It’s a natural habit that when you’re over-the-moon excited about something, the first people you will turn to are your close friends and family members. You’ll find yourself itching with joy to spill all the details of your biggest accomplishments, gigantic moments of success, and the newest products or services you’ve decided to add to your Rolodex.


But one thing you might not realize, as you bask in your very own moment of career bliss, is that those closet to you could start to feel like you’re overwhelming them with business news, all the time, and they have tuned out. That’s why you might start to notice that you’re getting more Facebook love from your good pals when you post business things or that when you’re asking them to share, buy, attend, or take any other action to support you, you’re getting a very muted response.

Wondering what the best ways are to approach your personal network of friends and family are when you’re trying to promote your business? Here are five annoying-free ways to do just that.

1. Don’t Make it Just About You

Think about it like this: pretend you were at a party with all of your friends and family members. If you spent the entire time talking to them just about you and your accomplishments and your business asks, people would get bored and really frustrated. Make sure that your conversations with your close network of people are not always about you.

Ask them about what’s up in their life, see how you can help them out, and provide them with material that’s not just promotion all the time. Keep your promotional activity online and in person to a limited frequency every single month.

2. Give Your Personal Network Inside Access

One benefit you can provide your personal network so that they feel like they are part of your success, is to provide them with inside access to whatever it is you are promoting. Perhaps you offer them to sign up as beta testers, hand over exclusive promo codes to them, or let them try and review a product or service before it’s open to the public. Giving them an “in” to what you are releasing will make them feel special and like they mean something more to you than the general public.

3. Skip the Cold Calls & Emails

Go ahead and take your loved ones off your cold call and email list. Instead of pushing them to buy, buy, buy, make more times to have one-on-one conversations with them. Take them off any generic communication list you have and commit to spending the time to tell them about what it is you’re up to in a more personal way.

4. Give Them a Reason Why

The best way to tap into your personal network is to, of course, get personal. Be sure to give the people you know best an individual reason why they should support you and what benefit they will personally get from supporting you. That way, you are mending your “ask” to your audience and it will come off less like a script and more like something you’ve spent time thinking about and brainstorming per person.

5. Throw An Exclusive Party

Everyone enjoy a party, especially when there are free things at the party. Get the party catered with drinks, food, and even product or service demos too. Maybe there are even giveaways at the party so that those who are close to you can help celebrate and get in on our action too.


WRITTEN BY

Jen Glantz