Los Silva Part 2/3: Building Authentic Connections With Influencers Without Being A Cheesy Networker

Alright guys, we're picking up where we left off from the most previous episode with Los Silva. This is part two. I'm not going to go into a big long winded explanation of this because it is part two. You can go ahead and listen to part one where Los Silva and I dove deep into each other's psyches and talked about what made us sad, what made us tick, what we're proud of and really identifying the plight of the, not just the entrepreneur, but anybody who has that entrepreneurial spirit. We left off saying, you know, one of the things that we value most is creating really authentic relationships with high performers, thought leaders, people who inspire us. And Los had talked about having dinners with people, creating experiences. So Los, say hi to everybody again, especially if this is their first time listening.

What's up everybody?

Cool. So as a reminder, Los Silva is the co founder of buildgrowscale.com he's one of my closest friends in the world. And.

Once more, hell go back and listen to the other episode. Let's just pick up. So when we last left this, you were talking about the putting together dinners and experiences for entrepreneurs. Let's talk about that because I think that's an awesome topic.

Yeah. So it's something that you and I have been having a lot of conversations about that we want to do just honestly for fun. No.

Well, and we've done it.

Yeah.

But we want to more formalize it.

Yeah. Just for fun. I mean I think that.

A lot of people lately you see people being like, oh, have these dinners and connect with influencers and all that and it'll connect your network. Yeah, that's kind of true. But as a high level entrepreneur, one of the things that I like, I am lonely a lot. I am in my room, I'm alone, I'm working by myself. I don't have a lot of great friends here where I live in Orlando, I just don't. I'm a very specific kind of person. I look for a very specific kind of friend that's in my industry that gets me, that does business, etc. Right. Like most people, I've found it does.

Get lonely being an entrepreneur unless you're surrounded like if you're surrounded by people.

Unless you live in San Diego.

Yeah, it's kind of, kind of nice. Try to get you here. I will say it is funny, like I totally can't. I can relate to where you are when I lived in Dallas. I cannot relate to you where I am now because I literally think that everybody I know works for Themselves or is an entrepreneur. And it's awesome. Anyway, San Diego, it's awesome. Don't move here. It's too crowded. Unless it's you. So keep going. You're lonely. So lonely.

Yeah. So you get lonely and things like that. And then the biggest thing is you want to connect with people that get you. That have the same thoughts. Not just financially. Right. Like, I'm very big on my family. I want people, if I hang out with someone locally that is, someone that I potentially went to high school with or something like that, they're at a job they hate, they think their wife sucks, and they're stressed out about their kids. I love what I do. I love my wife, love my kids. We have zero in common. But the fact that we went to high school together, you know what I mean? That happens to a lot of people. So I want to have these dinners just to meet more people that I can become potentially good friends with. You know what I mean? Money and all that kind of stuff kind of happens when you're. And I hate that because it sounds so cheesy, but it kind of does happen. If you do have, like, a specific thing you want, you can probably squeeze it into the relationship and things like that. But, I mean, when you're not freaked out about it and it's not something that you're stressed out about, the opportunities just come from. From the network and the relationships.

So let's dive into. I want to come right back to this in the strategy, but let's talk about building authentic relationships. There is. There's nothing more annoying to me.

Than.

The guy who holds himself out as, hey, I'm the connector, right? I am. I'm Mr. Networker. There was actually a. It was a funny.

Link or article on the Onion about, like, you know, how to. How to avoid that, quote, networker at a party. And it was really funny. It's like, you know, to be avoided at all costs and how to defuse the professional networker. And it's funny because this. That kind of stuff annoys me. Although I am, you know, I ask my friends, what do you know? What do you think of when you think of me like, you know, more people than I've ever met? You're so connected. And I don't. And I know you and I both kind of hate that term because we, you know, being seen as a networker or a connector can. Can feel very shallow, like somebody who's just out to collect business cards. But.

And it also feels like you have no value to the world. Like, oh, I'll just set you up with Johnny, like, right?

And I think that for both of us, because I know you so well, the value in our connections comes from the fact that we legitimately give a shit and we are curious and we are interested and we have some basic social, you know, some social skills to not just completely turn people off. But I know I've got strategies that I use to build authentic connections. How do you do that?

Dude, I've tried to figure out quote unquote strategies because I've tried to like break it down because so many people have come to me, right, and been like, hey, you're so good at this, you should put some stuff out, blah, blah, blah.

But, well, tell me what you don't do. Tell me what you don't do.

I, I don't know. I can read immediately if we are gonna like each other or not. If we are, I will continue to put time into the conversation. If we're not, I'm kind of gonna just like step away. So that's, that's something I do. What I don't do is really much ever talk about myself. I just kind of talk about the person, what they're doing, what they're up to, mutual connections, mutual relationships, what they're up to. I immediately. Something I do is I immediately find a connection point, right? Like if you have a three year old girl, I've got a five year old girl. Boom, I got you, bro. Let's get this, let's talk about little girls.

Yeah. Connect personally and.

Yeah, yeah.

The other thing I know that you don't do this, you know, this gets parroted all the time. It's one of the most important things. I've said it a million times, yet it still blows me away at how many people are completely oblivious with this. But don't ask for something first, meaning don't ask for something for you first. Try to give. There's so much advice. It's gone for years and years and years about this. And it's so true. Like, just don't, don't lead with what can you do for me?

I almost feel like you can't do anything for me psychologically. I kind of put it there. There's nothing really you can do for me right now, but I probably can do something for you. So I just try to do something for someone because I'm not stressed out if you can or if you can't do anything for me because it might not even be you. You might connect me to Jim and Jim can do something for me. But I don't even know that you know Jim yet. So, you know, most people, a lot of people, and I would say broke people, mentally and financially, tend to be the people that are more asking for stuff and trying to jump in there and just trying to infiltrate the group, so to speak. People that are not in that way, don't stress out about it.

Yeah, you're right. And it's a. It's kind of funny that you say that. It brings up the concept of whenever some. Whenever I meet somebody, they go, hey, what? How can I help you? Yeah, I really don't know. Like, if I. If I actually had something legitimately that I need your help on, I would probably. I would have probably already. Because if I know I need help, I've got a lot of resources, I would go out and. And. And probably solve that problem and ask it. I do like it when people ask, but it is interesting when people like, hey, man, how can I help you? How can I help support you? So I noticed that that does not jog my brain at all if people. Because, yeah, there's stuff I need help with all the time, but.

One of the strategies I've. And I've actually, I don't have a. Something that I'm doing proactively on this yet, but I'm working on it, which is instead of saying, hey, Los, how can I help you? I might say, hey, Los, how can I help you? More specifically with.

Hey, how can I help you meet somebody that you're looking to meet? Right. So, hey, Lois, who's your hero in business? Maybe you can tell me who's your hero? Who is somebody you would absolutely love to meet.

Kevin Rose.

Kevin Rose. Cool. That's awesome. I don't know Kevin, but I'll keep that in mind. And maybe I can help help you meet him one of these days. So what I just did there is a good example of being really specific so that what I'm doing is I'm getting something out of you that I legitimately could go out and do, and. And it jogs your brain. And maybe you don't even expect me to do it. But what if I went out and introduced you to Kevin Rose through one degree of separation, Then that would be freaking amazing, right? So to anybody who's listening to this, who says that to me, just understand if you ask me, how can I help you be more specific, otherwise my brain doesn't turn on with how you can help me.

So this is something that we do in black Label. We Survey everybody. We have an onboarding call and we talk to people and stuff like that. But every once in a while, we remind people through a survey, but also through our onboarding call, I say, what's the biggest breakthrough you're looking to achieve in the next six months or 12 months?

Yep.

Right. Because that kind of opens up opportunities. If I tell you right now, hey, man, how can I help you? You can be, I don't know.

Buy me a beer.

Yeah, I really like the what's the biggest breakthrough you're looking for? But also one of the. And if you listen to bacon wrap business, you'll notice that I've been trying to do this on every single interview that I do. Or at least after about halfway through, I started saying, lois, what's the biggest nut you're trying to crack in your business right now? What's a resource you're looking to get? What's a skill set you're looking to acquire? What's a person you're looking to meet right now? But I started off with what's a nut you're trying to crack? Because it's really.

I even like that better than challenge because it makes people think, oh, yeah, I'm trying to figure out Facebook advertising. I'm trying to figure out how to make an offer, convert to paid media. I'm trying to find a director of marketing for my business. So when you ask those specific problems or you're really familiar with the Dan Sullivan question, which was a great book, by the way. Guys, go get it. It's so small, it's on Amazon. I'm actually giving away one of my secrets because if you become a client of mine, you'll hear me, me ask you the Dan Sullivan question, which is.

You know, if we were having this conversation three years from now or 12 months from now, looking back on today, what has to happen both personally and professionally for you to consider.

For you to be happy with your success. So now you're asking somebody to kind of paint a picture of what has to happen.

So.

Kind of reversing and going back to what you were talking about, the way that you create these connections.

I asked the Dan Sullivan question for everyone that joins Black Label, too.

Yeah, it's awesome.

It's the best.

It really is. And it actually goes even deeper than that. I don't want to get on a whole Dan Sullivan thing, although I love Dan. I'd love to have Dan on the show one of these days soon. But, you know, he talks about, well, what strengths need to be capitalized on what and what or what opportunities need to be taken advantage of, what weaknesses have to be overcome, what threats have to be neutralized. And you really get specific on. On these things. And you'll. You'll pull this stuff out of people because everybody's got something they either want more of or less of in their life. They want more customers, they want more money. They want more free time. They want less headaches and hassles. They want less, you know, whatever. I've always found that also, if you can solve somebody's problem, you can do it even if they're not expecting you to. If it was, you kind of mentioned something and you're able to go out there and do that for them, it'll be like the Godfather, right? Like, I did something for you. One of these days I'm going to come back and ask you for a favor. But at the same time, I don't ever expect a favor in return. I just like knowing that I'm creating enough social capital out there that should I need something I've given authentically enough without asking for anything in return, that hopefully they'll help me out on the flip side.

Yeah, I agree. I'm big on kind of not asking for anything, just giving and kind of leaving it in the pocket, so to speak, knowing I can push it out later.

Right. So back to. In the very beginning, we were talking about entrepreneurial dinners. Let's talk about this, because I know that you and I have both been to these. We've been invited. I actually just got invited by my buddy Travis Houston to one that he's hosting with Dan Martell, former guest on the show here next week. And that's awesome. And I know that I'm familiar with John Levy, and I'm familiar with Jason Gaynord, and I'm familiar with a whole lot of other people who do this. And.

It'S something that I've done kind of informally as well. And I know we want to do it even more. Let's talk about. Let's let some people hear us brain map some strategies here on what to do. So let's say you want to have an entrepreneurial dinner in good old Orlando.

So let's make it in a place that doesn't suck.

Well, no, no. Here's why I don't want to do that. Cause that would be really easy to do. And I want to reframe your brain around the fact that Orlando sucks, because I used to live there. In a way it does, bro.

But here's the deal. Right. Like, I get you all about it. Same time. I've actually tried this and there's not a. For my market, you know, I can go grab like super big hospitality and this and that kind of people. But you know, for the market that I enjoy, it's more a New York, San Francisco, San Diego, Austin kind of crowd. Right, but, but if we do it in Orlando, let's do it in Orlando just, just for the sake of doing that in Orlando. Right.

And I, and I also, and the reason I'm also asking you this, because I want the listeners. This isn't just the Brad and Lo's talk to each other hour. There's people listening to this who may be like, man, I love that. I love to surround myself with awesome people and people who are inspiring me, thought leaders, et cetera. But maybe they're not in the position like we are to be able to travel, to have people we know in Austin and New York and all these other places. But let's say somebody lives in Orlando or somebody lives in St. Louis, Missouri or somebody lives somewhere else and they're like, what if I really wanted to start this? So tell me what you did in Orlando in order to try to do this. Tell me about that.

So let's say we want to do this in Orlando. I would go out and research the top, probably grab Orlando magazine and grab the top Hoity Toity magazines because they will feature top level entrepreneurs here and I'll get a better sense of who's around the city and what kind of person I want to attract. I would get their information. It's very easy to find people's email addresses and things like that. I would check them on LinkedIn, do all these things, right? And I would create probably video invitations using my phone to invite them over to a dinner, right? And I would say, I'd be pretty vague. I'd be like, hey, you know, this is los. I'm the founder of BGS and I have, you know, xyz, whatever it is that I want to invite them into. I'm having a dinner with a bunch of top level entrepreneurs in Orlando and I'd love for you to be a part of it. Let me know if you can. I'd leave it open there. Just kind of like to consistently create the conversation, have them be like, well, who's going to be there? You know, keep going. I don't want to send them a sales page, hey, it's Lowe's. Here's this and here's who's going to be there. Plus, I technically don't know who's going to be there. Kind of just cold email people. Secondly, most people are going to be like, oh, throw it at a restaurant, do four to five to six people.

Let's really focus on making something better and creating a better experience for this. Let's go out and let's go to Airbnb and let's rent a house for a day. And let's, instead of getting the restaurant and stuff like that, let's rent the house for a day. Let's spend four to five hundred dollars for the day. Like a nice house, right? Maybe more, maybe less. Whatever you want, depending where you live. Then let's go out and get a chef. It doesn't have to be anybody crazy. I can guarantee you that. I can craigslist this, I can Google this, I can task rabbit this. I can easily find someone that is a quality cook to come in and prepare private meal for us. And then let's spend, let's go buy a couple bottles of tequila and a couple bottles of, you know, other booze. I just drink tequila and let's bring another guy to be the mixologist. So now we're creating a situation at a nice house, nice living room type of situation where everyone's kind of open and there and we're passing drinks and there's a bartender and there's a vibe. And then there's also great food. So you could go to one of the best restaurants here in Orlando and sit at the table just like everybody else is doing that's coming out there. Or you could be a part of an experience. Well, I went to Los's thing and there was this dude making like, you know, pineapple mojitos and with you know, like some crazy specialty drink. And they were serving this for their meal and they made grass fed beef and they had this and that. And, you know, we talked and I met some really great guys that are local and he made some strategic introductions. That is the easiest thing that I would do here. Austin, San Diego, wherever I go, I would do that rather than sending people over to a restaurant.

Right, Dude, I love that. And it's exactly in line with some of the stuff that I've been planning and thinking about as well. You know, the creating that experience that is more than just, hey, let's get together and talk business. I think that's really key, is because people want to connect. I know on your last black label, it was like one day of business and one day of, you know, at the beach and partying we talked about.

Business the whole time.

Exactly. I mean, that'll come up. That's one of the cool things about entrepreneurs, like. Like us and like a lot of the people we know is that we connect over business because business is fun. A lot of. A lot of folks who are in, you know, just normal jobs, what they do, yeah, you're making a little bit of noise in the background to punch in the nuts, but a lot of the folks who are, you know, just in normal jobs, whatever. I notice that when they're socially, they. Socially, they don't want to talk about their job unless they're complaining. And one of the great parts about creative entrepreneurs, etcetera, Is that we want to talk about our jobs and the cool stuff we're working on. Even if we're having hassles, we want to talk about the good stuff and we want to hear what you're doing, because entrepreneurs are opportunity creators and there may be a partnership that will come out of it. There may be something else that will come out of it, and it's going to come up no matter what. So I love that about our tribe, our type of people. The other thing, and I've been talking with Ed o' Keefe about, he said he'll be on the show. This is a mutual friend of ours who's a super successful, inspiring entrepreneur, and hopefully you guys will meet him, especially after I call him out publicly on this podcast and make him listen to it. But he talked about something at the Build Grow Scale event, which I loved, and he didn't even come up with it. He said that a friend of his had talked about go not only befriend, but hire on retainer one of the top law firms, ideally, maybe like a business law firm or some other type of attorney in town that you can typically put somebody on retainer for relatively little money. I don't know if that's true. I've never done this. But now, if you are with a prominent attorney, if you have a relationship with them, attorneys have great networks and oftentimes they'll host events or they'll introduce you to other clients and they'll do some things like that. I'm dying to get Ed on the show to pick his brain on that even more. But I love things like that, like go after those little hinges that swing the big doors in your town and find out who they are. Now, they may not have the relationships you want, but there are ways to build those relationships with people who are highly, highly sought after.

Yeah, I agree. You need to you need to just hit Ed on Slack.

Oh no, I saw him, I saw him on Slack today and, and I plan on it. I'm gonna beat him down on this one. But anyway, the.

So so our topic has been about building authentic relationships. It's been creating experiences that other entrepreneurs can enjoy. And it's also because, yeah, it can be very lonely being us. So we like to complain about what's bugging us. We like to celebrate our big wins. A guy in a mastermind. I just showed you this. A guy in a mastermind of mine here in San Diego just sold his business for $60 million. Amazing. And I can't wait to give him a big high five when I see him. But we love to celebrate those wins. But we also like to be with other like minded people who get us and, and understand our pain and we can share what works, what doesn't and you know the ins and outs of that. So when are you doing your next dinner? LOS?

I don't know when I'm doing the next dinner. We're having our next Black Label in September and what we're doing is we are actually because Black Label is kind of private. Like we're capping it at 50, 55 people, but we are in its invitation and all that kind of stuff. So we are having a smaller group and we're having kind of, I guess you can call it a Preview day on the 21st of September where it's going to be kind of like a micro event connecting people, helping people work on their businesses and things like that and potentially building out a smaller group from there. Before that, you and I are going to an event in Austin. I was thinking we should do an event there, but I don't know if timing is going to permit.

So that's going to be awesome. Wizard Academy, if you guys haven't heard about it, I think it's just wizardacademy.com or something like that. You should check it out.

Sounds magical.

It does. It's going to be amazing. So we are ending part two of today's episode. Obviously if you missed part one, go back and listen to it. You'll get a feel for more about who LOS is and why we're talking about this stuff. So my question to you, Lois, is you have more in you. You want to go for an episode Trace, I'm down. Cool. Because there's a couple things I want to talk with you more about and this is more I want to share some of the coolest bacon wrap strategies. I want to get into, you know, we've been vulnerable, we've been, we've been connecting, we've been doing some cool stuff. But you've got so many cool things to share. And I kind of want to get into the most fun part of bacon wrap business and that's where we share some just real cool stuff that's working. But if people are interested in black label and build, grow, scale and more about you, tell them where to go.

If you're interested in black label, you can go to TheBlackLabel Co or just hit me up on Twitter, which is Los Silva.

Nice. So stay tuned. We are going to release episode three here real soon. Maybe it'll be up here, all three together. We'll see. But if you're not a subscriber on itunes, click that subscribe on itunes or stitcher, if you've got an Android, etc. You can subscribe there and you can catch all the shows. I also encourage you to leave a review because I read every single one of them and interact with them. I also read every single email that you send me@askbradaconrappedbusiness.com by the way. I'm trying something new here and I'll go ahead and announce it for the first time here. It is not even formal yet, although it may be by the time that I actually release this. So I know I always like to put together a.

Rolodex of resources. So I have clients, friends, etc. Asking me constantly, hey, who do you know that does web design? Who do you know is a copywriter? Who do you know that has all these various skill sets? And whether they're freelancers or agencies or whatever, people are looking for resources. And I am too, both for myself and for others. I had my friend John Assaraf you may have, if you've seen the Secret, or myneurojim.com, you've heard of him. He was just asking me the other day who I knew that maybe be a great marketing director, etc. And I'm making that introduction because I happen to know somebody. I'm known for asking good questions and keeping a, you know, a mental lock on all the resources I find. So here's where you come in. Either send an email to askbradaconrappedbusiness.com and tell me what you do, who you are, what skill sets you have. Maybe if you're, if you take clients, what kind of clients you're looking for. Tell me about you. I'm going to build a database of resources that I can use and people that I know can use, especially if I ask somebody like Los Angeles, hey, Los, what's a nut you're trying to crack in your business? And Los says, I'm looking for a really good web designer. I'm like, I just happen to know a handful of them, and I'm going to make those referrals. So this is an opportunity for you to let me know once more. I'm going to give you two opportunities to do this. One of them is to send me an email with whether it's a resume or just a short kind of information on how I can get more from you to ask bradakenwrappedbusiness.com or, or you can be you can go to baconwrappedbusiness.com.

I'm going to make.