Hello today. I'm gonna share with you the art of building a seven figure business through networking. Yes. Building a seven figure business through networking. Now, for those of you who go to different networking groups, and sometimes you get business, sometimes you don't, you might be thinking, how would that even happen? Well, I would share with you today, how that happens. It's a, it's a system it's a long term journey by when done, right? You can build a very successful business and having networking be when your main lead generation activities, when it comes to networking, it can be exhausting or energizing. It can be a major waste of time or incredibly lucrative. It can feel over or rewarding. So software networking really comes down to three basic disciplines, intention, how to serve your community, your intention. Why are you there when you go to a networking event, do you already have an idea of who would be your ideal client or avatar who you hope to meet there, or you just walk in hoping to meet people? My recommendation is when you first get there, even if we walk through the front door, look at the people in the room and think of who in this room would be the ideal person for me to talk to today. Now there's a couple reasons for that. But for starters, who is your ideal client, it , the person you wanna serve. And when you do that, you, if you know who that is ahead of time, you know who to talk to as an example , I would recommend talking maybe five, 10 minutes at most with any one person. And what you do is you're asking questions. You keen to know the person you're trying to figure out. Is this someone that would be worth booking a coffee or a phone, or is zoom call with at a later date? Or is it just someone that I'm kind of glad I met the day ? And it was fun talking to 'em , but you C would go past that conversation. Those who you identify with having a reason to talk to further quickly exchange numbers, or figure out a way to get back in contact with the person book appointment, to talk at another point, and then go on talk , talk to other people. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make at a networking event is they either talk to everybody and really don't build a relationship with anyone, or they talk to a few people and they miss out on opportunities that perhaps the ideal person that they should be talking to might be in the , the other side of the room. Cause they're busy talking to someone over here for 20 minutes. They miss the opportunity. So again, five, 10 minutes, most talk to a handful of people, get to know who they are and then book appointments to talk to them at a further date . Next, do you show up with the heart to serve what I mean by that is yes. When you go to a networking meeting, first, you go in there with the hope to get business, find people that can utilize what your services are, but even more important than that, there's a lot of people in there that you may not right away be to do business with as you being the provider, but they might have a solution or product that could solve a need of one of your clients, somebody in your community. So when you're talking to people, think about who in this room or who in this meeting has a solution that I could use, or I could introduce to one of my clients or someone in my community to help solve their needs. Again, show up with the heart to serve your community. Do you, when you meet somebody in a networking meeting, do you get to know them and bring them into your community or your database? Do you get to know them be beyond just what they do as a business, but also who they are as a person. Do you look at as a long term relationship versus a short term , fine . And more importantly, are you building this community out with people that have again , have needs other people that may have solutions? Are you the connector? Are you the person pull , pulling the switches to make sure that your community is continuing to grow and thrive? Years back island , Lim company. And I had one of the nicest fleets in the city. I had some of the best show first around. I even own a show first school. So I could train the show first and get paid to , um , train them kind of a cool concept there. Anyway, I wanted to find a way that could stand out amongst all the other companies. Otherwise I was just under commodity, right? So I started thinking, what is the one thing that I do different than all the other networking people that I network with and really all the limousines companies that are out there. And the one com denominator that I I did different from them was I went to a lot of networking groups. I knew a lot of business people, some were clients. Some were people that I knew who had again, solutions that would serve my clients. And I became the connector. I started going back to my clients and saying, Hey, if you have any need, obviously transportation, I'm there for you. But if you need other needs, think of me. In fact, like a concierge, a high end hotel, you ever gone to a really nice hotel. You've noticed at the concierge, they're the go-to person. They might have tickets to a nice restaurant or maybe to a ball game or a show that you wanna see. If there's something you wanna know in the city, go to the concierge and you say, Hey, this is what I wanna do. What, how should I do this? And not only will they direct you in the right direction, they might even give you coupons or less, make the less expensive to attend. So the same thing for your clients, for your community, you wanna be the concierge. So I would go back to my clients , I would say, Hey, think of me as GS you're concierge. Should this anything again that you need, let me know. And I will help facilitate the process, be the connector in your community by doing so you'll become a trusted advisory to community. That's when you really create raving fans, if your clients really believe that you care about them, if you continually to serve them, they're gonna become walking, talking billboards for you. One of the things I put into practice was my referred to was referral triangle, where I was the hub between my clients and service survivors. I work with, as an example, I had a client, Mary, she bought a house and she had this really nice foyer and she needed a painter for it. So she asked me, Hey Mike, do you know a painter that might be able to help me with this solution or with this challenge? I said, of course, a friend of mine, Johnny's a great painter. I will call him and ask him to give you a call. Would that be okay? So I got her permission to have John reach out to her. I then contacted John and explained the situation, asked him to call her, which he did. The two of them talked. He went by, he looked at the foyer and he was able to get the job, painting her foyer. I then asked John, can you do me a favor when you're done with Mary's house? Can you let me know and kind of let me know how it was. And ideally, as soon as you're done as possible. And he said, of course, so as he finished up the job, put things away, got in his van and headed off to the next job. He gave me call and let me know that he was done, which gave me the opportunity to thank him. Said , you know, John, I really appreciate the way you took care of Mary. The fact that I can put your name , my name to you means a lot to me, the fact that you're professional, knowing that I can refer you to my clients. I'm very thankful for that. So thank you again for being the ultimate professional. And as you know, I also work with a lot of people. So if you need anybody that would need the solutions of what I provide, I'm never too busy for you, John, either. The next thing about that is of course my goal is to help John, but also if he comes across people that need my services by helping him, he's gonna be more likely to wanna precipitate by referring people back to me too. I'm a firm believer if you give it on slices that comes back in loaves. The other scenario is Mary the client. So I called Mary up as John's finishing and said , Hey, Mary, I just wanna check and see how things were going. She was amazed. Number one, one that I called so quickly after John left and number two , I even called that off and she was so happy. She goes, Mike, thank you so much for calling me. I really, for taking care of this solution ahead in for calling me and following me up, I really appreciate John did an awesome job. And in fact, you need to come by when you can and check it out. Couple weeks later, she had a household park party and some of her friends came by to see it and to see her. And they knew of her challenge with needing to paint the foyer. And they asked her, Hey Mary , how did you find the painter? He did an excellent job. And she told them the story. And four of them were amazed. They said, wow, do you think that Mike would do that for me? And she said , I don't and see why not. So again, my goal was to help marry Salva challenge that she had help John with his business, right? Connect the solution to the need, but by doing so, I was able to pick up four corporate clients who is part of your community. And do you have a system on how you service the people in your community when people become part of the community, starting out, the first scenario is someone you just met. So you meet somebody say a networking event or out doing business. What do you do with that person? Do you just put 'em into your database or roll a deck somewhere? Or do you build them into a process that you have? Do you have a process really that allows you to continue to follow up and get to know them , build that relationship? The next scenario would be someone who would refer you if asked and show out a lot of times as professionals. We think if I do a really good job, well , uh , people would refer me. Not necessarily. They expect us to do a good job as a professional. We still have to ask them. We still have to remind them, you know, if you ever come across someone who needs or would appreciate what I do, I will never too busy for you or for them. Um, in fact, this is really the kind of person that I'm looking to serve in case if you should need such a person, we need to let them know who that ideal person is. Because if we make the refer easy for them, they'll do it. If they don't really know what we're looking for, how do they know who to refer people to us? Right? So at , and show how the next and really this is the golden goose in your business. People who have already sent one or multiple people to you, they're the referring type. These are the kind of person that if they go to a restaurant, they tell everybody about the restaurant. They enjoyed the food, but they see a movie. They may tell other friends, man, you gotta go see this movie. It's awesome. About 20% of your database, 20% of your community fall into this threshold, probably another 50% or so. Those are the people that will refer you. If you continually to ask so service, those people ask them, but really take care of the 20%, your golden goose, your true raving fans, cuz that's gonna be the true growth of your business the next. And even though it's last certain least, and that is people to re remove from your community. Those are the people that when you leave the meeting or leave the job, they have you talking to the roof of your car . I get the just thinking about it . Anyway , those people you wanna get out of your community and maybe refer 'em to another community. But this toxicity is going to suck the energy away from you and from your community and why, if you don't have to work with them, why would you want to spend your time working with people that know? And like you, and there's fun to work with creating community loyalty. How do you do that? Do they like, and do they trust you when you are building out the relationship with people? It's very important. That number when they like you, but also they better trust. You goes back to this saying, people don't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. And it doesn't just happen organically. You have to orchestrate, you have to develop that relationship over time, demonstrating character. Again, can people trust you? Are you a person of high ethic , moral morality? Are you a person of character? And if so, which I'm assuming all of you are, how do you demonstrate that? One way is by delivering person of value, it could be a recipe card. As an example, February is fire safety month. So one of the things that I do is I go out to my clients. I give them nine volt batteries. I ask them, Hey, are you aware that the smoke detectors in your house, they only have about a six month shelf life. Most people I find don't, I then follow up with, well, here's these volt batteries. If you would like, I could even help you change 'em but please change them out because I would feel awful if something happened to you because of a , something as small as a vol battery, or do you just pop by and check on them or pick up the phone and call them or shoot, 'em an email and say, Hey, I just wanna let you know . I was thinking about you or sending a note. Do you deliver personal value on an ongoing basis? That is one of two things. Number one, it shows them that you care about them. And number two, it keeps you in the forefront of their mind. As an example, you reticular act activator. That's a part of the brain that acts as a filter and it filters out all the distractions around you. That as an example, you're in a restaurant and you're having a conversation with someone and there's people walking by outside. There's people talking around you, but yet you're able to focus on the person you're talking to. The reason why is you would tick their activators at work, filtering out all the other necessary noise. So you're able to focus on the things that's truly important to you. Another example, have you ever bought a car or bought a piece of clothing and noticed that soon as you walk out the store or drive out the lot you start seeing the car or the clothing everywhere is because now it's in your particular activity, you're paying attention to it, to be heard by people. It's the same scenario. People are busy. I wish they thought about us more, but quite honestly, they don't, unless they have a reason to. So if you only reach out to them once a year, like with the Christmas card or once in a while, you reach out to them. Yeah. Think about you for a little while. But the chances are when that opportunity for referral comes in, you're not gonna be the , for on the forefront of their mind. If you are that concierge, if you are that trusted advisor, if you are reaching out to an ongoing basis, whenever an opportunity comes up to refer you, of course, right then and there they're gonna think of you and it's gonna happen. The next question is competence . Do you demonstrate competence? You see, it goes back to yes, people don't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. However, once they know you care, they also better know, you know, something. Are you good at what you do? Are you continuing to improve your skill sets ? Are you reading? Are you taking courses like this? Are you continuing to grow both as a professional, as well as a person? So when you show up, you show up better and better. Every time when people see that they are drawn to you, they wanna do business with you. You become a true advisor. Another way is newsletters. As far as the professional realm, one of the downfalls though, I see people make is they like an insurance company. They might send out insurance related newsletters on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis, or someone might send an in industry specific newsletter or item out to their clients, or they post up on social media. That's industry specific. Yes. It demonstrates that you know what you're doing, but it doesn't necessarily know or show you care about them outside of obviously setting the information. So how do you do that? There's a psychological formula. And this was a lesson that was talked to me many years ago. And that is, is one month. Send it out personal one month, send it out. Professional, personal professional, personal professional. And if it's done right, your customers will always reach out to you. And yes they'll know you care about them, but they will also know you. The ultimate professional, great example, years back, I worked with an organization and the CEO from this company flew into Seattle and the limousine company. They used to pick him up at the , um, airport failed to pick him up and he had to take a taxi seat back to the store. And needless to say, he was not happy. He's in the office. He's complaining to the executive assistant, who was my client about how the limousine companies in Seattle suck. And he looks down and he sees this thing, this flyer on the , her desk, a newsletter. And he picks up and says, what is this? I think he was talking about finance or something like that. Anyway, he goes, what is this? And she explained it every month. I send things like this out to her and the process and he was goes , wow. Do you think you could have him pick me and take me back to the airport later? Of course I did. So , um, anyway, we're on our way back to the airport and we're talking about the business and my referral system and the different components that go into it. And as he's getting outta the car and getting ready to get onto his jet , he says, question Mike, do you take your transportation as sir has to do your marketing? I laugh. I said, of course my transp , my marking brings people in the door, but my customer service, my transportation is what brings, keeps them coming back. And he laughed and goes, yeah , that's what I thought. He think it's on the judge flies back to New York, sends out a memo saying if anyone flies into Seattle and they don't use my company, they're fired pretty good endorsement. I would say also I picked up a $50,000 a year contract. So again, it took two years to build that process day, month, and month out with him. Obviously with month of other people, it's takes time to build the relationship, but it's very profitable over the long term . If you put the time and consistently do it, another scenario is a lot of people go into building a business or their profession. I'm going to show you a framework that we use in then the financial business and we , and help people build a financial business and professionals, smart business owners, the same scenario. A lot of times they are a business of one. They have something they love doing. So they go into business doing it. And even though they're in business, they really have a job because they are the entity. They are the product. If for some reason they couldn't show up business won't happen. So yes, they work for themselves, but it's really a job. They might make a lot of money. They could even make seven figures, but their business isn't worth seven figures necessarily because it relies on them. The next scenario is , are they building a practice? Do they have a couple people on their team? Do they have a system in place so that if they were not able to make it or they didn't want, they want a trip, the business can continue to run without them there. Well , what of my mentors , deans, he often says the value of a business is what it will produce without you in it. So as you're building your business, do you have a team? Do you have employees or contractors is your business and design in a way that if you wanted to step away from the business, it would continue to run just fine without you there. If you do, you're going to have four times or more the valuation in your business, enterprise value. And that's really where you get that seven figure mark again. Yes, you can earn seven figures a year. However, unless you have a business that you could pick up and move or right . Pick up a move, but you could sell to someone if you wanna sell, it doesn't mean you have to, but if you wanna sell it, could you sell it to somebody? And it could continue to earn their revenue. It's earning you're in year out without you being part of it. If you do, that's where you get seven figure plus business. Right? So great example of that was years back, 2007, one of my friends ran a mortgage company now very 2007 . Wasn't a very good year for mortgage companies, real estate in general. And at the same time he had a motorcycle accident flat on his back in the hospital for seven months. He, all he he could do is pick up the phone yet. He had the system in place. He had a community, he built the strong community around his mortgage practice. So what he would do is every day he would call his clients. He would check in with his mortgage reps. He would continue to reach out to his community and his community ramped up. And they referred people in. They really kept his business running because they knew that they needed. They , well, they didn't know they need him. They knew they wanted him to be around because he was a good guy and they valued him as part of their team. Right? So seven months later, he heals. He leaves the hospital. Again, 2007 doors were shutting. Lights were being turned off business. As a lot of people knew was no longer what it was his business doubled because he had a systematized process and how he had lead generation, how he's services clients, and because of that is business grew grow. So what I'm gonna leave you with as I wrap up is make sure number one, if you are networking, do it intentionally, bring value, build the community from networking. Number two, make sure that your , your financial, your foundation or component of your business is rock solid so that if something should happen to you where you're not there, or you decide you wanna take a trip, the business will be able to operate without you there. Number three, make sure you're continuing to add value to the business. Bring value back to your community. And it , if you do, I promise you your business will become seven figure business. Again, if you have any questions, you know how to get ahold of me. Otherwise, I look forward to the next time we talk goodbye for now.