Building An Image: Concise, Consistent
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Bart Jackson and Michele Alperin were prepared
for the December 6, 2000 edition
of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Origins of Charisma: Mark Plante
Yuppies don’t have friends, as the saying goes. They
have contacts. Yet for Mark Plante, networker par excellence,
success depends on deftly blurring these two categories. He speaks
at two meetings this month. On Monday, December 11, at noon in the
Lawrenceville School, Plante will set forth his strategies on
“How to Network a Room” for a meeting of the Women In
Development
of Mercer County. The meeting is open only to members and their
guests.
Call 609-883-8100 for membership information. Plante will also speak
to the Princeton Chamber Business Council on “Networking 101:
The Basics of Meeting People and Building Relationships,” on
Wednesday,
December 20, at 7:30 a.m. Cost: $21. Call 609-520-1776.
Plante’s credentials include six years as operations consultant for
Burger King. He was hired by the corporation to carry down the law
to local and district franchisers. Yet he also found that he needed
to help the franchisers meet with and make their wills known to the
upper-echelon corporate executives.
Today, as a motivational speaker, Plante lectures professionally
nearly
100 times a year. “I could speak every day,” he notes,
“but
I hate to travel.” His entire advertising budget for this venture?
Zero. No Yellow Pages, no website — engagements are received
strictly
by networking and word of mouth. Why is it when Plante talks, people
listen?
“My system is basically quite simple,” says Plante.
“Truly,
you can talk to anybody. We are all, in the end, human beings. The
same thing that inspires you to chat, will inspire that top potential
client.” If you enter a room without a specific target, e.g. at
a convention cocktail party, you will want to scoop a broad array
of folk into your net. What works for Plante is the natural approach.
Go directly to the bar. It is the most crowded, mostcongenialplace, and people are most often in line. Folks in line are justwaitingfor a diversion — let it be you.Pause a minute, select someone and introduce yourself(name only) with an outstretched hand. Sounds hackneyed, but twothingswork here. First, claims Plante, “almost no one will refuse yourhandshake and the few perfunctory words that accompany it.”Second,you are just giving your name, not backing it with the profundityof your corporate sponsorship. Also, you are leaving him open torespondwith the obvious query. Make him a bit curious about you.Set up the “Conversation Stack.” Initiate thosequestions that go straight for her primary interests: herself andher career. Plante’s favorite is a three-question series that almostinvariably invokes a verbal essay: a) What line of work are you in?If the convention makes that obvious, ask her position. b) How didyou get into that field? c) Sounds interesting. What would it takefor me — or my young nephew — to get into that field today?At this point you’ve got your subject not merely talking, but givingadvice. Odds of her wanting to meet with you again are good.When you have a specific target individual in a room or youhave managed to get that first appointment, the attitude remains thesame, but the approach deepens.Do your homework. The goal here, Plante insists, is lessto impress people with your knowledge than to show concern and theimportance you place on this meeting. Libraries may well keepnewspaperfiles on your target. Find out if he likes duck hunting. Also findout some good news about the firm’s earnings. Finally, arm yourselfwith some rare tidbit about the firm that indicates a fascinationwith the business.Value your subject’s time. Look at the watch before hedoes and ask if you are taking up too much of his afternoon.Follow up — patiently. “You have to keepremembering,”notes Plante, “that it may take weeks to get your firstintroductionand several weeks more to line up an actual meeting.” Herecommendsa swift, handwritten note after the initial introduction in whichyou remind your contact of where you met, who you are, and that you’dlike to meet further. Tell him that you’ll be phoning him. Wait afew days. Then do it.Plante’s arsenal includes a host of subtleties and tricks usedto draw people out and get them on his side. “And you always knowyou are winning the battle,” smiles Mark, “when they stoptalking about themselves and begin asking you about you. Then thetide has turned in your favor.”Of course no approach works every time, and when things start to gosour, it’s best to fold your handshake and slip away. But before yourun off and pout, Plante suggests you examine your method and seeif it included any of his major DON’Ts:1. Don’t accent The Gap. Going after the top broker inthe room is exactly like going after the prettiest girl at the dance.Don’t make the same mistakes you did in high school. Telling her she’sgosh awful pretty is a drooling redundancy. Telling her how handsomeyou are and beyond someone like her is a put off. So avoid bringingup your relative stations. Ms. Top Broker will be more charmed bythe services you can offer than how dazzled you are by herachievements.2. Don’t push or cling. Avoid the aching craving to stickin that one last pitch, that clever bon mot. You can’t forge alifelongbusiness partner in the first meeting. Let your target know you’realive, interesting, and possibly mutually beneficial. Then leave andlet the intrigue simmer.3. Don’t lecture — particularly on her business. Showyour knowledge of your target’s company through short comments orbetter yet, clever questions. Lengthy expositions aid only sleep.4. Don’t swoop in as a predator. Desperation or greedooze from even the comeliest pores. You can’t hide it. If you entereying the room like a hungry ferret, lunge around glad-handing eachperson and ditching them when they droop in the Boost-My-Career scale,it will show. That top broker will see you coming and flee into hisburrow.5. Do not judge people as losers too quickly. It takes morethan 60 of your precious seconds to discern if a man can help you.Nor does a woman’s trade alone mark her as worthy of your time. Trya little less frantic haste, a little more sincere interest.This gawk, tousle, and shucks method of meeting and treatingeveryone as just plain folks may seem a bit childlike. On the otherhand, maybe the very sharpest thing to do is to make businesspersonal:Strip away the rank and give the high steppers a chance to set a spellwith their feet up. It works for Mark Plante.— Bart JacksonTop Of PageBuilding An Image: Concise, ConsistentJust as every human being has a personal identity, soshould every business have a business image. This image defines thecompany to its owners and employees as well as to its customers.”Animage defines for the business itself what it is and what it shoulddo,” says Arlene Schragger, owner of ads Public Relationsand Marketing. For the customer, an image provides “consistency— knowing what you’re going to get every time.”Schragger, as president of the Mercer New Jersey Association of WomenBusiness Owners (NJAWBO) chapter, will be facilitating a MarketingRoundTable on business images on Monday, December 11, at 7:45 a.m.at Frederick J. Schragger Law Offices, 3131 Princeton Pike, Building1B. Attendees are asked to design and bring to the workshop a YellowPages eighth or quarter page ad as well as a bumper sticker thatcapturesthe essence of their business. Cost: $10. Call 609-882-4586.An image defines the scope and boundaries of a business, both whatthe business does and what it does not do. “A business needs toknow where it’s going, what it’s doing, and why it’s there,” saysSchragger. New businesses in particular need to clarify who they are.”Having an image they can look at, something concrete on paper,helps them to be focused,” she says.As an example, she cites her own business practice. When asked tointroduce her own business, she responds with a statement thatencapsulatesher company’s image: “I will do anything to help my client growhis or her business, as long as it’s legal.” And, indeed, herservices run the gamut: redecorating store windows, decorating officespace, and teaching her clients the basics of networking — whatorganizations to join and how to walk, talk, and present themselves.A well-defined image is also important to the customer; it “tellspeople what you do, and they get to know that’s what you do,”says Schragger. She believes that creating a business image is, inessence, branding. When branding, a business must decide what itoffersthat is unique and distinguishes it from other identical businesses.As an example she uses two hypothetical accounting firms, bothprovidingall basic accounting services. The first firm’s image may be thatit offers “a million different services” and the second thatit offers “personal services.” “Both approaches arevaluable,but it depends on what you need,” says Schragger. A bigger firmmay need the extra services, but a smaller firm may appreciate thehandholding that a more “personal” firm will offer.To create a business image and put it into practice:Write down the target market — to whom the businessis trying to sell.Specify what is unique about the business when comparedto someone else who does the same thing. “A business mustemphasizeits uniqueness and make sure it is part of all the PR, advertising,and image building they do,” says Schragger.Make sure the image is reality-based and comfortable toboth owners and employees. The image cannot be imposed on a companyfrom on high. If the company’s employees have not bought into theimage and do not feel part of it, they will not carry it forth.Be able to deliver what the image promises. “A companycan have lofty images, ideals, and promises,” says Schragger,”but you have to be able to deliver, or people won’t trust youafter the first time.”Ensure that every aspect of the business reflects theimage .”Everything has to coordinate and carry forth the message,”says Schragger. “From the shopping bags they use, to the yellowpages ads, to other ads, brochures, stationery, and uniforms.Otherwiseit’s scattershot, and a scattershot approach doesn’t ever work aswell.”For Schragger, even her company name helps deliver her business’image:the first word, “ads,” is both one of the services she offersas well as her personal initials, and the rest of the company name,”Public Relations & Marketing,” describes what her businessdoes.Schragger graduated from Goucher College in 1965 and taughthigh school Spanish for two years. After doing an extensive amountof volunteer work while her children were small, she went to workas inhouse marketing coordinator for Starr Tours, a motorcoach companyin Trenton. For five years she wrote travel brochures, flyers, andsome of Starr’s ads. She started her own company in 1987.Schragger is now in her second year as president of the five-year-oldMercer NJAWBO, which has 55 members. She has high hopes for theproposedmonthly Marketing Roundtables. At the meetings, which are open tononmembers only once before joining, members will critique and supporteach other’s growth and development in a variety of marketing areas.Says Schragger: “We are hoping that this group grows and becomesan informal board of directors for the members who are involved withit.”Schragger chose the assignment for the December 11 meeting —creatinga Yellow Pages ad and a bumper sticker — to help participantscreate and express a business image that is consistent and concise.”Marketing materials are frequently fragmented and notconsistent,”says Schragger. In addition, she says, what business owners thinktheir marketing materials say to the public often is not what theydo say. The limited space of a Yellow Pages ad or a bumper stickeralso forces the owner to “be concise and precise and get themessagedown to a very few words.”She believes that the ability to express a business’ image withouta lot of verbiage is also critical to networking. “You may haveonly three sentences worth of time to talk to people about yourbusiness,and then they lose interest. You have to get to the essence in orderto keep people’s attention.”Schragger cites General Electric as a master of the business image.When she was watching television talk shows on a recent Sunday, sheappreciated the GE ads that expressed its concise and well-tunedbusinessimage, `GE brings good things to life.’ “GE shows you visuallyhow they work in plastics and turn on lights in stadiums,” saysSchragger. Just as they show and tell the public their image, so doesevery business need to do so. “It makes life so much clearer forthe owner and the person who wants to do business.”— Michele AlperinPrevious StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
