Network, Network, Network - Why Your Business Depends On It
oh man yeah I just I I just like can't it's a Brazil was favored in the in in the world cup to win and they just got eliminated by Croatia and I had to watch that live well yeah so you know that's that's that's how that goes I'm just uh all right I made sure that we were on live so I can see us that's good we're there awesome hello hey Facebook land hello um so uh for those of you joining us uh you may be watching us live where you you may be watching the recording of This welcome uh my name is Damien Reed and uh if you're watching this on one of my feeds then you probably know who I am but I'll just say that uh I'm an international best-selling author and uh the um a performance and freedom lifestyle mentor and coach and uh I speak and I run events and do all sorts of fun stuff mostly involved in in getting people um living their freedom lifestyle and uh today we're gonna have a chat uh with Mia tour Mia I'm I'm great I'm grateful for you being here to have a chat with me it could have been a very boring thing if I was doing this by myself thanks so much for being here and uh Mia why don't you tell everybody just a little bit about yourself just uh who you are and what you do and of course it's a testament to networking that I'm here at all because you you know we we have connected to each other in the past and you reached out and invited me to be here and chat with you today about networking uh so glad to to be able to be here um and you know I'm sending my my heartfelt uh thoughts to all you Brazil fans out there uh but you know plot twist I love a good plot twist yeah so my name is Mia and I am a relationship marketing specialist and so what I really believe in my business is called authentic networker and you know at the time I named my business I thought is this try is the word authentic overused because you get authentic jeans or I thought you just slap the word authentic in front of anything and you expect it to sell but when I had asked many of my clients what makes this brand stand out all of them talked about authenticity and if I were to back up where my brand came from it was because before I was in corporate I used to work in museums and Parks as an educator so I did a lot of curriculum design for big organizations things like exhibit design or you know the aquarium would say we have this really boring scientific concept can you bring it to life and engage people and so I had this incredible experience where I had to take these very boring organizational messages like so dry so a scientist and then I had this incredible multi-disciplinary team of graphic designers and scientists and Educators and I got to bring it to life and make these immersive experiences for people and it paid pennies it paid nothing or else I would still be in it because I loved it but when I moved into business I realized what a gift that is being able to take something that you believe in and I don't know if you've ever had this experience Damien but telling someone what you do and you believe in it so passionately and their eyes just glaze over like uh-huh especially if you're in a saturated Market or if you're if your industry is a little obscure to people they just they don't get it yeah and working with business owners to really weave that authenticity into your voice so you can be you in your business and you can get your value across to others that's fantastic I started doing this yeah I I just yesterday I just had this conversation with one of my business partners I'm involved in five different businesses right now and one of them and I we're having this chat and I was talking about how you know right now inside of my uh industry it doesn't it to a certain extent it doesn't really matter what you say because the people who I know cannot produce results and the ones that can produce results or do produce results say almost exactly the same thing yeah right and the testimonials might not even be real the results that they talk about producing might not even be real and it's getting so much harder for people to distinguish amongst who's really being authentic and who's just putting up the front to be able to distinguish right and and I feel for I feel for the people who are on the other side trying to make sense out of you know should I should I work with this person or should I work with the person and and so yeah that authenticity that you're talking about so important like and and I want to bring it let's bring it to networking because that's the topic so can I can I draw the connection for you then how we get authenticity into networking because they're not really they're kind of connected but there's no there's not really a direct train that runs from authenticity to networking but what happened was I had this relationship marketing coaching in me I had this expertise and I had zero clients and I was not a very good marketer at the time and I had little kids at home and I I decided to network but let me go to networking events and gosh you know I found it so hard to be taken seriously I found the networking uh it was shallow I found so much of the time there was a lot of posturing like we're all wearing armor we're flinging business cards and each other and it didn't feel real it really felt like I had to go in and have this impression of increase all the time not really be myself and then I thought you know what forget that I used harsher language but I was like no I'm missing networking group and here's what I want I said it's fairly selfish I wanted a networking group that was close to my home on the night when I had a babysitter and in addition to that I wanted to involve real genuine human connections and I said we are going to connect as human beings first and then we are going to move into knowing when it's time to talk about business because there's that gray area where you don't know am I supposed to be social right now it's supposed to be business it's It's Tricky so I created this format where people would connect with genuine curiosity very funny icebreakers real connections and then we would move into business connections after that and this thing grew over the next three years we grew into 105 cities in five different countries this little concept of connecting like a human being first and what I've learned is that if you can create those human connections we talk a lot about the know like trust Factor but if you can use these human connections holding space for others to really build that no like trust factor and particularly for the leaders people who lead networking events and in that leadership you can really distinguish yourself among many other business owners who do what you do so there is your credibility grows your your unique value proposition is much more secure when you're also organizing an event and creating a space that's not your regular old pitch Fest but where people can really feel like they've built a good connection and then you can build referrals out of that so that's how all of it came to networking that's how I filled my practice it wasn't just my expertise in holding space for people that made a huge difference because business coaches are a dime a dozen yeah absolutely this made a big difference absolutely wow okay so just uh I want want to make sure that people know how to find those events so Mia where do they go to find uh your 100 how many cities did you say you were in now this is pre-pandemic so you know can you imagine at the time that the pandemic hit that first lockdown yeah 105 in-person networking groups and so my clients were these group organizers yeah so many of us had to Pivot our businesses but I suddenly found myself having to assist 105 people to each pivot their in-person business and that was staggering for me yeah we all took a loss during the pandemic but our groups are at about a third of that now we're running at about 30 active groups right now and then we do online work uh online meetings for that entire group so you can find the Meetup group and and see if there's one local to your city at authentic networkers with an s.com and that actually leads you to our made up Pro page that's got all the different events running fantastic and you guys I'll put the link Down Below in the comments notes or whatever so that you know that as well so you know that's awesome all right so I read um and it's one of the reasons that I called this particular um thing uh thing this particular discussion I called it network network why your business depends on it I read and and I actually quoted this stat in my book which I wrote eons ago now it seems like a lifetime ago that I wrote that that 9 out of 10 business owners that their business depends on them being able to successfully Network I would believe that yeah um what do you see in your practice that supports that statistic like oh I'll use something um I have a I have a take on networking that I think a lot of people you might Intuit this but I've created a framework for networking that's a little bit different than what other people present and here's this where I see people succeeding in networking is not chasing clients we all know this if you've been in BNI you've heard you know Ivan Meisner talks a lot about farming and not hunting you know you're not out there to bag a client we're there to sow seeds but still I find that many people when they Network are trying to network to the room and not trying to network through the room and what I've come up with that's a little bit different is that I believe that there's a minimum of five different types of networking connections to scan for and so you do have your ideal client you meet someone and you say you know Damien what do you do and you tell me what you do and I go oh what percentage of the people you are that ideal client on the spot that are like yes you I've been looking for you right maybe pause percentage yeah maybe why I would say for me maybe like one in one in ten is is like my ideal client but but and for different reasons you know might be the wrong time for them it might be they're not you know they're not actually ready to to exactly Etc right yeah absolutely they may need you but they may not be a high noon so I mean your ideal client at High Noon ready to buy small and you can nurture of course you can nurture these people for a long time and they may eventually become your client but it's still you're still at this point trading hours for dollars you are still hustling it's it's a one-to-one connection right and so we don't go and spend our entire day in a networking event to make a single one-to-one connection because of many people do that and it takes a long time it takes a long time to build that relationship yeah but there's a second type of Ideal or of networking connection and that is for example a collaborator maybe you meet someone who's not your ideal client May someone like you and me so I it's possible I need your services absolutely it's possible you need my services but what we noticed immediately is oh there's a mindset connection here there is something about your knowledge that complements my knowledge and look at this bam we can put something together and now we've doubled our audience absolutely now I can reach your audience and you can reach mine and we can we can share our expertise and so that that point to Leverage is our knowledge sometimes you'll meet that collaborator and that expands your audience immediately right so that doubles your traffic a third type of connection are referrals so maybe I'm selling lipstick I meet you and you're not the biggest lipstick consumer but goodness you know someone who likes lipstick right you can connect me I'm a single individual or perhaps you serve an audience very similar to mine where you can funnel referrals my way and we can develop a long-term referral connection right so that those those long-term referrals referrers uh you bring them into your orbit and you can have really healthy ongoing feeds of warm referrals to and from each other you have to set up that that partnership and it's a different conversation than me just sitting you down and trying to sell you lipstick it's really talking about what do our ideal clients have in common and where do referrals make sense and how are we going to follow up on those so that's the third type so if I tried to sell you the lipstick directly I'm out of luck if I sit down and talk to you about referrals it might be different sure fourth type of connection is a simple a supporter I call them supporters but it might be you know we need business friends I think a lot of us had a Thanksgiving supper with our families this year and but what do you do family doesn't care no one wants to hear about your marketing your friends may not get it but sometimes it's just great to have those does those business friends because gosh it's isolating right like it takes it takes a mental health toll on us and so those people who are my those people are my co-working pals right I like to share your people right we hit up a place together so we Co-op course so a supporter might look like that it might be people who just come and like your page they cheer you on a supporter could also be a mentor it's someone that you begin to follow and you know oh gosh you pick up some social media tips from them and you get three clients from that from their free offer you learn something and it adds to your business the supporters can also add Foundation to your business I can't be a webmaster and an accountant and a social media Guru and all of these things but I can use my network to put those supports in place that allow me to serve more yeah yes and that's so powerful in networking you're using it to build Foundation that's what the supporters are for and I'm not going to sell them all lipstick I'm just not right it's not about selling to them but really think we go in kind of arms across like don't sell me anything you know what they may have something that can really revolutionize the way you do business and keeping an open mind even if that person's pitch is not perfect recognizing they're a human being and they may have something in it for you is really important and the last the last networking connection all powerful is the influencer not necessarily The Tick Tock influencer but an influencer in this case meaning someone who has an audience of your ideal client so it could be can I speak on your stage can it it's like a collaborator on steroids so with an influencer uh for example I had one celebrity client that came to me out of nowhere which was amazing but that person was an influencer with many of my ideal clients and I got to create a networking event for his Mastermind program and that was amazing so being able to work with that influencer which is a long-term relationship involving a lot of givers game type of principles having that influencer relationship which you might grow over years can catapult to your business an endorsement for them is like a gold stamp of credibility on what you do Our Town networking can help you it's not that you're trying to sell to the people in the room you are creating I I call it a constellation right we are creating that constellation to tell the story of your business from many different angles and if you can do this well it will boost your business from all sides I love that Mia you know I'm always constantly talking about people creating what I call the freedom lifestyle and the people who don't know what I mean when I say that the freedom lifestyle for me is defined by an individual as their ideal life it's that thing that you think about when you close your eyes and you dream like if my life could look the way that I want it to look minus you know obstacles and money and time and all of those things what would that look like and that's the lifestyle and for people it's different but I'm really clear that networking as we're talking about it and meeting those five types of people when people are networking whether that's in a group setting or they do one-on-one meetings with people those that nebulous that constellation of people that you're talking about is critical for someone to create their freedom lifestyle there's no way for you to actually get to that ideal life if you're not not connecting with other people people who you could sell to people who could help promote you people who you Mentor people who could be referral Partners all of the things that you said absolutely critical for anybody who wants to create that lifestyle so when I start to hear people resisting networking whether that be group or one-on-one right away I know they're they're starting to get themselves in the way of being able to create that ideal life yes and I can understand why people resist so can I hear all of the things yeah let's talk about that I'm an introvert number one biggest introvert you ever met and I somehow ended up five networking groups I'm like oh what did I get myself if you do it well you get to have those conversations on your terms what when networking doesn't feel good is when it's that posturing and that arm and that the small talk and the feeling fake and then the having to follow up with people that aren't necessarily your ideal type if you feel like a waste of time for sure but if you can have if you can ask the right questions and select a small number of people that you want to follow up with after a networking event it's not about quantity it's about quality yeah and you know what the question to ask is it is describing your ideal client well and asking do you know anybody like that do you so here's who I serve do you know anyone like that and they go oh my gosh they'll say it's me they're your ideal client I know that person referral partner I serve them too collaborator I have a whole audience of them influencer right and if it goes nowhere maybe they're a supporter maybe there's something else that's okay yeah not everyone's going to be able to serve you but being able to really describe who you serve and how you want to help them makes a difference and for those people you know like you said you're you're uh you're in an introvert people don't believe when I say I'm also an introvert there it's just something that I I said a very good friend of mine yesterday last night we were talking and I said I'm introverted and she said you are so not introverted like I have to bring myself out to be with people being with people actually drains my energy as much as I love that's what I love to do it's my passion it's what I am I here on the in the world to do but I love my quiet time to myself like just to do my thing so when people go out to speak I mean you and I both know and and folks that are watching this if you hesitate for networking it may be because you know one of the things that people fear most is speaking in public whether that be speaking on a stage or speaking one-on-one so you might hesitate to that I often think about networking in a couple of contexts one is what you've said which is absolutely brilliant the second is I see it as a real opportunity to practice so in that conversation that you're talking about sharing with people who your ideal client is they don't they may not be your ideal client but isn't that just a great opportunity for you to practice speaking about what you're passionate about and how you serve your ideal client and yeah just not practice before you actually have the ideal client in front of you let me tell you you're absolutely right absolutely right it's a it's an opportunity to practice your representation of your brand your passion your business it is additionally an opportunity to practice leading with curiosity take yourself out of the equation entirely and now lead with that Curiosity who is the human being behind the small talk yes and especially but I challenge you especially when someone leads with a pitch and you're like ah it's one of those slid into my DMs and started yeah to become a pariah is to lead with your pitch but at the same time like I watch my own judgment at how I write off people who lead with their pitch can you Embrace that person as a whole human being and go well look at your hustle you are really good about this where did it come from tell me more about you let's let's put that on hold because it's amazing what you're doing but I want to know what you tell me more about you and when that pitch Falls away you find the most incredible inspired entrepreneurs who are lacking some little skill in the pitch department and when you write them off you might be missing an incredible referral partner right an incredible collaborator might be right there and they're missing one skill and you're I mean it's the worst so let's let's think about that two-way that leading with curiosity learning names remembering their stories and following up as an introvert I have a few things that make networking more bearable and anyone who resists networking think about a few things right so one of them is not wanting to speak to people right and so what I would suggest is have two or three conversation starters locked in memorized yeah and then it's not just starting the conversation what is also difficult is keeping the conversation going and exiting it gracefully yes the beautiful thing is you only need two or three memorized sentences or questions for each so memorize a couple of good conversation starters what are yours yeah what are your two and three my favorite ones uh or if it's an in-person event I'd love to ask what brought you here okay right what brought you here um sometimes one of my favorite questions is what's your story or is there a story behind that so I've heard uh and this is something I got from someone who from Eric worre who actually teaches people in MLM and he said he's talking about objection handling and he said when people go oh it's a pyramid scheme I hate that he says it's like you have a story it's your story and they launch into the story then you connect as a human being yeah I love it so asking for stories that's a really big one um and when I'm feeling really awkward I will I will honestly just fall back on a very simple observe something in the world around you and bring people into that conversation so talk about the buffet table or a speaker at the event or you know do you do you network often does it help you right how does that working fit into your business and then you get them talking a little but the more important ones are the what I call the conversational volleys having two or three things that keep the focus on the other person like if the person gives you an answer just saying oh tell me more yeah love to hear more what was that like those are my two what was that like and tell me more instead of jumping in with my own story tell me more about that oh my gosh what was that like you could say it over and over and when that person has given you their whole story they feel closer to you the graceful exit practicing a couple of graceful exit lines because as an introvert that's my dread I get locked into a corner with someone who is obviously very passionate but I need to step away thank you those those are helpful for me yeah yeah all right those are all really great I know we've got to wind down now let me ask you uh let me ask you a question tell me a story about your worst networking experience my worst networking experience oh gosh it was a large Network you see I didn't hesitate I know it off the time a large networking event about five years ago five or six years ago maybe 250 people were there toward the end of the night people the energy was flagging and one guy who was obviously just looking for his ideal client he figured out pretty quickly I wasn't he was very disrespectful to me kind of a younger business owner and listen to me with this expression on his face and he threw his business card at me it hit me in the chest and it dropped down to the floor and then it was in that moment that I said I am going to change the face of modernity this is full of I am where did we lose the humanity here yes and you know what at that same event I made one of the most powerful collaborator relationships I ever had because I pre-networked with one of the speakers in advance I said hey you're speaking I'd love to find you at the event and hear more and because I had done that we had a very warm connection at that event and we went on to to collaborate on a couple of big sales events that was amazing I love it so you turned the negative right into the positive night and day night and day right it's all about your approach fantastic all right so tell tell folks again where they find your stuff the events are at authentic networkers.com what I have for you maybe you can share in the comments I've got my networking Manifesto everything I believe about networking I can send that to you in jpeg format you can drop it in the comments about leading with curiosity and how we should approach relationships as business owners it's a it's a great graphic and I think that if you are interested in networking and growing your business through relationships it's got some some great little nuggets of wisdom in there for me thank you I always love to get extra value for the folks watching Mia I appreciate you being here so much thank you thank you wonderful wonderful to be here Damian thank you so much for your time today thank you and and uh to everyone again uh you can connect uh with Mia down I'll drop it in the comments or the links below so you can find her website and as soon as I've got that uh that JPEG that you sent me I'll drop that into the comments as well so you can find that there and uh thanks everyone for for watching listening however it is that you came across this I appreciate you and I look forward to connecting with you again soon bye
2022-12-16 10:24
