How to Create and Scale Your Own Networking Group with Clay Hicks

Creating and scaling your own networking group is an excellent investment of your time. The rewards can be great and far reaching. I discuss how to do that in this episode with my guest, Clay Hicks.   Clay is a serial entrepreneur with a portfolio of 5 different companies, an author, a speaker, and trainer on professional relationships. Clay Hicks founded his first company, H7 Network in 2008, in the hopes of positively impacting the many under-served entrepreneurs and all sales professionals. Many years ago, Clay was searching for and trying out a variety of networking groups. More often than not he left each one more disappointed than anything else. Most of them judged people by how many referrals they were giving and how much money they made without much thought for meaningful relationships. They were very transactional and that didn’t sit well with Clay. He decided to start H7 Network to do things the way he believed was right. Build Your Leadership Team Early On First, he surrounded himself with five leaders that helped him start the group. That support system was crucial to their early success. It wasn’t just one person trying to figure everything out alone. The team framed out their first style of networking group which was 60 second commercials and a speaker. He began to build more meaningful relationships and that changed everything. There was no pressure to give referrals, Clay and his team let that happen organically. Clay has always looked for potential in other people. He doesn’t see them just for who they are, he also sees them for who they could be and how valuable having a relationship with them could be for both people. So, when he went to make those choices early on, he picked people he had or could have a good relationship with. Those were the early days of his “Connect, Serve, and Ask” methodology. He knew back then he couldn’t do it without them and knows today that he still couldn’t do it without his team. He and the original board went their separate ways and Clay turned to his existing network from his real estate industry days. He invited the people to join H7 leadership that he already at least had a connection with, and explained what he was creating. Clay’s a natural promoter. The people he invited to join him also had relationships to share. Everyone was involved with invited people to the meetings. Getting Traction for Attendance in Your Early Days They started free so the traction gained was around getting people into the room. The attendees in turn brought more people from their networks to the meetings. Clay had to make the structure of the meetings interesting and valuable. The meetings started with attendees sharing celebrations of the good things that were going on in their lives. That immediately created positive energy in the room. Then there was the value-add component. He shared strategies to network effectively with his “Connect, Serve, and Ask” methodology. They would do 60 second commercials with a unique, non-traditional format. He then encouraged the attendees to continue their conversations and set up 1-to-1 meetings after the event. The push for 1:1 meetings created value between the meetings because people were having more meaningful conversations than they had time for at the events. Soon they began to charge and people began to see it as more valuable. They grew by 60 members in their first six months. Once they hit 60 members some of his support system left so Clay had to update his support system with new people. The big lesson here for you is to get some support from strong relationships, even if its an informal board of advisors, as soon as possible when starting your group. Lone wolf to pack. You can go fast by yourself, or you can further by surrounding yourself with good people. Your relationships are the key to your success! In this episode we dive into topics such as: How to know if you have strong relationships.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to a special idea scaling episode of
the Idea Climbing podcast.
Today, we're discussing how to create and scale
your own networking group with my guest, Clay
Hicks. Clay is a serial entrepreneur with a
portfolio of five different companies, an author, a
speaker, and trainer on professional relationships.
Clay founded his first company, h seven network,
in 02/2008 in the hopes of positively impacting

(00:23):
the many underserved entrepreneurs and all sales professionals.
We dive into topics such as how to
create engagement and collaboration in your meetings, how
to build relationships to scale when your group
hits critical mass,
advice for building and scaling your group through
virtual meetings, and more golden nuggets of advice.
You're gonna love this show.

(00:47):
Clay, thank you for being here for the
idea scaling podcast. I really appreciate you making
the time for this. My pleasure, man. Anything
you're doing, I wanna do with you. Thank
you.
And we're gonna be talking about creating and
then scaling your own mastermind group. Before we
get into the strategies, the tactics, the the
tips,
what's your story? How you we'll talk a

(01:07):
little bit about h seven too. But as
far as starting a networking group, you gotta
start somewhere. What's your story? Why did you
start one to begin with?
So,
you know, to to to start with,
I, you know, I was trying I was
in search of a networking group way back
in the day where I searched the networking
group. Honestly, I left more disappointed than anything

(01:28):
else. A lot of it had to do
with, like,
how much money are you making and how
many referrals, blah blah blah, all this stuff.
And then some of the just the experience
wasn't great for me. So when I started
my when I started up,
I surrounded myself with five
leaders to help me to start it up.
And so when I started that up, they

(01:49):
helped, and we we framed out our first
style of networking group,
which was basically,
67 commercials on a speaker.
And,
and and that's kinda, and kind of a
way we went.
And
then I, of course, built more relationships and
things, and that changed everything

(02:10):
as well. So the I think that's important
to have that support group. How did you
first choose who you were gonna reach out
to, and then how did you get them
enrolled
to help you build h seven? What did
you do for those first five picking them
and then getting them enrolled?
So as a as a as a leader
myself, I'm always on the look now. Of

(02:31):
course, I was seventeen years ago too.
So back then, I I wasn't quite the
leader I I am today. But back back
then or or even now, I always look
for potential on other people.
Right? I don't I don't see them just
for who they are.
I see them for who they are and
who they could be
in a relationship with myself or or how,

(02:52):
you know, how valuable having that relationship would
be.
And so when I
went to make those choices,
the folks that were on my board, I'd
rather not say their names, but nonetheless,
I had a decent relationship with them to
begin with.
And that would have been my early days
of my connect, serve, and ask methodology coming

(03:13):
out and and inviting them to help me,
asking them for help,
knowing that I cannot do all this. And
I knowing still today, I cannot do without
the help of others.
So how did you get as far as
attendance goes, what did you do in the
beginning to get people into the room with
you for as far as attendees?
Yeah. So we kinda went our separate ways,

(03:34):
like myself and the board.
And I had,
I had a network from my real estate
days at that time, and so I started
there. So I invited the people that I
already
at least had a connection with
back then told them what I was doing.
I'm also a natural promoter, of course. And
so
encouraging people to,

(03:56):
attend something, things like that.
But I had a list of my real
estate relationships
at that time. Mhmm. And so then they
also had relationships with other people, connections.
And and we just kinda all decided, let's
go our separate ways and begin inviting people
to the meeting.
So how did you get traction in the
early days? What did you the first meeting,

(04:17):
fifth meeting, tenth meeting, what did you do
to get traction? Because I know people can
get excited about something at first and then
it wanes.
What did you do initially to get that
traction going?
Actually, we started free. So we started free.
We did free.
So we started in,
April. Like, we started forming a company in
March. But anyway, we launched our first meeting
around April 1.

(04:39):
Well,
by June 1, at that point, it was
all free.
Ninety days, come as you go, you know,
come. We only had a couple meetings right
then, so people were, you know, coming.
And it was free, and then they had
to buy lunch and things, but it was
overall, it was free. So the traction was
around,
you know

(05:00):
you know, getting butts in the seat and
and not not focusing on making sure everybody
paid just to be there, but bringing people
around us. Right? Bringing people around us. I
mean, to our circle
of what we were about to do. So
So once you got them in the room
in the early days, could you you mentioned
it a little bit, but could you unpack
what was the structure of the meetings?
How did you make it interesting and valuable?

(05:21):
Well, back then, it was starting. So we
started with a form of celebrations that we
have today. Mhmm.
Then,
I would do some kind of,
value add to everybody.
I I would I would
give them some
value around how to network, things like that,
how I network, things like that. Then we

(05:43):
would do sixty second commercials.
That was pretty much it.
Right? We did commercials, and we encouraged them
to do one to ones. That was my
very first
kind of framework
of a mean style back then.
So how did it grow? When did it
start to change and alter a little bit?
So June effective July 1, we began to

(06:05):
charge.
When we began to charge,
people began to see it as more valuable.
K? So we grew by 60 members in
our first six months. Sixty or 16?
60.
Six zero. Six zero. So from July 1
to December 31, we grew by 60 members
total.

(06:27):
So once the board disbanded, what did you
do for support? Once you hit 60 members,
what did your your support system look like
at that point?
Actually, they stayed with me. They stayed with
me for another couple of years, actually. And
then the only reason they left back then
was change of jobs and things. There was
no there was no,
animosity. There was no negativity. There was no

(06:49):
quitting.
Just life was in the way. It was
back then, it was 02/2008, '2 thousand '9,
'2 thousand '10. Right? And so there's a
lot of transition going on with the recession
that was going on. Now one gentleman that
was on the board, he lasted until last
year.
Wow.
He he was with me until November of
last year.

(07:10):
So So that's sixteen years later.
Wow. With everything you learned, what what suggestions
with what we're talking about now in in
especially in hindsight of what fifteen, sixteen years
now. If someone's looking to start their own
group, okay, get some support even if it's
an informal board of advisors so you're not
climbing our mountain alone. You're not the lone
wolf.
Yeah. As far as

(07:31):
creating a structure that's different than just throwing
200 people in a room for open networking
or just everyone go around and give the
commercial,
Someone watching or listening right now, what advice
would you have for a structure of early
day meetings when they're getting started?
Well, the first step would be to make
sure you surround yourself
with strong relationships.
K?

(07:52):
Lone wolf to pack, one may say. So
if you eat, there's the African proverb. Right?
You can,
you can go fast by yourself or you
can
alone or
you can go further with people. But I
may be saying that wrong. I'm saying that
wrong. But nonetheless,

(08:12):
the relationships are the key. So if you
just think to yourself, I'm gonna start up
a group
and then
everybody's gonna show,
I would highly recommend you take a step
back and and check yourself. Do I have
relationships first? They're gonna actually help me with
this.
And then as I began to do it,
getting feedback from them

(08:32):
that they believe that this could be better.
So being open to actual constructive
conversation or criticism or whatever
around,
what do they think? You don't have to
be the smartest person in the room. The
day you are is the day you better
change your
room. So
so that'd be my advice.

(08:54):
So as as far as continuing on that
thought, as far as the actual meetings go
Yeah. What would you suggest in lieu of
okay. Everyone give their just, you know, everyone
gives a gives an elevator pitch and you
hope for the best. What what would you
suggest people do differently than what everyone else
is already doing? Well, the traditional networking style
is gonna be your thirty, sixty second, thirty,

(09:15):
or sixty second commercial, a speaker, things like
that. Mhmm. I would concentrate
on engagement.
So think about your meeting style, how engaging
between the singular or the individual who shows
up and what happens
throughout that hour.
How
take a take yourself self take a step

(09:36):
back and think about how that will affect
the individual in the room.
So think about, it really comes down to
my,
my my favorite quote. When you focus on
relationships and not the outcome, the outcome becomes
more predictable. Same concept. When you focus on
the actual individuals that will be in the
room,
what is it that they want? What is

(09:57):
it that will move their needle?
Not what moves yours.
Not what yours. No. Go on.
No. That's it.
And you and I have talked about this,
and I love with that quote you just
said. I'd love you to unpack a little
bit more the predictable
engagement or predictable
outcomes.
You speak more what do you mean by

(10:17):
that? Because I think that's really interesting.
Yeah. So first of all, it's one of
my favorite quotes because it goes along with,
focusing on the relationship,
like the building of the trust
with the individual. Like, they're human beings, so
treat them as such.
And and and try not to get caught
up in, you know, what is the outcome
I'm looking to achieve

(10:39):
for myself.
Right? And so
what I mean in this fray in that
quote as it pertains to what we're talking
about is focus on what it what is
it
that will support the individual in the room
in being able to engage with the other
people in the room.
I'm sorry, but a 30 to 60¢ commercial

(11:01):
doesn't help with engagement.
It just introduces yourself so people know who
they're talking to. I will concentrate on true
collaboration
in the meeting.
Concentrate on thinking about how
if this person connects with that person, how
do they how would they connect
and engineer pieces or parts of the the

(11:25):
whole of the meeting style that empower them
to have success
would be what I would say.
So what are some examples? That's pretty interesting.
What are some examples of creating engagement there?
An example of putting them into groups.
I mean, as simple as that. Not making
them just stay

(11:45):
external the entire time. Put them into groups
and let them talk. Let them get to
know each other.
Don't just simply
expect them to have success because they're in
your presence.
You got to think about it from what
their perspective is. So
the more engagement they have with those in
the room, the better. So I would suggest

(12:05):
some kind of small group breakout of some
sort to allow them to be empowered to
connect with one another
in some way.
So once you hit 60, what is the
next stage of your evolution look like? You
got you got your footing. You have your
support system.
You got some traction.
What happened what happened next after you hit

(12:26):
that 60?
So I will tell you we doubled in
size again that next we doubled in size.
So we have a 50 members the next
year.
So with that being said,
so
I wanted that
small group breakout experience
for our members, for for what's going on

(12:47):
in a seven. So I actually
tried engineering that to happen.
And what do you know? A relationship of
mine, still friends today, still a member today,
comes up and says, hey. I think you
can do better at this. Are you willing
to hear what I have to say?
And and I did. And the small group
breakouts were born in our

(13:08):
meeting
style. And so,
again, you go back to relationships
first.
Right? So relationship
feels confident enough to come up to me
and say, hey. Yeah. I know what I
could see what you might be trying to
do, but you're not doing well.
So this is how maybe to make that
improvement or whatever. So it still comes back

(13:28):
to relationships and listening and not knowing everything,
being willing to try new things that
support that success.
Well, on that note, what did what once
you hit that, you double in size again,
what did your how did your support system
change, or did you add people?
What did it look like? Okay. Because getting
the first ten, one hundred, whatever it might

(13:49):
be, that's one thing. Yeah. Doubling in size
again, I'm imagining the support system did not
look the same as it did on day
one. What did it look like? What did
you do? So so you're right. So I
was getting squeezed.
Right? Getting squeezed because of time. And so
the next part part is because I'm getting
squeezed, how do we scale?

(14:10):
How do we scale this thing?
And so,
back around 02/2012,
yes. 02/2012, we had our very first
alpha teams.
Alpha teams are leaders that lead all the
groups.
My first team
had eight on it,
at in the beginning, you know, just trying

(14:31):
it, trying it, trying it, getting their feedback.
But that was the next iteration where we
created leadership scalability
purposes.
Talk more about that. How did you same
thing as far as initially. Once you've grown
to a certain point and you wanna create
alpha teams, how do you approach people to

(14:52):
take on a role like that? How do
you pick them? How do you approach alpha
team leaders?
Well,
that would come down to,
you know,
your relationships.
So, like, that invitation,
like, asking them,
inviting them to participate is how I did
it. Hey, guys. Here's my idea.

(15:16):
Would you be open to helping me with
it? Right?
And so that's how that began. And they're
like, oh, yeah. We wanna do it. They
want oh, yeah. I mean, eight people right
then and there. And that same meeting
stayed after the meeting.
So I said it out loud and then
boom. All those people stayed.
Because I'm not doing this by myself, and
I don't want to.

(15:37):
No.
So So what did the next level look
like? You've now you've got you've grown. You've
got the alpha teams in place. Then what
did you do?
Well, then as we expect directors,
we need a direct we need leaders for
metro areas and such.
Right? So we moved up and said, okay.

(15:58):
Well, now we need leaders that run the
the
the serve the leaders. Right? That help us
grow. They help us do things. So the
next level was directors.
Now that that that was, you know, that
was 12/13
02/1213.
It was back then. Finding people that would
help me to actually scale it and to
grow it. And so,

(16:19):
yeah. I mean, we have 15 today
right now, currently, that do that. 15 directors?
Right now. Yeah. They do that. Wow.
Yeah.
So what's next as far as you got
the directors in place, you've got the alpha
teams in place,
either what did you do to get from
February yeah. That's a better question. What did

(16:39):
you do to get from 02/2012 and what
we'll say before the implosion of twenty twenty?
What did you what was 02/2012 to 02/2020
like for you?
It was it was all about scaling. So
by the time so think about from 12
to 20, by the time we got to
20,
we had,
directors in Columbus,
Indianapolis,

(17:00):
Dayton, Cincinnati,
Austin, Texas,
and North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina.
That's what it looked like, and we met
in person. You know, our meetings back then
were in person before the pandemic.
So making sure that,
directors knew what to do, you know, having
manuals, instructions,

(17:20):
how to do everything, training, all that stuff
was all being built. And at the same
time,
we ended up developing and becoming a franchisor
via documentation only. So we didn't do anything
else. So we built it all out, all
the manuals, all that stuff had to all
be built so that we could scale. So
that
we were serving

(17:41):
our relationships so that we could scale.
Well, then twenty twenty hits. The world goes
to hell.
Let's move past that. It is what it
it was what it was.
But what you've done successfully and I've seen
a few other groups that did it, but
more implosions than successes.
And now in this day and age, people
watching might think, well, I wanna do virtual.
What advice do you have for building and

(18:02):
scaling in the virtual space like you had
to do so desperately at that point?
Yeah. So I
well, so I'd already built, like, I'd already
had the framing for all the leadership.
So then it became during the pandemic, it
was scramble, scramble, scramble, grow, grow, grow. Do
the thing, all the stuff. And so I
had to rely heavily,

(18:24):
even more heavily on relationships.
I had to bring in outside consulting to
help me to establish, reestablish
operations
in our systems.
Sent so, like, before once a pandemic,
we had, you know, four on our staff
five on our staff. Excuse me. So so
now it's 20. Right? And so to go

(18:45):
like that, that had that took very group
relationships,
smarter than me,
that helped support us to go to this
level,
to be able to spread out. You know,
now we have groups in 15 states
Wow. In in another country. We're getting ready
to open up with two more countries than
all that stuff.

(19:05):
So
that's that's
attributed to
our processes, our methodology, our relationships,
and and our go to market strategy too.
So what struck based on your experience now
doing this successfully, what structure would you suggest
for people watching
as far as for a virtual event structure?
Once again, beyond

(19:26):
30 people in a room, thirty second elevator
pitches, okay, bye bye.
What structure do would you suggest for virtual
events to make them successful and engaging?
I would suggest
the
having good I would recommend
that you really seriously think about putting them
into groups to have conversation.

(19:48):
K? That is going to help with engagement
big time. People are not gonna sign up
necessarily
to come on to a meeting for an
hour and, you know, sixty minutes, whereby just
does commercials and there's a speaker. Like, it's
just
that that's much more difficult over Zoom as
hard as it is in person. Right?
It's even more difficult in Zoom. So the

(20:09):
virtual world concentrate
heavily on
engagement,
Period.
As much engagement as possible.
So from the beginning to the end,
watch your steps throughout that engineered system that
you are actually deployed
to ensure
that they have time to talk, they have
time to connect, and there's plenty of engagement

(20:30):
opportunities
aside from just
a commercial.
So on that note, what would you share?
What are your steps?
Sure.
So
we,
we celebrate.
Right? We start off our meetings with celebrations.
We do these funky introductions
that are nowhere near being done anywhere else

(20:51):
in the world that we can find out,
which is our three word introductions. And then
next,
we break into groups led by facilitators.
And inside these groups, a facilitator
walks you through for about twenty five to
thirty minutes of business building activity.
So in this business building activity, they do
their thirty second commercials there. They do they
answer a question about their business that helps

(21:13):
everybody else kinda get to know them better.
And then we're gonna find out who you're
looking to meet, and we're gonna do that
work right then and there in the meeting.
And then after that's over,
when we come back, if somebody did not
get that
connection you were looking for, not to worry.
We'll put out to the rest of the
crowd. We go for a %
tie to bow every single time.

(21:35):
That is awesome. And I I experienced that
week after week on the hub where I'm
on the alpha team, so I get to
experience that.
Yeah.
We have covered a lot of ground in
a very short period of time. If someone's,
let's say, newer new ish, like, maybe they're
they're either thinking of starting seriously considering it,
contemplating starting a group, or they have a

(21:55):
little bit of traction here and there. If
you were to say, you know what? If
at least do this one thing. Above all
else, at least do this to get traction
and get rolling so you can scale.
What would you tell those new or newish
people to do above all else?
Make sure that the people in the room
have a place to connect.
That's what I would be sure of. Make

(22:17):
sure that they have an opportunity to break
into groups to be able to connect at
a very least, at the very minimum.
Thank you very much, Clay. This has been
great. If people wanna find you online, what
place or places should they go to?
You can find me, of course, our website,
e7network.com.
You can find me on LinkedIn underneath Clay
Hicks. And for those of you listening,

(22:38):
I actually mentor other networking group owners too.
I have no problems with that. Could reach
out to me. You want me to hear
what you got? You want me to hear
your
engagement? Happy to listen. Happy to support you
in any way I can.
So Thank you so much. This has been
awesome.
Thank you. Thank you, Mark.
And scene.

(22:59):
Thank you for joining us today. I hope
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