Why You Fail At "Networking" | 156

what do you do? After you make the connection is the question is like, all right, we've been doing a lot of work. I've been amplifying my voice. I've been posting free content. I've been doing warm outreach to those in my contact list. I've been talking to strangers, explaining what I do and making my pitch. What do I do once I have their attention, This is what we're going to address Cause no, you cannot just stop there. Your job is not done. You have to seal the deal. In fact, this might be the most important part because this is the payoff for all the work you've done, up to this point. So think about this, Have you ever had a potential client, a potential investor, a potential partner, uh, someone that you're in conversation with who could help you move closer towards your vision? Move it forward or you can help them, but when they ask you for more information, you had nothing really to offer except some type of word salad. I usually, you know, my website isn't quite finished yet. I normally have my business card on me, patent your pockets. I'm in the process of writing a book. It's just need the publishing, you know, self publish. I don't know exactly here. Take my phone number. You got an email address. You've been there. You know what this is like. I've been there. That's how I know it so well. I was just repeating stuff that I've said in the past. I'm not saying that you've said that. But I know that this is a real problem. And even if you do have a website, let's be honest guys, even if you do have a website, you have a QR code, you have your link tree, you have your link in bio, whatever it is, does that really help? Like really? Does that really help? Great. They know you're about me page now they, they, what is, what do they do with that right now? They know your tagline. Okay, what now? You have to have something else in order to make the connection worth while. You need to have something that will actually move your vision forward and properly amplify your message. You need an offer. You need an offer. What is an offer? Let's just make it plain and simple. What is an offer? An offer is simply an opportunity. That is what an offer is. I'm going to ask you another question. Picture this. Go into your, your mind's eye real quick. Use your imagination. Picture this. Right now, as we speak, You're a hero. A knock on your door, you open the door, it's a taller gentleman, you know, standing there has a suit on and in his hand is a briefcase and the briefcase has your name on it. Now, you would like to be worried right now, right? What's going on here? Is this the mafia? What's happening? But his face looks so kind that for some reason you're not very alarmed. And. He opens his mouth and says, you know, hello, are you filling your name in the space? And you say, um, yes, yes, uh, this is me. He says, hi, my name is Dan Sutton. I am the owner of Pine Investments and I'm looking to make my next angel investment. What are you building? He has$15 million in the briefcase. He says, I'm looking to make my next angel investment. What are you building? Here's the catch. You got 15 seconds for him to understand what you're building. Could you articulate an offer that he will be interested in being a part of 15 seconds? If you think you could do that, put me in the chat. If you don't think you could do it, put not me in the chat. I just want to get a lens, you know, understand how many people would just are ready to ready aim fire. Okay. I'm getting not me. Cause I know I would be like, ah, well, um, you know. When I started back in 1999, I, I, I would be like, I don't, I, I would break, you know, well, not now, but I'm saying the version of me then when I, when I was trying to figure out my pitch and what I was working on and what I needed to have to make an offer, I was just, I would just be not ready. And this is the case for a lot of us. So we're waiting for an opportunity for things to work out. And what if the opportunity came, would you even be ready? I think I even put a quote in the, in the chat, not in the chat, in the, in the community earlier this week. And it was a quote from a quote from Quincy Jones. And he says, the worst thing is to have an opportunity. You're not prepared for that stinks, So you want to have. An offer ready at all times for various levels, of course, you might not be a 15 million offer that you need to put out there, but it could be a 15 offer or a 15 seconds of your time offer. But what are the components of an offer, right? So offer is an opportunity. An offer is an opportunity. There are three major components of any offer. Now, of course, making offers is nuance. This is why we have vision for newer schools. So we could get into these nuances, but overall, an offer is simple. It consists of three things. It consists of a target audience, a problem and a full or partial solution. That's it. A target audience, a problem. And a full or partial solution. Where'd I get this from? You know, we're going to the B I B L E that's the book for me. I'm about to show you one of the best offers. Of all time, It says, then Jesus said, come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burden. Some versions say heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden I give you is light. One of the best offers of all time. Three components in there, right? Well, let's just break this down, let's be a little pragmatic here. Jesus says, come to me. Who? Right? Who is your target audience? Everyone who is weary and carries heavy burdens, if that's you, If this was an infomercial, hey, do you have burdens that are heavy and you want to get them off? Like those infomercials, then, then you're sitting there, you know, at 11, 58 PM and you're like, yes, that's me. That's, that's my problem. That's, that's exactly what he was saying to them. And he says, okay, great. Now we know who we're talking to, let's address their problem. So, okay, if you are weary, listen up. Do you have this problem? Are you carrying heavy burdens? Well, yes, I am weary and yeah, I do have the problem of carrying heavy burdens. Let me, let me listen further. And he offers a solution or a desired outcome. I will give you rest. All you got to do is take my yoke upon you and let me teach you. That is the offer. If you identify as being weary, the target audience of this offer, if you have the problem of carrying a heavy burden, the problem that you are facing for this target audience, and you want the desired outcome of rest, I could give you that solution if you come learn of me for my yoga's easy and my burden's light. That is how you construct Now, it's not that difficult, but it's also not easy to do, but here's the thing, right? Here's what, here's help, help simplify it a little bit more because you might feel a little uneasy about, okay, I'm talking to these people. They're in my people system. I understand this, but I'm not trying to like, this gives salesmen, this gives salesy vibes. I'm not trying to, you know. Convince people to do what I, this is very not comfortable for me. Well, think about this. Literally every decision you make from the time you open your eyes to the time you close them is an offer. Literally every single decision you make. You have an opportunity to do one thing, or an opportunity to do something else. You have an opportunity to go to Chick fil A, or you have an opportunity because you know you just bought groceries yesterday and you just don't feel like making them, right? You have the opportunity of, you can follow this person on social media, or you cannot follow them on social media, or you can follow someone else on social media. You have the opportunity to go to sleep. Or you have the opportunity to stay up and go down the wormhole of the YouTube videos you're watching. You have an opportunity, an offer is literally made to you every single day. Every single hour, every single minute, you are taking or declining offers. So if that's the case, you are already presenting something that the person you're talking to was going to do anyway. They were going to make a decision about their problem anyway. Are y'all picking up what I'm putting down here? Like, they were already going to do that. What you are doing, in fact, is you are helping them. Because now you're actually having them make a decision about an opportunity that can move them closer to their desired outcome. So you are actually doing them a service. And if you stay silent and do not amplify your voice, you actually are doing them a disservice. So if you feel like you're being pitchy or salesy, think about it this, like, they're already going to make a decision about that problem. But by you speaking up and making an offer, now they can make a good decision that brings them closer to the life that they actually want to have. so what are some examples of offers you can make? This is we're getting really practical now, What are some things that you can do? Okay, you know, if I want to make an offer, what could it be? Well, there's a few options here that I'm going to share now. It doesn't have to be these. It could literally be anything that provides a solution. And we'll get a little bit more into that. But here are some ideas just to get your brain juices flowing of what it could be, especially if you're a visionpreneur, which is an individual who uses their ideas, insights, and influence to make impact and income. If you're into products, uh, this can still definitely work. It might just be a little bit more nuanced. And if you are in the arts, it still works. Um, but it might be a little bit more nuanced, but ultimately the principle stays the same. First thing. coaching and consulting, and this is a done with you service. Coaching and consulting, you know, something, you know, how to draw, you know, how to, uh, process taxes, you know, how to, manage, family disputes, you know, how to, uh, do legal practices for small entrepreneurs, you know, how to teach, uh, you know, elementary school education, all these things, right? You have something that is valuable. Do your experiences, do your expertise, do your encounters that someone else wants to know you can provide that done with them one on one or one to many through coaching and consulting. That's an easy offer that you can make. So how can we do is so that we don't even have to ask these questions later. This is all you need. Literally all you need. Did you hear me? All you need, I don't have to have a YouTube channel. You don't have to have a website. You don't have to have business cards. Okay, so all you need a scheduling application. Calendly, Google Calendar, Outlook, etc. And a communication medium, a phone, Zoom, Google Meets, etc. Literally only one thing on this thing. It's paid, and that's only if you're doing a certain amount of volume. I think Calendly, to a degree, if you're only doing one event, is free, so you don't gotta pay anything. Schedule a call. You're talking to someone in an Uber. Hey, schedule a call with me. In fact, I'll send you an invite. What's your email address? I'll get to this later. I'll get, I'm not going to get ahead of myself. Another one, a course. That is do it yourself. So that's literally just you sharing some type of information over a series of, uh, either written, audio or video presentations. And packaging it up so that the person could get a desired outcome. That's all a course is. And they could go through it at their own pace. So, someone wants to learn how to repair their own sink. You can make a course that says, okay, step one, you want to do this. Step two, you want to do this. Step three, step four, step five, by step six, you will have a repair sync. I've recorded all these videos to show you how to do it. Package this together. That is a course. Now, how can you do this? It's a slightly bit more complicated, but it's really not that difficult. You do not need some type of fancy software. The find your why challenge to this day is a YouTube playlist. I want, I'm going to get it off of there eventually because I'm going to refine it, but like it's a YouTube playlist. It's a unlisted YouTube playlist. That was my first course there I've also hosted courses on pay hip, pay hip helps you sell digital assets, basically free. Now they do take a percentage of your earnings, but to start it's free, especially if you're doing low volume, it really doesn't matter that much. Teachable is another platform that you can use to host courses. Now that's not free. Uh, and if you want to get a little bit more fancy, you can use teachable and there, there's countless other things that you can use to host a course, but all the courses is you consolidating a series of either audio, written or video into a step by step process. So someone could have a desired outcome. So we have coaching, consulting course or courses. Another offer you can make is a community. People are longing for relationships. People are longing for accountability. People are longing for like minded friends. It is very appealing right now, especially with the digital age that we're living in, people are looking for specific types of connections more than ever. Vision for Newer School is a community. It will actually, it's a hybrid, it's all those, it's all the things I've said so far, but that is an example, a pure example of what you could do. A community can literally be anything. It could be you meeting for once a week, like a book club type of thing. It could be just you having a group of people once a month, you drop some type of package of motivational thoughts or templates that they can use for their business or like infinite amount of things you could do to start a community, or it could just be a group of people that want to talk about a certain topic, Facebook group free. Visionpreneur School was actually a Facebook group before it was on school. You probably didn't know that because I hardly had anybody in there. It was failing. But um, it originally was a Facebook group. Uh, Circle. io is a popular community platform. Um, I have never used it, but I have been in communities that use it. And, um, it's alright. It's, it's, it's cool. Um, I'm a fan of School, because it does everything. If you are doing visionpreneurship, it's an all in one. And it's very simple. I love simplicity. Um, so That's another option. And there are countless other options for communities. Mighty Networks is another one. but you can honestly just do that in a Google search or go on YouTube. But a community is another offer that you can make. I'm just trying to get your mind going so you can have some ideas thinking about what possibly you can do. And you can literally do this while doing anything. You can be Working a regular job. You could be in the medical field or in the legal field or political science or whatever and you're like, Hey, I'm just trying to connect with other people who are first year medical students working a job trying to balance their life. Who wants to be a part of this community? Now when you talk to people, it's like, Hey, you know I actually have a community that blah blah blah blah blah Really? My cousin is actually in medical school. See what I'm saying? Lastly, transformational content. This is content that provides either a quantitative or qualitative outcome. So, that excludes, like, you sending them to a social media page that does not lead to a certain outcome. Like, okay, I'm sure they could get value from your profile, but you're not leading them from point A to point B, right? They're looking for a certain outcome, and you help them get that outcome. That's what I mean by transformational content. This could be a multiple, a multitude of things. This is nowhere close to the amount of things that this could be. But an ebook, possibly. A recorded masterclass or workshop. A checklist. For the longest time, one of my main lead magnets, or main offers, was people asking me what equipment I use to podcast. So what I did was, I made a clickable PDF with affiliate links. Of all these things that you just get off Amazon, but I package it together so they wouldn't have to look for it. And that was my offers like, Hey, all my, all my equipment recommendations are on here as long as well as software and all that stuff. I helped them go from not knowing what equipment to get and what software to buy to knowing that easy. Right? So it could be a checklist. A resource list, Book recommendations. I don't know. Uh, content recommendations. Something they're like, they're looking for more inspiration. Oh, I have this list of the top seven most inspirational blah blah blah for this niche. Would you like it? Absolutely. That could be another one. A tutorial on how to do something. You have experience in masonry. You have a tutorial of how to lay bricks for your front step. That could be an offer. And there's so many other things that this could be. Um, I don't even know what to, I mean, so many things. Literally anything that solves their problem. If it solves a problem, it works. Other than maybe you going out there and doing it yourself. Like, you physically doing it, that, that's not an option actually. Because it's not leading to what I'm about to talk about next. Okay, and this is what I'm about to talk about next. You have to, this is the main reason why you're making an offer, is to capture information about the individual. Why? Because you can only help people that you can get in contact with. By you not getting contact information on the individuals that you are talking to, you are doing them a disservice in the future. Because when you can help them, whether it's in the present or in the future, you can't get in touch with them. So you have to have a system for capturing their information so that you can contact them after you connect with them. Email capture, I find, is the most frictionless way because there's a lot of email marketing software that is very cheap to no cost that can do this for you. Along with, people have gotten accustomed to sharing their email addresses. So there's not as much friction as toward you asking for something possibly like a phone number, or a physical, uh, mailing address. Those things are a little bit, people hold those a little bit more tightly as of right now. So it might be a little bit more off putting. You might not feel comfortable asking for that information. But an email address is pretty, you know, common practice now. So something that you can use to capture these email addresses. A simple Excel or Google sheet. That's pretty straightforward and easy. MailChimp is an email service provider that is affordable and actually very good. I haven't used them in a few years, but I do know that they're leading class in what they do. MailerLite. I personally use MailerLite for my own email marketing, uh, software. Flodesk, ActiveCampaign, and there are literally Tons and tons of others. They're all pretty much the same thing. Some have this feature. Others have that feature. Some don't have this. Some don't have that. But overall, they're primarily the same type of thing. Just do a quick Google search or use the recommendations that I have, whether it's on here or in Visionpreneur School. I have links to stuff. Um, so that is the crux of the whole thing. These are some examples of what you can do. What I do want you to understand though is this. About making an offer. Your offer should never, ever, ever be, and I've made this mistake scraps that you are just looking to get rid of. What I mean by scraps, things that don't provide very much value, but you have them so you don't have a problem giving them away for free. So, like, and I'm not saying that an offer has to be free, but I'm just saying, like, if it was a free offer, something where it's like, oh, well, I no longer, or, or, like, I could just throw together, like, this, uh, list of places that I like to go in, in the city or something like that, and it's something that, like, it's kind of like a throwaway, it's not much value, it's something that somebody could easily do on their own. That's not a good offer. Why? Because you want the offer to always be something that you can actually charge for, but you don't. That's what makes a good offer. That's what's like, oh man, this actually really helped me. Now I'm going to listen to what they have to say next. This is how you amplify your voice without even having to amplify your voice. When you give people value that exceeds their expectations, They automatically out of human nature feel a level of reciprocity that they want to provide to you. And this is not manipulative in any type of way. I believe as a follower of Christ that you should always put forth quality and excellence because you're representing him. And I have gotten offers that just like, okay, this was not even that valuable. This was just a throwaway extra thing that they had or like a piece of a course makes no sense out of context. And they're just trying to get my email address so they could sell me something like it does not put you in a good light So you definitely want all your offers to be something if it's not a paid offer if it's a free offer Something that you could charge for but you give it away for free and it provides a transformational experience for the individual the most important things are it's a specific solution for a specific audience with a specific problem a specific solution For a specific audience, the specific problem. And number two, am I capturing some form of contact information? Now, this is not in my notes. But I'm about to give you guys a quick hack. when it comes to capturing information, this is a Critical but common mistake I see made because I made it myself for a long time and I see other people do all the time. What you want to do is you want to ask that person for their contact information. We're going to use the example of an email address here. Never I repeat, never ever have them email or contact you. Don't do that. Always say you don't even have to have their email address, um, have to get their email address necessarily to do what you're going to do, but ask for it anyway. Hey, uh, cause you, let's just, let's just, let's just say technically they have a, uh, iPhone and you have an iPhone and you could just airdrop it to them. Don't airdrop it to them. Say, Hey, let me get your email address. I'll send it to you. It's so easy. Literally so easy. Oh yeah. You know, I have a list that, that has all the podcast equipment that you probably want. Do you want me to send it to you? Give me your email address. They'll be like, Oh, okay. I guarantee you, the conversion rate is either 99 percent or 100%. People are scared to say no to your face. They, unless they're a complete stranger that you have built no rapport with, and you just scoop somebody off the street, they're most likely going to say yes, especially if you make an offer that can help them. Now what they won't do, possibly because life happens, you say, hey, yeah, um, This is cool. You should book a call with me. You send them the link to your booking, whatever. And what happens? They don't do it. Cause life gets in the way. They get distracted. They get busy. They lose. Oh man, where was that link? Even if they, even if you have a method to do it. No, no, no, no. Send them the Calendly link. Send them the Google Meet, whatever. Email it to them. Hey, you should book a call. Let me get your email. I'll send you an invite link. Always do it that way. You will convert every single time, and you will get a lot more engaged leads from your people system, if you do it this way. If you do it the other way, where they have to do some type of work in order for you to get their information, 50 percent of the time, it's not gonna happen. That's just how it works. And it's not their fault, it's not like they're trying to whatever, but people get busy, they forget or whatever, you know, put it off and something happens. They lose it or whatever. That is the hack. That is not in my script, but I just had a How to say that, because I see that happens so often. Oh, I told him to contact me. Oh, you know, so just a word to the wise there. And look, you can also stack offers. Some primarily been talking about free offers, but you can also have paid offers, right? And if you can, if you look, do not underestimate what people can do with their money. You will be surprised. OK, so if you have an offer that you think can help somebody and it costs, even if it costs a lot, tell them about it. You'll be surprised. People will do almost anything to help them solve a problem if the problem is significant enough to them. You can stack offers. One offer can lead to another offer, right? So, the podcast equipment, you know, okay, well, great, now I have their email, I give them the PDF that they can click all the links. Well, now I have their email address. I say, Hey, you know, have you ever started a thought about having an outline for your show? I created a course on how to do a complete outline for your show before you even hit record. I'm like, Oh, well, yeah, I just bought all this equipment. I guess I need to have an outline. It's 20 bucks. I'm just speaking hypotheticals here, but it's one offer that leads to another offer and you are continually helping this person solve their problem over an extended period of time. You're not going for, you know, trying to hook jaws on your fishing line the first time you cast into the ocean. But these are just ways that you can manipulate these things. Offers on offers, offers leading to offers, offer stacks, all these different things. But you gotta have an offer so that you can convert the person from a lead from your people system to an engaged lead through your offer system. Now, here's something that I want to address that I know can be challenging and possibly could be a question coming up. Are you having trouble answering those questions possibly? Remember the questions I said, what's your target audience? What's the problem you're solving and what's the solution that you have that can be difficult? It sounds really simple on the surface, but when you really start trying to think it's like, oh, I don't know You know, what is who am I targeting? I thought it was this but it might be this or is this too broad Do I need to narrow this down? I know they say the riches in the niches Oh, like maybe I'm not quite sure This, this free, what I'm about to share with you, freed me. Okay? It freed me. I'm not even going to take credit for it. I got it from a very bright young lady. She's a coach. Her name is Courtney Sanders. You can look her up. She's great. The problem of the niche. Here's what your niche is. Your niche is the people you empower to push past a problem you've overpowered via the path you pursued. That is it. Now you have lived a lot of life up to this point, you've probably overcome a multitude of problems. Up to this point, but you have to just choose which version of you, you are solving the problem for, but no longer, you do not have to do all the market research and the, the, the, the ask campaigns and the, this campaign and that campaign and analysis and you are the niche and there are lots of different versions of you. Which one are you choosing based on what you feel called by God to do and the sector you've been assigned to, your Metron, your sphere of influence, that you are going to help. The best person that can help you is the, is the future version of yourself. Or the person that you can help the most is the past version of you. And here's the thing guys, you are very special and God loves you very much, but you are not that unique. Well, you are unique, just like everybody else. If you had a problem and you figured out a way to solve it, I guarantee you somebody else on this planet has that problem and they are looking for a solution. This is how you determine who your target audience is, the problem and the solution in one sentence. Now, this might take some time to think about it, but I've given you the, the bumper rails. If we're speaking in an analogy here or metaphorically for your to roll a strike. Okay. This is it. This can even apply if you're doing things in the arts, right? Like I know I enjoy singing. I enjoy making skits and videos. I'm making content for me. Literally how I would judge my TikToks before I put them out. I say, if I don't laugh, if I do not find this funny, I'm not dropping it. Because if I'm not laughing, most likely other people aren't going to laugh either. I am the barometer. I'm making it for me. The art that you create, the things that you write, the films that you script, The stories that you tell, the lectures that you give, the courses that you make, are coming from a place of experience. Are coming from a place of endured expertise. From you. Your life. That's why no one can do it like you. That's why even if the market is crowded, you can still go in it and make noise. You could still go in there and amplify your voice and people will hear your voice and say that's the one that I want to follow. This is how you answer that question. I don't know if that was just me that, that, that like helped me so much. But if that helped you, just let me know if that helped you, bruh. Because when I tell you that lifted a burden off my back. You are the niche. What problem have you been able to overcome by the grace of God? Someone else needs help. It could be a child version of you. It could be the version of you just last year. Someone needs it. And they're waiting for someone to present them an offer and opportunity to solve it.