Vito's Networking Tip
Educate, Don't sell.

​It’s very hard to be in a sales position these days. It was always a challenging job; people frequently don’t like feeling like they are being sold something, sales people are rarely portrayed well in movies and TV, and no matter what you feel like, you have to smile, be outgoing, and listen attentively all day and every day.
But over the past 10 years we all changed our shopping habits drastically. Most of the time, when we know we need to buy something we hop online and do a little research and decide what we want before we set food in a store.  (And that’s when we can’t order something with one click right from the living room).
While it sounds cliché, one of the most powerful tactics small business people can utilize is becoming experts in what we do and finding ways to demonstrate that to our community. Reading reviews on various car models before heading to a lot is a great way to prepare, but it’s up to the people who work with cars to know (and help!) a customer who may have been misled by comments online, or if there’s a more affordable or reliable option for them.  
Here’s another cliché that works really well for our small businesses: Knowledge is Power. Customers like to know about what they’re buying and how it will help them. Getting a little smarter is a nice bonus for most of us, too.