Business Networking With Martin Morris

We’re always told your network is your net worth, but how can you grow your business network? How do leaders and entrepreneurs establish good business relationships? Martin Morris from C-Sky shares tips for making good connections and improving your networking skills. Martin Morris is one of Australia’s top business mentors and the group chairman of C-Sky. He specialises in brokerage business structures and has over 35 years of experience across a broad variety of markets, including construction and property developments, telecommunications, networking, e-commerce, insurance, financial services, health, training and education.

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Business Networking and Its Benefits:

The word network can mean a whole lot of things. It can mean a team of people getting up for breakfast, swapping business cards and developing friendships. It could be more formal like the Lions Club and joining a nonprofit organisation or a community group. There are many ways to meet new people and develop relationships.

Relationships are important in business. Without relationships, you don’t get business. However, creating a business networking strategy is also important. Not all relationships lead to new business. Martin explains, “I can be friends with somebody. I can have a relationship but not business.” And sometimes, the circle can be so big that you forget to be around the core people who are going to deliver long-term, sustainable business relationships because you’re growing together as individuals and you’re helping each other achieve success.

How Do You Network Effectively?

All the people we work with would most likely resonate with the other people that we would work with, so start networking with the people that you have to spend most of your time with. Network with your family, network with your employees, network with your clients. Start a client monthly club, get your best clients in, have some fun and ask some questions. Because you’ve got association, it’s a very relaxed, nonprospective type process.

To Grow a Beautiful Tree, You Need to Cull It:

Years ago, we happened to focus on the automotive industry. What we didn’t realise is as a category as a whole, it is very price sensitive. The whole market is changing price all the time, and there’s no relationship in price so we’ve transitioned away from automotive businesses. Today, we work more with manufacturing and finance sectors and we can’t say how much happy we are about both. When you start a business, you take what you get in the beginning and then you get 10 clients and then 20 and you just grow. However, no matter what you do, you’re not going to get full growth out of all of them or be in a relationship growth opportunity. There will come a point where you start getting efficiency of time, cost of products and processing so it’s best to bite the bullet. But don’t just get rid of them. Find another player and offer them the client list. You choose what clients you want to keep and then define your numbers off that. There will be the 80-20 group where 80% of income comes from 20% of your clients. Think about what you’re doing to help them grow because your income increases as they grow.

Know Your Battles and Where You Want to Be:

Choose your Battle - Dorks DeliveredMartin also shares, “I found that I’ve been happy to be involved in associations where I make a contribution to help that organisation do something out of purpose. I’m far gone from just going to a meet club or having some time together. I’d rather choose to spend time with the people that I’ve already got a relationship with, have built it over the years, and have a defined purpose over that particular deep existing relationship—and that takes time. I’ve had relationships with men and women that I’ve known for over 30 years. I don’t have to be around them regularly, but I could make a phone call tomorrow if I was in trouble, and they would be there to help. If I got a new concept or idea and I want them to get involved, they’re the first year money coming because we’ve got that trust.” And if you’re going to do some things with a man, meet his family and observe. You can quickly see at dinner table how a man treats and respects his wife. This is important because the way you operate in your home, as a leader, as a man, how you respond, how you handle questions, how your general demeanour is in the household is how you’re going to perform at work.

Commitment, Marriage and Instant Gratification:

It seemed like the whole world is becoming more and more into instant gratification. People want to listen to a certain song song, they jump on Spotify. If they want to watch that movie, they jump on Netflix or one of the other providers. They want to date, they swipe enough right and end up on a date with someone. However, like a good marriage, a good professional network requires trust and commitment and building that takes time. Initially, a lot of people will think that you’re only there because you will get something out of it. You’ll have a dating period and then an engagement period, and the wedding before marriage—that could be three years or it could be six years. Martin says, “I try to develop what I learned in my younger years from being involved in every swap club. I’m going to breakfast and swapping cards, but actually churning down what sort of relationships I want to form.” For example, people in accounting, legal and financial planning, those who work around people’s money and paperwork are people of great value because we could learn from them, build counteract referral relationships, and develop long-term relationships.

Breaking the Barrier:

Breaking Barrier - Dorks DeliveredWhen you say “I can help you,” you go to another person’s barrier so they close up. Most people are suspicious—what’s in it for them? It’s just how we grew up. We don’t like people coming to our space. It’s like at the airport where no one sits next to each other. There’s always an empty chair between people. If it’s about relationships, it’s about being relaxed. And when you first meet people, you’ve got maybe 5 to 20 seconds to get that relaxed feeling. When you come to events and meet someone, don’t even shake the person’s hand. When you put your hand in their space, you’ve just invaded their space. You forced your hand into their space. It’s different from when you just introduce yourself and they put their hand and shake yours. Here, they’ve come out of their barrier. When networking, Martin adds you have to come to a point where whatever you’re going to offer is done because they want it from you rather than you want to give it to them. When someone approaches you and wants your help, they’re coming out of their barrier.

Permissions and Presentations:

Get an agreement before a discussion. Ask the person, “Would you mind if we sat and discussed this? I know your business is important to you, so I’ll run through this as quickly as I can. Is that okay?” Once you have their permission, you can go on saying, “Before I go through how I believe XYZ company can help your company, I’d just like to show you a little bit about who we are, what we do, what our services, and if you like what you see, I’d love for you to ask me some questions.” It’s good to ask questions such as, “Do you know what we do?” Most likely, people will say no and when people say no, it opens a parachute in mind to receive information (i.e. what you do). That breaks down the barrier and now you have permission to do a presentation. A lot of people skip asking for permission and go straight to the presentation. They think that because they’re a salesperson, they have the right to ask questions and the right to present their products. You’ve got to get that right before you even proceed. Otherwise, their minds will be going, “I know you’re here to sell me something.” You’ve got to get them talking about themselves before you even get into about anything else. And you got to be fast and efficient. 

Martin Morris:

Martin Morris is a business strategy scientist, master salesperson, entrepreneur, trainer, educator, coach and an expert in the facilitation of business connections and strategic futures planning. He is the group chairman of C-Sky, one of Australia’s top business mentors and CEO Review’s Financial Services Chairperson of the Year 2021 (Australia). Harness ancient wisdom in combination with modern business practice and technology! Discover C-Sky.

How Can Dorks Delivered Improve Your Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is key to keeping your business not just healthy, but competitive. As a top-tier IT services provider for more than a decade, we’ve seen the security landscape evolve. That’s why we’ve designed a set of solutions specifically to meet the needs of SMBs.

Unlike most security providers, Dorks Delivered works with SMB clients every day. We understand your environment, your risks, your budget constraints. We’ve created a set of affordable solutions that together create a comprehensive cybersecurity program to safeguard your data, help meet your compliance requirements, and give you a significant competitive advantage

Managed Cyber Security Services Can Provide Your Business With a Number of Benefits:

1. By outsourcing the management of your security systems to us, we can help reduce the overall cost of your security budget. This can free up internal resources which can be better used elsewhere within the business.

2. Our managed security services can provide you with peace of mind that your systems are being monitored and managed by experts 24/7. This can help identify and resolve any potential issues quickly and efficiently before they have a chance to impact your business operations.

3. Cyber security services that match your current set-up and business needs can help improve your security posture by providing you with access to the latest security technologies and best practices. This can ensure that your business is better protected against the ever-evolving threat landscape.

Cyber security services help protect your computer networks and systems from unauthorized access or damage. These services range from data encryption and firewalls to intrusion or cyber-attack detection. Let’s determine the best cyber security service for your business. Start with a Free Dark Web Scan—we’ll search the dark web for compromised credentials associated with your domain.

Financial Data Protection: All You Need to Know

Financial data protection is among the top concerns for most companies doing business today. Financial data is highly sensitive and must be protected according to international standards. Any organization that handles customer payments of any kind needs financial data protection. From healthcare and insurance to financial services and ecommerce websites, none are exempt. Should an organization suffer data loss of any kind, they risk severe penalties that could impact their business continuity.

Financial Data: What Is It?

Financial data, by definition, is any information related to a financial account or transaction. These include customer account numbers, credit card numbers, transaction data, sales data, purchase history, credit information, and credit rating data. Financial data also covers a company’s assets and liabilities. It includes real estate, equipment, furniture, computers, intellectual property, patents, and debt owed.

Why Financial Data Needs to Be Protected?

Under legislation like the GDPR (or any data privacy legislation), companies are directly accountable for ensuring financial data security. They are also responsible for ensuring that any third-party vendors handling financial data for them are also compliant.

Financial Data Protection Best Practices

Knowing financial data protection best practices is an excellent first step to protecting your organization. Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Enforce Strong Passwords:

Compromised credentials are one of the most common causes of financial data breaches. According to a Verizon study, 61% of breaches are caused by unauthorized people accessing employee accounts.

2. Implement Role-Based Access:

Not every employee needs to have access to all aspects of your systems. Restrict employee access to files and folders they need and nothing more. For example, your marketing department does not need access to financial data, and your accounting department does not require access to your website’s back-end code.

3. Train Your Staff to Recognize Security Threats:

These days, hackers don’t waste their time hacking into systems. They can gain access much faster and easier from the inside, either through phishing emails or by tricking employees into clicking on malicious links.

We’re a Managed IT service providers that delivers technological solutions to the problems that stand in the way of building a successful and secure business.

Does Your Small Business Struggle With IT?

Small businesses can often struggle to hire, train, and retain the right IT talent to keep their technology up-to-date. Our services for small and growing businesses are designed to make life simple for business owners who don’t want to manage IT themselves.

Our IT services for small businesses can help by:

✔  Taking IT off your hands and delivering a predictable monthly cost so you can focus on your business.

✔ Reducing disruptions to your business by upgrading old technology and moving away from the break/fix support model.

✔  Providing a single point of contact for faster IT support and a consistent response and resolution time.

✔  Ensuring your systems and data are secure and backed up.

✔  Leveraging the power of cloud infrastructure and apps for your business.

✔  Save time otherwise spent hiring, training, and managing multiple vendors.

IT Outsourcing Solutions for Small Business

As a small business, it doesn’t always make sense cost-wise to staff a full IT team, but you may still have urgent IT needs to address. 

Scalable Support and Services:

By outsourcing IT, you get the support you need when you need it without paying salaries for in-house resources. We can also scale up or down services as needed so you’re never paying for more than what you need.

Predictable Budgeting and Service Levels:

With Service Level Agreements and a Managed Services partnership, you’ll have predictable monthly costs and confidence in support levels meeting your business requirements.

We work with small to medium-sized businesses to help them implement and manage their technology needs. Come to visit us!

White-labelled Australian based support for your IT Company

Having spent so many years in the IT ecosystem, we understand what it takes to run an IT company. From the sparkle in your eye when you did your first job to the motivation to learn all of the new technology solutions for your clients. Times change and maybe you are starting a family or want to go on a holiday the pain you go through to grow and then be locked into your job can be disheartening. We saw the problem and made a solution, we are here to step up and let you regain focus as your right hand man!

When you run you own business you cannot afford to sit back and take time off, you cannot afford to get sick or be there for your children’s milestones.

Make us your Right-Hand man!

Our complete support system can help you out through any of the hurdles that you might be facing. We can reduce your stress by taking care of your duties in your absence or guide you through your expansion process and even sharing your workload. This all happens seamlessly as a white label service, protecting your company and your clients.

Services offered under the Complete Support are:

•  Answering Phone Calls
• Completing Support Requests
• Going Onsite For Smaller Jobs
• Helping Your Team With Project Rollouts
• Providing You With A Plethora Of Tools To Speed Up Your Deliverables
• Long-Term Partnering With On-Demand Support For Managing Your Workload Through Staff And Client Expansion
• Documenting Your Clients Networks

Work with a Managed IT company who can help you streamline your systems and operations management. Implementing high‐tech solutions to ensure the integrity, uptime and accountability of all internal system processes gives you the assurance that you have continuity.

Cloud Services for Small Business - Why Cloud Computing Is Essential?

As a small business owner, you’ll already understand how efficiency and cost-effectiveness are vital to your operation.

Technology has a large part to play in keeping costs down and productivity up, and no matter what type of small business you have, it’s essential to invest in the right infrastructure and management tools to help you do this.

The rise of cloud computing has proved to be a boon for any business, but small companies in particular can benefit from the way it boosts productivity, enables automation, and improves workflow.

In a time when more people are working remotely, cloud computing also has obvious advantages for connecting your employees wherever they may be. Below, we’ll take a look at exactly what cloud computing means, what its main features are, and why it is essential for your small business’s needs.

What Is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is on-demand access, via the internet, to computing resources—applications, servers (physical servers and virtual servers), data storage, development tools, networking capabilities, and more—hosted at a remote data center managed by a cloud services provider (or CSP). The CSP makes these resources available for a monthly subscription fee or bills them according to usage.

The Main Benefits of Cloud Computing

It Makes Data More Accessible:

This is the big one­—cloud computing means you and your employees can access the data and programs you need from literally anywhere, as long as there’s an internet connection. This is invaluable to a small business without a physical workspace, and it’s also useful for workers who are temporarily away from the office.

It Gives You Multiple Ways of Communicating:

When all or most of your employees work remotely­—they may even be scattered across the globe in some businesses—it can be difficult to maintain a sense of cohesion and connectivity. Cloud computing addresses this by making the same real-time data and programs available to everyone, meaning physical distance does not have to hinder efficiency or company unity.

It Lets You Work Together, from Anywhere:

With access to data from any smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, there’s no need for employees to be at the office in person. This eliminates the need for commuting, so you can save time, cut costs (either for the worker or for the boss who pays their travel expenses), and reduce pollution from traveling.

Takeaways on Cloud Computing for Small Businesses

Cloud computing is a future-proof investment that can optimize, protect, and grow your small business. It pays to carry out thorough research into the various cloud service options available so that you can pick the right fit for your company.

Remember that no cloud computing system is completely without risk, so make sure you train all staff fully and get them comfortable with using cloud services.