that I approach networking with a ‘how can I help you?’ angle, as oppose to a ‘how can you help me?’. And the absolute belief that if you give unconditionally you get back far more than you actually give. 

Michael : And what’s your purpose in networking? 

Mike : My purpose in networking is to help and mentor other people in their business’s, to generate work for them – as well, obviously, to build relationships – because in my book, having reached the wonderfully ripe old age of fifty one, I tend to look to business with people that  I like, trust and respect, and I exhibit quite a high degree these days of quality control for my own clients. 

Michael : So, where and where do you network?

Mike : I network extensively. When I talk about this wonderful phrase ‘networking for a living’, it’s what I do. And what I mean by that is that I work on my business’s and not in my business’s. So you’ll find me networking at breakfast, brunch, lunch, mid-afternoon and evening networking events. 

Michael : So that’s when – where do you do it?  

Mike : I go to two regular breakfast meetings. Both in central London, both very strong networking groups, I also belong to eademy, I’m a life member of ecademy.com which is probably the world largest online networking community. I also belong to three or four Chambers of Commerce, which I find a very good source of networking, and I also run my own networking organisation.  

Michael : So when we’re talking about networking – if you’re going to a networking meeting, you’re going to one of the breakfast that you’re talking about – what do you actually do when you’re there?  

Mike : While I’m actually there, I do what I prepared to do. So the first stage of going to meetings is actually preparing for that meeting – so in advance of going to that meeting, I’ll try and know who’s going to be there. If it’s a regular meeting, I’ll know who’s going to be there, so what I’ll be preparing in advance is my own sixty second presentation, which will be different every week.  

While I’m actually at the meeting I’ll be doing my sixty second presentation, I’ll be networking before the meeting with other group members, I’ll be listening carefully to their presentation, specifically for the specific referrals that they’re looking for, in case I can give them a referral and put some business contacts their way. Then there will typically be a ten minute presentation by one of the members, to give a more in depth look about what it is that they do. And most of the regular weekly meetings will end with a referrals round, in which people stand up and get referrals from each other.

Michael : If you were with a newbie networker, or somebody who had just started networking at one of these meetings, what are the sort of things that you would tell them to focus on?

Mike : The first main focus is to listen – to listen very carefully to what other people are saying. Arrange to have one-to-one meetings, this is a key point of networking, and things to learn when you’re at the meeting – to listen very carefully to what people have to say, and see if there are ways in which you can fit in to what they’re looking for and decide if they are people who can also help your business.  

Michael : How is it that you actually became good at this? What has led you to networking in business? 

Mike : I’ve been working for over twenty years. When you look at some of the things I teach, I’m actually a credited lecturer in networking at London Uiversity, and one of the things I’ve looked at are the attributes that make an outstanding networker. And I know that I’ve got quite a few of those, first and foremost, is that I’m actually naturally curious about people, and if someone says to me that they’re an accountant a lot of people might go ‘Oh here we go, another boring accountant.’ I’m actually much more interested in why they became an accountant in the first place. So I’m curious in people for the sake of them being people, rather than just looking at the label, of what’s on the outside. 

Michael : So, curiosity is one thing – what other things would you mention?

Mike : General interest in people and their business. Outstanding networkers are always, always, good listeners, and are able to extract the important information from what’s being said to them. They’re normally good conversationalists, naturally gregarious people – they don’t have to be loud and flamboyant, because often that gets in the way of a good conversation. But basically you’ve got to be interested more in the other person, in other words, you’ve got to be interested rather than trying to be interesting.  

Michael : Looking at yourself, was this something that you’ve learned over time, or that you were a natural at it, and how do you manage to be good at it now? 

Mike : I think a lot of it is practice, and the more you network, I believe, the better you become at networking. In terms of personality, no I wasn’t always – I mean, I’m a very confident individual, but that wasn’t always the case, I didn’t have public speaking skills, but people aren’t born with public speaking skills –it’s a learned skill, and consequently as years went by, and as I did more networking and grew to understand what it was really all about, I just became better at it. 

Michael : Going into a networking meeting, what do you believe about yourself? 

Mike : Going into a meeting I believe that I actually have something to give to a meeting. So I go into the meeting looking for ways that I can help other people. 

Michael : And if there are people there that you haven’t yet met, what do you generally believe about them? 

Mike : I don’t go in with any preconceived ideas. What I want to do is see what they have to say for themselves and then make some sort of value judgement based on what they have to say and if I find them or their business particularly interesting, I might think that I could help them, or that they could help me, than I’ll talk to them and arrange to have a one-to-one.  

Michael : As you’re networking, do you have a personal mission or vision? Who is Mike as he networks? 

Mike : When I’m in networking mode – do you mean my overall mission? 

Michael : Yes. 

Mike : If I have a mission at all – My mission is to, as I say, network for a living. My overall goal in terms of networking for a living, which I’m incidentally writing a book about called, unsurprisingly, ‘networking for a living’ is to try and put across to other people the way in which I work, because to be honest Mike, I don’t believe that I’m a great visionary, but I do believe that I’m working in a way today that will become much more common in the future, as more people become self employed – and people who are naturally good networkers realise the strong position that puts them in, in terms of actual business, so when you’re working on a business, rather than in a business, you actually have the ability to bring in a lot of new business, which in my particular case I then pass back through to my partners and the staff that work with me.  

Michael : Before I ask you for your contact details, is there anything that you feel that we’ve left out that’s important, is there any last gem, or piece of advice, or suggestion, that you’d like to give to people? 

Mike : Yes, I think the key thing that people get wrong when they’re networking is the follow-up. I’ve talked during this conversation about preparation and what you actually do when you’re in a meeting, but all of those things are a complete waste of time unless you actually follow up. And by follow up, I don’t mean getting back to the office and throwing the twenty business cards that you’ve avidly collected during the meeting into a box, and then doing nothing about them – but actually doing what you said that you’re going to do. 

So if you’ve said to someone ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ than call them tomorrow! Because the one thing that you have in networking is your reputation, that is the key thing – and everything you do and say to people, you are a brand. So I am the brand Mike Segall, and the brand Mike Segall relies on his reputation. And so you need to follow up, and you need to do the things that you said you’re going to do. And as a piece of advice, that’s probably the best piece of advice that I could give to anybody that’s going out their and networking. 

Michael : Excellent – can you give people your contact details?  

Mike : Yes of course. The best way to contact me is either by email, which is newbusinessgeneration@yahoo.co.uk or on my mobile which is 07739516596 or through my main office which is 02075693288 

Michael : Thank you very much  

Mike : Thank you.