Connect With Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime: The 5-Step Blueprint

Welcome to Your Business, Accelerated! Digitally remastered with AI, Your Business, Accelerated! is the go-to podcast for entrepreneurs ready to scale smart. Hosted by Attorney Shaune B. Arnold, it delivers strategic business insights, legal frameworks, and real-world solutions to help you operate with clarity and confidence. Get actionable guidance to protect, grow, and optimize your business…one smart move at a time.

Discover Attorney Shaune’s powerful 5-step strategy to authentically connect with anyone—from prospects to power players. Whether you're networking, recruiting, or building your board, this episode shows you how to spark meaningful connections, create lasting value, and build a network that elevates your business and legacy. Don't miss it! 

Transcript

Hello everyone, …and welcome to this week's episode of your business accelerated. I am your host, Attorney Shaune B Arnold. And I'm so excited that you're here and that you're listening in. The topic I want to discuss with you today, I think, will make a huge difference in your business, …and that is how to connect with anyone, in any place, at any time. it's going to be a really great discussion.

But before we do that, …I want to deal with some housekeeping matters as we do every single week here on your business accelerated. If you are a regular listener, you know what comes next. If you are new to this space, I want to let you know that I am a California business attorney. I practice in downtown Los Angeles. That means to the extent that we talk about legal matters tonight, or any night on your business accelerated, I'm talking from the perspective of a California business attorney.

That means if you are in another state, or another country, because that does actually happen, believe it or not, I have callers from all over the world that listen in. If you are from someplace else, then please take my conversation to an attorney in your jurisdiction, and have that attorney let you know whether there is a difference in the law between my jurisdiction and your jurisdiction.

I also want to invite you to listen to legal biz café. Here on your business accelerated we deal with hardcore business issues that keep you from having smooth operations in your business. And on legal biz cafe, we deal with your mindset, which can also keep you from operating your business well. When you listen to both shows, you have what you need to build a business you are going to absolutely love.

So, that is all of the housekeeping for today.

Tonight, we’re considering how to connect with anyone, in any place, at any time. There are a number of reasons why you may seek to connect with others in a business context. For example, are you satisfied with the number and quality of your board of directors? Have you built your brain trust to include all of the different kinds of professionals that will support your business goals?

This conversation is relevant whether you are running a for profit or a nonprofit. In either case, you're looking for people who really catch your vision and really get what you're saying in the marketplace. They have complimentary skills to one another so they offer a myriad of perspectives to your policy discussions.

So, in order to attract the kind of talent and business vibes that you seek, it is very important to actually connect with people. And you never know when you're going to get the opportunity to get someone's attention that could be instrumental in your business or in your life going forward. So tonight, we are talking about a five-step formula that is fantastic for making personal connections with anyone, at any time, and in any place.

We have spoken before about how to engage people that can at first blush appear to be a bit out of your league. If this is a public figure, find out about what they are doing. Can you legitimately add to their project? If so, that is a good reason for you to engage with them. Try to connect with them at a social function, if you can.

Once you have engaged them, you want to make an authentic connection with them. The first step in making that authentic and meaningful connection is to compliment that person. Make sure it’s sincere and not smarmy.

Do you like something they're wearing? Do you like something that they said or wrote? Can you point to some legitimate connection between their business and your business?

Next, offer them the opportunity to talk about themselves, with respect to that compliment, because people love to talk about themselves. The more opportunity you give them to do that, particularly when you're talking to a prospect, the more opportunity you have to actually convert that prospect to a paying client. 

he reason I say that is because you're going to get to know what they need and what they want. You’ll elicit their wants, needs, criteria, desires and emotions from them, and then literally take their words and turn them right back around to them in the form of a value proposition that you offer to help them run their business and get their life together.

So, complimenting people is a great way to break the ice and connect in the very first instance. So, what do you do after that? How do you get deeper after that when you may be in an elevator or at a dinner party and you don't really know how to make that connection.

Well, here's what you do. The third step involves going beyond just giving them a superficial compliment. You want to ask them a really good question. Remember, you are seeking to elicit their wants, needs, criteria, desires and emotions with respect to whatever issue you are discussing with them. Are you talking about their health, or their career? Perhaps your business is more related to their personal relationships or leadership skills at work.

When you understand these data points about your prospect, you can clearly see whether your goods or services are right for them. When you have clarity, you can guide your prospect to decide for themselves whether doing business with you will solve their problems or otherwise bring them joy and satisfaction.

You know, I often suggest to my clients that they should make a 100-person wish list of all the people they want to connect with in all of the different areas of their life. Who do you want on your board of directors, in your brain trust, as your employee, as your manager, as your partner, or as your friend?

Use your imagination. Completely fill out your business structure with the people that you want to be in it. Send this energy into the atmosphere. Do this for every area of your life.

You know, I always talk about sowing energy into the atmosphere. I'm a big, big believer in that. By sowing that energy into the atmosphere, you're going to bring those people you desire to know and work with into your sphere. Again, once you find out what's important to them, and if you are able to meet them and capture their attention for a moment with a well-considered question, it’s time to go deeper than that.

Finding out what's important to them is really great and it will get them to stop and talk to you for a moment. But how do you get them to engage with you over a period of time so they will actually join your brain trust or otherwise work with you?

In order to get someone to engage with you over time, you have to go a bit deeper still by adding value to their project or their life. You have to give before you ask. That's extremely important. So, whatever is important to them, you need to help them get it.

Do you have any resources? Can you make a phone call? Do you have some expertise that they might need to get their dream off the ground in order to facilitate whatever it is that they are trying to do? How can you support the development of the legacy they are trying to leave in the world? Nowadays, that's really what people are into. I like to believe people are less money hungry these days. They're really thinking about their legacy.

If you can help somebody realize their own dream by making a phone call, by making an introduction, then you will be golden to them in their mind, and that's going to create psychological debt, where they're going to feel like they have to pay you back, and you haven't asked for anything.

So, this is a wonderful, very authentic way to connect with others on a very deep level that will allow them to engage with you on a heart level. That will get you what you need in your business and in your life.

Step four in this five-step formula for connecting with anyone, anywhere, anytime, including celebrities and prospects, who you really want to make a deep connection with is to have a value exchange with them. That doesn't necessarily mean to get money from them, and it doesn't necessarily mean to give money to them. It just means exchange value for value. Sometimes that can mean bartering.

You have to be open to developing flexible joint venture relationships in your business. We all know cash is king, but in tight times, …maybe you are able to develop a relationship with someone who owns media time, and they'll be able to trade you some media time, and you'll be able to trade them, say, a workshop for their prospects or for their clients, something that is of real value to them, that makes them look really good in the marketplace.

You are offering something before you are asking for something. You are having a value exchange with them that is going to help you build your legacy. It’s going to help them build their legacy.

The fifth and final step in making an authentic, meaningful connection with anyone, …in any place, …at any time is, believe it or not, to implement a systematic follow up protocol in your business. Most people do not follow up after they meet someone new. Most people will get a business card in their possession, put it in their purse or pocket, and from there it finds its way all the way to the bottom. They don’t make any notes on it so they won't have any idea where they got that card from.

When they finally do fish it out of the bottom of their bag, or the washing machine, and they look at it, they have no sentient memory of where this connection came from, or the authentic communication that they had with that individual.

Have you done this in your networking life? I’m notorious for it!

Have you been a card collector? Do you have a shoe box? Well, this is what I want you to think about that shoe box. Think about the lives that you have touched along the way. Think about each of those people. Think of their aura, think of their energy. Think of what conversation was sparked between the two of you that made you give them your card and that made them give you their card.

It may be worth putting yourself in an uncomfortable position in the short run, so that you can benefit in the long run by reconnecting with those people. If you find that you've let it go too long, if you find that you have someone's contact information in your pocket, you pull it out, what do you do with it? How do you create a systematic follow up if you feel the connection has been lost? Here's a suggestion.

Whether you meet someone and get a physical card, or whether you are more comfortable with virtual cards, put your prospects into a systematic follow up system so that you can make that connection and make sure that they connect back with you on their time. Beyond just scanning the card, shoot them a quick text or email and reconnect with them on some personal information that you learned about them. Set yourself an email/calendar reminder to follow up with them again.

If the person you are trying to connect with is super busy, don’t get discouraged if they're not contacting you back immediately. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for joining me this week on your business accelerated. I am attorney Shaune B Arnold. …As always, I’m reminding you to MAXIMIZE your COMPETENCE …to get the CONFIDENCE YOU NEED …to succeed. I invite you to follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter X. My moniker in all of those places is S, H, A, U, N, E dot Arnold. 

I look forward to talking to you again next week on your business accelerated. Bye-bye, friends.