Last week was a busy week, and WOW, was it ever productive.

When is the last time you felt that your networking efforts were truly productive?

Networking is an essential element of your overall sales strategy. It is so important to your sales success that it requires some thought as to what you want to accomplish when you are out there. Where most networking approaches tend to fall flat is that people almost always confuse activity with effectiveness. If your goal is to acquire new customers and increase sales (almost always is) then making the time to ruthlessly evaluate where you are spending your networking time is essential.

Better to attend 3 of the right networking events than 10 of the wrong ones.

Time is money, and I have certainly wasted my fair share of it. How well are you tracking your own time? Do you know if you are generating a positive or negative ROI a for the time you’ve invested? Have you enrolled enough clients to make it worth it?

I met 35 great people last week at the very targeted events I chose to attend. Thinking carefully about my business strategy and goals, I asked myself a few questions before saying yes. You should too:

-Is my client likely to be in the room? Seems pretty obvious, but so many people that I’ve met haven’t actually stopped to consider the question. You need to network with groups of people who are qualified to buy your product or service. Everyone is NOT your client. Target your efforts by reaching out to the meeting organizers to ask who typically attends and how many. Ask people in your network if they’ve attended. If so, what was their experience? Do some homework to be sure this is the right place to invest your time. You might find instead that using the time to make phone calls or participate in a few online groups garners better results.

-What will it cost me to attend? Use this formula: determine your total time to attend, which includes drive time. Multiply this number x your hourly rate + event fee = your cost to attend. Let’s say I’m considering an event that runs from 1-4pm and costs $250. I need to add an hour of drive time on each end just in case. That’s 5 total hours from my day. If I bill at $225 per hour that works out to $1,125 + $250 for the event fee = $1,375. For this event to generate a positive return on my investment (time & money), I must close at least 1 new coaching client @ $1,500 per month in order to break even and make a small profit. But the real goal would be to secure enough clients to more than pay for the investment. Be sure to do a little analysis before saying yes.

-Does attending have other business benefits for me? Maybe you are like me and look for speaking opportunities. Perhaps you want to volunteer with a business group that would help to build your network while you supported someting important to you. It’s OK to attend events when sales isn’t the specific goal, but you do need to be clear that this is your purpose. If you are responsible for business development – sales – you really have to think carefully about where you spend your time.

Whether you network online or off…define your purpose, frame out a plan, focus on the right activities and measure your results. Ask yourself and others tough questions before saying yes to requests for your time. Your ruthless commitment to scheduling only top priorities will get you faster results with less effort. Isn’t that how it ought to be?

Friday, I attended the 5th Annual Pink Magazine empowering women event. Held at the Intercontinental Hotel, it attracted business women from all over Atlanta interested in business building and professional development. Segments on Leadership, Marketing, Balance and Finance followed the kick-off keynote delivered by author, Gail Evans. What I appreciated most about Gail’s comments was her reminder that we – as women – have not come as far as we might think. One key place still holding women back, according to Evans, is the lack of teamwork. Too often, women are still trying to go it alone. It is an important point for women to think about.

Later in the day, I headed to Emory Goizueta Business School to talk with a roomful of budding entrepreneurs about social media for smart sales™. As the way people buy business products and services continues to evolve, the sales process must adapt to this new buying behavior, which is largely internet based.

It was interesting that between the two events a common theme for the day emerged. Authenticity was the first theme to emerge early in the morning. The second was that successful people make mistakes, fall down, pick themselves back up, learn from the experience and move on.

Authenticity and transparency are becoming vital skills when doing business in our digital economy. The success of the buyer/supplier relationship is based on mutual trust. Representing yourself and your business in open, honest ways are critical to your success. Buyers are a bit fed up with the hollow promises of vendors more concerned about their personal goals and not the goals of their prospective buyers. “Over deliver” should be the customer loyalty theme shouted from the corporate mountaintops. Do the unexpected and separate yourself from others in your field.

It was an inspiring day really. All day I was surrounded by people who understand that success comes from making a commitment to our professional development. That means investing time and money. It also means taking risks, making mistakes and learning from them, so we can achieve even more. In email I received from Seth Godin, he had this to say…

As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring. With more to lose and more people to lose it, meetings and policies become more about avoiding risk than providing joy.

Embrace risk, embrace change, create incredible customer experiences and ignore anyone who tries to take you off course. Always remember that success is never earned while merely sitting on the sidelines!

A series of recent events has me thinking about how “stuck” people seem to be in their approaches to situations of all kinds. As human beings, I suppose its part of our hard wiring to resist change, even when presented with information suggesting we move in another direction would be wise. Reminds me of the movie – Groundhog Day. Bill Murray portrays Phil Connors an egotistical TV weatherman faced with living one day in his life over and over again. Connors is presented with the rare opportunity to take a different path when faced with the same circumstances. It is a clever film about do over’s and the challenges of changing our ways.

That brings me to the topic of sales.

Personally, I think it is about time for a serious shake up in traditional thinking about the sales process. Business is anything but traditional these days. Sales must adapt.

Some 78% of buyers consistently say that they go to the web to do research on something they plan to purchase according to Anderson Analytics.

Buying behavior has changed. These buyers are not interested in meeting with you personally to learn about your products and services. They can research you more quickly online. Further, they have more faith in the feedback from the social community than they do from vendors and advertisers who are clearly biased in their opinion of their capabilities. You can’t blame them.

Sales behavior and the approach to the sales process need to adapt to attract this new breed of buyer. A social sales strategy is required.

This statement usually draws some strong reactions from those sales professionals locked into their own methodology. They firmly, but politely reject the idea that using tools like LinkedIn to generate sales works. To them networking in a virtual world doesn’t have the same oomph as meeting people face to face. What they miss is that you do not need to ditch the tried and true, but it does mean that the effective use of social systems to create sales relationships must now be integrated into the sales process.

You won’t make money overnight!

Another area of resistance that often surfaces is an attitude that if it doesn’t make you money overnight then there can’t be much to it. Such an odd attitude really, because seasoned sales professionals know that it takes time to build a book of business. Starting a corporate sales job today would not mean I’d close a sale the next day. You get to know the customer base, you plan your introduction strategy, make calls and set appointments to meet with core clients…all of these tasks and more go into kicking off a new sales relationship. So like the building of a new sales territory, your investment in moving to a social selling approach will take time and patience.

Back to Groundhog Day…

Murray’s character has the opportunity to relive one pivotal day in his life…over and over again. The idea is that he learns from mistakes made in the prior 24 hours, which hopefully means better decisions and choices moving forward.

Given the choice, what about you?

Will you reboot your sales system and start with a fresh eye? Or, will you chose to remain caught in an endless cycle of doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different sales result?