Burn The Playbook - B2B GTM Strategies with Marc Crosby

Business Networking That Works | Connectors Get Paid with Joe Mindak

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Business networking that actually produces deals. Entrepreneur Joe Mindak breaks down “Connectors Get Paid,” The Connective community, and how Nolodex helps companies track and reward referrals. If you want a pipeline that doesn’t stall, pay the connectors and make your whole org part of sales.

What you’ll learn

  • What a connector is and why connectors get paid
  • Trust vs numbers: how real referrals close faster
  • Follow-up that isn’t pushy and actually lands meetings
  • How to prep for events and target the 1 person who matters
  • Introverts vs extroverts: who wins at connecting and why
  • Turn employees into introducers and track payouts with Nolodex
  • How often to network and how to keep a live pipeline
  • The future of networking: smaller communities, clear incentives

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:30 Joe Mindak’s path: agencies, beer, tech, festivals
02:00 What is a connector
05:15 Trust over volume
07:45 Introverts, extroverts, and listening
10:00 Follow-up rules that build credibility
13:30 Event prep that lands real meetings
17:40 Make employees your introducers
20:55 Paying for referrals with Nolodex
23:20 How often to network
26:50 Pipeline discipline when you’re busy
27:50 Virtual vs in-person
30:10 The future: connectors get paid
31:20 Burn It or Build It lightning round
42:37 Where to find Joe

Who this helps

  • Founders and small business owners
  • B2B sales and marketing leaders
  • Community builders and super connectors
  • Enterprise teams that want more warm doors opened

Guest

Host

Keywords
business networking, connectors get paid, Joe Mindak, The Connective, Nolodex, referral tracking, referral fees, warm introductions, B2B sales, pipeline, follow-up, event prep, super connector, internal referrals, employee-led growth, community-led growth, trust-based selling, networking cadence, LinkedIn networking, generative engines, #BurnThePlaybook #BusinessNetworking #B2B #Referrals #Sales #Marketing #TheConnective #Nolodex #ConnectorsGetPaid #Pipeline business networking; referral marketing; connectors get paid; Joe Mindak; The Connective; Nolodex; B2B referrals; pay for referrals; internal referrals; employee advocacy; sales pipeline; follow-up tips; event networking; super connector; trust-based selling; warm introductions; community-led growth; Marc Crosby; Digital Rebels Consulting; Burn The Playbook Podcast

Views expressed are our own and do not represent any organizations

© 2025 Digital Rebels Consulting. All rights reserved.


Digital Rebels Consulting (00:30)
Welcome in, I'm Mark Crosby, this is Burn the Playbook. Today's guest is Joe Mendak, a seasoned entrepreneur who's been building and scaling businesses for more than 25 years. Right out of college, he started a marketing company that grew into a multi-million dollar enterprise before he successfully exited. Since then, he's launched ventures in publishing, craft beer, wedding tech, and even music festivals. Joe is always chasing opportunity with creativity and hustle. He now leads the connective of fast growing business network that helps companies collaborate and share referrals.

It's already expanded to dozens of states, hundreds of members. He also heads sales and marketing at Nolodex, which is a platform he helped create to manage and track all those referrals. Joe recently published a bestselling book called Connectors Get Paid. His energy, curiosity, and track record of turning ideas into real businesses make this a conversation worth hearing. Hello, Joe.

Joe Mindak (01:19)
Hey, Mark, I I sound pretty old there. That's a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Digital Rebels Consulting (01:23)
You've done a lot of stuff. It's very impressive. I just had to check all those

boxes and make sure everyone knew what they were getting themselves into, which is a lot of good stuff.

Joe Mindak (01:29)
Yeah, yeah, well, that

yeah, I'm excited. And I like to talk about it. And I do like to talk. So I'm excited to chat with you today. So thanks for having me.

Digital Rebels Consulting (01:37)
Nice, pulling out of connectors get paid, I decided to throw into chat GPT, what is a connector? I'm curious if this is a hallucination, is this right? Tell me if you agree or not. A connector is someone who links people, ideas and opportunities they wouldn't meet otherwise. They build trust by giving first, spotting useful connections fast and helping others win. And business connectors don't chase deals, they create ecosystems. Is that correct?

Joe Mindak (02:01)
Yeah, I would say so.

mean, I mean, it's kind of like, I wouldn't call it like an innate ability. But I think there's certain people that are just really good at connecting and saying, Hey, Mark, you should talk to this person, right? And and people should listen to that, right? If you if anyone says they're connected, they usually don't just say that because, you know, there's a guy and I'm sure you know, in our group that always connects people and puts them in as well. That's not a referral. just introducing me. But he knows you should talk to that person, right? Like I connected.

One guy started talking to him in our community and another guy, right? And I'm like, wait, you guys are the same people. You're both techie guys, right? Which techie people are typically this brain, but they're both sales guys. They're both had that like sales thing. I'm like, this is weird. You guys have these two brains together. You guys need to talk. I literally put them together on email and it just started like, it was like war and peace back and forth. These guys, they like hit it off immediately. And then one guy hired the other guy for a $10,000 project to come to his company, help him grow.

Digital Rebels Consulting (02:40)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (02:58)
So yeah, I think some people just could see like, know, Mark, I think you should talk to this person. pretty much almost every meeting I have these days, by the end of like, let me introduce you to that person. Right. So it definitely ability, I think you could, you could learn it better over time and learning to listen and learn to see, okay, you know, cause everyone needs something. Um, but I think it's, it's definitely something that, uh, you know, people are great at putting certain people together and making things happen.

Digital Rebels Consulting (03:24)
Is that something, is that a title you give yourself or is that something that other people give you?

Joe Mindak (03:29)
I mean, people have always said to me, know everybody, know everybody. So yeah, I mean, at some point you could basically say, a, I'm I'm a super connector is a bigger one, right? Connector is one thing, super connector. I think you have to really have the chops and prove it yourself. But, yeah, connectors is just somebody that loves to make introductions, right? And it's actually a good feeling to do it, right? I love, I love being able to make connection between two people, something happen, right? And now we're saying with the book connectors get paid. You know, if you're a great connector, you should be getting paid because

I think the connectors are the ones that make those, like you said, ecosystem and those communities, right? There's the people that really give and keep bringing things as they know everybody that are out there talking, are out there networking. They can introduce you to anyone. The other people aren't, that's okay. They're willing to pay those people though. So that's the big difference now. I think of what we're talking about, the future networking we're talking about here is like, why don't we all pay those people? Hey, I don't like to go out and sell. I don't like having to talk to people. I don't like going to networking meetings. Well, guess what? Mark does.

Digital Rebels Consulting (04:13)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (04:27)
And if Mark brings you business, would you pay him? Yeah, of course I would. don't, I don't have to do that stuff that I don't like doing. You're going to bring me clients. Yes, I will pay you. Please. I will pay you. That's why, that's why people hire salespeople, right? I'm, I'm great at it. I know how to run a company. I own a software company. could develop things all day long. I need someone to go out and sell for me. Hey, I'll pay you to go get the business. You're the guy that likes to talk. Well, this way we're giving everyone that opportunity in these communities to be like, Hey, why don't we all become salespeople for each other?

Digital Rebels Consulting (04:54)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (04:55)
So if

you like connecting, you're getting paid. If you don't like connecting, these other people, and we have 550 people, these other 550 other people, be happy to pay you, be happy to open doors if you pay them. So it just makes sense.

Digital Rebels Consulting (05:07)
It does make sense. Kind like sales, some people think sales is a numbers game. Is that, I guess, whole true as far as networking? Is that a numbers game or is it a trust game?

Joe Mindak (05:16)
It's you know, you gotta build the trust, right? mean, everything's a numbers game, right? The beginning like you're gonna like again. We have 550 people in our community. You know if you go through all those people, you're going to find 50 people that really become good for you, right? But it's hard. You don't want to just have those calls back. Hey Mark, what do you do? You know that that old people meet each other. Tell me what you do. What do you do for like slow it down like hey Mark, tell me about yourself like let's get let's get to know each other a little bit and see if we hit it off right and build trust and.

And eventually, you know, you have a couple meetings, you start to like that person, trust them, they see my good person, then you're gonna start opening the doors to that. But yeah, if you're just doing a numbers game, getting on a call, tell me what you do, I'll do it. And there's some people that just, you know, I had someone a couple weeks ago, got on and it was just, this guy makes a thousand connections a week. It's like, he literally went on to LinkedIn and just sent like five notes to people that I think he was just connected to. That doesn't work. Not one of those people got back to me.

Digital Rebels Consulting (06:10)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (06:14)
Mark, we just broke it. Mark, we just broke it. Mark, we just broke it. Like he sent me five things, not one. And I knew none of them are going to get back to me. Like I don't even think he knows this person. So yeah, you have to, when you're making an introduction and networking, it really, really should be someone you know. Do you know that person? Well, yes, I do. I do. Okay. Can you ask them, are they interested in, you know, I'm, I do email marketing, you know, they're the CMO of a company. Yes. I went to college with that person. Ask them if they're looking for any more new email marketing agency.

Digital Rebels Consulting (06:28)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (06:44)
And I'll reach out to that person I know well. Hey, you know, Sarah, listen, I have a friend looking to talk to you. Joe, we're good with email. You know, we have, we have one house thing or actually, you know what? Right now we are looking for somebody. Think about that as the connection. So it's, it's building trust, like me introducing Sarah, who she trusts me to somebody I'm saying, hey, these guys are good, good fit for you. That those deals are going to close nine and 10 times off of just numbers game, numbers game, numbers game.

Digital Rebels Consulting (07:11)
Yeah, I think it's the same in sales. I mean you could do a spray and pray and obviously you could get some results from that but if you have if you lead with Authenticity and the foundation of trust you'll probably get better results. I think that applies to networking applies to sales and you know, so it's not so transactional So I think that that's probably a better way to start You had mentioned before as far as the ability to listen as a trait of a connector super connector

Joe Mindak (07:23)
Yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (07:35)
That kind of leads me into one thought as far as introverts versus extroverts. So would you think that introverts or extroverts make better connectors or networking partners?

Joe Mindak (07:48)
Well, you know, it could be anything, right? Like I'm definitely not an introvert, but I like to talk to everybody. I talk to everybody everywhere I go. I know the hell out of my family doing it. So I get to meet a lot more people because I'm an extrovert. But if I'm just an extrovert that just likes to talk and not listen, I'm not going to be a good connector. You need to also listen to what the other person's saying. So a lot of times introverts, I know a bunch of introverts that are really, really good connectors because they're going to sit back and watch me, Joe Minda just chat away and they're going to listen.

Digital Rebels Consulting (07:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (08:17)
heard what that person said, right? He got a list of what people say. like my wife is an extrovert. Like, I remember we were selling our home in Hoboken, right? And we walk out the door, and this woman comes up to her and they're talking, I'm getting in the car across the street. What that lady wants? She goes, she stopped me and said, Is that your house? Sorry to bother you. She Yeah. She goes, I just wanted to say, my husband, I told him if this house is ever for sale, I want to buy it. Like we had this cute little brownstone. And I go

Did you tell her we were selling it on Monday? Like, it's literally going on the market. She goes, no, I'm like, had you not like and I had to go around a corner, stop this woman say, excuse me. What my wife wanted to say is we're selling now. So I think like anyone just needs to listen, right? I mean, and that's an extreme case where the woman's literally, but any conversation you have, people always need something, right? So I think if you're an introvert, if you're listening and saying, okay, Mark mentioned that he's looking for.

Digital Rebels Consulting (09:05)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (09:10)
you know, a new agency to do his marketing. Okay, that's a lead for me, right? So I learned to do that long ago. It's just listen to people anytime, where you're at. And so I don't, you know, I don't necessarily think introvert or extrovert is a big deal. It's just how good are you listening and identifying those leads and those referrals and those, those needs that people have.

Digital Rebels Consulting (09:14)
Mm-hmm.

as far as like when you, you know, you network and you're connecting with people, you're making connections. And I think even the last example where that guy, you know, went out and I guess I up a thousand different calls. how do you, what's the best recommendation you have for, for following up, you know, after you make that initial call, maybe you meet somebody at a networking event in person, maybe it's a zoom call, maybe it's a, another networking event. what's your, what's the protocol best protocol for following up?

Joe Mindak (09:54)
For me, I always like to be the first person to follow up and it doesn't have to be a follow-up to sell them on something It's just just simple. Hey man, good to meet you last night, right? And that's just building a relationship, right? Hey, good to meet you. By the way. we're talking about Giants football. Be like, did you see that? You know, what I was old Saquon Barkley went to the Eagles and I don't watch giant football much but the Paxton guy whatever you see that like just something that like builds a little bit between you, right? so I would say, know when somebody gives you their card

Just follow up and say it was good to meet you. one. I love to keep talking to you. Let's chat in a couple weeks. Because if you're just like, hey, Mark, we're so good at meeting you last night. By the way, do you want to buy this? I sell this. Do you want to buy this? I sell it. Slow it down. Talk a little bit about it. Get to know them little bit. And I like to learn a little bit more about them. The great things are now you can go onto social media and find out on Facebook, find out on what they like, what their interests are, and find something that.

you could connect to them about, like, oh, I didn't know you were you know, a giant, let bring a giant. I didn't know you were Giants fan. Like, it's great. Oh, cool. So now you start to connect to them on that level and build it. But when you go into these events, like I was talking about this a couple of weeks ago, like you don't need to get 20 different cards. find one person that's like that, that, that person is an awesome referral. And if you know right away, be like, oh my God, this person is such and such, you know who they are. Just go meet that person and get locked in with them and try and just hang out with them.

You don't need to talk about business. It's good to know them, right? I went to the city two weeks ago for dinner. I paid to go to the dinner and my one focus was this one guy. That's it. That's the only reason I was there. I mean, I talked to other people, but my thing was, and it was his event. And I just, at the end of the night, went up, introduced myself, told them, hey, I just wanted to meet you face to face, look at me. And then now we've been talking since, right? And so I followed up the next day. Really good to meet you next day.

I'd love to get on a call in a couple of weeks when you're ready type of thing. And now we've just talking to him. Now we're doing some stuff together, but, but yeah, you want to follow up when you say, tell somebody you're to do something. That's the worst thing. Right. You know, especially at these events, like, Oh, I know somebody I, I'm going to introduce you and then you never do it. Do it the next morning. Hey, Mark, I told you was going to introduce you to my friend, Amy. Here's that introduction I told you about. So you're building your credibility and your trust. So you follow through. So I hate when people don't follow through. Right.

Digital Rebels Consulting (11:48)
Nice.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I think the biggest mistake is people just don't. And for one reason or another, they get busy doing other things. Maybe they forget. And I think that's just probably the biggest mistake as far as just networking. You go to events. We were talking about this on the last podcast with Alison French, and we're talking about trade shows and go into these events. And part of it was, you know, preparate there's, know, there's three phases to it. I mean, there's a preparation, which most people don't do to go to these networking events, trade shows and conferences. There's the middle part, as far as what you were talking about, like I'm going to go talk to that guy.

And perhaps you did some preparation as far as knowing he was going to be there to begin with. Maybe you didn't, but you figured it out along the way. And then following up, you know, a lot of money and time has spent networking, going to conferences and trade shows. And, know, I think the biggest part that people screw up is, following up in a timely manner. Cause I think you have to do it within like a couple of days because people get busy, they get back to work, they get busy with the day to day.

Joe Mindak (12:56)
yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (12:59)
and they miss the meat of it, which is ⁓ following up, those reminder emails, a connection request on LinkedIn, and at least just saying you enjoyed your time with them and speaking with them. On that example that you mentioned as far as going to that event, you said, I'm gonna meet with that one guy. Did you prep and know that he was gonna be there and seek him out, or did you just happen to see him there?

Joe Mindak (13:02)
All right.

Yeah. Yeah. No,

I knew I went, I went, drove to the city an hour and half paid to go, but it's like to meet that person because they were very critical for what I want. So listen, if you have somebody you're looking to meet, find out maybe they're going somewhere. And this guy is a, uh, influencer to like info, whatever. He's got a big following and stuff. So you can find out where those people are going to be. And I knew they were having this dinner and it was intimate dinner. It was only 50 people there. So I knew I'd get a chance and room to meet them. Right.

Digital Rebels Consulting (13:24)
Cool.

Joe Mindak (13:43)
But like you said, the prep work, right? I'm going to an event next week. Here's the list of people coming. So I'm going to go through that list and be like, I'm going to find a person I want to talk to. I'm like, that's the only reason I need to be there. Now, obviously again, I'll talk to other people, but that's the person I want to be there. I remember I picked up a marketing. I went to have my marketing agency years ago. I was going to this event and I knew this woman was going to be there. I knew she was the head of marketing for this company. I knew everything about her.

Digital Rebels Consulting (13:54)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (14:08)
And I just start talking to her and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, oh yeah, so Mike, so what are you here for? I'm here for my company. Cool. Yeah, I'm the head of marketing. Oh, that's cool. I didn't know. know, I pretty much like, again, I have no idea who you are or whatever. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. I have a marketing agency. Oh, you do? What do you guys do in marketing? And I let her start asking me questions and became one of my biggest accounts, right? I knew I wanted her. I found her at the thing and I went off to her and just, you know, and it's not like a...

Digital Rebels Consulting (14:27)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (14:34)
a smoke and mirror thing, it's like, hey, I know, that's the person I want to talk to. Let me see how I could get into that conversation.

Digital Rebels Consulting (14:39)
Preparation, preparation, preparation. I think that's what it's all about. Um, and I've been doing that for, many, many years and sales and the more prepared, the better results. So it kind of just goes without saying, um, as far as, uh, connecting and networking, um, you know, who should be, I guess, spending a lot of time on networking? it, small businesses, medium sized businesses, large enterprise businesses? Like, is there a particular group type of people that should be networking? And, I don't know. you have an opinion on that? Or should it be everybody?

Joe Mindak (15:09)
I mean, look, it can't be everybody, Because if you're the CEO of a company and you're actually doing the work, it's hard for you to be out to be networking. So that's why you bring salespeople in. But if you can't afford a salesperson, which a lot of small businesses can't when you're starting, right? I'm starting out. I can't pay somebody $60,000 base salary plus commission plus benefit. The money's not there. So you have to do it, right? And it's top of funnel. So you could go to a group and most groups are about a hundred bucks a piece. So you could afford that, right?

And those people become your sales team, right? We have 550 people in our group. 100 dollars a month, get 550 salespeople. And they're just opening the top of funnel for you, right? And you're going to sell it because it's your company, you know your company best, you know your product the best, you know what you're doing the best. And then eventually you could get salespeople. But even larger companies, like if they have a huge sales force, those salespeople should be networking too. Because again, listen, it's no secret sales is all about who you know.

It's always been all about who you know, it's never gonna change. All this AI is out there. It's like, everyone's relying on AI to make it your job. Great, AI could tell you who you wanna talk to, but you better have somebody to get you in the door there, right? AI could give me 10 million leads tomorrow. could punch it in. I need 10 million leads. I want every chamber of commerce person. Great, now I have them all. How do I get to them? Well, it's by who somebody knows. So, you know, every sales team should be doing some sort of networking because it's getting someone to open a door.

Digital Rebels Consulting (16:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (16:36)
And if Jane knows the president or CMO of that company, cause she went to college and their sorority sisters, there's no better way to get that door than through Jane, who I know for awhile. Right? So again, all about who you know. And now we're just telling people it's all about who you know, and you're going to pay somebody to who that for who they know. Right. ⁓ so.

Digital Rebels Consulting (16:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And you mentioned sales team should be networking. Is there other groups within large organizations, large enterprises that could be networking as well? Like could it, should a marketing team be networking, you know, outside should, uh, you know, your other people within the organization that might not be, you know, commercially led, um, should they be networking? Cause I think that, you know, obviously you've kind of alluded to it that, you know, a lot of people know different people in different businesses, you know, whether they're your next door neighbor, they're in a networking group. I they go to church with them.

So how can you, guess, expand networking and these sorts of strategies beyond just like the sales team in order to drive more sales?

Joe Mindak (17:29)
Yeah, so look, I've been thinking about this a lot because our platform Rolodex is built for communities that are already networking, alumni associates and chambers that are there to kind of connect with each other. But I think back to like when I had my company, like I had a marketing company, right? And I had 40 people that were working for me in design and graphics and then websites and all that stuff. All those people used to work at a different agency, right? And they have clients.

that were at that agency, right? They came from this, they know we used to do work for Ralph Lauren over here. Do you still know Jimmy, the head of marketing over there? Yeah, I know him really well. Why aren't we using those people as salespeople, right? Every CEO out there that's out there or even the head of sales, like if you have 40, 50, 100, 200 employees and they're all sitting around not doing anything, why not turn them into salespeople? They don't have be salespeople, they just have be introducers, right? Connectors, right?

Hey, Sarah in accounting. You know anyone that would use our services here? Like, oh, you know, I didn't think about it, but my cousin's the head of marketing for XYZ. Wait, your cousin's the head of marketing for one of the companies we'd love to talk to? Can you get a meeting? Of course I can, but why would she without any incentive? Now you're saying, hey, all our employees, we're going to put you on, again, we'll put her on our platform. They could all send referrals on the platform. Hey, I know someone that probably would.

Digital Rebels Consulting (18:45)
incentive.

Joe Mindak (18:56)
be great to use the company's services, right? But again, put an incentive in there and pay them just like you would a salesperson. But now you're not paying a sale, you're just paying them a straight commission. They're already working for you. They're helping you out, they're helping the company out, and they're putting extra money in their pocket, right? My wife works for a finance company. She knows top level people in finance. She's been in finance for 30 years. She could bring their company into it and she works with sales, she supports the sales team. Not one of them are ever like, hey, Audrey, I see

Digital Rebels Consulting (19:11)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (19:26)
I see on LinkedIn, you're connected to this VP over at whatever company. Do you know them? Yeah, sure. I've them for 30 years. I could get you a meeting tomorrow. Why are we using, why are we using those people? So we really think one of the big pushes we're to do is be like, every company has a sales force, right? It has people that are working for them that know people, right? If you have a hundred people that work for your company, they know a hundred people, right? That's 10,000 people that you could potentially connect to.

to make introductions for the company. yeah, think it's a huge area that nobody's thinking about or nobody's doing.

Digital Rebels Consulting (19:55)
Yeah.

think so. I mean, I haven't heard it. I mean, I think that it makes complete sense. I mean, it's kind of like the, you see it like an HR as far as if you refer a candidate for an open position and, maybe they get a kickback or something, maybe a hundred bucks, thousand bucks, you know, if they get hired, they last 90 days, but why shouldn't you be doing it on the sales front as far as just, Hey, do you know anybody that's in this space or anybody that works at this company and then do that internally? I think Noladex makes a lot of sense to support that.

be able to do that internally. And that's, guess that's kind of what you're thinking, right? Is that Noladex could sit inside a large enterprise and you have these people operating on this platform, making these connections and then getting, I guess, incentivized or paid for it, right?

Joe Mindak (20:39)
Yeah. So they put it in the system. It's all on paper, all contracted for those employers to say, Hey, you know, again, Sarah and accounting, if you knew anyone that could use art to services we provide as a company, you will get a commission. It's in writing for you and you're going to get paid, put it in, send that person's name to me, make the introduction to me, and then I'll take it from there. So the CEO salesperson takes from there. So it's them not, they're not selling again. They're just saying, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll introduce you to my, my sorority sister, Susie that I've known for 25 years.

We get together every other day. You know those people so well. I'll easy make that introduction. ⁓ by the way, I got $5,000 for that introduction. That was awesome. Let me, let me see who else as an employee. I know I can make five, 10, $20,000 as a little side hustle making introductions for my boss. And I, by the way, your boss is also pretty happy with you that they got a new client, right? It all works together and, you're, and you're solidifying the company you work for to make sure they're getting new business that. So you keep your job. mean it all.

Digital Rebels Consulting (21:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's part of the package too. I mean, if you're onboarding somebody, you get a base plus, know, a spiff for, you know, introducing other people, what other companies are going to, you know, compete with that if they're not doing it. So I think it makes a lot of sense if you can make an extra buck on the side in order to help the business. And, ⁓ I don't know, it just, ⁓ helps everybody out and cleaning the business. So why wouldn't you.

Joe Mindak (21:38)
The whole circle works together, right?

Yeah, was, I,

yeah, after, after I graduated college, I was working for a financial firm, a pain Weber, which is no longer around. And I was working for the cats brothers, right? These two guys did 50 % of the business for the entire company. And, ⁓ I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn't a finance guy, but I got a book from my buddy who worked at Honda at the time. He was an engineer and he got the employee handbook with all their phone numbers in it. And I gave it to the guys. I'm like, here, take this. They gave me 500 bucks just for giving them that book, you know, cause they had.

all the employees that they could go sell 401ks to whatever I mean, so yes, employers are willing to to to incentivize their people. I think we should really start looking at that.

Digital Rebels Consulting (22:37)
Gotcha. How do you, what's like the timeframe as far as just how often people should be networking, whether it's internal, whether it's external, is it something that I need to be working on every day, once a week, once a month, a few times a year? And I'm just kind of thinking about this. mean, you and I are probably doing this on a daily basis, but for somebody that ⁓ maybe feels solid in their large enterprise job, they've been working there for 10 years and do they need to be networking? I guess when is the right time to do it and how frequently should you be doing it?

Joe Mindak (23:06)
Well, look, if you're in a company and you got an enterprise job and it doesn't tie to any sort of sales and you really have to network, but you should always be networking because when you lose that job at some point, you want to know people that. you should always be doing some sort of networking, meeting people, shaking hands, meeting people or things. So you always want to build a network for various reasons. But for the people that really want to grow their business, they should put at least I would say two to three hours a week towards that. Right. And it's just.

It's sales, it's your pipeline building, right? Put two or three hours, just that's my time. I'm gonna work on going on LinkedIn, going on the Noladex site, seeing other people in my group, setting up meetings with them, doing one-on-one calls with them, because getting to know those people, you could tell them what you do more. It's just gotta build the pipeline, right? And people, the biggest thing I see, and one of the biggest things that people don't realize, and I think, because a lot of people aren't sales people, right?

They were working somewhere and now they started their own company. Now they are a salesperson and they get busy, right? They join a networking group. They get real busy. Be like, I'm out. I can't, I can't afford, I don't have the time to do any of this anymore. I can't go to the meetings. I'm like, you six months from now, you might not be as busy. And also need to be scrambled for new client. Oh my God. I lost three clients. need, and then we call up Joe, do you know anyone who needs my service? Like, no, well, you should have been building those other pipeline people. Cause you know, sometimes it takes three, six a year.

to get new business and to close a deal. We should be always networking to build more relationships and more clients. Six months from now when you lose two clients, all of hey, hey Mark, what's going on? Actually, you know what? I'm here to use your services now, right? Because sometimes it takes a while, right? I've had people that, I just had a guy we were going to hire. I talked to him a year ago, right? And all of sudden now I'm coming together. So you always want that pipeline. I think people just don't understand what pipeline means.

Digital Rebels Consulting (24:41)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (24:56)
You I'm so busy. So I got so much business right now. I don't need to network like bullshit like you at some point I'm to be like, my goodness, I don't have any business and what's going on here. You should always

Digital Rebels Consulting (25:02)
you

Yeah, you never know what's going

to happen. mean, the business could go upside down. A lot of things happen. You hear stories every single day, whether you're a team of 10 or a team of 100,000, businesses go belly up or there's M &A activity or layoffs or you never know what that's going to look like. And I think if you're going to network and something bad happens and then you're kind of reaching out to people, then it just seems a little bit.

bad timing and whoever you're reaching out to probably doesn't want to help you as much when you just have your hands out and you're looking for them to help you out and you've ignored them for a year or two.

Joe Mindak (25:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, you we had somebody a few months ago, I can we, you know, I need, I need a few more clients from India. What have you been doing this whole time? Why weren't you out there networking? It's it, you should have been building this up. yeah, I say, you know, if you're out there in sales, you own a company, business development, you should always be networking and building those sales by buying and otherwise just be networking to meet people and get relationship with people that when you do lose your job, unfortunately, some people do.

Hey Mark, anything over at your company? Yeah Joe, you and you're not just asking like you become friends with that person. You built that network, those people, so it's a little easier to ask when you're ready.

Digital Rebels Consulting (26:14)
What do think the future of networking will look like with more digital platforms that are out there, more meetings, more virtual meetings. It's harder to get in front of people these days. One way or the other, there's more AI, which just puts more noise into all of our channels that we're dealing with. But ⁓ what do you think the future looks like in five years, 10 years? What does networking look like?

Joe Mindak (26:34)
Yeah, I mean, look, the virtual is great, right? I could do 10 meetings a day now instead of three meetings because I don't have to drive an hour to each meeting. So it's awesome. But you still got to find I think you got to find the right network for you. Right. Like there's the right community. Right. Not every community is going to be good for you. Right. You look to get into small businesses or you look to get into larger enterprise type businesses. I think people just think they're going to join networking group. It's going to solve all my problems. Right. But some aren't good. We had we had someone looking to join our group.

a months ago and I said, what do you do? She goes, I'm a photographer. go, so you do shoots all over the country? No, just in Phoenix. I'm like, don't join our group. I'm sure somebody will know somebody in Phoenix that might be helping, but join a local B &I group or local chamber of commerce, right? Those are the people that can get you into the local businesses, right? So look, virtual is gonna be great, but I still think it's great to go out and shake hands and meet people. It's just time consuming, right? Like when I went to that event in New York.

It took me an hour and a half. I was there for three hours. I mean, it was, was, I left at three in the afternoon and get home till 10 o'clock at night. those, those are important because that person really wanted to meet that person. So other events, if you have local events that are going on, it's always great to go meet people in person. But I think virtual and these more and more online platforms are coming up. But again, it's never going to, AI and all these platforms, again, it's never going to take away the human connection to somebody.

Digital Rebels Consulting (27:51)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Mindak (27:58)
Right? ⁓ You you build a relationship with somebody, you become friendly with them. Like they're never gonna leave. was talking to somebody the other day about it. I built a relationship with my top client, Jack, who I just saw the other day. Like he would never leave. Like I had such a tight relationship with him. He had people calling him all the time. We did printing at the time. like, hey, I'll do your next print job for free. He's like, nope, that's my guy. That's my guy. Like, you know, like you build such a solid, and I think that's the problem with.

virtual is that you're not building really, you're not taking your client out to lunch, having a couple of drinks, not that you have to drink at lunch, but like you're building a solid, you're building a friendship with these people that again, this guy Jack would never use anyone else besides me. Cause we were like, we became so tight, right? AI and technology is not gonna take that away. I think people are relying so much on tech, tech, tech, tech, tech, just find a good network that.

is within your industry, right? If you're in supply chain, find a bunch of other supply chain people, right? If for us, we're all B2B, right? We're only B2B. If you're B2C, you're not joining our group. If you're B2B, you're here, but you also have to be a certain, you know, there's other vetting things that we have out because we want our group to make sure they're being able to do it. you know, find a group and obviously if you could do two or three groups, it's great. And yes, the future is probably more virtual. But for us, I mean, we keep saying the future is, again, my book.

not the plug-in connectors get paid. The future is that join a group, but everyone start paying each other, right? Make it easy, right? Just to stop talking about it. Everyone's willing to pay referral fees, businesses, companies are willing to pay you to get in there and connectors are willing to make introductions. They want to get paid for it. Yeah, I'll keep making introductions for you, but you got to pay me for it. And everyone's willing to do it. It's like, why don't we just all put it together and say, okay, it's all about who you know. I'll pay you for.

Introduction you can make mark and I'm gonna get more business for myself and I'm happy to pay you to do that Just simple

Digital Rebels Consulting (29:50)
Makes sense. And I think you'll probably be hearing more about this on LinkedIn just because you you have the idea, you have the amazing book. I think it's a concept that you don't hear far and wide. And I think that those are the types of ideas that, you know, people pick up and like, you know what, that is an amazing idea. Connector should get paid. know, you know, I think even large enterprises, the example that you brought up as far as like marketing people and different people bringing in other deals to help drive sales, those are the types of bold ideas that I love to hear. And I think that we need to help drive forward.

I think that your book will certainly help do that. And I'm sure that the, the connective and Nolodex, those sorts of platforms will, ⁓ you know, be pretty popular and they already are, but be more in vogue, in the coming years, trying to figure out how to, leverage, sales opportunities and other people within your, businesses. but let's pivot over to our most popular segment, which is the burn it or build it rapid fire segment. I'll rattle off like 10 topics. You answer burn it or build it and a brief reason why. So we'll start with number one.

⁓ Successful people don't need to network.

Joe Mindak (30:49)
Burn it. Am I saying it right? Am I saying no? No. So yeah, successful people still need to network, right? Because you never know where your next best connection is going to come from, right? So yeah, you'll be successful now. you don't know two months from now, you're to meet someone that could really change your business. And we all know one person can make a big difference in our business. So you should always be networking.

Digital Rebels Consulting (31:10)
Absolutely. Next question, networking takes too much time.

Joe Mindak (31:13)
Uh, this is a, this is a sore one for me. I hate when people say that on time. Cause I just, again, I wrote a book. wrote, uh, I've just put my second album. I just finished a movie. I'm writing a TV pilot now and I'm running, basically running two companies and doing all set. Like just plenty of time. Like, so yes, it does take time, but you got to put the time in. Like if you want to build your business, it's your business. You want to get, you joined a networking group. Now get those people to do it. Put the time in.

Digital Rebels Consulting (31:39)
you're writing a TV script?

Joe Mindak (31:42)
Yeah, TV pilot, yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (31:43)
How do we

leave that out of the bio? We should have led with that.

Joe Mindak (31:45)
I just started it. I just,

did, well, I decided cause I did, I did a movie and did it in the beginning. And you know, listen, I, you know, people like, how do you find the time to do this stuff? Like I get up at four every day and I, and like stuff like this, I just find some time and it takes literally it takes 15 minutes to write a scene. So I just outline a scene and then when I have time on a Saturday, I'll write two scenes. My wife's going out tonight for dinner. I'm like, I'm to go and write a couple of scenes and have dinner by myself and write two or three seats. like.

Digital Rebels Consulting (32:00)
make the time.

Joe Mindak (32:12)
You know, it's just fun. know, don't golf. don't do a lot of this is my hobbies. I like to write. So this is my time to do that and just try different things.

Digital Rebels Consulting (32:21)
I love that. I'm glad you added that. Then we'll have to have another follow-up podcast to unpack all of the good things that you're doing on the side. Number three, following up is pushy.

Joe Mindak (32:31)
Ah, you know, that's always a tricky one, right? You want to follow up and people are scared to push too much or whatever. Like is the difference between persistence and annoyance, right? Just, yeah, follow. Hey, listen, Mark, I'm going to, I'm going to get back to you probably in a couple of weeks if that's okay. But if you want to reach out to me in the meantime, you know, you know, you know what we do, right? If you're, if you're, if you're more anxious to get going, obviously I'd love to talk to you, but I'll give it a couple of weeks, but put, put those, you know, get those things out there. Like, is that cool with you? Yeah. All right, Joe.

You know, but I'll follow up a couple weeks. Sometimes they don't respond, give it another couple weeks, but you know, you have to follow up. And always follow up and make sure, like if somebody introduced you, make sure you use their name. Hey, Mark Crosby gave me your, know, was introduced us, right? So they remember, because two weeks from now, three weeks from now, someone made an introduction for you. They're going to forget who you are and why you're doing it. They get a million emails a day. Always use the person when you follow up so they know, ⁓ yeah, Mark introduced me. I better get back to him or Mark's going to yell at me for that, right?

Digital Rebels Consulting (33:07)
Yeah. ⁓

Joe Mindak (33:29)
So yeah, listen, you have to follow up, but don't be annoying.

Digital Rebels Consulting (33:33)
Gotcha, we'll burn that one. You have to be extroverted to be good at networking.

Joe Mindak (33:37)
No, you don't have to be. We talked about it before, like introverts, as long as they're out there talking and listening to people and meeting people, they might not to be the most outgoing person in the room, but they're listening and understanding what people need. So you got to pull out those, those pain points of people. Like, what is it? Oh, I heard Mark. I was listening. He was talking, talking, talking about his business and problems he's having. I have three referrals now for him because he said he's not getting sales as marketing sucks. And I got three referrals from him. So, you know, as long you're listening, anyone could be a good.

network.

Digital Rebels Consulting (34:08)
Gotcha. Networking is a long game. Burner build it.

Joe Mindak (34:11)
⁓ yeah, build it like it is a long game, right? Like you have to, you know, you have to start doing it. Like I've had people 10 years later that I reach out to and they're like, I, Joe, I didn't forget you were the first person that gave me a shot at this thing. You, you, you gave me my first deal. Are you, you know, I have a call later today with someone that I gave her her first job out of college, right? And now she's working for a bigger company and she probably, you know, she got the job because she had that experience with me. So, you know, that's.

what networking is, giving back to people. And then when you call, like I just reached out to her the other day, I haven't spoken to her two, three years. Like, yeah, I'll meet you. And it could be an interesting opportunity for some people in our group to make interest for. But I built that relationship years ago, right? So it is, you never know when you're go back to that person, right? This guy was 10 years. I forgot how I even knew this guy. He's like, I never forget, Joe, you gave me my first opportunity. And that's what networking does.

Digital Rebels Consulting (35:08)
Love that, build it, long game. Curiosity opens more doors than confidence.

Joe Mindak (35:12)
Yeah, build it like you want to talk to people, right? You want to get to know them a little bit. People like to talk about themselves, right? And if you can start to instead of you being like, hey, what's up? I'm I'm the hey, tell me a little bit more. So I saw on LinkedIn you went to, know, whatever University of Maryland like what like you start talking, asking questions to people. People like to talk about themselves. So you start asking questions. They're going to start talking to you more. They're going to give you more of what they're looking for. And all of a like.

Oh, is there anything you need in business like you're having trouble? Actually, you know what, Joe? Yeah, now that you're asking me, like actually looking for a new website, but I got someone I could do. I did it the other day. I had I was on and he's got a new business and he's like, yeah, I am looking for a new website. So I'm going to introduce him to some people. we talked about all the other stuff just to ask him more about. Tell me about what you're doing and you. Right. So people, again, people like to talk about themselves. Obviously, I do. Don't laugh. Don't laugh too hard at that.

Digital Rebels Consulting (36:02)
Because you're an extrovert ⁓

Number eight your digital presence is your first impression I love this question just because it's typically something I typically talk about just your digital footprint that's out there It's usually where people start linkedin your website places in between other social platforms Burn it or build it as far as that is your first impression

Joe Mindak (36:24)
Yeah, I mean, I build it right because you everyone like I don't know everyone should before they get on a call somebody look up looked him up right just get a little bit about them see what they're doing see you know and you want to make sure you have a good digital impression of you you know I had a buddy I looked up his name the other day and his son came up with a he has a bunk shot because he got arrested in college like that's not a good first digital impression right so

You have to make sure that your digital impression is good for both ways, negative or positive, right? And listen, when people look you up, like I would check your name once a month and just see like, yeah, there's cool things going on. he just does charity work. Because everyone, yes, everyone should, before you have a meeting, you should be looking up the other person just to get an idea of who they are, what they do, a little bit about that. So, but when you get on a call, that first impression, I mean, you got a couple of minutes when you first get on to really, I got on with a guy yesterday, I was like,

like, do you even want to be here? he's like, hey, I'm like, I don't want to be here. Like, so even if his digital footprint is great, and it looks like this great rock star you want to talk to when you get on, like, hey, I'm like, oh my goodness, you know, within two minutes up, yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (37:25)
Ha

Make sure when you're on a virtual call it matches your virtual, wherever you're out there in digital and LinkedIn land, leads us to the, go ahead.

Joe Mindak (37:41)
Right. I, I,

sorry. I had a guy that was like on LinkedIn, all excited, you know, videos all the time and it could have like on and on and on. Like this guy is a fireball. And this was like a year or so ago. And I had a call. goes, Hey Joe. I was like, uh, hello? He's like, I'm like, is this the same person? It just can't be the same person I've been watching on there. So it's, it's interesting, right? You build this, this old persona up on there. should, you should, it should be your persona. That's some other one.

Digital Rebels Consulting (38:11)
Well, it should be. And I think that's also a hot debate, I think, and sales and marketing as far as, ⁓ I don't know your, your output as far as your emails and your phone calls and your video stuff. And then you show up in person and you don't match. That's a huge, ⁓ trust, barrier as far as just even wanting to do any business with you at all, because you just seem like a fraud. when you show up in person and doesn't match who you are out there in the, in the digital world, it's a problem.

Joe Mindak (38:33)
Right.

Digital Rebels Consulting (38:34)
And it's just going to get worse. think

Joe Mindak (38:34)
Yeah, I had to take.

Digital Rebels Consulting (38:35)
with more AI and the more augmenting as you will for human behaviors and content and stuff, you better match up in real life because it's just going to get harder for you if you don't.

Joe Mindak (38:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, my hair kept getting grayer. I had to take another headshot because I'm like, don't have any black hair anymore, right? And I literally did because like, that's not the same. Like I show up with a full head of gray and they're like, wait, where's the guy with the black hair? Like, so I had to literally go get a new headshot because I don't look like that guy. It's okay. You're allowed to be old. You're allowed to look. And I'm only 52, Mark. I look like I'm 60 something. So I'm actually younger than people think. So it's actually good.

Digital Rebels Consulting (39:09)
Yeah, it's always good to have an updated LinkedIn photo so it matches who you are in person. Speaking of LinkedIn, that's number nine. LinkedIn is the only good networking platform. Burn it or build it.

Joe Mindak (39:19)
Burn it. Yeah, it's it's, you know, it's getting to the spot and I don't want them to kick me off LinkedIn. But like, it's just so much crap going on. mean, every anyone except is immediately hitting you up for say, I want to sell you like, you know, you can't just connect with somebody and immediately send them in. And it's all bots probably in AI and doing it. But it's it is, you know, it is getting to a point where people are annoyed with it. And it's not

It's not set up, mainly, and from what I hear, it's mainly for people looking for jobs for most part. So is it really a networking platform? I don't know. But there's a lot better platforms that are coming out there. I think you need to build these smaller communities. Again, we do it on our platform. There's Circle and Mighty and all these other ones that are out there that are smaller communities, right? And what brings you together as a community and then network amongst those people, not the three billion people in your community on LinkedIn. It's just too many people. And you don't even know if something's real or not.

I was going the other day, it's like, am a AI. I'm like, wait, seriously? Like, it literally says in their profile. I'm like, I don't even know how LinkedIn lets them on, but it says in the profile. Basically, just so you know, I'm not a real person. Right, yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (40:17)
You

At least they said it, that's good to know. Thank you for that heads up. You

get the final word today. Give us a piece of advice for an executive leaders team, leaders out there that could deploy something today to help sales and marketing teams. Balls in your.

Joe Mindak (40:42)
Yeah, I mean, again, I keep not to go back to what we were talking about before, but I really like think if you're an executive and you have a company, you own a company, you're running running and in charge of sales, like start to utilize those people that work for you. don't know. I think I just think it's like it's right there. You have those people. They want to be loyal to you anyway. Like put them up and get them in a meeting and say, Hey, guys, help help the company out and we'll pay you.

I don't know, I think it's just a big way that companies can really in the future just turn their whole organization into a Salesforce for them. So that's what's been weighing on my head. And I'm like, this is something that could be really huge. I'm out there talking to people now, CEOs and stuff like that, like, hey, you guys should try this. So we're out there ready to do it.

Digital Rebels Consulting (41:29)
Great idea. Everybody should do it CEO go out there and do it literally right now and go say hey does anybody know somebody that works at this company? Somebody raise their hand. I'm sure they will and then they got more business great tip Joe. Appreciate you having you on the burn the playbook podcast Where can people find you and where can people buy connectors get paid?

Joe Mindak (41:44)
Yeah, awesome. Thank you, Mark.

So you can go to Amazon, just type in connectors, get paid, it'll pop up. It's on Kindle, 99 cents. And if the audio book is done, I'm just getting it up on Spotify. So by next week, it'll be on Spotify or whenever this comes out. It'll be up on Spotify and the other audio ⁓ audible in those places. And me, could send an email to joe at nolodex.com. You can check out our website, nolodex.com, or look me up on LinkedIn at Joe Mindak and find me there.

Digital Rebels Consulting (42:15)
Sounds good. Appreciate the conversation.

Joe Mindak (42:17)
Yeah, this was awesome, Mark. Thank you.

Digital Rebels Consulting (42:18)
All

right, take care, thanks.


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Marc Crosby - Digital Rebels

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