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I would hardly ever recommend going to an event if it s purely networking because then in order for it to be a good use of your time or money, you re putting all of your eggs in the basket of, am I going to meet one or two great people?
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And chances are pretty good that that s not going to happen.
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Welcome to the Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with my friend Derek Coburn.
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He s a good friend of mine, a really good networker who runs a group in D.C., Washington, D.C., called Cadre, which helps professionals connect and send each other business, among other things, and have a whole lot of fun, I might add.
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It s also a really great example of the concept of social capital that we talk about here on AOC so often, in action.
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You should listen to this episode if you realize like us that many people spend way too much time developing new relationships when time might be better spent on their existing relationships.
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We ll discuss why that works, how it works, and ask you tricky questions like how well do you really know your best clients and how well do they know
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how they can help you.
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And this goes for job seekers as well, not just for people generating business.
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We ll also talk about unlocking the power of dormant ties, how to get the most out of networking events.
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The pro tip here is bringing an existing connection or client.
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And last but not least, how to host networking events or client appreciation events as a way to meet more people that can offer value to you, offer value to your business, offer value to your job hunt, and vice versa.
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So enjoy this one with Derek Coburn.
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And by the way, if you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the Art of Charm toolbox where we discuss things like reading body language, nonverbal communication, the science of attraction, negotiation techniques, networking, mentorship, influence, persuasion tactics, and everything else we teach here at the Art of Charm.
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In the US, just text charmed to 33444.
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That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
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Everywhere else, go to theartofcharm.com.
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Also at theartofcharm.com slash podcast, you can find full show notes for this and all previous episodes.
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Alright, here s Derek Coburn.
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All right, Derek, thanks again for coming back on the show.
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We had you, how long ago was our last interview, do you remember?
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Like May of 2014, around the time my book came out.
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Okay, cool, so it s been a minute.
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And we talked a lot about networking, relationship development, something that you re really, really good at.
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A running theme here on AOC as well, on The Art of Charm, is always developing relationships, creating relationships, networking in a way that s not schmoozy, but very real.
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And you brought up an interesting point,
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pre-show, which is that one of the largest obstacles in business today is indifference.
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Do you wanna just dive into that at first?
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Sure, yeah, and first of all, thanks for having me back, Jordan.
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Love your show, and it s interesting, like, when I was on the first time, I hadn t listened to it all that much, and now it s like, as we ve become friends, and, you know, I ve expanded my podcast.
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It s definitely one of my go-to.
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I like what you re doing.
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I learn from you and your people all the time, so.
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Oh, awesome.
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I m glad to hear that.
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Yeah, happy to be here.
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So, yeah, what I was mentioning earlier was that I feel like
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for most businesses that our biggest competitor is indifference or inaction, meaning that a lot of our ideal clients, people, if they knew tomorrow we existed and we did things the way we do them, they would jump at the opportunity to work with us, but we re just not on their radar.
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They currently don t perceive a need for what it is we provide.
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And I think that there s a lot of gold and a lot of potential
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and finding ways to get in front of these people and disrupt that indifference, if you will.
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Yeah, it s kind of the story of my life, right, because this has tentacles, this idea does, that reaches out into branding, like maybe they don t think they need it because they don t understand your brand, or marketing, same thing, the marketing s not effective so they don t get it and they don t see the urgency or the reason to make any kind of switch, et cetera.
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and also because it s easier to not expend energy than it is to expend energy, and very few people are constantly researching and looking for something better than they already have.
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It doesn t seem to happen that often, and maybe when you re young and when you re dating, that s the only counter example I can think of right now, but for a lot of us, especially in our business, we re very, very rarely looking for something that can replace a current solution, especially if it s not something that excites us, right?
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financial management or tax planning.
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Usually it s, I got that covered and I don t really want to think about it anymore.
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Exactly.
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I mean, that s one type of business, you know, on the flip side, which is not as interesting as sort of the businesses that have evolved where they re almost like a unicorn.
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There s not a lot of direct competition, but at the same time, there s not a lot of people that are actively seeking them.
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But then they say, Oh, I have a,
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a CRM that does these eight things that your current CRM doesn t provide.
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And next thing you know, they re all about it.
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And they feel like they ve just stumbled upon something amazing.
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Cadre, the group that my wife and I run in DC is similar in that vein.
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There aren t people typing into Google, I need to find a great community in DC that has, you know, pay it forward, CEOs and entrepreneurs who focus on adding value for each other and want to be exposed to great content and great people like nobody s doing that.
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But usually,
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When someone gets exposed to us, they come to an event or an existing member refers them, the ones who end up joining say, gosh, this is amazing.
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I can t believe something like this exists.
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But to your point on more on the commodity side, I would estimate 5% of people that are currently working with a financial advisor or an accountant or an attorney actually love them and just can t imagine ever working with anyone else.
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The ones who don t like them, again, probably a very small percentage, they are currently actively trying to find a replacement.
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They re not waiting around.
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If they think their existing accountant is terrible, they re getting a new one.
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I think that the middle ground, the 90, 95 percent, they like their existing provider just fine.
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The ways that you re going to differentiate, the ways that you re going to create an opportunity for yourself typically have nothing to do with the core service that you re providing.
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So basically, if we provide a service, it becomes, like you said, it can be commoditized because people don t really care.
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So we have to do something to set ourselves apart, and there s a lot of books on this, and this isn t just probably for businesses.
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I feel like we can see this a lot, even at work, this concept might come into play if you just have a quote-unquote regular job.
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the people supervising you or several rungs above you might see you and your whole department as kind of one basket of fungible software engineers or something like that, right?
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You ve gotta do something to set yourself apart and it often has nothing to do with the actual job, the service, the product.
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What are we looking for then?
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How can we disrupt this indifference if it s not just about heads down, work harder?
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Yeah, so I think one thing, there was a study that might add a little context to this, which I think is very interesting.
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And the first sentence is going to sound very boring, but I don t think it will be boring.
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So the Financial Planning Association recently did a study, and it showed that financial advisors have a retention rate of 94%.
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So only 6% of existing financial advisors lose clients over the course of a year.
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about 75% of them said the reason that it happens is because they provide great client service.
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So they re all holding their hat out.
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They re all basically advertising the way they re different in the same way.
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And I think they re overvaluing their customer service and they re undervaluing the inertia of their prospective
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of their existing clients.
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So I think the way that you disrupt this indifference, right, is to first and foremost focus on adding more value for your existing clients, maybe redefining what great service means, but taking it a step further, putting your clients and the people that you are already connected with in a position to help you get in front of more people that are not necessarily looking for whatever it is you provide, but you getting a chance to get in front of them and
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strategically and effectively communicating how you re different will give you a great opportunity, in my experience and the experience of a lot of people that I know, to end up with a lot more ideal clients than if you were just waiting around for clients to say, hey, here s a referral for you.
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This is something that we teach at our social capital courses and things like that, like really focusing on different types of giving when it comes to your relationships.
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And of course everyone s seen Glenn Gary, well many of us have seen Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, where it s like A, B, C, always be closing.
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And we kind of changed that to always be giving or always be generous.
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And it doesn t just mean introducing people to each other, and we can get into that in a second, but creating a totally different rung of service than most people might have, frankly, have ever thought about or have ever seen as necessary in their job, right?
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You don t just have to be...
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somebody who doesn t mishandle someone s finances.
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You don t just have to be somebody who earns a decent return for your clients, you also have to be somebody that generates trust and rapport and makes your client feel safe, and whenever there s some big financial news, maybe reaches out and says, here s five reasons why you don t need to worry about Brexit, or something like that, just so that, almost anticipating the needs and worries of your client, and then saying,
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By the way, you don t have to worry about it.
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I know you re freaked out about it.
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I m thinking about you and I ve already come up with a reason why this isn t something you need to worry about.
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Or, if it is something you need to worry about, what we re doing to take care
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of your money in light of Brexit or whatever, right?
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Something like that that s industry specific.
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And I feel like that s something that really good service providers that I have do and mediocre ones haven t even thought about.
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Yeah, and I ll take it a step further.
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We talked about this a little bit on the initial interview a couple of years ago.
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But for me, when I just had my wealth management business, when my practice really took off, it was when I realized, look, most people are hiring a financial advisor because they want to increase their net worth.
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And I realized, well, probably the best and most predictable way for me to do that on behalf of my clients is to be an extension of their business development and marketing team.
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So I wanted to understand
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their business and what an ideal client look like, I positioned myself to work with business owners.
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And then when I was introduced to them, it wasn t, hey, they provide great service.
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Derek does a great job of keeping up with my finances.
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Of course, we do a good job with that.
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But it was
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you know, somebody may say, I m pretty happy with my existing financial advisor.
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And a client or someone in my network may say, well, do you know that as part of Derek s value proposition, he focuses on generating revenue for your business by making ideal introductions for you.
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And so that s sort of what I mean.
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That s just one example.
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And I can share others where it s not about me having slightly lower fees or providing slightly better performance.
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I mean, I have to be
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as a baseline, I have to be very good at what I do.
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But then, above and beyond that, that s going to be very appealing to certain types of people.
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It s not going to be appealing to a retiree, but it should be very appealing to a business owner.
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Somehow, it tends to be a concept that we think about doing, that we say we re gonna do, that we mean to do, and for many of us, never quite put it into action.
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I think a lot of times, folks are really quick
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to spend time on trying to get new business, trying to get new business, and not investing in their pre-existing relationships, which is a huge mistake, given that, and you probably have more data on this in front of you than I do, or at least in your mind than I do, but I would imagine, especially for people in referral businesses like financial management, or I would say almost any business nowadays that s not just selling a straight commodity is gonna be referral-based,
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Those existing relationships are your business development army and they re your job search army if you re job hunting.
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And a lot of folks are spending all of their time probing new opportunities, reaching out at cold, emailing cold, uploading their resume to monster.com or whatever and focusing on Google ads or something instead of focusing on their current network and watering that garden.
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Yeah, I m glad you brought this up.
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I mean, I have a lot of ideas, a lot of things that work really well, but a good way to highlight the importance of what you just mentioned is looking at traditional advice around networking and the top networking tips.
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And this is one of the main reasons I say most people shouldn t be going to networking events is because they need to invest more time in their existing relationships.
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So one of the tips, right, that shows up on most of these lists is send handwritten notes.
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And the idea is you meet somebody at a networking event and you exchange cards and you had a good conversation.
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You should send them a handwritten note and it will stand out.
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Now, I m not completely opposed to handwritten notes.
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I mean, I think there s other reasons why that s a bad idea.
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But first and foremost, like if you haven t written a handwritten note to your mom or your wife in the past few months, then you probably should not write a handwritten note to the accountant that you met at Tuesday night s mixer, right?
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You know, who else can you spend your time focusing on as opposed to being focused on developing these brand new relationships and having them start out right?
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So I think clients is a good place to start, right?
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For those of us, especially if we have recurring revenue businesses, where if we keep our existing clients happy, they ll continue to do business with us.
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Reaching out to them if they own businesses to just say, hey, I want to learn more about your ideal client and I want to learn more about how I can identify opportunities for you.
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One of the questions I like asking during these interviews is what are your triggering events or what are your trigger phrases?
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So trigger phrase is a term that I first saw in John Jantz s book, The Referral Engine, which is a great book.
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The idea behind it is most people are never going to say what they need.
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They re going to say something that would tip the person off that this is something coming up on the horizon that I may need to address.
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Triggering events, I expanded that to include triggering events, which would be an event going on in someone s life that may lead to them needing to talk with me or someone that does what I do.
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And the nice thing about, first and foremost, you identifying your own triggering events is you can share this with your clients and with your network.
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So I ve received three referrals in the past eight or nine months from my network to wealth management clients because I let my network know that a great triggering event for me is if someone says they re getting ready to sell a business.
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And a good triggering event is going to be something that your ideal client says 3, 6, 12 months before they re actually going to need you.
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So they re saying that at that time, if I wait to just say, hey, let me know when someone sold their business.
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At that point, they ve already started saying, I need a financial advisor.
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Most people weren t waiting that long.
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First and foremost, I think identifying good triggering events for you is helpful.
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To the extent that you do that, when you ask your clients this or people in your network this that you re reconnecting with, they re going to say, what s a triggering event or what s a trigger phrase?
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The easiest way to explain what a triggering event is, is similar to what I just did.
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It s saying, well, let me just remind you or let me share with you what the trigger events are for my business.
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Even though these client interviews are first and foremost about
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learning more about your clients and how you can add more value for them.
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That s a very strategic way to make sure you re reminding your clients what they need to be on the lookout for if they come across a potential opportunity for you.
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Right.
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So we want to teach our clients and our friends and our colleagues how to help us out.
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I get messages like this all the time.
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hey, what can I do to help you in your aid in your mission, or something like that, and usually I just say, ah, I don t know, I need an iTunes review, or something really, really basic.
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Very rarely have I taken the time to say, look, here s what I m actually looking for.
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And if you know anybody who can help with this kind of thing, even if you don t know the right type of guest directly, if you know someone who might know someone, I would love for them to see this bit of information about the show so that maybe they d be interested in coming on, et cetera, et cetera.
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And it took me years and years to realize that
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People who are asking if they can help, some of them don t really mean it, of course, but some of them really do, but it s so hard if they have to guess, right?
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I mean, it just becomes an impossible task if someone has to guess what s gonna help us out.
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And so, since it s that much harder, they don t do it.
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or they do it wrong and it s not helpful and it ends up being a thing that you avoid happening in the future, right?
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So there was a period of time where somebody would say, how can I help you, Nate, in your mission?
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And I would just say something like, thanks for being a fan, that s good enough.
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And that is great, don t get me wrong, but it occurred to me probably two years ago, wouldn t it be great if I had something I could send them that says, here s what we re looking for,
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Here s how I usually find them.
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Do you know anybody who works in these specific industries so that they can actually reach out on the off chance they meant what they said?
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And I think this is extremely useful for other people in businesses that maybe aren t as weird as what we do here at the Art of Charm and as random as needing high-level connections because, like you said,
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If your clients want to give you new business, you still have to teach them how to present that in a way that s compelling.
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And most of us are either too lazy or haven t thought about this problem at all, and therefore are not generating as much business or as much opportunity as we could.
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And I think this even works if we work for a large organization.
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If we re just in a regular job, maybe we re not a business owner.
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you still have to be able to tell other people, maybe laterally in your industry, where you want to be in five years, what type of career opportunity you re looking for.
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Because if nobody knows what kind of projects you want to work on inside your company, nobody knows what you re looking to get promoted and do inside your industry, no one s going to be able to help you get there.
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Yeah, and I do think I agree with everything you just said.
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And I think that on one hand, there s, you know, how can I help you as a way to add value as a way to get on someone s radar as a way to develop a relationship or reconnect with someone that you haven t spoken with in a while.
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And then there s, you know, clients saying, how can I help refer you business?
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And, you know, I think in the case of the former,
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It would be nice, I guess, if we all had a one-pager we could point people to for how they can help us, but it would be even better if those individuals took the initiative and tried to think of ways that they could potentially help us and be more direct.
1
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James Altucher has this whole idea around the idea machine where you are just thinking about ideas for other people s businesses, whether it has anything
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to do with what you provide.
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Directly, you re just sending them ideas and sometimes it will directly benefit you and sometimes it won t.
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Again, maybe instead of focusing on developing new relationships, connecting with dormant ties.
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Adam Grant talks about this in his book, Give and Take, and talks about how the value of people in your network that you haven t spoken with or interacted with in three, four, five years can sometimes be
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even more valuable than those you interact with on a regular basis because they have different points of view, they have different connections, and it makes it worthwhile.
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I have a CRM I use contactually.
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It allows me to sort based on last time I contacted them, and I can do that in reverse.
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LinkedIn lets you do the same way.
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I don t think anyone should just spend five hours a day and just sending it to every single person.
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you know, going back and strategically saying, oh, like, I wonder what this person s up to, and maybe there s ways we could help each other out.
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The way that I found that works very well when reaching out to these people, and even though this works well for people that you met maybe six months ago, it s, hey, what is a current challenge or opportunity that you re working on now?
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What is the key priority that you re spending your time on these days?
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And A, it s much more likely to get a response, but B, they re going to come back with something very tangible that
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may lead you to thinking of how you can participate in a solution for them, making a suggestion, making an introduction.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that question or that type of question I found has worked really well.
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Now, back to the show.
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SPEAKER_03
I agree with you.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know what, somebody asked me something a couple of days ago, and they did it way too early in the interaction, so it was a little awkward, but it was a really good question.
2
SPEAKER_03
What was it exactly?
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SPEAKER_03
He said, what s keeping you up at night in terms of your business?
2
SPEAKER_03
I m glad he clarified that, because otherwise you might start to hear about people s other problems, which is fine, if that s your thing, go for it.
2
SPEAKER_03
But it was too early in the interaction, it made no sense.
2
SPEAKER_03
It almost seemed like, okay, I don t want to tell you this because I don t know
2
SPEAKER_03
what value there could possibly be in it.
2
SPEAKER_03
But I think if you know someone for a while, it doesn t have to be a long time, even can be your first interaction as long as you ve been talking about real stuff for a while, it s a really great way because people know what s keeping them up at night, and if the answer is nothing, they still got something that they re worried about.
2
SPEAKER_03
And the ability to find somebody who can help them solve that problem or learn more about that particular type of situation,
2
SPEAKER_03
that s almost always welcome.
2
SPEAKER_03
The problem is if they don t trust you enough to tell you that bit of information, it s a losing proposition.
2
SPEAKER_03
But I think, I can t wait usually to tell people what s keeping me up at night when it comes to this stuff if I think there s a chance that they can help me and I already know them enough to trust them with being able to make a high quality introduction or be able to help me with that problem.
2
SPEAKER_03
I don t know, what do you think about that?
2
SPEAKER_03
Because it could go either way.
2
SPEAKER_03
It might be a little too cheese ball for your world.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, I think it s appropriate.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like again, you said early in the interaction.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I think it works better with a dormant tie, just to clarify, would be somebody that you used to have a pretty good relationship with and it didn t end poorly, but it was a former colleague of five years ago or someone that you went to college with.
2
SPEAKER_00
And just for whatever reason, life happened, you ve fallen out of touch, but there s enough of a history there that it s not inappropriate for you to ask that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I would think it was somewhat sketchy if somebody asked me that after I met him two nights ago, but I agree.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I think that for the great person that you met six months ago at some industry event or what have you, it s like you guys probably didn t follow up with each other.
2
SPEAKER_00
you know both of you dropped the ball and now here s an opportunity for you to reconnect and by just being specific like hey what are you currently focused on what are you currently working on asking in case I might be able to help in some way I think it s just way better than just saying like how can I help you or let me know if I can ever help you.
2
SPEAKER_03
I agree with that, I think anybody asking how can I help you, it s just, it s so general, I never wanna answer the question, because in my experience, it s almost like a red flag, right?
2
SPEAKER_03
When it becomes so general, it s almost like, well, if I give you a specific answer, you might not know what to do with it, because it s almost like a politeness.
2
SPEAKER_03
Reflex, how are you?
2
SPEAKER_03
Oh man, you re telling me how you are?
2
SPEAKER_03
Ugh, I really wish you weren t doing that right now.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s a, how can I help you?
2
SPEAKER_03
Well actually, I really need a good Facebook ads campaign manager.
2
SPEAKER_03
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I was just being polite.
2
SPEAKER_03
I just wanna look like I wanna help you.
2
SPEAKER_03
I m not actually going to.
2
SPEAKER_03
Why are you still talking?
2
SPEAKER_03
Right, so if it s specific enough and it s somebody you think actually means it, then now you re talking, right?
2
SPEAKER_03
And to reactivate those dormant ties makes a lot of sense.
2
SPEAKER_03
You mentioned contactually earlier, and we discussed a little bit of this in our social capital program,
2
SPEAKER_03
as well, but how do you use this?
2
SPEAKER_03
Tell us, first of all, kind of what it is and how you use it, because a lot of people ask me about networking, networking automation, what tools we use.
2
SPEAKER_03
This sounds like something really powerful that you ve got your hands on.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so it s a great tool.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can use it as your CRM if your business is small enough or it can serve as an overlay to a Salesforce or something like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it does a lot of things and like most software programs, I use a couple of them a lot and there s some I don t use at all.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the primary thing it does, if you will, is you can create buckets for different types of contacts.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like for me, I ll have like tier one clients or centers of influence or perspective clients and then you can assign a period of time to each bucket.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like my tier one clients are 30 days.
2
SPEAKER_00
It runs in the background, unlike a CRM where you may schedule every 30 days remind me to call or email this person.
2
SPEAKER_00
With this, once you email them or they email you, the new 30 day window starts all over again.
2
SPEAKER_00
So ideally, you are never really getting a reminder.
2
SPEAKER_00
Ideally, you re doing it just as a natural course of business that you re offering or providing them.
2
SPEAKER_00
But if you say, hey, these are a group of people that I don t ever want two months to go by without being in touch with them.
2
SPEAKER_00
If that happens, you ll get a reminder about it, which is pretty cool.
2
SPEAKER_03
That is cool, so it can see whether or not you re communicating with this person via, what, your Gmail or Google Apps account and things like that?
2
SPEAKER_03
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can tie in, you can manually update phone calls if you want, but it runs in the background of your email, will automatically update it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can link up LinkedIn and Facebook and the different, you know, now it integrates with Slack and Facebook Messenger, so you can have it pretty much paying attention wherever you hang out.
2
SPEAKER_03
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s cool.
2
SPEAKER_03
Is there an iPhone app where it s like, Hey, we saw that you called Derek yesterday, so we re going to reset the clock.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yep.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s really cool.
2
SPEAKER_03
Cause I use this software a long time ago before we ended up switching over to a larger and more complicated CRM that I don t recommend normal human beings start diving into, um, because it s for the entire AOC enterprise.
2
SPEAKER_03
And I kind of use it for this, but contactually has evolved a lot.
2
SPEAKER_03
And I think it s a really useful service.
2
SPEAKER_03
I know a lot of people are kind of against.
2
SPEAKER_03
networking, automation, and they think you re just reaching out because you got a reminder.
2
SPEAKER_03
What s your stance on that?
2
SPEAKER_03
Because I kind of think, look, out of sight, out of mind, it doesn t mean I m not thinking about somebody, but it does mean that if I think about my friend Alex while I m in the back of an Uber with a bunch of other people having a talk,
2
SPEAKER_03
I don t want to have to reach out right then or write it down.
2
SPEAKER_03
I should be able to rely on software, like Contactually, to say, hey, you haven t talked to Alex in 30 days.
2
SPEAKER_03
It ll happen in the next couple weeks, so I don t have to worry about it.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s kind of how I rationalize this, but I know a lot of folks think, well, if it has to remind you, this person s not important enough to you, or something like that.
2
SPEAKER_03
What do you think about that?
2
SPEAKER_03
What s your stance on that?
2
SPEAKER_00
I m sure there are people out there that when they do get that reminder, then they immediately send an email.
2
SPEAKER_00
For me, if I get that reminder, I take a step back and I see if I can identify a reason to reach out to them because I still I don t want to see
3
SPEAKER_01
send them an email if it s, hey, just checking in to see how you re doing.
3
SPEAKER_01
If it s not adding value for them, if there s no real rhyme or reason for why I should be emailing them, I m not going to do it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I see people out there that talk about having a system for, I m going to send three connection emails a day, or I m going to email five people a day to see how they re doing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I guarantee you, I mean, some of it might be valuable, but I guarantee you if the metric, if the goal is,
3
SPEAKER_01
emails going out, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
That there are a number of people getting emails within that system that are probably wasting their time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can kind of tell when I get emails that, like you said, they offer no value and they end up being something like, hey, just wanted to reach out since it s been a while since our last interaction.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like kind of vague.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s probably a template in something.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, yeah, it has been a while.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t even remember it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the person s like, let me know how I can help support you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you just think like, archive, because you know, it s fake.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if someone says,
3
SPEAKER_00
Hey, I saw that you were in Australia recently.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I went there for my honeymoon.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wish I d known in advance.
3
SPEAKER_00
I probably could have given you some ridiculously out of date travel tips.
3
SPEAKER_00
I hope that went well for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, my kids are dying to go.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s only a matter of time till I get back there.
3
SPEAKER_00
Hope you re well.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s totally different.
3
SPEAKER_00
than this general vague thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Even though there s not a whole lot of value in that email, it s clearly somebody who thought for at least a nanosecond about what they were gonna write and didn t just click send inside a CRM somewhere.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s important because I don t want to discourage people from reaching out to contacts or dormant ties because they don t have
3
SPEAKER_00
the cure for what ails them, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
They don t have something super valuable or amazing to give away, so they end up going, well, this person probably doesn t want to hear from me.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the value, I just want to be really flexible with the definition of being valuable, because sometimes, especially, like if I reached out to you, we ve been friends for a while, and I just wanted to say like, man, that was a really good game the other day, did you catch it?
3
SPEAKER_00
Amazing, I m so glad that I bothered to turn on cable, hug Melanie for me, and I have a question about this other random thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
You wouldn t be like, this guy, Jordan, what a generic,
3
SPEAKER_00
A-hole reaching out with his reminder.
3
SPEAKER_00
It would be natural, even if I got a reminder from Facebook or Contactually or something like that, even the smallest bit of thought can mean the world versus just a generic follow-up reminder, even if that s a handwritten note that says, pleasure meeting you at insert event here last Thursday.
3
SPEAKER_00
It really is the thought that counts when it comes to this stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t have to be the cure for cancer on a three by five card or a Hallmark card in the mail.
3
SPEAKER_00
Totally agree.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now you re really, really good at setting up, I hate using the word networking events, it just brings to mind some sort of meetup.com mixer with a bowl of peanuts that no one s touching in the middle of the room, and a bunch of people in cheap suits handing out business cards.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you run really good events, and you and I have been to a bunch of really good events as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
What s some of your advice for, one, selecting the right type of event to go to so that we don t end up at the proverbial punchbowl mixer?
3
SPEAKER_00
And also, how do we make the most out of these good events instead of just showing up and thinking, wow, I should have been prepared for this?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I will say that, you know, for me, that by far the biggest revenue generating business development tool for me going back 10 years has been hosting client appreciation events, believe it or not.
3
SPEAKER_01
And those types of events don t have to be elaborate.
3
SPEAKER_01
They don t have to be like a big deal.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think, again, one of the standard tips for networking events is to go by yourself.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that advice is mainly aimed at the individuals who are freaking out about going.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so they go with a colleague, they go with someone who ends up being a crutch for them to lean on and talk to, so they don t talk to anyone else.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I actually feel like I m a big fan of bringing sand to the beach, if you will, where
3
SPEAKER_01
I will try to identify an event that has a good content element to it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I would hardly ever recommend going to an event if it s purely networking because then in order for it to be a good use of your time or money, you re putting all of your eggs in the basket of, am I going to meet one or two great people?
3
SPEAKER_01
Chances are pretty good that that s not going to happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you go to an event that has a great speaker or a great panel and you know you re going to get good information while you re there,
3
SPEAKER_01
it doesn t matter if you end up meeting just a bunch of cheese balls, because you could still say, I m glad I went, I got this great information.
3
SPEAKER_01
But what I like to do is take it a step further.
3
SPEAKER_01
And once I do identify the events that have good speakers or good information, as I figure out which clients of mine or which connections of mine would also benefit or enjoy hearing the speaker or learning from this panel, and I ll invite them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I take it a step even further,
3
SPEAKER_01
And when I invite them, I typically give them an invitation to bring someone else along with them.
3
SPEAKER_01
So now I m in a position where I m going to this event.
3
SPEAKER_01
If I don t meet anyone else there, that s fine because I got some great content.
3
SPEAKER_01
I bonded and deepened the relationship that I have with an existing client or a connection.
3
SPEAKER_01
I created an opportunity for them to
3
SPEAKER_01
bring someone from their network, a client of theirs, a colleague of theirs, to an event, and both of them had the opportunity to learn and get new, potentially game-chasing, or at least potentially impactful ideas for their business or their life.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that s kind of my go-to thought process for if and when I m going to go to some other type of event.
3
SPEAKER_00
So to recap this, basically, we can bring an existing client, does it matter if we ve known them for a while, or if this is, like you said, somebody where you don t know them very well, so you wanna bring them to that event, do you find one versus the other, or is it just kind of anybody that you have a pre-existing relationship with?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, look, you can probably, for a lot of us, especially if you have like a recurring revenue business, it s probably easier to justify the cost.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I would say that if it s someone that you re more loosely connected with, just saying, hey, I m going to this, is this something you d be interested in going to?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s probably a great way to add value, a great way to check in without sounding, you know, without doing what we were talking about earlier.
3
SPEAKER_01
I might not be too quick to like say, I m gonna pay for them if I haven t really interacted with them or talked with them in a while.
3
SPEAKER_01
But what I found, and I ve done this at scale with some of my client appreciation events, when I think about bringing an existing client or a really good current connection, and then have them bring somebody else, that s one of the easiest ways to disrupt that indifference I was talking about earlier.
3
SPEAKER_01
they re probably bringing somebody that is not thinking about changing their existing provider or hiring you for whatever it is you do.
3
SPEAKER_01
But now all of a sudden, you re going to have an opportunity to spend an hour or two with them at a minimum, even if you don t talk about your business, which you shouldn t do unless you re hosting an event for that purpose.
3
SPEAKER_01
They re going to start thinking, you know, why doesn t my existing
3
SPEAKER_01
IT person or accountant or financial advisor invite me to do cool stuff like this?
3
SPEAKER_01
And why don t they give me the opportunity to bring my clients or my friends to participate in things like this, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s kind of like the first step of getting in front of people that would probably be ideal for you to know and maybe even potential clients that you otherwise would not have had the opportunity to meet.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for listening and supporting the Art of Charm.
3
SPEAKER_00
For a list of all of the amazing sponsors and discount codes, visit theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, back to the show.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is interesting because when you bring sand to the beach, usually a term we reserve for a different context, but when you bring sand to the beach like this, it s perfect because not only do you have somebody that you can work the room with, but you can also demonstrate your ability to generate connections and things like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
They can see that it looks good for you and for your business.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I know some people are thinking, oh, I don t want to bring my clients to an area where they might get poached by another company.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the truth of the matter is, when you bring somebody like a current client to an event like this, there s almost no chance that they re going to develop a relationship with somebody else in the room, right in front of you, in the same industry, and then leave you for that person.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just a very far-fetched scenario.
3
SPEAKER_00
I suppose it could happen, but it s very unlikely, if you re doing this correctly, that something like that s gonna happen.
3
SPEAKER_00
And additionally, if there s not a whole lot going on at the event, or there s a lull, you can always talk with that person.
3
SPEAKER_00
They can introduce you to people that they re meeting, and you can do the same thing at the event.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s kind of like having a wingman at a networking event, only instead of pulling somebody from your business, you re pulling somebody that you wanna deepen the relationship with, and it makes sense for both of you to do that, instead of just becoming work.
3
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, yep.
3
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned client appreciation events and things like that, ways to meet other clients, or I suppose if we re on the job hunt or if we re in an existing industry and we re happy to at least make connections inside our industry, inside our company, laterally, whatever, how do you set up these, I guess, client appreciation events as ways to meet more people?
3
SPEAKER_00
How can we set up events ourselves that will generate beneficial relationships?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s a lot of ways to do this.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve hosted several hundred round table lunches over the past five, six, seven years where I just bring together my clients, strategic partners, and then they invite people and I m facilitating conversations where people are talking about their business and their ideal client and how other people can help them.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve had a couple of clients that are into playing poker.
3
SPEAKER_01
I haven t done this in a couple of years, but it s just another example of something that doesn t have to cost a lot of money.
3
SPEAKER_01
For me, the one that ended up providing
4
SPEAKER_01
most bang for its buck was wine tasting events.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had a lot of clients that enjoyed drinking wine, and so I would put together a wine tasting event, and when I invite my clients to attend, the invitation is always for them and for someone else.
4
SPEAKER_01
The way that this works is, look, when you re thinking about who you want to invite, don t feel like you have to bring a prospective client.
4
SPEAKER_01
this is first and foremost for you and we re going to drink good wine.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s going to be a small portion at the beginning, five or 10 minutes where I m going to share an idea pertaining to our business, but it s not going to be a sales pitch and it s only going to be five or 10 minutes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, there s a couple of things I want to point out.
4
SPEAKER_01
One is, I figured out over time by accident that if I say in the e-mail, don t feel like you have to bring a prospective client for me, I m planting a seed that is making them think about bringing a prospective client for me.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because before I said this, I had clients bringing their spouse or bringing like their cousin.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, okay, that s good.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I would love to be able to leverage this as a way to meet other great people as well, like people that could be potential clients.
4
SPEAKER_01
And by just mentioning that it helped out a lot.
4
SPEAKER_01
Another thing, and this pertains to my industry, but I think it works in any industry, I may throw in every once in a while, I m going to be covering a strategy during the first 10 minutes that s really only going to be beneficial for business owners that are generating at least seven figures, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
So that s not me
4
SPEAKER_01
sounding cheesy saying, can you please just bring somebody that has like a million dollars or more of investable assets?
4
SPEAKER_01
I m saying that the thing that I m going to be talking about is probably going to be over the head of anyone that is not at that particular level.
4
SPEAKER_01
Those are a couple of really subtle things that, you know, over the years, I ve like by accident, I ve just sort of figured out that that works really well in terms of increasing the likelihood that my clients are going to bring people that are going to be good for me to meet.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the way it works is then people get there and I share a little tidbit or give them some good information.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the key for this is to think about sharing a couple of things that probably don t have anything that are not directly related to the major thing that you provide.
4
SPEAKER_01
But again, thinking about disrupting the indifference.
4
SPEAKER_01
So
4
SPEAKER_01
I think I ve mentioned this to you before, Jordan, but I have a couple of friends that are in the commercial insurance business.
4
SPEAKER_01
So they go around and they want companies to set up their business insurance with them and their auto insurance and everything else.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what I suggested to them, because I don t do this directly, but it s a question I ask a lot of my clients, and that is, do you know what sort of uninsured motorist coverage you have on your policy?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because the way most people get their car insurance,
4
SPEAKER_01
is they go for the cheapest thing possible.
4
SPEAKER_01
But what they don t realize is that if they re in a car accident with somebody that doesn t have insurance and something really bad happens to them, that it could come out of their pocket in a really big way.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that s just an idea that, you know, most people there have probably not done that and they haven t had a conversation with their existing
4
SPEAKER_01
insurance person about this and they re going to start thinking like, why hasn t my insurance guy told me about this before?
4
SPEAKER_01
And then after you re done your little introduction, your little quick tidbit or sharing of information,
4
SPEAKER_01
then that s when everybody starts drinking wine and hanging out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the reason you don t have to sell your business is because you are the thing that everyone there has in common.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s not even that client A brings a guest and client B brings a guest.
4
SPEAKER_01
Client A is not selling their guest on me, but client A s guest starts talking to client B. And they go, so what brings you here?
4
SPEAKER_01
Are you a client of Derek s?
4
SPEAKER_01
No, I m a guest of this person over here.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then they start saying, oh, well, we love working with Derek and Washington Financial Group.
4
SPEAKER_01
And those types of conversations happen a lot to where
4
SPEAKER_01
people leave there and typically about half of the guests that show up to these wine tasting events end up proactively contacting me and becoming clients of mine.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like the very first year I did these back six, seven years ago, I did four of them and I generated $150,000 of brand new recurring revenue from guests of my clients at those four events.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s incredible, and I think for people who are sitting there thinking like, oh, I don t generate clients, I work in tech or whatever, don t throw the baby out with the bathwater here, because there s a lot of really good wisdom here for setting up your own events.
4
SPEAKER_00
We call this creating a platform when we talk about it in Social Capital, but what we mean essentially is, let s say you ve got a careers in tech meetup, and it happens every other month, and you start getting people who are job hunting.
4
SPEAKER_00
Great, okay, not a ton of connections, but some of those people find jobs, and you stay in touch with them.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then you get in touch with the people who recruited them and then you get the recruiters coming to your meetups looking for people who are interested in certain type of career in tech and have a certain type of qualification or whatever at your event.
4
SPEAKER_00
And now suddenly you re the hub of this.
4
SPEAKER_00
And for one thing, you ll never have a tough time finding a job because you ll know all the recruiters from all these different headhunters and major tech companies will be on a first name basis with you for the last few months or years.
4
SPEAKER_00
But also you ll have tons and tons of lateral connections
4
SPEAKER_00
or not so lateral connections inside your own industry and in other industries as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s a really, really good use of time, especially if you re doing this like, how often do you have events?
4
SPEAKER_00
Six times a year, 12 times a year?
4
SPEAKER_00
How often are you doing this?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, I mean, that s mainly what I was doing for the Wealth Magic business.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, with Cadre, we re doing like 30, 40 different types of events.
4
SPEAKER_01
each year.
4
SPEAKER_01
And to your point, I mean, those are very tailored and very specific to what we re providing our members.
4
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, the roundtable lunches that I ve hosted over the years, those are very easy to set up and they can be done for a number of reasons.
4
SPEAKER_01
So there is OpenTable actually now has a dedicated link where you can sort
4
SPEAKER_01
you can search for all of the restaurants wherever you live in North America, and they even have it, I think, in Europe as well, for all the restaurants that have private rooms.
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And what you can do is you can contact the restaurant and you just figure out, are you able to do separate checks so that you re not footing the bill for everybody?
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They almost always say yes.
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And then you re just inviting people together for whatever reason to come and have lunch.
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And all you are doing, all they are doing is paying for their own lunch.
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But you can facilitate a conversation around whatever it is you re
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that you re looking to have a conversation about.
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Right, this is purely curation.
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Basically what you re doing is having a small number of people get together, and especially if you re just starting out, I mean, you could do this with like four or five people.
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You could even do it with four or five people, two or three of whom are your existing friends, just in case something goes horribly wrong, and because you wanna get great feedback that s not just there to spare your feelings.
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And this can be something that grows into something really, really big.
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We ve sort of stumbled on this by accident,
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When we were starting out the Art of Charm in New York, we had meetups where guys could come, guys and girls could come in and talk about different, back then it was mostly dating stuff.
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And there were times where we had 60 people in our New York office, standing room only, lined for the bathroom, ran out of wine an hour ago type of event.
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that we just had no idea how many people were gonna show up and do that and what ended up happening was we accidentally made hundreds of thousands of dollars in referrals because of this and sent tons of business to friends of ours and other therapists and counselors and doctors and things like that for people who came for different reasons and it was incredible and it happened, it was kind of a snowball effect.
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We only invited a few influencers
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and that happens.
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So I think if people are starting off, maybe invite a couple friends and a couple other friends of theirs just to get the feedback and get the ball rolling.
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But once you start making contact with people who are influential in the industry, basically you re gonna have the quality problem of how do I fit all these people in one room?
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And you re gonna have to lean into your RSVP system and things like that.
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And it sounds intimidating at first, but it sounds like this has been a no-brainer for you to continue doing these types of events.
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And in fact, I assume you started Cadre as a result of having these other events go really well, or was it the other way around?
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Yeah, you re right.
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It was seeing that they were working well and sort of figuring out, you know, the best way to bring people together and create value for them and how to make connections, how to make sure people were following up.
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And, you know, Melanie, I were just talking like, hey, maybe this is something we could turn into an actual business and do it just in support of my
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wealth management business.
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But you know, I was at the point before Cadre was ever even an idea where I was hosting maybe three lunches a month.
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And it sounds crazy.
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But look, even if you don t do three a month, if you have a lunch with 10 people and starts off with 10 people that you know, and 50% of them, which is a very low estimate, right?
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Because if you re inviting the right people, and they find it to be a good use of their time,
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50% of them invite someone else to come the next month, right?
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That s five new people.
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And then after the second lunch, you re having 50% of them invite new people, which is seven more people, right?
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And then it gets to the point where after your third lunch, you now have 23 people that you re connected with that you previously didn t know.
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And all you did was plan the lunch, add value for the initial group of people who were there.
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And again, you re not paying for it.
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You re paying for your own lunch.
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And
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taking it a step further, even though it shouldn t be necessarily your primary reason for doing it, everyone there, including you, gets an opportunity to talk about their business and what an ideal client looks like.
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Whatever it is you want to talk about, you re going to have an opportunity to share with people that otherwise might not have given you the time of day.
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Again, people, if you re not trying to generate clients or generate business for your own business, but maybe looking for a job or might be on the market for that, or just want to make connections,
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in your industry, I strongly urge you to apply these exact same concepts and principles, even if you think people might go, why do I want to meet up with other people in my industry?
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That doesn t make sense.
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I work enough.
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I really think there s a massive advantage to being connected across different companies in your same industry and having, I hate to use this word, overuse this word, but tentacles that go up the ladder and down the ladder in your own company and laterally across to different companies in your own industry because it s pure job security.
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when you have those types of connections.
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As we ve known and said many times on the show before, 80% of connections, jobs, things like that are found through your network.
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And this is one of the best ways to create, generate, maintain those connections.
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Derek, thanks so much, man.
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This has been super informative and very practical and tactical, which we always love here.
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Is there anything that I haven t asked you that you want to make sure you deliver?
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No, this was awesome.
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Great job as always.
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Love chatting with you whenever I get the opportunity.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for having me.
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Really good stuff, of course, Derek always brings it, but I wanna just reiterate one last time that even if you re not trying to seek clients for your business, but you re looking for a job, you re in a certain industry, take the advice here and adapt it to you.
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You don t have to be a genius to do it.
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I know you guys know what I m talking about.
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And if you enjoyed this, don t forget to thank Derek on Twitter.
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We ll have that linked in the show notes as well as some of the books and other resources mentioned on the show.
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Remember, you can tap the album art in your podcast player to see the show notes for this episode.
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We ll link to the show notes directly on your phone.
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I m also on Twitter, I post a ton of stuff, I engage with a ton of people there, at The Art of Charm on Twitter, that s me.
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Boot camps are live programs at bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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This is how you learn from us directly.
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Super powerful, transformative experience.
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We ve been doing it for almost 10 years, so check that out, bootcamp.theartofcharm.com, and we sell out a few months in advance.
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So if you re thinking about it a little bit, fill out that little form or give us a call.
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We ll get in touch ASAP to get some info to you so you can plan ahead.
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And we ve got our AOC challenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge to dip your toes in the water here.
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You can also text charmed, C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
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This challenge is about improving your networking skills, improving your connection skills, creating relationships, both personal and professional with those around you.
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And we ll send you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show.
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I m also doing regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward.
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This will make you a better networker, it ll make you a better connector, and it will make you a better thinker.
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So go to theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the United States to 33444.
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For the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of The Art of Charm, head on over to theartofcharm.com slash podcast.
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This episode of AOC was produced by Jason DeFillippo.
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
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And show notes on the website, those are by Robert Fogerty.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared here on the web.
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So stay charming, and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.