Q&A part 1 | Tam Pham

So, what's up? What's your name?

My name is Lucas.

What's up, Lucas?

So you say a lot about giving and stuff, basically this mentality of giving. When you have— basically when you're starting from zero, how do you go on about giving? What do you offer?

Yeah, definitely. So there's so many different ways you can give. It's kind of weird. It works if we're all in a tight circle. So when you're starting out and you have nothing to give, actually, ironically, I think that's when you have the most to give. Because, for example, Keith Ferrazzi, who wrote Never Eat Alone, he had this business mentor 20 years older than him, a successful entrepreneur, and he wanted to know how he can give back to him. So what he did was, that entrepreneur gave Keith advice on what to do as a 19-year-old and as a young teenager growing up and as an entrepreneur. And Keith actually took his advice and 2 weeks later followed up with that same guy and said, hey, I did all this advice. this is the impact that you gave to me. Thank you. And that guy's like, holy shit, this guy, you know, out of all the people I give advice to, this guy actually took it, used it, and followed up with me. This guy's legit, he's serious, and I want to know more and help him even further. So that's one of the many ways you can give. Just, just give them a feeling of importance. And you would know that if you read also the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Yes.

Another way you can give is through articles about interests that they might like. So if I knew you were into blockchain, for example, if I send you a relevant blockchain Article about blockchain that you're like, holy shit! This is like freaking awesome. That's like that's like a social capital that I'm kind of building on you right now. You can give introductions to people you met. So if I went to the Lean Startup Conference and I met someone really cool into blockchain, I can be like, hey, I gotta meet you gotta meet my buddy Kevin, and then make an email introduction if both of you guys say yes, and then boom. So those are some of the many ways that you can give when you kind of don't when you're just starting off.

Yeah.

What's that?

My name's Roman. I was just curious, like, when you're meeting all these people, like we do a bunch of like mentor things, how do you make sure that you're staying in contact with them and keeping in touch to make sure that the next time you reach out to them, they know who you are?

Yeah.

Without just like emailing them like 2 months later and asking for like advice on something.

Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that because that's something I love talking about and something I geek out about. I have this actually, this massive spreadsheet.

I can share it with you guys if you want.

So you guys make a copy where I list everyone I want to keep in touch with, or someone who's like really important to me, on this massive document, like massive spreadsheet. And I have like these tags I can do on this Google Sheet where I can tag them as like investor, tag them as a podcaster, tag them as an author, blogger, so that when I need— when I need somebody or someone asks me for an introduction to an investor, I can type in my tag investor and all the— and everyone associated with that tag will show up on my spreadsheet. And I can see like, okay, I know these 20 people. And I see the other tags, oh, this guy This guy is in healthcare, this guy is in finance. And so whatever my friend needs, is asking for, then I can introduce them to that person because their email address is right there and I know all the interests. And if I need to, I can research their email history of what we last talked about. But that's how I organize my network. And it's super geeky and you don't have to do that, but that's how— when you start building a larger and larger network, you want to keep in touch with those people and the influencers you want to stay in touch with. Yeah, it's super geeky, but it works for sure.

Yeah.

How often do you kind of— wait, let me give you guys some books, because I got a bunch of books for y'all. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, what's up?

By the way, how often do you kind of keep in touch with them? For example, you have your list, right? So you want to still keep in touch. You don't want to be too annoying, but you still don't want to have it too Okay, what is like the kind of the sweet spot in terms of time when you know can give them an update?

Yes.

You know kind of connect with them once again.

How often do you do that? I wish there was like a you know two months and like five days kind of answer, but there's there's no there's not there's no like distinct answer. It's all very situational, and it all depends. Like like I have people on my list who I haven't talked to in like six months. It's not like they forgot about me, but it's more just like. We're all living our own lives, and you don't have to like don't think about as being annoying also. Like you guys are friends now, right? Networking is about making friends. So if if a text to your friend, if you send me a text to your friend and your friend takes oh how annoying. That might not be like a a great friend, you know what I mean? Or maybe the relationship is not as strong as you might think it is. So there's no like like it's think time. But if you're constantly doing work in that industry, you're more likely to see them around if you follow them on social, which is a whole other topic. We follow them on social, we follow them just like any social platform, essentially. Or just sending emails to them, like once in a while, checking in and seeing how they're doing. I constantly do that. Like, some people who are not on my list, I just say like, hey, like, just checking in, like, how's everything going? And people like that. They love feeling informed, they love feeling remembered, and they appreciate you when you ask them about how they're doing. So.

Cool.