Ask Me Anything 3Key Questions

Good morning, it's Sally Curtis here, and I'd love to talk to you today about it's not how, it's who, just to give you a quick understanding of the power that sits within your wealth network. Now, that's all the people that you know within your network of connections, and there'll be a select group that become your go-to people that really starts to form your wealth network. And today I want to share with you 3 key questions that you can use to build a business very quickly and overcome problems and solve problems quickly so you can create profitable growth quickly also. So a wealth network really does help you learn faster, leverage your experience of others, it helps you grow quickly, solve those solutions, overcome problems And when used correctly, it really does become a time-saving and cash management opportunity because you can solve problems to get to profitable solutions very quickly. Also, within your wealth network, you can find key mentors that have been there and done that experience, and I'll share one of those stories with you today. So it really is— it's not how, it's who. Let me start with by sharing with you very, very quickly what most people's network actually looks like in their head. Now, statistically, we have and do know more than 250 people in our lifetime and have that many number within our network. In reality, I believe it's closer to 1,000. But generally speaking, most people don't realize. How many connections they actually do have within their network. And this is what their network looks like in their mind. This is what I call an accidental network. As you can see, you've got yourself there in the center, the little— the big black dot, followed by lots of little dots around the place. But it's filled with lots of clutter. It's filled with chaos. You can't see and determine who leads to who. You don't really understand who's in what industry, and you really can't see what the opportunities are to grow because it's an accidental network that's just composed by chaos theory. But let me blow a myth out of the water because I know I just said that you do actually know lots of people in your network, and the little voice in your head has probably gone, yeah, crap. Or no, that's not true. Here is an example of a network that has been mapped out so you can see who leads to who. Now this is my son's network, Rory, when he was just 5 and a half. And you can see that there's lots of branches and arms that lead off to groups of people. So I've grouped his network. into clusters of where we've met people. And he was 5 and a half years old when we did this. And no, it doesn't include any of my network, but he had 465 connections in his network at that time, which is pretty impressive. So you do know way more people than you realize. Let's have a look at the 3 key questions. And 3 key questions to ask yourself as it relates to your network is, who has influence in a particular industry? So your industry, as an example. Who do you know that, followed by detailed criteria— who do you know that runs a medical practice that specializes in children that is in the CBD or particular criteria. So that's who do you know that followed by specific criteria. Who has been there and done it experience. In other words, who do you know that's overcome the problem or challenge in business and has already succeeded and overcome it? And in some cases, even consider who has failed at it because you can learn from their mistakes as well. So let me start with the very, very first story, and this is about Zambreros, which is a fast food Mexican franchise, and it's particularly about their CEO here in Australia. He was the young— Sam Cook was the youngest CEO at just 23 years of age. And he took over the franchise, running the franchise, and he hadn't been a CEO before. So what he did was he looked for people with been there and done that experience. So as people, as he faced problems within his business, as it was a new business to him, he found people utilizing a resource called the BRW magazine. And he did this, and he was appointed CEO in 2009, and he took 70 people out for coffee or lunch to ask them some specific questions in 2010. Now the great thing here is he found these people in the BRW's Fastest Franchise magazine, and he was able to find people that had solved the problems he was currently facing as a new CEO in franchising. Now the really cool thing is, of the 70 people he invited out for coffee or lunch, none of them turned him down. So he was able to overcome and solve problems very, very quickly in his business, which did create very, very fast growth. Now the fast growth that he created, he went from $1.1 million in his franchise to $75 million in sales. He was also listed as the fastest-growing franchise by BRW in 2011, 2012, and 2013. He has also then gone on to be the global CEO of Zambrero's Mexican Grill And is now off doing other things on his own. But it was a really great way for him to learn through other people who've been there and done that experience. And this is his process. He believes, as do I, that everybody is reachable. He went after and found the biggest name that had solved the problem that he had in his industry. He took them out for lunch. He asked them 1, 2, and 3 very key questions as it related specifically to his business. I don't have those questions today because they were really, really relevant to what was going on in his business, but he didn't ask them any more than that. He just asked them a few key questions and then went and implemented those in his business. That being the key thing— asking a great question means you do need to implement the solution. Second question, and we're going to revisit Rory's network example. Now Rory, as I mentioned, is my son. He's now 14, but at the time of doing this network, he was 5 and a half and had 465 connections in his network. And he wanted to get some more— at the time, some more Lego toys. He'd been going through a phase where he was getting into the habit of those collections of toys, and I said to him that I wasn't actually going to continue to fund it. So he decided, and we talked about creating a lemonade stand. And this example will go through and share with you how you can generate leads and sales. So Rory decides, as I mentioned, to create a lemonade stand. Now he has 465 connections, and let's assume that they all love sugary lemonade. Now Rory could go out and call or touch base or have a face-to-face from a sales perspective with 465 connections and see if he could sell them some lemonade. So there's one way he could utilize his network as a resource for building and selling lemonade. The next thing he could do as an option is find the 20 of the most influential children, those kids that are cheerleaders, the ones that have a group, the popular kids, the kids that have Influence. And often those kids that have influence have very large networks themselves. You know, the ones— they get to go to all the parties and know all the other cool kids. So now let's imagine that Rory has decided to talk to these 20 popular kids, the ones that are really influential and very, very popular, and he could talk to them about binding and all the kids that are going to be having birthday parties. So let's imagine there's all those birthday parties going on within Rory's network. Can you imagine how many birthday parties there could potentially be? If Rory's got 465 people in his network, then it's quite likely that those 465 also have 465 in their network. So you can see here that it can leverage and grow very, very quickly. So now he's got these 20 kids using their influence to help him sell some lemonade, and that's really an option to look at large volume sales. So birthday parties would obviously be a larger volume of lemonade potential sales there. The other thing that he could do as a third option with those influential kids is to actually offer them a percentage or a sales or success fee or a commission, and he could then have those 20 kids as resellers for his lemonade. And you can see just from this very, very quick example, when you know who you have in your network, you can very easily solve the how And work out how you can create more sales through the people and with the people, collaborating with the people that you know. He had the opportunity because he knew who he had in his network to find those naturally influential children that would open more doors for him and themselves to be able to sell more lemonade. So who has influence Is the question here. And let's have a look at Rory's process. Rory identified which kids had influence, the ones that were the natural cheerleaders and the door openers. He then asked them what they wanted. He collaborated with them. Like him, he— they all wanted more pocket money. He shared the actions involved, which was selling lemonades and finding kids that had birthday parties. And together they could create a joint solution of selling large volumes of lemonade to large groups of people. So ask yourself, who do you need in your business, in your career right now, that will help you fill gaps and create solutions for yourself? So now let's move on to the very 3rd question to ask. Which is who do you know that followed by the criteria. This is also a great example of who leads to who and who and how you can find more referrals in your business. So this is an example of a case study of my own. It's a number of years old now, but I received an email from a friend Um, here in North America. Watch. I beg your pardon, it was actually South America. So my friend here was in South America, and he sent me an email that was a very, very long and lengthy email asking me very simply, as lots of people do, Sally, who do you know that— so he provided the criteria to me initially. And they were looking for a joint venture partner that had experience in building and scaling ski resorts. They needed somebody that could write a master plan and could work out and determine how to build roads, manage an international project in Russia, and they wanted somebody that was used to working in similar climate conditions. And they also needed to be able to produce the documents in Russian. So you can see from that criteria they had very specific dot points of the criteria of the person that they were actually looking for. And at the time it was a bit of a joke to me because it was so over the top a request coming from my network because I didn't think I really knew that specific of a person. But what I did do is I went out to my visual network board and had a look for people that could potentially assist with finding the right person. And I had quite a large number of people that were involved in property, both at a local level and at a national and global level. So I forwarded on the email that I'd received from my friend with the requests that they were looking for and asked if anybody could help me help this person in my network. And then, as serendipitous as it occurs, I had a phone call from a client of mine that had done the training with me 12 months earlier, and that was Phil over here in Sydney. And I was talking to Phil, and Phil always likes to ask me, you know, what are we up to? What am I doing now? And so I shared with him, I said, I've had a really unusual email come through. I'll forward it through to you so you can have a look at it. So I had a bit of a chat with him about what they were looking for, and he could see the criteria and the information in the email. And then in his gorgeous Irish accent that I won't try to do. He said to me, Sal, you'll be proud of me. I think I can help with that. Now you've got to understand, Phil had moved to Australia less than 12 months earlier. So it was about 11 months earlier he'd moved to Australia from England. So he had done my training pretty much effectively as soon as he'd landed in Australia, and that was how he was going to go about building his own business. that he brought from the UK to here. And then what he did is he connected us with his wife, in actual fact, who had connections back here to the UK, who then actually connected us to the joint venture person, who we then connected to the client over here in North America. Now what's significant about that is It was only a week and five connections, and we were able to find somebody that could potentially be the solution for as the joint venture partner for this client. Now the reason that was so easy for us to do is we had a very clear criteria, a very clear description that made it easy for us to visualize or see in our minds. the possible connections that could help us refer and find this person. So when you know the criteria, the how becomes very, very easy. Now in this case, he was not the first choice. He ended up being the second choice, but it was a really great experience for us to be involved in, and it really is a good demonstration of using the criteria and the question, who do you know that, followed by the criteria, and that is often a great way to solve a problem that you're currently facing. And the process that I used here was I was able to identify who that I could potentially know that was in an industry that may be able to lead me to a key connection. It was effectively using my one-aways And they're the people that are one connection away from the people that I actually know. And I started with the real estate industry. I was able to provide them the criteria because I forwarded the email that I received, and I simply asked for help. Guys, who can you help me— who do you— how can you help me with this? Who do you know that— followed by the criteria. I provided the instructions And then together they helped provide the solution that I was then able to deliver to a client. So here's the 3 key questions again, and a challenge to find and define those people in your network that can help you overcome solutions. And those 3 questions are: who has influence? Who do you know that— followed by a very specific criteria. And who has been there and done that experience. And you will find that it is not how, it is who, and you can overcome your challenges, problem solve much faster, and grow really great businesses very, very quickly. Thank you very much. I hope you've enjoyed it, and please reach out to me at any time for any solutions that you may be looking for. Thank you.