18. Stop Wasting Your Time: Let's Start At The Beginning

In this episode of The Imperfect Podcast, Wendy begins a journey through her book, Stop Wasting Your Time Networking, by reading the introduction and revisiting the ideas that inspired it.

It begins with a wonderfully cheeky lesson from her friend Dave... you can often get what you want if you know what you want and are willing to ask for it.

Wendy explores why networking can feel awkward, expensive, and rather unproductive when we approach it as an opportunity to sell. She also introduces the golden rule of strategic networking: thou shalt not sell.

Because networking is not about finding someone to buy from you today. It is about better conversations, meaningful relationships, and discovering who you might meet along the way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Well, hello there, and welcome to the Imperfect Podcast. I'm Wendy Lloyd Curley, and today I'm excited to start us on our journey through my book. Stop Wasting Your Time Networking, is the title of the book that I wrote back in 2020. And it's the ultimate guide to marketing your business through personal connections. Now, no matter who you are, if you're listening to this podcast over the course of the next, I don't know, year, I'll probably finish this book. I'm going to read it to you. Now, you could buy the book if you if you can't wait for chapter two, then don't. Just go get the book. And if you could uh also just think a little bit about the Audible version, which I've already recorded, you can do that. Or conveniently just keep listening because I'm gonna actually read it to you here. So let's go ahead and get started. I'm gonna read you the introduction and then I'm gonna make a couple of comments and then let you go. I hope you're having a great day, and let's see where we go. All right, introduction. My friend Dave Carter once told me that you can get anything you want if you just ask for it. He told me a few stories about times when he had liked something that someone had and had simply asked them very nicely and with complete sincerity, I like that. Can I have it? What a cheeky question. The funny thing is how often they gave him what he liked. Sometimes they said no, but sometimes they gave it to him. Ever since Dave told me that, I've cheekily used his technique and been really surprised at the results. I've been given lots of earrings, dresses, two jackets right off their backs, and I even scored a Bugs Bunny coffee cup from Dave. What Dave taught me is that you will often get what you ask for. You just need to know what you want, and you need to ask for it. This book is for business owners and sales professionals. It will help you get true value out of the connections that you make with people when you're out in the world. You'll get return on investment, increased social capital, and a growing business. And you'll be able to help others in the same way because you'll know what you want and you'll ask for it. That is strategic networking. Every day I experience people making mistakes with their networking. They don't understand what they're missing, they don't realize how much time they are wasting. Or maybe they do. The most common complaints I hear are these. Networking takes up too much time. Networking isn't targeted enough. I don't meet the right people. Networking is awkward. I don't know what to say when they aren't the right people for me. Networking is uncomfortable. I don't like talking about me or my business. I don't like selling. Networking events and memberships cost too much in time and money. These complaints, they're common. Because for most people, networking means going to events, meeting random people, possibly exchanging contact information, and then leaving without a clear next step. If something good comes out of it, like a great lead or a sale, it's sheer luck. This book isn't about networking, it's about strategic networking. Strategic networking is not randomly attending events to hopefully sell more of your products and services, it's telling stories about your business and sharing insights about the kind of people who benefit from your business. It's comfortably talking to people about their business and finding out the kind of people who they are looking to connect with. It's uncovering connections that will help you grow your business, achieve your goals, or help someone else in your network. These connections can happen anywhere, at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, business referral groups, industry associations, or at football games, coffee shops, weddings, or even the dog park. The skill is in guiding conversations in a way that will help you make new connections. If you want to make more connections with the right people at the right time, then you are in the right place. If you spend time and money networking and don't experience consistent business results, you're also in the right place. In this book, you will learn how to develop a strong network by networking strategically. You will discover how networking the right way will create a valuable group of people who will support you and help you grow. New connections can open the doors to incredible opportunities for your business. Most people just don't know what to say or how to ask for what they want. So let's see if Dave's technique works for you. Because I know it can. And a quote. Hands go up all over the room. How many of you came hoping to buy something today? It was so quiet you could hear the sound of crickets. No hands went up. Houston, we have a problem. There is a key success factor to strategic networking. Something that once understood will change the way you network forever. It's a fundamental truth to successful networking. I call it the golden rule. Thou shalt not sell. Networking is not selling. Not at all. Related, yes, but networking and selling require distinct goals and different skills. Where do most people go wrong? They look at a networking opportunity with the buyer in mind. Who in this room can I sell to today? In this book, you will learn to look at networking opportunities with connections in mind. Who might I meet today? Another subtitle, Compelling Reasons for a Networking Strategy. Strategic networking can improve your business reputation through word of mouth recommendations and referrals. But when there are so many ways to promote your business, why should you spend so much effort on referrals? There are many research studies that quantitatively measure how powerful these recommendations are. Let's look at a few statistics which summarize the findings overall. First of all, 92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word of mouth or recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. And that comes from Nielsen. Number two, referred customers spend 15 to 20% more on their first order, make significantly more repeat purchases, and are three times more likely to refer their friends to your brand and have double the lifetime value of non-referred customers. That's from research by a company called Mention Me. And number three, 84% of B2B buyers are now starting the purchasing process with a referral, and peer recommendations are influencing more than 90% of all B2B buying decisions. With statistics like that, using a strategy for your networking and networking with intention, measuring your performance, it makes perfect sense. This book is intentionally divided into two parts. You must be comfortable with part one to be effective at part two. Part one is an internal evaluation of your business, your products, your services, your customers, your target market, and your competitive positioning. It is the foundation for a strong business, a strong marketing strategy, and a strong networking strategy. You might have these foundations already in place. If so, it will be easy for you to breeze through part one. If not, the homework will help you strengthen your entire business. Take your time. Laying a solid foundation will simplify everything in part two. Part two enables you to deploy a robust networking strategy. It covers who to connect with, what to say when networking, when to move to a next step without wasting your time or theirs, where to network, why this strategy works, and how to enroll others in the strategy to maximize results. Part two requires some homework and mostly real life connections. Strategic networking is a practice. It's not something you read about and know. It's something you must do to learn. Shall we start? Let's set up the foundations for success. My friends, that is the introduction to my book. And I love revisiting it. I love watching those words come by and remembering writing them, uh, remembering editing the book, and remembering remembering how simple it felt to me, but how poignant it felt for the people who read it. I do know that my book has value because of the feedback I've gotten from people who've actually not not only read it, but they've they've written in the margins and they've got dogeared pages. And one gentleman showed me his copy, and it's it's filled with post-it notes of ideas that he's had as he went through it. And um, I'm really excited to share it with you. So let's take our time. Uh, we've got lots of time if we want to. And this was only 11 minutes. I'm pretty proud of me. And uh, some of the chapters are short, some of the chapters are long, and I won't do it right in a row. I'm not gonna just do a podcast after podcast of my book. But every now and then I'm gonna read you a chapter, and I hope that you get a lot out of it. What's one thing that you learned from Dave? What's one thing that you learned from me? Do you believe and agree with my golden rule of networking? Thou shalt not sell. You know, I want to tell you a story about Schalt. I didn't believe that Schalt meant what it meant. I had to look it up. I I looked it up in a few different places because it just seemed like it was a double knot. Thou shalt not. And uh I thought it should be thou shall not sell. But actually it's in old English, thou shalt not. And uh there you go. Maybe you've learned something now too. It didn't make sense to me, but I looked it up when I was printing the book, trying to make sure it was perfect. All right, thank you so much for listening to the Imperfect Podcast. I want to help you grow your business through better networking, strategic networking. Now, the music you're about to hear is, of course, from Concord Joe. It's a band I used to play in. The song was written by my friend Ben Little, and I hope you enjoyed it. Have a great day. See you soon.