In this solo YouTube talk, Eric Siu shares practical strategies for introverted professionals to build business relationships without relying on traditional, high‑energy networking events. He begins by describing his own discomfort at large gatherings and his INTJ personality, then outlines a step‑by‑step approach: (1) organize small, curated founder dinners using the Mixmaxx tool to invite a handful of executives for focused round‑table conversations; (2) invest heavily in creating content (videos, podcasts, articles) to attract inbound interest, which often leads to 6‑figure deals; (3) develop public‑speaking skills by starting with local events and gradually moving to larger conferences, reframing speaking as a service to the audience; (4) scale touchpoints from intimate dinners to mini happy‑hours and eventually larger conferences, emphasizing that brief in‑person interactions are far more powerful than long email threads; and (5) adopt a "learn → earn → teach" progression, focusing first on gaining expertise, then monetizing, and finally teaching to sustain growth. Throughout, Siu stresses leveraging personal strengths, creating genuine relationships, and using in‑person moments to convert online connections into business opportunities.
Chapters
Today, we are going to talk about how to get more business if you're introverted. But before we do, don't forget to subscribe whatever platform you're coming from, because you're beautiful and we need to grow and you need to grow too, all right? So whatever platform you're coming from, it's great. I'm naturally introverted. If you take the Myers-Briggs test, I am an INTJ and people are usually shocked by that 'cause they actually think I'm extroverted. I'm totally not. You know, when I first started going to networking events, it just rubbed me the wrong way. It didn't feel right, right? Like, it felt like I was out of my element. I would just show up and then I didn't, I was like uncomfortable walking up to people and then there's like people had their cliques established already. Literally, I would always make my friend go with me and he actually got the most benefit from it. He's been working for— we went to a networking event together and for the last 7 years he's been working for that company. When I think about networking, even now when I go to these events, when I go to TED conferences, when I go to Singularity University events, it's still very unnatural for me to walk up to people. And to be honest, I'd rather just stay at home and watch TV or work and be head down rather than engage with people, right? I see people stay at networking events sometimes up to 1 AM, 2 AM, and it just goes on for this marathon, right? I'm the type of person now at my age, when I show up to a party, I want to leave immediately already. So that's how I am now. For me, one of the key things I do now when I go to a conference, I was just at a conference in Dublin, and when I landed at about 3 or 4 PM local, in 2 hours I was already sitting at a dinner with a bunch of executives that I invited to dinner. So what I basically do is I use a tool called Mixmaxx, and I just dump a bunch of people that I know are gonna be at the conference, maybe some speakers in there, and I just say, hey, you know, we're gonna have a founders dinner, there's no agenda. Why don't we, why don't we, you know, let's just break bread together. And usually I try to keep it small, probably anywhere from 6 to 10 people. I prefer a roundtable. If you can do a roundtable, cool, because everyone can just kind of talk to each other and then you want to keep it to one conversation. And I'll probably do another video on dinners later, but that's great, right? You make sure you do a dinner. The second thing is I spend a lot more time creating content like this, like way more time versus networking. Like if I'm really good, I think the best networkers in the world, they probably spend way less time than I do creating content. I would rather spend much more time creating content like this to build, build an audience and have people come up to me. So I spend all the time doing that. And when I go to a conference, people will come up to me and say, hey, Eric, you know, I listen to your podcast, love your stuff. And that eventually leads to a conversation. That's a touchpoint and that leads to a much bigger deal. So we've closed a couple of 6-figure deals just from doing things like that. Dinners, same kind of deal, a couple of 6-plus-figure deals just doing dinners. Think about it this way, like I'm trying to bring people inbound, right? That's how I do marketing. I like doing inbound. I like creating content. When I'm speaking at a conference, you're probably thinking like, oh, I'm too introverted to speak. Actually, speaking is not that bad because it's literally me talking to you. Once you realize that if you're speaking, you're no longer— it's really not about you. It's more about helping people around you and what the audience wants. It becomes way easier. And what I recommend is speaking locally first. And then once you get better, apply to conferences that you want to speak at. You're going to get better and better and better over time. That's another thing that you can do if you're, if you're naturally kind of introvert, you want to, You want to be out there creating content. And because you create content, people are going to— you're going to field inbound requests and people are going to notice you. The 4th thing is, sure, you can do dinners, but, you know, dinners start small first and then make it like a mini happy hour. You can have a couple of people show up and then what you can do afterwards, you can do a mini event. Maybe you could have like 50 to 100 people there. And then what you can do is you can start throwing conferences, right? We're talking 200, 300, 400, 500 people. Because the key thing here when it comes to doing business, especially if you want to do bigger deals, It's all about relationships. It's all about touchpoints with people. So my thing now is always like, hey, even if I get a 5-minute interaction with someone, that's so much powerful than going through like, you know, 10 or 20 different emails with one person. That's just like, that's just like an online relationship. You got to take it to in person. I used to think I could just stay at home and work in my boxers all day. It just doesn't work like that. You do the online things and then you, you, you, when you show up offline, People come to you because they like the things that they see online. So that's my take on it. Those are just a couple of things that you can do. Um, look, I've never been like an expert networker or whatever. I've just managed to make things work to my advantage. So realize what your strengths and weaknesses are, and then you can kind of map around that. Maybe you're more extroverted than I am. And so maybe you do a mix of kind of what I'm talking about. But I think when you're the connector, when you're the person that's out there speaking, when you're creating the content, people respect you because you built a relationship with them. Because you've helped them with the content that you have. So first, like, if you don't think you have anything useful to provide, maybe learn first. Spend a lot of time learning, and then you can focus on earning down the road. Focus on learning, then earning, and then teaching, and you're going to earn even more. And then eventually you don't need to worry so much about, you know, if you're going to be able to put food on the table. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know in the comments if you think there's other ways to network, especially if you're introverted. And don't forget to check out the next video over there. If you're coming from YouTube, and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe, whatever channel you're coming from, and we'll see you tomorrow.
