Fitness Business School – 5 Tips for Better Networking

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And I want to talk with you about five different things that you can do to become a better networker. And this doesn’t matter if we’re talking about in-person networking or online networking, networking is one of the most effective and really kind of cost friendly ways to grow your business that we have available to us. So it’s worth being great at it. And these tips will help you get there. So let’s get to it.

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So networking is something that I’ve leaned on as a business growth tactic, really from the first day that I got into business. And it really came from my success as a college baseball coach and it being a driving force in all of my recruiting efforts, knowing people, building relationships, getting out there and doing things that didn’t cost a lot of money to, to connect with people and strengthen relationships and, and follow up. It was a competitive advantage for me, 20 plus years ago as a college baseball coach. And it’s a competitive advantage for me now and better yet, it can be a competitive advantage for you as well. So I wanted to share a five different tips that you can use. They’re going to be really valuable in making you more effective as a networker.

The first is be where your people are. Sure we can go out and network with anybody. You can go spend time in any venue that you want. And frankly, there are probably any number of opportunities. If you kind of have your head up and you’re looking around for it, there are health fairs everywhere. There, there are group settings that we can kind of immerse ourselves in time and time, again, offline or online. But we need to spend time where our target market resides, where our, where our people can be found. So we need to look and say, okay, where am I going to be most effective? What’s the most efficient use of my time, knowing all these different places where people may congregate, where people meet, where there are events being held, the easiest place to sort through this and figure it out is ask your current clients, ask the people that you’re already serving, where they’re spending time, what they’re being involved in, what, what events they go to look at those things. And that’s not only going to give you a list of very specific places to try to spend time and to connect. But it’s also going to give you ideas of categories. If your clients typically, you know, have kids and they’re involved in youth sporting events, well, you don’t necessarily have to attend just those events. You can look around and find other ways to connect with parents. Maybe it’s through PTA’s maybe you know, maybe there are other kind of kids centric parent-friendly opportunities to go connect, but understand your audience, the people that you already serve, because let’s face it. If you have a healthy business, if you’ve got clientele that you enjoy working with, we want more people like them. So we want to find people that probably have some commonalities.

So be where your people are. And then number two, whenever you attend a networking event, set a new contact target, whether this is meeting a specific person or connecting with a specific number of new people for years, I’ve coached people to go out and try to connect with one to two new people a day, setting that simple contact target. That seems like it’s no big deal. If you’re up there and you’re not just staring at your phone in any environment you put yourself in. It’s pretty easy to connect with a single new person each and every day. But over the course of the year 365, new contacts probably can not only turn into dozens of new clients, but it can also open doors for you for strategic alliances, public speaking opportunities, corporate engagements, any number of other things. So set a new contact target. I used to do this as a college baseball coach. When I would go to trade shows, when I would go to our conventions, there would be coaches that I would want to connect with to, to meet and build a relationship with, from a recruiting standpoint, there’d be vendors. I would want to build relationships with, to try to build some sort of reciprocal relationship where we might be able to get a sponsorship. So I would target specific people I wanted to connect with and get to know when I moved into the private sector and doing things in the business world. If I was going to go to a chamber of commerce meeting, I would know who I wanted to meet. I’d do a little bit of preliminary research that way when I’m spending time with them, you know, I’m not just cold calling. I can go in there and be interested in being informed.

And that leads leads me to tip number three – plant now, harvest later. Go in and give, build a relationship. And don’t expect to come out of any networking opportunity with immediate gratification of new business. Sure. It happens sometimes. But the most important thing is to go in and plant some seeds with anybody that you’re going to be connecting with, letting them know that you can add value to their life or to their business or to their organization, letting them know that you’re interested in them. You’re not just going in trying to extract value. You’re truly committed to adding value. Sure. If you do this the right way, we want, obviously we have a business. This is a for-profit enterprise. So we want to harvest, but very much like any sort of farming mentality we want to plant first and nurture so we can, so we can harvest at a later time. And that we’re going to be able to reap a much bigger benefit after we’ve done the work, the legwork that frankly, most of our competitors won’t be willing to do now in a very practical sense. If we want to start this adding value and connecting and building a relationship, we, we pick out who we want to connect with.

We have our new contact. You know, we have our new contact target, whether it’s one person or five people or a specific individual or organization, we want to build a relationship with. We go in with this lead by giving mentality. But then within 24 hours, after that initial contact, we reconnect. We want to follow up. We don’t want this to die on the vine. We want to make sure that this person remembers us, that we’re following up and kind of standing out because most people don’t, you know, whether it be sending them a quick text or email or note or if we already had a predetermined format to follow up, we may have said, Hey, I’ll call you tomorrow at two o’clock. And we can discuss X that makes sure that within 24 hours you followed up. So everything stays fresh so that you don’t, you don’t get forgotten with all the other responsibilities and obligations that the people you’re connecting with have on their mind.

And then finally, number five, we want to be valuable and consistent with our followup. Now follow up is truly a competitive advantage when it comes to business because honestly, most people are bad at it. Most people are unwilling to do the work of showing up time and time again without immediate gratification. And that’s where you can set yourself apart. If you are consistent and valuable, if you’re adding value to some of these life, if you’re making it clear that you are an advocate for them, if you’re giving them things that can move them from where they are to where they aspire to be, you’re going to stand out if you’re doing this consistently, whether it’s the three time, a week email approach that I recommend to clients, or it’s just, Hey, I’m sending somebody a note every month or I’m I have it in my calendar to make sure I reach out to them every two, four, six weeks, if you’re showing up consistently. So not only are you not forgotten, but you climb the ladder in their mind of somebody they can count on. And somebody who’s definitely committed to making this a valuable relationship and you’re going to stand out. And when the opportunity to collaborate, to maybe gain them as a client or form a strategic Alliance with them itself, you’re going to be poised to succeed. So five tips to help you be a more effective networker. Sure. This stuff was all really kind of designed and utilized in my world offline primarily, but it works very much the same online. I don’t care if you’re on social media, it’s kind of the same thing. If you join a private Facebook group and you follow this five step format, you’re going to stand out like a sore thumb, because most people don’t, most people go in and try to extract value immediately. So take these five tips to heart, put them into your business and watch everything.

Thanks for listening. I’m giving away a bundle of my bestselling books, the ideal business formula, the fitness entrepreneur handbook in the path. All you have to do is go to patrigsby.com/podgift to get it. Also, make sure to subscribe to The Fitness Business School with Pat Rigsby so you don’t miss an episode and you get yourself on the fast track to creating your ideal business.