Business is Slow? Build Realtionships/ Community

Summary

In this episode of the Off the Ladder podcast, Branden Sewell discusses the importance of networking for home service business owners. He emphasizes foundational strategies that can revitalize a business, particularly focusing on the concept of becoming 'five mile famous' in your local area. Branden shares his personal experience with BNI (Business Networking International) and how it transformed his business. He provides actionable advice on building meaningful relationships with local business owners and the significance of referrals in driving business growth. The episode concludes with practical steps for entrepreneurs to take when business is slow, encouraging them to reach out and network actively.

Takeaways

Networking is crucial for business growth.
Becoming 'five mile famous' enhances brand recognition.
BNI can significantly impact your business success.
Building relationships leads to more referrals.
The law of reciprocity applies in networking.
Local community events are great networking opportunities.
Meeting with local business owners can generate leads.
Realtors are valuable connections for home service businesses.
If business is slow, proactively schedule meetings.
Sales should always be prioritized in business.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Off the Ladder Podcast
00:15 Strategies for When Business is Slow
01:04 The Importance of Networking
02:13 Joining BNI: A Game Changer
04:23 Building Relationships Through Networking
06:09 Actionable Networking Advice

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:01.198)
Hi everybody, I'm Brandon Sewell, owner of Seal Pro Painting, located in central Florida. I'm also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast, and we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off of the ladder.

If you've been following along with our recent episodes, I'm doing a series on what to do when business is slow. This is really taking it back to the foundation of how most of us entrepreneurs start our businesses and kind of revisiting some of the strategies that we may neglect along the way that are really foundational for business.

Now, some of these strategies you can revamp at certain times, some of them you want to stay consistent in your business all along. But anyway, let's jump into the meat of this. The whole point of these are to be short, actionable, and give you some takeaways so that you can really start implementing and take massive action. So in the past four episodes, we've gone over calling past clients, sending out a monthly newsletter, sending out handwritten cards,

hitting the streets and doing door-to-door and then today we are going to talk about doubling down on networking. Now this is from a list of 10 things that I say you can do when business gets slow. Now doubling down on networking, let's really get into this. Something I heard this past week from someone I really respect is Dan Antonelli and he is a kick-jarge

Brands Founder and owner and he said this he said become five mile famous in a recent post that he made and I thought that was that really just hit home for me and what does that mean to become five mile famous and I think if you can get your brand to be recognized and

Branden Sewell (02:02.156)
you know, really just have a lot of brand equity in your local community, it's gonna make a huge difference. And so when we talk about doubling down on networking, you know, there's a lot of different things that you can do to network. And, you know, this was a game changer for my business. I talk about this often on the podcast and other podcasts that, you know, when I was struggling in 2022 after being in business for a few years,

I had built my business on buying leads and I hadn't really taken time to do networking and to build relationships. I mean, I had some, but I didn't do nearly the amount of networking that I should have. So, you know, fast forward, you know, I ended up joining BNI and now I've been in BNI for, I'm about to start my fourth year in BNI.

And, you know, BNI has been a game changer for me. So that's Business Networking International. There's chapters, you know, all over the world. It's an international business networking organization. And basically, it's an organization that you can join.

You can, the kind of, let's go over some of keys of this one, BNI. There's only one person per industry allowed in the group. You're held accountable to your, basically your networking. So like you have to do one-to-one meetings with other people in your chapter or in other chapters near you. You have to do referrals.

And so you track your referrals, thank you for closed business and all this. And so there's an accountability piece to it. And there's really just a process to the networking. You attend a meeting once a week or, know.

Branden Sewell (04:01.934)
Sometimes that's virtual or in person, mine is in person. But anyway, I believe in BNI so much because it helped me really turn my business around. When I did my four month turnaround in 2022, BNI was a huge part of that. And I believe in it so much now that I am in one location every week and then I have my sales rep in another location. And we cover both ends of our county and we represent the painting industry in both of those meetings. And so we are representing our industry

those networking groups on both ends of our county. And so that's been really effective and powerful for us. So if you're not in a BNI, I would highly recommend you to join. And you know, it's not, you don't always see the returns of BNI just in your own chapter. It's outside of your chapter. It's the relationships and the referrals that you're going to get that you can't even trace back to BNI because it's hard.

But all I can tell you is my business turned around when I joined BNI. I also have us attend a meeting called BDA. It's the Brevard Business Alliance. So in our county, we attend that networking group. And then we also, we just look for opportunities to, you know, go to local community events, be a part of local events, and to network.

also go to a meeting on Wednesdays with a group of business owners and leaders in my local area who are faith-based entrepreneurs. We actually, just have it sitting right here beside me. It's all kind of based around this book right here, Faith Driven Entrepreneurs. And so there's a group of us entrepreneurs that meet and we go over lessons that are based around the concepts in that book. And we network. And so that's really effective.

believe it or not, but like things like your local church can be a great source of networking with people who are like-minded or you know whatever that looks like for you. You know there's tons of different opportunities to network but really what it comes down to is building meaningful relationships and I think the thing that BNI has taught me is

Branden Sewell (06:20.878)
It's givers gain. So the more you give the more you'll get in return. It's that law of reciprocity. If I give a referral to you, I'm going to get a referral back. If I give a referral to you, you're going to think of me when you know someone needs painting or whatever your trade is. So that's networking. My recommendation to you as well when it comes to networking would be to if business is slow, like let's get back to this concept. If business is slow,

you're struggling to bring business in, reach out to local business owners in your area and just schedule a meeting with them, 30 minutes to an hour and just schedule meetings with local business owners in your area.

this would, it would be ideal to meet with people who are meeting with your clients already. for example, we're in the home service industry, great business owners and referral partners for me to meet with, have lunch with, grab coffee with are going to be, you know, HVAC contractors, plumbing, electrical, house cleaners.

flooring, all of those different home services because they're already meeting with my ideal client and so if I get a good relationship with those business owners or representatives from those companies when they think of or if a client brings up, we're getting floors done but we want to paint first, they can say I know a painter or if there's an electrical guy who is doing work in a home and they say hey I need a painter

hey, I know a guy. So the whole concept is to build relationships with those people who are already meeting with your ideal client. And realtors are great for home service business owners. Obviously, everybody needs work done when they buy or sell a home. And those are great relationships to build.

Branden Sewell (08:19.244)
So the actionable advice from this episode is go out, schedule meetings. If business is slow, if you don't have estimates, if you don't have any other work that you need to do in your business and you're just sitting twiddling your thumbs thinking what can I do to generate business today, get on the phone and call those local contractors. Get on the phone, call those local realtors, schedule meetings and do those meetings until business starts going. If it takes four days before you get an estimate, then you're

with people and doing those one-to-one meetings until the business starts to flow. And you have the time, so do the work. If you don't have the estimates, know, obviously sales trumps all. So if you have some meetings set up and then the estimates start flowing in and sales start happening, well then you might say, I got to reschedule that one-to-one meeting with you. I got some estimates I got to do. But anyway, build those relationships. I hope this episode helps you. And as always, if you're watching on

YouTube, please like, comment, subscribe, share this video with someone else. If you're listening on any major podcast platform, please rate and review. And if you need any resources to help you in your business, check the show notes below and I'll see you next time on the next episode of the Off the Ladder Podcast.