Networking - How to Approach it to Get More Clients & Collaborators

Faisal Ensaun: So today, it's just gonna be me. Dr. Sheri is busy with other stuff and we don't have a guest, but I wanted to go into this topic that's actually fairly important for coaches and I just want to give a background I've been a coach for close to 6 and a half, seven years.

And most of my clients, I would say well over 70, 80% of my clients have come from networking opportunities and they have taken different shapes and forms. I'll talk about that, but they've come from that. Essentially it's all been about relationships and that's the take that I want to take because networking is essentially about billing relationships.

A lot of times when we are thinking about networking, how getting clients the objective is actually not getting fines. I mean, that's the bigger outcome that we're thinking about, but the objective of going into a networking session is actually building relationships. We'll talk about that a little bit.

So I wanna walk you through a couple of areas around networking and you can share your thoughts below as well. About what has worked for you in networking situations. How have you built relationships and what have you done? And just so the point of it is to yes, this will potentially help your business move up and actually it consistently does move forward generate revenue, and create a business as you do this consistently.

But the main Important outcome there is to build relationships because unless you have a relationship with somebody, they can't be your client or collaborator or business partner or whatever you're looking for or affiliate, whatever you're looking for. It starts with the relationships and generally speaking, coaches are really good at building relationships because they understand some basic foundational principles they're on.

They understand empathy, they understand listening. They understand. Hearing other people paying attention, and being present, they understand being fully present. Those things are foundational principles for building relationships, to hear somebody out, to make sure that they're understood, they're supported to make sure that we're open, we're empathetic and we're present with people.

Those are important things and coaches in general, we're really good at that, but we bring in all kinds of thoughts with us that might throw us off. But if we just show up as human beings who have done a lot of the work to be the kind of people that we are, and I would assume as a coach, you've done a lot of work on yourself cuz your client zero.

 Like how would networking generate revenue for you? Well, what has happened for me is that most of my partners, collaborators, my business partners, and even business partners within C M C, have come from these situations where I've been in a situation where people, come together for a specific purpose, whether it's an event in person or whether it's a live discussion online of some sort. 

I've gone there, shared a few thoughts, and perspectives, shared a story or two, and I've listened to people I've tried to understand other people and it has built a relationship and then I've followed up with them, and that has transpired into creating some something new together if it's a business partner or a collaborator or has gone towards how I can support people.

And it all again starts with that relationship. But those are the overall themes. But when you go into a networking situation or potential networking situation, there are a couple of things to think about before, and this is just for you to consider.

Being intentional is being a leader, being intentional is showing up consciously. So knowing your intention, and I want to give you an intention around that, and I've been alluding to that, is that the, for you to be around people, it naturally means that you're going there to build a relationship.

Build relationships with them. You don't know which direction that relationship will go into. Yes, you might have it in your mind that, okay, I want a collaborator or client or somebody. You have an overall purpose around being in networking situations, and that is to improve your business. That is to potentially get clients, and collaborators that you know, but what is your intention of showing up?

How do you wanna show up there as a human being, as a leader, as a coach? And those intentions are important for you. So, generally speaking, when I show up with people, it is a serve energy challenge. That's on the professional side. But on the personal side, the way I'm looking at people is accepting and inspiring connection or accepting connection ex inspiring.

So to me, those words mean something, you know all those words, and they help set the intention for how I wanna show up. And so I want to get you to just think about a few words or a couple of words or visuals or some kind of cue that helps you set an intention, how you wanna show up with people. Who are you gonna be? In my case, I wanna be accepting of people.

I wanna meet people where they are. I want to be, I want to connect with people. I wanna build a connection. Or our relationship. And then third, I wanna leave that conversation either me being inspired or the other person being inspired. Those are important. And on the other side of it, I had three other words around that.

They're actually my coaching words to their serve energy challenge. I wanna serve people to some degree, even if that just means you're just listening to somebody and empathizing with them. I want to make sure I bring energy into that space, whatever my authentic energy is in that time or what I want, or whatever I want to bring.

And I wanna challenge people to grow to connect to their potential, to their ideal. I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's a coach or a normal person who's gonna be my client or whoever. I wanna be able to do that. Those are my intentions. And then the outcome that I'm trying to gain out of this is that, okay, I'm trying to gain an outcome and the outcome for me is actually a relationship.

To build a relationship with a person, then I don't know where that relationship will go. So I'm not that specific about it, cuz I don't know until I go into that conversation, until I'm present, until I'm accepting, until I show up with empathy and presence. I don't actually know what this person needs and I'm in this business to serve people.

And so I wanna understand that first. And if I see that I serve this person by just having a couple of conversations, connect them with somebody. Or helping them connect with some kind of resource. I'll do that. If I see that this person needs more support from me as a coach or as, let's say, to be part of C M C, I'll offer that, whatever that is.

Or maybe it just needs a follow-up to get to know the person more. Whatever that takes I will go towards that. And that's my outcome, is to build our relationship and this is where actually, let me bring up this one. This has saved my time, and energy in so many things. Arctic headache in so many situations, and I don't even know where I learned this from.

 It's, you are not everyone's cup of tea and neither is everyone else. Once you get that and really not just get it mentally, but really understand it. Yeah, you don't need to please everybody. You don't need to be around everybody.

You don't need to meet everybody anywhere you go. You don't need to say good things to everybody or obviously, you don't need to be negative towards people. What you need to do more than anything else, and you can decide that for yourself, but I'll get you to think about it, intuitively you are pulled towards certain people. Those are better people for you. Intuitively, you know who you connect with, and paying attention to your body, paying attention, being present, paying attention to your emotions, and your energy will help you get there.

You don't need to go towards everybody. So my primary thing is not, oh, this person will give me this opportunity. That's not how I think through this stuff. It's just who might pull towards who might. Interested to work with who is fault towards me. And when you're present, you can gauge all that stuff.

That becomes really, really important in those situations, whether it's an all-online situation or in person. Now, if I feel like I really want to connect with somebody, I'll reach out to them. Even outside of that, I'll take their card, I'll make an effort to do that and that's why, and understanding that many people will not be aligned with you, and that's completely okay.

And that's completely normal and once you take that truth and that fact in your life, then life becomes a little bit simpler and those situations become a little bit simpler and then you might have heard this in sales, but the money is in the follow-up and I know we're talking about relationships, but well, how does the business work?

Business is all about relationships. When you serve people, when you work with people, when you add value to people's lives, either they are paying you to help them in some way if you can, or they're connecting you with somebody else, or they're giving you a resource or an idea or perspective that will generate money.

But it comes from that follow-up. And I can't tell you how many, and I work with real estate investors in their big part of what they do is networking. They will meet so many people, but they won't follow through. They will have the most amazing conversation with somebody. They'll feel aligned.

They'll even strategize or something, and then they will not follow up. And if they follow up, they'll do it once and they're like, oh, I guess this person is not interested. I'll say, rule of thumb, at least five times, reach out to people. Five times. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's a marketing thing.

You can look it up, but at least five times before you gain, really gain their attention and their interest because most people are very busy and they have all sorts of things going on in their life. They might not even, you might send an email one day or a text. They might look at it and they might not have a chance to reply to it, and then it gets buried and then the next time they wanna respond to it.

So from your perspective, definitely don't take it personally. Reach out to people multiple times. Quite a few people, especially coaches I've met, they take it personally. They're like, well, the person's not interested, so why should I reach out to them again? Well, somebody who is in business, you'll need to reach out to people multiple times for you to gain their attention.

Obviously do it in a respectful way. Obviously do it in a way where you're adding value every time you're reaching out, but reaching out, reach out to people, remind them that you're interested in moving that relationship forward and

so just a few years ago, short few years ago, a couple of years ago, like I, like I have a stack of cards like business cards. And I haven't taken them anywhere in any situation, even though I've gone to several events. And this is related to in-person, but it'll connect to the online version too.

Yeah. So, The reason for that is that technology has changed. A lot of people say LinkedIn is your new resume. That might be true and a lot of people are on LinkedIn and they can quickly add you wherever you meet people and send a message to you. Some people QR use QR codes. In fact, that's what we're using for our event that I'm gonna tell you a little bit about in California.

And we are getting cards where we're putting QR codes on them. That takes you directly to a page where you can learn more about us. But there are several ways to do that. Like a lot of networking places, you have this connecting e that you wear. You can put a QR code on that. It's actually very easy, fairly easy, to create a QR code.

Just go on Google and type generate QR code and you can find a free website. I'll do that. Sometimes you have to pay membership ongoing. That is very low. It's worth it because you can put anything in a QR code and anybody can scan it with their phone quickly and you can set it so it can take you to a page, to a link tree, to your email, to whatever you want it.

Set it for and it's very useful cuz it's quick. You don't have to note it down. And a lot of people, and some people are good with like basic like having a pen and pad, they will write it down. But how many of those people do you follow through with when you. Kind of are up to date on technology, it helps you kind of capture the leads better or capture people's information better.

So a lot of times I'll just connect with people on LinkedIn or on WhatsApp and I'm starting to use a QR code more. It helps, it makes the process simpler and faster. And so it's for you to think about like, how can it become simpler for you to connect with people? And finally, I'll just add and have a sheet for that is start tracking.

Like if you're, if this is part of your main strategy to connect with clients and build a relationship, start tracking all these relationships. Have a CRM or an Excel sheet that tracks all these people that you're meeting and put it there. It'll help you understand how many people you're developing a relationship with and how many people you've reached out to they have in a respondent.

It makes the process easier. Don't rely on your memory for something like that, cuz you will forget no matter how great your memory is unless you have photographic memory. I don't know. I don't have it, so I don't know if it'll work. So this is for you to think through how you can show up and if you show up with, just as a coach and a conscious human being to just build a relationship with somebody, build relationships, more than likely it will translate to something positive.

Either it'll be a collaboration, either it'll be some kind of partnership or joint venture, or it will be possible to find clients that you can come out of that. And like I said, about 70, 80% of my clients have come from those situations in online or offline. Online. I've gone clients from book clubs, and I've gotten clients from just going on meetups.

I've gotten clients going to events in person. I've gotten clients just regular podcasts. But podcasts are a little bit different. But just all kinds of situations where I've had conversations with people I've gotten clients from, and they've connected me with other clients that have given me contracts so, The ROI is actually huge when you consistently do it.

The key is consistency, I would say. As a rule of thumb, if this is your main strategy, at least once a week, find a way to show up somewhere online or offline and follow through with people. And just be aware of your intention, and what your outcome is. Show up intentionally, show up more present, and understand that As you're building your business, it's actually fully reliant, mostly reliant on your relationships.

If you build the right relationships, your business will move ahead. If you don't, then it might not. And other than that, I'd love to hear your thoughts as well. Please share those below. And I've also actually shared the link for our meetups. But the main thing is for us to build that relationship with you and to see how we can serve you. And even the members that are in the online group, we've tried to support them in whatever way we can.

And if we see that this, you need to join our community and this is an ongoing relationship, then yeah, there is a membership process. But we don't need you to sign up for us to serve you. Just that networking event might help you a lot to un unblock and move your business forward because there are quite a few experienced coaches involved in our community and also even coaches who are starting out.

They've learned a lot on their path. So I hope this is helpful and if you're listening to the podcast platform anywhere, make sure you join our Facebook group. I'll put that below as well.

It's Coaching Mastery Community and also goes to our website, coaching mastery community.com to learn more. You're on the podcast platform. Make sure you share it, like it leave a comment leave it a review. We'd appreciate that and please share your thoughts, questions, or concerns.

I'd love to answer those personally and this is Faisal Ensaun until our next podcast conversation. Hope you have an incredible week. Bye.