Using LinkedIn to Turn Your Network into Your Referral Partners

Brynn, I'm so excited because I've been able to follow some of the journey of your incredible work in the LinkedIn space and so much more. I know this is a focus for today. I know Gerhard absolutely adores you and is so excited to be able to showcase your work as well. So Gerhard, I don't know if you want to jump in before, before Brynn and I just—

I just want to say one thing that your LinkedIn network equals, if you do it right, the brain way equals your net worth.

Oh, there we go. Yes. Okay. So, Bren, that's like the perfect opening in terms of the power of the work that you're doing and all of the solutions you've been building. So where are you with it now? And when do we get to see it all?

Well, so, you know, I'm very excited to be here with you, Tricia. I adore you and I think you're amazing. And one of the things that you are most known for is you are one of the best networkers in all of the world. Like, you just are, right? Like, and when I knew I was doing this topic and you were gonna be here, I was really excited. Because here's the thing that we know, you know, we're listening to all this AI, we're listening to all this technology, and then we're hearing people talk about human in the loop. We're hearing it in, you know, almost every single conversation. But, you know, as well as I do, we can have all the networking relationships in the world. And then I could say, so, Tricia, who do you know that could use my LinkedIn training? And no matter how much you know me, you're not like thinking about everyone. You might be. Most people are not thinking because you're a great connector. Most people want to be a great connector, but they don't really know who they know. Right. And so That's what I'm really excited about, because what we're going to talk about today is how do we take these networking relationships, the ones that you're teaching your members how to grow and build, the one, you know, and folks that are here today, you're probably all networkers, right? You're in here, you're doing these networking breaks, you're meeting people. Now let's turn this into business opportunity. Let's turn this into referrals and introductions. So now instead of saying, Tricia, who do you know? I could say, Tricia, here's a link to all the people that, you know, that I'm looking to meet. Can we talk through them and maybe make some introductions and vice versa? So that's what we're going to do today.

It's so powerful, Brynn, because at uber network size, you know, like Gerhard, like you, like, you know, and you remembering everybody, remembering everybody, it's just so hard. And you also have that scenario where you're wanting to be able to deliver real value. So Brynn, you say to me, I would love to be able to connect with people that you think this would create value for, and I don't want to miss out on people. And then you get stuck. As soon as you start thinking, you get stuck because that's a problem, right? In, in terms of how your brain's processing what you want to be able to do versus what you know you're going to be able to do. So I know, I know we only have a limited amount of time.

Yeah.

So I'm just thrilled. I'm sitting here with bated breath.

Well, I'm excited to share. There's also a link that's going to be shared with everybody.

Yep. When you— in the chat right now. Thank you, Amanda.

When you click on that link, you're gonna come here, and this is your step-by-step. So I'm gonna go pretty quickly. But you'll be able to come back to this resource and go step by step to see what it is that I've done. So as I go into LinkedIn, most people don't realize there's a ton of hidden filters right in the free LinkedIn. So when I use my search here in the search bar, I can build out Boolean search logic. In this case, let's say, Tricia, you want to meet CIOs, CTOs, CISOs. You might want to meet entrepreneurs or CEOs of companies. You know, well, let's build one out for you. Let's do it live. So this would be yours, right? So I know you want to meet CEOs or owners, right?

Mhm. Yep. Investors.

Investor or partner.

Mhm.

Okay, now I like— or founder. Okay, great. So when I put in that, and I— the reason I did all cap locks is because your ORs have to be capitalized in order for it to be seen as a search string. So this has now gone into LinkedIn and it's got lots of things. It has people and posts all looking for these keywords. But I want to go to people. So when I click on people, now I have all of LinkedIn, like the— and you can't see a number here in the free, but Millions of CEOs and investors are actually on this list, but I want to bring this down further. So what I want to do is go— I want first degree and rec, and I'll explain why in just a moment. And location, you're mostly US, are you Canada too?

Yep, both. Well, we're all over the world, but predominantly the US and Canada.

That's okay, great. So, so for this exercise, we'll do US and Canada.

Perfect.

So now what do I have? I have a list of my CEOs, owners, investors, partners, and founders in the US and Canada. This is my list. These are my first-degree connections. So this is great because we could go through this. We're sharing a screen and you could say, I'd love to meet Stacy and Sue. She looks great. Oh, Chad, he'd be wonderful. So now I invite them to your New York event or I invite them to one of your networking events. So that I can introduce you to them, or even an online Friday event, whatever that might look like. I'm not going to say, hey, you have to talk to Tricia so she can sell you into membership. What I will say, though, is there are so many opportunities to experience Tricia. So, you know, I think you would love this. You'd be great for this group. Go to one of the free events. Now I've got a lot of opportunity here and there's 10 on the page. I have well over 100. But here's the thing right now. Most people don't know how to do this search, right? So you're like, okay, well, great, Brynn, you know how to do it. So you got your list. But here's the really cool thing. This link at the top, this is a link that is literally made up of the filters. So if you look in there, it has CEO or owner or investor all built into that link. So when I copy this link and I share this with you, and I'm gonna actually put it in, if you click on this, and actually if we shared it with everyone in the audience, whomever clicks on it will now see their first-degree connections in the US and Canada that are CEOs, owners, investors, partners, or founders. And those are all people that you wanna meet. So this list, if you bookmark this, you can use with anyone and you can say, here is a link to the people you know that I'd like to invite to the next event.

That's fantastic. Yeah, simple.

So now I went and bought BrynnConnections.com. Anyone can do it and I redirect it to my link and all I have to do is I'm out and about is when anyone puts in BrynnConnections.com, they're going to see the list of sales or marketing VP, director, CRO, CMO in Canada and the US that they know that I, I want to meet. So anyone can put it in and they'll see their first-degree connections. So I know it was short and sweet, and I want to kind of continue to talk through this in our last 5 minutes here because this is now— I, I'd love to throw this to you to talk about how would you use this with your group.

So, so I mean, I love this, Brynn, because it's one simple tool, one simple tool. And I have, uh, LinkedIn, obviously, Sales Navigator, the whole thing. Um, this one simple tool to actually arm our partners, our leaders across the whole C-suite community. It's in a, in a millisecond. This is the right people. You don't need to worry. And you can just go through and invite them to this event. And then, Brynn, you invite those people, please come, I want to, I want to host with you, I want to showcase you. And so it allows me the opportunity to deliver on my brand promise, which is elevated, you know, elevation in our community and through all the different platform pieces we have, right? Our events and our digital content, social content, etc. So, so for me, right away, and I, and I'm very grateful my head of operations is here right now because, um, this is one of those things where I can implement this literally to 100+ people today, uh, that are already ambassadors of C-suite. That's not even including our, our members and partners and leaders, uh, across the whole ecosystem. It's— yes, love it. Simple and doable.

It's so simple. And I do recommend, once you get that list— and, and you have that list, so if Rebecca clicks through that list, she should— she can save it. You don't even I don't have to do anything else.

I'm texting it to her right now.

But now here's the— I'll share one more thing though. If you—

if—

and this is for you anyway, everyone that's listening, you can now switch this out and say, I'm going to be in Texas, I'm going to be in Houston. And so now I can switch out Canada and the US, and you can send it to all the people in the whole country saying, who do you know in Houston? You may not be going to that event, but you can send someone that you know. To that event.

Yes.

And then you do one for Vegas and you do one for New York and you do— right. And, and we're going to be here on this date. Who can you invite? The appetizers are on me.

Yes, yes.

Right.

I love that, Brynn. Yes, absolutely. And, and it's something that helps simplify the work that somebody has to do when they really want to be able to help. And so that's something I can also share with others because I'll get Like, to your point, I'll get, Tricia, who could you invite from this city? And it's like, oh my goodness. I mean, there's a lot. So what would that mean? And again, you ended up in that freeze where it's like, I really want to help, but it's painful to pull 5 people from memory and you don't even know if you're really hitting the mark for what that person actually needs.

Right? Absolutely. So, I mean, it's a lot of fun. It's really simple to do. The steps are there, guys. So go ahead. Click through that link that's in the, the chat. You have the steps there. I also have free events because I think the best way anyone can ever work with you is to experience you for free. So you got me today a little bit, um, you know, but we have events that we go to. Really great way, guys, for you to network. But even if you're not doing events, think about— you've got to have 5 to 7 really great networking partners, maybe people that are selling into the same buyer but, you know, are not competing with you. These are the people that you want to do this with on a consistent basis.

Well, and this is, this is something where you can piggyback into other events, you know. And again, for C-Suite Network, we're always— we have over 600 events a year, so we're always wanting to help showcase everybody. This is who you should be working with. This is great. So, so, uh, all anybody needs to do is go to your LinkedIn profile and get set up for one of sessions, right, Britt?

Oh, well, it's all— so my session, if you click on the link, there's a link to the sessions.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah, they're all— they're in that hub. Uh, certainly connect with me on LinkedIn, but, um, you know, everything that we talked about today is in that step-by-step. I see lots of people clicking on it because I love— I get a little notification, so I've got tons of little notifications, so I know that people are getting in.

Um, And we have a couple of minutes. I don't know if anybody—

Yeah, I'm happy to answer questions.

Oh, and happy belated birthday.

Oh, thank you.

That's from Stuart Robles. Wonderful, Stuart. I just had a birth— I'm thinking at this point in life we should have birthday month for sure. So I'm working on a couple of weeks now.

Well, mine was on Father's Day, so I shared it. Yeah, it was a lot of fun spent with my grandbabies, which is always perfect. So thank you.

What is the thing that you think people get wrong the most in LinkedIn?

Yeah, they think that people are interested in your stuff. I mean, no one is. I— unless you're getting an inbound lead, no one's interested. They need to experience you. They— you need to bring value. Um, you know, you have to earn the right for them to ever care about what you do. And if we're going to talk about what they really, really do wrong, kind of on the coattails of a lot of the conversations today is they're using AI for manufactured empathy, for engineered empathy, which I think is professional gaslighting. So it's like, Tricia, I'm really impressed with all the things that you're doing at the C-Suite Network and this. And I scraped this from your profile, so you think I looked at it. And then I say, and we help CEOs just like you do this, this, and this. And you're like, That, like, it's, it's, it's so gross.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Don't try to trick me. Don't. I would much rather you say, hi, I'm Brynn's AI. And, you know, as an AI bot, that's fine. I could have fun with that. But don't, don't try to trick me. Don't tell me you looked at my profile when you didn't. Don't tell me you're impressed with something when you have no idea what my name is because it was just So, so using this automation and AI to the detriment of authenticity. And, you know, we lose trust so quickly when we try to trick the person on the other side of the message to get them to think that we cared when we really never invested a second in them.

We actually— it's funny that you say that. Jennifer Latty was on earlier, heads up sales and marketing for Maribel Chocolates. And we've been there, Brynn. I know. And I wanna say at least 2 of the 3 last times I saw her, she was just absolutely blown away by the inauthenticity and also just a miss the mark. So with her experience and what she does, where she sits, She doesn't need someone saying, oh, and I'll buy you lunch. You know, like, it's just, it's so— yeah, it's even ickier than a generic message where they didn't know who you were. It's, it's, it just so hits the wrong mark.

Yeah. And, well, and that's, you know, and when they do that at scale, it's really bad. But even so, like, I, I will have people all the time that will— that I don't know, that I have had no interaction with that will say, hey, can I buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain? I said, yeah, at $500 an hour, absolutely.

Yeah, I'm all in.

Yeah, go buy an hour on my website. Yeah, like, I mean, it's— but that's the thing, like, so you're asking her for lunch, that's costing her, that is not a gift.

Yeah, right.

You're saying, hey, can I buy your time so I can sell you my stuff? And it's, it is, it's, it's icky. It— yeah. So the bottom line is bring value. This is my one line that I try to say as often as possible is detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you owe to the prospect, right? Bring them value and you earn the right for them to start the conversation. You earn the right to get the business when the time is right, if the time is right. And if not, that's okay too.

Right. So Gerhard, you came up just as I was thinking these are, I know they're 3 favorite words for you, trust, authenticity, value. And we've heard them all through the day and beautifully demonstrated by Bryn just now.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I like being the closing speaker.