Networking That Drives Results (Complete Guide) - Session 4

Session four, Networking that drives results. We'll say it again. The most successful executives approach their search like an enterprise sales cycle. They build systematic processes, measure meaningful metrics, create and nurture insider champions, and focus on high impact activities. While others frantically apply to posted positions, successful job seekers spend 80% of their time cultivating relationships and creating opportunities in the hidden job market. In this session, we'll help you set weekly targets for meaningful conversations, build your network by offering value, and track progress on relationship development, network and net worth. All right, this is the meat and potatoes of what I want to talk about. We have a little bit of time. All right, so I want to talk about the networking, value exchange and ways that we can do this. So I have a couple tips here. We have some tips in the workbook as well, but this is really where the rubber meets the road for finding executive jobs. And if you haven't done this already, that's an indication that you're struggling right now. If you're feeling struggling right now finding jobs, it's probably because you haven't been doing this well before or you don't have. It's not strong enough to carry you through tough times like a market change or those types of things. So this is again the crux of what we're talking about today. A couple notes, and I think I'm going to get into this in some later slides. So maybe we don't need to go into too much detail. But we make introductions real time during calls. So when we're talking to people, we just introduce them to other people while they're still on the phone. Because what we're doing is triggering a reciprocity imbalance. So if I'm talking to Mala, we end up getting to know Mala. I'm like, hey, this is great. It sounds like we're both in the same industry. I have a handful of folks I want to introduce you to. Let me just text them right now and do it. I'm providing value to you and making introductions on your behalf. And if the text comes in while we're still on the phone or we're still in a zoom, you're going to feel a little guilty because you haven't done anything for me. Right. And so that's a little bit of psychological warfare. But if I want to guarantee that Mala's going to make introductions or speak highly of me, I force her to by providing value first. And I think a lot of people don't do that. I also, I also continue to provide value whether I'm still on the phone with Mala or not. I'm like, hey, there's three or four more people just. Just spam her text, like, meet Paul, meet Carol, meet Sakima, meet. And I just keep filling that up. And she's like, stop. This is too much. Like, you're really showing up for me. And then the imbalance is so great when she talks to those people, she's like, yeah, he's really great. He introduced me to all these folks, and I met so and so. And all of a sudden, she's speaking highly of me, right? So I think that's the takeaway. We need to provide value as soon as possible and do it while they're still on the phone, and they can't say no to you. So here's the. Start the network expansion to create what we call the daisy chain. So I want to talk about the daisy chain effect, because I am. I think I. I am what people would categorize a super connector. I have about 3,500 executives in my phone, last count. It's a lot. I can connect people really, really quickly. And I. I owe most of this, as I study this, to this kind of theory that I've been working with. And a lot of folks ask, how. How do I start? Like, look, I'm not you. I don't have 3,000 friends. I use the term friends loosely, right? I don't have 3,000 contacts, right? I have five people that believe in me, right? So a lot of folks say, where do I start? And I like to do this thing called the airport test. So as you think about everyone in your network, if you flew into their town and you called them and asked them to pick you up from the airport, who would say yes? Who are those people? Right? And if you don't have any of those people, that's a problem. We have to get there, right? And sometimes we do that by saying, hey, when you're in town, I'll pick you up from the airport, and you start that reciprocity right away, right? And so we typically start with those folks. Those are your tier one contacts. If I flew into Jill, wherever you're from, if I flew into your hometown and you picked me up from the airport, like, you would be a good friend to me. That means a lot to have that experience and have that downtime. So those are our tier one contacts. Those types of folks, our tier two, maybe colleagues, maybe folks we've worked with that maybe we have a strong opinion on, maybe we don't, but we have some shared identity, went to the same school, worked at the same company or in the same industry, peers like that. And then we have tier 3 contacts which might be friends of friends or like loosely connected in some way. Those folks are harder to engage with from the beginning. And if you start there, then you might get discouraged about networking and not want to continue because people don't know you very well. So I always like to start with, you know, your tier one connections when we get started here. And even if you only have one person, one mentor that's looking out for you, you can start this process. So when we go through the conversation, your call to actions that. Do you happen to know two to three other people that I can connect with about X. And all we need is for one person to daisy chain into two or three more like that's the primary focus in order to get somebody to take that action for us. Probably helps if we're not an asshole. It probably helps if we're not simply trying to take and take and take. In order to get someone to take action, we have to give outstanding value ahead of time. So if I'm talking to Brian for the first time, Brian, hi. Now, you don't know me well yet, but if I'm talking to you for the first time, in the first part of that conversation, I'm trying to discover how I can help you. Like, how can I best show up for you? What is it that you're working on? Now, I'm not going to ask necessarily such direct questions and be super salesy, right? But I'm working. As I'm getting to know you, I want to know what can I do to make your life a little bit easier? How can I provide either happiness in your life or value or a connection or, or any one of these things? And ideally, I can start to do that immediately, right? So that you can see I'm providing value. And then I want to focus two thirds of that conversation on you and not me. Because what we're doing here is we're triggering a reciprocity imbalance, ideally. Now, this sounds a little Mavalian, but I want to make you a little uncomfortable that you've been taking so much from me and you don't know what to do. You know, Brian's like, you've given me three contacts, you gave me a podcast to listen to. You said, this is other influencer, you know, like I could talk to them. Like, I've got all these things to take action on. I'm. I'm getting excited. I'm building some enthusiasm. He's like, whoa, whoa. Like, I'm gonna have to do something for you. And this goes back to our tribal brains, like back to the caveman and cavewoman days, right? If somebody came and brought meat to your tribe and you didn't protect that individual or you didn't support them, or, I don't know, rub their feet so that they're not so sore and they can go out and hunt for you again, you would die, you would die as a tribe if you didn't take care of each other because living in that world was so difficult. So psychologically, we are trained to be reciprocal and support those that take care of us. And so in order for people to be champions for us, we have to be champions for them. So if you want, like, if you want somebody that's a super connector, if you want, like, man, I just wish I had that mentor in my life. In order to create that, you have to be that. So be that person that you need to see. So ideally, we want to create this reciprocity imbalance. So I've been asking support from Brian. If it's a 30 minute call, I want 22 minutes dedicated to him. When we get close to the end of that call, he's going to say, jacob, this is all great, but what can I do for you? How can I help you? Then I have the opportunity to say, you know nothing, right? I don't need your help and, but I just want to help you. And here's how that can happen. Or with the people I introduce you to, show up for them, right? Just do me a favor when I, when I introduce you to Carol, like, do me a favor and just ask her a lot of questions and see if you could show up for her. She needs a friend right now, right? And so now I'm being like, really generous and giving away the value that you owe me to someone else, right? That's an option. Or I could say, you know, Brian, I've really been trying to connect with some more leaders in AI. I know that's probably amorphous, but do you happen to know anybody? I'd like to talk to two or three other people. Now Brian has to think, how can I trust Jacob with two or three other people that I know? How can I trust him? Well, I've just given him all this value, this value imbalance, so that he knows if Brian introduced me to his best friend Daniel, Dan's not going to think Brian's an asshole for wasting his time. Because Jacob also provided that same consistent value to Dan. As well. So it's my job to convince Brian that when he introduces me, I'm going to make Brian look good. And that's the process, right? It's that reciprocity process. And it starts with giving more value than you expect to receive in return. Know you're targeting decision makers, that group of people you should have in your network. You may ask someone about different, different areas of their expertise, like if they happen to know super connectors or you know, you might ask a question like if you only had one person to talk to, who is that person and why and should I meet that person? Right. So there's different ways to get to different areas within your network as well. All right, so this is a little bit deeper dive on the daisy chain method. And so because I'm, I'm starting high level and I'm trying to get more and more tactical because someone's going to say, hey, where do I start, dude? Like this is all nice and everything, but I want to get to actual conversation starters here shortly. So the real process here is that we're leading with recognition. We're maybe saying like Sakima, I saw some of your work at Yahoo and was really inspired by it. You know, can you tell me about your experience there? I've been thinking about going to work for Yahoo too. Or I've been thinking about working for similarly large tech companies. Like what are some of the pros and cons of that? So I want to recognize you for what you've done. People like to be recognized. It kind of gives a dopamine hit if done in a non cheesy way. Right. I don't suggest you do use car salesperson approaches. We want to be authentic and vulnerable, show real challenges to create human connection. Like we don't need to be these perfect human beings. Which I think is especially in Fortune 500, in the really kind of old school corporate type environment, you have an opportunity to be a pattern interrupter. Right? So they're used to, you know, what is it that you're looking for? How can I help you? When introductions, right, you have an opportunity to break that pattern. And you could say, they say, you know, how can I best show up for you? What introductions can I make? And you're like, you know, I really need help figuring that out because I've been lost the last six months. Right. You seem to be somebody that really has it together. Whether that's true or not, I'm not sure. Right. But can you help me here? That shows more humanity and authenticity than Just saying I need to meet CEO at Uber and I need to meet so and so here. And I know you're connected. It looks like you're connected. Like that's the worst way to network, right? You know, you could still bring that up. But first say, like, I'm having a bit of a loss and as I was looking through people that you knew that I might be interested in, like, is it unreasonable for me to try to even connect with someone like, you know, Brian at Uber or Michelle at, you know, Stanford Health, or, you know, is it unreasonable for me to try to reach out? Like, do you happen to know anything about them? Like it's, it's a little bit more human in the approach of making your asks. So I, I can't stress enough the creating value first, immediate value. If you can do it while you're on the phone, if you can use it as bait to get on the phone. I saw this, I saw that you were on this panel, had some ideas, would love to talk to you about it. This was just another panel and it looks like they were using ideas similar to yours. We can learn from this. We can create some shared identity through that. Again, deep in discovery, through listening twice as much as you speak. You build lasting connections by personalizing every follow up based off of the needs that they have. So if Brian said, jacob, I really need to think through this. Do you happen to know anybody? Then I personalize, hey, I know somebody who can help you with this part, I know someone who may be able to help you with this part, so on, so forth. And I provide those introductions and then I foster advocates by turning meaningful connections into natural champions. And so this is a psychological trigger that everyone can take a note of. We really like to have a good reputation. It feels good. Now, not everybody shows you that they have a good reputation, but you can assume they have a good reputation and give them that positive reputation to force them into having a good reputation. Right? So that's a pretty complex. Everyone's like, yeah, I think I get that right. But it's something like, if I've known Brian for a couple years, again, I'm still picking on you because now you're front and center on my screen. I'd say, you know, Brian, I really appreciate that you've always been there for me and you've always been an advocate. Like that's going to feel good for Brian, right? And he can't deny it. He can't say, well, I haven't been an advocate for you. Actually, I've never thought about you at all? Because he can't. It's going to make him look bad. Right. And even if I've only talked to Brian once every two years or whatever that is, I'm still making him feel good of like, yeah, I have looked out for you. And when I say that to clients, hey, I appreciate that. You know, when you talk about me, you've always said such nice things. Thank you. Like, I reward the behavior, whether I know they're doing that or not, to encourage them to do that behavior. So this is how we create champions. Like, I think Chelsea, you and I have done this when you are. She was a client one time, and I said, thank you for always looking out for me. Right. When you. She's talked to like, four or five prospective clients in the past. Thank you for speaking highly of me. And, you know, what is it that you'd say differently, knowing what you know now? And then I get intel and feedback and then further foster that relationship and create champions. So this is like the. The where do we start? Piece. So hopefully this is going to be a very, very small on my teleprompter, so you have to bear with me. So these are some conversation starters and industry trend discussions. You could say something like, I've been following this crazy consolidation in our space and. And I suspect you have a hot take on it. You open to talk about it? Right? It's. It's not this, like, hey, do you happen to have a job? Like, I'm looking to meet so and so it's like, hey, I'm seeing these things in the industry. I've noticed that you've noticed these things too. Like, let's shoot the shit and talk about it. And that might be a valuable conversation. You know, this is one that has more authenticity and transparency. And I'm worried about this thing. Right, But I bet you're not. Like, that's creating this psychological difference. Like, I'm worried about it, but you look so put together that I'm sure you're not worried about it. What do you think about this thing that happened? Like, are you seeing this big impact, too? So it's a little bit more provocative. Ask that we're looking for, you know, career journey questions. Somebody has gone from, you know, a company you've been at for 10 years to another company. Right. Maybe you're trying to figure out how to network outside of that. Like, how did you make the transition out of here? I've been trying for months and have failed. Like, what's the secret sauce? So you clearly know something. If you get that message, you're more likely to respond. This is going to improve some of your outbound. You know I'm about to follow your footsteps, right? I'm about to do this thing that you did. Like, what are the landmines I'm going to step on, right? I'm trying to do this thing that you did. This is building mentors with conversation starters. Okay, here's the next one. Value ads. Hey, I just read about this thing that I know you're also interested in. Like, have you seen it yet? Sometimes you don't even need to ask for, you know, a phone call. It's just, hey, I saw this thing. What are your thoughts? I'm connecting you with so and so next week. This is where we lead with value. You don't know me, but I'm connecting you with someone because they need to know you. I'm interested. Like, what makes you do something like that? Why would you go out of your way to help me when you don't know me? I did that with Ruben, who I shared earlier to 450. He's got 450,000 followers. And I said, look, I mentioned you in this article because you helped me a lot. Thanks. Didn't ask for anything in return. And now he's talking to me. No reason to, but I provided value before he even knew who I was. I'm about to talk on a panel. This actually worked with the. If you remember that post I did about CMO Super Huddles, I went out and I proactively talked to five or six other CMOs and said, Hey, I appreciate your perspective and I want to run some ideas by you because I'm going to talk about you on the panel. If you're going to talk about someone publicly, they're going to want to know what you're going to say. So they always get back to you. I use this hack when I was a freelance writer for Forbes, which is the ultimate conversation starter, by the way. You go into anybody's inbox and say, I'm working on an article for Forbes and would love your take. Everyone's like, yeah, let's have that chat no matter what. So sometimes with clients, I'll say, hey, look, I'm doing a. I'm doing a roundup post that I'm going to send to 10,000 people. Or, I'm going to send it, I'm going to submit it, I'm going to publish it publicly somewhere, and I want to mention you. What's your take Right. That's a great way to engage with folks and create conversations, authentic personal connections. Reading comments from folks. Again, engaging based off of information you've gathered in the past. The thank you, the thank you text. They're thank you emails. What do you do here? A lot of people think too much about this, so I use the KISS model. Keep it simple. Stupid, right? The sometimes I'll text someone five times in a row and I don't care if they text me back or not. But the key part that I want to stress here is that I'll let you know how it goes. Peace. Because that's me telling you I'm going to talk to you again. And the reason we want to talk to someone again is because we want to stay top of mind. Right. Even if all it is that we're doing is being grateful. Hey, talk to Kathy. It went great, right? She's amazing. I need to share it with you. Open the chat right. This is actually burying a little bit of the lead. Like, this is amazing. Something went really well. Too much to text. Let's talk about it. Like you're encouraging someone to have that conversation. When Brian introduces me to Jill, I thank Brian for the introduction to Jill. I tell him I'll let him know how it goes. When Jill introduces me to Sakima and Carol, I circle back and thank Jill, but I also circle back and thank Brian because the introduction that Brian made created more opportunity. And if I talk to Carol now, I'm like three levels deep. I'm talking to Carol about Brian, too. I'm talking to Carol about Brian and Jill and maybe even Sakima. And I'm building more network while I do that. And then I'm going back and I'm looping with everyone to thank them through the process. I learned this because I tracked over a million dollars in revenue from my business back to a single person who made an introduction to another person, who made an introduction to four executives at Comcast, who made introductions to Spectrum, who made introductions to Harvard and Wharton Business Schools, who made. I tracked the entire Daisy chain back, and then I went back through the thread and I thanked everybody that created that. Now, I wasn't doing that actively to start. I. But then when I started going back through everyone that helped me, they introduced me to more people because they felt good about being thanked and recognized and they could see that they put some good into the world. So we can't forget about giving someone that dopamine hit. Right? Brian's getting a lot of dopamine hits. Right now because I keep saying his name. He's already introduced me to Jill and Carol and Sakima. Like, he's totally crushing it for us all. So I hope he's in your networking group here shortly. All right, I won't talk through all of this, I promise. This will be a screenshot slide, right? So everyone, go ahead, take a screenshot. These are some principles here. There's influence principles. I think the most important one here is the onus is always on you to take action and be top of mind. You can never get upset when somebody doesn't reciprocate. You have to expect it. Right. Just take note of that and don't help them as much in the future. You'll find the people that reciprocate the most. Right? There's like a 99 and 0.1% rule that I use. 90% of people you meet aren't worth shit to you in any way. Right. There's 9% that you may know and may call upon again, and then there's 0.1% that are really going to move the needle for you. These are super connectors. This is your husband or your wife. This is your mom or your dad. Right? These are the closest relationships. And we spend our entire lives trying to find that 0.1% that change our lives and make it differently. So when you go out and do this, don't expect it to work in, like, right away. This is a discipline and a habit that you maintain your entire career. Now, when I assess those that are the most successful from those that are struggling to find work, the ones that are the most successful have had this as a habit for 20 and 30 years. So we scale it up or we scale it back, depending on our urgency, but we never stop. Similar to whether you're going to run a marathon. It's a lot easier if you've been running your whole life than if you just decided to get off the couch and do it at once. All right, now the most important KPI. And we'll get to the networking piece here shortly. The only thing that I want you to track is how many conversations you have in a week. That's it. Set a target for yourselves. I want. I want to have 10 calls this week. I want to have 20 calls this week. We turn it up or turn it down, depending on your urgency. 50 calls in a week. What would it take to have 50 calls in a week? What must be true, what you'll notice. I don't want you to focus on applications sent recruiters outreach to like, none of that. It's how many conversations can I have? I want to fill your pipeline with conversations so that you can work through your messaging, that you can get practice, so that you can figure out who's worth your time, who's not worth your time, so you can learn those lessons live, and you can practice on the fly. Conversations is most important. When I built Discover podium, I had 10 to 15 sales calls a day for five years, Monday through Friday, talking to executives. That was a shitload of calls. If you have that many calls and you don't learn, there's something wrong with you right now. Some will say that's like chewing glass. The introverts just fainted and quit. They left the zoom like absolutely not right? But I promise you, there is no shortcut to this work. There just isn't. And if somebody's telling you otherwise, they're lying to you. And you should be highly skeptical. Session four Workbook this week you're going to kick start your networking activities by setting measurable goals for your job search in developing a structured networking strategy. Once your plan is in place, you'll start putting it into action by reaching out to contacts and having conversations and recording outcomes. The goal is to create a consistent process that helps you build connections and uncover new opportunities.