3. Strategic Networking: An Introduction

This is the first in a long list of podcasts I can do for you where I share the keys of Strategic Networking. IN this episode I cover Target Market, the 'WOW" Factor, and the five different types of people you'll want to meet when you're out and about.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello there, and welcome to another episode of the Imperfect Podcast. I am your host, Wendy Lloyd Curly, and it is so good to be here with you today. Wow, so this podcast is all about whatever I want it to be about. And today I want to talk about strategic networking. I was honored to be on a live LinkedIn um webinar, I guess. Is that what you call it when it's on LinkedIn? I was on LinkedIn this morning at eight in the morning for half an hour, describing my strategic networking framework. And I thought, wow, that's something that I wish I would have recorded for my podcast listeners. So instead, I'm going to record it here for you now. So what is strategic networking? That was the question that was posed to me. And the way I answered that is this. If you think of networking as attending a meeting and going in and having a coffee and walking around and meeting people and exchanging information with each other on LinkedIn and maybe giving away some business cards and asking for some business cards from other people, and then leaving and going back to work and putting the business cards into a pile and maybe writing to the people, maybe not, but generally just having a pile of business cards on your desk somewhere that represent all of the people you've met at networking events over the last few months. That's that's regular networking. Instead of a coffee, maybe it was a beer or a wine, but nonetheless, regular networking is going to an event and then leaving it. And unfortunately, people do that all the time and they don't get results from it. They therefore tell people that I do a lot of networking, but I don't get anything from it. Well, the problem is that they aren't putting any effort in. So now I can tell you more about what strategic networking is. And strategic networking is actually doing some really, really powerful work before you ever go to a networking event. Then attending the networking event with purpose, and then leaving the event with actions and following through on those. And that is strategic networking. Um, is it a lot harder than regular networking? Yes, it is. It's more difficult. It requires effort. And does it get better results than regular networking? Oh my goodness. Yes, of course it does. Otherwise, um it wouldn't make any sense. So let's go into a little bit about what strategic networking is. And I'm not gonna take too long. I would like to share with you what the framework is, and then over time in different podcasts, I'll probably go into different things. But today I'm gonna focus on uh two elements yourself, that's important, and then the people that you're going to meet and what to say to them. Okay, that's it. That's all I'm gonna go through. There's a lot more to it than that, and uh we'll go through it over time. But let's start with yourself. Uh basically, when people are going to a networking event, they need to know a few things about themselves in order to answer people's questions very well. And the two questions that I'm going to focus on are one, who do you serve? Who is your target market? What kind of companies are they in? What kind of people are they? Uh what how many employees do they have? What industry are they in? What is uh the makeup of their leadership team? Uh how old is the business that you're focused on? How old are the people that you sell to? So you could be a business-to-business provider or you could be business to consumer. And if you're business to business, you need to describe the businesses that you serve very well. Very well. You need to understand it to the smallest degree. You need to describe them. And one way I recommend doing this is to, if you have been in business for a long time, I want you to describe your best customer, your perfect customer, the one you make a lot of money out of, the one you enjoy serving, the company that came to you through a referral or through chance or through your own network. It doesn't matter. Just find the right one and then just write everything down about them. What industry are they in? Where are they located? Where's their head office? Do they have lots of different um uh office locations? Or are they a single campus? Uh how many employees do they have? Uh, how many people are on the C-suite, or do they only have one business owner and a virtual team? Uh, you you tell me, describe them a lot. Um, you might even describe if it's a smaller company, you might describe the person even more, the the business owner even more, because really it's very much about people, isn't it? So that's that's business to business. Business and consumer, you're gonna need to uh describe your favorite customer. Yeah. Again, one that buys a lot from you, probably, because you want them to be profitable and have a high customer lifetime value. Uh, is it a man or is it a woman? Is it um how old are they? Um, what level of education do they have? How many kids do they have? Where do their kids go to school? Where do they work? Do they work? Where does their partner work? Um, let's see, what hobbies do they have? What magazines do they read? Uh, what television shows do they watch? These are these are basic questions about target market, which will help you to really paint a picture. Because when you are being asked, who do you want to meet? One of the questions, one of the questions that everybody will ask, uh, or everybody who's smart will ask that, you you will be able to answer that. I want to meet people like Jessica. Jessica is uh, you know, she lives in San Ives and she does this and she does that, and she does the other. So you want to be able to describe your target market very, very well. The second thing you want to be able to do is describe your unique selling proposition. Now, I've written a whole chapter in the book about this, and I'm gonna tell you that I've renamed the USP. Um, a USP is very marketing speak, uh, very salesy. Uh, I don't like it, but what I do like is the wow factor. I call it the wow factor. And the wow factor, it means that you have described how or what you do so well and with such uniqueness that people go, wow, never heard of that before. Or wow, that's really specific. Or wow, I wish I'd have thought of that. Or wow, I know someone who could use your services, or any, any, any reason that they say wow. And I know wow might not be the first word that comes out of their mouth, but it it gives you an indicator of what we're looking for. We're looking for something exciting that makes people think that you have really thought about this. So when people ask you what you do, you can tell them specifically what you do, but you need to add the wow factor into that. So if you say, I'm an immigration lawyer, that's great, that's a fact, you're done. And and they can now move to the next person and find out what they do. But if you instead say, I'm an immigration lawyer, and I focus on helping employers who employ people on permanent or no, no, people on temporary visas, and I have a system to assist them in making that happen without any penalties. I made that up. But you see what I mean. I you're you're describing what you do and you're describing how you do it differently. Yeah. I specialize in working with employers who hire people on temporary visas. Wow, I know people like that. I have people in the hospitality industry that work with people with temporary visas. I know people in in um construction who work with people with temporary visas. Uh whatever. You you've made me realize that you do something special. All right. I could do it for a lot of different industries. Let's do it for one more. We did it for immigration, let's do it for uh uh an accounting practice. Um I'm an accountant. Okay, let me make the next person. I know what an accountant does, or at least I think I know what an accountant does. All right. Instead of saying I'm an accountant, you say um I have an accounting practice that focuses on helping plumbers. That's it. Plumbing companies. I focus on plumbing companies. I only serve plumbing companies. I understand what they do. We we I attend all their trade shows. Um, I I get exactly what they imagine the the thought process that goes through my mind when you tell me that. Wow, it's really specific. Yeah, it is, and it makes me really good at what I do. And now when I meet a plumber a couple days later, I'm probably gonna say, you will never believe that I met I met an accountant who specializes in plumbers. Plumbing companies is all she does. Yeah, amazing. So that's a wow factor, isn't it? It's a wow factor. The small scope of my target market. All right. So that's two examples. So let's just recap. You need to know about you as a business. And the two things I've special signified for you is you need to be able to describe your target market really well. And you need to be able to present your wow factor, your USP, probably in a sentence. Probably in a sentence, and as a way of responding to the question, what do you do? All right. So what do you do? Now don't be esoteric with what do you do and say, oh, I change people's lives. Because then people are going to ask, how do you change people's lives? Um, it's a great question, but it just seems flimsy to me. Personally, I think that you should say what you do and then that you help change people's lives, and then tell them how a little bit more information. Don't be flimsy with this answer. Be interesting with it. Find the wow factor. All right. So uh in order to keep this short and sweet, those are the two things you need to know about yourself, and it really does take time and effort and and work to develop the words that you're gonna use when you're in a public space about this. So that's number one. Number two, you're gonna need to know how to talk to people when you go out networking. And one of the things that you need to know is who do you want to meet? Who do you want to meet? So this is probably the first podcast I'm gonna do about this, but I'll talk about it a lot. There are five different people that you want to meet. Five people. And there are specific people, but these are five types of people. So let's talk about them quickly. Number one, you want to meet your competitors. Who are the people in the room who do what you do, no matter what you do? If you're an architect, ask to meet the other architects in the room. If you are a singer, ask to meet the other performers in the room. If you are an uh immigration lawyer, ask to meet the other immigration lawyers or lawyers in the room. If you are an accountant, ask to meet the other accounting firms. Get to know them and introduce yourself and say, hey, it's nice to meet you. I'm here, you're here. What brings you here? We want to meet the competitors. We definitely do. And there's some good reasons for that, which I might go into in a future podcast, but let's keep going. Most often, your competitors won't truly be competitors when you dig in. When you dig in. They are going to have a different USP or wow factor than you do. And in that case, they can become collaborators with you. Maybe you specialize in plumbers as an accountant, but they actually specialize in the law field. Wow, that's great. When I meet some lawyers, I can feed them to you. I can introduce them to you. And you say, that's great. When I meet a plumber, I can introduce them to you. So different specialties enable you to refer across your competitive landscape. All right. So collaborators is what you're working to uncover when you meet the competitors that are in the room. If you do truly meet a competitor, that's great too. Talk to them, exchange business cards, tell them that you'll keep an eye on them and make sure that you're um you're that you're keeping them on the straight and narrow and give them a wink and a nudge and then move on to someone else. That would be what I would do. All right. Third person that you want to meet. You have clients, your clients have needs, and you want to be able to provide recommendations and introductions from you and your network to your clients. So, who are the people your clients most often need? Who do they need? Who could you recommend to your clients if only you knew great people in those areas? All right, I'll have to give you another example. Uh, let's talk uh web design. If you're a web design firm and you are really good at web design and you tell people how to go above the fold and what the scroll down is and all of the information, guess what's missing? What is missing are is copy. So you ask the client, can you give me some copy for this page and this page and this page? And the client says, I wish I could, but I just don't have time. I'll get it to you. And yet they've put you under the pump for a deadline. You could recommend a copywriter if you knew a good one. You could recommend a specific copywriter for a plumber, because that copywriter focuses on trades, for example. So you might want to meet lots of different copywriters if you're a web design firm. You also might want to meet photographers because you might say, listen, it would look really good if we had a photograph of the way that you do your business, or a video, because video is very powerful today. So make sure that you're getting videos of things so they could recommend a videographer. They might be able to recommend a CRM system and a company that provides a CRM or a customer relationship management system, so that when all of this information and landing comes onto your page, you capture that and you can follow up on it. So that your prospects find your page. Yeah. So that's an example of the people that you would recommend. Well, these are there's a lot of people in that list, and you can make a list of those types of companies, and then you can start to make a list of the specific companies that you think are really powerful that you would like to recommend. And then you can start to ask for introductions to specific people. Oh, I'm so excited. I'm sure this is going long, so let me get to the fourth type of person. The fourth type of person is the companies that recommend you. The companies whose clients need your services. So let me give you an example. Again, let's go back to the accountant for a moment. The accountant who focuses on plumbing companies. You would want bookkeepers to know about you, wouldn't you? You would want bookkeepers all across the geography that you serve to know who you are and that you specialize in plumbers. So one of the groups of people you'd want to meet are the bookkeepers. So you would be asking to meet bookkeepers so that you could get to know them, like them, trust them, and then share with them what you do so that they know, like, and trust you, so that they will actually recommend you to all of the plumbers that are in there on their books. So that they go back literally to the plumbers on their books and say, Oh my goodness, I have started a relationship with a company that specializes in doing accounting for plumbing. And I can't tell you how good they do uh for their clients. And I really would like to recommend that you consider moving to them because of that specialization. Wouldn't that be great? So that's just one example. The fifth type of person that you're looking to meet when you're networking is the last priority and it's your target market. But you don't ask for your target market, you describe your target market. So when you're networking, you explain my target market is this. And then if the person you're speaking to is your target market, they will tell you that. They will. Hey, listen, I've spoken too long, but let me just recap. Number one, you are looking for your target market to be described very clearly and your unique selling proposition to be really clear and well developed. And then you're looking to meet five different types of people when you go out networking: your competitors, your collaborators, the people that you will recommend to your clients, the referral sources for your business, and your target market. Those are the five people. And in the future, we're gonna talk more about that. Hey, listen, the music that you are about to hear was written by my friend Ben Little. He goes by Stephen T. Little, and this song is by the band called Concord Joe. I'm playing the guitar on it and I'm singing my little butt out on the back of the vocals. And I'm really grateful to Ben for letting us use this music for the podcast. I hope you have a great day. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye.