The Strategy That Gets You Face-to-Face With Corporate Decision Makers

In the entrepreneur world, we go into business doing what we do best, but people go into it, end up in debt or losing their business because they haven't managed their finances.

So your first bit of homework is going to be—

My name's Louisa Wilcox and I'm founder of Let's Get Wealthy financial education business.

Fantastic. How did you get into that?

Um, I've always wanted to help people with their finances, but more on the education side. We're not taught how to manage our money at school. It's a huge gap in knowledge, but so many people need to know how to actually handle their finances. And in the entrepreneur world, we go into business doing what we do best, what we enjoy, but people go into it, end up in debt or losing their business because they haven't managed to handle the finances. And obviously business and personal finances as an entrepreneur go hand in hand.

Yeah. And so you shared, um, before we started recording as well, there's a slight challenge which we're, you're kind of experiencing at the moment.

Yeah. So I'm kind of pivoting what I'm doing because I want to move away from doing everything online. Into more in-person. So I want to work with more corporates and their teams, also do some stage talks to actually properly educate people and some more in-person things with, um, business owners.

Nice. Excellent. And so it's that transition between what you're doing now into more in-person stuff, corporate and speaking gigs, basically.

Yeah. So kind of figuring out how that's gonna look going forward and the best way to move into that position myself in the right way as well.

Okay. Well, it should be simple. You should go and approach some corporates and hey presto, you get some work, right?

Yeah, it should be simple.

Should be simple. Okay, do you want to do some work on it?

I'd love to. Yeah, cool.

Join me on the business bench. Okay, Louisa, tell us a little bit more about like why, why do you want to get more into the, the sort of the, the corporate space and more in-person stuff?

Um, I think one, I work best in person. I've dabbled, um, online for a few years now and I do enjoy working with people, but I actually think we get our Um, our best learning and we take more from in-person. So when you're actually sitting in a room with someone, you're listening, you're present, you're getting that connection with others around you. I honestly believe we take more of away. I've done a lot of stuff online myself and it's great, but if you're anything like me, you get distracted by the dog, the kids, washing machine's going.

I know that feeling.

Yeah. But when you're in a room for 4 to 6 hours, you, you just, you can sit—

Lock in, focus.

Yeah. You've got purpose there.

I hear you.

And you take so much more away. Um, I want to work with corporates because again, going back to the education side of things, especially in the corporate world, you've got a lot of staff and team members who are working really hard, going into those high-end jobs thinking that the more they earn, the richer, the more wealthier they're going to be.

Yeah.

But what happens is lifestyle inflation. People go into corporate, they work really hard, they get the big pay packet, the big job, but then they get the bigger house, the bigger car on finance, and suddenly they're not living the life they want to live. They're burnt out, they've got debt, they're working all the time and not actually enjoying life.

Okay, let's come back to you for a second. So the challenge of getting into corporate, what's stopping you at the moment?

I suppose I just don't really know how to venture into that. I've been a business owner for 8 years now, and my old business I sold and exited recently, which I'm really proud of. But I've worked a lot with solo businesses and small businesses, so it's a whole different market. I have done some education myself around the area, but whilst it was great, it wasn't really teaching you properly how to go out there and how to get into it. And I suppose it's probably a little bit confidence too.

Okay, confidence. Tell me a bit, why is that?

I just don't know what to do. I don't know who to contact.

So it's not, it's not really a mindset thing. You kind of like, if, but if somebody gave me the blueprint which said if you follow this, this, and this, you could, you could, you'd have no trouble getting out there and doing it. It's just knowing that.

Like when you go to an event, um, with a business, you're speaking to a business owner. I'm talking to you. You run your business. When you're going to corporates, you've got to get through so many different channels to be able to get to maybe the person who has to make that decision.

Yeah.

And it's like, who's the right person? Where do you go forward? And I just don't quite know what to do.

Okay. So I've got a 5-step framework. The flag stops attacking us. I've got a 5-step framework essentially that kind of breaks down those barriers and it'll, you'll find it far easier. It takes a long time. This is what a lot of people can't get over, but it sounds like you've got the benefit of a bit of financial stability, very experienced business owner. Time isn't the issue. You're happy to be patient provided the right opportunities come up. Okay, so that's the one caveat of this 5-step process which I'm going to give you. It's no quick fixes. Okay.

That's business.

So one, one of the areas where a lot of business owners, they kind of have a bit of an idea about what the end game looks like. But working backwards from that endgame, a lot of it's kind of based on hypotheses and doing courses and maybe getting some of the right information, but there is nothing out there that doesn't work. It's just, it all works. It's just putting all the pieces together in the right order. So, um, but I've noticed a common thread with a lot of, um, small business owners is that they lack, um, the ability to be intentional. They don't understand what being intentional looks like. So, um, the first thing, the first question I've got for you on being intentional is, are there 10 businesses, brands, people that you would love to work with? Could you name them?

Not 10, probably about 3. Okay.

So could you, could you give us an idea about what, who those 3 are? You don't have to name them if you don't want to, obviously, but, but give us an idea about who they are.

I suppose, uh, HR. So HR corporates.

Okay, I need you to be more specific than that. I can name even more specific.

Yeah. So something like I'd love to work with a company like Apple. So that kind of brilliant. Love it. Even like going back to some of my background, Xero, I think would be really good because although they're in the accounting industry, is the staff understanding their own money? Yep. So I'm sort of looking at those kind of areas with it. And I'd maybe love to sort of tap into some more digital companies as well. Again, where maybe staff are actually earning really good money, but they just don't know what to do with it.

Okay. So your first bit of homework is gonna be pad out that list of 2 or 3 to 10, 10 businesses, brands, or individuals that you think, yeah, I would love to work with them. I'd love to guest on their podcast. I would love to speak at their annual conference. I would love to come in and do lunch and learns for them. I would love, whatever it looks like to you, but be hyper-intentional. Write the names down.

Exactly.

Because what happens then without going woo, it's like, you know, I hate the term manifesting 'cause I think it's been a bit overused and stuff like that. But unless you actually start naming those people and, and you You won't start taking the actions to get yourself in front of them.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's the first step. We just get intentional, we write the list down. It's pretty simple, right? You could do that.

Yeah.

The second step though, again, this is where a lot of online business owners, especially in online space, um, kind of let themselves down and probably become a little bit lazy because they're like, oh, I'll just go onto LinkedIn and I'll connect with them. Oh, I'll just go and follow them on whatever channel. I'll just go and post on social media and hopefully tag them in and hope that they find me. An element of that is right, but very cliché, but ultimately people buy from people.

Yes.

So can you guess what the second step is?

Actually go and connect with them.

Go and connect with people, right? Exactly like what we're doing here at, you know, the Founders Playground here in Bristol today is we are meeting people, we're having conversations. You can see there's lots of stuff going on here. Um, so step number 2 is very simple. Put yourself in the same room as those people. So at Xero or Apple, You want to distill it down into perhaps 1 or 2 or a handful of very specific people now in those organizations and start to, for want of a better word, stalk them. Figure out what events they're going to be at.

Yes.

Figure out how they go about networking. Ask like what, you know, I don't think we want to go quite as far as like whether their children go to school and hang out on the school gates, but we want to gather some clues as to like how we can engineer the process of us meeting.

Yeah.

And there's a bonus to this as well. So don't just put yourself in the same room as those people, but go and sit in the front row. So you could go to a conference where the CEO of Xero or HR director of Xero, for example, you know, is speaking at this event. But if you go and sit in the back row and then at the end of their talks they get mobbed down at the front, you're not going to get the opportunity to speak to them. You're not going to create the opportunities to kind of bump into them by accident, you know. So I always tell people, go and sit in the front row. If they've got a book signing, be the first in the queue. Um, a couple of examples of this. Um, so I, I've got an ambition. I'd love to be on Diary of a CEO. I've done some big podcasts, but Diary of a CEO is kind of like the pinnacle of, you know, somebody in my career as an author, a business coach. Um, so I went to, um, Steve Bartner's speaker tour, booked the VIP ticket, and guess who was front of line to go and do the meet and greet with him? Me, right? Here's my book and some lovely pictures to get. I figured He's gonna remember me if I'm first or last, not the 200 and whatever people in between, right? So little things like that. And again, you know, a lot of people will hold back in themselves going, I'm not, I'm not worthy. But we're all people just trying to get ahead at the end of the day. And good people, they get that. They started off somewhere. They'll embrace me now. Yeah, they'll embrace you. They'll bring you in. So we, we show up where they show up and we make sure we sit in the front row. Okay. Any guesses at what the next step might be?

Actually reaching out to them.

Yeah. So that's, that's part of that sort of step 2. But what, what, what else? When we reach out to them, what, what are we leading with?

Well, I suppose you want to offer a meeting or follow up, maybe a coffee chat.

They're not gonna do that just for anybody, are they?

No.

So they're, they're busy people.

Make the connection, get to know them.

Okay. Um, make the connection, get to know them. Yeah, absolutely. But what else? There's like a key ingredient here, which they're gonna be like, My God, I need to speak to Louisa.

Honestly, don't.

Because she is so, she is so helpful.

Helpful.

Yes, we got there in the end. God, leading the witness.

But yeah, a long day.

No, no. So step number 3 is literally just add as much value to that brand, that individual, as you possibly can do. And there are lots of weird and, you know, wonderful things which you can do to kind of add value, bring, bring value into people's world. So again, simple example, we've got Help Bank over here. So I don't know if you know Simon Sinek.

Yeah.

Do you follow him? Okay, so I started following Simon about 3 years ago as he was kind of on the ascendancy. And I was like, I like that guy. I like what his vision, mission, his values is. I love the fact he wants to help all these business owners for free, get people out of like jobs and into like entrepreneurship. But I was like, he's got millions of people who follow him and all these people who are like, want something from him. And I was like, how can I start to kind of get into his world without becoming an employee? Because I didn't want a job. I like my business. Um, uh, so what I did when they launched Help Bank, I just went onto the Help Bank platform and started helping people, and they had a leaderboard on it. Is that— do you remember? Are you familiar with Help Bank?

I've had a little look.

So they, they, they used to have this leaderboard on there as an incentive. They gave away a financial incentive for people to— if they won the leaderboard, you get £5K. Right, okay.

Yeah.

So I thought— I didn't do this for the money, I did it because if I get top of that leaderboard and win the gift, that Simon's going to notice me. as simple as that. But in doing so, um, that month when I became— I was number one and got the £5K, um, I helped hundreds of people across the Help Bank platform. I gave away scores of books, I gave away free coaching sessions, I, I did everything aside from just aiming to, to win that because I knew that pouring into the Help Bank brand and helping people were— was what Simon and Help Bank was all about. So it's But just add value, be helpful. Another example, I've had some partnerships with, do you know Ali Abdaal?

I've heard of him, yeah.

So Ali runs a fantastic productivity YouTube channel. And again, like my version of being helpful is he went to do this event at a university and I noticed that everybody looked a bit lost, like 600 people there, nobody knew what was going on. So I was like, right, put my bag down, put my coat down. It's like, right, Coffee's over there, the auditorium's that way, book signing's going to be over there afterwards. And then about 10 or 15 minutes into this, his general manager Angus comes over to me, he's like, Robin, what are you doing? It's like, well, everybody looks a bit lost, so I thought I'd just help out, give directions. It's like, well, you're a guest, you don't have to do that. It's like, no, absolutely, the reason I—

But you have to do it.

I want to help. Yeah, cool. So he goes to walk away, takes 5 paces, and turns around and comes back, and then he said, oh, Robin, there's There's this pricing thing we wanted to talk to you about. Have you got 5 minutes after the event tonight where we— and I was like, hmm, let me think about that. And the rest is history. I was then able to help them launch Part-Time YouTubing, you know, and so on it goes.

Okay.

So, um, so get yourself into— you just have to put yourself out there and be as helpful as you possibly can. And again, the little bonus tip for this is you need to do it in a way where you have zero expectation of getting anything back in return. It's just because intrinsically, for Fills you up and you're like, you couldn't find anything more enjoyable than working with one of those 10 people on that list because it is fun and you get a kick out of it and you can see that you're helping other people.

That's what it's all about at the end of the day, isn't it? Yeah. Thank you.

That's it. Um, then we start to move on to kind of the next steps, which is where it starts to become a little bit more sort of complicated. Okay. So sometimes, so I'm imagining like a, an HR director of a big organization like Apple or, you know, they have gatekeepers. They're very difficult to get. hold of. Okay, same as Simon Squibb, very difficult to get hold of that guy, you know. And even Ali Abdaal, one, one time when he had like less than a million subscribers, I'd send him a voice note and I get a long voice note back. Now I'm lucky if I get yes or no in WhatsApp, it's too busy. So I've given you a couple of clues there. What do you think step number 4 is?

Honestly, not sure. This is again where it gets a bit lost. Yeah, yeah.

So get to know the team. Okay, okay. So And if you're, if you're pouring into their brand, being helpful, showing up, and then you get to know the team members when they're having their morning meeting on a Monday morning planning meeting for the week, and they remember this amazing woman, Louisa, who came and helped out randomly at this event, but she had loads of cool stuff to say about Xero and finance and, you know, financial independence and, you know, and the team are the ones that are going, oh, we should get Louisa in to come to a lunch and learn. She was really engaging when we happened to bump into her at this event.

Okay.

Um, getting to know the team is more valuable than anything else. And it, again, it sounds like, like, I don't want people to think that in any way that we're kind of manipulating people or manipulating the situation. It's really important to express that we do it from a very genuine, heartfelt place because we want to, we, we, we know what the brand stands for and want to be a part of that. But when, when somebody like Simon's getting all the adulation and the team are kind of sat there twiddling their thumbs or whatever, When somebody notices them, it's a massive compliment. So yes, we are stroking their ego a little bit, but they'll be glad that somebody's interested in them versus—

Well, the team, they're also part of the team, aren't they?

Part of the team. It's a great compliment for them to get, you know, somebody asking questions about it or trying to be helpful.

There's a big driver behind it usually too. So you might have a person at the top, there's a team helping it go a lot. So by being in with them, you're helping naturally move it forward.

And so there's no agenda as well. Like, so again, like Simon's a great case in point. I went to an event in Dubai a couple of years ago just before he launched the What's Your Dream book. And I don't know if you've got a copy, you should go and get a copy if you haven't. You have, excellent.

Curious.

Fantastic. I'm plugging all the like Simon stuff. I should be plugging my own stuff. Hey folks, if you wanna get a copy of Take Your Shot, go to fearless.biz/TYS. There we go, shameless plug out the way. So cringey. Um, so, but, but Simon was busy doing a book signing when he launched the book, and I, I bumped into his team. I introduced mutual connections to, to his team as well. And then one of the guys who I knew was involved in the book launch, I said, oh, by the way, just out of curiosity, what's your book review, um, like campaign? And he's like, book review campaign? I was like, oh, you're missing a trick here. So this whole process, like everybody builds up to the launch, and my launch was just like number one bestseller on Amazon in a category. Like Simon's was New York Times bestseller. Okay, it's slightly different goals, but I was like, if you want the book to live anywhere out there, it's gotta have a bunch of reviews, like positive reviews to back up, you know, the story.

Yeah.

And then you get more sales and then you get more reviews. And so it becomes, so I was like, right, let me run you through my book review, my book review process, like post-launch. And literally he was there WhatsApping people with my step-by-step strategy. And I was like, have it, just go and run with it. I want Simon's book to do well. You know, again, proximity. If Simon does well, because I'm now an ambassador for Help Bank, is why I talk about it a lot, I stand to benefit from it.

Then you could help more people too.

Exactly. So, but that happened because of conversations with the team. I know, I now know all of these guys on a first name basis. We hug, we support one another. They, they support me doing my thing. I support Help Bank and it's all like a very virtuous sort of cycle. They refer people into me. It's, it's like, it's, you know, and, and vice versa. So it worked. Partnerships are like one of the best ways to kind of build, you know, a business and get to create these opportunities. And I'll go through some stats with you to kind of wrap things up in a second as well. So then the final part then is, so we've done, let's recap. So we've been intentional, written a list of 10 people. You've started hanging out with them in person, being in the front, sitting in the front row. You've added remarkable amount of value to their brands just because you want to and to lift them up. You've got to know their team. Um, the final part is, uh, if think— if none of those first 4 steps are working, and again, I'm leading the winners here.

Yep.

None of those 4 steps are working. What do you think step 5 might be?

Oh, it's gonna be your offer, I guess, isn't it? What you're doing, saying to them, this is what I do, this is how I can help. It's what I'd like to do. 'Cause obviously—

So towards— that's kind of step 6 in a 5-step process. We'll go, we'll come back to that. But this, the 5th step, I'll help you out here, is Really simple. Sometimes we have to roll out the silver platter.

So, hamper gifts.

It could be introductions.

So, his book.

Yeah.

That's it.

There's there's whole books about gifting, making introductions between different people. So if I get Daniel Priestley on Chris Doe's podcast and vice versa, you got three million subscribers there and two and a half million subscribers there, and. It's a match made in heaven. And when they sit down to have their interview and they say, how did this come about? They're like, oh, that weirdo Robin introduced us, right? So another way is pay to play. So it might be sponsor an event, sponsor a podcast. So I got one of my dream speaking gigs and an associate coaching role, and they're putting me forward in front of their clients to run events for them, host events for them, by sponsoring an event up in Newcastle 3 years ago.

Yeah.

When it was small and it was cheap. And I really, I love what the, the guys were about when they were running this event. So it's Atomic Con up in, up in Newcastle.

Yep.

So Andrew and Pete.

Yeah.

Just lovely. The best guys. It's such a pleasure to be involved in any way with what they're doing.

Yeah.

Um, and so that sponsorship rolled up into the next year. They said, oh, Robin, don't worry about the sponsorship, but can you put the goodie bags and the, uh, the, your books in the goodie bags? We wanna fill them up. Cool. No problem. Then we have a conversation and like, oh, you're doing this coaching thing. We're doing this coaching thing. Do you wanna come coach in our groups? Now I get paid to coach. Then year 3 rolls around, I get my dream speaking gig speaking at Atomic Con in front of 1,500 people, or one of the side rooms that there's less people than 1,500. You know, you get the point.

Yeah, I've been there.

So again, proximity, but it started with that small investment to sponsor it because I loved the brand, I loved the event, and I wanted to see it succeed. They had one sponsorship space back and I was like, the least I could do, guys, is, you know, um, so again, sometimes we pay to play, or you might, you might go and buy into a community. So like Um, Christo has the Future Pro Group, so you join that for a year, um, you make yourself a big part of that adding value, and then next thing you know, Christo's team kind of reach out and say, hey, do you want to come and do something?

This, isn't it? Smartless has got with all the founders, it's got a community.

Exactly. Yeah.

I'm part of that. I'm actually a financial expert in Smartless. So yeah.

So, and you notice at no point have we asked for anything. Okay. So coming back to that, and we'll, we'll wrap on this, I think. So we're just about— has it been helpful so far, by the way?

Yeah. Thank you.

Hopefully you can start to see, right, how do I— joining up the dots. This is like your 12-month plan.

When I did it, I was— it was the— it was very much the LinkedIn thing. Go on LinkedIn, get to connect. And that's what I struggle with because for me the connection is in person.

Yeah.

So when you're going on social media, just doing on there, I think it becomes overwhelming. And sometimes when you go, oh, connect to that person, when you're doing 20 other things, you forget.

Yeah.

Um, and that's kind of what I was told to do and it just doesn't worth. So yeah, actually going and being at the events, the in-person, it makes more sense. It's kind of, it's almost obvious, but it's having this kind of conversation that goes, yeah, actually that is what you do. It's being, just bringing it to the front of your mind.

But again, I would, I would say LinkedIn does work, but in this particular case with what you're trying to do with it, it's, it's not appropriate. Yeah, it's not, it's not the right way to do it. So, you know, again, like I said, this isn't a short, a shortcut or a short-term journey. This is like, it's 12 months now of nurturing those relationships, getting along to events, You can still do LinkedIn. You can still like the posts and drop them a voice note or maybe even a short video introducing yourself. So at least personalize that outreach, go the extra mile. Um, you know, but it's, it's the in-person stuff which is going to cut through. So final point is about the ask. Okay. So at some point, you, you, we don't do this like just because we, you know, for absolute virtue. At the end of the day, we all have businesses to run and there is a purpose behind it. Now, from my experience, if you nail those first 5 steps, eventually what happens is they come to you and say, listen, you've been so helpful, what can we do for you? How can we help you?

Yeah.

So again, just a couple of examples. With Ali Abdaal, I guested on his podcast in 2023. Yes, I'd added tons of value before that. But it did get to that point where one of his team said, Rob, what can we do for you? And my ask was simple. So first of all, I've got that invitation. And I said, look, I know Ali's recording his podcast, He's, he's doing 2 seasons, 24 episodes. If somebody drops out, cuz his guests are flying in from all over the world, can I be on the subs bench? I didn't say put me on the subs bench. I said, can I, can you put me on the subs bench? And the guy went, well, yeah, why didn't you ask before? Cuz I'm dating the podcast booker for, for Ali. So 100%. I kid you not, within 24 hours I had a call and I was on the podcast on Tuesday. But the timing of the ask, what you ask for, who you make the ask of, all of those things you have to kind of measure and get in the right order and do with permission. Otherwise it's never going to work. So the mistake everybody makes is they jump onto LinkedIn, hey, I've got— I'm good at this, I want to come and meet you and blah blah.

And it's like, you've got to woo them first.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, you don't walk into a bar and think that, you know, you've got to woo them a little bit.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, date them first, you know, several dates before you kind of make your first move, whatever. Yeah, anyway, but yeah, so it's exactly that. You've got to The timing of it. And it's even things like the guys show up to here and they're like, oh, Rob, what's the green book? And I was like, oh, it's my new book. And they're like, well, no problem. Because I do free coaching within Help Bank as well. I do a session every month. It's like, oh, well, when's launch date? We'll put it in the newsletter, Help Bank newsletter, which goes out to 300,000 people.

So it helps fit. Yeah.

Right. What's more valuable?

Yeah.

100 or 200 quid for running a coaching session or do the coaching session for free? So they, we JV on a launch like that. Right. And So again, I didn't have to ask for that. They said, is there anything we can do to help you? And that's, that's through 3 years of nurturing that relationship. With Ali, it was 4 years of nurturing my partnership with him.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. So it's just about thinking long-term, be intentional, and you'll, you'll get there.

Yeah.

You'll get this opportunity.

No, that's really good. Thank you.

No trouble. My pleasure.

Make sure I go home and start making a bit more of a plan.

There we go. So I noticed you, you did scan for a copy of Take Your Shot. Make sure you leave with the blueprint as well.

Thank you.

So again, we'll, we'll put a link to this on the YouTube video as well, but I was just going to point out to you, so I think it's step number 6. Step number 6. This is, this is the 5-step process we've just been through.

Yeah, no, that's great.

Thank you. So folks, if you, if you want to build some partnerships the same way that Louisa does, go and get hold of a copy of this on Amazon or reach out to me for a signed copy, and it will take you through those 6 steps we've done. And the bonus is That's just one step in this book. There's 6 others that you can now jump into.

Thank you.

Hopefully, yeah, hopefully make life a little bit easier for yourself.

Yeah, no, that's absolutely great. Thank you ever so much.

My pleasure. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you.