Module 7: Networking 101 with William Wood

Welcome back. I'm glad to have you. Today, what I want to do is I want to take just a couple of minutes and I want to help save you lots of time and lots of frustration. So when I first got started in promoting my passion-based business, one of the things that I found is that I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I still remember exactly where I was.

I was talking to one of my coaches on the phone, Elaine, and I had been at this point through about 400 hours of coaching training and I knew it was time to take the plunge and I asked her, what do I do next? And what I got back was, it's time to start a business. But really I had absolutely no idea what that actually meant. And so I did what I thought I should do. I went out and I found somebody to go ahead and put me up in a small suite.

My first suite that I saw clients in was like that wide from fingertip to fingertip and then if I stretched like this, back and forward, I could almost touch the other walls. There was just enough room for like a comfy seat for my clients to sit in, a teeny tiny little desk and a couple of chairs. And I officially had my shingle out in the world. But the reality is, is that I did not know what to do first, I didn't know what to do second, and I went through a lot of learning. And so what I want to do today is I want to shorten the learning curve for you.

So who's interested in learning how to shorten the learning curve just a little bit today? That's right. And that's exactly what I'm going to help you do today. I'm going to help you shorten your learning curve, I'm going to help you go through the steps faster, and I'm going to help you really learn how to do the things that will lead to getting clients really fast. So let's dive right down into it.

What we're going to be talking about for the next few minutes is we're going to be talking about the power of networking. So one of the first things to do when you are building a brand new business is you need clients, right? And when I first went into business I thought I wanted to see everybody in every circumstance and I could help people with everything. But the reality is that is not true. And the more that you try to cater to everybody, the more you lose most of the people that you want to go after.

So the very first thing that really helped me out, the first big breakthrough, was when I was talking to another person who'd been in the industry for a while, who'd been out pursuing their passion, and this person said to me, Will, instead of going out and trying to serve everybody, you need to niche down to get rich. And that's what we're going to be talking about here for the next few minutes is how do you identify your target client, how do you identify exactly who it is that you want to serve, and then where do you go to start helping that person out? So I was trained in hypnosis and therapeutic applications of neurolinguistics. And so I was helping people lose weight, I was helping people stop smoking, but I really thought that I could help anybody with any circumstance and that just wasn't true. And so I narrowed that down in the beginning to working with people who had habits and fears.

Habits like smoking, weight, and then overcoming terrible fears. Well once I got that client narrowed down, I started to ask some questions about who the client actually was, what kinds of psychological things were going on for the client in terms of what stage of life were they in, where were they at, what did they prefer, and I realized very quickly that I didn't know a lot of these people personally. I knew some, but not a lot. So I needed to go out there, I needed to find a way to quickly connect with people who were connected in that space. And so what I did after narrowing down to just a couple of groups, and what I recommend when you're getting started, no matter what your passion is, is you really narrow down to three demographics.

In the marketing world there's this idea that we talk about, some people call it an ideal client, some people call it an avatar, some people call it a pin profile when they're putting it together, but it's really a profile where you write out a detailed description of all the things that your ideal client is. Who they are, how old are they, are they married, are they single, do they have kids, where do they hang out, what kind of books do they like, what's their biggest pain point, what's really making them suffer, and then ultimately what are they hoping for, what's their dream, or what's the thing that they want more than anything. And so once you've got that narrowed down, that's step number one. But step number two is a really important question, and that is, where are these people? Where do they hang out?

And in the beginning I had to come to the conclusion that I didn't know. I had my office, right? So I had my office all set, I could touch the walls on both sides. It had this 15-foot ceiling, which was super weird, so it created this echo, echo, echo, as I spoke. But I had a place to meet people, and in fact in the back room there's this special space that they carved out for me that's about the size of my first office, just this teeny tiny little space.

It was just enough space to see people. And yet, I had the space to see people, but I didn't know where to go or how to find these people. And so I went back to Elaine, and I said, Elaine, I've got my office now, I've got a business license, I'm all set, what should I do next? And she said, network. Network.

I was like, cool, what does that mean? And I really didn't understand that well. Now I have a long history of being in the sales field, and so I understood what I understood as a sales guy, but I had no systematic way of going about and tackling this problem. But what I decided to do is I decided to go out and identify all of the places where people might know other people that had the kinds of problems, and were maybe looking for the types of solutions that I was looking for. And one of the first decisions that I made that really supercharged my results quickly was to go out and to take every lunch that I had possible, or every dinner that I had possible, and start meeting with other professionals that could refer me clients.

And this turned out to be one of the absolute best things that I could possibly do. And so at the beginning, that was about two lunches a week that I could spare, or two dinners a week that I could spare. And so what I would do is I would go out and I would go, well, who would know people who need to lose weight? Well, I bet some chiropractors might know, right? And so I went out and I started talking to every chiropractor in the area that I could go out and meet.

And some of them, they just said, get out of my office, I never want to see you again, because they didn't know who I was. There wasn't a warm introduction, they didn't know what I was doing. I'm going to save you some pain here in a little bit. But some of them were like, yeah, sure, we'd love to sit down with you and find out more about what it is that you do, because we have patients, they would say, that really can't lose their weight. And I said, hey, that's what I'm an expert in.

I'm an expert in mindset. I can help these people really learn how to get their minds wrapped around their weight loss. And then I would think, well, who knows somebody that is smoking? And I didn't really know. The smoking population in Utah is lower than it is anywhere else in the country, which I didn't realize when I started.

It's like an average of about 12% statewide, where the nationwide average is like about 24%, right? 24, 25%, at least a few years ago. And so I go, where do you find smokers? Well, I said, well, I can talk to the same chiropractors. Maybe I can go talk to some health clinics.

Maybe I can go talk to some nurses. Maybe I can go meet some people that really travel in these spaces. And so little by little, what I started to do is I started to form relationships inside of the community. And so if I were to give you a few tips, here's what I'd say about networking. Number one, don't even start with just randomly going out and joining groups.

You really got to start with the end in mind. You got to start with, who is my audience? Who am I trying to influence? And where do they hang out? Right?

And so let's go ahead and I'm going to jot some notes down over here on the board, but who is my audience? And that means you need to answer questions specifically like, who do I want to help? What's their main problem? And so around that, you want to go, what's their pain point? What's the major pain?

What's the major pain that this person is suffering? So for example, in the beginning, I didn't really know. So when I was going out to help people lose weight, I figured it was because maybe everybody wanted to have a thinner body. But it turns out that's not true. A lot of people who are losing weight want to feel healthier.

They want to feel better about their body. A lot of people are doing it for their children. I can't tell you how many clients have come in and said, the reason I want to do this is to set an example for my child so that my child knows how to be healthy. I don't want them to grow up with the same problems as me. Other people have major pain issues.

And so little by little, bit by bit, I started to discover what these pain points were, but in the beginning I didn't know. So if I were to give you some recommendations on how to find this out, what I would do today with the internet, this is absolutely easy to do. All you have to do is you have to take the type of audience that you're serving and start Googling it. And so today if I wanted to learn about people who are wanting to lose weight, or I was wanting to learn about people who wanted to stop smoking, which were not the audiences that I was serving in the beginning, but they ended up being, I would go online and I would type weight loss forum. And I would go to the forums where these people hung out and I would start scrolling down through the comments that were actually generated by people that are in these groups.

And I'd start looking at what they had to say. What do they have to say? What are they complaining about? And I would literally just grab what they're saying and I would copy and paste that into a Word document, everything that told me about what their pain is like, what they're suffering with, what are they complaining about. And I'd put that into a spreadsheet.

The other thing I'd do is I'd go on a Facebook and I would do a search for any groups or any pages that are there. And I wouldn't be there necessarily to interact yet, but what I'd be doing is I'd just be gathering data. What are these people talking about? And you can do all of this inside of about two hours or three hours. You can get a really good feel for what almost any market on the planet is wanting to do.

And if it's not weight loss or stop smoking, you pick the market that you want to go into. If you want to talk about gourmet food, it'd be gourmet food forums or gourmet food pages. And then you start looking at who is the audience, what's their pain, and then you want to ask where are they? Not where should they be or where do you want them to be, but where are they right now? Where are they today?

And once you figure that out, then the next question is how do I get there? And since we're talking about networking, we're not going to be talking about advertising strategies and there are people that are better suited to teach that and we're going to be bringing some of those people in. We're not going to be talking about digital strategies right now much, although we are going to be talking about relationships because here's my belief. If you niche down enough in whatever your passion, if you take your passion, if your passion is cooking, and you niche down into the cooking niche, there aren't a lot of major players in the nation. In my field, I think really that there are fewer, for sure there's fewer than 500.

And among those 500 major players, there are fewer than 100, in my opinion, that really are dialed in. And then if I take my field and I narrow it down to an interest, there might only be a dozen people in the country that are really awesome at what they do. And I'm talking about the service providers. A dozen? A hundred?

Five hundred? That's a short list. Now, as a practitioner, my next question is how do I work my way into getting to know the right people? Why? Because I'm I want to be the best that I can possibly be.

I mean, let's be honest. Who wants to be good at what they do? If you're doing a passion-based business and you don't want to be good at what you're doing, get out! It's not the right business. You don't belong there.

See, if you've got a passion burning inside, you eat and drink and sleep it. You can't stop. It's all you can think about. You can't get enough. You never turn it off.

You don't have to motivate yourself to go out and do it. You do it because it's what you're built to do. It's wound down into your DNA. It's wound down into who you are. It is part of your very being.

And so, the list of people next to you is a list of people who are arrows, very quickly, when you identify exactly what it is and who it is that you want to serve. And there will be a dream team of people who are at the tip-top, the pinnacle of your list that you want to meet. Now we're talking about service providers. And then there will be people that are also just getting started just like you. And so the question is, is how do I get to know these people?

Now, I'm going to put this up here, so who else is in the field? And I think starting day one, you should build a list of people that you absolutely want to know inside of the field. And one of the great shortcuts to becoming amazing inside of your field, whatever that is, whatever your passion is, whatever you're waking up inside, it's just getting to know a few people. It's building a few relationships. And then, as you build those relationships, it's learning to do what they do in a similar way.

I think that there's a couple of, who's heard of the 80-20 rule? Raise your hand if you've heard of the 80-20 rule, right? The 80-20 rule came about years and years ago with the Italian, he was an Italian banker. He may have been an economist, but he was an Italian banker. And what he noticed as he was going through his deposits is that 20% of his clients held 80% of the reserves.

So the reserves is like the amount of dollars you have in the bank. And so he said, wow, well I have hundreds or thousands of clients, but it's just a few people that control the wealth. And then what was interesting to him is not only did just a few people control all that wealth, but then if he ran the 80-20 pattern again, that 20% of those people controlled 80% of the 80%. Does that make sense? And then 20% of that group controlled 80% of the whatever that is, right?

So you had, what it ends up with is you end up with like 4% or 5% that control like half of the wealth in the bank. Well he was surprised when he saw this and so he went out and he talked with some of his banker buddies and he said, gosh, are you guys running into the same thing as I am? And they said, well I don't know, let's go look. And they run through the deposits and sure enough, the rule held. It wasn't always 80-20, sometimes it was 90%, 10%.

But we call this the law of the critical few. There are a few people in any industry that are the movers and the shakers. There's a few people that really have things dialed in. There are a few people that really haven't figured out. And those are the people that you want to figure out how to get to know because they will shorten your learning curve fast.

Who wants to shorten their learning curve? Raise your hand high if you do. Absolutely. And that's what we're here talking about. So who else is in the field and who is first the 20%?

Who's in the top 20%? And I'll be honest, it's not that hard to get in the top 20%. If you have a passion, you can't turn this off. You will go and you will figure it out and you will learn. Getting in the top 20% is not hard.

Now the next move is to get into the top 4%. How do you get into the top 4%? Well that's what we're teaching you how to do. And then how to move from the top 4% to the top 1% and then how to get to the very pinnacle of your field. So who else is in the field, especially the top 20% and top 4%?

That's the 20% of the 20% right there. The next thing that you want to look at is the next thing that you want to look at is you want to look at where these people are hanging out. So the other thing that I would look at is I would look at locally, are there support groups for this group? Or are there, if it's more of a, so there's two types of motivation. We'll hit this for a minute because this is important in understanding your customer's pain point.

Two types of motivation. One is away from motivation. It says, I don't want that. I'm sick of being fat. I've had clients say that.

It's not politically correct. It's what they come into my office and say. I'm sick of being fat. I'm sick of my knees hurting. I'm sick of looking bad.

I want to turn that around. Or, on the other hand, you have the magnificent goal, the dream, the vision that moves you on. Someone comes into my office and they say, I want a beautiful body. Right? Well, that's real different than saying, I don't want to be fat.

So you've got to figure out, is your audience more towards motivation? Are they moving towards a dream? Or are they more away from motivation? I don't want that. And once you figure that out, is there, for the away from people, there's support groups.

I don't want that, right? This is my best quarterback move, right? I never played football. Those of you that play football are like, he never played football. Right?

But like, wow, I don't want that, right? And then, for people who are dreamers, like if you're coaching entrepreneurs or you're coaching salespeople and they want to increase their income and make a big difference in the world, then you wouldn't be looking for support groups. You'd be looking for hangouts. Do these people have a meetup group? Do these people have some sort of association that they belong to?

I was coaching a guy not that long ago that was in the recruiting business, and I said, if I was in your business, I would get to know every major HR director in the city over a period of time. And he says, well, where do I go to do that? And so I said, well, I'm not in the HR business. I don't know, but let's Google it. So we Googled it, and I said, HR Associations Utah.

And it was like, and it was like a list of five organizations or four organizations. popped right up. Now I don't know how active all the groups were, but I said, here is your task, should you choose to engage in it? Right? Go out and ask yourself, how do I get into these groups?

Now maybe some of the groups are really closed. They're closed to only people who are like, you know, C-suite executive HR people. But maybe they're not. Maybe they just go and like, go bowling, or maybe they go hang out and listen to boring speeches once a week, or something like that. Or really exciting speeches too.

But the question is, where are these people already? Now, we've all been in uncomfortable networking situations, right? Raise your hand if you've been in an uncomfortable networking situation. Yeah, it's like terrible, right? You go into a situation, you don't know anybody, you don't know what to do, and then there's always that one creepy guy that comes in with like, a stack fill, he's got, you know, like grease in the hair.

I'll put my marker down over here. He's got like, grease in the hair. You know, he's wearing like, the brown, you know, the brown ratty old suit that's like, you know, shiny polyester. And then he's got like, this huge stack of business cards. And then you walk in the meeting, and instantly when he sees you, he goes up and goes, hi, how you doing?

Nice to meet you. My name is Bob. Let me tell you about my business. And you're like, oh my gosh, Bob, you know, you're driving me crazy, right? So there are ways to network to get results.

And then there are ways to just like, instantly shut down everybody who is around you. So do you want me to teach you how to network wrong first? Or do you want me to teach you how to network right? Because I think it's worthwhile to know how to do both, right? And it's worthwhile to know how to do both, to know like, what to avoid, right?

So raise your hand if you want to learn how to do it wrong first. Okay? Okay, so we got two. That's enough, right? We got a few that want to learn how to network wrong.

So the way to network wrong is to go into a room and try to meet everyone that you possibly can in the shortest amount of time possible and not to listen, right? You go in and instantly you start to pitch them, right? So you see a guy and it's like your body just starts to quiver a little bit and you start to shake and you're shaking because you see him because you're so excited that you like run over to him and go, here's my business card. Let me tell you what I'm going to do. Let me tell you, I'm really awesome.

Can I do business with you? And he's like, what? Right? And then, and then if you really want to take your bad networking to the next level, what you do is you follow him around for the whole night and you never let him have a conversation with another person because you wouldn't actually want him to connect with anybody else. Because if he does, then you might lose business.

So what you do is you must guard him and protect him at all costs from anybody else that might want to, might want to see him or her, right? Then what do you do? Right? You dominate the conversation all night long with everything that you want to talk about, instantly cutting them off anytime they start to speak. And if you follow those rules, you too can ruin every networking opportunity that you ever get.

Now let's talk about how to do it right. Okay. Typically speaking, when I go into a networking event, I know that I'm not going to be able to get to know everybody, right? You're in a room with 20 people, 100 people, 200 people, 1,000 people. You probably are going to be able to get to know, the way I think about it, in an hour, I'm going to be able to get to know between one and five people.

I would rather get to know fewer people, but get to know the right people. So if I'm going to go network, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to do my due diligence before I show up in the room and I'm going to find out who's there, who's showing up. Are there any movers and shakers that I'd like to get to know? Are there anybody in the 20%, anybody in the 4%, anybody in like a sister business where there might be a strategic partnership where I can go in and introduce myself? And because I'm not looking to get to know everybody in the room, if I do my homework ahead of time, I can probably find out who those people are ahead of time.

It may be as easy as calling up an acquaintance that you already know, that you've already networked into and say, hey, I'm going to this meeting, I'd like to get to know just a couple of people well, who are people who are worthwhile to get to know? They're not worthwhile because they're special souls, they're worthwhile because they're interested in the same type of people that I'm interested in. And then I'm also, if I have the ability now because of social media, thanks to LinkedIn and thanks to Facebook and thanks to Twitter, I might be able to connect with these people before I show up. So reach out, do a virtual handshake, like a few of their posts, read a few of their articles, find out a little bit about what they have that's in a public profile, are they married, are they single, are they interested in mountain biking, what do they do? And once you find out a little bit about them, a little bit about their personality, a little bit about their preferences, then I go into the meeting with a servant's heart.

And my goal, ultimately, is just to get to know a handful of people, to get to know them well, and to find a way to serve them. If the way to kill your networking is to just talk, talk, talk, talk only about what you're interested in and never pay attention to the other person, the way to win is to pay attention to the other person and to find a way to serve them first. There's a great principle in life, and that is that leadership is a great principle. Leaders at heart are ones who serve, but also from a psychological standpoint, there's something really, really powerful that happens when you genuinely do that. Okay, now I want to get something out in the open right now.

Have you ever met anyone that when you met them, they felt like greasy and oily and oozy and you didn't even know why, but you wanted absolutely nothing to do with them? And then when they did something for you, you were pretty sure that they had like a mental abacus in their head that was keeping score in the most unhelpful sort of ways. Like, he's calculating. I don't know what he's doing, but this man is playing chess. He's trying to get five moves ahead of me.

Now, I don't know what it is, but be honest. If you've been in a situation like that yet, raise your hand. Okay, yeah, look at that. That's like everybody, right? Everybody pretty much has been in a situation where like, this guy's trying to get something from me.

So again, what's interesting about this principle that I'm going to be teaching, which is the principle of reciprocity, is if you do it in an icky, manipulative sort of way, people will sniff you out. So if you are manipulative by nature, I mean, you might get results, but you are not ultimately the person that I'm trying to teach right now. What I'm trying to teach is a person who's got a heart and wants to connect. You've got to go into this honestly. If you go in and you say, I'm going to form one to five relationships tonight, and I think the fewer the better, and then I'm going to genuinely serve this person in front of me.

I'm going to help them get more business. I'm going to help them get awesome information. I'm going to help them make another connection that they really need. I'm going to find a way to meet their pain point and to get them what they want. It is in human nature, it's called the law of reciprocity, that when I give, people want to give back.

Especially if you do it out of a genuine place. On the other hand, if you do it out of that sleazy, snake oily, let me grease you up and play chess with you and move five steps ahead of you, there's an instant aversion to that for most of humanity. And the ones that aren't averse to it may be sociopaths. And they're probably trying to out-checkmate you too. So stay away from the sociopaths, find the ones that have good, kind hearts, and then genuinely go out and from your heart find a way to serve.

I'm going to make a really bold statement. I have never, in all of my networking, given from the heart and not had it come back. It doesn't always come back right away. I'm not even waiting for it to come back. I'm just going to go out and serve and find a way for it to come back.

And I've been surprised over and over and over again. A kind word repaid with a referral. Connecting two people together who needed to know each other and those two people become business partners and go on to make millions of dollars together. Introducing the right person to the right vendor at the right time. It can be simple.

Seeing a genuine human need and giving a book. In the early days, I didn't know what to do, but I knew how to serve. And so as I went out into these networking abilities, what I did is rather than talk, I listened. And we're going to be talking about listening a little bit later on when we get into the sales process here later today. And I don't really consider this part of the sales process like before the sales process happens.

It's like before what we do. You're building a genuine relationship from the heart, serving the other person, knowing that good things come back. Now, I'm going to back up from this for a minute, and I do see a common problem, especially with people that come from passion, service-based businesses, businesses where they help people. And that is, there's a lot of people that are okay giving, but when it comes time to receive back, they almost push things away. Who's seen that before, right?

Who's done that before? Can I be honest? Yeah, me too. And so it's like, yeah, okay, it's okay for me to go serve this person. But when the person tries to return the favor, and they stretch out their hand and say, I have something for you too.

I have something that can improve your life. Then you're like, oh, no, that's okay. I've actually seen that in body language, where people go, oh, that's okay. Or they do this dismissive little thing like, oh, no, it's okay, it's okay. Anybody else seen that?

Raise your hand if you've seen something like that. Or you see people that instantly get uncomfortable. So in the give and receive cycle, and that's really what reciprocity is all about, is start by giving honestly, genuinely, from the heart, serving, finding a way to deepen the experience of the person that you're in front of. But then also, when the time comes to receive, to have your arms wide open, and to say thank you. How many of you have tried to give a gift to someone, be honest, and that person has pushed it away with their body language, or they pushed it away with their voice tone, and you as a giver felt bad?

Raise your hand. You're like, well, I just went out and I was trying to help you. And you're like, no, no, I don't need it. I need to suffer, right? Don't please, no, not me.

And so it's like, think about this. If we've all been on the receiving end of this, we're like, well, no, I want to give this to you. And the other person's like, no, please, please, please, it's okay, don't, don't. Then we all need to realize that if we reject the gifts that people give us, the gifts of time, the gifts of service, the gift of money, the gifts of clients, that we're making people feel bad. So when the moment comes, when they come to you and they say, please, I have something for you.

I appreciate what you've done. Let me connect you with somebody. Let me introduce you to the right context. Let me open a door for you that you can't open on your own. In those moments, in order to help the other person feel good, we've got to open up our arms wide and with as much gratitude as we can say, say, thank you.

I genuinely appreciate what you're doing for me. I see your sacrifice and I honor it. Now, this is hard, can be hard, right? Especially in those moments when we go out and for a lot of us in the passion-based fields, we are helping people. And a lot of us, I know myself included, I feel like it's a gift, right?

It's something that comes from above. And so it's like, I'm going to go help you and then I'm going to receive the money that you give back, or I'm going to receive the time or the connection that you give me, right? And sometimes there's a little bit of guilt. That's head stuff, right? That's head stuff that will get in the way of serving your audience.

And so if you find yourself, and this is really why we have more than one product in our suite, is that if what you're struggling with is not giving but receiving when the time comes, you need help conquering what's in your head and what's in your heart so that you can serve the maximum number of people. Otherwise, when you push the gift away, the giver says, maybe they don't want any more clients. Maybe they don't want success. And so it's time to give and it's time to receive just based on where we are in the cycle. So we go out, we meet people, we find the major players in the industry, either in our same industry or we find people, and this is probably a little bit more useful, who are in parallel industries, right?

So for me, because I was working on mindset coaching, it was, who's the chiropractor? Who's the massage therapist? Who's the nurse? Who's the dentist in the area that can connect me with the client base that I'm looking for? And then how do I get to know as many of them as possible?

Where do they hang out? How do I get invited? Or how do I just go show up for, if it's appropriate to do that, and start meeting people and then meet one person at a time. And big referral networks, and we're going to be talking about that here in a minute, but big referral networks start one person. One person.

So here's the question that I have for you just today. Who is that one person that you can get to know today? Not tomorrow, today. Before the sun drops behind the mountains, or if the sun is already set, before LinkedIn goes to sleep, right? Before Facebook breaks, can you reach out and connect to someone today?

And you can. You might not become their best friend. You might not become their valued referral partner. You might not become their trusted advisor this moment. But by reaching out to someone today, either who has pain, or someone who has the ability to refer, you will start to build up a referral network.

Now I want to talk to you about the difference between going for what I call onesies, and then going for lots of referrals. Who wants lots of referrals for their business, right? In fact, let's ask another question. Who would never like to prospect again, really, when it comes down to it? Raise your hand.

Okay, that almost sounds like too good to be true. It's like, how would you just like to have people coming to you over and over and over again, asking you, almost begging you, please help me. There's a way to get that done. And it means cultivating, like a farmer, relationships with other people who can send you more than one person. So for example, there was a time when there was a dentist in my local town who would send me about four new clients a month.

And one relationship led to, I didn't know when they'd come in. It wasn't like one a week or anything like that. It was like, it might be four in a week. It might be one this week, two next week, one the following week, none the week after. But there was a constant stream of referrals that came into my business.

And that was by getting to know someone who had the ability to refer me more than one person. So when I went to go talk to the dentist, I wasn't even concerned if I ever did business with him specifically or any of his staff. But what I wanted is I wanted all of the people that he had the trust of, so that he would feel comfortable with me as a referral partner. And here has been my general rule of thumb. If you can create, if you're brand new today, if you're looking for targets, the question that I would ask is, how can I create not just a referral, one person, but how can I create a referral network where there are literally about 20 to 50 people that refer me a client every single month?

And if you had 20 to 50 people sending you their contacts every month, you would never have an end to your business. Most people can live pretty comfortably off of that. So if you start with zero, your first goal is to get one. And when I say get one, what does that mean? That means to go out and to find a way to genuinely serve them, to meet their deepest pain, their deepest needs.

And then when the time is right to open up your arms to the referrals that come in. So how can you serve? How can you go out there and build reciprocity, build deep human connections? And that comes through listening. That comes through putting their needs first.

That comes by serving before you expect to receive anything in return. So a couple of things that will be useful for a local presence. Now, if you're looking for a national presence, the game changes a little bit. But the first phase of this, I think, is to make a local footprint in your own community. Can you find people that have the needs, wants, desires, fears, pains that your business serves?

And if the answer is yes, then again, the first bit is to go out and to get your first one. And that comes a lot of times through these local organizations. If you go visit a local support group, don't go pitch your deal there, but get to know the person who organizes the group. Get to know the person that organizes the group, build a relationship, find a way to serve the group before you ask for anything back. And that, over time, will lead to a much longer, deeper relationship than just going out and going into the group and spamming everybody with your card and getting kicked out permanently.

If you do that, wear your brown suit. It works better, right? Yes. Yeah, it does. It's proven.

And a little bit like deep grease, like car axle grease in the hair. And make sure that you grow your hair really long on one side and swirl it around the top of your hair if you're a guy. That works out well. So you hide the bald spot, right? You hide the bald spot.

So that's basically it. You go in and you don't do any of that stuff. You go and you serve with a servant's heart. You find a way to meet their needs. You find a way to build a long-term relationship.

But then you're not afraid to invite business when it comes your way, right? And know that if you go in to serve, you will get business back. Here's been my experience. My experience is with somebody who's really busy, somebody who's in the 4% in their field or the 1% in their field, it's probably not going to be the first time that I go in and meet that person that I'm going to hear back from them. It's not the first time I meet with them that I'm going to get a referral.

Sometimes that happens and when that happens, usually what they're doing is they're testing you out to see how good you are, to see how honest you are, to see how ethical you are, to see how much good business that you do with them. And so you want to treat, especially the first referral, very, very well. If it's appropriate to communicate, in some fields it is, in some fields it's not. Some fields you have client confidentiality that you need to honor and respect. But in a lot of fields, I might want to turn right back around and pop on the phone with that person and say, hey, I wanted to thank you for that referral.

I want to let you know I'm giving them my best care. I'm rolling out the red carpet because you sent them my way. I will treat them as if they were family. And then you mean it and you actually go do it. And you do that and then you do the best you can.

Whether the result is good or bad, you communicate results. If you can, if you can't, you keep those private. Like I'm in a field where I have to keep results kind of quiet. I can't talk about those things. But in other fields you may be able to share.

Like, hey, I just was working with John on his sales and did you know that his sales increased by 400% this month based on the work we've been doing? I just wanted to say, thank you for sending him my way and I will take good care of anybody else that you send my way to. Awesome, right? But here's the thing. Usually not in the first visit.

Almost never does that happen. Like right now I'm working with a group of salespeople that are coming to me for sales coaching and we're going to be going through some awesome stuff here in a little while on how to do sales. But they're coming to me for sales coaching and they're learning the mindset stuff. I mean, people who deal in the sales field are constantly bombarded by rejection and negativity and feelings of overwhelm and being scattered and not knowing what to do. And so I met with this group once, no referral.

I met with them a second time, a third time, no referrals. Still building relationships. After the third visit there's been a steady stream of salespeople coming in looking for sales coaching. Almost been one a month for the last three months coming in for relatively high ticket packages. And the first one that came in I knew that it was make or break time.

And when that guy got a massive increase in his sales first month I made sure to call back the referrer and say, just wanted to let you know. Big results, are you seeing the numbers? And his boss said, can't believe it. Biggest increase I've ever seen in a month, right? That's how you open up doors.

You go out and you get results, right? So you find the few, you work your way in there, you speak to their pain point, you find a way to serve, and then you go for your first one. After you get one, your next goal is to go and get three. Three people that are not just a single referral point but people who can refer you business over and over and over again. And ultimately what you're looking for is you're looking for a group of between 20 and 50 people who like you, know you, trust you, and are willing to send you people on a very regular basis.

And if you do that, there will be a constant flow of business both from your local market, and this can work in national and international markets as well, but the techniques change just a little bit. So for action steps, let's talk action steps for just a minute. If you got a local presence, where are the support groups? And you're not targeting the people in the support group, you're targeting the people who run the support groups. Are there networking groups?

Is there a group of young entrepreneurs in the area if you coach young entrepreneurs? People in their 20s and 30s that are going out to make a difference. Is there a group of CEOs that you can network your way into? Are there organizations? Are there networking groups?

Are there after-hour parties that you can find your way networked into? Is there a chamber of commerce you can start with? Is there a B&I group or some other kind of group that would be a good fit based on your business? If there is, go join today. Go find a way in today.

If not, through LinkedIn, through another source, find a way to connect with the people who can bring your business in. And if you do that, not only will you set yourself up for one client, you can set yourself up for a constant stream of clients that come into your business day after day, month after month, and year after year. And all it takes is a heart that's willing to serve and being willing to listen first. Listen and serve first. And then expect doors to be flung wide open.

So that's it. Who will do it? Raise your hand if you'll do it. Okay, you guys are awesome. Before the sun sets tonight, make one new contact.

And every week, can you do lunch with two people? Can you do dinner with two? Can you do breakfast with two? What can you do to go out there and get your name out? If you do that, big things are coming your way.

The world's counting on you. It's time to get your message out.