Cameron Herold says adding people on LinkedIn isn't networking. Real networking means showing up to mastermind groups, breakout sessions, and dinners where you add value without asking for anything back. He credits his network to years in peer communities that typically return 10x their cost.
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All right, so just a little random thought as I'm just sitting around waiting for my girlfriend right now. And I was going through some social media and adding people on social media is not networking. It's incredible the amount of people who add me on LinkedIn and they're like, oh, it's so great to connect with you. You know, looking forward to getting to know you. You're not going to get to know people on on social media, at least not the way that you think you are. And adding, you know, hundreds or thousands of people on LinkedIn or adding them all on Facebook and then spamming them with your marketing really isn't working for you. By the way, this is my new hat. I love my new hat. So. But networking is really about building relationships and seeing how you can help other people and getting to know other people, you know, getting to know their problems, their insecurities, their fears, their passions, their joys, what they're working on, and just trying to see if you can add value to that or if you can connect with them in a meaningful way. A couple of books you might want to take a look at, they're written by friends of mine. One was written by Derek Coburn called Networking Is Not Working. Great read, highly recommend it. And also take a look at Mastermind Dinners, which was written by Jason Gaynord. I've actually been to five of Jason's Mastermind Talks events. And networking is when you show up at those Mastermind events, either in person or the online events, and you contribute and you show up in the breakouts and you show up in the cocktail parties and you try to add value and get to help other people without any kind of an ask and without any kind of a mask to ask. But you're there just to learn and to help. And that's probably why I've been a member of so many different Mastermind groups. You know, I've been to five Mastermind Talks. I've been a member of Strategic Coach for seven years. I've been a member of the Genius Network for six years. I've gone to the Main TED Conference for nine years. I've gone to War Room. I've been to three Baby Bathwater events. I was a member of the Entrepreneurs Organization for five years. Those are the reasons why my network is as big as it is. It's not because I add people on social media. In fact, I think I have around 10,900 people on LinkedIn and at most, I've only ever added about 100 in the 16 years that I've been on LinkedIn, I think I've added a total of 100 people on LinkedIn and the others have seen me on stage or added me. So think about that. When you're, you know, trying to do networking for marketing purposes, is it really something that's actually going to drive your business? Are you going to get value from it or are you wasting time and just being helpful? I think there's far better ways for most people to be doing marketing and far better ways for people to actually spend time on their, on their networking. I also believe that anytime you join the Mastermind group or community, whether it's online or offline, you'll get at least a 10x return on your investment. So if you invest $10,000 in that mastermind group for the year, or 25,000, you can really expect about 100 to $250,000 in ideas on how to grow your company or save your company money or fast track some of your relationships and introductions. Hope that's helpful. Just a random thought and hope you like my hat. Take care everybody.
