MBA1944 How To Make Real Connections at Live Events

Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night, not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling.

Payments and wondering how this became my life.

But once I automated the admin side of things, of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with Intuit QuickBooks. QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers, and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts. So doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform.

Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Product perks include Dell rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Hey oh. Welcome to the Hunter RMBA show. Practical business insights for real world businesses every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014. And in today's episode you will learn how to make real connections at live events. In many parts of the world, restrictions are easing and live events are back. Networking events, live conferences, meetups, you name it. So today's lesson is all about how do we get back into these events, but more importantly, how to make deep real connections with the people you meet at these conferences at these live events. I'm a very mission goal oriented person, so anything I do must have a purpose, must have an aim. And I feel like it's really helpful to apply this type of methodology, this type of strategy to an event, to attending an event because you want to feel like it's a good use of your time. And one of the things I've learned over the years is that your business is really about the people you know, the network you build, the connections you make. And that doesn't happen by accident. You have to make the effort. So I want to share with you what I do to make sure that every time I go to an event, I have a plan, I have a strategy. I don't feel overwhelmed with trying to meet every single person that's there, but at the same time I don't resort to standing in the corner of the room and just wait until it's over and, and it's time to go home. I meet a good number of people, I get to know them, I learn about them, and then I have a follow up strategy to make sure that, that this isn't just become the only time we meet and get to know each other, that we actually become friends, that we actually connect, that we help each other and make that live event the starting point and not just a brief encounter. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

ClickUp just solved AI's biggest problem and it's saving 4 million teams from productivity loss every day. Unlike ChatGPT and other AI tool, ClickUp converges all your work into one platform so your AI super agents have full context to prioritize tasks, execute workflows and draft documents instantly. Teams using ClickUp finish work 30% faster and cut meetings in half. Try ClickUp for free today and get 15% off AI upgrades at ClickUp.com podcast that's C-L-C-Kashp.com podcast.

Recently, I've been making an effort to get out of my house, to get out of my home office and go to some live events, go to some meetups, some dinners, some conferences, some networking opportunities. Because for many of us, we have not engaged in any of that for at least 18 months to two years. And what I've learned is that your business is as strong as your network. So you want to make sure that you make connections, that you meet people with the intention of helping each other out and growing through that relationship. But how do you do that? How do you kind of systematize this so that it's kind of straightforward and you don't have to kind of feel overwhelmed when you go to an event or feel like, oh man, now I gotta meet people, shake hands, what do I talk about, all that kind of stuff. And then what do you do after that conference, after that live event? Often we just totally forget about the people we met. We don't follow up and we feel awkward the next time we happen to see them in the next event or at a conference or, you know, they comment on something on social media. So the first thing I like to do is I like to try to go to at least two events a month. I've been doing quite a lot this month, maybe three or four a month, but I'm kind of just making up for lost time. But normally I'd like to go to some event. It could be something small, it could be something large, it could be a meetup, it could be a lunch and learn. But the point here is that I'm gonna go to some event of some size twice a month with people that I'd like to get to know a little bit, whether they are potential customers or partners or just people in business that are interesting. So now that I made sure that I've booked two events and I. You could simply just search your local area, look at the, you know, the startup communities, the co working spaces in your area. Go to meetup.com, go to eventbrite.com there's plenty of places where you can check out events in your local area or simply look up conference or event plus your market, podcasting, business coaching, yoga studios, whatever it is. Now, my co founder and I, Nicole, we go to these events together and we often try as much as possible to commit to a goal every time we go. So it depends on how much time we're gonna spend at this event. So say, for example, go to some sort of meetup with a speaker and some drinks and pizza or something like that. Like at 6 o' clock to 9 o', clock, a three hour. In this case, we kind of set the goal where it's like, okay, we want to meet three to five new people. We usually do a minimum of the hours. This is just something I made up just recently and try to push ourselves a little. Three to five people. Now I'm actually more interested in getting to know people well and having deeper connections and relationships rather than meeting like 40 to 50 people in three hours, you know, and then you barely remember their names. Three to five people, I can remember their name. I can have a meaningful conversation with them. I can get to know them a little bit. So setting a goal is actually quite good because you're meeting somebody, you're talking to somebody, they might go and get a drink that might go away and you're like, okay, I got a couple more people I need to meet. And it kind of pushes you to, you know, get out of your comfort zone and not just resort and talk to a friend or talk to the usual people that you see there or the person you came with. Okay, so setting that goal is really, really helpful. The second thing is, is that a lot of people Worry about, what am I going to talk about, what am I going to say? The only thing I really think you need to prepare is just describing what you do, basically your elevator pitch. But you don't really need to make this overly formal. You can just literally tell people what you do. Hey, I run a software company called Webinar Ninja. It helps small business owners, coaches, speakers, authors, online course creators create and run webinars easily. And I just stopped talking at that point. You know, I stopped for a reason, because I don't want to give too much information. I want them to absorb what I just said. And at the same time, this usually prompts a question. Oh, cool. How do you compare to so and so? Oh, cool. When did you start that? That sounds amazing. What's your website? So this allows people to ask some questions and kind of allows you to relax a little bit because you can just answer questions. That's easier than coming up with conversational topics yourself. The other thing is that I try as much as possible not to do most of the talking. I actually just like to ask some questions because I want to get to know this person. And the best way to do that is to ask questions. And the typical questions like, what do you do? And when did you start this? And who's your typical customer? Do you enjoy this? You know, I just actually asked some genuine personal questions. What are you excited about in the next six months? And then I make it a point to find out a little bit about them and their business, like, what's your website? So I can just pop it in my browser and save it and check it out for later. An easier one is even like, are you on social? Are you on Instagram? Are you on Twitter? Are you on Facebook? I like those better. Versus LinkedIn. LinkedIn is very, very professional. And it's not the easiest place to socialize, to be honest, in terms of my own personal experience. It's a place where you get spammed a lot. So it's not kind of a place I go to kind of chat or message people. So I asked them, are you on Facebook? Are you on Instagram? Are you on Twitter? They say yes. I ask them what their handle is. I look it up immediately on my phone, I follow them, and now I know who they are. Okay. This allows me to be able to follow up with them later on, and we'll talk about that later. But then it also shows I'm genuinely interested in learning more about them. I'm not just having a conversation because I have to. This is A networking event. I'm actually opening up my phone and taking action. And a lot of people really appreciate that. They really find that quite intriguing. They're like, oh, cool, this person really is getting to know me. If they have a podcast, hey, tell me your podcast name. I'll open it up on my phone and I'll subscribe so I can listen later on. Same thing with the YouTube channel. Before you know it, you're having a great conversation. You're learning more about this person, and you can now easily remember their name or recall their name easily because you just followed them on social. One of the things I kind of struggle with is remembering people's names. And this has been a great way for me to do this. One of the easiest ways to have a conversation with somebody you just met is just talk about something that they know. And the topic most people know about is themselves. Okay? So I just ask questions about themselves, their experience, their business, and it just makes it easy for them. A lot of people forget this and they start saying, like, oh, do you know this person? Have you read this book? And a lot of times people will say, no, I don't know this person, or I've never heard of this book. And for a first interaction, that can be a little bit intimidating for them if they don't know the answers to those questions. So I like to keep it light, throw them some softballs, keep it comfortable, and just get to know them a little bit. Now, one of the things I do when I follow them on social is I just bookmark or save one of their posts. Why do I do that? Because then I can go back and look at the people that I met that night, and then I can just recap all the connections I made. Why do I do this? Because once the event is over and maybe I'm at home or it's the next day, I can go and go through, okay, these are the five people I met at the event. Who is somebody I really wanted to continue to have a conversation, maybe have a lunch with, a coffee, maybe hop on a call together. And usually out of five people, about two to three people would be those types of people. I feel like I want to take this relationship and build upon it. Not everybody you're going to want to have a relationship with. It's just natural, you know, you're not going to meet all your best friends in one night. Right. But now that I'm going through my bookmarks, I can say, okay, this is the person. Now I can go ahead and message them and Follow up. I message everybody, just to quickly message them, hey, how you doing? What's going on? It was great meeting you and just keep that connection alive. But. But some people, I'll take the step further and say, hey, would you like to have coffee? Are you going to be in the city next week? I'm going to this event next week. Do you want to come? It's supposed to be good. Hope to see you there. And usually by the second or third time you've met this person, they pretty much become a friend. And that's a really efficient way to build relationships quickly with really low pressure. Okay, it just all started with a very light networking event with the goal of meeting three to five people.

ClickUp just solved AI's biggest problem and it's saving 4 million teams from productivity loss every day. Unlike ChatGPT and other AI tools, ClickUp converges all your work into one platform so your AI super agents have full context to prioritize tasks, execute workflows and draft documents instantly. Teams using ClickUp finish work 30% faster and cut meetings in half. Try ClickUp for free today and get 15% off AI upgrades@ClickUp.com podcast that's C-L-C-K-U P.com podcast to wrap up today's lesson.

Some of us are very comfortable with meeting people, with, making friends, with, following up with people, and some of us are not. And some of us are somewhere in between. The point here is that when you have a strategy, when you actually go into an event with a goal in mind, with some questions that you would ask people, with understanding, you can just do all the interviewing. You don't need to answer questions. And to have a script ready, this takes a lot of pressure off this whole situation. Also, one of the things I've noticed is that the more events I go to, the more I become well known in certain circles, people know who I am. They've met me before. I saw you that last event, I saw you speak on stage, I saw you at the pizza bar, whatever it is, you know, the point here is that you become a little bit well known just by showing up to these places, to these events. And in business we learn that it's a small world. But the point here is that you gotta make the effort, you gotta plug it into your calendar and you gotta show up. If this is not your jam, but know you have to do it, just force yourself to go one to two times a month, follow my strategy that I laid out today and let me know how it goes. I would love to hear. If things got a little easier for you, just email me over@omar00mba.net well, that wraps up today's lesson. Thank you so much for listening. Tomorrow's episode is Q and A Wednesday where we answer questions from listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask again, email me@omar100mba.net Tomorrow's question is from AJ and he asks, hey Omar, how do I stop myself from working 24 7? Love my business, super passionate about it, but I often get burnt out because I don't know when to stop. We get into that question in tomorrow's lesson, so make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the things I make a point to do at every event is I like to meet the organizer of the event, the person that pulled this off. This is kind of a bonus person that I like to meet, get to know. And for them to get to know me, you know, I want to know them because maybe they're on another event. I can get involved, I can help, I can speak, I can help promote, I can sponsor. The point here is that this person is a tastemaker. This person put the things together, you know, makes things happen. You want to know these people? Okay. So even if you don't know who is organizing the event, it's not on the event page or the website. Ask somebody, hey, who, who pulled this event off? They'll point them out and then you'll know who to speak to. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

Okay. Does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

Share and share alike with the 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6 limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other.