In this YouTube talk, entrepreneur Michael Girdley challenges the conventional wisdom that business networking is best done at cocktail parties, lunches, and other superficial social events. Drawing on his recent experience co‑hosting the $8,000 Holdco Conference at the Sundance Resort in Utah, he illustrates a different approach built on two core principles. First, "Give First" – create value for others before expecting anything in return, whether by making introductions, sharing resources, or producing helpful content. Second, "Do Cool Stuff" – focus on building remarkable projects or ventures that naturally attract attention and conversation, turning your work into a living advertisement for your capabilities. Michael shares anecdotes, such as attendees thanking him for the conference and a participant who bought 100 auto shops, to show how high‑ticket, high‑value events and impressive achievements generate genuine goodwill and networking opportunities. He concludes with practical take‑aways: prioritize actions that help others, leverage content and referrals at scale, and view networking as an ongoing exchange of value rather than a series of social rituals. The video ends with a call to subscribe, comment, and engage.
Chapters
Most people get the idea of business networking like totally wrong. They don't understand how it's really supposed to work. There's a better way to do all of it. And by business networking, it's this idea of, you know, how do you make contacts of people that potentially can be of mutual benefit between the two of you, or somebody you know that when there's times to call in a favor or that sort of thing, or you need to know the right person, like that's what business networking is. How do you build these contacts of people with mutual trust and go from there? And look, a lot of us are taught that the right way to do this kind of business networking is going to cocktail parties and just like hanging out and taking people to lunch and that sort of thing. But fundamentally, like, I tried that for years and it doesn't work. You don't build real connections with people and mutual trust with people by just having time together. It's actually about how you interact with those people in a very different way. So in this video, I'm going to talk a bit about something I just got back from, which is a conference that me and my team and my colleagues and business partners, we threw in Utah. And to me, this is just— this conference encapsulates kind of the fundamental ways that you should doing business networking versus kind of what we're taught, which is cocktail parties and lunches and all that kind of stuff. So hi, my name's Michael. If you're new here, I talk about concepts in business. I've started a dozen-plus companies, hired hundreds of people. I share things that I've learned while going for walks and getting some exercise with people like me who are entrepreneurs on the journey of trying to make a difference in the world and their family's lives and their own lives through building businesses. So if you like that kind of stuff, give me a subscribe, turn on notifications, all that kind of stuff, or write a nice comment below. We would all be thankful. It makes me feel good and like it's all worth the effort. So my story with throwing a conference was unintentional. I kind of looked into it, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. But basically, we threw a conference this past week. It was in Utah at the Sundance Resort. Gorgeous. If you've never been there, it's something Robert Redford put together, uh, starting in the '60s. And we brought together 120 people who had similar interests as me in terms of kind of growing businesses, being involved in multiple things, owning and growing wealth by owning businesses. And we called it the Holdco Conference, and this is the third year that it had been done, but it's the first year that I had been involved in actually making it happen. And the reason I got involved in making it happen was the guys who started it and did the first two iterations of— they weren't able to continue. Like, they had gotten really neck deep in obligations with their businesses and they're still involved. But we needed somebody else. They needed somebody else to take it over if it was going to continue as a thing. And for me, like, this was my crowd. I had loved going to this conference because people there were basically doing a lot of the same things I'm doing, which is trying to be in multiple businesses at once, incubating them, growing them, helping them work together, and then hopefully like having them and the people that work in them be successful. And so I had loved this conference. I didn't want it to die. And we decided to do the hard part important and try to keep it going. And for me, that kind of kicked off this first idea of how you really go about networking in a good way, which is you try to do things first and foremost to build a great network by helping other people. And one of the things that shocked me about hosting this conference— there were 120 people there— was how many people walked up to me and said thank you. Like, thank you for doing this. And here's why it kind of shocked me. The conference was freaking expensive. Like, it's an $8,000 conference. People were paying a lot of money and they were sacrificing an entire week to come out to spend the week in Utah with speakers and dinners and hallway conversations with other smart people. To me it felt like, oh, you're paying us a lot of money and you're taking all this risk. Like, I should be thanking you. But fascinatingly, like, all these people were walking up to me and saying thank you. And so that reminded me of this core idea and first principle of what great networking is, which is fundamentally building a great network is about giving first. Like, how do you create something for other people? Or how, when you have lunch with them or you meet with them, how do you do something that adds value for them without expecting anything in return? It could be as simple as you meet somebody at a party, you find out what they do, and then you take a few minutes to connect them with somebody who might be a customer or somebody who might be a help to them. And suddenly what you're doing by that type of networking is building up a bank of basically goodwill with other people where you've helped them. And someday when you maybe need something or they start to see something that might be helpful to you, they will return the favor. Funnily, that's different than going to a cocktail party and just talking to somebody or having the luncheon circuit. The networking is actually about the activities you do for other people, not just where you are or kind of going to the classic kind of events that, well, frankly, they just don't work. The second thing that was surprising about the event was, as I talked to people, like understanding why they were there. Fundamentally, the people had paid that much money and wanted to be there because they wanted to spend time around people who were doing cool stuff. And we had some crazy people at this conference. We had a guy who had bought 100 auto shops in the past 3 years as part of their business. They just had like this huge machine to buy up these auto shops, and it was just freaking impressive. It made me realize this and reminded me of this core component of networking, which is this idea that the best networking is just doing cool shit. I would— bought the 100 auto shops, like, I saw this in practice. He had basically people lined up to want to talk to him because fundamentally two things were going on. Number one, people wanted to understand how he had done this? Like, how have you made this happen? Like, it's super fascinating that he was able to put all this together and buy 100 auto shops in just a couple years. But number 2, like, I saw the people that wanted to talk to him. They wanted to associate with people that were doing cool things, like, because fundamentally, like, they want to do cool things. And it reminded me of this principle, like, if you want to get the best networking, it's not telling people what you're doing, it's not recording YouTube videos, it's doing cool shit. And you can see in its core principle how this works, right? When you do cool things, it's like an advertisement for your ability, it's an advertisement for your quality as somebody that people want to know. That's, to me, it's like instead of going to a cocktail parties instead of doing the luncheon and the rubber chicken circuit. Like, you're better off spending that time just trying to make something awesome happen. And when I use this phrase cool shit, first of all, I apologize for cursing. What it means in practice is doing stuff that's remarkable, doing stuff that is able to add value to other people. And it comes back to these two ideas. Number one, the best networking is doing cool stuff. Number two is that cool stuff, you want to help people. And if you could do those two things, suddenly become a valuable member of those people's lives, interestingly enough, whether you know who they are or not. And it's one of the cool things about doing social media or videos or writing content you can do helping other people at scale. And fundamentally, like, I'm not going to get paid squat for this video, maybe a couple bucks in YouTube advertiser dollars, but maybe it helps some people and it builds up some good relationships with them, some good vibes, some good feelings, and maybe someday that pays me back. And fundamentally, that's the core of what good networking is about. It's an opportunity for all of us, whether it's doing YouTube videos or just referring somebody, a customer. We can all do it. That's this video. Let me know what you think. You can also tell me if it's getting sweaty here in San Antonio. It's hot. It's already April and it's 95 degrees. I don't know if I can make it. Let me know what you think. Hit me in the comments below and I'll see you next time.
