Latest / The One Small Change Podcast / The Power of Networking and Connection Strategies with Phil Herrington
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the One Small Change. And I am thrilled
- 0:04to be on this journey with you of exploration and discovery.
- 0:08And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I've been an entrepreneur
- 0:12for almost 30 years. And I have a passion for discovering
- 0:16how you can grow with one small change. And I wanna thank you
- 0:19for joining me and taking time out of your journey. And today
- 0:23I have an amazing person that I met, Bill Harrington,
- 0:28and he's gonna share. And I'm,
- 0:32I'm I'm almost convinced that it actually isn't gonna be a small change
- 0:35because I know it is huge. How unexpected
- 0:39thing happened that sparked transformation
- 0:43and really turned the way he does business. So, Phil,
- 0:46thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. Thank you
- 0:50for having me. Real quick, they call me, Phil the connector.
- 0:55I took on that name in 2018,
- 0:59so about 6 years ago, and I started putting on all my cards
- 1:03because my brain would naturally when I meet with somebody, I would speed up people's
- 1:07networking because I'd be like, oh, you need to meet this person. You need to
- 1:10meet this person. And then it started to be like, you need to meet these
- 1:136 people or these 10 people. Right? And so,
- 1:17so I I so I did that for years and, you know, I built 3
- 1:21brands here in the, Boise, Idaho. And
- 1:25each time we got to a certain point of the business,
- 1:29they would decide we're not gonna work together anymore. And so I
- 1:32I the change, if you're if you wanna ask what that change was
- 1:36was I had to take ownership of my own career.
- 1:40I've been a salesman my whole life, and I come from hardcore sales,
- 1:43like MCI long distance service telemarketing, selling
- 1:47cars, door to door merchant services. You know, I
- 1:51was that, spam that showed up on your front door back
- 1:55when we didn't have email or whatever. Right? We didn't have cell
- 1:59phones. But anyways, so I come from old school sales. But,
- 2:03I was building everybody else's brand and never building my own.
- 2:07And so my wife said, the next thing you build, it has to
- 2:10be ours. So then the connector community was created.
- 2:14We're about 7 months old now, and, we're rocking and rolling, and
- 2:18I'm living in my purpose, which is connecting people. Well, you
- 2:22know what? You talked about, you know, you were in hardcore
- 2:25sales. So what's the difference between,
- 2:30let's say, the way you go about meeting people in hardcore sales
- 2:34and connecting? Oh, great question. So,
- 2:38if you don't have a network, then what do you do? What
- 2:42do you do? You pick Main Street and you take a handful of
- 2:46business cards. I mean, I used to say 30 a day keeps poverty
- 2:49away, meaning I'd hand out 30 business cards every
- 2:53day to strangers. And then out of that, I'd
- 2:57probably get about 5 people that would talk to me, set appointments, and
- 3:00sell about 2 to 3 of those, so 2a half sales. I I had my
- 3:04numbers down. And I'm a I'm a firm believer in sales. If once you know
- 3:07your numbers, it just becomes a game, so you don't have to be afraid
- 3:11anymore. Right? But, but that's very scary for a
- 3:14ton of people, and that's why there's very few salespeople out there.
- 3:18Right? Networking is a completely different
- 3:22beast. It's like, now I now I'm convinced that networking is
- 3:25the fastest way to grow your business. Because in my 1st
- 3:29year of networking, I was working with a company as a website
- 3:32company, and I say we accidentally sold 70
- 3:36websites that year, but because we did so many
- 3:40one to ones. So if you're not doing your one to ones, you're
- 3:43missing. You're believing money on the table. Well, I
- 3:47I absolutely agree with you, and I shared earlier with you that, you
- 3:50know, one of my things is doing models because I firmly believe if
- 3:54you can't remember it, you can't use it. Right? And,
- 3:58when I was in corporate, we had these great training. And when the
- 4:02situation arose, it would be like, what binder is that in? You know? You
- 4:06you know, you can get your hands on it. And when I was putting together
- 4:09this model, I put connection and community as
- 4:13the last step because in my head, you know, when I first started
- 4:17it, I was thinking I have to have something to offer. I have
- 4:21to be complete. I have to be, you know, I have nailed
- 4:24it. And what I realized that connections and community, when
- 4:28you do them early, help you grow faster. It
- 4:32helps you to nail it faster. So but there's
- 4:36still a difference in the kind of and and you're absolutely right. The first program
- 4:38I was in that said you need to talk to 50 people a month. I
- 4:40went and so the issue and I think what holds people back is, what do
- 4:42you say?
- 4:53I mean, sales is kind of is I got this thing and
- 4:57it's perfect for you, whether it is or not. Right? I mean,
- 5:00that's my impression of a salesperson. Yeah.
- 5:04Connection to me is something totally different. Yep.
- 5:08I agree. I agree. I think I think so the, maybe a good way to
- 5:11put it is this. If you only had one thing to offer
- 5:15and it's the only way you could make money, then you would
- 5:19find all the reasons to shove that down someone's
- 5:22throat. Yes. Right? So I got this widget, this
- 5:26service, that whatever it is, merchant service will take for example,
- 5:30I find any and every avenue to make sure
- 5:33this customer sees how the value of this is is
- 5:37good and they need to buy from me or I don't feed my family.
- 5:41Right? So the difference between that and
- 5:44building a network is now I have something
- 5:48to offer to everybody that's a very light touch. Meaning,
- 5:52hey, like, you and I were on a call the other day and I said,
- 5:55oh, you need to meet women business owners? No problem.
- 5:59Give you a list of those people to go meet. Now what I've done is
- 6:03I put that value out into the universe, it's called the
- 6:07law of reciprocity. You can't out give the
- 6:11universe, and what happens is a flood
- 6:14of good stuff is coming back to you. You just can't you can't out
- 6:18give. So you just give, give, give, give, and I wrote a I actually
- 6:22wrote a workshop on this. It's called give to grow, how to become a super
- 6:25connector, and it's it's disin intuitive.
- 6:29You know, it doesn't make any sense. I give before I get.
- 6:33Mhmm. So you just give, give, give, give, give, give until
- 6:36you release that tidal wave back to yourself.
- 6:40Well, the thing I think that changed for me was,
- 6:44in terms of networking was I stopped going first to look for
- 6:48a client because that never happens. And second, I
- 6:52went with the idea of let's collaborate.
- 6:56There's something that we can do together that we can help each other.
- 6:59And my goal always is that you leave
- 7:03better because you talk to me, you know, that we both leave better because we
- 7:07talk to each other than if we'd never talked to each other. And whether
- 7:10that means, you know, you actually find something to collaborate on or whether we
- 7:14just have a fun chat, you know, it takes all the pressure
- 7:18off of you. It's like, it really is, I think about
- 7:22introducing yourself and kind of how you work to somebody.
- 7:26I mean, it's like, you would be surprised, of course you
- 7:29wouldn't be surprised, but I think people are surprised
- 7:33at how much of a feel you can get for somebody else in just a
- 7:36short 15 or 20 minute conversation. Yep.
- 7:39Yeah. I think the
- 7:43other thing that I found about connections is
- 7:48that they tend to make you an expert, and
- 7:52they tend to take out that cold
- 7:56call feeling. Mhmm. So could you talk about that a little bit?
- 8:00Yeah. Sure. So, you know, that's why that's why these
- 8:03networking groups work really well if you if you do it correctly. And
- 8:07what I mean by that, let's let's say I teach that you should have 3
- 8:11deep on every single industry, you know, at your
- 8:14disposal that are willing to take introductions from you.
- 8:18Because let's say you tell me I need a lawyer or business lawyer, I can
- 8:22introduce you to 3 business lawyers, then you get you pick the
- 8:26one that matches perfect with your personality. Right?
- 8:30Mhmm. I also am looking at personality going, well,
- 8:33they're not gonna match up, so I'm not even gonna make the introduction. Right? That's
- 8:37where you get to next level of connection. When you first
- 8:40start, and don't worry about messing it up. When you first start, you're just gonna
- 8:43start connecting everybody, and then people are gonna go, why did you send me that
- 8:47person? You know? So a great book I'll insert real
- 8:51quick is called The Super Connector. It's a book. Look it
- 8:54up. It teaches you how to do these connections in a
- 8:58very strategic way and even follow-up and make sure that
- 9:02was a good connection so you can continue to build that deeper
- 9:05relationship. But yeah. So just imagine it's like this like, we
- 9:09take Batman as utility belt. Let's say you had all those connections in
- 9:13your belt and you're able to pull those out and hand them. Now
- 9:17you become that center. I still have people call me all the time
- 9:20saying, do you know somebody that does blank? And what you really wanna
- 9:24create is you being the center of all the
- 9:27conversations, Because what happens, you now become top
- 9:31of mind awareness for what you do. Now even if they don't fully understand
- 9:35what you do sometimes, they'll go, so what is it you do? How do I
- 9:38send you something? Because it's just this part of the a person a
- 9:41people's personality, that if you give,
- 9:45they feel like they owe you. You're not asking for
- 9:49it, but it's just there. Well, I think I think
- 9:52that's a good question to have regardless is how do
- 9:56I how do I tell people about what you do? And
- 10:00then in return, you can tell people about what you do, you know,
- 10:03how you would like a referral. And I had a funny situation where
- 10:07I was I was talking with somebody, and,
- 10:12it was and it wasn't in a networking situation. It was kind of in
- 10:16a, you know, a a a coaching situation, a class situation. And they said to
- 10:19me I said to him I said, now you can tell people what
- 10:23I do. And he goes, but I haven't worked with you. And I said, we
- 10:26just worked 10 minutes together. And you just told me how amazed you
- 10:30were at what a change it made and what, you know, what you were doing,
- 10:34the way you thought about it. And you can honestly say I've never been
- 10:37in her program, but the 10 minutes that I spent with
- 10:41her. Right? So that you've got an experience
- 10:45of you can tell somebody about stuff. I think the
- 10:49the other thing is, that to me is
- 10:52so important, is taking
- 10:56some time to get to know somebody. I mean, get to know their story.
- 11:01So for me, part of that I may not remember your name,
- 11:04but when I see you, I remember. Oh, she told me the story. I
- 11:08mean, that's the way I kinda remember people. Do you have any tips on
- 11:12that? You
- 11:15know, not that come not that come to mind right right this second. I'm not
- 11:19I know I have lots of stories, but not that come to mind right now.
- 11:23Well, I think I I mean, I just think that, you know, if you're not
- 11:26used to meeting people, you have to kinda come up with a a system
- 11:30so that you can kinda, you know, trigger them in your mind so
- 11:34that they do come to top of mind when somebody says something and, you know,
- 11:38and we all learn and remember things in different ways. But I was just wondering
- 11:41if you had any any particular, you know, tips, you
- 11:45know, about that. I guess, to me, it's
- 11:48just intuitive that, like, when you said you wanna meet women
- 11:52business owners, I'm listening to what everyone else is saying and
- 11:56and then work with women business owners, and I and then immediately, 3 or 4
- 11:59people came to mind that had said the same thing. So I guess when you
- 12:03do so many one to ones, you start to see patterns.
- 12:07Yeah. And then what you're doing is connecting those patterns together
- 12:10or the likeness. Right? I definitely believe
- 12:14in patterns. I say patterns are kind of like when you go to the
- 12:18shore and you can time the waves. You
- 12:22may not jump at the right time in every wave. You may get knocked down,
- 12:25but you're still better off most of the time, and you know you have to
- 12:28get back up real fast. I think, you know, the reason I'm asking the
- 12:32question is because one of the things that I experienced
- 12:36was, like, the floodgates opened, and
- 12:40I didn't have a system. You know, I didn't have a,
- 12:44you know, and so I'm sure at the very beginning, I left a lot of
- 12:47good contacts on the table just because it was, I forgot where I
- 12:51wrote down their information or I didn't, you know? And your head
- 12:55is, you know, you should use your brain for more important things than just pure
- 12:58storage. Yes. Yes. Yes. And if you wanna
- 13:02connect in a big way, you need to think about a system a system
- 13:06that works for you. So let me ask you,
- 13:11if somebody were starting out networking as an
- 13:14entrepreneur Yep. What
- 13:18would be 3 ideas that you could give them that they could
- 13:22put to work right away? 3 ideas.
- 13:25Perfect. 1, build a
- 13:29persona. So I don't know if this is the video podcast or not, but
- 13:33It is. You also have a beer okay. You also have the beer and the
- 13:35Carhartt shirt. That came about that came about by
- 13:39accident, but I know people that do it on purpose.
- 13:43They find a character or something. Maybe they always
- 13:46wear red or they always wear their orange sneakers,
- 13:50something that's gonna help you stick out. That's really the number one
- 13:54thing because you're gonna get lost in that sea of faces. Right?
- 13:58But if even better if you can take that and tie it into
- 14:02what you do, maybe give yourself a moniker, a name,
- 14:06or something like that. So that's that's that part. Go to lots
- 14:09of meetings, never say no to a meeting, and always
- 14:13be looking for how you can help the person across the
- 14:17table from you. You're not there to sell your services.
- 14:21Always let them go first because then they get out all their
- 14:24stuff, and then you're thinking, how do I turn around
- 14:28and help them? Never always go always
- 14:32go last. It's it's kind of an old sales trick too
- 14:36is, always be the last one to speak. So anytime
- 14:39I would go in just real quick, go into, like, a merchant service deal and
- 14:43I knew they were gonna meet with another merchant service person, I would wanna go
- 14:47last. So I said, oh, you're meeting with them on Tuesday? I'm gonna come back
- 14:50on Thursday. Just promise me not to make a decision until you hear what I
- 14:53have to say. Because then I'm last one I'm last one in,
- 14:57you know, so I'm probably gonna close the deal. So The other thing I
- 15:01think is, building on what you just said is, I think,
- 15:05I always liked to to promote other people's stuff. I
- 15:08mean, in the sense that, you know, I have some groups that I
- 15:12belong to, and so I, you know, I usually say to somebody, I have a
- 15:16free, you know, I know a free resource that you can use.
- 15:20Right? Or you might wanna go to because that way, you know,
- 15:24people feel like, I think that you're generous. Mhmm. Right? And
- 15:27that you're not all into it, you know, just just for yourself.
- 15:34So you have a free gift or a free experience, actually.
- 15:38Yes. Yes. So, we do we've been growing very quickly over here,
- 15:42and it's been kinda fun to see. We've received a
- 15:46180 referrals in the last 90 days.
- 15:49And, so we started doing these tours where, like, 6 or 7
- 15:53people will come on to the call at the same time. So I'm gonna offer
- 15:57that offer that as the free gift, but here's the other part of the gift.
- 16:00You come on, you're gonna meet some people, but if you hang
- 16:04on at the end of that call, I will make I'll give
- 16:07you the name and the, calendar
- 16:11link of the people that you need to meet. So you come
- 16:15to that meeting thinking what industries are gonna feed me the the
- 16:18best, and, I'm gonna find those industries for
- 16:22you and put and give you their calendar links. That's gonna speed up the
- 16:26process of you connecting. And and I have to tell everybody,
- 16:30I actually did this. And so here's my
- 16:33experience. First of all, I have to tell you that this is a priceless
- 16:37gift, I think. First of all, I showed
- 16:41up and I didn't realize that it wasn't gonna be a 1 on 1. So
- 16:44my first was like, there are other people here. Am I in the wrong place?
- 16:48But that's not true. So it so the first thing is you're gonna meet the
- 16:51people who showed up at the call. So it's your own mini
- 16:54networking kind of thing. And then when you
- 16:58listen to, part of your, connection community
- 17:02is it well, you should explain it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm
- 17:06listening because I'm gonna go around the room. Everyone's gonna talk for 2 or 3
- 17:09minutes and tell me who how they help people in the world. We'll have a
- 17:12fun question, get to know each other, but they're also also, I'm asking for what
- 17:16are the 2 or 3 industries that feed you on a regular basis. And so
- 17:20my brain is then writing down who I should connect you to,
- 17:24and then I will go into my community and find their
- 17:27calendar links and give them to you, like I did with you. I gave
- 17:31you think I gave you 4 or 5, people, and they all work with yeah.
- 17:35Okay. They all work with business women business owners, and
- 17:39that's what she oh, and by the way, I wanna say, Yvonne, everyone should do
- 17:42this too. The that there's a 4th thing. Identify who you
- 17:46wanna work with. Don't say you work with everybody. You do such a great
- 17:50job of saying I work with women business. It's right here on your thing. Women
- 17:53business owner strategist. Will you get some men? Of course, you
- 17:56will. Yes. But when you specialize
- 18:01and people are so afraid to niche down that they think they're
- 18:05gonna miss people, but they lose people by not niching down.
- 18:09So so the other part the other part to that, you know, we're kinda going
- 18:12off, but the other part to that is that you are an
- 18:16expert in your it's easier to be an expert in your
- 18:20niche than it is to be an expert in everything.
- 18:23And so, you know, if those of you that listen to me know that I
- 18:27want you to use your unique power to attract better clients so that
- 18:31you can charge more. If you just do everything for
- 18:35everybody, then you're never gonna stand out in a crowd
- 18:39because nobody knows what it is that you're doing. So, you
- 18:42know, knowing what it is that you're looking for, look you know?
- 18:46And here's the thing that I find interesting, I think, is as
- 18:50you grow, you can actually say no to somebody. I mean, I know that
- 18:54we tend to come from that scarcity mindset where you're like, I
- 18:57gotta take everybody, anything that walks in the door. But you
- 19:01spend more time with the wrong client and get
- 19:05the least amount of results and have the most unhappy
- 19:08person than if you actually
- 19:12focus what you're doing on the people that are the best clients
- 19:15for you. So Yeah. There are a couple other things
- 19:19that I definitely wanna talk to you about. I no. I
- 19:23gotta finish talking about my experience first because that would be so
- 19:27unfair if I didn't. So I did meet a couple of
- 19:30people in that first call, and
- 19:34Phil did give me people that I am currently following up with.
- 19:37So that's amazing. I mean, I probably got more done in that 20
- 19:41minute, 30 minute phone call than I did in a whole hour and a half
- 19:44networking thing. But your platform does more than
- 19:48just that. Correct. And and, you know, it it houses,
- 19:52if you will. Think of us as a private invite only LinkedIn.
- 19:56So we're currently at 200 members, and we have a big crazy goal to get
- 20:00to a 1000000 members inside of 5 years. But if we
- 20:03bring the best the people that put People Before Profits
- 20:07into one place, good hearted people, only
- 20:11good things can happen. So I encourage all of my people to have
- 20:14their calendar link there and their phone number so you
- 20:18can quickly get get to them,
- 20:22read their profile, watch their little video, and then click and
- 20:26get it right on their calendar. You you may, and I'm
- 20:29not saying you will, you may, in the future, not even have to go to
- 20:33other networking events. Because if you can watch a little video about
- 20:37who they are, that's what you're going to the events for anyways, unless
- 20:40you need a social outlet. And so that would probably be the one
- 20:44thing I would encourage you to still do because people still need to
- 20:48meet with people. And so, you know, use then you can
- 20:52use your meeting for that. Yeah. I said there are other things
- 20:55to do for that if you need to do that. That's true. That's true. That's
- 20:58true. I belong to I I belong to a thing called the All For One
- 21:01Academy, and I call it an entrepreneurial learning community. And we,
- 21:05you know, we meet once a month and people have ideas and stuff like that.
- 21:09So there are other places for that. So, we
- 21:13are actually getting ready to run out of time, but there still are things that
- 21:16I wanna talk to you about. Alright. So you can
- 21:20make it you know, have this free wonderful gift to meet you and
- 21:24meet, you know, get some connections. We talked about
- 21:28why connections are better than, you know, cold calling
- 21:32or just, you know, whatever, credibility, and
- 21:35somebody thought about you and thought you'd make a good match.
- 21:41We didn't talk about your membership though. You didn't you told us what to do,
- 21:45but you didn't tell us about the membership. I knew we were missing something. Yeah.
- 21:48No worries. So the and the reason we charge is, 1, so you can
- 21:52so I'm still out here networking for you. So think of me as, like,
- 21:56a fractional professional networker for your business. We're in all the places
- 22:00that you can't be because you're doing your business. So, yes,
- 22:03we are a paid membership. We have 2 models. 1 is a
- 22:07done with you model, and then one is a done for you model.
- 22:11We'll take it one step further, learn all about your business,
- 22:15and put those power partners directly on your calendar for
- 22:18you. And the prices fluctuate, depending on how many
- 22:22members we have, so I won't mention the price here. But, come to the tour,
- 22:26and you'll see what what what the current price is,
- 22:30for those, programs.
- 22:33So, I mean, I got a lot more than I had
- 22:37expected when I came, so I'm highly recommending. This
- 22:41is a really valuable gift, and you'll find it in the notes below. You'll
- 22:44also find a link to the website.
- 22:49I have to say I'm really happy that I met you, Phil, and I'm really
- 22:53happy that you took the time to come to the you know, to do this
- 22:57and share it with the audience. And so I you know, here's the commercial for
- 23:00me. So everybody that's listening to this, I hope
- 23:04you'll subscribe, you'll share, and you'll engage in the podcast on social
- 23:07media. And wherever you, make your business
- 23:11connection. This is kind of my way of giving back to my community.
- 23:15And if you join me for the one small change,
- 23:19I hope that this is gonna help you in your entrepreneurial journey so
- 23:23that even the smallest shifts that you make can yield
- 23:26an incredible amount of transformation. And if you haven't listened to
- 23:30the first episode, be sure you do that and you can see what
- 23:34other possibilities and innovative possibilities are
- 23:38there. So before we run out of time, when was
- 23:41the last time you did something new for the first time?
- 23:46Okay. So about 4 months ago, I got
- 23:50a dog, and I always said that I wouldn't have a dog,
- 23:54just because, I don't know. I I never wanted to to worry about
- 23:58taking care of something else, but I'm in a place in my life where my
- 24:01kids are grown. And I wanted I wanted to, take on
- 24:05that, that responsibility. And we got ourselves a full full
- 24:08bread, Corgi, and he's awesome.
- 24:12So So so so you miss being a parent in other
- 24:15words. I guess so. I guess so.
- 24:21So if you were gonna leave us with, you know,
- 24:25your last words, what would it be?
- 24:29Oh, yeah. I would say, you're one
- 24:33connection away. So always do a one to one even if it doesn't
- 24:36look like it's gonna be your client, because a lot of people
- 24:40pick doing one to ones based on if they're gonna get a sale out of
- 24:44it. That's just the way the brain works. But always
- 24:47do your one to ones because you never know what's gonna lead. You're you're just
- 24:51one connection away. That is fantastic.
- 24:54So I'm sorry, but our time is
- 24:58up. And I know that I could have talked to you for so
- 25:02much longer. You were like
- 25:05an unexpected thing that happened in my week last week with networking.
- 25:09So I am so happy that we got to connect.
- 25:13You know? And I know that we're gonna be doing other things in the future.
- 25:17So with that, we have to we have to call it
- 25:21quits. But I want you to remember, change is simple, but it's not always
- 25:24easy. And it does require some resilience and
- 25:28courage and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone.
- 25:31So join me for the one small change as you try to do
- 25:35that and get some tools to do it with and see what other
- 25:39possibilities are out there. And so until the next time,
- 25:42thank you for joining us for One Small Change. So you're gonna say goodbye,
- 25:46Phil? See everybody, at the tour.
- 25:52You should do that.