Business Unscripted - Triumph Business Solutions

Stop Wasting Time in Meaningless Meetings and Start Networking with Purpose

• Triumph Business Solutions • Episode 12

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The secret to effective networking isn't filling your calendar with meetings—it's building meaningful connections that actually move your business forward. Dave Worden and Duarne Bernhagen cut through the noise to deliver a refreshingly honest look at networking practices that actually work.

Too many entrepreneurs waste precious time on unqualified meetings that lead nowhere. In this episode, we break down our four-part framework for networking with purpose: defining clear objectives before every meeting, giving value before expecting to receive, properly qualifying connections, and managing your calendar to protect your productivity.

"You are the sum of the five closest people in your business network," Dave shares, highlighting why the quality of your connections matters far more than quantity. We tackle common networking pitfalls like obligatory referrals, excessive meeting notifications, and joining groups that don't serve your specific business needs.

The conversation shifts to practical AI applications for busy entrepreneurs, exploring how tools like ChatGPT can automate routine tasks and free up more time for meaningful relationship building. From scheduling motivational quotes to researching industry trends, these tools give small businesses the power to compete with larger teams while staying focused on high-value activities.

Whether you're a networking novice or a connection connoisseur, you'll walk away with actionable strategies to transform your approach from aimless meeting-taking to strategic relationship building. Join the conversation, share your experiences, and let us know which networking tactics have worked for you!

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Dave:

Thank you, trim. Hey, hey everybody, how are you doing? You're listening to the Business Unscripted Podcast, the show where we basically take all the script, we throw it away and we're getting down to that real talk of what it actually means to take and what it does to grow your business. I'm host Dave Warden, here with Tribe Business Solutions. I'm here with Dwarren Bernhanger, our business partner, dwarren. How are you doing, buddy? I'm good, dave, yourself I am. I am doing great, I'm doing great. You ready to dive into some fun conversation points? I think that we're going to get into pre-show, where we had some good ideas and things like that. But, um, who knows where the show is going to go? Because I think every week we talk pre-show about maybe a couple topics that we're going to get into and then it goes completely off on a tangent because you know that's like me and you conversations about right hey, I think that's most people's conversations, right, we find ourselves just letting it take it where it needs to go.

Duarne:

That is true.

Dave:

So I'm going to start off and say if there's some technical difficulties on my side, I apologize. I'm traveling. My son has a baseball tournament in Indiana, so I'm sitting now in a hotel room recording this and you know, if you've ever traveled, you know how crappy and spotty hotel internet can be. But we're here, so grab your cup of Joe, let's sit back and let's jump into the show. All right, dorn, I want to start off the show today, just reminding everybody down below after the end of the recording.

Dave:

Dorn and I, we have revamped the Triumph Mastermind. We have revamped the Triumph Mastermind. We are here where we're going to be giving you daily you know daily Q&A sessions to drop in, ask questions, you know, get that support that maybe, if you're doing it on your own or maybe you have a small team of people and you need some extra levels of expertise, dwarne and I will be there. We're bringing in other experts as well for you. We have, you know, our community available to there. We're bringing in other experts as well for you. We have our community available to you. We're also going to have WhatsApp available, so any time of the day you can come in and you can ask a question, drop your thoughts, ask for support et cetera. But, dwarven, I'm excited to kind of do this with you. I think it's going to be great.

Duarne:

Yeah, I think it's going to be fun. I hope we get to help a bunch of people while we're at it and I'm excited just to share, you know, a bunch of these awesome new things that we find out on a regular basis and things that we take for granted, that we know and just assume others will Exactly.

Dave:

And so if you have any questions about the Triumph Mastermind, drop them down below. We'll have a link for more information. And then if you have any questions on show topics like maybe you've gone back and you watched a couple shows and you're like, hey, matt, can you explain a little bit more on this topic about cash flow, or you talk about this topic and anything else that we talked about in previous episodes drop them down below. We will be more than happy to either answer the questions live or, you know, we'll bring them up in a future episode and we'll let you know. We'll reach out to you and let you know, hey, we answered your question, cause we appreciate you guys listening, dropping by and learning and just looking to grow, and I think that's the biggest kind of sign of people who are going to be successful. Right, it's the people that are seeking that support, that are seeking that guidance long-term. Those are the people that are going to win in the long term.

Duarne:

I agree, I think, those who are seeking wisdom, experience from others. It's about like we've talked about before right, it's about finding your network of people that can support, lift and help you raise you up to where you want to be.

Dave:

Exactly, exactly, which I think brings us into at least the main topic that we want to talk about. I think it's something that I mean I do a lot of right. I'm in a. I'm an ambassador of the networking platform alignable, a local ambassador for cleveland, ohio, jordan. That's how you and I met. We met through Alignable and networking. But I also think that networking is a thing that a lot of people do incorrectly and they get a lot of bad advice around networking.

Duarne:

I really that's right On this topic. Lots of opinions out there on this topic.

Dave:

For sure. And so listen, if you're listening to us, this is our experience, right? This is our opinion on the topic. You have to take it and kind of go with it, with what you will, but I do think networking is a necessary evil, but there's some. You can put some rules and put some limitations on it for yourself, right?

Duarne:

Absolutely.

Dave:

So the first thing that I would say is make sure you have a purpose right when you're networking. Don't just don't just go out and connect with every single person that potentially matches. I think you have to have a purpose when you're networking, whether you're seeking new clients, whether you're seeking new partners, make sure you have that purpose in mind. And the second thing is going to be make sure you give before you expect to receive.

Dave:

And I think a lot of times when you meet new people in networking, asking the question like what are you going through right now?

Dave:

Like drawn a few an hour meeting and we're meeting maybe for the first time, maybe even the second time, you know, I would ask the question of you know, hey, what's some things that are going on with your business that might you might want some extra support with, might not even be something that I do do, but just give me two or three things and what I want to do is I want to think through my network and I want to possibly connect you with somebody who may be able to help you solve that, because I want to be a benefit to you. And if you can do that for two or three or four people. Now you're going to start seeing those, those you know residuals come back to you um, but you have to know that you're gonna have to give, give, give, just like gary v says in his book jeb jeb, jeb berg hook. You gotta flip that up to networking is give, give, give, give, give, and then you'll be able to take um and that's okay in saying that day.

Duarne:

I mean, for me too, it's about understanding who you're trying to connect people with, and that comes from listening. Active listening is the most important thing when meeting with anybody, especially networking. In my opinion, the amount of times I've met with people and you can tell they're not listening to what you are talking about, they're not interested in what you've got to say and tend to just start pitching or start trying to connect you with people who do exactly what you do or very similar to what you do, and you're like well, that's like going into a car dealership to buy a new car and, uh, you know, then getting recommended by the car dealer to go talk to another car dealership who sells the same cars. It's just like they wouldn't do it. They try and sell you what they've got. Um, they're not your customer. You've got to think about it. If you're going to give advice to people, you're.

Duarne:

I love the way you ask that question, because one of those questions what it does is it starts that conversation of what is it you're needing, what is it you're going through? You can start connecting people with the right people, because the last thing you want to do is be meeting with 20, 30 people in a week and going. I'm a master at this networking thing. I'm killing this thing only to find out that there's no wins on the other side, that you're not actually getting any business, you're not growing. Because what's the whole purpose of networking? It's about building a network to be introduced to more people or sell your own products. Now, yes, networking, we're all told. Don't be selling your products, but you sell yourself. You let by educating people and making them aware of what you offer and what you do, and you're building that trust you're building that trust, that rapport and you do that.

Duarne:

And it's like I've got a guy who, oh geez, 18 years ago I was in a car with him and I'd gone to brisbane, we'd gone for a drive to brisbane, I'd gone up there on a bus and I was up there for a recruiting meeting that I had with the uh air force back in the, and that was great. I finished up there, did my testing, passed everything I needed to, caught up with him. He was one of my vendor suppliers and we're driving back and he dropped into a tire shop. I'm like, oh, you need some tires. And he's like, no, no, no, but someone in the office asked me earlier about recommendations on tires. So I'm dropping in here because I've seen this place. It's nearby the office. I'm going to talk to them, get a bit of a quote, come back and give her the details and help her out, and I'm like, oh, that's cool. Then I asked him more about this and I found it. This is something he did on a common, regular basis, without prompting, and it wasn't just for employees and colleagues that he did it for. He did it for customers and he helped them out with all sorts of different matters and he just connected people and he was a connector. So it didn't matter where he worked, it didn't matter what job he had, he would just connect people.

Duarne:

And my opinion that's the key for networking it's about connecting people.

Duarne:

I remember meeting with Clay Hicks over there at the H7 network and the first time I met with him he was telling me about how he'd met with thousands of people over the last 12 years and I was really impressed with that.

Duarne:

And he always finishes on a question he was telling me and I might be getting this wrong, but I'll paraphrase finishes on a question he was telling me and I might be getting this wrong with the, but I'll paraphrase but it's basically who do you want to connect with? Who do you want to meet? Is there somebody or a type of person you want to connect with? I'll make it happen, I will find that type of person and I'll put you in touch with someone like that. And then he goes on to tell me that every single meeting that they offer, that is the takeaway for every single member. And that's a double-edged sword in some networking groups, because in a lot of networking groups, like your bni groups that you know, we've all been to one or heard of the stories where everyone feels like they have to give a lead or a connection, but there's no point if it's not the right connection right, they don't, they don't think it through, they they're just doing it to meet their quota, right?

Duarne:

they're not exactly, not necessarily putting any thought into it exactly and I think you know you've got to do it's like you said do things with meaning. If you're going to give someone a connection, make sure it's something that is meaningful, something that when you talk to them next year, hey, how'd you go with that person I connected you with not. And if you're going to connect someone, like if you're connecting two people who do marketing, well, that's great. If they've got different customer bases and do different types of marketing, maybe they can do a synergy and work together. But if they're doing a very similar thing and you've met with them and you know that they're kind of similar, then putting them together may not be of any benefit to either of them. Basic, it's going to be going. Oh yeah, that was really nice. Thanks for your time. There's an hour.

Dave:

I'll never get back, but it's good to have met you right and and that brings me to to like I was gonna say to like the calendar management side of networking.

Duarne:

We were talking about this earlier in the week. I thought that was a really clever idea when we were talking about that.

Dave:

So there's two parts to it and I'll say like this is my part three and four to networking. And the first one is like really qualifying the people that you're having conversations with, and you can do that either, as you were just saying, like limiting the people that you're having conversations with, and you can do that either, as you were just saying, like limiting the people that you invite to a conversation, or if maybe you have a link on your profile or something like that within your calendar settings whether it's Calendly, whether you have a calendar built in GoHighLevel, whatever it is you can build specific questions and help you qualify the people that you're meeting with and you can change that depending on the meetings link that people are using. And we can dive into that and get more into that later. But the main goal of your qualification is, if let's say it's for a prospect or it's for a potential partner, asking just a simple question, something like are you willing to invest if you find the solution? Maybe not even saying like, are you willing to invest if you find the solution, you know, maybe not even saying like are you willing to invest with our service, but just asking it in general, like if the problem you identified in the question above. So asking like what's a problem you're going through that's relevant to your service, right? So for example for, let's say, for our fractional finance teams, we ask a question of you know, tell us a struggle or an obstacle or something that you've been, you know, wishing that you could have from your accounting or your bookkeeping strategies that you don't currently have. And then the question below it is if you're able to find a solution right to that problem that you just mentioned, are you willing to invest a minimum of X, right? Because? And the minimum is going to be what is your basic intro pricing? So that's $500 a month.

Dave:

Say, if you're willing, if you find the solution that works for you for that problem, are you willing to invest a minimum of $500 a month? And you can have a yes or no. And if they answer yes, perfect, it takes them to the scheduling link. If they answer no, takes them to the scheduling link. If they answer no, the beauty about a lot of these Calendly or Go High levels is that you can put logic into answers.

Dave:

And then you take that no answer and you say look, right now our schedules are super swamped. We are only looking to meet with people right now that are ready to invest and ready to move forward. We hope you understand. However, here's some reference information or reference resources that we want to provide you that can potentially still help you. Please come back and schedule when you're ready to move forward and that helps you qualify. So that way you know the people that are on your calendar are people that are ready to move forward with a solution. It might not be yours, but they are looking to find a solution. And then the fourth part is the other side is people may go into that fourth part.

Duarne:

dave, I just wanted to just go back to what you just talked about there a little bit, if that's okay. But with the calendar, another thing you can do when you do that is you can actually introduce like a a down sell or upsell. So if people aren't ready to meet or they don't have that expectation of what you want like, let's say, for example, you're a kitchen remodeler and if you put one of the questions in there as when are you ready to actually do this remodeling? And if it's like I'm in the planning stages, maybe in a year from now, still raising the capital, still waiting for finance, whatever that might look like, then maybe the option is to send them additional info, say, look, are you open to receiving some information to help with this? Or, you know, to put you in touch with some of our partners in the finance sector, so you can actually then have an automation email that sends them out, puts them on a nurture sequence, presents information to them to get them ready for what's coming next.

Duarne:

Absolutely, you know, even like with your solution there, like with the fractional CFO stuff you could have. Well, look, you know we're not taking meetings right now, but we have a mastermind that you could. You might be value to you to come and join. Or we do a weekly group call which you're welcome to come and check out if you want, so you can find ways to help them, but do it in a way where you don't have to meet them one-on-one if they're not ready or they're not suitable. But I just think that it's a really clever model to do that and I think you don't have to be linear with what you're doing.

Dave:

it's not a case of right because you could send them. You could, you could say like, hey, here's, here's a, here's a recorded webinar. I just did like check this out. Yeah, you know, and the way, think of those evergreen options that you can have for yourself that are out there. Like, send them to your youtube channel.

Dave:

If you have a lot of youtube videos out there, send them to other things to prove your expertise and then, once they themselves see it, maybe, for example, like for ourselves, we have our cash flow template Maybe we send them the cash flow template. We say, hey, fill this out, walk through it. Then, when you're ready, I'll have a chance to meet with you. And again it's more opportunities there to show your expertise. You, and again it's more opportunities there to show your expertise, get them to feel the pain or the struggle of the obstacle that they're going through, and then you can jump in and help solve it or point them in the right direction. And that's where I mean by quality and listen, I'm speaking of this part from myself you had mentioned earlier about just having 40 meetings in a week and just feeling, because when Alignable, when I jumped on Alignable, it was I was initially. I was looking for like a LinkedIn alternative, right, and what I liked about Alignable when I started April, about two years ago now, is that it was limited connections, which meant that the people that are looking to connect with you at least had a reason right, the connection, personal, whatever it was that they wanted to connect for, you know, for a reason, because each month you're, you're limited in the people that you can reach out to. So it wasn't like LinkedIn at the time, which LinkedIn still is the same where people just you know, with in-mail and all this stuff can just you know they spam you. So. But so when I found Alignable, they had just released the Smart Connects, right, which was, you know, it's basically speed dating for networking. So you go into a meeting for an hour and Dorn, you know you and I know these, but you're listening you go into a meeting for an hour, virtual meeting, just like this, and you know, every seven or eight minutes they put you with somebody else, you talk, you introduce each other and then you get moved. Then you get paired with somebody else based on your profile settings and if they, if your profile settings match, boom, you're connected.

Dave:

Now, when these initially came out, they did like this whole week where it was like from 9 am to 6 pm there is there was a smart connect every hour and at that point in my business I was just like I'm gonna hit all these right. So I was doing like five, six of these a day and then I was just like I'm going to hit all of these Right. So I was doing like five, six of these a day, and then I was just booking people afterwards and after about a month and a half of having all these meetings, I came to the realization like you said, right, Dorn, is I just had all these meetings and what did I do? Like? What happened? Like nothing, right, you know, because they weren't. They weren't qualified.

Dave:

You know I don't know how many MLM people I talked with that when we met one-on-one I was like, oh, this is going to be great, maybe there's a way to help. And then they're just like no offense to MLM people, but the majority of them were broke MLM people, right, because 99.9% of them don't make a living off of that. You know, it was, it was a really broken there. And then, you know, even some of the other people that I met were just like I didn't qualify them, let's just break it down to that. Um, to go with the point, and you know it was a waste of, you know, probably a month and a half of my my life that I never could get back, like you said so and it's strange, right, I mean because at the time you feel really good.

Duarne:

You look at your calendar, you go, wow, there's so many meetings on the books and you're so busy doing the meetings and turning up and being present and doing what you need to do. And then you do an evaluation. At some point you go well, how many proposals did I send out? How many deals did I do right? How much work have I not done because I've been on so many meetings?

Duarne:

Um, solopreneur, I mean, can you really afford to be doing 20 meetings a week at 45 minutes a meeting, only to find out that you don't get any business from it? I mean the answer probably no. I mean it's not. I mean so I think the reality is. And, like, the other thing that I've come across is that whole bouncing back and forth with people trying to get that meeting to match your time zones or match the availability. And then you've got to ask yourself like I'm wasting, I'm using all this time trying to do the meeting. What's the outcome, what's the beneficial outcome for this? And, yes, I don't mind meeting new people. I don't mind that. But when I'm hustling, trying to make some money, I need to make sure that I'm using my efforts in a effective way to make sure that I'm getting the results that I need to get to earn the money and keep the doors open well, that's why I I don't go back and forth anymore with anybody like.

Dave:

If anybody says, tell me your availability, I'm like hey, like the easiest way, use this link. It's directly linked to my calendar. Find a time that fits both of our sides. Book it Like I don't go back and forth with anybody anymore. But which also leads me to number four that you were talking about. Right, and this is.

Dave:

I have begun to take a look at my like. So, let's say, the end of the day today, I'm going to be looking at my Monday calendar and if I have any new meetings that have not been accepted, I send an email that just says hey, I know we have this meeting booked. I noticed you haven't accepted it yet. If I don't hear back from you by, you know I give them four hours or five hours, whatever it is that you want to give them I'm going to go ahead and cancel the meeting. Here's a link that you know that you can reschedule it because again you don't want for me and again this just works for me.

Dave:

But I know a lot of people are just like me where if I'm doing something like it, I'm head down and I'm ready to go and then I have to stop to go to a meeting. Right, you have to change your mindset, right, you have to change what you're focusing on. And then if you have to sit there in that meeting for five to 10 minutes, it's a waste. You know you can still do some things, but you're not as productive because you're ready for them to jump in at any time and then, when you have, to cancel it right.

Dave:

So you're, you're, you're literally wasting your whole productivity time by like a half hour, 40 minutes, just from one person canceling because you've got to stop about five minutes early, then you've got to waste 10 minutes in there and then you've got to spend another 15 minutes to get back into the productivity mode and then who knows when your next meeting is.

Dave:

So I always have begun to preemptively cancel meetings that aren't accepted by people that are supposed to be coming, because more often than not, those people that don't accept, um one, maybe they haven't even seen the email, cause I have noticed sometimes two notifications for calendars go into spam junks, so maybe they didn't see it. Um, and this preemptively says oh yeah, I didn't, I didn't see it come through, let me check, and they find it. And boom, now I'm good, perfect, I. I risked, you know, I eliminated that risk of somebody not having it on their calendar because they didn't see the invite, because it was in their junker spam. So just making that a process for yourself. I don't know, dorn, how you handle your calendar that way, but I'd be going to do it and I just find that it just saves me some frustrations.

Duarne:

I think it's a good plan. I mean, I take advantage of the pre-warnings that come out and the notifications from the calendar system. I tell you one thing I absolutely hate, though if you're using a calendar booking system and you've set up a 24-hour warning that there is a meeting for a virtual meeting, yeah, you are wasting your time. The only purpose that a 24-hour warning is good for, in my opinion, is if you've got a on-site booking or if you've got an in-person meeting, then you might need 24 hours to prepare for it. For me, I don't see a value in 24 hours. A two-hour warning, three-hour warning, that's fine, an hour warning that's fine, but I just don't see a value in saying, hey look, you've got a meeting tomorrow, because that tends to I don't know.

Dave:

for me, it's like well, in business, right, I mean in business. How often, you know, do things change? Things change regularly. Yeah, so you know and here's the other one that I can. When it comes to that, I don't need a, I don't need a three day notification, I don't need a 24 hour notification, I don't need a seven hour notification, I don't need a 30 minute. Just give me one reminder. You know, yeah, you know, most of them are virtual. I can't tell you how many times I've got people now where I get three or four notifications of my upcoming meeting with them. It's like I don't need that many reminders that I have a meeting with you.

Duarne:

Like you know, by default a 10 or a 15 minute, depending on which calendar it is. 10 or 15 minute pre warning for a meeting? That's like OK, cool, which calendar it is. 10 or 15 minute pre-warning for a meeting that's like okay, cool, that's enough time for me to wrap up what I'm doing, getting to the zone ready for a meeting, not enough time. A 30 minute or a one hour pre-warning that's so disruptive for people Cause they, like you said, break your train of concentration. Get you ready Unless you're unprepared for this meeting unless you're right, well, I get.

Dave:

So I I get sending one notification, whether it's two or three hours ahead of time, because if they have it like maybe they forgot to accept it or maybe they forgot to put on their calendar, like absolutely good, if you want to set up one reminder, set it up, as dwan said, like two or three hours ahead of it, but that's it like yeah, and then maybe you could do a text message like right at the meeting time, if you got their phone number, that just says hey, I'm in the room looking forward to chatting with you, like I do with. Those are cool morning.

Duarne:

I like that. Okay, three minute warning. I give people the benefit of three minutes if I haven't heard from them, if they're not in the meeting after three minutes, I'll jump on and I'll start drafting a short email within the calendar just to go. Hey, just following up. I'm in the meeting room just checking you're able to join today. Thanks, send it. And that typically is enough that it gives them the alert, especially in the current day and age where everyone's holding a cell phone, right, so you get that warning up on your cell phone. Oh yeah, I've got that meeting.

Dave:

Oops, better jump in um, well, and a lot of, we've all, we've all of, we've all been there right when we, like you and I have done it to each other, where it's like, okay, I know, I got a meeting with Dwarin in five minutes. I start, you know, doing something and before I know it it's ten minutes later and I'm like, oh crap, I got to jump to Dwarin. So it happens. That's why I give people about minutes. I I leave and you know I go do something else and then I send a message hey, sorry, we missed each other, you know, during our session. I understand things get busy. Here's a link to reschedule and I'm not, I'm not wasting my time anymore in my calendar. I'm not bitter about it I'm not.

Duarne:

I get annoyed about it. I mean, I know a lot of people get frustrated by that. Um, for me, I think you just got to move on. But I mean, the other thing is when you get no note, when you get that two minutes before a meeting and someone sends a notification to cancel the meeting, my feeling on that is that's pretty rude unless there's a really good reason for it. Um, it shows a lack of respect. In a lot of cases, if you're meeting with people that you regularly meet with and you're you've got a good rapport, you can get away with that. But when it's new people and you are networking, I mean that's something to be really cautious of, because people will judge you and you know how many times I've heard stories where people have done that to people and they go. Well, you know what. I'm blocking them and I don't want to meet with them anymore so anytime they try, even after one time yeah, they go cancel.

Duarne:

I'm not going to make that they that they just won't accept your meeting anymore because they see that as a lack of respect for their time, and I get that. But I think you've got to be of the networking. Do it with meaning, do it with reason, do it with gusto and treat it as if it's a customer proposal that you're going to be pitching and proposing. That's the sort of level of respect you should be treating it with when you make those bookings, when you set the times and being there on time to do it so you can give it the most. And if you can only do three of those in a week or one of those a week because of your schedule at that level, then just do that um, because there's no point meeting with 20 30 people. Alignable mask. You know those um group. What do they call them? The um, those group calls where, uh, they jump around and they switch you between people and you quick connects that's the one smart, smart, connect, smart connect, smart connect, sorry, smart connect.

Duarne:

Those things can be great if you really just want to practice getting your conversation right. But you know, if your intention is just to meet a bunch of random people, then that's a great option and you can connect afterwards and get some good meetings. If you're not sure where to be meeting Otherwise, spend your time planning who you want to meet with. Create your ideal profile of somebody who would be a you want to meet with. Create your ideal profile of somebody who would be a great person to meet with. Have the reasons why you want to meet with them and then bring that up in the conversation as you go out to meet with them.

Duarne:

Um, if you're, if you're selling something that's a real product or, say, kitchen remodeling, and you're there trying to meet with people in another state where you don't service, then ask yourself is that a valuable use of my time? Or am I just wasting my time meeting with people out of state for something that's never going to happen? And yes, you might get that. Oh, but they might know somebody in state. They might know somebody. Yes, that is true, but do you have the if you've got the ability to book another meeting with somebody who is in your local area that can take on your service, then that may be a better option for you to meet with if your time is limited and as solopreneurs, most of us do have limited time so we're not saying don't meet with people, don't network. What we're saying is just be selective, choose who you want to network with and choose.

Dave:

It kind of brings me to the four points that we brought. One was having a purpose, which you were just mentioning. So have a purpose when you go into your networking. Two, always be prepared to give first, to give, give, give before you're expected to take. So don't just go into one networking meeting, don't get anything out of it, just say networking doesn't work, like you have to be focused with it.

Dave:

Three would be to learn how to qualify properly, right, whether it's with questions on your calendar, whether it's you know who you're asking to meet with, but qualify the people first. And then, four, you know, begin to, you know, pay attention to your calendar and begin to cancel those meetings with the people that haven't accepted it. To begin to clear up your calendar and make sure you are still the most productive version of yourself every single day that you can be, because ultimately, that's what it matters. We're all given the same 24 hours in a day and it's all. What are you doing to be the most productive? And you don't want to waste your time with tire kickers and time wasters that you know book calendars and never show up on that note too.

Duarne:

Just imagine if you don't go through and do what we're suggesting. Imagine how many missed opportunity, missed meetings might be there if you're sending out people who are using those meeting invites and go look, I'm available at time, but you've got someone else booked but then that person never turned up, or that person you know hadn't accepted the meeting but it blocked it off in your calendar because you had you know. So just be aware of that that you could be missing out on opportunities by not being on top of your calendar and making sure you verify that these, that everyone's making a booking is actually going to turn up a hundred, a hundred percent.

Dave:

So, um, anything else on networking, I mean, you know, obviously, you know, I truly believe that we, as business owners, you are as strong as the people around you. Um, I'm listening to the audiobook now. Um, for three feet from gold, right From the Minifolian Hill Foundation, and in there one of the pieces of advice I can't remember who the exact kind of successful individual said this, right, but it's you are the sum of the five closest people to you in your life, right In your network. So think of who are the people that you have around you and if you, if they're not the people that were, you want to go trajectory wise, it's probably limited.

Dave:

You, you know, like Dwarin, you and I, you know we're probably the closest right and we push each other, like, we give each other feedback, we give each other, you know, kind of honest thoughts and push each other to do better, and I feel like you know we need to. I'm doing always a reflection of kind of those five people in terms of, like, my business people. Right, you know, obviously you're going to have personal life people, but your business people, like, who are those people that are going to push you forward and make you the better version of yourself and give you that support that you need. And you know, I think that also goes with networking Like how are you? You're not going to find those people just from walking down the street or walking into Walmart. Like you know, you're going to find those people from having business conversations, from learning more about people, from opening yourself up and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations.

Duarne:

Absolutely, and look those uncomfortable situations. That leads me into networking groups, which will be my final thing I wanted to talk about. Perfect leads me into networking groups, which will be my final thing. I wanted to talk about perfect. If you're going to go into networking groups, test them out, turn up a couple of times, turn up and then just see who turns up there too.

Duarne:

If you're turning up at a networking group and it's the same 10 people that are cycling through that networking group and none of them share connections, that none of them, um, beyond an initial conversation, lead to any extra business for you, and you've been there for a couple of months and you're getting pressured to join up and become a member and pay money to be a part of that group. Um, or even if it's just a free group, ask yourself what am I getting from the group? Should I try another group and see if that's got something that I could get you know might be of benefit to me, where I could offer some connections to them, or they can give me some connections, or vice versa? And try not to be the person who turns up at every single networking group, because, guess what? You start to look really obvious when you're the person turning up at every single networking group, especially when it's talked about that you know you're the same person in there and you start seeing it and you start hearing the same stories every single time and you turn up. Everybody in those networking groups again who are the regulars are going to know that and for the two or three or four new people in there, they may appreciate it until the second, third, fourth time they hear it. Um, so just be aware that, yeah, it's just as important to choose the right networking group that you want to be turning up to, if that's your choice.

Duarne:

You know these quick connects. These quick connects are great on alignable, because you can meet such a huge variety of different people at these quick connects, depending depending on which ones you go to. But then there is some other more clicky quick connects, groups that have a very specific core group that are always there and that might be great for you to get some. You know if you're looking for information or assistance or recommendations, if they've got lots of connections, but at the end of the day it may not be the right place for you to be.

Duarne:

You know doing your fishing, because networking is all about fishing right. It's about throwing that fishing rod out there and trying to get some good bait there and see if you can find some good connections that can help you in your business. And, like you said, sometimes you've got to throw away some good bait before you catch the right fish. But you need to make sure that you're out there trying it. But just don't get caught in that trap of turning up to every single networking meeting, turning up every single week, because you know that's the, that's where they meet, and then find yourself meeting and greeting and talking to the same group of people and not getting any benefit or growth out of that as well well, and I also like to, when you think of networking groups at least just for myself too is you know, really think of what's, what's the investment?

Dave:

not only like monetary, like you think bni, or even like you mentioned clay and I know clay too for h7 like they have a, you know investment costs, etc. But like not have a you know investment costs etc.

Dave:

But like not only thinking of that investment cost but thinking of the time investment costs absolutely like for example, like you know, and and I'm not knocking bni, but I'm not a fan of bni only because, like, they require you every hour, right, they require you to do all these different things and and they're they're hour and a half single week and a lot of people don't have a lot of time to do an hour and a half. But not only that, but now, like, you have to give. You know, as you mentioned, as we mentioned earlier in the conversation, you have to give referrals. So you're basically scraping the bottom of the barrel to just give people referrals within the group, and it takes time out of your day, right, you've got to be thinking of you know who's to who haven't I referred to and all these different things, right? So not only is it a monetary investment, but it's also a time investment that you have to consider to any group. And do you have it and is it going to be beneficial? So, for example, if you're selling a, let's say you make a $30 commission every time you sell something and you got to invest in a $900 a year networking group Well, that's 30 people. Do you feel like you're going to get 30 sales a year out of that group in order to make it worth it, right To just break even? If not, then it's not worth your time.

Dave:

Now, if you have $1,000 a month service and it's $900 a year, now you just need like half a person to make it worth it. You're going to pay yourself back in the first month that you get somebody. So now you can come in and make a benefit. Now you can come in. Maybe you go six months and then the seventh month you get that new client. Well, now you're going to make six grand right off of that client for six months and it only costs you $900 for the year. So you got to start as a business owner. If you are not thinking ROI on every decision that you make, you're, you're, you're leaving you're. You're basically hindering your progress, you're hindering yourself, you're hindering your, your success, um absolutely.

Duarne:

And if you look at some people in who are struggling in business, I've met a bunch of them and they're connected to multiple networking groups and they're connected to multiple applications. Like you know, they're paid members on linkedin, they're paid members on alignable. They're a part of three, four different networking groups. First of all, can you really be using that many platforms and be attending that many networking groups and getting the serious benefits and rewards you need from it If you've got a whole team working for you that are delivering the results and your job is just to go out and meet and greet people and bring them in the door? Maybe you do, but if you're a solopreneur then maybe you don't. And so evaluate and work out is that meeting, is it about networking? Is it about getting the sale? Is that why you're there, or is it about just meeting some new people? Or is it about building some awareness? Or are you there to learn new skills?

Duarne:

I mean, there's always going to be different reasons for different groups and you know a mastermind, for example, is a very different form of networking to a weekly general networking meeting where people go and give their intro, talk about themselves, get that information there. You know from each other. At the end of it maybe have a breakout and have a conversation. So choose wisely where you spend your time, whether it's on one-on-one meetings, whether it's network meetings, whether it's in masterminds just be yeah, remember you've got 24 hours. Everybody else has got 24 hours, so just choose how you use that wisely.

Dave:

And I think, like you said too, like paying attention to what you're going to get out of the meeting as well. Are you just going to hear the same you know 30 second pitches? Are you gonna you know um, or actually you're going to learn something like? Are they bringing some educational, like fun content to you that you can learn something in um?

Duarne:

I think that's all that's all important for sure, absolutely because I think, at the end of the day, if we were, if you were to go and watch a television show, whether whether it's on Netflix or, you know, traditional television or YouTube or whatever think about what you would watch. Would you watch the same show that had the same intros or the same advertising advertised in the beginning, or would you skip through that and then just get to the parts you want to watch? You can't do that in networking. You have to sit through those parts. So if a lot of it is those parts that you don't really want to be sitting through and you want to skip through because you've heard it all before, then maybe you're in the wrong networking group.

Duarne:

But if you're there and you're here and you're enjoying the whole show and you walk away feeling like got something from that, that was great then maybe that's the right networking group for you. But don't shy away from them. Check them out and try a few different ones. There is a pile out there. You would you honestly just spend an hour on alignable, drop a message on there and say, hey, looking for some networking groups to join? Um, what do you recommend?

Dave:

and I guarantee you'll get bombarded with people inviting you to meetings what I think here too, like you referenced it, like if you're a solopreneur, you're doing it all yourself and you know, don't try to met, don't try to be a master of all the platforms right away. I think you pick one platform to go all in on and that's all you need. There's plenty of fish in that sea for you to be successful at that level. So, whether it is Alignable or whether it is LinkedIn, only pick one, right when your ideal clients are like where are they going to be and then just go all in on that platform.

Dave:

Yes, you're going to hear people talking about like you should be on four or five, but those are the, as you mentioned, those are the people that have teams. They have people that help them out. So, if you don't have a team or a VA or a marketing manager to do these things for you, and it's just you, one platform is all you need. There's plenty of people on one platform for you to find your first two to three clients that will give you the money to reinvest in your business to people that can then broaden your platform, reach so many people that I've talked to try to do it all. They're trying to do the Facebook, the LinkedIn. They're trying to do Alignable all at the same time and they're struggling because they don't know what to put there. They can't follow up with conversations.

Duarne:

There's too many places Exactly.

Duarne:

You're overwhelming yourself with trying to. You know you're never going to enjoy it, you're never going to get out there as much, and I think you're right. I think you have to limit it. You have to make that decision that if you are going to network, work out how many hours you prepare to network, then work out the ROI on that and then work out if I'm doing one-on-one meetings, like for me, I used to spend about two hours every Sunday on Alignable and I would be able to line up around about 10 to 15 meetings on Alignable for the next week coming up, you know, just by chatting to people on Alignable and getting that ready.

Duarne:

So by Monday which was you know because I'm working on this end of the world you know that Sunday was everyone's Saturday there. So their Sundays they'd come in and they would schedule out in my calendar and they'd fill my calendar up. So by Monday I'd know all the meetings I needed to be in. But at the end of the day, having a full calendar like we talked about doesn't mean getting Full calendar doesn't mean success at all.

Dave:

No, full calendar does't mean success at all.

Duarne:

no, it does not mean success, and the amount of times when I see people going, oh sorry, I've got to go, I've got another meeting, and then they jump into the next meeting. And then you talk to them next, you know, a few weeks later, and they're like you know how was that? You know, how was the meeting? Ah, you know, I was just catching up with some, getting to know them. I'm just getting to understand what their business is about, what they do, and and it's like okay, cool, all right, I get it.

Duarne:

We can only do that so many times.

Dave:

Exactly, and I think so. If you made it this far and you're listening about networking right, we've talked a lot of great things about networking Feel free to drop a comment down below. If you have comments, questions, feedback, drop them down below, we'll get to them. But I think, dwarin, feedback, drop them down below, we'll get to them. But I think one like the other thing that I wanted to talk about today, um was ai, and I think ai is something that is been pretty cool. I don't know like. I think it's this artificial, artificial intelligence thing. I think that that's been everybody's been talking about, like robots and shit. Yeah, like, yeah, like, like you know, artificial brains and stuff like that. Yeah, that's that's what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah, I watch that.

Dave:

One of the cool things that I think a lot of people and even for myself I'm taking advantage of now, and I just put a video out about this is how you can use your chat GPT to schedule some things for you and create recurring tasks, and you know, I I think that a lot of people didn't know that this was even a thing, um, that you could. For example, you know one way that I do it is I I love inspirational quotes. I love motivational quotes, um, and I like to start my day so I've now tasked chat gpt to send me a motivational quote with an action step and a mindset tip based on that quote every day. I mean, it sends it to me every day at seven, 45, but some of the other things you can like, just the the ideas we were kind of throwing around, you know, kind of pre-show is is endless, like you could, let's say you want to. You know your coach has you check in at the end of the day.

Dave:

You know some things that I would, I would, I would potentially do is you could have an end of day check-in, let's say 6 PM, that it sends you a checklist for a check-in that says hey, you know how how many conversations did you have today? Did you feel like you gave it your full effort? You know things that we've been talking about. You know previously in other episodes that you know you don't want to be distracted. You want to make sure you're giving it your all, like you're. You have to look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and really give yourself that honest opinion. Did you do it or did you make excuses for yourself and you now chat. You can like really prompt that and and just send it to you well, I think the task thing is a very interesting thing.

Duarne:

I mean, imagine having an assistant or a receptionist or a secretary and you've got a daily task that you assign them. You know clearly they're not going to be able to make coffee for you with ai, chat, gbt and the like, but you know they can do other things so they might be able to go and look at the latest news that's circulating and trending about a particular topic and supply you with news topics for the day that are mentioned more than three times on different publications and then list the sources. Um, you can have it so that it can go out and find trending topics for you once a week so you can write yourself a newsletter what I think.

Dave:

If you think about this, right, I think a lot of people are still caught up in the old intro to chat gpt, where it was only limited to like September. It was like September of the year before. That's what it was trained up to. So things weren't current, things were.

Dave:

If you're still thinking that, like you are so far behind, like AI is moving so quick, now it's. It's. It's it's searching the internet, right, it's finding things, it's being more relevant and, as you mentioned, give me the sources. Now you're going to have the links to those articles. So I like, like you could say every day hey, send me the trending topics in X industry, whatever it is that you're doing, whether it's marketing, social media, newsletters, seo, send me the topics that are being discussed, and then you could take it right and do whatever you want with it, whether it's write a LinkedIn article, et cetera. But you kind of hit it there. But I just want to make sure that people still think like, oh well, it's going to be so outdated and no, like ChatGPT is now current, like it's searching the internet with its searches.

Duarne:

And it's not the other one, there's a lot of all. All the other platforms pretty much have the same functionality, whether it's being clawed Gemini, you know, um, even the paid version of copilot through Microsoft. I mean, all these platforms have this capability, all the different levels or with different ways of communicating. I think the thing that makes it really spectacular for people, but also daunting, is the simplicity of the interface of chat GPT. Um, we, you've got a chat window. You just ask it shit and it gives you answers. The problem is that's not intuitive to tell you about. Oh, did you know we just introduced this new feature? Oh, did you know that we just did this? Because what's going to happen is the you know, unless you're clicking around and investigating, getting emails from ChatGPT and getting told about new features, or following a podcast that tells you all about it and use cases, you're not gonna know. Um, like I watched just I think it was like yeah, it was probably last week I watched microsoft's um build conference and, oh my gosh, they are doing so many amazing things around AI right now which are mostly directed towards the corporate and security side of things.

Duarne:

And then I went and watched the Google Gemini launch release and it's very consumer, it's very user-orientated functionality.

Duarne:

And then I went and watched the cord and I was just absolutely shocked at what claude could do with everything ai, except for video and imagery, which he doesn't care about. But when it comes to logic and creation and coding and all that sort of stuff, we go back. A couple of weeks ago, codex was just, you know, given a huge update through chat gpt, which, for coders, means that you can now do that task service that we're just talking about. They've incorporated that into that particular system. So what does that mean? That means we've now got a junior coder built into chat gpt where you can actually say I want you to check my code for xyz and then report what the issues are with it. Then I want you to do a test case with this, make notes, adjust and fix as possible and give it like a whole list of things you want to do when it comes to software work what I think, if you, if you think right, which think, but it's a user page, right?

Dave:

Yeah, it's definitely a user page. I don't think a lot of business owners are going to be looking at coding. I think, at least for me, you might concede.

Duarne:

My point was there is we've got ourselves all of these things moving so rapidly and so quickly across so many different models and brands and styles. It's just like we talked about before. Try to focus on one. If you want to just focus on chat gpt, for example, and then go and find yourself an official chat gpt channel, uh, like it, subscribe and just follow it and just get those highlight videos and learn what the new features are. Because, like when we first started talking about tasks, it was in the top menu. You had to go and get it, you had to start. It was another little prompt you had to bring up. It was a little bit awkward to get to. Now you just start writing in what your task is.

Dave:

Yeah, you just say like, hey, I want you to. You know and I'll include a link to the video you know down below this that, um, I created like a quick how-to and how to do it. But just think, a lot of people that we have conversations with are like I don't know what to post on social media. I don't know what to post. Now, you could prompt it to tell you every morning at 8 am hey, this is what I do, this is our business, this is the topics I want to talk about.

Dave:

I want a social media post around this or educational topic around this industry that I can post and here's my ideal clients that I could post on social media and send it to me every morning at 8am. And then what you do is you take that post. You can take that post right. You can either take it as is or add your educational value to it, add some more information to it, and then schedule it out on your social media that day. Now you don't have to think about it anymore. And, as you were saying, what do you want to do? One step further to that.

Duarne:

Well, one step further to that, like you're going to be getting it to do the get it to do the research for you and to find anything that's relevant in my area that might relate to my service that I can then talk about as a trending topic as a part of my new post for today. So that way you're actually taking it one step further. You're getting that personal connection. It's not dated, it's current, and this is where we're. You know, I think a lot of people are missing. The point is, you can actually ask it to do current research if you're not.

Duarne:

But what I recommend is, if you're going to do that is just make sure you tell it to cite the sources so you can check it yourself. But I mean, these are things that you would normally have had to do one at a time, manually. Put it on your schedule, go through and do it. Now we just go and check it. It's a bit like going to your receptionist or your secretary or your at your administrator or your assistant or whoever you have on your team and saying, hey, I need you to do this and have it on my desk by this point and then follow up that it's not there, or did they send it? It's just pop, it's in my, it's right there in front of me.

Dave:

I've got it when I wanted it and I think we've we've been through this before right, but people are who are still against ai. They they feel like you're not doing the work right. They feel like you it's cheating in some case or form. But for me, you know, and you're just taking, you're being more efficient with your time. So, as you said before, you would have to go out and research a topic. How long would it take you to go out and find five, six, seven different sources, whether it's in a library, whether it's online? You know. You know people used to have to go to library. Then the internet came out. Was it cheating when you were able to use the, the, the Wikipedia, versus going to a library? No Right, same thing here. You know, um, now you're able to do that five, six, seven source, even 50 sources now in 30 seconds, versus before you had to go out and spend hours upon hours to get the research, to get the topics, to get the different points.

Dave:

But the beauty of AI is that you're able to be more efficient with your time, be more relevant, and I think now, as it's evolving, you can trust it a little bit more than before. Like before, it would just make up stuff to like fit whatever you were trying to get done, and you had to really verify it. Now you still have to verify, but it's easy as click on the link and see that it's a real article, see that it's a real topic that's being discussed, and okay, now it's analyzed that correctly and then make sure it's in your voice Like you know you don't want it to. If you like talking conversationally and it's popping out, you know things that are, you know, high level words that you know are only the you know doctorates can understand, like if doctorate people aren't your ideal client profiles, make sure you're putting that in a way that's conversational.

Duarne:

Yeah, get the tone right. I literally just sent out an email advising my team that we're having a mandatory training next week where we're going to be talking about how to get a natural sounding message back from ChatGPT with the right tone, because I've noted that too many people are sending emails internally which have the wrong tone, that come across as arrogant or they come across as too professional or too salesy, and it's not them. I know it's not them and how they communicate, but you know they're trying and we're talking about people who English is a second or third language. So it is a very useful tool for getting those messages across. But just that tone and that personal touch to your communication. I think that's where people don't realize that it's a lot easier to do that now than ever before. And you're right, this industry is moving so damn quick. It's a lot easier to do that now than ever before. And you're right, this industry is moving so damn quick. It's not funny Like we've got five platforms that I talked about just before.

Duarne:

There's more than that. They're constantly coming out with new models. They're constantly coming out with different styles and options. Dictation was just introduced, you know, recently. That actually works fairly well in ChatGPT I was previously using a third-party dictation tool. Now I use the dictation tool within and for the 80% of the time that it works. It's amazing, for the 20% of the time, that I sit there talking for a couple of minutes and then nothing happens and I have to reload the page and do it again. It pisses me off, but you know what.

Dave:

But, like we said before, same with platforms is you don't have to have all of them. Test out a few. Which one do you feel like are best. If you want something that's really simple, easy to use, you can basically pick it up from now. Chatgpt is going to be your best one. I think the other ones you takes a little bit like of getting used to and understanding to in order to really make the best out of it. But I think chat gpt is like the overall source right, it's easy to use, it has everything. It has image, the only thing it doesn't have. It doesn't have video yet, right, but it has everything else you know. And you can use some other things depending on what you're using it for. But I would make the suggestion of just finding one that really works. Just use the crap out of it.

Duarne:

I totally agree if you are looking for that alternative, my suggestion would be go and try jamini if you're looking for the alternative. It does have video now. It does have some really fun features. It's got a lot more third-party accessibility and connectivity now available to it as well. Um, personally, I'm still using ChatGP for the majority of the time, but these other models are just as good and getting better. You're right.

Duarne:

Figure out which one you do. Become an expert in what you do, and how many of us are actually going out creating multiple videos in a day? How many of us are going to be needing to do it? Just work at whatever your tasks are and then find the best fit for you. And if there's somebody on your team who does do a lot of the video stuff, then maybe suggest that they use Gemini and that's the one they use and you use ChatGPT. You know. Share an account if you have to. You know, you know there's ways around this If you have to. You know, you know there's ways around this.

Duarne:

But like, yeah, I think the revolution of where we are right now it's pretty phenomenal. You're right. We went from libraries, we went into online research. In between there we had you know and Carter and encyclopedias on disk and files that we'd buy and upload and install. So we've taken this progression. We're now at that point, I think, where you can take data and look at data in different ways and that's where AI is really, really powerful and shines above everything else that we've seen so far where you can take two pieces of information that seem completely irrelevant to each other and then ask it to do an analysis of these two pieces of data and come up with some. You know ways that they work together Right and help.

Dave:

It's all about efficiency. It's all about productivity. I don't think AI, for a lot of like situations, is going to replace people, right, but it's going to help you be more productive. It's going to help streamline your activities. Where I think it's going to help business owners is it's going to help you save, like, instead of now having three full time people doing a job because they have to go out and do all this research and do all this stuff, you're now able to, like, have one full-time person that's really productive, really efficient, and you're saving in the salaries and benefits of those two extra full-time people that you previously might have needed. That's where I feel like the savings are going to come right positions and and all that stuff isn't going to be, isn't going to be eliminated, right, it's just going to make the. It's just going to make people be able to afford more, right, like. Well, it's interesting.

Duarne:

That's a really interesting point you make there, because microsoft have come out and they're pushing that their ai development is based on agents. It's a based on having expert agents in diff to do different things for you. So imagine if you're a retail shop, um with an online store, and the online store requires normally somebody to sit there and run the store and that means they can't really do anything else. You know they're distracted, but you could have an ai answering the inquiries coming through. That's an expert on everything in your store. That's connected to your uh pos system so knows if you've got stock, um, and that person, who is normally going to be the one who is managing that, can focus on finding ways to bring more customers to that store for you, um, getting more people on there to interact with the website. So so I think you're right.

Duarne:

I think it's about taking the fear away and focusing on. Is it really the fear we're worried about of being replaced, or is it just the fear of being able to, you know, learn new skills and learn the tools? You know this has happened through history so many times. If you look at transport, transport has evolved, so, you know, in a relatively a very quick period of time of about, you know, 80 to 100 years. We went from horse and buggy to jets and planes.

Dave:

You know we went from well you just think of, just think of medium, right media, right media went from only to only radio right to start, well. Well, if you want to go even further, back went to you know, horseback riders, right, delivering the news right To, to radio, to TV, to online, you know, to DVDs, all these things like right. And now you have everything streaming on your TV. So even that's evolved in the you know, since we've we've been growing up, you know what I mean.

Duarne:

Ask your kids when the last time have you ever told your kids about when you used to watch free, to wear television and you had to sit there during the ads? I was having this conversation today with a good friend of mine and I said these kids today will never know what it was like that we would sit there holding it in before we had to run to the bathroom waiting for the ad to come. So we know, okay, we're going to have three minutes, we can go to the bathroom. We need to come back and then on the next ad we'll run out and get a drink and refill that and then on the next day we'll go and grab some snacks and we'd use those ads to do things. Kids these days just pause, get up, go and do what they want. It's so convenient now and you don't realize that we just adapt, adapt back. Then we would adapt and use the ads as an yes, they're an inconvenience.

Duarne:

We didn't really like them. We'd start so we'd start recording television onto a vcr and then we'd fast forward through them and then we got to dvrs where we could just skip through them. Now we just left to listen to 30 seconds of them in um. You know youtube and the like. Okay, skip, skip. They got their ad money in. Now we can move to the next one watch our content as per, or we pay a subscription fee so we don't have to see them anymore. We will learn to adapt and get where we want to be.

Duarne:

Technology, yes, it can be used for good things, bad things, things but at the end of the day, I think it's a really clever thing for the entrepreneur, especially the solo entrepreneur. We now have tools that allow us to compete with big guys, with big companies, with big teams. Tools as a big team and has the same playing field to be able to implement changes quickly, whereas these big teams, they can't implement these changes as quickly as what a small team can. Still. So you still got that advantage of being a small player and being able to take action quickly and using these really amazing tools that we've got at our disposal.

Duarne:

So it's an exciting time we're in. Yeah, sure, I understand the uh, the bit of fear behind it, but, um, yeah, it's a very I think it's a very exciting time. There's always something new happening and, yes, it can be extremely overwhelming. Um, I know that, but, dave, you know that as well. But I think it's just a case of just stick to one thing that you want to learn and do well and just once you're really an expert on that, just move to the next one, learn the next time.

Dave:

Well, I think you just have to. You just have to find yourself being open to it. If you're, if you're an ai person or you're not an ai person yet, like, you just have to realize it's not going away, like you know. You have to embrace it, right. You have to like all right, how can I use this in my benefit? And I I didn't want to point out one Like the one thing you said before is like people just go to chat GPT and they just ask it a question and that's how they're using it. If that's how you're using it, you're using it completely wrong and we don't have time to go into like how to use it better.

Duarne:

Like you know, of course you know, we'll teach you how to use it.

Dave:

Right, right, exactly, exactly. We'll have the link down below this stuff. We'll be giving you guys prompts, we'll be giving you guys sort of like tasks to create that that are going to help you. And, um, I think, ultimately, when it, when it comes to like anything is, it's just educate yourself on it, right, become and and just think it's still new. Right ai is is literally, you know what? Two years old right now. Not even you know, or, yeah, I think it's going to be two years old in november, like one over two years now.

Duarne:

Um when it was, it was it was it 23?

Dave:

you did a car? No, it came out in 23.

Duarne:

Right came out in november different technologies came out earlier than that, like but like chat came out november of 23 right it was. That's when it officially like that beta testing.

Dave:

They were testing right, they were doing that yeah, copy before that.

Duarne:

But yeah, for real, I mean it's a couple years old. I mean, I mean it's escalated. It's grown so exponentially, so quickly, um, that's why people just can't keep up with it. It has forced the growth of the processing chip industry. It has forced so much growth in so many different areas.

Dave:

Integrated in Apple phones. Now, like you know, apple is connected to ChatGPT. Like, in such a short period of time it has grown exponentially. So, like nobody is an expert yet. Like there's no experts, there's great users of it and ultimately, like, expert becomes I just know more than you in this particular topic right now. Like, if you walk into a room and you're the person that knows right things about ChatGPT that other people don't, you're the expert to them of ChatGPT because they don't know those things. So like the expert in a room is the person who knows the most about a particular topic at that particular time.

Duarne:

So and that can change exactly.

Duarne:

It can change it for a month and you close off learning any more about it for a month. Well, guess what? You're no longer the smartest guy with ai in the room because it's moved past you and it's very hard to be that smartest guy in the room about all the different ais out there. So you're going to find all these experts. It's very hard to be that smartest guy in the room about all the different AIs out there. So you're going to find all these experts. It's like finding a mechanic who's an expert on a Mercedes versus one that's an expert on Chevrolet. One's going to be really good at one and, yeah, he can do the other stuff, but he's not going to be as good. So I guess, have some fun with it as well.

Duarne:

Don't treat it as a task and just try it like we were talking about. Like just be prepared that it is going to change. But you definitely give that task process out that have a think of. I challenge you all who are listening to actually have a think about what sort of task would be awesome to actually set up and do reminders on and get updates and get that sort of notification on on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be daily, it could be weekly, it could be monthly, but see what sort of reoccurring growing tasks that you could do and use that task process for, and we'd love to hear about it. You know, drop it in the comments, reach out to us. I'd love to hear what those sort of tasks are, because I know mine. Mine was racing um, dave, your mind was racing and I'm sure, as I start to explain these to more people, they're going to have ideas. So it's just going to be monumental yeah, absolutely.

Dave:

And I think, like the biggest thing here too is don't be afraid to trial and error. Like you know, there's no limit. Like you know, obviously you can have like 75 different tasks if you really wanted to, but like trial and error, like and then, and then the ones that don't work, like, just go back and you can edit and you can delete them, but make sure that way you're not getting overwhelmed. But I would just say, just see what works here. What are those things that every day you want to have happen, that you just find yourself either getting distracted or you're not able to do it consistently, and take those things and then start there and then go from there. And if you have questions on it, you want, you want to kind of talk through it, like you know reach out to us, send us some feedback, we'll, we're more than willing to kind of help you with it.

Dave:

So, but, as always, I think we had another great conversation we wrapped up. We talked about networking, we talked about some. You know our opinion on networking, right, and you know the four areas, right. You want to have four sort of main things, at least from my aspect, is you want to have your purpose right you want to have. You know, make sure you're giving. First is the second area, and then, third way, qualify, like qualify your people, whether it's questionings, whether it's through limiting to to who you're actually asking to have a conversation with, and then like working your calendar, so you know paying attention to the to the next day and sending an email out to the people that haven't accepted yet. So that way you're not wasting your time and you know kind of having an impact on your productivity on the day. Which one for you. What's that one thing that your takeaway that you hope somebody takes away from today's episode?

Duarne:

Dave, I'd say don't be afraid to say no to a meeting If it's a meeting that's not going to work for you, if it's a meeting that you feel is not going to be suitable. If you're asking, you know, feel free to ask questions like can I get an agenda for the meeting? If someone's reached out to you for a meeting, feel free to ask them questions. Um, because it is a, the conversation can start before the meeting and a lot of people don't realize you don't. You can start that conversation before the meeting. The meeting is great to get a face-to-face, it's great to go through that process. But sometimes, if you're not sure why the meeting's been set, ask for an agenda, ask for a reason. Find a polite way to do that and don't be afraid of that. But value your own time and don't just fill up your calendar for the sake of filling it up.

Dave:

Right for sure. So if you made it this far, we appreciate you. We love you guys. Hope you take one or two things out of today's episode that will help you impact your business journey and you were able to learn from things that we're doing in our business journeys. But until the next one, we hope you have a great and fantastic day.

Dave:

Remember, down below there's a couple of links for you. One learn more information about the mastermind. We have some founding member specials going on right now, so make sure you take advantage of those. Also, there's going to be a link to Alignable. If you're interested in you know, kind of learning more about the Alignable platform or possibly signing up, there's a link there. And then I'm going to have a link to the chat GPT task creation video out there. So if you're interested in you know taking that and how do you, how do you create new tasks in ChatGPT Take a look at that video. I will have it linked down below as well after we're done going live. So, duane, thanks for joining me again. My friend, I hope you have a wonderful and amazing weekend. I'm going to wrap it up here. I hope you guys have a great day. We'll see you in the next one, take care.

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