Video Category: Business

Owner Mistake – Movement is Not Progress

Owner Mistake – Movement is Not Progress

Video Transcript

I have been really blessed and lucky to be around entrepreneurship for 20 years and be able to see businesses grow from little guys to big guys. To see people fail. To see people exceed To determine whether or not people exceed quickly. Now, I'm also an introvert. I know I am doing these videos because I'm an introvert. One thing I have gained from that is that I am able to sit on the sidelines and kind of watch, and see what people are doing and analyze it. And there are a few things I've noticed over the last few years that have made someone succeed versus not. Moving fast versus not. And today, we are going to touch on one of those. 

So this morning I was listening to my morning motivational video and I heard Denzel Washington's voice. He has one of those distinct voices. Now, Sean Connery is my favorite voice, but Denzel Washington, I just know his voice. And he was speaking at the commencement, and he said this. And I thought this fit so well into one of the things I see entrepreneurs get wrong all the time. What he said was this: He said: "Don't confuse movement with progress. "Running in place takes you nowhere. Let me say that again. Don't confuse movement with progress. "Running in place gets you nowhere." And I was like, "Man!" This is such a good analogy for what I see entrepreneurs and business owners doing. They're so busy and busy and busy, and then they wonder why they haven't reached their goals. So there are three big ways I see business owners making themselves busy and working but not going And we are going to touch on those. But a big piece is the goals. You need to know where you're going. So if you are going anywhere, you might end up in Texas when you mean New York. You might end up with no clients when you really wanted 200. So, goals are really important. When I work with clients, this is one of the first things we do. What are the goals? And what are the milestones to get to the goals? Think of those as rest stops. Are we hitting these certain places as we're getting to our goal? The only time that I don't do that is if I have a business that has a lot of foundational stuff that needs to be set, so we'll work on that first, and that's our main goal. so that we have a launchpad to go off of. 

So the way I see people is just spinning and having momentum but not going anywhere. One of the big ones is using social media. So you have a goal, and you have a strategy, and you have a tracking, and a way of seeing how it's working  That's great! But what I normally see people do is this: "Oh, I'm just connecting with people! I'm just going to comment on my network stuff. I just want to see, you know, if anyone needs my service and then maybe comment on it. " That is when you're moving forward but not really going anywhere. The second thing I see is people complaining about their business. They will call their friends and be like, "Oh my goodness, you can't believe what happened today!" PshPshPshPsh "Oh you gotta go? OK, let me call someone else. " "Oh my goodness, you can not believe what happened today!" "Oh you gotta go? OK, I'm just going to type about this. " "Oh hey! Oh, I don't care about what is going on with you, " "I gotta tell you what is going on with my business." I see that all the time! Now, complaining about your business is fine. Venting about your business is fine. But if you're constantly complaining, you are wasting precious time. If you have 10 hours of working time and you are spending all of that time complaining, even though you're talking about your business, you're still just running in a circle and not moving anything forward. It is during these times that you should consider hiring a coach or consultant. I'm going to put a link to a video below that helps you decide if it's time for a coach or a consultant. But if there is a problem that you keep just hitting into, then it might be time to make an adjustment and find a solution so that you can break through that problem and not deal with it anymore. 

The third one is booking your calendar full of meetings. I don't know how many times I've talked to someone and been like, "Hey! How's your week going? " "Oh, it has been great! Yesterday alone, I had 10 meetings. 10 meetings! " And I'm like, "OK, were those productive meetings? Were they client meetings? Or referral partner meetings? " And not just referral partners like they might be able to refer me, but you know, like-really strategic referral partner, growth, relationship building meetings. " "OK... no?" Having your calendar full is not always the best thing. I am known to say no to as many meetings as I say yes to. Your time is very valuable. And if you are not progressing forward toward your goal, then that means you are just running in place. What I really want you to look at, if you really are set to expand and grow your business, is what are your goals? And that is exactly what you are doing: running in place while feeling like you have momentum. Or are you actually progressing to where you need to go? 

 

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Owner Mistake – Movement is Not Progress

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Picking Social Media Platform to Use

Picking Social Media Platform to Use

Video Transcript

Which social media platform should I post on and why? This is the question I get all the time. It's a question that's not going to go away because you get more and more and more social media platforms to choose from and social media becomes such a big part of marketing. I wish there was one answer I could give you and say, today this is the platform to be on but it's not that simple. What I can do for you though is walk you through a few questions to ask yourself to help you funnel all the social media platforms down to a few that you can be really active in and that works for your  style, your business style, your client style, all that. 

Let's get started with what I consider the top social media platforms at the time and which one you should consider. The ones I think of are Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Yes, YouTube. 

YouTube is becoming a platform where people are talking a lot back and forth and that's where the social comes from. It's that social piece. And YouTube I can only see getting bigger and bigger and bigger. YouTube can be considered as one of your social media platforms. You might have noticed I left off two big ones. Twitter and Pinterest. Pinterest used to be one of the top profiles and now it's been going down. Pinterest is really good if you are image based, so if you're an artist, a landscaper, furniture designer, that kind of thing, You can use Pinterest as a way to get organic SEO of your website and images because Pinterest does a lot of Google searching with their images so having things out and having your images there is a great organic SEO, but it's not a social piece. I don't see as much social going on within the Pinterest realm.Twitter, I've never been a fan of. If you have big customer service that's going to be contacting you on Twitter like Southwest, then you can use Twitter but it's more as a customer service tool than a social back and forth tool. If your ideal clients are on Twitter you can consider it but if your ideal client is on Twitter following their sports team it doesn't mean their to going to follow you  You really have to look and see if your ideal clients are going to be on that platform and willing to follow you. If your a news outlet or magazine, then maybe. It's just something to consider based on who your audience is but if you want to normally work with, Twitter is not a good choice.  

Out of the top 5, how do you pick which one? Or do you do all of them? I don't suggest doing all of them because if you spend a little effort on all of them you're only going to get a little result. Social media platforms like you to be engaged. They like you to be all in. To get the full maximum result and good results from it you have to be involved in it. Which is why I put a platform that you enjoy and that fits you most important over a platform that fits your ideal clientele. I know that sounds weird, but you're going to get it, okay, so hang in with me for a second. If you're in a platform you enjoy, you're more likely to be in it which means you're more likely to comment, you're more likely to like, you're more likely to respond to messages. 

If you would pick up your phone and open TikTok, TikTok should get a few extra bonus points as a platform your business should be in. The same with LinkedIn or Facebook. So if there's a platform that you yourself enjoy, give it a few bonus points as one that you might consider to be the platform for your business. 

The second thing with that is content you like to create. If you are a video person and videos are your jam, then going on YouTube or TikTok might be your platform. If you're long form writing and image person then forcing yourself to do video is not going to go well  and you're not going to do content consistently and that's a big thing with these platforms is you need a lot of content and to continuously create helpful, useful content. If you're not enjoying that type of content creation, you're not going to do it, it's not going to last long, it's going to be a headache, you're not going to like it. Choosing one that you like to be in that platform and like to create content in that way is a great way to start. 

Next, you want to make sure at least your clientele or referral partners are on that platform so if it's way off in space it's not going to work. But most of our prospects are in multiple platforms. You do want to find a platform that your prospects aren't just on, but they're interacting on, which means they're on it enough to scroll down and see your stuff. They're not just going on and posting because if they're just logging in and posting, they're not going to see your stuff. You want one that they are interacting in as well.  

Now how do you find out which one that is. There's a lot of Google searches you can do. I don't suggest that and the reason why is I think they don't take into account a lot of psychographic and demographics that they should. If they say we mostly have males this age in that your prospect, it doesn't say if it's a certain income level, certain area, If they're St Louis based, if they're here, or what. You want to look at who your best clients are and ask them or look and see where they're interacting because where they're  interacting is we're going to find more of them  You can do the same with your referral partners. Mixing between the two what you like to do and where you're at so you actually use it, and where your prospects and referral parters are at, that's a very important mix and that should start funneling down some of these social media profile types.   

The next you want to look at is which profile types actually feed into others because you want to pick 1-3. Start with 1, then add another, add a third, and as you add these you want ones that your content can easily flow through and what I mean by that is if I do a YouTube video, I can post it on Facebook easily. Facebook does penalize you a little bit for an outside link. I have a video on that. I'll post it down below if you're interested. Facebook will penalize you a little bit for the outside link but it's worth it and people still see it so that's an easy flow. YouTube does not go into Instagram easy at all. If I want to be on Instagram, I want to be on YouTube, and I want to be on TikTok, TikTok to Instagram might be a better fit than YouTube to Instagram. You want to also look at that. What naturally flows from one to the other. 

Another thing you want to think about is what type of content creator are you. I'm a plan. I have my content planned out and I have it scheduled into platforms. That is who I am. I'm not as good with that quick on-the-spot content. Some people love the on-the-spot content and can't plan to save their life That's another thing to think about when you're doing content. Are you someone who can do content that spreads out so you can post it to LinkedIn and YouTube and Facebook and have it scheduled, or are you someone who likes that quick content and want to do something more like Instagram stories, TikTok that kind of thing. Those content will only be up there for a short time and leave vs. standing content so some people will pick a mix of both. That all goes into your social media strategy and is something that I really dig down with with clients and you can do for yourself and planning out how all those parts fit together. Time is money. You want to create content that you can get the most value of and it's not just a one-time one profile type of thing. When it comes to scheduling you want to be careful as well because places like Facebook will penalize you if you use something like Buffer or HootSuite to post content. Facebook has its own scheduler that they'd like you to use. You want to keep that in mind if you're a scheduler type of person. 

I talked a lot about what type of person you are. It is important if you're going to continue something long-term like a social media strategy to have things that naturally fit into your life. I did a video on if you have to wake up at 5AM to be successful. It touches on this so I'm going to put a link to that as well. Because if you're in that space trying to say well I'm told I need to do this but I feel better doing this then that might be a video to watch to give you some peace of mind and give you a place to come from on what works for you. I'm almost to the 10-minute mark so I want to wrap up real quickly. If you do find yourself wanting to post all these different platforms and you have a team that's helping you post and that kind of thing, the big thing you want to watch out for is making sure that you reply to comments, acknowledge comments, and you reply to messages. That's one of the biggest downfalls I've seen. 

Social media is a place where customer service happens a lot and it's going to happen a lot more. You want to make sure you're in profiles where you can manage your customer service and do really well at it. There are programs out there that will pull in all your comments and all of your messages into one sorted place so you can easily reply to them. If you're interested in that let me know. It's also really good for sells teams. If you want to have multiple people manage communication streams and you want to go back and see what was said. There's certain things out there to help you when you get to that point  But most of my clients are at the point where they just want to get content out there and they want to be the expert, they want to track clients and doing that really picking one to maybe three profiles programs platforms that you can really sink your teeth into is more important than trying to spread yourself thin on all of them.  

Platforms come and go so pick ones that you can really put your investment in. Things like MySpace were here, now they're gone. Things like Snapchat just aren't really as good for business. Just because something's hot and is the thing right now doesn't mean it's worth your time investment your money investment and possibly your advertising investment. There is something called first-mover advantage which is if you use a platform first and all your audience is there, then you can get some benefit. That's something to think about, but that's a whole other story. We're at the 10 minutes so I'm going to go and I hope that gives you a little bit of a way to decide which social media platform you're going to be involved in and how to make it successful for you. 

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Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

Video Transcript

I received a client question in my email today that was great to do a video on, because I get this question a lot. So what happened was that someone went to my client's website and submitted a contact form. The client forwarded that form to me with this message: "Good morning, Rachel! I sometimes get requests like this. Do you see this as a worthwhile activity or a distraction? Thanks! " This is the contact form that was submitted. This is what it said: 

"Hi! I've learned so much about... blah blah blah blah. In that spirit, may I contribute a guest post to your website with blah blah blah?I can feature your website in that article as well. I think it would be a really helpful piece for your site visitors, and my offer is free! Thanks for reading! "  

When we get this, my first thing is, "What is in it for them? They took the time to seek out your site. They didn't reference anything about your site, and there is no reference to what they liked about it or what you're doing. So this is a pretty blanket message that they sent this on multiple sites, which means they're hunting for something, so I want to look and figure out what that is. And then I look at: Is the request going to help me at all? Is the request going to hurt me at all? And I take those data points to make a good decision. So I can tell you from my experience the reason why they sent this. 

What it does for them is, one, it gives them inbound links. If they write on your website, they can link out to their website, and that raises their organic SEO. So that's a good thing for them. The second good thing for them is that they can say that they've been featured on your website. So that is more credibility for them Another third reason is that any of your site visitors that you have rapport with, they have a relationship with you. When they see that person on your website, some of that relationship transfers through you to them. 

So, what happens in referrals is you have a relationship with someone and the person you trust refers you to someone, so you automatically have a little bit more trust in that person. So you'll need to be really careful who you refer to on your site, who is even posting on your site, or articles, because you are transporting some of your relationship and credibility on to that person  If this was someone who is a referral partner , let's say you're a real estate agent and this is your mortgage person and your mortgage person is giving information about mortgages, that's above and beyond what you do, so it's supplemental to you but not what you do, then that can be something different and that's something you guys can talk about the benefits of doing something like that. 

Having pages on your website that are directly related to a certain topic is a good thing. It raises SEO. If you're someone who needs to have those pages and you're not a content creator, then having outside people give content that is not in competition with you is a good idea. This client is a content creator. She creates the content, so there's no benefit for her. She's better off to write an article herself and have it SEO'd to that topic and be in her voice and how she wants to talk to clients and be the expert. She's better off to refer that client out. In this message it says: "I can feature your website in this article as well." 

That might sound good, but think about it: this article is already on your website, so there's no reason really to feature your website! Now, if this article was on their website and they linked out to you, then that would be an inbound link to you and that's a good thing, but that's not what this is. You'll also need to be careful about link trading, which means they link to you and you link to them. The reason why is that kind of null and voids it because Google realized a long time ago that people were just link trading. So they are careful of that now. They want someone who's a really good expert at what they do. Someone who can get a lot of organic traffic and people stay on the site, they read through it, and they don't go back and try to find other things on that topic. So that's why organic SEO is so important, and to have this variety of articles, but you don't want someone else to get credit for that based on the SEO of your site already has. 

She said my offer was free. Well, of course it is, because you're getting so much benefit from having this article on my site. When I get stuff like this, the question might be, try just to ignore it? NoReally look at it. See what it says, see what the intention is, because some people have really good intentions but they're not the best at writing these. There might be a good referral source to do this. So what I would do is go to this person's website and see if it's a referral partner, because if it is, you have an opening to connect back and say: "I wanted to know you better" or "I think  there might be some synergy here" and you could possibly create a referral partnership, but you won't know that until you really get to know the person and their intetions and their business. So before just chucking it out the window, it does take time, but it is worth it to do a little research on who this person is to see if there is future value that might be in there that you don't know at the time. 

Something else you might want to consider is never, ever, ever giving anyone the login information for your website. Sometimes before, I've seen things like this go through and the next email was great: "I have it written. Here it is, check it out. I know you're super busy. My programmer can put this on for you to make it super easy for you! So give me your login to your website and I can have limited editing capability and my programmer can do it. "Don't do it! Because they can go in and they can program anything in the background of that web page, so they can link out to other places. They could try to do a back-in link. They now have a login to your website, so you know, you never want to give out your login information for someone else to put an article or create a page on your site. 

You're better off having your programmer do it or hiring a programmer to do it. That's a really high-security risk, and I've seen people do it. Where they'll say, "Oh, I'm going to be your referral partner and I'll create this page on your site." Great, but let my team handle it. And if they start throwing a fit about it, then it's a really big red flag. So there you go. I answered that one in like 7 minutes! If you have any follow-up questions about anything else that I can answer for you, please let me know. 

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Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Video Transcript

How do you pick a networking group? How do you know it's a good group for you? And how do you analyze if you're getting the benefit if you're getting the profit if you're getting a good rate of return on all the time and energy that you put into a networking event? This is a question that I've talked to many clients about because so many clients will pick a networking group and spend so much time and energy in that group when it's not very valuable for them. So I’ve done networking for over 20 years. Now, I haven't set foot in a networking space in over 10 years and that is another video for another time. But in the space of me networking and in the space of me being around networking and seeing networking groups from start to them thriving, I have been able to grasp what is it that makes a networking group good for you and I came up with a little formula to help you decide if you should stay in a networking group and if you should join a networking group and that kind of thing. I have never shared this publicly before and here you go! So this is what I have found. If you want to work through this exercise with me, just pause the video throughout this and if not, I am going to run right through it. I am going to start with what a networking group is. A networking group is a group where you talk about your business. Where you are meeting other people.
It is usually either you are meeting clients or you are meeting referral partners. Referral partners are people that can naturally send you business or can send you business. They are partnerships. So that means that it's not just a, “Oh they maybe could.” It is someone that you have made a partnership agreement with that you are going to send business back and forth. So I want to talk a little bit more about referral partners
probably in another video. How to pick them and that kind of thing. This going to touch on a little bit of the word referral partners And I want you to understand what that is. In a networking group, what that is is the space again where you are sharing about your business. That can be everything from business groups. You are talking about BNIs, Yellow Ties, and People in business. There are thousands of them. Or you can be talking about stuff like your trade associations that you are a part of. That kind of thing. It can also be activities that you are doing Such as if you are doing Knights of Columbus or anything like that. That can be a networking group. It can also be your Chamber of Commerce. It can be your Alumni groups for university. All those where you are talking about what you do in the world can be a networking group. You want to look at that. I have also had clients who had their volleyball team be a networking group because of who is in that group with them. And they do it for that purpose. It is kind of like what is really your commitment and purpose of the group And then really being focused on getting that value from it. There are four things that I have found that have made it worthwhile to spend your time and money and resources in a networking group. I believe that every single networking group that you spend your time in should have at least three of these four elements.

The first element is that your ideal client should make up the majority of the room. When I say the majority of the room I mean over 50% Over 50% of the people in that room at any time are your ideal client. Now, not just a client, your ideal client you want to make that distinction.
Number two is that majority of the room is your ideal referral partner. I did not just say referral partner. I said your ideal. If you do not know what your referral partners are then that is talking to the business, mentors, or hiring a coach or consultant to really figure out what those are because referral partners are a huge piece of growing a business. It is one of those little diamonds that if you can really grab onto you. Just get a whole bunch of business coming in the door. Your ideal partners are people that can easily have you in conversations and will – and will. We will do another video on referral partners again. Referral partners can be things such as a mortgage person and a real estate agent. Those are really natural referral partners to each other. Ideal clients are the majority in the room. Ideal referral partners are the majority in the room.
The third one is education. Sometimes you attend a networking group just because it's educational. I start my business - my first marketing company - when I was 24 years old and so I was a new young pup. Going into a BNI group and really seeing: How do you network? How do you talk about your business? How do you give presentations about your business? How do you do elevator speeches? How do you do 1 to 1 get to know you meeting? How do you make referrals? All of that was so educational for me and helpful. I was also part of a mastermind that was about marketing and having people come in and really talk about what they're doing and having those discussions which is really good again- educational based business because I knew marketing and I knew marketing of products but wanting marketing for smaller business was another thing so that was really cool. and it was all based on referral marketing which was even more nichey so that was educational. so I deal clients, I deal with referral partners, and educational are just fun. sometimes we're part of a networking group just because we like the people and it's fun. so that's worth bonus points, it is so if you have a group that is your ideal clients, and educational and you have fun going. cool if it's your ideal referral partners and your ideal clients and its educational awesome.
I really believe from watching to make your time valuable, it needs to have at least 3 of those 4. if not it is worth looking at are you getting the rate of return. Now how do you calculate that? Most people will say the event is free and I've got a referral so Win! It's not that simple. Some people says I pay this fee and I got referral and it covers it Win! No.. What most people miss is that their time is money So you have the fees of the group if you're in any, your travel time there, your gas time there, if you have to buy lunch or breakfast or coffee what that cost is you also have you're getting there a little early or late, don't just calculate the time because usually we go a little earlier and later to network. You have all the 1 to 1 get to know you times so how much time you spending going out with these people and really getting to know them. Now if you're not doing that, you are wasting your networking group. It's really important that you get to know those people because people do business those they first know, and then they like and trust. So that's the biggest power of a networking event. If you just show up at the event and never get to know anyone- bad idea. now there is a strategy to who you spend your time getting to know and who you don't. I can talk about that in another video if you like let me know. But it is important to do that- you want to play all out in a networking group. If you just sneak in and sneak out you are wasting your time. So that is following up with people, doing 1 to 1s You also want to do a leadership role in the group or do something that gets you seen because the more you're seen the more the people will say "Ok they are valuable" "They're giving resources, they're giving time they're giving energy to the group- they're more willing to get back." So that's again playing all out in a group which that can take time. You know doing power point presentations or scheduling things or attending meetings or being a part of the membership committee. So you need to take all that time and consideration too when you're thinking about is this networking group effective for you. Your follow up time, it's so important to follow up, this can be sending referrals, sending a book you were talking about, sending a link to an article, whatever it is. So doing a follow up afterwards, saying "Thanks for meeting"Here's this. It shows you really were invested in listening which is important. And that's another video too on how do you really make these 1 on 1s effectives. If you're interested in that, let me know Check in the links below because I might post links to some of these as I do them- by the time they come So after you take all that time, and it's going to be a lot of time. You want to times it by your hourly rate and see where you're at Most times clients are like "Oh my goodness" and when they get to that point because it's a lot! And then you want to track your referrals and what closed business you got. So that way you can look at the two and say "Did I get as much out of this as I put into it" Now if you don't have a way to track that, let me know I can do videos on that as well. Because you really want to be sure that you are tracking "Ok, this person came from this group I'm in and they referred this much and this much closed" and you also want to make sure that it's your profit from it and not just the closed amount because your time is valuable so if you say this goes for this much and you haven't taken out all your costs to do that business- that can be your problem too so you kind of want to look at your closed business and also look at what is your actual profit from that closed business. What I usually find is that networking groups are not as effective and they're not getting as much value as they think and they spend a lot of time on them. I adore networking groups I'm committed that you find the networking group that's the biggest bang for the buck for you because you have a lot of stuff to do as a business owner and as a person in this role. So spending your time wisely makes a big difference.

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Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Video Transcript

We're going to talk today about one to ones. So a one to one is a "Get to know you" meeting and why they call it one to ones because it's one person to one person. So when I say one to ones, all I mean is 'get to know your meetings,' and I want to talk today about how to pick the one-to-ones how you can structure them a little bit, and we're also going to talk about what type of one-to-one meetings there are and how do you know when to eject. Oh, run as fast as you can away from one! So one to ones, when I started a networking 20 years ago, was all about go meeting at a coffee shop,   meeting for lunch, going to their office - it was always like this face-to-face. Now, one-to-ones can be done over zoom And I love it! Because I can wear my fuzzy socks, I can get my coffee, not pay crazy high prices for it and I love it! And to me it's a lot more effective. You can also do one-to-ones on a phone. Now, I am not as much a fan of the phone because you can't read the body language and see what they're doing. Also sometimes people will distract themselves and do something else while they're on the phone so on video you actually get to to see them. So I do suggest doing a in person or a video one-to-one. You get to know people after you create a relationship, you do checking calls on phone. I do have clients who take these tools and they do it on phone one to ones and that's fine as well. Just know that you're missing that piece and it sometimes takes a little bit longer.
So with one to ones I believe there're four different types of one-to-ones and a lot of times you don't know what it is until you get into it. And we're going to talk about that in a second. I also think that one-to-one should be at least one hour long. Now, my one-to-ones were usually an  hour and a half because I like giving people time. I do. I was raised by a mother who has a quality time love language. So I like to make sure I give people that quality time. And that's the same with one-to-ones or my consulting clients or whatever it is. So with at least an hour, if it's less than that. I think that it's a speed one-to-one. And 'how you can optimize doing speed networking and set your schedule up that way is in another video. If you're interested in that, let me know and I can do that. Why I say an hour is that if you have 15 minutes of catch up, how are you, how is family, the weather is super cold, whatever it is. You need that 15 minutes and you have 15 minutes of closing. You need to have that closing follow-up time because that's your next action time. So we send another meeting, are we doing a phone call, am I referring you to someone, am I sending you that book or article we talked about. So having that time if you do that, that only gives you 15 minutes each to talk about your business. So that's why I say you at least need that hour. I usually do an hour and a half. I did my schedule where I had one to one set every even hour. And how you can optimize your schedule for get to know you meetings is in another video. If you're interested in that let me know, I'm happy to do it. I love schedule optimization 100%. But if you have this time, you know, set aside for someone to get to know them. You want to pick people that  could be a really good benefit for you. It is okay to say no to a one-to-one. It's okay to be like "Man, that is not gonna be worth it for me." Now, you don't want to tell that to the person to be like "I'm never ever going to use you, your stuff is crap" And you can kind of move around it. So you can do that by either doing them in speed one to ones which I said I can do a video on it if you want. You can do it in group one to ones where you have a lunch, you have multiple people and you all kind of share and talk. You can do it over a time that, you know, you're gonna be driving so you can listen to their spill, you can value them without being rude to them. But no, don't say yes to a one-to-one that doesn't work for you and working for you is someone who you think can be your client, you can be their client, you can be referral partners. So if you look at their business you're like "I'm not a client I can't easily refer you, you can't easily  refer me, you're not my client," then I would suggest not doing that one-to-one. Now, if you figure out  like "Yeah, I think this is someone who could be a good fit for me and I'm gonna give them  an hour to two hours of my time." When you're in that one to one you'll find that it's probably one of four things were happen and this, I've never shared this before publicly. This is something I've shared with clients for   over probably 20 years, it took probably 15 by time I really got to see this happen. I've not found a situation that has gone outside of these norms.
So when you're in a one-to-one, one thing does happen. Either one it's a shut up and listen meaning  and I know that sounds super harsh, we're gonna get into that. One is referral meeting, a sales meeting or buys meeting. And like I said, you really don't know what it's gonna be until you're usually sitting in front of them. And I've had ones I thought one thing and they turn into another. So don't go in putting constraints on this meeting, just know it's going to end up one of these four. The first one is shut up and listen. This is a meeting where the person is so busy talking about themselves and their business that they don't ask you who you are or what you do. I'm a big believer that you do not say what you do or force it in. If they are so busy talking about themselves what it tells me is that they're always too busy talking about themselves. If they're always too busy talking about themselves they're never going to have the chance to really listen. And it's within the listening of others that you find their pain point and you can refer them. One of the reasons I'm such a good person at referring others to others is because I'm listening for what they're struggling with and then I know who can make an impact. But if you're not listening you won't hear it so if they're not listening, if they're not asking, if they're not really inquiring there's no way that they're doing that with others and there's not going to have a chance to refer you. So the best thing you can do for your  time and your money is to shut up and listen. And then when they're done you say "that's so awesome, I like" and put in something you like that they said "I can't wait to see you at the next networking  event or "I wish you really good luck with that" you know, or "Hey, I'm gonna run, I got  something, I gotta do before this next meeting." Something because it's not worth any more of your time to sit there. You can say "I have a text I need to answer on email." I always have a text or email I can answer so that one works good too. Do not force someone ever to hear about your business because they don't care. And that's okay, it's nothing bad  against them. Now, if you're listening to this and you're like "Man, yeah, that meeting" "I really don't remember what they did" You might be that person that is constantly talking about your business. And it's good to learn to ask someone about them and what did they do.
The second type of meeting is a referral meeting. A referral meeting is one that you're in you're like "Oh my goodness", like "I'm looking for you, you can refer me." So that should become a strategy meeting. And by strategy meaning it is: Okay, When someone says this, I want you to say this. You need to spell it out for your referral partners. They are so busy with their own thing, they're already in the midst of it so you really need to give them a situation and verbiage to use, so for example for me I say when someone says I have so many ideas and I have no idea where to start. You say: You talk to Rachel. Or when someone says "I want to grow and I just don't know" "what's there that's not letting us get to that point" It's time to talk to Rachel. Or, you know, "I have big plans but I'm not sure the first step." It's time to talk to Rachel. So teaching them and giving them that verbiage when someone says: I love this house but i really hate this basement. It's time to talk to my contractor. You know, so but the thing is that the real estate agent might not think about that unless you plant in their brain a situation and then how they need to refer you. You say - just send a text message! You tell them exactly the best way to refer: send an email, you know, text  me their information, I'll reach out. Lay it all out. Make it so simple for people to refer you and they will. Make it hard and they won't.
So first meeting is to shut up and listen because they don't really care. Two is referral meeeting and I'm gonna back up they might care, they just might not be trained enough to really to be in that listening mode for others yet. Because it is a personal development space. So shut up and listen, referral. Third one is buying. I have been in meetings where I've been like "Oh my goodness, I need what you do." So there's been one-to-one meetings that I have realized that I'm the buyer. And then I start asking them questions and I start getting into what they want I need and what they sell and how do we do it. That's fine. The third one is that you become sales mode. I have been in meetings that have, I thought, were just going to be a 'get to know you' meeting. And then suddenly I realized that they want to work with me. You know, because I don't go in just assuming everyone does because I have a very specific clientele that I like to work with. And they have to be ready so I usually don't know if someone's ready until conversation  starts popping up. So there has been times I've been in meetings and I'm like "Oh my gosh, this is a sell meeting." At that time pivot into sells. So I'm going to recap because I don't know how these 10 minutes go so fast but they do. When you make sure that you have  networking meetings with people that are going to be good referral partners to clients for you. Pivot in the meeting, figure out if it says shut up and listen, if it's a referral meeting and then you go into strategy. if it's a buying meeting then you start buying or sells me yourself, and the last thing is always have a follow-up. Always have a next step and make sure you follow that step because that's how you move from visibility with them to credibility, to profitability, to know, like and trust. And that is the whole reason of networking and one  to ones is to move people through that pathway.

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