Building Your Network With High Calibre People

Heard that your network is your net worth. Ella Mae from One Degree is here with us today to talk about how you as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, can build your network with high-caliber people. High-caliber people. Ella Mae, great to have you here today to talk about this topic because I think a lot of us in this world of entrepreneurship, we understand the power of networking. And you yourself being a big-time connector and helping people connect with vendors, etc. We understand the idea of networking, the power behind that. But the quality of the networking that you do is really dependent on reaching out to and having high-caliber people. I would love for you to start with a definition. What do we mean by high-caliber people?

I mean, when I think of someone that— first of all, thank you so much for having me. And when I think of someone that I would be interested in connecting with, I've seen enough from them or heard enough about them from people in my network to assure myself that it seems like what this person is up to is something I'd want to be a part of. It seems like they're legit. They seem like their heart is in the right place. And they happen to be 15, 20 steps ahead of me in business. They happen to have an incredible relationship. You know, they're 20 years married and they still not only love each other but like each other. It's kind of whatever area of your life you're looking to improve is the type of people— well, whatever area you're looking to improve, surround yourself with the type of people that have already figured that out because, oh my God, that's really helpful.

It's the idea of connecting with people maybe whose reputation precedes them. Right, that people that you are like intrigued by, or they've said something or done something or demonstrated something that made you got to go, hmm, that person's legit. I like how you said that legitimacy is one of the things that probably is a, you know, a standout quality of somebody that would be a high caliber person. Um, And so how do you, like, how do you go about networking? What, what does it look like in your world in terms of how you connect with people?

I mean, now it's so different because my network's grown so exponentially, but I'll tell you what I used to do, and this works like gangbusters, okay? It's a very simple formula and it involves social media and it works. So, and this is how I got my first really high-end client, was using this exact process kind of by accident. So basically what you want to— first thing you identify is the person you want to connect with. Most likely you're not going to know, you're not going to know them. You might not know people who know them personally, but you've seen them online. You've heard enough about them, whatever it is. You've got the person that you want to connect with. What I really encourage you to do is start getting onto their radar by, if they have a podcast, Screenshot the podcast, share it to your Instagram story and tag them. DM them. Just say, "Hey, thanks for doing what you do. I really love this thing." But what's really important is that you're giving them free exposure. Anybody who is worth talking to, their DMs are flooded with asks. Okay? "Hey, can you look at this for me?" "Hey, Cheryl, I want to work for you. I'll do anything. I'll work for free." Well, listen, it's still work for me to train you. You're asking me to do the ThinkingWorks and give you a job, right? The biggest thing here is you're just giving them free exposure for no other reason than you enjoy their stuff. This puts you in like the top 2% in their DMs. Very few people just give a gift basically with asking nothing in return. So now you're on their radar. And look, I've showed up in people's DMs like 10, 12 times before they ever were like, oh my God, who are you? Before they saw them. So don't be afraid to just be consistent. Don't be creepy. You don't do it all in one day, but don't be afraid to be consistent with it, right? Eventually, normally what'll happen is they'll like the photo. They'll, they'll say, hey, thanks so much. You know, like, that's really cool. I'm glad you liked the show. I'm glad you like whatever. You say, yeah, it's great. Don't ask for a damn thing. It's great. Thanks so much. Your objective here is not to get 5 minutes with this person. It's to have this person in your corner 20 years from now. That's really, really important. You're playing the long game. You don't need a selfie. I mean, I'm not against this, but you don't need a selfie the first time you meet them. You don't need to put that— you don't really even need to put them on a pedestal. This is someone you want in your corner 20 years from now if you do business together. If you don't, if you marry them, if you don't, you are totally fine, right? Whatever your goal is here, right? You are totally good. So as you're getting onto their radar, usually these conversations develop fairly organically. Your job now I know if this is a successful entrepreneur, which was the networking I was after when I was getting started with my business, any successful— ooh, that just got big— any successful entrepreneur that I know who has created a certain level of wealth has something that has their heart. Okay? And that certain level of wealth is usually just they're good for money. It could be generational, it could be they're just good and they're happy with that, but they've got their moneymaker, they've got their business. Everybody comes to them for their business. Okay? Everybody's like, I can make you more money. I want to work in the business. The business is definitely important to them. It's probably not their heart. There's something that's got them. There's a fulfillment. There's a charity. There's a cause. There's something they want to change in the world. I've only met 2 people in my entire network that had achieved wealth where they really don't have to work anymore and beyond. Who didn't have a thing. One is a very high-functioning alcoholic. The other is a sex addict. Both good. I mean, they're not bad people. They're doing cool things with business. But I was like, oh, interesting. The only two people I've met that don't have a passion both have addiction issues because we're told our whole lives in the society that like money, you know, be beautiful, be rich and you're good. And it's just not true.

Like life's more than that. That's not the most fulfilling thing.

Yeah, I get it. No, there's something that has your heart, right? So once you find out what has their heart, their charity cause, normally this is fairly self-funded. It doesn't get a ton of attention because even the high, high up entrepreneurs I know, we're all batshit crazy. Like the team, oh, I don't know if I can swear, but the teams are insane.

Go ahead, it's fine.

The teams are insane. We're running around, we're trying to get things done. It's not organized. These people that you think have it all together don't. And which is so relieving. And so they've got something. Once you figure out what their something is, what they're passionate about, this is the key. Then you give them a gift around that. So the first person that I connected with, my first high-end client that I worked with, we very exact same thing. I just liked his podcast. I would share it to my Instagram story, did it a few times. He replied, no big deal. A few messages got sent back and forth. And I realized that even though he was a dynamite, super high-end marketer, he had this really big passion project around addiction and changing the conversation around addiction and helping addiction recovery. So one day, I think I was just bored, I found a really cool interview of him on YouTube interviewing an expert in addiction. And I pulled the video from YouTube, clipped it up in a $20 video editor, threw some captions on it and said, "Hey, I saw your interview. It was so cool. I can see that, you know, that that the nonprofit's not getting a ton of attention, you know, self-funded, et cetera. So here's like 6 cool clips from it that you can post, you know, give it to your team. I sent him a Google Doc, post it on the channel, have a good day. Has to be a straight gift. And you have to be totally okay if they just say thanks and walk away. So in this case, an hour later, I looked at my phone and my Instagram messages. I had 8 voice messages. He was recording another one. And he was like, "This is so good. Okay. Could we do the first one at this patch?" And I'm like, "Yeah, this is great. Keep it coming." And he was like, "Look, are you around?" It was like 7 o'clock at night. He's like, "Are you around? Can you just jump on Zoom with me right now?" And I was like, "Yeah, of course." We had a 3-hour Zoom that night. And he was like, "Look, I don't know really even where you had the idea for this, but what can we do together?" And this guy also happened to run a super high-end mastermind that's a $25,000 or $100,000 a year membership, minimum million-dollar business. I'd been an entrepreneur like 8 months. At this point. And he was such a sweetheart, just so kind. He basically brought me into the mastermind. We did a little bit of work together and he was just really kind. He almost positioned me as a member of the mastermind. I had a profile in the directory. So my whole network exploded because anytime I would meet with somebody from the mastermind, they'd be like, "Oh yeah, I met you in the mastermind." And I'd be like, "Actually, I was doing some work with them. I'm not actually a member." But they didn't care. They were like, "Oh, so you're doing, yeah, you're okay. Awesome." Totally changed my network. So when you can, it's a pretty simple formula. And what I would encourage you to do, especially early on to make this process really valuable is focus on linchpins. So focus on people that have access to a lot of people. So this is people who run high-end masterminds. This is people who, and once you start getting in and around the crowds for the high-end masterminds that are findable, Then you find out about the ones that aren't as public, right? The secret ones are really like the very low-key ones where they don't advertise. Only members can bring other people in. If the person they brought in sucks, they're both out type thing. Those ones are really interesting. And it's just these different clusters of really successful people that want to be around other really bright, sharp-minded entrepreneurs.

Well, it's coming right back to where you said, you know, we were talking about what are high-caliber people? And you said people who are legitimate, who have a good heart, who are 15 to 20 steps ahead of you, whose reputation precedes them, which does align to what you're talking about now, which is the people who are in masterminds are those people. Those are the people. They are high-caliber people, right? Maybe not 100%.

Yeah, yeah. And I, I pay— I mean, now that I'm— now again, now that I am where I am now, I pay a lot of attention to people's character and looking at how they conduct themselves day to day. Because as you start getting into business deals with people, you're working with people. This person might be really, really smart, incredible businessman, but if I know that he's out every weekend cheating on his wife, I don't judge that. I don't care, you do you. You want to be open, you want to sleep around, you do you. But I know if this person's cheating and the marriage isn't open, they're lying to somebody probably every day. They're probably used to lying. I probably would not— for me personally, that's not a deal I'd enter into. I might do work for that person, I'd be apprehensive working with that person. So once you're in and around these, then really pay attention to people's character How they're treating the people around them. What's their— Very few people will show you someone the way their loved ones will, right? So how does it— What's their family life like? This is all stuff you should really— I mean, working for someone is a little bit different. That's more, you just want to see what they're like with their team, get very clear on the project, very clear on your deliverables. But especially going into deals with people, taking money from people, having them invest in your business, have a voice or investing in something they're doing, is where you wanna, you wanna know that you wanna see them drunk. You wanna see, like, you wanna see the down and dirty and really see, okay, like, look, everybody's crazy. Everybody's nuts. It, you need to make sure it's a kind of crazy you're okay with. Right.

Like we're all about character. Yeah. It's definitely about the character. Yeah. And you know, you really gave and painted a good example of how using this formula and this framework which really is really centered on reciprocity, is what I kind of hear, right? It's like this idea of giving without expecting anything in return is a great strategy. And I think it's challenging for people to do that because there's often an ulterior motive. There's all, you know what I mean? And so it's maybe challenging, but you got to really think about doing that, just being of service, giving without expecting anything in return. And what Ella Mae is talking about here can really, you know, uh, come back to you many, many times over. Um, I want to ask you, what is the— aside from making, let's say, like making a sale, or, you know, what are the other advantages to building a network of this caliber?

Oh man, I mean, so many, so many things. Yeah, your audience, I assume they're primarily entrepreneurial.

Entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, many people who are still, I guess, growing or maybe overwhelmed with all the things that they have to do as either solopreneurs or people with small teams.

Okay, I love this crowd. Okay, perfect. And just because sometimes I can talk, how long do we have? Just so I don't keep—

um, like maybe like 5 more minutes.

Cool. Okay. So whether you're a new entrepreneur, you're a couple years in, or you're super seasoned, you cannot do this. You should not do this without a support system. And your family, your friends, I'm sure they're amazing. And if they are entrepreneurs, if they have taken this road, cool. If you guys get along, you support each other's vision, that's a support system. If you're like me or most people, where your family, your friends that you grew up with, they're not very entrepreneurial-minded. They don't get it. They're great. They're lovely. I'm not saying cut them out of your life at all, but they don't get it. So as an entrepreneur, the ups and downs are real and they're rough. We see a glamor side of it on social media, but yo, we are way more susceptible to depression, 8 times more likely to have bipolar. Most of us are ADHD. We're all over the place emotionally a lot of the time, right? So you need, you really need honestly for your wellbeing, your mental health, your soul, people who have walked this road before you who are just in your corner. I have gotten way more value from just being able to call someone who has been through this, who is 10 years ahead of me saying, "Hey, I've been in this funk and this depression for a month now and I really don't know how to get out of it and everything's suffering." I'm just really lost and I'm not doing good. And I had a dear friend who walked me through it and was like, cool, I'm going to check in with you in a week. I'm going to check in. That was a conversation that probably saved my life. No joke. So you need that support system. And also it's so, so valuable. Again, this is why I go the route of I don't care if we ever do— if people ask me what my ulterior motive is, they said, why'd you do this? I said, because I hope we'd be friends in 20 years, honestly. That's my ulterior motive is I hope that one day you're somebody I can have in my corner if you want to be there. Because going the route of playing the long game, having those people around who charge $5,000, $10,000 an hour for their time that will answer a text from you, that you can call for advice, that you can say, "Hey, I don't know why, but the ads aren't converting. Can I send you a screenshot? Would you mind just looking at it quick for me?" and they take 15 minutes to look, that's— that will save you 45 hours, months. Like, I can't tell you how much time. Books, quick— you know, we all say learn from other people's mistakes. Books, quick way to learn this way quicker, way quicker. Get in with the right crowd.

I love what you're saying here because this is actually— it's very aligned to a lot of the things that I talk about when I teach this process. Like of how to like launch a video podcast, I'm often telling people the value in creating your— you're building your network in the early stages of the development of your, let's say, show in this case, are— is really the values in the network that you're building. Yeah, right. Because you could, like you said, you could be able to, depending on your network, you may be able to call somebody up who normally charges $5,000 an hour and pick their brain for 10 minutes. But that's only going to happen if you have been the first person to to be the giver without asking for anything in return first. So it's really, really a key, key component of this idea of profitability and what the definition of that is, and really the new definition of wealth, which I've had Dame Doria Cordova on this show talking about the new definition of wealth. It's exactly aligned to what you're describing. So, um, I couldn't agree with you more. I think this is exactly what people need to hear. And building your network with high-caliber people is beneficial to you in a multitude of ways. But you've got to be a giver. You've got to be thinking about giving without asking for anything in return in the outset. One of the things that we do on the show is we have a segment called Stop Marketing Like It's $19.99. So, I would love to ask you what is a tip, tool, tactic, or technique that's working to help you market for yourself today?

Using social media to get in the door and then taking that relationship offline as effectively and as quickly as is appropriate. Not like as quickly as possible, but as quickly as is appropriate. My whole goal with the conversation is to jump on a Zoom with that person, meet up with that person at a mastermind or an event or whatever it could be. Yeah.

I like that distinction, as appropriate, as opposed to as quickly as possible. Because appropriateness is a really key component to that.

You want to see a bad per— or you want to see a good person do bad things? Rush them. It's not fun. True. Yeah. Follow the flow of the conversation, make sure it's appropriate, there's a lead, et cetera. But get that relate, get onto a Zoom call, shoot them up, get like, call them, meet up somewhere, whatever. It could be safe. Don't fly anywhere when you don't know people, but meet up with them, whatever. And get that relationship more concrete by meeting in person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, this has been insightful. Thank you so much for being on the show. I'd love for you to promote, you know, a website or how people can connect with you. What's the best way?

Honestly, the best way is probably Instagram. Um, so it's @ella.j.may on Instagram. Um, you can also go to my site. Uh, I think Cheryl has it or, uh, Yeah, perfect. And there's a contact form there. I think you can actually book in for a consult call if you want to on the site still. So go for it. Those are free. And yeah, that would be the best.

Yeah, we'll put the URL in the comments of the video and then people want to reach out to you and you are someone who has enriched my life for being part of it. So I really appreciate that. And I really love this conversation. Thank you so much for being on Cash In On Camera.

This was so fun. Thank you for having me.