Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Recently I saw a lightning rod on LinkedIn.
A comment from a friend of mine that said networking is broken.
It's become a social club where you think showing up gives you a
Gold Star, when in fact it's a room full of fellow
procrastinators who are afraid to sell, and they think that by
(00:26):
showing up, they'll sell to somebody in that room.
You feel cringing right now in your gut and you're like ohe
Christine's coming in half and hard today, stay with me.
I want you to win when you're networking, but too many people
I know are in endless meetings that are going nowhere.
(00:49):
So today on Amplifier Marketing message, I want to talk about
this. I want to talk about the problem
with networking. And I want to invite you to
audit the rooms you're in, to audit how you're approaching it,
and to check are you busy or areyou productive?
Because networking can be one ofthe smartest ways to find access
(01:12):
to new collaborations that bringyou into visibility of new
prospects. And never mistake.
That's the goal of collaboration.
That's the goal of networking. This is an income producing
activity. If it is not generating leads,
what you're doing is broken, andbroken leads to burnout, and
(01:38):
it's avoidable. So get out your pens papers,
make sure you record, download and save this episode and share
it to somebody you know. Because too many networking
groups are simple playgrounds ofprocrastination.
You're surrounded by rooms of business owners who are broke,
(02:01):
who aren't seeing significant client volumes, and you're in
rooms of people who fail to makedecisions.
And that's dangerous. Every year at this time of year,
I audit the rooms I'm in and I say am I generating activity
(02:24):
that is income producing? Am I seeing consistent lead flow
from that activity? Am I committed to contributing
to the community as a whole? And am I visible in all the ways
I can be for the money I'm spending to be in that space?
(02:48):
And I just want watched you go wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What? I'm like, I do not spend time in
free networking spaces. I don't need to go into rooms
where broke. People are only looking for a
free option. My services are not a free
option. Podcast is a free option.
Events may or may not be a free option, but my services are not
(03:10):
free. And so I go into rooms where
people who are already buyers, people who buy into paid
networking spaces go into paid referral communities.
And that is a measure that has proven solid gold.
And if I'm in the wrong rooms, Iexit.
(03:32):
And so should you, because too many business owners that I have
encountered, almost every clientwho's come and joined our
business services this calendar year have said this in a
paraphrased way to me. I'm in a lot of networking, I'm
having lots of 1 to ones, I'm not seeing any sales activity
(03:53):
and I feel a question deep in mygut.
Is it worth it? The results indicate no.
It saddens me because they're inrooms of broke entrepreneurs who
are showing up thinking showing up gives them a Gold Star.
(04:16):
They show up with the intent to sell to others in the community,
and they are transactional in their mindset and in the
experience. And when I hear that, you know
what I think? I think that you've been sold a
social club where the only moneymoving hands is yours to the
(04:38):
network owner, and if that's theonly money that's moving hands,
exit fast. I belong to paid networking
communities where we pay referrals to each other, so
there's a clear goal. The revenue shared from deals
one far outstrips my dues to being a member.
(05:01):
Did you hear me say that that's the kind of room you want to be
in? So if you're not in one of those
rooms, come find me and ask me to introduce you to the rooms I
play in. If I think you're a fit, I'll
refer you. And you can be in spaces that
win because you need to be in a room of winners, not in a room
of people who are procrastinating.
Because if you think that simplyshowing up and going through the
(05:23):
motions is the same as creating sales success, let's be clear.
One is busy, 1 is revenue generating.
So in your work day you need to be focused on revenue generating
activities. So if you're in networking rooms
(05:43):
where you are invited to add value but no one asked for that
value, where you spend hours in pods trying to socially gamify
your social platform, adding comments that go nowhere.
Or you're building relationshipswith people who are broken their
mentality, looking for the freebie path, and are not
(06:06):
investing and not selling successfully.
You're in the wrong room, and that's not the only room that's
out there. Even if it might be what you are
experiencing today, I want you to get clear your goal is about
(06:27):
productivity. If I'm in that room it has to be
a good return on time and money and if it's not, prune, exit and
re invest in another space because number one, you've got
to stop hiding. Showing up is not the same as
(06:48):
creating success. I want you to invest in real
relationships, and you never know how one conversation could
change everything. But if you don't have
intentionality about building that relationship and ensuring
that you're aligned in your values, you're moving in the
(07:09):
same direction, and you have faith, trust to advocate for
each other, it's a lot of noise.A busy is not the same as
success and busy that doesn't gosuccess leads to broke and
overwhelm. I want you to trail and track
(07:32):
for the next 30 days. How many hours do you spend in
networking rooms? How many identified leads did
you create? Sometimes those leads are
created through collaborative partners.
But collaborations are about onething, sharing leads together.
If collaboration is not leading to a lead and you aren't
(07:55):
tracking leads effectively and it's not above 0, boy, you're
just stuck in busy work, my friend.
So I want you to track how many rooms did I go into, How many
calls did I spend? How many hours have I invested?
How many leads have I created? And here's an important piece,
my friends. What did you do with the leads?
(08:16):
Did you build the relationships with them?
Did you engage directly? Did you call, engage, talk to
them? Because you must actually do the
sales work. I don't care how you do the
sales work, whether you want to do it in person, you want to do
it screen to screen, you want touse it a tech platform with that
e-mail, DM's or other ways, video and animations, all kinds
(08:37):
of choices. But you can't skip the step.
And I want you to track work that matters because when people
do come to me and they do sayingI invest, Christine, I invest.
I know I have to find people. I know I've been listening to
you for years. I listened to your podcast.
(08:59):
I've been in lots of your eventsand you always say you need to
find strangers. Your business will be built on
strangers. And so to get in front of
strangers, the effective way to do this is networking.
It's one option and it should bean effective one if done well.
So you're like, I've met all these networking meetings and
I've joined all these communities and I spend 10 hours
a week on networking activity. And I say, what's the result?
(09:22):
And they go back to me, Christine, I spend 10 hours a
week in networking activity. And I'm like, is that the only
result that you're seeing that you are in spaces?
Are you effective in those spaces?
I'm going to say that the cookiestarts to crumble.
(09:43):
Well, I've had all these one to 1, so I said.
And what happened in the one to ones?
Well, we just told each other about our business.
I said, and they say Christine, I just told him about my
business and they told me about theirs.
And I said, well, what did you take as your next step?
I told them about my business, my friends.
(10:04):
It's a good start that's not effective, so I want to build on
that. When you are in an effective one
to one, this is what it should look like.
You are clear on the time committed for the call.
You go in and you are sharing equally about your business.
But here's how you share about your business.
I stand for this result. It's a statement, 10 words or
(10:28):
less. People who desire that result
are looking for the following orencountering the following or
can be observed doing the following.
You need to give situational context so somebody could spot
the pattern of somebody who seeks the result you deliver.
(10:48):
And you say if that person experiences that, I want you to
engage in introduction and you can think about how you want to
be introduced or where you want to be introduced or the platform
that you're most visible on and you want the introduction to be
made, that I observed this problem and you seek that
result. I know a great person who can
(11:09):
help you. Would you like me to make the
introduction and you make it andin that meeting, you should not
ever have a one to one that doesn't have an ROI beyond a
shared information because if some of my friends, you're back
being a likable expert, You're not positioning yourself as a
(11:29):
must hire. You're not asking for an
introduction and you're not going to get a lead.
So once you've shared, you say, who do you know that you've met
in the last 10 days, this week and the week prior or even in
the last 30 days that you could observe that pattern?
And you wait. And if you need prompts, you say
(11:50):
get out your social media. Who have you been talking to on
LinkedIn? Who have you been talking to on
Instagram? Who have you been talking on in
your emails? There are good a person.
Let's make that introduction now.
Get the work done in the meeting.
And here's what's so important if you want to build your
reputation and be a cut above everybody after they've made the
(12:12):
introduction that let them know how it goes.
Let them know that you met, thatthey deferred, that they
cancelled, that they know showed.
Let them know that you moved them to an offer and this was
what the offer is. And here's how the offer
reinforces the result they seek and that it was a good
introduction. And I think this is not
required, but we do it so you can expect it from us.
(12:36):
We pay out a referral Commission.
And that's why if you go to our website,
christinecampbellwrapping.com, you'll see a button right on the
top. We love referrals.
You can refer somebody to us directly.
There we will capture and serve and support and reward.
I can feel you. Your mind's going, Christine.
(13:01):
I think I am in a procrastination of playground.
I think I'm surrounded by entrepreneurs afraid to sell.
I think even rooms are the only person being sold or money
moving hands is me paying the fee to be there.
I can see you going, Oh my God, I'm spending so much time but I
never track the ROI. No more, my friends.
(13:27):
This kind of thinking, this kindof awareness, this kind of
tracking and dashboards is essential if you want your
business to reward you like a business, you must treat it like
a business and you must get veryclear on the hours you spend
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that are income producing activities.
And you must go after the lead, serve the lead, make the offer
and get to a decision. No if, ands or buts.
And if all of that makes you go,I totally get it.
How do I do it? Well, we help you people do that
(14:09):
every day. My invitation would be come talk
to us because we help you structure this and as a result
when we do, here's what kind of happens.
I want to just share some some Ahas from my clients recently
because I said every single one of them in the last year has
come to me saying I'm networking, I'm in social clubs.
(14:29):
I am not in rooms of movers, I'mnot in rooms of buyers.
I'm not doing this particularly well and help because I know it
could work, because I watch it work in your business, because
for us, referrals are the secondmost important lead generation
source we have. Here's what happens.
People that have been in business 8 years have said to me
(14:50):
I was never clear on the distinction between what a
contact is, what a lead is, and what a referral or collaborative
partner is. I'm not clear when I was
messaging how to position myselfbecause I kept talking about me,
my name and my company instead of the result.
I stand for the when we get clients and the system that we
(15:14):
do to create it. Repeatedly I watched people say
I'm booking more sales calls. I'm watching people be aware
that they're intentionally slowing things down by going
meeting to meeting to meeting tomeeting to meeting instead of
fewer meetings. More productive.
Track the ROI and tweak and adjust your strategy when that
(15:38):
happens. I say this to my clients all the
time. I don't need you to necessarily
commit more hours, although if you're not doing any hours,
absolutely you can't build from zero.
I want you to be more effective in the hours you're working.
And this is something that we are human around.
So we might have good seasons where we're highly productive,
highly intentional, highly awareof our tracking and really in
(16:02):
our flow, our A game all around.And it feels like we're magnetic
and we're winning, but we also sometimes take our eye off the
ball. Life.
Life we get in our own way. We fall back into patterns.
It's normal. It happens to me all the time
(16:24):
and it happens to my clients allthe time.
What we build is an awareness tomake the gaps as short as we
can. We take horse correction
decisively, but this is a calling card.
I want you to save the episode. I want you to share with
somebody you know because I watch a lot of networking rooms
(16:47):
in my day. I've been in a lot.
Most are social clubs. Most are filled with broadcast
entrepreneurs who are afraid to sell, who think going in,
sitting in the back row and talking for two minutes and 60
is going to move the needle in their business.
Before I poop with that too far,will it move the needle?
(17:10):
Yes. But at the speed at which you're
traveling, it will take you 800 years to build your client base,
and you don't have that year. You don't have 800 years, even
with the longevity stuff that's making us all look great for
longer, you need to get there faster.
So my ask to you today is to think prune, commit to
(17:33):
productive income producing activities and if you feel lost,
you feel overwhelmed, you think I just need a how to solve this,
you come talk to me. Christine Campbell Rappin, you
know somebody who should be referred into our business.
Click that link on our home page.
(17:55):
You want to be curious about howwe support?
Get the support, Stop wasting time, stop being ineffective.
Your next client is out there, of that I am absolutely certain.
Let's get them served. I'll see you on our next
(18:17):
episode.