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Leverage meetings to create influence · Inside Strategic Relations

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Let's look at a practical example on how to use political action, committee events,
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fundraising, and other activities where you basically pay to play but you get
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to meet key decision makers. We're going to talk about the benefits of these
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types of programs, we're going to talk about how to actually leverage them,
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and we're going to use a pretty interesting example. Of course, what I'm
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sharing with you here today you're likely not to hear any other places because it's
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part of the business development and risk management services that I provide as a consultant.
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Please understand, what I'm sharing here today can be construed as being manipulative
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or being unfair as far as competitive advantage, but it's fact of life.
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It's how this stuff works. If you're unhappy with that, then don't subscribe.
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Go someplace else. I don't really care. But I'm justin hit with
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inside strategic relations where we help you transform business relationships into profits. And the
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example that we're using here today is a Shishing Ping, who's the president of
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China the Communist Party in China, is coming to visit Joe Biden, who's
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the President of the United States. In the United States in San Francisco,
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so a lot of things have been done to prepare that meeting. The area
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has been cleaned up. There's different conferences and events. And if you needed
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to meet Joe Biden, or you needed to meet Changing Ping in order to
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gain influence or to position yourself as a certain type of expert, or to
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be seen in an environment, and we'll talk about the benefits of those things.
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You can do so by paying one thousand dollars to attend a dinner with
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Changing Ping or forty thousand dollars to meet with Changing Ping directly. Now,
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yes, this is how political fundraising works. You can pay money to meet
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Donald Trump. I paid money to meet Tony Robbins, Donald Trump, Dan
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Kennedy, all kinds of people that I respect in the marketplace. But I've
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also paid money to be at the Officers Club when the Admiral's there. I've
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also paid money to be at different events where I'm going to meet decision makers
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of organizations. I've paid money to be member of a club or part of
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a political action committee or part of an event to get private access to individuals.
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I've also helped my clients do the same, and it's often money well
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spent spent. If you prepare like what we're going to talk about today.
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It does sound to the typical person that this is pay per play and that
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this is something that's you know, looked down upon, but it's how government
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functions and it's how a lot of high end business development is done. If
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you were going to import something into China, so you're exporting for the United
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States and you're going to import into China, you'd want to be at a
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meeting where you could talk to individuals that might import, might impact import expert
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laws. You might want to talk with the staff of Changing Ping in order
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to offer information about what you want to import to China and what would be
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beneficial to China. And then there's a little bit ex things that we're going
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to talk about. But the benefit is you're skipping the gatekeeper, you're skipping
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all of the filters, and you're going directly to the source who can make
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it amediate decision on what it is that you want to offer, and you're
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saving quite a bit of time. How much money would it cost, even
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in plane fair for you to go have dinner with Shinching Ping. First off,
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they're going to do background checks and clearances, and you'd have to fly
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to China, and then if you're an executive, you have the risk of
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getting having issues with that. You'd have to get on their calendar to get
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time. This event in San Francisco is already on someone's calendar. Again,
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this is the same thing if you wanted to meet with President Biden, President
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Obama, President Trump, President Bush, President Carter. And it can be
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done through a nonprofit organization. It could be done through a fundraising dinner.
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It can be done through a variety of means, and it's completely legal.
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Now. Of course, you can just write a check to a politician and
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get an audience with them through a political contribution or donation, and there are
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other means that are less than suitable that are not legal. I'm only talking
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about the legal means of influence to basically get on the radar or on the
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short list with a decision maker. And like I've said, I've helped my
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client. I had a client, for example, and I arranged for them
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to meet more than six hundred key decision makers in the course of a year,
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including political decision makers, business and industry decision makers, individuals who are
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in the media. And basically it wasn't that difficult. Now, again,
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if you're going to meet six hundred different people, and we'll talk about that
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right now, when you show up to an event, you need to have
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a list of everybody of importance who's going to be at that list. See,
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this is beyond business networking, and this is beyond the being in introduced,
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because you can essentially introduce yourself. And this is not something you have
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to have a lot of money to do, because this is at all price
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points. I recently was at a dinner that was I think it was seventy
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five dollars a ticket, three hundred and forty dollars a table, and I
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got to meet in my region the decision makers, the movers and the shakers,
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the people who can build relationships or make connections. So again this is
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on all price points. But when you show up, you need to know
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the names. You have to have a picture what those people look like.
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I know everybody's making fun of a Biden for having these que cards and stuff,
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but I've seen senior level executives have these que cards at least the briefing
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notes, so that when they're at these events, it's the best money they've
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ever spent. So if you're going to meet Singing Ping, you not only
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need to know who Singing Ping is and possibly speak Mandarin something more than Nie
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how or just while booming by nichewash Emma. You have to be able to
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have a conversation. And if you can't have a conversation with Ping, you
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can get a picture with him. Thank him very much, Shashai Shashe.
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You know, just keep thinking, but not being like a fanboy. But
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my point being is you need to know who the economic advisors are. You
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need to know who the import expert folks are. In this particular example,
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you need to know who security is and who's not security. For example,
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I was at an event and there was a senator at the event and my
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client needed the senator to take care of a few things. I did not
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directly walk up to the senator. I identified the liaison. I had a
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prepared doc and I wrote it down right there, nice and neat. I
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went over to the liaison and I had my business card clipped to a letter,
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handed it to the liaison requesting what I was looking for or at least
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to further the conversation, and then I left. I didn't try to shake
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their hand. I didn't interrupt their meeting. I didn't try to get a
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selfie with them. I basically got the basic information to them. Then I
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go back to the office, I get a phone call. I get ten
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minutes on the phone with their staff. I got what I needed. Do
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you see how this works, folks? This is not about celebrity. This
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is about positioning, influence and relationship building. So if you're going to have
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a meeting with Singing Ping, you might only get two minutes to meet with
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him. I got to shake Tony Robin's hand as he went down a line
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of people and ask him one question. His response was less than three minutes,
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but it was worth every penny I paid for that point in my life
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and for that situation. Now I did get a picture with Tony Robbins.
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A lot of times, you can order a VIP package to get access.
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You could buy the seat at the dinner table to get a conversation. You
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can buy a seat to just be in the room. The level in which
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you do this is not as important as the preparation. So by having these
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Q cards or a couple of index cards with the faces, the names,
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the background, the interest of those individuals, you can then make a connection
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and pass along valuable information. Now you're not gonna try to talk to the
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person and spend a lot of time with them, because that individual is also
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working the room in order to make connections that are important. Now's changing.
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Ping's not going to be working the room. He's gonna sit there and do
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his usual smile and everything like that, and he's going to pretend you don't
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understand what you're saying, and you're gonna get two seconds to say nihow,
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smile and introduce yourself. You know, uh, you know wat chow,
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Hello, Josh sure is my name is justin Hit. I know that doesn't
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mean justin Hit, but that's my Chinese name, and then I'll shake a
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hand, smile, and then I'll move on with the next person in the
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line. Shakes a hand. But if you have a business card in your
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pocket, or you have an index card or a folded up letter that's nicely
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typed out been translated into Chinese, and then you shake Chinging Ping's hand,
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and the next hand you get to shake is the commerce minister. You can
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hand them an envelope and they will get it to or at least review it,
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and it will be taken care of. There is no person on this
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planet that you cannot reach and that you cannot influence in some way if you've
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done your homework. So I've given you this example because it's pretty sensational.
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There are very few subscribers on this list that would benefit from a direct meeting
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with Hinging Ping. But at such an event, you're going to interact with
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other people. And this is the next point here, you're going to interact
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with other people who could afford to be in the room. So sometimes it's
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not the VIP you're going to meet, but it's the conversations in the hallway.
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It's the conversations around the dinner table. It's the ideas and concepts you
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can exchange. It's the photographic evidence of your belonging to such a group or
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such an association. If you look at Jeffrey Epstein's engagement and a lot of
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people that we know now respise or compromising individuals. Very often they'll photobomb events,
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they'll walk the red carpet, they'll get photographs with famous people. Because
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it builds up a perception of association or perception of value. Now, in
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the nature of the type of work that I do as a strategic consultant or
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an advisory In an advisory role, I try not to be in pictures unless
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it is something of personal interest to me. But my clients that client I
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had meet six hundred people in the course of a year. Sometimes they're meeting
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ten or fifteen people at a single event, but they're very often getting pictures
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with those individuals. They're being seen with those individuals, they're passing along information
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or receiving information, and they're listening and they're engaging. And those are the
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things that I help with my coaching clients with because it only takes one meeting.
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Charlie Tremendous Joanes said, you're the product of the books you read and
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the people you meet. Wouldn't it be nice to start meeting better, more
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famous people, better, more connected people, others who are in the same
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business or serve the same customers. And of course political action committees, fundraising
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meetings, charitable events, dinners with celebrities, VIP packages, conferences and events.
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There's a spectrum of level in which this works because most people on this
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call really want to meet prospective customers rather than a president of a country.
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Now I have clients who have gotten their picture taken with Bill Clinton, George
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Bush, Donald Trump. They've been in VIP events or group pictures for special
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activities or events. They are on people's YouTube channels, they're on people's short
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list of who to call when there's a solution that's needed. This did not
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happen on accident. And again, you can prepare for the meeting by understanding
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who's going to be there. Another factor is the pre connect at meetings.
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So let's say you're going to a trade show and you want to make sure
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that your clients or customers who are going to be at the same trade show
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at least stop by your booth before you go to that event. You can
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send that letters, you can set up a contest, you can have other
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types of event activities, so you can have a VIP dinner which you're sponsoring.
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So one event did I helped the client work on, which was very
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profitable, was they're going to be exhibiting at a trade show. They spend
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thirty thousand dollars or something at the trade for a trade show booth, and
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that includes all their setup and their brochures and you know the people that are
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going to be there. But they wanted to meet with their very best customers
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and reward those customers and acknowledge those customers and build that social connection with those
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customers at this event because they knew the customers tend to attend the event.
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This is like a association of general contractors, and so these are general contractors
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that are coming and then the client. A couple clients have done this with
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sold industrial services or equipment. So what they did is set up a VIP
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dinner where they invited their existing clients and gave them a ticket which was each
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one bring one is kind of the concept. So they give two VIP tickets
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to the people in the company that are clients, paying clients, and then
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they asked them to give the names of other people who should attend the dinner
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who are not yet clients. Now, of course that's not the language we
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use on the invitation, but essentially we want the customer to bring their friends
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for a free meal, to hear a very short presentation, but basically to
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end up on the mailing list of the company, because those individuals are pre
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qualified to purchase the product or service. And so we're looking at thirty dollars
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a plate. I think was the total all in costs. Your price will
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vary. But the key point here is that if you have they have a
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maximum number of people they can bring. And so if there's two principles which
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are existing clients, and then they're three guests, that's five people. Five
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times thirty is what one hundred and fifty dollars per table. Now you can
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use sponsorships and everything. This is in my event marketing program, but essentially
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you now have for every customer in the room at least one prospect on your
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list. You serve them a great meal, you have networking opportunities, you
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prepare because you got all the names in advance, and so now you can
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tailor presentations, you can use examples. One of the things that we do
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at these events is we will highlight the customer successes. So we'll have a
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big binder of success stories. We'll pick two or three success stories for clients
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that are in the room, and we'll give them a small award and we'll
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tell all the success you know, Hey, they bought our pump and tank
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system and it help with fuel controls. And here's the problem they had before,
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and here's the success they have now, and this is why they made
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such a great decision, and now you've put them up in front of their
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friends in a favorable way. They're a hero for the evening. We've built
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their esteem, we've given them a sens of belonging, We've praised them for
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their good decisions. What do you think those guests in the room are going
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to do, whether, of course they're going to see your company in a
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favorable light. So whether you're attending someone else's event, Kause Shijiping doesn't attend
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to dinner unless he thinks it's going to be beneficial. Right now, China
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is looking for more imports, and then of course they're always looking for new
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markets to export, and so it's a trade dinner. You might think it's
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beyond you to hold one of these events. You might think it's sleazy,
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you might think it's out of taste. But presidents of countries hold these events
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more often than you might know, at any level, whether you're a small
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business or a large business. And i'll give you a small business example here.
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Shortly, these types of events connect people, help you better understand your
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audience, help you make associations and build relationships, and then ultimately close sales.
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So my client was in worst case, for a table one hundred and
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fifty dollars, they had three prospects in the room that were not customers,
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because obviously the existing customers would get a free ticket and they get the opportunity
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to invite three people. And so if one customer we're also mapping relationships,
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by the way, but if one customer invited somebody who's already a client,
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you would say, oh, you get to invite somebody else because that person's
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already a client, and then you can call them and let make sure they
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get three people. But essentially the worst case per table, you're in one
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hundred and fifty dollars. The existing client because they were praised and highlighted and
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they were given a good time, they are going to be more likely to
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keep buying, so you'll recover one hundred and fifty dollars on their next purchase.
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These three new prospects give you an opportunity to invite new people. Now
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those are single tickets, so they can you know that your client can decide
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whether they give three tickets. And by the way, your client will will
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give the tickets out according to their benefit. And see this is no different
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than giving away race tickets or giving away VIP suites at an event, or
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setting up a luncheon. But any one of those five people who did make
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a decision to buy from you will recover the one hundred and fifty dollars a
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table. Now, of course, if you're going to have one hundred tables,
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it's a different event than if you have twenty tables. But you see
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what I'm talking about here. Buying access works for you, and it works
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for the individual who's hosting the event. I'll leave you with one more example.
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So as a sales professional, I would get I'd go to a restaurant
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and that has a room, a side room, and I'd say, look,
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what does it take to rent your room. I'm going to have business
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luncheons here that are going to include a small talk and then sharing of a
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meal, and I'm going to pay for everything, and so what does this
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cost? And typically for fifteen dollars whatever the entree prices was the maximum I
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would pay for a room, and then I would work on getting ten to
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fifteen people in the room. Again, it's a combination of existing customers and
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prospects, and so as a salesperson, I would have everybody show up at
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the same time. I would do a brief welcome and a little I'd have
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a little mixer going, so they'd be free drinks or they'd be appetizers,
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and they would network with each other. And then I would have the meal
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served. Everybody would be in and out and under an hour. Now some
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people would stay longer, but I would introduce myself. I'd welcome all my
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guests. I'd give them the reason for being there. The reason can be
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because I just want to help build better networks in our community. It could
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be we're recognizing somebody who's done in something incredible. It could be I wanted
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to treat my best customers to a little reward. And then a few guests
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are here, they can see what everything's all about. It's never like a
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pitch. It's really like goodwill. They're in and out in an hour.
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I build a mailing list. So let's say I'm paying nineteen dollars a seat
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for the meal. All in nineteen dollars a seat for the meal, but
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I'm getting a name on my list. This is no different than you know,
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a nineteen dollars cost per lead. I can then follow up with everybody
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who's in the room, I can shake hands, I can meet people.
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Now I'm eating lunch too, because my company's usually paying for this, my
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client's usually paying for this, and so you know, you got to eat.
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Also, you can't stand around and talk to people while they're eating.
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It irritates people. But the people in the room also start making these connections.
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You can start mapping relationships and then even as a salesperson, you can
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recover this. So let's say it's twenty dollars ahead, you have ten people
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in the room. You do this once a week, invite different people every
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week. By the way, you now have two hundred dollars a week,
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and you're starting to build relationships. You're starting to build a list. It
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does require some homework. I've described the getting started homework. There's some more
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strategic things that you can do. It requires a little bit of creative thinking
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on your part, but it's nothing an assistant can't manage for you. I've
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had assistance put together workshops where I was training, put together workshops where I
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was recognizing people. There's different models you can use, and that's of course
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in my event marketing program, but when we coach for clients, we often
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find that they'll want off one of these events. And this is the biggest
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takeaway. When an executive, a client of mine who's making four hundred thousand
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dollars a year, meet six hundred decision makers in the course of a year.
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At the end of the year they have a backlog of business and twenty
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two million dollars in sales. They might have received a million or two million
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dollars in new business. You don't have to already be rich to have dinner
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with shanging ping if you can scratch together one thousand dollars in a plane ticket
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to San Francisco. Now, capturing the photograph, capturing the evidence that you
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were there, having a good reason to be there, having the homework done
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in advance, and then of course after the meeting, having to follow up
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done properly is magical. So I would have a luncheon, have ten people
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at a luncheon, I paid for their lunch. They got to meet each
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other as a mix between clients and prospects. And then I would follow up
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with thank you notes, and I would follow up with the prospect newsletter,
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and I would follow up with anything that came up during the conversation. I
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might reinvite some people. I might never invite some other people, but ultimately
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it was a solid way to build business relationships, to build influence, to
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demonstrate your value and expertise, to put you in front of buyers in a
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marketplace, to position yourself as an expert, to demonstrate your credibility, to
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build authority in a market. This is something that is so powerful. It
22:18
is strategic relationships. If this is something you'd like to do in your professional
22:25
business, and something you'd like to do to grow a high ticket service or
22:30
sale, then immediately visit www dot inside strategic relations dot com. Either become
22:37
a paid subscriber or join us on a coaching program, or ask your questions
22:42
on the contact page at www dot inside strategic relations dot com. I can
22:49
show you how to turn over that thousand dollars tuition, that forty thousand dollars
22:53
ticket hundreds of times in the course of a year, even thousands of times
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in the course of a year, depending on your product and service and how
23:03
comfortable you are with these types of things. But I'm somewhat of an introvert,
23:08
and I still manage to get ten friends in a room if five of
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the people are your existing clients. You already know the people, and if
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they bring five more people who are friends, you now have a larger list
23:18
to market. You could literally do this as a salesperson off of commissions.
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But again, if you have the leverage, if you have a company,
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I can do like I've done a lot of clients of mine, and you
23:32
could actually just go out and do the tour. And so I had another
23:36
client that basically went to They had offices all over the United States, and
23:40
they would just go from office to office and we'd have meetings lined up and
23:44
we'd have events lined up, and he'd end up in the newspaper with big
23:48
spreads about the new activities that are happening. And then whenever he met congress
23:52
people and senators and local political leaders, there was the right crew there so
23:56
that we got all that evidenced in document it. And now they have billions
24:02
of dollars in business. Now, again, I didn't create the billions of
24:06
dollars in business for them. They took foundational information and resources on building business
24:11
relationships and connecting with the right people at the right time with the right follow
24:15
up, and they turn that into a massive organization. Now we have strict
24:21
confidentiality because there are times where you might meet with an individual where that individual
24:25
does not want any publicity, and there's an appropriateness of you know, you're
24:30
just not grabbing selfies with people. And then there's also some social and psychological
24:36
elements. So for example, when I was working with a military contractor and
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we had people from Taiwan and Egypt and Israel and different people buying equipment,
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there are cultural aspects in here. So you don't put the Egyptians and the
24:49
Israelians in the same room sell them a product because they'll fight over the price,
24:53
where they'll they'll not be as comfortable. But I have lessons that I've
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learned working with the French military, working with Canadian government and other places.
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So if you actually have a million dollar ticket, we can also use these
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methods with you as well. But you're not gonna you're not gonna put it
25:12
in the newspaper that you just met with Senator so and so. Who's going
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to pass a law so that you can get your company in play. And
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I'll give you a practical example. You're not gonna tell everybody that your lobby
25:25
group met with Biden and his staff in order for them to follow up with
25:30
an AI regulation through an executive order, but that did happen. The AI
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lobby groups and the existing established AI companies have asked the government to protect air
25:41
quotes again, protect citizens, and then there's new changes at all. That
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is a thing, and it's a thing that we can facilitate or help you
25:51
facilitate, but it's the appropriateness must be vetted and you must have the the
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value you to deliver. I'm just in hit with Inside Strategic Relations. I
26:03
don't want to go to depth into this. We can talk in a private
26:07
conversation. You can visit me at www dot inside strategic relations dot com.
26:12
But you would be shocked how many opportunities there are to meet with decision makers
26:18
and how many opportunities you have to level up with greater influence, greater authority,
26:25
and greater control in the marketplace through business relationships that are profitable. I'll
26:33
see in the next podcast.