How *not* to reconnect with your network (and what to do instead)

One of the best ways of getting new clients and opportunities for your business is to reconnect with the people that you already know. And you probably know at least 100 people on a first name basis. Studies have shown that the average person in the modern world knows 150 people. Actually, that's not even, yeah, 150 people on a first name basis. But I think that the study with 150 is that human beings evolved in tribes around 150 people. So that's kind of a very common circle of acquaintances and friends and family and colleagues and classmates, et cetera, et cetera. So one of the best ways is to reach out to your existing network and in a caring way and to reconnect to see how you can help one another. And oftentimes referrals can come from there. Now the thing though is typically the way that it's taught how to reconnect with your network is very tactic based. It's like, use the script, you know, do this so that other people will do that. And the problem with tactics is that it takes the heart. Oftentimes it takes the heart and the caring out of it and it feels off to you and to the person that you are reaching out to. Recently I got an email, a reconnection email from an old colleague. And it was an exact example of what not to do. So I'm going to share that email with you and I'm going to kind of talk you through why it didn't work. Okay, so the email subject line was hi George, that's email subject line. Now whenever there's an email subject line like hi George, it makes me suspicious right away because oftentimes spam emails start like that. Like when you email an old friend. I don't know, you could say hi George. But I don't know, it just, it's more like long time no reconnect or long time no see, like blast from the past or something. Anyway, so that's hi George. Sounds. Feels too, like they're trying too hard to make it customized. Okay, now let me keep going the email. This is what the email message said, George. Hope you're doing well. Okay, that's how it starts. Now that's fine. Kind of generic, but you know, that could see someone who hasn't contacted me in a while personally saying that. Okay, next is. I remember when you had initially come on my show, you had a podcast I spoke on when I was just starting out and I always appreciated your advice back then. Okay, now it would be even better if he had said, especially your advice about this or about that. That was really helpful for me because as a result, I've done this or done that. Now that's like the ideal thing, you know, when you appreciate someone's advice, it's even better to say, as a result, I've done this, you know, because of your advice. Right. Anyway, let's. Let's keep. Let's keep going. And then the next, very next thing he says, I can clearly see you have invested time and effort into your videos, sharing your message with your audience. Are you happy with the exposure you're getting? And once I see that, I'm like, oh, my God, what's going on here? Is he starting to want to sell me something? Okay. And then he goes, have you considered sharing your customer stories through a podcast platform of your own? Now this is beginning to sound generic and salesy. First of all, I don't call my customers customers. I call them clients. And anybody who serves people one on one calls their people clients or patients instead of customers. So this is already sounding like he copied and pasted this from somewhere else. Also, if he had bothered to do a little bit of research on me, he would have known that I had a podcast for a whole year already in 2014, I had a podcast for a year. And recently I, you know, I've been thinking about having a podcast again, but I surveyed my audience and, you know, I. I'm already doing so much right, but I'm like, okay, audience, if, if you. If you think you might be willing to pay for a podcast, and I might be willing to do it, but already I do it in so many ways. And of course, my audience came back and said, no, don't worry about the podcast. We were getting enough from your articles and from your videos, and I can just listen to your videos, et cetera. So that's my own, just FYI about why I haven't started the podcast recently. Anyway, so the next thing he wrote was, can I record a quick video for you to show you why I believe you're not getting far more exposure and engagement on the awesome content you're creating? Okay, so immediately what he's doing here is feeding my self doubt. And this is what most marketers do. Most marketers use what's called F u D, Fear, uncertainty and doubt. That's what marketers want. You want to make you feel. If you feel through the marketing copy, oh, a fear. Oh, I'm not, I'm not. I'm leaving money on the table or this might happen. To me, if I don't use this product or service, my business might fail, you know, blah, blah, blah or uncertainty. Like yeah, maybe I'm not, I'm not, maybe I'm not doing things as well as I could doubt. Like yeah, maybe my methods suck or whatever. And marketers do that so that you'll buy their programs, you buy their service and you'll turn over your own inner authority to them. Marketers want you to distrust your inner. I'm not saying marketers, everybody, but most marketers, right, and you probably agree with me, right? I don't know, let me know what you think. But most marketing tries to get us to question our own inner authority and believe them, the marketers authority so that the marketers can control us. That's what marketers want. That's what business coaches, business experts, they essentially their dream. They don't tell you this in, you know, this many words, but their dream, the way that they set themselves up as a guru and as a, you know, highly successful. What are they doing? They're saying, believe me, don't believe yourself. What I say you should do okay, do everything I tell you to do. And if you do it, you will succeed. And their confidence, you know, one of the things that I realized over the years, you know, what makes the most money? Confidence. That's it. Not knowledge. Not knowledge. What gets you money and power for sure is confidence. Now that's not. If you're not confident, I'm not saying you won't make money or gain power. There are plenty of humble, you know, Mr. Gandhi over here on the side or Peace Pilgrim, they had a lot of power over people, but they were extremely humble. And that's what I'm aiming for in my own life too. How can I be humble and self deprecating and asking you to, to go towards your inner authority and not just believe what I say. How can I model that and still have positive influence on people? Because they want to, not because I tell them what they should do, right? So marketers have set themselves up as 6 figure 7 figure 8 figure earner. And they're so polished and they look amazing on their website so that they can control your mind, you know, you'll do what they tell you so that you'll, they'll buy anyway. It's a lot of usefulness and being able to control you. Right? So anyway, so let me, let me, let me keep going here. And by the way, just to give some context, this guy, the very last time, the, the very first time that I interacted with this guy was he invited me to. To speak on his podcast. And he was very, you know, flattering. And like, I spoke on the podcast. It was great. And then soon after I spoke on his podcast, not long afterwards, he asked me if I would promote his new program, promote his new coaching program. And he even said, well, you know, many of the other podcast guests are promoting, so will you promote it too? And it already felt off, like, listen, I'm going on your podcast in part to do you a favor because you're brand new and, you know, and I'm going to promote the podcast episode. And now you're asking me to promote and almost making me feel bad if I didn't promote you that your program. Okay. And then now, many years later, he's coming back with this message to me to try to flip things and, like, trying to mentor me on marketing and all that stuff when he hasn't. Doesn't even know, hasn't even gotten any hello from me yet. Okay. So he goes on to say, I've spotted a few things that you appear not to be doing, or at least not doing to the same extent as other coaches I've seen that I think is severely impacting how many people are seeing and finding out about your values of authentic marketing. Let me know if you'd like me to show you what I mean. Thoughts, you know? And he signs off, amazing, right? Like, haven't heard from this guy in years. And now he's telling me, oh, you're not doing things well, and you could be doing. You could be you're leaving so much money on the table. Or essentially, that's what he's saying. If he took the time to consume some of my content, he would know that that's not what I'm about. I don't want to do the same thing other coaches are doing. Almost like, the exact thing I'm not trying to do is do what other coaches are doing, which is to set themselves up with like. Like some guru and, you know, use really clever video titles, right? Super clever video titles and video calls to action and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All this stuff that, to be honest, feels manipulative to me. Not that it has to be, you know, good titles don't have to be manipulative, but many video titles are clickbait, okay? Email, subject lines, etc. So, okay, so the last thing he does, he gives me a P.S. this is. In case you're wondering if this is some kind of generic email, here's the best I could think of to prove to you that it's not. I wouldn't do that to you. And he puts an image of one of my screen capture of my videos. And with a post it note that says, hi George. And he's obviously analyzing my videos with the stats and everything. I'm like, okay, fine, but an assistant could have taken that picture because his face was not in the picture. And it would have been so much more thoughtful if you wanted to show me that it was a really personalized thing to record a one to two minute video, attach it to the email. Yes, you can do that. That's not a bad idea. In fact, if you haven't seen someone in a while or if you just want to really make it personal, record a one minute, one minute video is not too long and just say, hi, George, just wanted to reconnect. It's been a while. I really appreciate what you said in the past about this. I ended up doing that anyway. I just want to reconnect with you and see what you're up to these days and how I might be able to help you. And I want to share what I'm up to if you're, you know, you might be able to help me out too, you know, and that's, that'd be a really nice message whether it's done in video or in an email. And just to get on the phone with someone, get on a zoom call with someone before you pitch them about your service in the first email. Right. And so let me kind of start to wrap this up by saying this. You know how I started this video saying that it's great to reconnect with the people that you know because. Well, I didn't say this earlier, but this is important to remember. The people that you know don't remember what you do for a living. Unless you are a plumber or a real estate agent or a family doctor or something that's so obvious, so mainstream that, oh yeah, family doctor. Oh yeah, plumber. Oh yeah, real estate agent. Right. That's very, very common. And it's like easy to remember. But if you are some kind of holistic healer, if you are an authentic business coach, if you are a relationship coach, I mean, anything out of the ordinary, yes, even a relationship coach is not normal. Still, it not mainstream. People don't remember what you do. Even your mom doesn't remember what you do. Okay. I mean, my mom doesn't even know what I do. I tried to explain to her so many times. Right. But it's like even your friends don't really totally remember what you do. If you don't believe me, ask them, hey, can you describe what I do? It'll be like, I think you do this. Is that right? You know, seriously, they don't. People don't. Your friends and colleagues and family members, they're not thinking about what you do all the time. You are. So if you're thinking about what you do, of course you think they are thinking of what you do. They're not. And so when they come across somebody who needs what you offer, they don't think of you. They don't think of you. Except if you recently reconnected with them and then you had a conversation and they relearned about what you do, then almost certainly you will get referrals in the next couple of days or a couple of weeks from that person or a much higher chance that you will. So it's great to reconnect with people, but not to use it as a tactic to say, gosh, I hope this person refers me business. I mean, you could do that. But it just, especially those of you watching this and me, it feels kind of off. So what do we do instead? Here's what we need to do instead. We need to get back into our heart of caring and liking other people. If you genuinely like somebody, right, of course you'll want to keep in touch, and you want to keep in touch more as a sense of appreciation and like, playfulness and friendship. Like, hey, I really liked what you posted on Facebook recently. That was really great. Like a sense of like, hey, I really like you. And yes, if you feel like, hey, let's get on the chat. We haven't caught up in a while. Let's catch up for a while. Right? Let's catch up. And in the catch up, of course, you're going to mention, you're going to ask them what they're doing now and you can mention what you're doing and it'll be very friendly and there's a genuine sense of enjoyment is what I'm saying, rather than I'm using a script to get someone to, you know, a friend, an old friend to refer me or an old colleague or whatever it is. Okay, so what we need to do is what life, what spirit is calling us to do, which is to love more. And guess what? I'm talking to myself too. I have been so focused on my business in the past couple of years and really, in the past 10 years, I've been so focused on my business that oftentimes I have forgotten to reconnect with my heart of caring for individual people in my network, to remember to like them again. To remember what I like about them again. So that's my challenge for you and my homework, if you choose to accept it. My mission for you, should you choose to accept it, is to look at your network again. Look at your Facebook friends, look at the people that you text message with, look at the people in your that you email or not. I mean, people who haven't emailed you in a while. You haven't emailed in a while. You might have a spreadsheet of contacts or you might have some way, you know, phone address book or something. Look at your contact list again and look at, as you look at each person, think about what you like about them and just find your enjoyment for that person again and then reach out because of that enjoyment, not because, ooh, they might refer me some business love again. And love doesn't require a referral. Love doesn't require that person to even write back to you. Love is simply, hey, I just, I'm thinking about you. I really appreciate this about you. And if you're up for it, let's have a reconnect call. But just. That's all. I wanted to say hello and hope you're doing great. And if there's anything you can help me I can help you with, let me know what's going on in your life. Can I pray for you? You know, what's going on in your work? Is there something I can help you with there? Do you need referrals? Do you need clients? How can I help or not? Just how can I help? But really, I like you. That's the core message. But that I like you isn't a tactic. It comes out of a genuine enjoyment of that person, genuine care. And that's what we need more of. And that's. I say this all the time, and I think this is true here, too. Business and work is a stage for our personal growth. Business and work is not about making money. It's not just about, of course you're going to make money. Of course you hope that your business is sustainable, right? And thriving. Yes, of course you'll make money and get clients and do Facebook ads and do content and all. But all of that, I hope you'll remember and I will remind you as often as I can that it is just a stage for your mindfulness, for your humility, for your courage, for your learning, forgiveness, for your learning. Love most of all, how can I love people more? How can I love others and serve others more. Regardless of what happens, regardless of what happens. Now, it just so happens that if you do that, people tend to love you back and your business tends to thrive. But. But if you use it as a tactic, that's where everything falls apart. You can't use it as a tactic. It has to be genuine. It has to be authentic. It has to be an authentic business. And the authenticity comes out of the reconnection with your deeper self, with your higher self, however you want to call it. So come back to our heart of love and our heart of caring. Look at our network, find our enjoyment. And I'm not saying, by the way, I should clarify this. I'm not saying you should look at your network and try to re love and reconnect with every single person there. No, you probably know 100, 200, maybe even 500 people. So look down the list of people. Here's what you do. You look down the list of names, and as soon as you come to a name where you feel something, you feel like, ooh, there's a genuine sense of connectedness there. Okay. Then reconnect with the thought about that person, why you like that person, why you want to support that person's mission in the world, and then reconnect from that place of love, regardless of what happens, regardless if they even write back to you. Okay, but them seeing the message, maybe they're too busy to write back, I don't know. But them seeing the message is a blessing already. And even if they don't see the message, your thought vibrations of love and enjoyment of that person is a blessing for them in ways that you cannot imagine. So don't reconnect as a tactic. Certainly don't do what this person has done unto me. And even so, I wish well of him. Who knows, he might even be seeing this video. And if so, I truly wish you the best. Anyway, I hope this is helpful and. And I guess I'll want to thank those of you who are here with me live. Ginny and Shweta. Thank you. I just actually had an interview with Shweta and I'm excited to share her interview with you in a couple of days from now. Gujaran Captain Miriam, thank you so much. And there's a name in Hebrew here I can't pronounce because I don't know Hebrew. Sorry. And just want to call for some of the comments here. Yeah, I suggest to unlearn to learn. Yeah, so Shweta says unlearn to learn. We have to unlearn so much of what the marketing experts are telling us so that we can relearn what feels really right to our souls, our hearts, and from what feels really right, how can we love our audience and connect with them in a way that's truly caring? And if we do that, allow the natural reciprocity to happen. Okay. Allow it to happen. And love, no matter what. Thank you. And Shweta says, true confidence. Yeah. True confidence is reconnecting with your inner authority. That's where true confidence is. Right. And true confidence in connecting with somebody is when you love them and you enjoy them without an agenda. That's true confidence. Right. In networking and connecting. Thank you, Captain, for your comment there. Thank you, Miriam. Captain says. Did you reply? No, I didn't reply. I don't. I just. I don't even want to reply and send him this video or my blog post about it because I think that would be maybe too much for him right now because he's. He's in a state of, like, getting business and, you know. And guess what? I was like that, too. So this person is not bad, you know, this person is not, you know, evil. No, this person is simply young. That's all they are. They're just young. They're just at a level of development that I know. I was there. I was there for sure. I was there. And sometimes I have the danger of slipping back. You know, growth is not only like this. It's like this, you know, and then hopefully the trajectory is going up eventually, but it is, you know, we come back to bad habits occasionally. Right. So, Elizabeth, thank you as well. All right, everybody, I wish you a joyful resourcing. Wherever the true and deepest and unlimited source of your love and joy and peace is and confidence, I hope and pray that you will reconnect with that today and every day. Wish you well.