Latest / The One Small Change Podcast / Unlocking Entrepreneurial Growth Through Connection and Community with Joanne Weiland

Transcript

Unlocking Entrepreneurial Growth Through Connection and Community with Joanne Weiland · The One Small Change Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the One Small Change. And as always, I am thrilled
0:04
that you're here with me to embark on this journey of exploration and
0:08
transformation. And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost thirty
0:12
years of entrepreneurial experience. And I have a passion
0:15
for discovering growth through the power of seemingly small change.
0:19
So excuse me. So I wanna thank you
0:23
for joining me on this entrepreneurial journey. And this week, we
0:27
have the amazing Joanne Wildman.
0:31
Jo do you like to be called Joanne or Joe? Well, the
0:34
majority of people call me Jo, and but Joanne's fine too. And
0:38
why land why because it's easier to you know, why
0:42
land when you can fly is what I always say to help people remember how
0:45
to say it because most it's spelled, like, the German way, which is
0:49
and people call me Wieland, but I just try to help them remember why
0:53
land when you can fly. But either one, Joe but, you know,
0:56
Yvonne, I know you and I, you know, met as me being Joe, and that's
1:00
totally fine. Because like I say, I I I
1:04
learned that my real name was Joanne when I was 12. My
1:07
dad had three daughters, and he wanted a son. So I guess I was
1:11
the top became the tomboy and became Joe. But I I'm
1:15
fine with kids. I'm actually enjoying it, so it's
1:18
fine. I I want to because I know you and I can really chat. So
1:22
I wanna make sure that we get started because I want you to share with
1:26
us the smaller insignificant thing, you
1:29
know, change your decision that sparked that, you know, remarkable
1:33
transformation and growth that has, you know, made you much better at doing
1:37
what you do. So if you would tell our audience what it is you do
1:40
and why you do it, what made you do it, that would be
1:44
great. Well, I appreciate it because when I listened to your
1:47
podcast and you talk about that, I thought, you know, that is so
1:51
true. But what is it? And you do think you have a lot of them,
1:54
but then I wanted to think about something that was really more
1:58
powerful. So what I thought of was, for twenty years, I was in the
2:01
high-tech business and meaning I was in sales and Yvonne back then
2:05
you actually physically went and visited people. You didn't do what we're doing
2:09
now on Zoom and, you know, online. You actually made an appointment
2:13
and you flew there and you had breakfast, lunch, or dinner with them, and you
2:17
did training and all kinds of stuff. So I've flown over a million
2:20
miles, because, like I said, back in the day, that's what we
2:24
did. And so I was just when
2:27
you do something for twenty years, it's kinda like you're
2:31
stick. You that's what you know. That's what you think. And, anyway, so
2:35
one of the companies I worked for, they were bought out by
2:38
Intel. I felt like the merger claimed also. That's another thing that kept
2:42
happening where everybody was merging, not just even who I worked for, but my
2:46
clients. So it was so crazy that you really, you know, had
2:50
to just be flexible. So I was at this meeting I
2:53
didn't tell, and the guy that actually I
2:57
knew from he was my competitor before we became
3:01
one company. He's like, Joe, look around the room. Do you see
3:04
anybody here that doesn't work for Intel or Zircon?
3:08
Because that's who I was with. I said, well, I didn't really know all
3:12
the Intel people, but I just said, no. Why? He says, because we buy
3:16
companies for their product, not for their people. Well, that might
3:19
seem like big deal. But what happened a couple months later,
3:23
they had this downsizing, this rightsizing, asking you to leave.
3:27
And I thought, what Jay said might be true, and I'm
3:31
either gonna get kicked out or I can get paid to leave
3:34
now. And so I'm so grateful. I listened to him,
3:38
and I I took the package. And the reason I'm so
3:42
grateful, and this is the small change, I was able to part of
3:45
the package was to go at that time, it was called right management, and
3:49
they might still be called right management, But I was blessed to actually get six
3:53
months of training, and it reminds me a little bit about your training.
3:57
But the point you know, your VIP did, month
4:00
because of the fact that they helped you recognize
4:04
your strengths and your weaknesses and what's you would be good at and and
4:08
because they were trying to help you transfer into another type of
4:11
position. And what was interesting for me and all those tests I
4:15
took at that time, it kept coming up that I'm a connector. And
4:19
I thought, well, big deal. Everybody's a connector. You know,
4:22
because if you ever realize it, a lot of times, whatever
4:26
you're good at, you just think everybody knows how to do it. And so
4:30
I thought, big deal. But then, you know, I started
4:34
asking myself, who's connected me lately? Because when I was
4:37
in sales, that's why I was so successful. I was always doing global
4:41
alliances from people all over the world. I was introducing people to
4:44
different people so that they could sell more packages because they want to
4:48
created this, one created that together. It was a whole new solution.
4:52
So, anyway, but then once I realized, okay, it was a
4:56
gift. But then it was like, what do I do with this? You know?
5:00
Because I have to stop you right there because the first
5:04
thing that is such a powerful idea. And
5:07
what I would say to people is if you are still in a in
5:11
a job, get as much training as you possibly can
5:15
because you your skills are portable. You can
5:18
take your skills either to another job or you can take it into your
5:22
business. And so you, regardless whether you're an employee or
5:26
whether you're an entrepreneur, you are your business. And even
5:30
in a job, you need to be able to promote yourself and know what your
5:33
strengths are. So that is, I think Definitely.
5:37
Definitely. Definitely. You're so right. Because, you know, there's
5:41
it's it's so true. So that's when I created link to expert. I
5:45
decided, okay. Well, what I was doing was so
5:48
powerful because of the fact you would find an expert and you
5:52
would connect them with another expert. And they, like I said, they would either create
5:55
a new product, a new service, a new solution. And,
5:59
but I also found that a lot of times, it
6:03
took months to get all the information that
6:06
every expert I mean, every client might need to
6:10
to before they hire that expert. Most of the time by then, another
6:14
fire drill came up, something else happened, so we lost the deal. I'm not
6:17
gonna kid you. It was you know, because I would go to the board meeting.
6:21
I would promote three different people that I thought would be perfect for their
6:24
project. And the you know, everybody had a different idea
6:28
too, Yvonne, of what made that person the right
6:32
ideal candidate for that project. So I learned from
6:35
that. I actually kept track of what everybody asked me, and
6:39
it actually turned out that when we created LinkedXpert, the collaborative
6:43
cloud community, you can now find 40 different things
6:47
and many of the same thing about that expert. So you
6:50
know if they're the right fit for you, and you can actually find the expert,
6:54
check out their credentials, and hire them in minutes because that was our
6:58
challenge to get people to know each other. Like, you always say, be
7:02
found. So these people can be find each other and know
7:05
right away if they're the right fit because even if they have, just like back
7:09
then, a committee that's, you know, deciding who's the right
7:13
fit or if it is, a board of directors, many
7:16
times it was a board of directors, and they would all have a different idea,
7:20
what made that person the right fit. So now they can all from anywhere in
7:24
the world go on link to expert.com, find who
7:27
they're looking for, see if that's what they feel like it is,
7:31
have what we call a seven minute strategy session because you and I have
7:35
discussed this before. Sometimes you you they're not the right fit
7:40
for the client, but sometimes it's also not even the right fit for the expert
7:44
because if they find that person isn't coachable, just as an example,
7:47
and then they want to keep doing what they've always done and then they, you
7:51
know, feel like you're a fraud. But you told them what to do, but
7:54
they just didn't do it. So it this is the strategy session is
7:58
designed so both parties know if they are
8:02
the best fit for that project. So so
8:06
there are a couple of things that that I just really wanna highlight for for
8:10
entrepreneurs. First of all, you need to go to link to expert.com,
8:14
and that'll be in the notes so you can find it. But the other thing
8:17
I think that that as a connector that you
8:21
found so natural to do Mhmm. Most
8:25
entrepreneurs do not. And, you know, I'm always putting together acronyms
8:28
and models. And I have Yeah. I love that about you. Model called the three
8:32
c's. And it started with competency. You know,
8:36
the way that we always start. You know, I have to become an expert. And
8:40
as I was putting it together and I added a fourth step, I put
8:43
added community. Oh my god.
8:47
That needs to actually be first. So tell
8:51
us about the importance of connecting in community
8:55
and, you know, as entrepreneurs, why we need
8:59
it and how we can use it to our benefit.
9:03
Well, I feel like so true. And we even call linked to
9:06
expert the collaborative cloud community, meaning it's in the
9:10
cloud, of course. It's a community like you're talking about. But the
9:13
big difference, what we find, is the collaboration.
9:17
Most of the time too, I find people really genuinely wanna help
9:21
each other. Just as as an example, you were recently on
9:25
our show, and I'm gonna be on your show. That's true collaboration. We're
9:28
helping each other. We're promoting each other. But we do know, like, this is
9:32
taking more time out of our day to do things like this, and I'm
9:36
not saying it's wrong. All I'm saying is that we are
9:40
collaborating. With link to expert, what we also
9:43
did was when somebody that's a member,
9:47
consultants, coaches, team builders, trainers, facilitators, authors, but people that
9:51
really wanna be known as an expert, upload something new, just say a blog
9:55
or even an interview like we're doing right now. Well, when
9:58
they do that, our system automatically sends
10:02
out an email blast to all their contacts. There's a CRM
10:06
right built into link to expert. But the power of that is
10:09
three other experts are always mentioned on the email
10:13
blast. So you always have a chance to view on their email blast
10:17
too. And, like, with me, I have over 10,000 people in my database.
10:21
So 10,000 go out, but you have 10,000
10:24
chances to get on many of those because there's
10:28
only three. And so that happens. And then twice a
10:32
month, our newsletter goes out. And whatever you did in those
10:36
last two weeks, the newsletter picks that up, puts
10:40
it together automatically. Again, you don't touch it, and it sends
10:43
it to every member's people because we
10:47
found that many people, you know, they hire
10:51
you, but it's not like they're gonna hire you over and over and over because
10:54
they have different challenges every time you they turn around.
10:57
So they need different experts. And so on the news center, they can find
11:01
different people. And just like you could be found by somebody
11:04
else's contact in their database, and it's and
11:08
sometimes they even hire we had one time when one guy hired 10
11:12
people at one time for his project.
11:15
So it's not like we're hurting each other. We're helping
11:19
each other without having to do anything extra because what
11:23
you all know, marketing is really time consuming if
11:26
we allow it to be, but we kept trying to make it so that you
11:30
spend five minutes a week uploading something that you already did, that
11:33
you can write about it. You you can have it on video
11:37
like this or audio like this as well.
11:41
And so that takes you five minutes to upload, but
11:44
then you get out there. And then we also put it on Facebook, on
11:48
LinkedIn, on Twitter, everything that we keep
11:51
exposing it. Often, our affiliates expose it. We put it
11:55
in the media. They actually send it to all their subscribers, and there's
11:59
many times it goes to hundreds of thousands of people by you spending five
12:03
minutes. So I I wanna stop you for a minute because
12:07
what you said is amazing, and I think
12:10
there are a lot of people who are not gonna grasp it. Okay? So I
12:14
wanna I wanna come back and start on a really basic
12:17
level. If you are an entrepreneur, it is
12:21
really hard to build your business by yourself because there
12:25
are only so many hours in a day. There are only so many people you
12:28
can talk to. There's only so many things that you can do.
12:32
Yes. The one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is the
12:36
follow-up. Do you know? I somebody somebody was
12:39
nice enough to refer somebody to me and you forget, you don't follow-up, so you
12:43
don't get the benefit of it. And and and it sounds
12:47
sad, but to a certain extent, our business is the numbers. You know, you
12:50
have to get in front of a hundred people, you know, maybe 15 of them
12:54
will call you, whatever. And that is very time consuming. This
12:58
so what you're talking about, one, is what I call the ripple effect.
13:02
Okay. Do one thing and a whole bunch of other things. Somebody else a
13:06
more a more professional way is you take a leveraged
13:09
action. You know, you do one thing and you get multiple
13:12
results from it. Right? So that's you're talking
13:16
about that because of what you went through, you invented the systems, you
13:20
know, a program that will do that for ordinary people.
13:24
Right? And and for entrepreneurs, that's a wonderful thing. The
13:28
other thing that I will say about connection and community
13:32
is you can learn more about why you're special by
13:36
talking to other people. I think our mindset is I have to be
13:39
ready before I go into a community because I wanna be able
13:43
to add value. But in essence, if you go into a
13:46
community when you're first starting or at any time, you
13:50
can see what has worked so you don't you know, my husband has this saying,
13:53
if you're gonna walk through a minefield, follow somebody.
13:57
Right? So I love it. So you can see what mistakes
14:01
other people have made so you don't have you can learn wisdom is learning from
14:04
other people's mistakes. Right? Right. So when you do connections and
14:08
you talk to somebody, you know, the more you talk to people, the more, you
14:12
know, they go, well, I do this. And you go, I do this and they
14:14
go, well, you know, I don't do that. I had to know lots of people
14:17
who need that and you go, oh, that's good. You know? So so the
14:21
connection is so powerful,
14:25
when you're connecting and in community because it gives you a reflection.
14:29
Not only do you meet more people to get that ripple effect, to get your
14:32
message out so that you're found, you have more eyes on your business, you
14:36
get better and you have a better understanding of it as well. I mean, I
14:39
find this so amazing and it and I find it exciting because
14:43
I really came to the whole connection and affiliate
14:47
and community stuff within the last couple of years. I mean, I've
14:50
been in business for a long time, and I just never I mean, it was
14:54
really kinda word-of-mouth that I didn't work really hard at.
14:58
And now that we whether you wanna be or not, your business is
15:02
global. You put boundaries on that and say, you know,
15:05
I don't I don't stay up to midnight, so I'm not gonna be easily
15:09
accessible to this market, which is fine. But when you put
15:13
something on, you know, like social media, it goes all over the the
15:17
the globe. Right? So you need to have a that that's, like,
15:20
too much. You need to have a way to be able to connect with them.
15:24
So if you were talking to somebody who was just
15:27
getting started, what would be, like, three actions you tell them to
15:31
take to to improve their connection and follow through?
15:36
Just getting started in business, you mean? Well, you're an entrepreneur, and you
15:40
haven't put a lot of energy into this or a lot of thought, or you
15:43
don't know how to do it, but you wanna do it. What you said
15:46
earlier is really, really, really important, and most people never
15:50
do, is follow-up. Oh, it's
15:54
It's amazing to me. But I think that's you know, you
15:57
have to have a system to be able to follow-up. And I
16:01
really can tell you that so many people tell me they can't believe I
16:04
follow-up the way I do. But I, you know, I cheat. Not
16:08
cheat, but, you know, I have it in my CRM. And I know, you
16:12
know, after we talk to him when we're gonna decide to work together.
16:15
So that would be number one, I would think. But and, also, when you're going
16:20
I guess, even before the follow-up, of course, you when you're meeting people.
16:24
When people go to a networking meeting as an example, many times
16:27
they either get turned off or turned on immediately. But even
16:31
if you get turned off, I recommend that you go three times because a lot
16:35
of times it's different speakers each month or whenever the next
16:39
meeting is, whether it's online or in person or that
16:42
there's even another person that is introducing you
16:46
to other people. That's different. So I think that, you know,
16:50
do before that, though even so the third one, I keep going backwards,
16:54
but find out what that group is. Are they the type of
16:58
people you wanna work with? Because a lot of times when you do go to
17:02
networking meetings, let's face it, they're there to sell you. They're
17:05
not really there to care about what you're doing. So make sure
17:10
that when you do pick the different groups that you want
17:13
to network with, that they're not just
17:18
your ideal client, what most people call it, but people that also are
17:22
willing and wanting to work together and promote each other
17:26
instead of just themselves. Can I just comment on
17:30
that? I think a lot of people are like, I go to networking and I
17:33
never get a client. And I think that, you know,
17:37
the question I always say to people when they do something is, what's the
17:41
purpose? And if your purpose is to get a client, you probably are
17:44
gonna be disappointed. Okay? But if your
17:48
purpose is to make connection and to get the
17:51
word out there and try to support other entrepreneurs
17:56
Mhmm. Then then you're probably gonna do much better. Because once you,
17:59
you know, make the connection, then you can start talking about, oh, I have I
18:03
know people who can do whatever. And so, you know, when
18:07
I have follow-up calls with people, I don't, you know, think of it as a
18:10
sales call. The first thing I go is, how can I support you?
18:14
Right. Exactly. What can we do together? And so I think
18:18
that's really important. And I think the point that you said about going three
18:21
times, is a really good one too because people won't
18:25
get you know, if you just pop in once,
18:29
there's no consistency for people to get to know and trust you. It's like, okay.
18:33
They came once. You know? If I'm gonna follow-up, I'm gonna
18:36
follow-up on somebody that I've seen us several times who's got
18:40
consistency and, you know, I feel like I can trust.
18:44
So okay. So the other
18:48
thing that I wanna ask is
18:53
we I know that you brought a free gift, so I wanna make sure that
18:55
I get that in before we run out of time. So if you tell us
18:58
about that, and then we keep talking. So did we
19:02
get all three steps? One step was, to go to networking three
19:05
times. One step was to we we talked about follow-up, how important it
19:09
is. And I have to say, no matter where you what point you are in
19:13
your business, unless you find a system that you like working with,
19:17
follow-up is gonna be hard. I mean, one of one of the
19:21
exciting things that's happening for me is they're setting up system up with me with
19:25
it. I can put in some notes and it'll do stuff, you know, and start
19:28
the follow-up process without me having to put my hand on every single
19:32
person. Well, I forgot the first thing you said. I'm sorry. Oh,
19:36
because I was doing it backwards. But, meaning the first step
19:40
is really finding out the kinds of groups that really are right for
19:43
you because of the fact that, you know, it might not be, like you
19:47
said, that they are gonna be your client. But are they even the ones that
19:51
wanna collaborate, that wanna help each other, that are there for each other
19:55
versus just there for themselves? Because, I mean, we've all
19:58
gone to so many networking meetings. Everybody's trying to throw a card in your face
20:02
and sell you what they're doing. But are they even interested in what you're doing?
20:06
Most you know? So I would look for groups that
20:10
are compatible with, you know, helping each other
20:14
help each other instead of just there for Mhmm.
20:17
Themselves. And that that's my OMB found is
20:21
outreach with purpose and that it aligns with what you're trying to accomplish.
20:25
So Right. I mean, if you're trying to set up a a a freezer, you
20:29
know, a freezer in Antarctica, it's gonna be a really hard slog.
20:33
Right? Yes. Right. So I
20:37
apparently, I'm on the ice cube thing again. So It's okay. I
20:41
loved it. This is from when we talked earlier today, guys.
20:44
Sorry about it. I'll share that with you at another time. So I wanna ask
20:48
you, the magic question. When was the last time you did something
20:52
new for the first time? Oh, I try
20:56
to do something new every day. Like, today, I went for a walk just as
21:00
an example, and I walked a whole new different way than I ever
21:03
went. I I have this thing because I feel like there's
21:07
neurons in our head, in our brain, and, actually, if we keep going on the
21:11
same route, it just gets deeper and deeper and you'd really don't get anywhere. Where
21:15
I do my best to lay in bed at night and ask myself, what did
21:17
you learn new today? Because I feel like you should always learn something new, try
21:21
something new, do something new, meet somebody new because I really
21:25
feel like that keeps you alive and fresh and excited about life
21:29
too. It's true. I mean, that's why I came up with, I, you
21:32
know, the, the thing, stay curious. So I asked myself I
21:36
love that. When I asked myself, am I being curious or am I
21:40
being judgmental? And I used to be the kind of person who was very judgmental.
21:43
I still work to not be that way. But something would happen, you
21:47
know, because and I think that's why I resonate with you don't need
21:51
to be fixed because my family always goes, you're always trying to fix people.
21:56
So if you're curious, you you don't see that there's a problem. You're
22:00
just trying to get information and, you know, get clarification.
22:03
It does make things a lot more exciting. So let me just take a step
22:07
back for a minute and and kinda do my commercial before we end and run
22:11
out of time. What we will do is, so I'm asking
22:14
everybody to make sure that they subscribe and share and engage, you know,
22:18
with this podcast on social media, because it's
22:21
designed to supercharge your business through connection. Our way my
22:25
way of giving back and trying to build a vibrant community and
22:29
helping you to fuel your growth for growth and impact.
22:33
And I wanna make sure that you join me for the one small change
22:36
and discover that even the smallest shift
22:40
can yield monumental transformation. And if you haven't listened
22:44
to my first episode, you might wanna do that to see why
22:48
I'm doing it. And I'm also doing something a little bit new. I'm gonna I'm
22:51
gonna be doing a quarterly clarity
22:55
check-in, that I'm gonna be be posting. So
22:58
that's something new that I'm working on, and I hope that you'll find that useful.
23:02
So before we finish, tell me,
23:06
if you had to sum up a lot of stuff and just give us some
23:09
words of wisdom, what would it be? What you just said
23:12
about people think you're judgmental, I can just tell you a ditto with
23:16
me. I mean, my mom just the other day told me again that, you know,
23:20
I'm so nosy is what she says. And I told her I'm gonna
23:24
be on your show, and you always say be curious. I honestly
23:27
think people like us are not judgmental, that we could just
23:31
see so much more than they can. And when so we're not really
23:35
judging them. We're trying to give them ideas, but I have to also be
23:38
careful how I word it because it does come across, and
23:42
I'm judgmental sometime. But I'm really, truly I just can see so
23:46
much more than they can see. It's just one of my gifts,
23:49
and I'm grateful for it. So I feel like you're probably like me. We
23:53
actually even grew up in the same area of Pennsylvania.
23:57
And so I don't know if it's because of that. I don't think so because
24:00
most of the people aren't crazy like us. But I can also tell you that
24:04
they also do sometimes get stuck.
24:08
And when I hear what somebody's doing and I wanna help them,
24:13
it might come across as judgmental, but it really is because I'm curious. Like,
24:17
have you tried this? This could really work for you. Okay. You know? Does
24:20
that make sense? Yeah. Well, you know, and and just, you know, one of
24:24
the things that I wanted to cut I call I call them speed bumps
24:28
that keep me from jumping into things wholeheartedly. You know? Right.
24:32
Because I'll say, you know, something just popped into my
24:36
brain. Do you mind if I explore this with you? Do you know?
24:40
Oh, good way to say it. Yes. Because I I know
24:44
I can be judgmental. One of the hardest, limiting beliefs I've ever
24:47
had, and I have to work really hard at this, is when somebody says to
24:51
me, you're really smart. My first reaction is, how dumb are you
24:54
then? Because, you know,
24:58
you're not meant to to to you know, instead of saying thank you
25:03
Yes. We were not taught that. Anyway, that's that's going off on a tangent.
25:06
Alright. So, Joe, people need
25:10
to to check out link to experts.com.
25:14
They need to see your free gift. They need to follow you, and
25:18
all those links are gonna be in there. This has been so wonderful. If you
25:21
are trying to grow your business and you do not have the outreach
25:25
that you want, Joe can help you solve
25:29
that in such a simple and affordable way.
25:33
So believe it or not, our time is up. And so
25:37
just remember that change is simple, but it isn't always easy. And
25:42
we you have to get to your comfort zone, so it requires courage and
25:45
resilience. And, you know, to be
25:49
curious, you have to, you know, take a chance. So join me for the next
25:53
the one small change again as we embark on this journey of
25:56
innovative possibilities. And until the next time, stay
26:00
curious.