How to Grow Your Business through Networking [Dave Delaney Interview]

Now that we are slowly coming out of the pandemic, it's time to get back to doing more things in person. Networking is one of them, and while there are still a plethora of opportunities to engage online, the same can be said for in-person events. Learn all about how to grow your business through networking from master networker and communicator Dave Delaney.

Key Highlights

[01:22] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dave Delaney

[05:35] How Dave Got Into Networking

[08:15] What Prompted Dave to Write A Book

[10:46] Three Ups of Networking Nicely

[12:08] How to Find Networking Events

[14:48] How Events Can Help Grow Businesses

[18:00] Start By Setting A Goal

[20:44] How to Connect Your Business to the Event Without Being Salesly

[25:27] Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

[31:36] The Nice Method

[38:53] Celebrating Life Outside Walls

[44:13] Connect With Dave and How to Get A Copy of His Book

Notable Quotes

• Networking is a critical thing, not always easy to do. But there's this, there's this idea that if we do it and we do it, well, it's going to lead the business. 
• Find an association or a group. So do a Google search or whatever for the association related to your industry specifically, and then attend their event.
• When you're there, you need to speak to people, so you need to meet people. And a good way to do that is just simply to ask people, you know, what brings them to that event. As you're speaking to someone, the goal is to be as quiet as possible, so that you can get to know them, and ask them follow up questions.
• Just showing genuine interest in other people is always going to be a positive thing.
• It all comes down to people don't do business with businesses, typically, they do business with humans, right? It's about building relationships first.
• With networking, I do believe that it really is a matter of planting seeds.
•  So hearing your team is a big part of providing feedback, but also recognition and recognizing your team members, a lot of people quit their jobs because they don't get any recognition.
• It's about the reputation of your organization. And if your team members, especially leadership, are doing a poor job leading and upsetting their your team members, they quit.

Guest Links:

• Dave Delaney (Website): https://www.davedelaney.me/
• Dave Delaney (LinkedIn):  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davedelaney/

Learn More:

• Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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• Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
• Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
• All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Transcript

Neal Schaffer: 0:00

Networking. We all know how it can benefit our business. But are we doing enough of it now that we are emerging from the pandemic slowly but surely, it's time to start getting back out there. It's time to start networking to grow our business. And today's special guest is going to give us some nice, pun intended advice to allow us to do so effectively. So stay tuned for this next episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast. Digital social media content influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, who there's a lot to cover, whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody. Neal Schaffer, here, I am your digital marketing coach. Welcome to my podcast. In this episode, you're gonna hear an interview. And I'm gonna repeat this quote in the interview. But it is one of my favorite quotes, which I actually included when I recorded a class for records Business School recently. But it's that 80% of success is showing up. Now, this has a lot of meaning for social media. It's why either you're publishing content, you're showing up or you're not, and you're invisible. But I think the same can be said for networking. There are plenty of arenas, online and offline that you could show about. And each time you do. Well. 80% of success is showing up. Opportunities are there. Today's guest actually, is someone who I met when I recently did networking events in the Midwest, during my Midwest tour. He's someone that I met in Nashville, Tennessee, or nashvegas, as the folks there, fondly referred to their town as, and it's just an example of my putting myself out there, telling everybody all of my LinkedIn connections and putting up a LinkedIn event and, you know, asking people to invite other people that, hey, I'm going to be in Nashville. I would love to meet other marketers or people interested in marketing. And you never know what comes from that. Actually, what came from that was one of the attendees Dave is on my podcast today. And I also am appearing on his podcast, just a great example of what is possible through networking. And for those of you that know me, my brand used to be about networking. I used to be the windmill networking guy that was windmill. networking.com was the predecessor to maximize social business, which was the predecessor to Neal schaffer.com. But I've always been about networking about meeting others and the opportunities that come from that both online and offline. And Dave is a pro at this, He offers us some great advice. So as we well as we get back into the new normal, and the new normal of networking. Let's listen to Dave Delaney as he talks about the nice method to business networking and growing your business through communication and being a nice person. So without further ado, let's jump into my interview with the one and only Dave Delaney. You're listening to your digital marketing coach. This is Neal Schaffer. Dave Delaney, welcome to the digital marketing coach podcast my friend.

Dave Delaney: 3:48

Hello, Neil. I am thrilled to be here for you.

Neal Schaffer: 3:52

Of all the people I've interviewed. I don't know if I've ever interviewed someone who has been podcasting since 2005. incredible achievement, my friend.

Dave Delaney: 4:01

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, I wish it was the one show because if it was I'd be like sitting on a mountain of money smoking cigars. And well. Sadly, that's not the case. I've had maybe five or six podcasts over the years. But yes, yes. started in October. oh five.

Neal Schaffer: 4:19

Wow. We hey, we've all listeners, this podcast has been one RSS feed. But I've had three or four different names. So for those of you that have been listening to this podcast since its inception in 2013, I applaud you as well. But hey, so So Dave is someone that we've known each other on social media, and I recently I believe I mentioned Yes, I mentioned this and last, I mentioned this in a recent episode. I don't want to date this, that I had this Midwest tour, I went to the summit and meta which I recorded an episode about what Facebook wants us to know about leveraging Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp. And as part of that tour, I made a stop in Nashville, Tennessee, which I found out is not part of the Midwest, but as part of the South. Incredible southern hustle Tality and one of the one of the guests that came to our networking event, there was this gentleman, Dave Delaney. So Dave, we're actually going to talk a lot about this, that really is a great introduction to this topic of, of networking, right? There's there's online, they call it what Oh, two Oh, online to offline. We talk about that in a networking perspective, but also in a business perspective. But before we get started, Dave, you are the man of many trades, you will be introduced in the show notes as as the author and speaker that you are today. But you've done many things in the past. So how did you get to be? Well let you know, tell our listeners, what exactly do you do today. And then the short story, the TLDR is how you got there?

Dave Delaney: 5:41

Well, I don't know about a TLDR. But I'll try. My story is crazy. No. Future. Fourth is my business or future fourth.com. And with that business, what I do is I help fast growing companies, the leadership of fast growing companies, primarily in the technology, space, retain talent, improve communication and culture. So and I do that through my nice method, which is a series of workshops and consulting, coaching, training. And I also have a keynote speaker. So I do a lot of speaking around those topics, as well. So that's kind of future forth in a nutshell. And then, as far as where I am today, my career started. I'm from Toronto originally. So I'll drop an A from time to time. And that's also i'll be adding us to words, but you won't hear that. So also. So born and raised in Toronto, moved to Tennessee, my back and I live in Nashville, as as you just mentioned, I worked in performing arts, Marketing and Communications early on in my career, that evolved both partly through networking, to working as a promotions executive for a newspaper, and then a communications and marketing role with a television network before crossing the border down south and moving for move working with a SAS technology startup here in Nashville. And then from there a consumer electronics company, here in Nashville as well. So yes, it has been, it has been a wild wild ride.

Neal Schaffer: 7:14

And in doing all of that, you're I know that you're continually publishing books and what have you. But something we're going to talk about today is this new business networking. And for those of you that know me, my first book was actually called windmill networking. And it was all about evangelizing, I wanted to bring people into the online world. And I know that your book touches on both the online and offline. But let's just begin, obviously, we have, you know, as I mentioned, with corporate marketers, entrepreneurs, business owners, we have a pretty wide variety of people listening to this. And they're primarily missing for the marketing, but the networking, when they go to conferences, networking within their own company, or networking, when they go to professional association meetings, it really is, no matter what industry or profession, it really is sort of the central thing that we should all be doing. So let's start with, you know, you talked about everything you did, you didn't really mention weed, you mentioned a nice method we're gonna get to at the end, but you didn't really mention this concept of business networking, and what your views on and what prompted you to write that book.

Dave Delaney: 8:15

So when I moved to Nashville, I really didn't know a soul beyond my wife. And I'm like one friend. So are two, I guess, a couple. So when we moved here, I really had to network aggressively in order to find a job. And so I wasn't a quote unquote, networking expert or anything like that. However, in in doing that, and following up and doing the things, all the right things, I landed a job pretty quickly. And so my book new business networking is in part about that journey, moving from one city to another or country to another inaccurate in this case, and just starting over and starting from scratch and meeting people and, and getting a job. Now, new business networking is also about growing your business, through networking effectively, and so and nicely. I also have a website called networking for nice people.com which your listeners are all invited to drop by if they're nice. So yeah, so the book came as a result of my kind of reflecting on my own journey and realizing that gosh, without without social media, in social networks, and actual old schools, person to person social networking, and the the events and the conferences and the jobs that I had early on in my career in Nashville, you know, I wouldn't be a subject matter expert on on networking. So

Neal Schaffer: 9:42

yeah, I'm just remembering our meeting there in Nashville. We had someone who had just moved from San Diego that knew nobody in Nashville but just through networking, and even from that night now has made more connections that's going to help her grow our business and, and I at my St. Louis gathering, there was one gentleman who lived in St. Louis Almost a decade, and really had very few friends there. And that networking event that I had was was a goldmine, right? a godsend. So, you know, networking is is this critical thing, not always easy to do. But there's this, there's this idea that if we do it and we do it, well, it's going to lead the business. But I'm assuming that a lot of people either don't do it enough or don't do it well, or for some reason, it doesn't lead to business. So let's talk about how the networking needs the business. What would you recommend for our listeners, if they wanted to expand their business? I think service based offerings are probably going to be the easiest example. I'd like to talk about products as well. But let's just talk about, you know, consultants, people like us, what would your recommendations be both on the online world and the offline world as to what they can do to leverage networking to grow their business?

Dave Delaney: 10:46

Well, yeah, so I talk a lot about what I call the three ups of networking nicely. And the first up is showing up. And the second up, is following up. And the third up is catching up. And so the first up is really the key one, because if you're not showing up, good luck meeting anyone, and that applies to online and offline both right? So I mean, you're not going to meet people using social networks if you're not actually on the social networks and participating. And the same applies to in person events, conferences, and mixers and casual meetups like you like yours, or, you know, and I've had a lot of experiences in organizing my own events over the years as well. So, so showing up is the first point here, like, if you're not showing up, then yeah, you're you're not gonna get to part two.

Neal Schaffer: 11:37

Dave, you can help me with this one. So I forgot the social network. But back in the day, it said, add a quote, My favorite quote has always been 80% of success is showing up. But I hate the fact that it's attributed to Woody Allen. So I'm curious, is it really Woody Allen's quote, or is it someone else that I can use?

Dave Delaney: 11:51

That's a good, good question. I wish it was my quote. I don't Yeah, I don't know without doing a couple of Google searches. Probably. I don't know the answer to your question. But, so. So Dave, this

Neal Schaffer: 12:03

might be a hard one for you. But, you know, for us, it might be a little bit easier. But how do people go ahead and find networking events wherever they live in the world?

Dave Delaney: 12:13

Yeah, no, that's a good question. And it's a good starting starting point. So there's a few different services that you can use. First of all, I mean, if you're using Facebook dot com slash events, I believe that link still works. But you can go and see the different events that are taking place in your network with the with the friends slash acquaintances that you have on Facebook, so you can see what events there they've they've indicated that they're going to it these are all sort of old school, if you will, but eventbrite.com, like doing a search on Eventbrite. Eventbrite, is probably the most popular ticketing platform, you know, after ticket master, who is evil. But that's, I digress.

Neal Schaffer: 12:58

We all agree. But anyway, yeah.

Dave Delaney: 13:01

So eventbrite.com and just do a search for your city or your zip code or your postal code. And then same applies for another one is meetup.com. I mean, meetup. Meetup. They've, they've recently spent more time and effort kind of updating meetup it was kind of left kind of on its on its own for a long time. But I believe the last I heard the owners of meetup, bought it back from Yahoo, and spent more time kind of investing in it. So meetup.com is another place where you can find folks who have organized local events. And then obviously, just if there is a specific industry that you're in, or that you want to be in, when I moved to Nashville, I've always I've always worked in sort of a marketing communications kind of role, or I've always had an interest in those spaces anyway. And so as a when I moved to Nashville, one of the first things I did was dig up the American Marketing Association's Nashville chapter. And I went to a couple of those mixers and met people from that that actually led to my job through those those meetings. So find an association or a group. So do a Google search or whatever for the association related to your industry specifically, and then attend their event. So those are some some some tips there.

Neal Schaffer: 14:19

Yeah, I just spoke at the American Auctioneers Association in San Diego. And there is like an event, or there's an association for any industry, any niche, any product that's out there. I think we can test it. I want to in addition to those Facebook groups, and LinkedIn events as well, or LinkedIn groups as well, but LinkedIn events is really they had events they pulled out of it, they're back in. But yeah, you know, what you're saying is it should not be hard. There's various options that should not be hard to find an irrelevant event. I guess the next question is, what do we do? We find an event we go to the event, how is that going to lead to grow in our business?

Dave Delaney: 14:56

Right, right. I should also add, by the way that if the event doesn't exist First in your market, create it. That's what I did here too. So then you become the ringleader. And you get to know everybody very quickly, and they get to know you. So creating your own event is also a really worthwhile endeavor, even if you're new to a city or what have you. So what when you find the event, you show up, as we talked about, right? If you've ever organized an event, what sucks is when you have, you know, people RSVP, and then they don't show up. That's no fun. So so the first step when you when you register to attend or you buy a ticket is actually show up. So as you to answer your question, when you're there, you need to speak to people, so you need to meet people. And a good way to do that is just simply to ask people, you know, what brings them to that event. As you're speaking to someone, the goal is to be as quiet as possible, so that you can get to know them, and ask them follow up questions. And so you want to really try to let them do the bulk of the talking without things getting awkward, of course. But you really want to give them your undivided attention and let them do the bulk of the talking. This is a pretty amazing thing, because and I talked about this in some of my keynote presentations and workshops, because like, we've all been there, really, we've all gone to like a conference or a mixer or a networking event or whatever. And we come home and we're like, gosh, I met that woman tonight. And she was awesome. I really liked that lady. What was her name? Where does she work? I can't even remember what the heck. And you can't remember the details. So the reason why is because she let you do the bulk of the talking. And so you didn't really get this information from her. Because you were doing all the talking. But because you were doing all the talking. You feel great about that. Because everybody loves talking about themselves clearly because I haven't shut up since 3060 seconds or so ago. So Oh, good. Yeah, that's that's one thing you should be doing when you when you meet folks.

Neal Schaffer: 17:02

Yeah, so it really that listen only mode. And I think for those introverts that are listening, or those that might be a little bit, you know, shy or awkward. By asking others you're not giving, you know, there's nothing to be embarrassed about nothing to be shy about. You're just showing that you're genuinely interested. And obviously I think Dave, part of your nice methodology, which I want to get to that at the end, is probably just showing genuine interest in other people is always going to be a positive thing.

Dave Delaney: 17:28

Absolutely, yeah. And to your point, by the way, if if you're if you lean more introverted, like nobody's 100%, introverted, 100% extroverted, right, and there's, and then there's like the people that say they're ambiverts, which is like right in the center, I don't believe anyone's like, completely ambivert or a complete ambivert. I think everybody kind of leans one way, certainly over the other. Absolutely. But if you're, if you're more, if you lean further, as, as an introvert, I believe that you still need to go to these events. And as exhausting as they can be, what the advice I always give us just start by setting a goal. And so maybe it's a networking event, let's say. So it's in your town, you haven't traveled anywhere to go there, you know, it's after work, it's easy enough to get to set yourself a goal of whatever's reasonable, like 20 minutes, one person. And so go to that event, set the timer on your phone for 20 minutes, and go and you have to seek out somebody, it could be the event organizer or sponsor, but go and talk to one person. And after you've hit that one person, and 20 minutes has passed, you're done. You can go home. And then next time, you know if that felt okay, and you weren't totally exhausted from that experience, then then up at a little, maybe two people over 30 minutes or what have you. So set those goals. When you're more introverted, by the way, if I haven't made it obvious, I'm way more extroverted. And I've been arguing and on my podcast I talked to have brought this up several times. And I always get some interesting feedback from it. But I find like, especially during the quarantine, that this was the time during the pandemic to check in on your extroverted friends. Because it's no longer the introverts who were the ones quote unquote, suffering and air quoting there, because they were kind of there. It was kind of a good time for them. Right? Less less interaction with people are less in person, at least, were extroverts like me were like, Home Alone, staring at you know, staring at a webcam just trying to find people to talk to and it was a really tough time and I felt really lonely. And I think a lot of other people did too. So So something to keep in mind. You know, we hear so much about about being introverted and there's many great books and with good reason to because people like me need to learn to shut up and consider others like Martha who are more introverted. But I think on the flip side, you know, as I said, Maybe I should start an extroverted support group or something.

Neal Schaffer: 20:07

I will say that a lot of people came to my events like my Chicago one, they said they had not been to downtown Chicago. I had it on the riverwalk there, they hadn't been there, you know, since COVID. Yeah. Or they hadn't been to a networking event in years. And everyone agreed it felt good, just that natural energy coming from other humans. So, so we set an objective, we go, we meet people, I mean, I'm going to throw out I'm sure you'd agree, Dave, connect with them on LinkedIn, send them a message to remind them of who of who you are, and how they might be able to help you and vice versa. And that alone is incredible ROI. If you ask me, IMHO, because that might lead to something in the feed or what have you at a later point. But how can we more with intent, but without being too salesy, connect our business to the event? Or is it just as I said,

Dave Delaney: 20:53

Yeah, I mean, it all comes down. People don't do business with businesses, typically, they do business with humans, right? So I'm far more likely to buy your services, or your products, if I know who you are. And I like you. And I trust you, as we've heard it a million times. I know, like and trust. So I think it's about building relationships first, and the analogy of dating is right there and pretty blatant, right? You're not gonna be married and have kids by the end of the night. So, you know, you might meet up a second time, hopefully, or a third, and go on from there. So I treat networking nicely as a way yes, we all have business objectives, professional objectives. Absolutely. And it's not to say that you're going in like a saint, just looking for things, you know, how you can, you know, heal the masses and help everybody. While I do believe in well, I don't know about karma, kind of, sort of, but with networking, I do believe that it really is a matter of planting seeds. And so what you're doing is finding ways to serve other people first and foremost. And then in the follow up, you can provide that value. So you know, and as to your point, like if you if you're looking for a new client, and you provide X, Y and Z services, or Zed, if you're Canadian listening.

Neal Schaffer: 22:13

Never understood that but anyway, it is a weird

Dave Delaney: 22:15

one. Yeah, there's some things that I'm like, Yeah, Dad's always been a weird one. Because it's like Zed Zed top. I mean, they're Texan, but come on. ZZ Top, just sounds way cooler. So but But don't get me started in Fahrenheit.

Neal Schaffer: 22:29

We're almost Celsius guy. So living in your Yeah.

Dave Delaney: 22:31

Wow. So yeah. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, like every other country in the world. But I digress. So yeah, I think I think it's all about as we sound like planting those seeds and find ways to serve people. But if you're doing the bulk of the talking, and you're listening to what they're saying, or doing the bulk of the listening, then you'll hear what they what brought them to the event and what they're looking to get out of it. And that's when you can think, okay, you know, maybe I'm not the ideal customer for this person. But I do know somebody who would be a great fit. And then it's a matter of providing, you know, with permission, in some cases, making that introduction to that person. So, and to your point earlier, and I'm a big proponent, I'm a big fan of LinkedIn, I use LinkedIn, a lot of smoke. I was a keynote for one of their conferences years ago, I even advised a company that was acquired by LinkedIn. So I love I do love LinkedIn. And I find that LinkedIn to your point about connecting with them, adding that personal note is such an important point. So I did want to remind people don't just send that default connection request, but remind the person where you met, and then try to take that conversation into email, where you can then schedule a coffee or a zoom call or phone call or something like that.

Neal Schaffer: 23:47

Dave, you know, when you were speaking there, I remembered some concepts from my first book when mill networking, but yeah, those is that you may as you said, you may not be the ideal customer, but when you help someone, and you are able to connect them with a new customer, a new job, a new or whatever it is, you tend to remember those things. And people tend to feel the need that they need to somehow pay you back. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow. So that's where I think the karma really does play a role. And I think that you know, just like if you, let's say you have a Contact Me page and your website, well, I don't recommend, like just saying contact me. But anyway, you have a sales page, and people contact you, you're not going to close every single deal. So I think the expectation that every one you're going to meet at a networking event is going to be obviously a potential customer. But if you look at the ways the ROI of those relationships and the way that you might be able to help them and they might be able to help you. It reminds me of Are you familiar? I'm not sure if we talked about this in Nashville, but Thomas Power?

Dave Delaney: 24:47

I'm not sure he's,

Neal Schaffer: 24:49

he actually started what was the name was called E business, this UK social networking site. He's also a prolific author about networking, and I've kept in touch with him over the years. His wife is If Penny power, so like just as classic name, but anyway. And he said, Neil, you know, one thing that people forget about networking is the power of random connections. Like if you're just going to, and I think someone mentioned that at our meeting, they didn't want to go to another marketing meeting. We're just all the same marketers. They'd rather go to a more general meeting, where not everybody in the room is marketers, and they have a chance to meet more random connections, which might lead to actual more business. So I wonder if that's something you've talked about as well.

Dave Delaney: 25:27

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Getting out of your comfort zone and meeting people from other walks of life is important as well. And you're right, because, you know, like, I have a background in improv comedy. I trained with Second City in Toronto. And then I've performed improv and I do communication workshops. And improv plays a big part of that. But I bring that up, because when, you know, when I was invited to speak at HubSpot, inbound conference, they wanted me to talk about social media and digital marketing. And I'm like, I'm preaching to the converted here, like everybody here is a social media expert, or guru, or God knows, whatever they're calling themselves. So I decided to do a presentation called improve with improv about how you can improve the way you communicate with improv. And so, but that point is really all about, as you're saying, like find, find events where you can I mean, there's important, there's important events for your industry and to network within your industry. Absolutely. But yeah, I'm a big fan of finding different events that are taking place. And one way to do that, again, is to go through those websites we mentioned earlier, look at events taking place. And instead of picking one that's like a marketing one, because you're a marketer, yeah, find one that's just taking place on Friday, and make it a goal to go to it and see what it's all about. Yes, some

Neal Schaffer: 26:47

of you, I don't know how many of you have ever seen me presenting this, but I call it the power of hidden connection. So I give the example. This is a real person, Valerie Dennis, I met her here in Orange County, California at a networking event. She has a sales background, I have a b2b sales background, we have a one on one coffee, got to know each other, connected on LinkedIn. And then I was speaking in Memphis, Tennessee, many years ago. But I said, Hey, I'm going to show you how I can find like a VP of marketing that works at FedEx, the largest employer, and how I can get a warm introduction to them in like 60 seconds. And these were people that were very new to LinkedIn. And I showed them actually the person that came up was, you know, VP, global marketing. And she only had like, 250 connections on LinkedIn. But one of those was Valerie Dennis, who came from Nazareth, just so that's just one example how these random networking events, these random connections might actually lead to business. If you invest, you make the connections, and you have a reason for searching out. Those people are asking for introduction. So yeah. So Dave, I'm looking behind you, I first need to ask you, because I'm looking at ways to decorate. I'm going to do a new YouTube office here. Yeah, you have. I know the podcast listeners not gonna understand this. First of all, he has to sign this as be nice, which is awesome. And I want to talk about the nice methodology because I know you've been really passionate about that. But you also have a collage of photos in like, eight by eight frames. Are those all photos you personally took around the world?

Dave Delaney: 28:10

Absolutely. Oh, very cool. Okay. Yeah. My family's in some of them?

Neal Schaffer: 28:13

Is that like mix tiles? Isn't that site? It

Dave Delaney: 28:15

is mixed house? Yeah. Yeah.

Neal Schaffer: 28:17

Give it a shot to mix tiles. I'm about to start doing that. Awesome. Cool. Yeah, no,

Dave Delaney: 28:21

I'm a big, I'm a big fan of it. And you know that those photos remind me when I am feeling kind of down or lonely or bored or whatever. Because, you know, none of us have 100% You know, happy moods all the time. If you do, please call me and let me know what you had no, not

Neal Schaffer: 28:39

what's not as happy and successful as it seems to be on Instagram all the time.

Dave Delaney: 28:42

So we're actually wrote a blog post years ago, called the biggest business lie, which is when you meet somebody at a networking event, and they say, and you can't use our time at work, and you're like, you know, how's business going? Oh, businesses Great. Never better. Things are amazing. How about you? Oh, things are great. Ever Better. Oh, things are awesome. So it's like, you're totally be asking, like, be honest. And say, you know, actually, this quarter has sucked. I'm really desperately trying to find a new client. Because that's if you're honest and transparent with people that's when they could say, actually, you know what industry you serving? Oh, I know somebody. Yeah. But they don't know they can help you if you don't, you know, yell for help. So keep that in mind, too.

Neal Schaffer: 29:22

I met a lot of those types on clubhouse in the day.

Dave Delaney: 29:25

Oh, yes. Now they're all crypto experts. But the Yeah, so the photos are also as a reminder of just how blessed I am to to be able to travel and take my kids places my wife and and yeah, so all right

Neal Schaffer: 29:40

mix styles. If you've never heard of them, look them up. There might be challenges to doing it. But it to me it's very convenient and

Dave Delaney: 29:45

easy. There's no There's no glass on them. So like I wouldn't put them on a wall that's got a lot of sun in your house because they, I assume would probably be bleached out. But I mean, they're like, I think it's like 10 bucks a picture or something like that. So it's well worth it

Neal Schaffer: 29:59

and they do lots of If you do like Groupon or search for coupons, they often like buy one get one free. So

Dave Delaney: 30:04

yeah, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by mix tiles. Calm don't forget to use your coupon code, Neil.

Neal Schaffer: 30:11

There you go. Yeah, my wife just hates this background that you see, it sort of prevented me from doing more YouTube videos. So anyway,

Dave Delaney: 30:18

oh, actually, I just saw the movie Nope. With my kids and your I want to believe UFO poster. Was it wise? Something was in it. I'm not gonna say anything. It's well worth your time. That's yeah,

Neal Schaffer: 30:31

that's the exe file. So, okay, so the nice methodology, I'm going to give a shout out to my friend, Jason ball, who is also a prolific networker in Tokyo, Japan, he's an Aussie, he lives there. And he created LinkedIn group and networking events called good people, Japan. And so everybody who goes these events, they want to be good people, and they feel they're a good person by attending, and just the naming and the branding has this aura that we're all going to help each other. It's it's really an awesome concept. Right. But I think that be nice just goes above and beyond a thought process. It also goes deeply into communication. And I think it also deals with the work that you do helping executives, you know, communicating internally, and how we can leverage those as as marketers and entrepreneurs externally. So I'm curious, just, you know, going through, you had mentioned that, you know, one of the concepts behind this nice method of better communication, is how you hear your people. So I want to begin with what exactly is it an acronym or is it just, like, be nice. And then let's start with, you know, how you hear your people how you might hear them differently, once you apply the principles of the nice method?

Dave Delaney: 31:37

Well, first of all, and thank you, if you go to nice method.us. So us nice method.us, my book, The nice method is there, and it's like 20 bucks, but I'll I'll give it to your listeners for free. Just use the code Neal. And, and they can, they can download the book for free from there, because a lot of what I talk about in this is, is in that book. So I did want to point that out. But so hearing your people hearing your team, and it is and it gets back to what I've talked about in networking is about, you know, listening, like actually actively listening to the people that you speak with. And that doesn't mean just like standing there and taking in the information, it means acting upon the information, doing something with it, you know, all of us have had these, you know, surveys when we worked for companies, where that our that our boss would send out you know, or, or human resources director or somebody would send out and you do a survey to let them know, or provide whatever feedback of what you know, areas of improvement. And when you provide that feedback, and nothing happens, and you never hear about it again. You're better off not asking. Right? So hearing your team is a big part of providing feedback, but also recognition and recognizing your team members, a lot of people quit their jobs because they don't get any recognition. They don't, they don't feel like they're a value, or they know their value. But they don't feel like it because management never, ever talked to them. So hearing your team is an incredibly important part of the nice methodology. So absolutely.

Neal Schaffer: 33:16

David, I'd also like to say that applies to your customers as well, doesn't it? Right? Yes. When they mentioned on social media tag, you acknowledge them, reach out to them make them feel special. So that's a really great reminder, it's funny, I had a company reach out to me with a link to a free event for something that I actually applied to speak out and never heard back from them. So the company wants to opt me into their list to join the event. And I'm like, Hey, I actually applied to speak and you never got back to me. So it's a two way street, right, more and more, especially the younger generation we go. So that's a really great reminder, not just to, you know, not just to ask for feedback, but to actually implement it make people feel special. And yeah, for sure. If she had gone through, and if I'd gotten a note that's saying, hey, you know, we're gonna continue next time. We're full this time. I might have joined that event, right?

Dave Delaney: 34:05

Yeah, yeah.

Neal Schaffer: 34:06

So the second thing that we had to talk obviously, before this podcast recording, how to avoid the wrecks,

Dave Delaney: 34:14

right, whether or what extra to speak of? Yes, so the wrecks in an organization are caused by miscommunication or poor communication, and also fear, fear of managers. Right? So where you're, you're just afraid to provide feedback or you're afraid to ask questions. You know, we've all been there where we, where we, this is also a reason why when you start a new job to ask all the ridiculous questions up front, because you have the excuse that I'm new here, because you are new here, but if you've been working for somewhere for years, and you don't know where the bathrooms are yet, are gonna help you if that's the case, then, you know, but if it's something that you don't know, to an answer to that you should You know, then, but you're not willing to to ask that question for fear of making looking like a fool or something. So, yeah. And so wrecks are caused by that by fear and miscommunication. So the nice in the nice method, and I explained steps to do this in the book as well, of ways to fix this, to help with that. And yeah, it's very important as well.

Neal Schaffer: 35:23

Yamuna. I just also tried to apply this both from an organization as well as just this this customer marketing perspective. These could be things that your customers are, you know, well, they're probably not afraid to ask, but maybe, you know, having FAQs or assuming that you're gonna get asked these questions or onboarding for new clients come right out in front, here's where the bathroom is, right? Or these are the things you need to know before we get started. It's all part of this communication. And it's going to lead to, you know, more satisfaction, both from the employee, I'm sure as well as the customer.

Dave Delaney: 35:54

Well, yeah, I mean, if you don't know the answer, like we've all been there, too, or you're like you asked, like you, let's say you're at a restaurant, you ask the server, like, you know, what's the what's your, what's your best dish? Or what's special of the day or something? They're like, I'm not really sure. Or what's in that dish? You know? Yeah, I'm not really sure. Not really sure. Yeah, yeah. Right. Exactly. So you're like, you don't know what's in it? Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. Thanks. I'll be I'll be ordering that for sure. So, yeah, making sure in a customer service kind of setting. And by the way, like, a lot of what I talked about in the framework, and in the nice method can be applied online, and it can be applied, you know, to customers, it's just that for my business serving, you know, leaders of fast growing technology companies, my primary focus is internal. And so it's around the communications and house and how we're treating team members. But to your point, you know, as you as you well, as you raise, like, these things can be applied in different ways externally to your customers, both online and offline. So absolutely.

Neal Schaffer: 37:05

And it's funny, because I go from the external to the internal. So I talk about well, you know, you have influencer marketing programs, yet. You want to create an employee advocacy program, and you're treating your employees worse than you treat influencers. Why is that? Should there be a difference in how you treat people, internally versus externally?

Dave Delaney: 37:21

Yeah. And I wrote to that point, like I was, so I have a keynote that I do called the ROI of nice, which is about the nice method. And I was doing it actually, each time I do that presentation. Specifically, I always have a line of people after to ask me questions and things. But so often, at least a few people come and talk to me after and share horror stories about working for a terrible boss, or working for a terrible company, or both. And guess what those names of those bosses and those names of the companies are in my mind. And if I look on Glassdoor confirms that information, or indeed, you can read reviews of these companies, and you can get a sense for this. So. So it's about the reputation of your your organization. And if your team members, especially leadership, are doing a poor job leading and upsetting their your team members, not to mention, you know, we didn't even talk about the costs involved of replacing talent when they quit. In a volunteer turnover. It costs like six to nine months, the salary of that person to replace that person like I built. It's based off Sherman's calculation of Society for Human Resources Management, and I created a calculator on my site at future force.com. If you want to go punch in a salary, it will show you how much it will cost to replace that person, when if they quit. And so there's so much at stake about this. But again, to your point, it's it goes both ways, externally as well. So yeah.

Neal Schaffer: 38:53

So finally, the final point that we talked about was how to celebrate life outside the walls. So I'm wondering if this is is celebrating life together with your employees outside of the office? Is that sort of the idea of of having, you know, going to top golf or, or trips or what have you?

Dave Delaney: 39:09

Yeah, yeah, it is. It's about building relationships, people are far less likely. And there's lots of studies about this, they're far less likely to quit working for you, even if they're offered a better job, like better pay or what have you, if they have good relationships with the team with your team members, right? So if they have like friendships at work, or at least good relationships, they're far more likely to stay. And so in order to establish and to build those, those relationships, you need to get everybody to unplug for a minute, or more than a minute and spend a day out, you know, as you said, like top golf or something fun, like an outing. This is why I'm a huge fan of doing retreats or off sites and I often I have workshops and things that I do for these so often. You know, I'll do like two half days, or you know, have content around the nice methodology in this lead this leadership and communication training, and then the other half of those days are spent out, you know, top golf or what have you. But even beyond that, like just sending your team members to conferences with their consent, you know, and then this sort of pandemic days that we're in, obviously with their, with their comfort level being okay with this, but sending team members to a conference is such a powerful way, because then it gets back into networking, which is where we started, these employees represent your brand. They're happy, hopefully, if you're doing it, right. So they're going to speak really fondly and really positively about your brand. But they'll also so they're representing your company, at these conferences, they're learning new things from the speakers, they're building new relationships, if they're networking effectively, and then they're bringing that new information and those new relationships hopefully back to the mothership, so that when they get back, and this is what I did, like, when I worked for the consumer electronics company, Griffin a million years ago, I would go to tech conferences, build relationships with folks. And then would put together co branded inkind promotions. And I built these great relationships with folks at Wired Magazine, and Groupon and, and, you know, many, many others over the years to do these kinds of relationships or to these kinds of promotions. So, you know, it was sort of a win win all around that way. And so again, this is this is getting getting outside of the walls of the organization. And allowing, this also earns trust as well, right, because then your team members trust you. And vice versa, you trust your team members. So I had this whole case study on my on my blog, a future forth about something we did called CS bound, where I wanted to do a road trip. And what we ended up doing was buying a 1972 vw Westphalia bus, oh, and we restored it over six months after hours, and documented all the restoring of this bus in house for the most part, replacing the engine, flooring, everything, minus the paint job. And we did all that. And then we drove this bus, myself included 2500 miles, from Nashville to Las Vegas. And we documented the whole journey. I plan meetups along the way with our customers in six different markets along the way. And then we parked the bus in our booth at CES. And if you're familiar with the Consumer Electronics Show, you know a booth like that is at least a million dollars. And so it was a big risk. Because our leadership team at the time were like, We restored our bus, and we're driving our bus, we're the booth staff. So if your booth staff doesn't show up, and you've spent spent a million dollars for a half empty booth. That's not that's a good thing, but they trusted us. And we pulled it off. And that's part of the presentation in the ROI of nice that I that I share that story because it's a fun one. But again, that I have a lot long lasting relationships, trust me, you get to know your colleagues when you spend six days in a bus in January with no air conditioning, or heating.

Neal Schaffer: 43:12

I'm just reflecting all the all this because, you know for the listener, you know Dave's work is primarily with organizations, but I always find ways of applying this, you know, to to our work and marketing and just the way you treat your customers influences. One of the influencer marketing campaign example types I talked about in the age of influence is a trip is sending your influencers on a trip where you get to know them better, they get to know the other influencers, that you know, they get ROI, you get to deepen that relationship with them, convert them on to becoming your brand ambassador. And we could say the same thing about employees, right? Give them Instagrammable moments outside of the wall. So I think this is really great advice. And it's really applicable both for those executives that are listening, as well as those marketers that are keen to get greater ROI for their time and budget. So Dave, this has been awesome. You know, I always asked my guests where should I send people interested in you know, what you do? You already gave off like five or six different links. So I'm gonna leave it to you to let our listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and you know, buy or get that other book for free?

Dave Delaney: 44:13

Well, yeah, so to get the book, just go to nice method.us or nice method.us and use the coupon code Neil. And you'll get that book for free. That is on future fourth.com which is my my company. There's a link there if you'd like to talk about speaking, I have a whole different speaking site as well. So and then I'm Dave Delaney on all the socials. So you can, you know, follow me or poke me if the kids are still poking people. I don't even know. I don't even know if I think they brought it back for some reason. Yeah. But regardless, yeah, don't poke me just say hi. It's way better that way.

Neal Schaffer: 44:50

Awesome. Well, Dave, thank you so much for your time and sharing your knowledge and expertise with the audience. I know that they're gonna get a lot out of this and I can't wait to see you again at the next networking event. conference whatever comes first.

Dave Delaney: 45:01

Yeah, for your listeners, make sure that you follow and follow Niels Niels deal here, because it's such an important thing to be the ringleader and to bring people together. And if you're traveling and you've got a down night, why not do a meet up? I used to do this all the time when I when I would travel for brands for the companies, I would organize the tweet ups or the, you know, meetups, and I've, I've done a few over the years, too. So yeah, do that just bring people together for a casual dinner? And yeah, you never know, you might end up on that person's podcast.

Neal Schaffer: 45:32

Hey, and just for a FYI. All I did was see over time, our LinkedIn connections, they go on to different companies, they live in different cities. I just did a search for cities I was going to be at, see who was there? Yep. And throw out the fact that, hey, you know, would you be interested in a networking event on the night or the day of that I plan to be there. And once I had enough people, I created a LinkedIn event, which then I sent out to everybody to remind them that, hey, this is going to happen. I didn't even know where I was going to have it. But I asked the people that said they wanted to attend as to recommendations. So I felt like I was a local, you know, creating these events at these local places, when it all came from that audience of my network. So I highly recommend, and you know what, you don't even have to travel to do it, do it in your local hometown. Just say, hey, you know what, next month, I'm gonna get people together happy hour, at a place on a Thursday night. And I'm just gonna go to LinkedIn and send out a message to everyone on my network that lives in this area. And you know, even if you only meet one or two people, that's still incredible ROI. So yeah, just want to throw that out there as my advice. And Dave, once again, thank you so much. And we'll hopefully see you again soon.

Dave Delaney: 46:36

Yeah, thank you, Neil. It was a pleasure.

Neal Schaffer: 46:39

All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. Dave is truly a great guy, that one of the nicest people that you meet out there. And it is very appropriate that he teaches this nice method, and just you know how to network in a human and authentic way. So I hope you'll take him up on his advice, I hope you'll get out there. If you're listening to this podcast, you are listening to right before I am flying to Cleveland to attend Content Marketing World, I would love to see you there. If you're going to be there. Let me know I'm also going to be at Vid Summit later this month in Los Angeles. And in mid October, I will be at Adobe MAX, also in Los Angeles, there's a chance I will be in London at another conference in early November, as well as another conference in Northern California in late October. So if you live in one of those places, feel free to reach out to me, I would love to meet you if I have a chance to get there. And yes, I am a man of my word. I love the network. And I have always seen an opportunity come from it. So I want you to see those same opportunities as well. And I think in all honesty for our mental health, it can only benefit us to get out there and be together with other people with all that we've gone through. So I know I personally feel that. I know many of my friends feel that as well. So let's do this. Okay, make connections even once a month, if you can get out there and go networking. And you know what, if there's not a networking event, create one like I did. If you live in Orange County, California, I do plan on creating some networking events. I used to do them back in the day. I haven't done them recently. But I'd love to get people in Southern California back together, especially listeners this podcast, as well as just general marketer. So feel free to drop me a line if you'd like to know more about that. And hey, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. And you can find all of my podcast episodes, you can find all of the show notes, you can find all the links to all the podcast apps in which you can listen to this podcast. If you're new, I hope you'll hit that subscribe button. And if you've been a loyal listener, thank you for your loyalty. Man I am. I'm going to be hitting 300 episodes pretty soon. It's pretty exciting. Yeah, this has been an incredible journey, incredibly rewarding. And I just can't thank you enough for your continued patronage. All right, I'll stop there. Remember, wherever you are in the world, keep your eye on the goal. I'll talk to you next week, if not later this week. This is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes, and Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog post that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.