November 12, 2023 • 12 mins
Years ago I heard advice from Success Champions Network founder Donnie Boivin. He taught that every networking event is a sales opportunity. For some time, I did not like this because I did not understand it. I heard it to encourage pitching at networking events, but that’s not what it means at all. One absolutely should not pitch, but one should always remember that the goal of all this meeting and greeting and relationship building is to ultimately find a sale, whether today, tomorrow, or next year.
In this episode, I discuss more how to thread the needle between being too salesy while networking and being too social.
Success Champions Network - https://www.successchampionsnetworking.com
Mentioned in this episode:
JV Connect, December 12-13, 2023
Join us for JV Connect, the dedicated networking event December 12th and 13th, 2023 https://www.jv-connect.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Whitehouse (00:03):
Hello and welcome once again to the guy
who knows the guy podcast.
I'm Michael Whitehouse, the guywho knows the guy, your host and
guide on this networking journey.
We continue to count down to JVConnect, which the first one will
be December 12th and 13th, 2020.
Free information at jv connect.
com.
And by information I mean, youshould read the page and then
(00:24):
you should register because thisis going to be an amazing event.
Today I want to talk to you about,uh, some great advice that I learned
once and didn't understand dueto a bit of a language barrier.
We both spoke English, but wespoke it in different ways.
And this advi this advice...
Came from a man named Donnie Boveen.
(00:45):
Now Donnie is the founder ofthe Success Champions Network.
And I'm reminded of it because therewas a live event near my area recently
as I'm recording this, and I finallygot to meet Donnie in person for the
first time, and, uh, saw just suchan incredible community that he's
built, the Success Champions Network.
And the advice that I'd heard anddidn't make sense to me, began to make
(01:08):
sense once I understood more of thecontext and where he was coming from.
So Donnie's backgroundis he's a sales guy.
He did sales, he did sales training.
He was all about sales.
And he got into networking becausehe saw more and more networking
groups popping up and he didn'tlike how they operated and thought
a lot of them were a waste of time.
And thought a lot of them were peoplewho didn't know how to sell and didn't
(01:30):
know how to close to try to not haveto sell, which, you know, I resonate
with because I learned to networkbecause I don't like cold calling and
networking was the better way to do it.
But, he, with his sales background, that'ssort of some of the language he used.
And, what he said, was somethingalong the lines of, Every networking
event is a sales opportunity.
And I heard this, and I went, Whoa, whoa,whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there, buddy.
(01:55):
Networking's not a sales opportunity,because to my mind, To my mind, the
people who do the worst networkingare the ones who come in to take.
You know, they're the gunslingers comingin being like, Hey, I got something to
buy and I'm going to sell it to you.
This is not, I would laterlearn, what he meant.
(02:15):
So, I came from the perspectiveof, I don't want to be too salesy.
I would rather err on the side ofbuilding relationships and not selling
than erring on the side of sellingand not building relationships.
So, that, that's how I did it.
Now, when I was publishing themagazine, uh, Mystic Neighbors and
Niantic Neighbors, I did a lot ofselling through networking events,
(02:38):
but I started with the networking.
In my book, I talk about how, you know,you can certainly pivot a networking
conversation to a sales conversation, butyou need to be very careful in how you
do it, and you need to be very clear tobe like, Okay, now I don't want to pitch
you, would it be okay if we transitionthis conversation and get consent?
But I have come to realize that whatDonnie said was actually quite accurate.
(02:59):
And the first clue should havebeen, he makes more money than I do.
So, uh, if somebody is doingsomething you're doing and making
more money than you, then maybe youshould listen because they might be.
doing it right.
And so the first lesson is if someone sayssomething and they're doing well, and they
seem to be good, honest, ethical people,and it sounds like the thing they're
saying doesn't agree with your philosophyand your, your dogma, perhaps first ask,
(03:22):
do I misunderstand what they're saying?
Are they actually saying somethingdifferent than I think they're saying?
Because we use words differently.
So when I heard him saying it's asales event, I'm thinking Ned Ryerson.
Being all, you know, from GroundhogDay, saying, Hey, tell me about your
insurance, and what do you need, and howcan I help you, and uh, You know, you
look a little bit overweight, I got somediet pills might be able to help you.
That kind of thing.
(03:43):
That's not what he meant, at all.
He was instead talking about,my favorite of the seven habits,
Begin with the end in mind.
If you're going to a networkingevent, You're going there to sell.
Not to pitch, Not to be obnoxious, butthe end result, the end goal, Of going
to this event, should be making a sale!
(04:05):
That's kind of the ultimate culminationof all your business connection
activities with non clients, right?
And even with clients, you want tosatisfy them enough that they're
going to refer people to you.
So what he was teaching was beginwith the end in mind and the end
is somebody's gonna give you money.
Not necessarily somebody in that room,but somebody is going to give you money.
(04:29):
So you're not there to have fun.
fun.
You're not there to make friends.
You're not there to hearinteresting stories.
All those things can happen,but you're there to make a sale.
That is the ultimate goal.
Now, to be clear, this does notmean you're going to walk up
(04:49):
to people and try to sell them.
Cause that's not how you make a sale,but you're going in with that thought
in mind, with that intention in mind.
And that's what he meant that I nowunderstand, didn't understand before.
Now very much understand thatyou want to have that intention
that you're going to make a sale.
Now, here's the thing too.
If you have something of value, if youhave something that is worth more than
(05:13):
you're charging for it, which anythingyou're selling should be worth more
than you're charging for it to theperson buying, that's why they buy.
then you are doing them no serviceby not presenting it to them.
In fact, when I was at thisevent, I was talking to someone
about a JBConnect sponsorship.
(05:34):
And I was thinking about their businessmodel, and what one client is worth to
them, and what the sponsorship costs.
And I thought, huh, if they couldget one client from the sponsorship,
That one client would be a 3x return.
Just one.
A single sale.
Would be a 3x return offthe cost of a sponsorship.
(05:55):
That's kind of a no brainer ona sponsorship that guarantees
50 opt ins, 50 leads.
He could probably, and so I sharedwith him, I said, You know, just
so you know, I have a sponsorshipavailable for JV Connect.
It costs this much, and um, You know,you're gonna get to get up for 3 minutes
and share what you're doing, and Andthen they're going to be encouraged
(06:17):
to answer the form and I guaranteeyou're going to get 50 opt ins.
If you don't, I'll promote itout to my audience until you do.
Uh, and he's like, oh,that sounds pretty good.
And I said, yeah, you know,what, what's your, what's your
program pricing structure?
And he shared it.
And his lowest cost program is threetimes as much as the sponsorship costs.
I said, you could probably get onesale out of 50 leads, don't you think?
(06:38):
And he's like, yeah, I certainly hope so.
And I said, oh, okay.
And he's like, yeah,definitely reach out to me.
That's something I want to do.
That was a sales conversation right there.
The value proposition was so abundantlyclear, if I hadn't told him about this
and he'd found out about it later, heprobably would have said, Hey, jerk
face, why didn't you tell me about that?
That's something I reallywanted to know about.
(07:00):
That was a really valuable thingand you didn't share it with me?
Why not, punk?
You know, you're kind of ajerk, not sharing that with me.
So, it, it starts from, the thingyou're selling has to be valuable.
Not just valuable to you becauseyou get paid, but valuable to the
person who's going to pay you for it.
And then, if that's the case, if youidentify someone at the event who needs...
(07:24):
what you are offering, then by all means,you should engage in that conversation.
Now, in this particular case, this issomeone I knew from some time ago, so
we didn't need quite as much warm up.
Uh, we hadn't talked in a while,but, you know, he knew who I was, I
knew who he was, we knew, you know,we know each other's integrity and,
and ethical standing and whatnot.
Uh, but, you know, even for someoneyou, you meet for the first time,
(07:46):
they share they have a need.
You can gently say something like,I don't know if this would be of
interest to you, but if it would,I've got X, Y, Z, I'd be happy to
share more with you later if you like.
And they'll either say yes or no.
Now, again, you don't want to beaggressive, you don't want to be
in their face, but you always wantto be thinking, what do I have that
is of value that somebody might payfor because this isn't a charity?
(08:12):
We're in business to make money.
Money is not a bad thing.
Money is what makes the world go round.
Money is a substitute for value.
Money is simply a placeholderfor the good we do and without
it we can't keep doing it.
Ask me how I know.
Alright, straight out ofcollege, I opened Phoenix Games.
(08:33):
It was a game store.
It was wildly successful,except for not making money.
It built this incredible community,and it supported the people in it, and
people loved it, and it was so great thatpeople actually were willing to work for
free to keep it running for 18 years.
That, that we kept that going.
So, you know, incredible success,except it never made money.
But here's the thing, without being ableto make money, that put a strain on it.
(08:56):
That, that was a challenge,and ultimately, it didn't make
enough to keep the doors open.
It had enough volunteersto keep it running.
But it didn't make enough moneyto keep the doors open and it
collapsed and the community waslost because we didn't make money.
Money is what makes things work.
Money is what buys food for the poor.
Money is what lets us have electricityso that we can record these awesome
(09:19):
podcasts and get them to you.
It all runs on money.
Money is not evil.
Money is not bad.
Money is not wrong.
Money is what lets us do the goodthings we want to do in the world.
Some people use money for evil.
Some people do bad things for money.
Right?
These are certainly the case.
But if you're a good person, an ethicalperson, and you get money, you're going
to do good and ethical things with it.
(09:39):
So if you are a good and ethicalperson, you should have no shame about
getting money for the good work you do.
And if you're doing good work, thenYou will want to make sure that you are
sharing that work with others So thatthey can give you money for it So you can
help them and then help more people andthen use that money to do more good work
And that's how it works So when DonnieBovine says every networking event and
(10:03):
every conversation and every contact isa sales Opportunity what he's saying is
it's a chance to share the good thingsyou're doing Possibly for money with the
people you can help And so I encourageyou as you're JVConnect, don't think of
it as you're trying to pitch someone.
But think of it as who can I serve here?
(10:25):
Who can I serve by servingtheir audience, their community?
And ultimately, how will this leadto someone giving me money for doing
the thing I do and sharing my genius?
So that is my lesson this week.
And of course.
To do this, you have to be at JVConnect, which means go to jv connect.
com.
That's where you can get yourregistration and, uh, join
(10:47):
us on December 12th and 13th.
And by the way, if you want to knowmore about Success Champions, go
to Success Champions Networking.
That's successchampionsnetworking.
com, and you can learn all about them.
It's a great organization.
They have chapters all over thecountry, and they have some national
chapters as well, if you are more of anon geographically specific business.
(11:10):
Um, but great organization, definitelyrecommend you check that out.
I'm Michael Whitehouse,the guy who knows the guy.
Thank you so much for listening, and Iwill see you in December at JV Connect.
Hello and welcome once again to the guy
who knows the guy podcast.
I'm Michael Whitehouse, the guywho knows the guy, your host and
guide on this networking journey.
We continue to count down to JVConnect, which the first one will
be December 12th and 13th, 2020.
Free information at jv connect.
com.
And by information I mean, youshould read the page and then
(00:24):
you should register because thisis going to be an amazing event.
Today I want to talk to you about,uh, some great advice that I learned
once and didn't understand dueto a bit of a language barrier.
We both spoke English, but wespoke it in different ways.
And this advi this advice...
Came from a man named Donnie Boveen.
(00:45):
Now Donnie is the founder ofthe Success Champions Network.
And I'm reminded of it because therewas a live event near my area recently
as I'm recording this, and I finallygot to meet Donnie in person for the
first time, and, uh, saw just suchan incredible community that he's
built, the Success Champions Network.
And the advice that I'd heard anddidn't make sense to me, began to make
(01:08):
sense once I understood more of thecontext and where he was coming from.
So Donnie's backgroundis he's a sales guy.
He did sales, he did sales training.
He was all about sales.
And he got into networking becausehe saw more and more networking
groups popping up and he didn'tlike how they operated and thought
a lot of them were a waste of time.
And thought a lot of them were peoplewho didn't know how to sell and didn't
(01:30):
know how to close to try to not haveto sell, which, you know, I resonate
with because I learned to networkbecause I don't like cold calling and
networking was the better way to do it.
But, he, with his sales background, that'ssort of some of the language he used.
And, what he said, was somethingalong the lines of, Every networking
event is a sales opportunity.
And I heard this, and I went, Whoa, whoa,whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there, buddy.
(01:55):
Networking's not a sales opportunity,because to my mind, To my mind, the
people who do the worst networkingare the ones who come in to take.
You know, they're the gunslingers comingin being like, Hey, I got something to
buy and I'm going to sell it to you.
This is not, I would laterlearn, what he meant.
(02:15):
So, I came from the perspectiveof, I don't want to be too salesy.
I would rather err on the side ofbuilding relationships and not selling
than erring on the side of sellingand not building relationships.
So, that, that's how I did it.
Now, when I was publishing themagazine, uh, Mystic Neighbors and
Niantic Neighbors, I did a lot ofselling through networking events,
(02:38):
but I started with the networking.
In my book, I talk about how, you know,you can certainly pivot a networking
conversation to a sales conversation, butyou need to be very careful in how you
do it, and you need to be very clear tobe like, Okay, now I don't want to pitch
you, would it be okay if we transitionthis conversation and get consent?
But I have come to realize that whatDonnie said was actually quite accurate.
(02:59):
And the first clue should havebeen, he makes more money than I do.
So, uh, if somebody is doingsomething you're doing and making
more money than you, then maybe youshould listen because they might be.
doing it right.
And so the first lesson is if someone sayssomething and they're doing well, and they
seem to be good, honest, ethical people,and it sounds like the thing they're
saying doesn't agree with your philosophyand your, your dogma, perhaps first ask,
(03:22):
do I misunderstand what they're saying?
Are they actually saying somethingdifferent than I think they're saying?
Because we use words differently.
So when I heard him saying it's asales event, I'm thinking Ned Ryerson.
Being all, you know, from GroundhogDay, saying, Hey, tell me about your
insurance, and what do you need, and howcan I help you, and uh, You know, you
look a little bit overweight, I got somediet pills might be able to help you.
That kind of thing.
(03:43):
That's not what he meant, at all.
He was instead talking about,my favorite of the seven habits,
Begin with the end in mind.
If you're going to a networkingevent, You're going there to sell.
Not to pitch, Not to be obnoxious, butthe end result, the end goal, Of going
to this event, should be making a sale!
(04:05):
That's kind of the ultimate culminationof all your business connection
activities with non clients, right?
And even with clients, you want tosatisfy them enough that they're
going to refer people to you.
So what he was teaching was beginwith the end in mind and the end
is somebody's gonna give you money.
Not necessarily somebody in that room,but somebody is going to give you money.
(04:29):
So you're not there to have fun.
fun.
You're not there to make friends.
You're not there to hearinteresting stories.
All those things can happen,but you're there to make a sale.
That is the ultimate goal.
Now, to be clear, this does notmean you're going to walk up
(04:49):
to people and try to sell them.
Cause that's not how you make a sale,but you're going in with that thought
in mind, with that intention in mind.
And that's what he meant that I nowunderstand, didn't understand before.
Now very much understand thatyou want to have that intention
that you're going to make a sale.
Now, here's the thing too.
If you have something of value, if youhave something that is worth more than
(05:13):
you're charging for it, which anythingyou're selling should be worth more
than you're charging for it to theperson buying, that's why they buy.
then you are doing them no serviceby not presenting it to them.
In fact, when I was at thisevent, I was talking to someone
about a JBConnect sponsorship.
(05:34):
And I was thinking about their businessmodel, and what one client is worth to
them, and what the sponsorship costs.
And I thought, huh, if they couldget one client from the sponsorship,
That one client would be a 3x return.
Just one.
A single sale.
Would be a 3x return offthe cost of a sponsorship.
(05:55):
That's kind of a no brainer ona sponsorship that guarantees
50 opt ins, 50 leads.
He could probably, and so I sharedwith him, I said, You know, just
so you know, I have a sponsorshipavailable for JV Connect.
It costs this much, and um, You know,you're gonna get to get up for 3 minutes
and share what you're doing, and Andthen they're going to be encouraged
(06:17):
to answer the form and I guaranteeyou're going to get 50 opt ins.
If you don't, I'll promote itout to my audience until you do.
Uh, and he's like, oh,that sounds pretty good.
And I said, yeah, you know,what, what's your, what's your
program pricing structure?
And he shared it.
And his lowest cost program is threetimes as much as the sponsorship costs.
I said, you could probably get onesale out of 50 leads, don't you think?
(06:38):
And he's like, yeah, I certainly hope so.
And I said, oh, okay.
And he's like, yeah,definitely reach out to me.
That's something I want to do.
That was a sales conversation right there.
The value proposition was so abundantlyclear, if I hadn't told him about this
and he'd found out about it later, heprobably would have said, Hey, jerk
face, why didn't you tell me about that?
That's something I reallywanted to know about.
(07:00):
That was a really valuable thingand you didn't share it with me?
Why not, punk?
You know, you're kind of ajerk, not sharing that with me.
So, it, it starts from, the thingyou're selling has to be valuable.
Not just valuable to you becauseyou get paid, but valuable to the
person who's going to pay you for it.
And then, if that's the case, if youidentify someone at the event who needs...
(07:24):
what you are offering, then by all means,you should engage in that conversation.
Now, in this particular case, this issomeone I knew from some time ago, so
we didn't need quite as much warm up.
Uh, we hadn't talked in a while,but, you know, he knew who I was, I
knew who he was, we knew, you know,we know each other's integrity and,
and ethical standing and whatnot.
Uh, but, you know, even for someoneyou, you meet for the first time,
(07:46):
they share they have a need.
You can gently say something like,I don't know if this would be of
interest to you, but if it would,I've got X, Y, Z, I'd be happy to
share more with you later if you like.
And they'll either say yes or no.
Now, again, you don't want to beaggressive, you don't want to be
in their face, but you always wantto be thinking, what do I have that
is of value that somebody might payfor because this isn't a charity?
(08:12):
We're in business to make money.
Money is not a bad thing.
Money is what makes the world go round.
Money is a substitute for value.
Money is simply a placeholderfor the good we do and without
it we can't keep doing it.
Ask me how I know.
Alright, straight out ofcollege, I opened Phoenix Games.
(08:33):
It was a game store.
It was wildly successful,except for not making money.
It built this incredible community,and it supported the people in it, and
people loved it, and it was so great thatpeople actually were willing to work for
free to keep it running for 18 years.
That, that we kept that going.
So, you know, incredible success,except it never made money.
But here's the thing, without being ableto make money, that put a strain on it.
(08:56):
That, that was a challenge,and ultimately, it didn't make
enough to keep the doors open.
It had enough volunteersto keep it running.
But it didn't make enough moneyto keep the doors open and it
collapsed and the community waslost because we didn't make money.
Money is what makes things work.
Money is what buys food for the poor.
Money is what lets us have electricityso that we can record these awesome
(09:19):
podcasts and get them to you.
It all runs on money.
Money is not evil.
Money is not bad.
Money is not wrong.
Money is what lets us do the goodthings we want to do in the world.
Some people use money for evil.
Some people do bad things for money.
Right?
These are certainly the case.
But if you're a good person, an ethicalperson, and you get money, you're going
to do good and ethical things with it.
(09:39):
So if you are a good and ethicalperson, you should have no shame about
getting money for the good work you do.
And if you're doing good work, thenYou will want to make sure that you are
sharing that work with others So thatthey can give you money for it So you can
help them and then help more people andthen use that money to do more good work
And that's how it works So when DonnieBovine says every networking event and
(10:03):
every conversation and every contact isa sales Opportunity what he's saying is
it's a chance to share the good thingsyou're doing Possibly for money with the
people you can help And so I encourageyou as you're JVConnect, don't think of
it as you're trying to pitch someone.
But think of it as who can I serve here?
(10:25):
Who can I serve by servingtheir audience, their community?
And ultimately, how will this leadto someone giving me money for doing
the thing I do and sharing my genius?
So that is my lesson this week.
And of course.
To do this, you have to be at JVConnect, which means go to jv connect.
com.
That's where you can get yourregistration and, uh, join
(10:47):
us on December 12th and 13th.
And by the way, if you want to knowmore about Success Champions, go
to Success Champions Networking.
That's successchampionsnetworking.
com, and you can learn all about them.
It's a great organization.
They have chapters all over thecountry, and they have some national
chapters as well, if you are more of anon geographically specific business.
(11:10):
Um, but great organization, definitelyrecommend you check that out.
I'm Michael Whitehouse,the guy who knows the guy.
Thank you so much for listening, and Iwill see you in December at JV Connect.
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