Contacts, Competitors and Recommendations - B2B Lessons from Crete 1

I did spend some great time the last weeks on Crete, the big Greek island in the mediterranean sea. As everyone knows from the news, they have hard times down there moneywise, but the climate is great and the open mindedness and generosity you can experience from the people is amazing ... but that's not the story I want to tell here, at least not this time.

Making money and helping each other out with and in a network, that's the topic, setting up the environment for everyone to make money, that's the topic and I will tell you good and bad experiences, for you to learn more about taking good care of your business!

So we came to a small town, btw. I won't tell names of places, people etc., because I simply write to tell, what we all can learn from others mistakes and success and I do not want to embarrass anyone. We traveled easy by bus, as all people do there, no big luggage, with some previous gathered information from the internet and a guidebook. Without having anything booked in advance, it was always a little adventure, what we would find.

Knowing Crete a little bit and knowing the situation from the news I expected that the business people or the business communities would be prepared to make money, meaning: be prepared to serve customers and expect them! You guessed it: they were not!

Tourists informations were closed for good or only open to very specific times, sometimes, but no one really knew or even cared. So we had to rely on asking around to gather information. And you already guessed it, most people or business people couldn't help us.

You see: it can be hard for a new customer to enter a market, because the market players forget to present themselves and information about them in a way for customers to find them!

Being in business for decades I knew that I simply needed enough information and contacts to get the deal I want. We made it easy for us. We dropped our luggage off and wandered the streets of towns we came to. We had a drink here and there, asked in cafés, hotels, shops, kiosks and got in touch with the people. It always took some time for us to find someone pointing us in the right direction and I started thinking: They all earn money from tourists, but they don't have or give recommendations?

In one town a hotel manager was so kind to tell me, that they don't have appartments but rooms for rent and he knows definitely no appartments for rent in town and I would have to travel out of town to find something like this. What a liar!

In one town we even managed to meet someone in the tourist information office and they were really helpful. They even had a printed magazin with information, but its hard to get, since it is only distributed in this town and primarly through the rarely opened tourist information, so you won't ever find something out about this place before you are there. Would you ever travel to a foreign place you cannot find any information about in advance?

All these business owners want to make money from tourists, their primary source of income. We are talking about places with a population of less than 20k. All tourists need or want a place to stay, food, drinks, transportation, experiences and souvenirs. Its not hard to guess. In such small places people use to know their neighbors or even each other - that's called a network! The tourist information you can even call an organized market place for deal flow. They have networks and market places, but they have a hard time making money - why? Because they don't use it the right way.

For a network or a market place to work every participant has to be active

• sharing information,
• giving recommendations,
• asking for recommendations
• dealing with coupons
• selling packages, etc.

Try this sometimes: point a customer you can't serve to the right business owner and tell him/her that you would be delighted to serve him or to have helped him/her with a good advice and please to send your regards to the other business owner. When you do this on a regular base and talk later to the other business owners, you can start having your own recommendation network that works!

You have to start giving - what goes around, comes around.

Listen to your customers about their interest and needs and think sometimes about who in your network could benefit from serving this needs. Give recommendations, maybe you can sell packages with others (e.g. appartment + car) and earn a percentage commission to increase your income.

Ask your network members who will

• give recommendations,
• put your ad on his homepage (and vice versa)
• include an article from you in a newsletter
• write an article for your newsletter
• distribute you coupons etc.

Remember: Networks don't exist for themselves, they exists for a reason. Its not a oneway street and nothing happens unless you start something happening.

Do you like this article, please give me a "like" and send a recommendation to your followers and friends!

We have a new partner now in the USA. If you would like to know more about earning money in European markets or how to internationalize your business, send me a message and I set you in touch with our new partner for you to be served locally!

I will soon be back with more lessons from Crete!

Dipl.Kfm. Udo Granops

Crystal Clear Consulting GmbH, Berlin

www.crystalclear-ccc.de