MBA2130 Q&A Wednesday: Do I need to build my network or audience first?

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To save on new tech it's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. 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. Heyo. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. Powerful business lessons delivered 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 today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays, we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. Today's question is from Yasmine and Yasmeen asks, hey Omar, I'm new to this entrepreneur thing. I've been listening to your podcast and love your lessons. I know it's important to build my network and it's important to build my audience, but which one should I build first? Would love your help as I navigate these new waters. Thanks Yasmeen for your question. This is a fantastic topic because it's a real practical one. Building your own network of other business owners, Creating creators founders is really important, but so is building your actual audience that you'll eventually be able to sell to. Now obviously the easy answer is to build both, but in today's episode I'm actually going to give you an answer. I'm going to tell you which one to focus on and when and how to leverage one to get the other. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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Today Yasmin asks, hey, do I build my Network or should I build my audience first? And what she means by network, she means the people you know in your industry, other business founders, other business builders, your contacts, your Rolodex, is that more important? Or should I focus on that at the start of my entrepreneurial journey, or should I start to build my own audience where I can start selling and marketing to them? Now, I'm going to be honest with you, because I've been through this journey, it's a whole lot easier, actually, to build your audience first. Why? Because if you want to meet other people doing interesting things, and you need to be doing interesting things, you need to be building an audience, a brand, a following. It's so much easier to build your network and meet interesting entrepreneurs. When you have an existing audience, you have a product, you have a service, you've got some traction. For example, I do a lot of public speaking. And when I first launched the $100 MBA show back in 2014, I started to build my audience, I started building my following, and that opened a lot of opportunities for me, like speaking gigs. I spoke at US Military bases. Other entrepreneurs and speakers would speak at these events. And because I got invited to these events, I met some interesting people, other entrepreneurs doing crazy, amazing things, and I started to build my network. As I grew my audience, as I started to build and grow my business, I started to meet more interesting people. People doing things I never would imagine, people that are even a few years or even decades ahead of me. So if you want to improve the quality of your actual network, improving yourself and what you do is actually a shortcut to do that. So at the start, I would focus on really trying to build an audience. And you do that by really building great value for them. Whether you have a killer blog, or you're great on YouTube, or you engage with people on Twitter and answer questions, or you're the webinar queen, whatever it might be, build that audience. Because that audience is going to help you build great products. They're going to tell you what they struggle with, they're going to help you build a great business, they're going to help you build your platform, which will then allow you to meet interesting people through that platform. Because when it comes to building your network, there are levels to this. When you have ample opportunity to meet a lot of people because you're invited to dinners and events, you get to be selective about your network. And you're going to need to do that, because not everybody that you meet is good for you, is good for your future. Not everybody's going to jive with you perfectly or be a good fit for you. It could be, you know, no judgments, you know, just not a good fit for me. When you're desperate to build your network and you don't have a lot of options, sometimes you'll sacrifice your values and connect with people or do business with people that maybe are not on brand when it comes to serving your audience. So you have a higher chance of building a solid network that you can actually cherish and cultivate and really have lifelong friends who, when you start with your audience first. The other reason why I recommend the audience first is because when you build your audience and you start building your products and services, you start to understand what you actually do, you start to niche down, you start to specialize and you kind of understand who you're all about, right? Like what you're all about and how you're different from other people and you start to carve out your unique value. And this is very important because then when you start meeting people and start building your network, you're very clear about what you do and who you serve. And they'll be able to help you a lot easier when they know that clearly. But when you're getting started and you don't have an audience and you start meeting people, they're not really sure how they can help you because you haven't established who you are yet. For example, a buddy of mine here in Sydney, Will Wang, knew that I run a webinar software and I'm all about teaching and learning. And because he knows that, he said, hey, you gotta meet my buddy Justin. They have a very cool way of learning new things. You can learn things faster. I think this is up your alley. So he introduces me to the right people that are interesting to me because I have a well defined. I serve coaches and creators and teachers. It's clear as day what I do. And therefore he can have his radar up for people that he can introduce me to. That would be a good fit. Now, having said that, you're going to build your audience, going to work on that, but it does take effort to build your network. You can't just sit at home or in your office and expect your network to be built. You have to, to actively get out there. You have to actively make connections online. You have to actively get on people's calendars and chat and get to know them. So even if you spend one hour once a month planning out the next month of how you will build your network, that means signing up for local events the next conferences that are around in your area or in your country. Are there any opportunities for you to speak anywhere? What about virtual summits and webinars that you can speak on? Is there somebody that you want to be introduced to that somebody you already know can introduce you to? Just make a laundry list of different ways you can connect and build your network. And then that way you have all the planning and all the action items, the to do list for you for the whole month to just execute. See what I mean by you have to take an active role. You really do need to put some effort into it and it will pay off. And by the way, this gets easier over time. I did this exercise, I did this once a month thing for years in the beginning, but eventually I didn't have to do it anymore because introductions and opportunities would come to me. But in the beginning you're going to need to do some effort and that's okay. It's well worth it.

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Before we wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday episode, I want to give you a few more tips when it comes to building your network and building your audience. I like to be very strategic when it comes to building my network, especially when it comes to how it can help grow my business and really introduce me to people that would allow us to collaborate. One of the exercises I do is I make a list of audiences or companies that have audiences that I want to get in front of that would be perfect for my product or service. I try my best to make sure that these companies are non competitive, like they're not competing with me, I'm not competing with them. Why do I do this? Because if we do collaborate, it's a win win. It's in my best interest to make them win and vice versa. I then find out who's behind these companies, who are the founders or people that are on the C level team like the head of marketing or the CTO or whatever it is. I then ask myself, is there anybody I know already that would know this person or these people. And when I say no, that's just anybody I've ever contacted or spoken to online, offline, email, anything. Why? Because it's so much easier to get introduced to somebody through an introduction. Meaning if I want to get to know founder of Company X and I know somebody that has had dinner with them, they shared a picture on social tweets, back and forth with them often, and I'm friends with them, they're part of my network, I will reach out to them and say, hey, I noticed that you're friends with so and so. I'd love to get to know them. Would you mind making an introduction? Two things can happen. One, they could say sure, and they make the introduction. Or they say, well, I actually don't know them that well, or maybe I can't, or I'm comfortable and they say no, or they don't reply at all. If either of those happen, it's okay, you're still alive. And the point here is that it's a numbers game. You need to try as much as possible to do this over and over with all the people you want to reach out to. And eventually people will say yes. Or I should say, even mostly people will say yes. I have found that more times than not, people do the introduction for you. And with that warm introduction, it's so much easier to start that relationship and start collaborating. If you don't know somebody that knows them, get to know somebody that knows them and you're basically doing two degrees away. Or is that one degree? I think that's one degree. The point here is that work your way to an introduction. And by the way, there's no time limit here. This is not a race. Take your time, make this a practice you do on a regular basis, and just try your best to meet new people and build that network every single day. I hope that helps. And I hope that answers your question. Yasmeen, thank you so much for writing in and asking your question. If you have a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over@omar mba.net and we'll answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday. We only use your first name, so we keep it anonymous. It's my way to help you through your business journey and help others through answering the question because I'm sure other people have the same challenges. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 DOL NBA Show. If you love this podcast, if you've gotten something out of it, the best way you can pay us back is to share it. Go ahead and share it. On social media, you can just say go to 100mba.net to subscribe. We have some easy buttons for them to click, and if you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you do that. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app. So you get our next episodes automatically and you have access to over 2100 episodes in our archives. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If you want to grow an audience, if you want to grow your network, the key to all of it is consistency. Small activity every single day that compounds, that builds over time. And time goes by, right? The year goes by. We're already in September. Crazy, right? But because you're taking those consistent actions, your network, your audience starts to compound and build. And you're all better for it. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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