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Why Most Networking Fails and How to Create Meaningful Relationships · The One Small Change Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the One Small Change. And I'm thrilled that you took time out of
0:03
your busy schedule to join us on this journey of exploration and
0:07
transformation. I'm Your host, Yvonne McCoy and I bring almost 30
0:11
years of entrepreneurial experience and I have a passion for
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discovering growth through the power of seemingly small change.
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And you know, this week and every week I try to bring you somebody
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really interesting for you to listen to and they're going to share
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about what their smaller, unexpected change or decision
0:29
that sparked that change for them is. And this week we
0:32
have Chris Cianciulli. Chris, thank
0:36
you for taking time out of your schedule to be here. Welcome. Thank
0:40
you, thank you, thank you. And thank you for pronouncing my last name correctly.
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You helped a lot. You helped a lot. So, so we want
0:49
to know what it is you do and how you got to be how you
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got to do what you do and be one of the best people at doing
0:55
it. Well, thank you
0:59
for saying that. I.
1:02
Well, what I do is I help people communicate more effectively.
1:07
And the way that that is done is through a
1:11
four step process called MPN or my personal network.
1:15
And instead of being a networking group or a community,
1:20
it's a process for professionals
1:24
build their own personal network. And
1:28
so why did you, what, what made you decide to do that?
1:33
Well, I guess the. We could go
1:36
way back to when I was
1:40
opening a personal training studio back in
1:43
2005, 2006, it was recommended
1:47
that I go check out a BNI group. And I had no idea what
1:50
BNI was. And, and it was
1:54
explained to me. It's great. It's a bunch of people who
1:58
all belong to this group and everyone promises to refer one another and use
2:01
one another. I didn't know what that meant, but I went
2:05
and everyone seemed nice in this
2:09
group and I was trying to understand, so
2:13
you have to give referrals, how does it work? And I didn't know there was
2:16
a whole business behind giving referrals. I
2:20
had opened my own gyms before. I had my
2:24
own personal training studios, but I had never heard of
2:27
networking. I just talked to people in the community. I would
2:31
go talk to my neighbors in the next storefronts. I didn't know that that was
2:35
a thing. And then after being part of
2:39
a BNI type group that had chapters and
2:42
different industries, I found a tremendous value in
2:46
the relationships that were coming from, from belonging to one of
2:50
those groups. So I saw it as, I love the
2:54
social aspect of it. I loved the
2:58
finding people within the group who you had things in common With So it was
3:01
the friendships. And when Covid hit back
3:05
in 2020 and we went all
3:08
virtual because I had started my own
3:12
networking group at the time in person. And I then Covid
3:15
hit and I saw that there
3:19
was going to be a need for how people
3:22
networked and it was going to have to be different than just
3:26
a website and a zoom link. And that's what
3:30
a lot of networking. And I was part of it, I was
3:34
guilty of it, it was a lot of the same, but thinking it
3:37
was different. And I found that there were lots and lots of
3:41
networking type organizations like the BNIs that
3:45
then became a different model
3:48
altogether because there wasn't the geography that limited
3:52
who people could meet or know. So because of technology,
3:57
it made geography obsolete. And as I
4:00
started connecting with people from all around the country, I thought,
4:04
this is such an amazing thing. These are people who you would never
4:08
come into contact with from the other side of the country, from other
4:11
countries, from around the world. And I saw
4:15
that what value I
4:19
could bring or what I could change as
4:22
someone who was learning or is learning disabled and had a lot
4:26
of difficulty in school because I had difficulty
4:30
communicating. I had a very bad lisp, which I
4:33
still try not to sound too much like a lisp.
4:37
Once I learned that I wasn't dumb, I just didn't know how
4:41
to learn. Once I learned how to learn, then I had
4:45
a thirst for knowledge. I started reading one to
4:48
two books a week. I started just taking in so much because I found
4:52
ways that worked for me. And through networking, especially
4:56
online with this new model, I found that if
5:00
everyone considers themselves or self identifies as either an introvert
5:03
or an extrovert, I found that
5:07
extroverts thrive in networking and they love to network
5:10
because they're very social people. They love to get to meet and
5:14
know new people constantly. But I
5:18
observed that those who identified as introverted
5:22
felt like conversations were railroaded. They
5:26
felt as if they were just lost in the crowd. And
5:30
the ironic thing is I saw that introverts brought
5:33
so much to to those networking
5:37
type groups because they tended to be the
5:41
ones that were more systematic, more
5:44
regimented. And as I learned the dynamic
5:48
of personalities and what made people
5:52
gravitate to the groups that they did, I found that
5:56
it's having that right balance of introverts and
5:59
extroverts, but it was getting people to have a
6:03
level playing field. So I developed the technology
6:07
and an approach to networking that consists of four
6:10
steps. So the way that it works is.
6:14
Can I stop you before you do the four steps, please. You've said a couple
6:18
of things that I think sometimes the people need to be
6:21
reminded of. I want to go back to the very
6:25
basics of
6:28
the whole idea of networking. I was a person who came
6:32
to networking very late. I did not like it,
6:36
I did not want to do it. And I think part of that
6:40
was because I think networking was always
6:43
presented to me as a place to find a client, which it
6:47
absolutely is not. If you network
6:50
to find clients, you are probably not going to find any.
6:54
You're going to be disappointed. But it is a
6:58
place to build relationships, and
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those relationships are actually more valuable than
7:05
one client because there is the potential of
7:09
collaboration and possibly multiple referrals.
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So that's the first thing that I want to add for people who are like,
7:17
you know, I don't like to network and exactly what you said about
7:21
the introverts and that kind of stuff, right.
7:24
The other thing that I think people forget is
7:31
we, everybody can have a global company now,
7:35
right? Because we're on, on zoom and stuff like
7:38
that. Like you said, geography is no longer
7:42
the issue. You know, and the nice thing is you don't have to.
7:46
You only have to get dressed up from the waist up
7:51
and you can meet people all over the world. And so it
7:55
is a wonderful tool if you can find the right place to be
7:59
with the right people kind of thing. Right. So
8:02
I just wanted to throw that out because I think that's so important. And, and
8:06
I say it because, like I said, like, you know, I just came to
8:09
networking very late and found it very frustrating and
8:13
not very fulfilling, but I was going for the wrong
8:16
reasons, you know, and, and the other thing is, not every
8:21
networking group is, is the right place for you
8:24
to be. I mean, you have to feel like you're someplace where
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you really can develop a relationship and
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you can be, you know, you can be heard and not run over and
8:36
whatever. So all the experiences that
8:39
you had, you know, the, you know, the idea that.
8:43
Well, what the other thing I want to say is, I think the small
8:47
change for you was, was really the huge change was
8:50
the, the mindset that I'm not dumb. And
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so you have brought this incredible curiosity and how can
8:58
I make things work and make things work better? Which is what
9:01
brought you to your, the networking group that you set up.
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It's like, what do I like from the different places? How do other, what do
9:08
other people need? And I find that really interesting that,
9:13
you know, once that perception to you that I'm not dumb,
9:17
you know, you. Just took off, I think
9:21
to say something. Since we rewound back to
9:24
networking, which I'm glad we did,
9:30
I would say there's a difference between one's network and
9:33
networking. And as I started meeting
9:37
people, networking, going to
9:41
different speed networking type things, I had
9:44
hosted and brought people together for,
9:48
let's call it speed networking. That's the act of
9:52
meeting people. But your network are the people you
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know. And if you stop and
9:59
ask yourself what's the purpose or reason you're networking,
10:04
if you're networking to meet people. And I know
10:08
that people, many people out there put so
10:11
much thought and effort into trying to explain what
10:15
networking is to someone else. And most people agree. And at the
10:19
end of the day, what does it matter? Like, what are you here? And people
10:22
will say, well, aren't we all here to help each other? And it almost sounds
10:26
inauthentic the more that someone tries to convince you how authentic
10:30
they are. So I like to
10:33
break down. When you look at networking, what
10:37
is the purpose for it? Is it an exclusive networking group
10:41
that you are there for referrals? Are you there to learn
10:45
something? Or are you there to just get to know?
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So there's kind of like those tears.
10:52
But being an analytical person, which I've
10:56
become in the last four years, I was never very analytical to look
10:59
at data. I was always more in intuition and
11:03
going with a gut feeling, which I've been wrong more than I've
11:07
been right. With that, I've learned to appreciate
11:11
the analytics. So I started surveying people.
11:15
And I conducted more than 700 surveys with people
11:18
who were guests to different networking meetings that I was
11:22
hosting. And in speaking
11:25
to all of these people, I asked them,
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what's the number one thing you
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don't like to talk about when meeting someone new?
11:37
Do you know what the number one answer was?
11:41
Their business. So first off the
11:44
bat, that's interesting. That's the first thing. If I
11:48
ask someone, do you belong to any networking
11:51
groups? Someone might say, oh, yes,
11:55
I belong to this one. And I would say,
11:59
how do you like it? And they would say, I hate it. I
12:02
hate that you have to pass a referral. I hate that you can't be
12:06
absent. I hate that you have to find a substitute.
12:10
I could interview the next person for a survey and say, do
12:13
you belong to any networking groups? And they would say the exact same
12:17
one. I'd say, how do you like it? They would say,
12:21
I love it. I'd say, what do you love about it? I love that you
12:24
have to give a referral I love that if you're not there you have to
12:28
send a substitute. I love that you have to be there or you're kicked
12:31
out. And that was interesting to see
12:35
data to show that what some people didn't
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like other people loved. So it made me aware
12:43
that there's different flavors
12:47
for different people. But then I want to understand why
12:51
is that. And as I learned about personality
12:54
testing mostly bank which is the most brilliant one
12:58
of all of them in my opinion, as I learned
13:03
from a trusted
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valued person, my network, Michelle, as she said,
13:11
it's not personal, it's personality. And never
13:14
had that been so clear to me. So in those surveys of 700
13:18
plus people I asked
13:22
of the people you conduct a one to one with to get to know that
13:26
initial one to one, what percentage of people
13:30
would you say or I would say, do
13:34
you have a second one to one with them? And
13:38
5%, just over 5%
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of people that I interviewed said that they ever have a second one
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to one with someone. The industry will say 17%.
13:50
I found that it was 5% of people who
13:54
meet for a one to one ever have a follow up. So
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I look at that as a lot of wasted time. So if you're
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meeting people that you have no intention to
14:05
ever talk to again, that's not building a network
14:09
or networking, that's you pitching a lead because you
14:13
most likely brought up your service. So
14:16
with I don't remember where we started, where we are, but add
14:20
kicked in. It's just the fact it's a lot of people that constantly say
14:24
the same thing. And I became so tired of saying
14:28
how much can we talk about the sport? Let's just get out on the court
14:31
and play it. And when it came to the whole idea of networking, everyone
14:35
spends so much time talking about what networking is supposed to
14:38
be that they waste time building relationships. So instead of going
14:42
into the whole how can we help each other? Who are you trying to meet?
14:46
What can I do? You've got to give, give, give, give. I
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think there's been a lot of people out there that get everyone with an
14:53
idea all revved up to go do something, but they're not sure
14:57
what to do. So a lot of people post Covid
15:01
started networking to talk about ideas for businesses
15:05
or services that they didn't yet have. So I
15:09
think it kind of changed the landscape of what
15:12
networking is where it took on more of a social
15:17
than just a referral side. So it was
15:21
creating something that embraced the purpose for both
15:25
but found how the two could be blended together so that
15:29
you authentically could find commonality.
15:33
Because what the research found is that the number
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one reason why people refer is because of having value
15:40
for someone else. You value in the relationship, but the value
15:44
that you have for someone is because you have commonality. So you
15:48
value the relationship. One of the things that you said, I think that is so
15:51
important is that typically
15:55
people do not follow up. And that is, you know,
15:59
they don't do the first follow up and so they don't do the second
16:03
follow up either. Right. And that's true of
16:06
not just networking, but if you, you know, do a workshop, you have to
16:10
follow up with the people you have to do. Now there's a, you know, we
16:14
need a lot of touches, you know, to, to become
16:18
into somebody else's world. And so I think that is a really
16:22
important thing. And so I'm going to take you back to where I cut you
16:25
off about the, what you develop based
16:29
on what you found and the four steps that are in
16:33
my personal network. Good timing because you said follow up and
16:36
that's one of the steps. But like you just said about following up,
16:41
I think so often many people who
16:45
have a business or would call themselves an
16:49
entrepreneur, I feel that very often they
16:52
do what someone told them they're supposed to do
16:56
without really wanting to or having purpose.
17:01
So like you said, many people don't follow up and I would
17:04
agree. And the reason is what's the reason that they would be
17:08
following up? If you're. Because you're supposed to follow up. But
17:12
why, why did you meet with that person in the first time
17:15
in the first place? And if you say I wanted to hear
17:19
more about their business, that's not true. You could have just looked on LinkedIn and
17:23
you could have read about their business right there. You wanted to
17:27
pitch something to them. You wanted to share how you
17:31
could help each other under the guise of the they should buy your product or
17:34
service. Because. So
17:39
looking just at that and part of
17:43
MPN and of that four step process
17:46
that I developed is
17:51
it begins at what we call a meetup. So it's a
17:54
small group get together that's maxed out with
17:58
seven people. And the idea
18:02
is we go through three rounds
18:06
called one Icebreakers. In the first round,
18:10
everyone answers a this or that question to break the ice and
18:14
giving their reason for why they said what they did. So
18:17
it loosens people up to start talking to people they've never met before.
18:22
Then through our system, each person on the
18:26
call selects a question from a list of 40 questions
18:30
that they would like to ask the other participants.
18:34
Whoever selected the question asks the question.
18:38
They then call on each person the order they want to go in.
18:44
In our system, there's a place to take notes on what
18:47
each person said. And after everyone has asked
18:51
and answered the questions in the third round,
18:55
everyone chooses one person that they would like to
18:59
follow up with. They give a specific
19:03
reason. Oh, I want to follow up with Steve
19:07
because he said that he coaches his son's baseball. I
19:10
coach my daughter's softball. Love to do a one to one, get to know
19:14
him better. So from what you learn about
19:18
maybe you sold the business and I'm about to sell
19:21
business, I would love to do one to one, hear what the experience was like.
19:25
But you're identifying who you wish to follow up with.
19:29
And then right in our system, you just click the button, follow up. Which
19:33
sends your scheduling link to the other person. So before
19:36
you even log off, you've scheduled for when you're going to have a one
19:40
to one. When you have your one
19:44
to one with that person using our system,
19:48
you select three questions you would like to ask that person
19:52
and they select three questions that they would like to ask you.
19:57
When you have that one to one, you go back and forth,
20:01
each answering each other and your own question
20:05
that you ask the other person. That's our third
20:09
step, one to one. And after you finish your one to
20:12
one, you do a recap. And the recap
20:16
is you giving feedback to the other person by
20:20
clicking off what stood out to you about them.
20:24
But it's in the form of tags so you don't have to take notes. You
20:27
can just click on buttons and then you rate the
20:31
conversation. You click on words of how
20:34
you would describe that person, how they came across,
20:38
and everything is anonymous. So when you get the
20:41
feedback, you don't know who gave that.
20:45
It blends everything. It just gives you the percentages
20:49
of how many people that you've met with said this or that.
20:54
This is the first of its kind that allows you to see how you come
20:58
across to others when meeting with them.
21:02
And what makes this unique is in
21:05
that back and forth.
21:09
It's a co created conversation. So if
21:13
you're an introverted individual, coming up with something
21:16
to talk about is very difficult. So the question you may
21:20
default to is so tell me about your business. And as we
21:24
learned, that's the number one thing that people don't like to talk about in networking.
21:27
So someone can unintentionally turn someone off to them and
21:31
close that door. Extroverts tend not to
21:35
take notes. They wear that as a badge of honor. Oh, I remember everything. I
21:38
don't write anything down. That's why by developing
21:42
a tag system, it doesn't take more than a second to
21:46
click on words you heard the person say. So it was creating
21:50
a co conversation and leveling the playing field so
21:53
each feels seen, heard and understood. So I'm,
21:57
I'm gonna. I can't believe that we're running out of time. But what I
22:01
want to do is, you've got a great gift. And
22:05
the other thing is, you know, I usually say to people, tell me three
22:08
things that people can do. And I think you've already done that because you talked
22:12
about, you know, the purpose of
22:15
networking so people can change the way that they network or look
22:19
at networking. Right. I think the other thing that you brought
22:23
into is, is our learning styles, which, which a lot of times people
22:26
don't talk about, you know, how I interact in a room, whether I'm an
22:30
introvert or an extrovert, am I, you know, whatever. And I
22:34
think that's really good. So take a minute. If there's something else that
22:38
you think, you know, a point that our
22:41
listeners can, you know, use right away, do that, but also tell us
22:45
about, you know, the, the link that
22:49
you're going to give to my personal network.
22:53
So I would say to
22:58
what I want people to remember or I'd love to
23:02
meet anyone that wants to check out my personal network,
23:07
mpn for short, my personalnetwork.org
23:11
which will link it in here.
23:14
I tell people that, come check it out. We're not a community,
23:18
we're a culture. And what makes it a culture is
23:22
there's an expectation of those. We don't have
23:26
members, we have subscribers. So it's not locking
23:30
you into a membership where someone may feel trapped. You're
23:33
subscribing. If at any point you want to leave because you no longer want
23:37
to be part of the network, fine, you can cancel it,
23:41
no problem. It's $29 a month to
23:45
not have access to, like most networking will say, you have access
23:49
to members. This is assurance that
23:52
the people you meet with are following the same four steps that
23:56
you are. So if you played a sport and you know the rules, you
24:00
could go play that sport in any state or any country. And the
24:04
rules are the same. So it doesn't matter who play with you. Adhere to the
24:07
rules by following these four steps. With
24:11
npn, you know that the other person
24:15
is listening when you speak. And
24:18
sometimes that has such value because we all
24:22
want to be heard. And nothing's more insulting when someone wastes your time or
24:25
isn't paying attention. So by following these four
24:29
steps, the other thing I forgot to mention is
24:33
you can see how engaged the person that you
24:36
are meeting with is because in our system there are different
24:40
colors around people's borders. So based on the number
24:44
of times you've completed the four steps, the
24:48
colors change. So there's metrics. So when
24:51
someone says oh I do a lot of networking, you
24:55
can see if they do it in a systematic
24:59
way because anyone who's ever had success will
25:02
always attribute to the system. So that's the biggest
25:06
value of MPN is you are among other people that are
25:09
upholding that culture of the
25:13
steps. And I'd love for anyone hearing this to come check it
25:17
out. If you ever, if you feel like you haven't had success
25:20
or built relationships with if you feel like many of
25:24
your one to ones never lead to a second one to one. If you feel
25:27
like just another face on the screen.
25:31
If you, if you're not happy with the people around,
25:36
I would love to invite you to come check us out here.
25:40
Fantastic. All right, we do I need to give the commercial
25:45
and that simply take the time to subscribe and
25:49
share and engage on social media. About the podcast and
25:53
the reason I did it is because I want to give you some extra things
25:56
so you can supercharge your business. And it's my way of giving
26:00
back to introducing you to people that you may not have had a
26:04
chance to meet. I want you to make sure that you continue to
26:08
join me on the one small change because even the smallest shift
26:11
can yield a huge result for you. And you may want to check out
26:15
either the first episode where I talk about why I I decided to do
26:19
this or you may want to look into one of the questions
26:23
quarterly clarity check ins which I talk about things to think about
26:27
at the beginning of the quarter and some business trends. So
26:30
Chris, what's your last words of wisdom or your last quote?
26:34
You want us to remember.
26:40
A quote to remember
26:43
something that you always say.
26:50
I'll say this that's repeatable.
26:57
It's ironic that some people don't realize how bad their best
27:00
breath smells even though their nose is just above their mouth.
27:05
And I say that because the people
27:09
that think they have it all figured out
27:13
are usually the last ones to know that they don't. That's
27:16
true. That's very, very true. And, and, and
27:20
one of the things that you've got built into my personal
27:23
network is that feedback so people will
27:27
know that sooner. That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Okay,
27:31
guys, we are running out of time. And so remember, change
27:35
is simple, but it's not always easy and it requires courage,
27:38
resilience and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. If you
27:42
are not stepping out of your comfort zone, you are stagnating because
27:46
the world all around you, it is moving forward. And if
27:50
you are not, you are moving backwards. So I want you to
27:53
join us again on the one small change as we embark on this journey
27:57
and build a vi a bold vision and look for
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innovative possibilities. And until the next time,
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stay very, very curious. Chris, thank you for giving
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me this time today. I enjoyed this immensely. And everybody
28:12
be sure to go to the link that's in the in the
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notes so that you can try out my personal network. I did it.
28:19
It's fabulous. Thank you. Thank you.
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Bye.