131: {Solo} Give Over Take All Day Long

Friends, this is has been a HUGE takeaway in this season of life and my main message today is as my husband Gary would say, "giving is winning". And what I mean by that is that we always have to give before we take. No matter if that's giving time, engagement or just being a genuine supporter. What comes back is always in 10 fold. Plus it always feels better to give, rather than to take. 

Thanks for listening! 

Transcript

Caroline Pennington (00:01.528)
Today I wanna talk about a topic that's come up a lot for me recently. It comes up always to the audience I speak to when I speak on stages. It's a question I'm gonna ask when I have meetings with clients, potential clients, and it's something that I see happening both professionally and personally. And I just wanna talk about how it is always better to give than to get. Okay, so what exactly does that mean? If there is something that you're wanting to get out of something,

You have to give first. That goes for social media, that goes for professionally, that goes for personally. Whatever it is you're trying to achieve, you have to give first. Have to give your time, you have to give your energy, you have to give first. So for example, let's talk about the personal side, the professional side, let's talk about professional first. Okay, so on LinkedIn, on social media, on Instagram, I get pitch slapped so much.

people are sliding into my DMs, they're wanting to be in my podcast, they want me to buy from them, whatever, fill in the blank. You actually need to start building connections with your audience before you can ask for something in return from them. So one thing that I used to do is I used to always slide into people's DMs and pitch my newsletter. And when I was doing that, my response rate was less than 20%. Now I have a new strategy and I slide into their DMs, I use their name,

I said, nice to meet you, I look forward to connecting further. And now my response rate for my DMs is up over 80%. So what has that done? What does that mean? That means I'm actually, and this is something that's true story, something that's truth for me, is I actually wanna start, I wanted to start building and connecting further with my audience. I didn't wanna be this person with these vanity metrics and these big numbers, I actually wanted to get to know the people that were in my connections tabs.

So if there's a goal that you're trying to achieve, maybe you wanna speak at an event, maybe you wanna be on a podcast, start creating connection with the event host. Don't just slide into their DMs and say, hey, I wanna come speak at your event. Actually express interest in what they're doing. Maybe attend something they've got going on. If you wanna be a podcast guest on someone's podcast, don't just slide into their DMs and say, hey, look at me, how fabulous I am.

Caroline Pennington (02:23.821)
I really wanna be on your podcast and showcase what I'm doing to your listeners, because that basically is not what we're doing at all over here in the podcasting community. So if you wanna be on a podcast, start interacting with their content, start commenting on their stuff, start sharing their episodes right of view. There's many ways that you can start getting the host's attention before you do the ask. And so I see this happening all the time on LinkedIn is that people are using the DM function and they're pitch slapping.

And it's not working because people want to buy from people that they feel like they know like interest. And if you're just cold sliding into the DMs or cold sliding into my emails soliciting yourself, that's most likely not going to get you a spot on the podcast. So that goes back to the point of before I got on this rant of why you need to give before you can get. Um, let's talk about that, how this shows up personally too, whether it's a friendship.

you're trying to strengthen a relationship you want to grow or a group that you're in. Maybe it's a networking group. Don't show up with the expectations that you're just going to show up and start networking and get business out of that group. Actually show up to the group and start getting involved, giving back, giving your time. Start volunteering within the group. Start showing up for an event that they do to help set up or clean up or whatnot. So if you're listening to this podcast, I'm kind of going off about this right now because this has been happening a lot. I've been seeing this a lot.

both online and in person, people want to receive first. They want to get, they want the podcast slot, they want the relationship, they want the business, they want the client, but you have to give first, okay? And if you have any questions about this or you want to talk a situation over or I'm like, hey, I don't know how to handle this. Seriously, just send me a DM on Instagram or on LinkedIn.

and I'll be happy to help you navigate the situation. I'll give you some tips. So thanks for listening. Until next time.