Transcription
Here's how I went from knowing zero people to getting Mark Cuban to invest in my company and Richard Branson invited me to spend a week at his house in Switzerland. So here's the deal.
I recently had a bunch of my high-end clients in town in this place called Kelowna, where I live in British Columbia. And as we went around to visit different companies and had speakers come in, and I hosted them all at my house, a lot of them came to me and said, "Hey man, like you've only been here for a little over a year and a half. How have you created this network of not only incredible entrepreneurs, but a lifestyle where you're you're doing Founders hikes every Tuesday, and there's mountain bike nights, and there's wake surf Fridays, and all these different aspects of my lifestyle?" For me, I didn't even think anything of it. They were like, "I want to create this in my city."
And what I did is I sat down and I unpacked it. Because people have come to me over the years and be like, "How did you build this network? How do you get Mark Cuban to decide to write you a check for 250 grand, not on Shark Tank, for your company? Like, who did you know to get them to do that? Or why did you spend a week with Richard Branson, with Tim Ferriss, and the co-founder of Square, and the founder of Braintree that sold for 800 million? Like, what happened in your life that got people to want to spend time with you and invite you to do these things?"
And what I want to share with you is my strategies for networking with billionaires, creating value when you feel like you don't have a lot to give, or reach out to people in a way that doesn't look douchey. I mean, so many people do this wrong. And I want to break down the four key areas that I think will take your networking, your ability to add value, to another level.
Number one is become valuable even without confidence. You know, when I moved to San Francisco, I was 28 years old. This was 2008, and I didn't know a soul. I went there with my mountain bike and my backpack, and I wanted to network. I wanted to meet other entrepreneurs. And I thought I had a good strategy. I'm just going to go around to coffee shops and meet people and just say hi and start conversation.
It was so crazy what happened to me was I would be there, you know, trying to meet people, and I'd talk to this person and they would go, "What do you do?" And I would say, "Well, you know what, nothing much. I just moved here." And immediately they would lose interest. And this happened to me day over day over day until eventually I was like, "All right, I need to say I do something." Because these people have zero patience for somebody that's clueless.
So eventually, I just told people I help startups with marketing because that's what I was really good at. And immediately they went like, "I'm a startup. I need marketing." And then I realized that that skill, that value, was a high-value skill that it's something that if I know the person has a channel around, I can offer it.
Now, here's a tip. See, most people that have a high-value skill think that they could just offer it, but that's not where the magic happens. What I got really good at, what I'm going to encourage you to do, is figure out how to ask questions to uncover the problem to insert your high-value skill. See, most of you guys want to go straight to the offer, but they're immediately gonna go like, "I don't have that problem."
What you need to figure out is how to ask the questions to uncover the problem that allows the thing that you can help them on to be a natural offer. Right? Too often, we put the heavy lifting on the person we're trying to build a relationship with. When we got to do it ourselves by getting really good at asking questions.
To get even better at this, I want to teach you the knowledge triangle. Okay? Anytime I'm trying to build a skill or learn something, I always think of these three core areas. What are the top three books around this subject? What are the top three seminars or places I could go to learn more around this subject? And who are the top three people in this industry that I should follow or I should pay to learn from? That knowledge triangle will take you from not feeling valuable about what you do to becoming really world-class at it and offering that up when you identify the problem the person is having where you can insert your high-value skill.
Number two is how to add value when you don't have a skill. See, a lot of people are like, "Well, I don't know where I can be helpful. I don't have a thing like sales or marketing that can help somebody get a result really quick, right? I'm not not that organized. I'm not good at project management. I'm not that outgoing. I just don't have that skill."
Here's the thing that I underestimated for years, and it's the idea of bringing people together. That alone adds a ton of value for people. Back when I was in my early 20s, I read this incredible book by a guy named Keith Ferrazzi called "Never Eat Alone." And in this book, he argues that one of the best ways to build relationships, deep, meaningful connections with people, is to break bread with them. And I was thinking to myself, there's no way that any person that's in business is going to take time out of their day to come eat a meal with me if there's no way for me to add value.
Now, this is the trick. Is what Keith suggested is also invite other people that that person should get to know. And here's why that's a beautiful strategy. Is just by bringing them together, you become valuable to that person. You know, I taught this to my friend Scott Alford back when he was a teenager. If you don't know who Scott is, he's a very successful online entrepreneur. And I met him when he lived in Newfoundland, Canada, this this island on the Atlantic coast of Canada. And he was a young teenager. And I invited him to a Founder's lunch that I hosted while I was speaking at this event. And he was so taken back by the fact that, you know, he reached out to me for advice, I invited him to this lunch, I invite these other entrepreneurs, he met these other speakers, and he was just like, "Wow, that's really interesting. Do you always do this?" And I'm like, "Yeah, it's something I've been doing for a long time. I read this book." I told him about it.
And Scott took that to another level. He literally went to New York City, organized a ton of dinners, went to Toronto, organized a ton of dinners, and he built his network. When you see the network he's created today and the people that he knows, it was a huge byproduct of just bringing people together. And the value is in them knowing each other, and they contribute it to you.
So execute the dinner strategy. Here's how to do it. It's three steps. One, schedule it. Two, group it, meaning start recruiting people to add to the group. And then third, connect it, meaning that after the dinner, I want you to connect everybody with each other, cell phones, emails, just ask everybody at the meal if they're okay with it. And be the person that brought them together.
The third strategy is how to be a fan of somebody without being a weirdo. You know, I used to think that I don't want to be that guy. You know, those people that they run around, they meet somebody that's doing something interesting, and they're always like, glad-handing, and they're like, asking for a photo. Oh, and they're just, it's almost like they're collecting relationships, right? They're they, it's, you're not even sure if they even know what that person has done. They're just like, "Oh, that person's important, so I'm going to take a picture with them." So I never wanted to be that guy.
But what I've come to appreciate and understand is I want to be other people's biggest fans. And the way I do this in a very tasteful way is every day when I'm on social media, I try to identify three people that I acknowledge what they're doing, that I think the content they're putting out there is really great. So if you know somebody that's had some kind of achievement, they won an award, and you're friendly with them, send them a message and just be like, "Congratulations. Like, wow, that must have been so hard. I'm really impressed with your persistence. Like, this is really inspiring me to think better or bigger about my own life." Send them that message.
I'm telling you, the more you do that with the people that have the blue check marks, you will start to build a relationship. You're not saying that they're better than you or or that you're here and they're up on this pedestal. You're just acknowledging that that moment, that thing, is really impressive. And what I love about it is that it allows me to listen to my heart on what are the moments when I'm going through social media that resonated with me that day. And it could be on TikTok, it could be on Instagram, it could be in the news. But just send those messages.
Because too often, I think we think it, and we just assume that person is bombarded with messages and they don't hear from anybody. You know, you read a book and you're like, "Man, this this book really transformed my life." And the author leaves the email in the last page of the book. And you're like, "Man, I would love to go and email that author." But I don't do it. I'm telling you from experience, because I've done it with most books I've read, email the author and thank them for writing the book. You will get a response almost 100% of the time. Why? Because they poured their heart into it. And for you to have read that whole book and get to the place where they put their email, they know that you showed up, you did the work, and they're going to acknowledge that with a reply. It is one of the coolest things is to become somebody's fan and and let them know what they're doing. This is hyping you up, that's motivating you to do better in your own life.
Volunteer your time to the biggest problems people have so you can build your network. When I moved to San Francisco, I didn't know a soul. And I remember I was just going through meeting people and trying to add value. And eventually, I came across this lady named Cassie. And Cassie had this event called FailCon. And we were talking. I was just praising her about how cool this event was. And just off the cuff, I just mentioned to her, "Hey, if you ever need help with recruiting speakers, let me know." And she's like, "Actually, that's a big problem that I always have when I'm doing these events. Would you mind helping out?" And I was like, "Not at all."
Here's what I learned by offering to volunteer is that the person that recruits the speakers gets to build the relationship with the speakers. And now I had something valuable to reach out to really notable people, incredible entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, that I can then take that relationship, hand it to Cassie, she thinks I'm great, the speaker thinks that I know Cassie, and I'm involved in FailCon, which I wasn't. And now I built these relationships.
I've seen this over and over and over again. I remember meeting an incredible entrepreneur named Chandler Bolt. Okay? He's become a very good friend of mine. And he was a volunteer at the first ever Mastermind Talks event. This thing's been going on for 10 years. It's seen in the industry as the premier event to go to. And Chandler started as a volunteer. Now he's a participant. It is crazy.
When people are like, "I don't know anybody. I don't have a network. How do I get plugged in?" Volunteer with your time. You know, my last event, every time I do my events, I have a handler. And oftentimes my team reaches out to our followers on social media, asking anybody if they're in that city that would like to to help me get around. Like, oftentimes I need somebody to help me navigate, you know, the venue and where I'm supposed to be and make sure my laptop's brought here and all the stuff. So we have somebody support me on that front. And it is somebody who acts as a volunteer. Now, they get to spend eight hours with me. You know, and if you've been following my stuff for a while, um, that's a big opportunity for them to see how I operate, to ask me questions, to really dig into opportunities for me to support their lives. And that always comes from volunteering.
So I want to encourage you, if you want to build your network, find the people that already bringing other folks together and volunteer to help them with whatever they need, whatever their biggest problem is. Volunteer. Offer to help. Show up. Be on time. Overdeliver. And you will create goodwill that will go on years and decades later to support you in your dreams.
One of my favorite quotes on this topic is from Keith Ferrazzi, and it states that the currency of networking is not greed, but generosity. So go out there and be of service to other people. Offer your time, your skill, your connections, your resources. And that will build the goodwill and the relationships to unlock your biggest opportunities for you.
And as per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life and a bigger business. I'll see you next Monday.