Transcript
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When I started networking professionally, I shifted the goal to not how many pieces of you know three and a half by two inch information cards that I get, but how many appointments did I?
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set.
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Hey friends, it is Sarah Noelle Block and you're listening to Tiny Marketing.
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Today we're getting into something that everybody feels awkward about and we're launching an entire series about it networking.
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I know that for years I felt so awkward trying to network because it felt ick.
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It gave me the ick for real because I thought who everybody I'm talking to thinks that I'm trying to sell them right now, when I'm just trying to make friends?
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Today I am sharing my conversation with Amy Pruitt and she's going to talk about why you should host your own networking events, and she gave some really valid points.
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So in today's conversation you're going to get the lowdown on why you should host your own networking event, how to get started doing that and how to make them not awkward.
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So stay tuned.
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But before we go, my son, dean is homesick today and he wants to say hi.
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Hi, I'm Dean.
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Hi, I'm Dean.
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That was Dean for you.
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Now stay tuned, as we one.
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I always go to networking events alone because of that exact thing that you were just talking about that if I know someone, I'll just hang out with them the whole time and then I don't actually get to know anybody.
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It's super tempting.
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Yeah, so like one.
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One thing that I would recommend anybody do, regardless of whether you enjoy networking or not, is know why you're going like, have an agenda, have a.
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You know we call them KPIs, key performance indicators.
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So like, how do you know if this event went well and it's?
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You know it's not.
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How many business cards did you collect?
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What I, when I started networking professionally, I sort of shifted the the goal to not how many, how many pieces, how many scraps of you know two and a half by three and a half by two inch information cards that I get.
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But how many appointments did I set?
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And what that looks like is hey, you know you're walking around with your calendar, I'm walking around with my calendar.
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I definitely want to get coffee with you.
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Can we open up our calendars right now and go ahead and set that up?
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Oh, that's smart.
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And what that does differently yeah, what it does differently is one you're doing future you a favor.
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You don't have to go home and write the email to set the appointment.
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Two, your fallout's gonna be less.
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Just like a sales funnel Every step where there's friction you're gonna have fallout.
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And so if you're really interested in speaking to somebody and following up with them, setting the appointment that day, and then you can still send a follow up email to say, hey, it was really nice meeting you.
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I'm looking forward to seeing you next Tuesday for coffee at blah, blah, blah.
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Yeah, yeah, that is so smart, so you get something on the books right away.
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You don't have to worry about like forgetting somebody when you really wanted to hang out with them again.
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Yeah, and yeah, really cuts down on that follow-up time.
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One thing that I really wanted to touch on today is why you should host networking events, not just attend them.
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So what would be like you own a networking franchise?
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What would you say the biggest benefit is of owning that platform?
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what would you say the biggest benefit is of owning that platform.
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Yeah, I joined or I bought it because I was doing so much networking for the design business and this just felt like you know, wow, if you really want to get known, if you really want to become the guy that knows, a guy right To always be the person that is thought of as well-connected in terms of you know, man, I don't know a business attorney to talk to you or to refer to you, but I bet she does you know, if you want to be you know sort of, it raises your profile in the community in a way that other forms of marketing just doesn't do.
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You know, I mean, if you think about the time and the money invested in putting on a networking event, you can't just do one just like any form of marketing, consistency matters and it is the sort of thing that builds over time.
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But if you think about your return on investment in your time and in your energy and in your money to a lesser extent, putting yourself in a position to be the connector is worth more than you put into it, I promise.
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So how did you get started doing that?
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I was invited to go to a network connection event by one of my clients.
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Actually, I had a brand design client who was in Houston, texas, which happens to be where NIA got started and she flew me out there.
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She was preparing for a major rebrand, big deal.
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So we went out there for a few days and she invited me to her NIA meeting and I said, sure, you know, I had no expectations, had never heard of it before, and I went and, long story short, after that weekend I came home and I bought a franchise because because I was so experienced in going to chamber events and Women Connect and local stuff and Rotary and B&I, all these things I'd done all those before.
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I had all these things.
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I had done all those before this one hit different.
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You could tell that the aim of the organization was really to help people grow their businesses.
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It wasn't to create a breadth of how many business cards you have, how many referrals did you send last month.
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It was really about forming a cohort of people in your community that work together, that help each other, that sometimes wind up going into business together, but at the very least you become the go-to subject matter expert person to see in your industry and it's not really cheating.
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I guess it's kind of cheating, you think about it, but, like hosting your own events puts you in that position.
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You get to you know, cut the line and be the one that everybody knows is the, you know, the authority on putting these events together.
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Yeah, you own the platform rather than having someone else take ownership of that.
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There's so much power, right?
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right, right, right right.
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That's a good way to put it.
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It's real estate that you own.
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Yes, exactly so you were able to do that through a franchise.
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How would Joe Schmo be hosting their own?
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Good question.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
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That's a great question.
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So one thing to think about is what's the goal?
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Again, if you're attending, you want to have a goal in mind.
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If you're hosting an event, you want to have a goal in mind.
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So, like with any marketing, is the goal brand awareness?
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Is the goal to find new clients?
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Is the goal to find new clients?
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Is the goal to find referral partners?
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So, based on whatever your goal is, let's say your goal is to build out a network of referral partners.
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So, and let's say you work in a, you know, in an industry where you often are referring.
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Let's say you're a real estate agent, because that's just low hanging fruit an example.
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So if you're a realtor, who are some folks in your you know, in your zone that are going to be good referral partners?
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They might be mortgage brokers or home inspectors or general contractors.
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So what I would do would be to reach out to some of those people and say, hey, I'm, you know, I'm going to go to this bar on Main Street and I'm going to, you know, host an event there.
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Who do you know in your industry that's looking for, you know, more clients, looking for referrals, and sort of make branch out from you know.
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They say like, do what you know.
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You sort of branch out from a place of these are the folks that I need to meet, these are the folks that I can help and that I think there'd be some good reciprocity and start from there and maybe you can get someone to co-sponsor it with you.
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So maybe it's like the real estate agent and a you know a closing attorney host an event together and then you know, marketing is easy on Eventbrite and linkedin and all those sorts of things.
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But if I were to start it, I mean you don't have to be a part of an organization just to host a networking event.
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You can do that anytime you want.
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I think smart people make it a part of their regular marketing schedule, whether they're hosting or attending.
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I think the people who are doing really, really well, even in quote unquote tough times people who don't experience those tough times are the ones that are consistently hitting the pavement.
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Amen.
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Yeah, it makes all the difference in the world the relationships that you've built along the way and maintaining those relationships.
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So you're saying just get started doing something like you would if you were hosting friends.
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You get a table at a restaurant and you have someone else in your industry to invite people.
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You invite people.
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Yeah, I mean I'll tell you what we do with NIA.
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I mean this is so at network in action event, yeah, meetings and open events too.
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I, as the franchise owner, I always buy everybody's first drink.
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So I buy your first glass of wine, your first beer, and I always provide appetizers for the room.
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And what I like to do is I go to you know, we also do it sort of in this twilight time sort of between business and after hours, so it's like 3.30 to 5, 4 to 5.30, that sort of time, which is really nice if you have young kids and you don't want to be out networking every evening after work.
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So I go to the place, I go to a restaurant that I think would be a great spot for it.
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I walk in when I want to host it.
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So I walk into a restaurant.
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If a restaurant's open at 3.30, they're dead at 3.30, right.
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So I say yeah.
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So I say what would it be like if I brought 20 to 25 professionals in here, bought everybody a drink and bought some apps for the room?
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Would that be okay?
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You know, looking around like could you know, this time of day when you're pretty dead, would that be all right?
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And I mean, I've never.
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I've never paid a room fee, because if you can do it at a time where the business is already slow, or even if you can't do it during the, during the workday, you know, most people are more than happy to get a guaranteed you know ticket of however many drinks that comes out to, and you can always find places that'll let you do it for no cost.
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So how has hosting networking events impacted your business?
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It's so funny.
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It hasn't been as directly, so I've been told by some of my members that I don't remind them that I'm a designer often enough.
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Actually no, because when I'm like, you mentioned that when we were talking so I've gotten that feedback like tell, remember to tell people that you what you do.
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So because I can get into the mode of hostess right, I'm getting into the mode of making sure everybody else is getting what they need and making connections.
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So I haven't gotten as many direct referrals.
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But what's happened is I've started to become seen as a go-to subject matter expert in the community and I recently got asked to do a speaking engagement where I was speaking about branding.
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Someone in the audience at that engagement wanted me to come and speak to her team.
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So it's interesting that it's leading like through a side door to these other opportunities.
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And you know they say if you want to get more speaking gigs, do speaking gigs yeah, building your authority, essentially, yeah, you're building the authority and when you invite these people, that's the other thing.
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I would kind of circling back to the cattle call and how that doesn't serve most people.
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All of our meetings have a structure and this is something that anybody can do.
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So, whether it's a simple, you have everybody play a game.
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Speed networking is a really great structured activity.
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So you've got, you know, just like speed dating, you sit people down, you've got teams of A and B.
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The A's stay put and the B's move from seat to seat to seat, and so you get a little mini one-on-one session with about 10 different people.
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You know, facilitating it that way.
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Or I've seen people this is not an NIA one, but I've seen this done before where they do the human bingo, where you have to go around and find someone in the room who was born in January.
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They have to find somebody right who's never broken a bone or whatever it is, and so there's like icebreakers have a structured activity.
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And then the other thing that that allows you to do is at some point during the night you get to take the stage, take the microphone and say hey, you know, thank you guys, so much for coming.
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I really want to get to some good, you know, networking for you guys.
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I got this really cool activity before we get to that and then you can launch into anything you want.
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Really, you've got the attention.
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They're all there, you know, because you've organized it, so you get to use that platform to promote.
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I have a question so if you're hosting a networking event, can you intermingle that with education, like bringing in an expert guest, or so you can kind of do that twofold, where you are building relationships with potential referral partners while also networking for your business?
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I think that's a brilliant idea and that's actually something that I don't do enough of which is bringing somebody in, either a speaker or a coach, a business coach or something like that.
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That's an awesome idea.
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They're always going to be happy to have the gig right.
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Usually they'll do it for freer or very low cost for the exposure or you know, depending on what their situation is, and the people who attend get the benefit and they're like, oh my God, you got to go to Sarah's next thing.
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She always puts a great, she always puts a great event together.
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Yeah puts a great she always puts a great event together.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Now, one thing that you mentioned in our pre-call is that you have really out-of-the-box networking activities to get people a little bit more comfortable, so it's not so awkward.
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What kind of activities would you recommend other people do if they're hosting a networking event?
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That's a great, that's a great question.
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I'll tell you a couple things that really worked for me and a couple things that flopped.
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Okay.
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I've had things that flopped hard and you know what it is.
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You just like, you just have to learn.
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Oh, my God, I'm cringing right now.
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I'll just remember you.
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So things that work.
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I did a network around the holidays a couple years ago.
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It was like November.
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We wanted to do something elevated.
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I was collaborating with a new event space and so we were kind of putting our heads together and thinking what's a cool way to have a networking event that also kind of shows off the event space, that also kind of shows off the event space.
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And the owner had mentioned to me that on his off hours he's a jazz musician, he loves to play jazz piano, and I said, got it Networking with live jazz.
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And so we were like, what would it be like?
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You know we're in this event space.
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We had, you know, a quartet sort of on a stage all the way at one end of the room and it was loosely structured.
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We wanted to let the music sort of take center stage and be this, you know, lovely backdrop, but then also something that people could go and stand and, you know, enjoy the music if they wanted to just listen and it just it was it made for great marketing like networking.
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Networking in the key of jazz, I think, is what we called it.
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So that was.
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That was one that worked well.
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Um, trying, oh, fun venues.
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So, um, there's a friend of mine who hosts a monthly meetup at the drive show.
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Do you guys have drive shacks?
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You know what this is?
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So think a bowling alley.
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But instead of bowling, bowling, you're golfing.
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So you rent a bay.
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Okay, it's really cool, we have similar ones, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure there are different brand names.
00:20:14.974 --> 00:20:20.967
The one near us is called DriveShack, and so you rent a bay and you can get, you know, your beer and your very average nachos.
00:20:20.967 --> 00:20:33.501
But the idea is that you're there and there's an activity and what that does is that takes the pressure off of you thinking, oh my God, I've got to go and I've just got to talk to all these people I don't know.
00:20:33.501 --> 00:20:44.761
If there's an activity, you can go watch the activity, you can participate in the activity, you can, you know, joke with somebody about how the person doing the activity is, so you know awful at it or great at it or whatever, and it gives.
00:20:44.761 --> 00:20:57.057
Having an activity that's not just networking sort of takes the pressure off, and that kind of leads to what I thought was going to be an awesome success, but was a total failure.
00:20:57.057 --> 00:21:02.268
But the 11 of us who were there still talk about it, which was I.
00:21:02.268 --> 00:21:05.242
Had this idea to do networking and karaoke.
00:21:05.262 --> 00:21:07.471
Oh, yes, you mentioned that why tell me what I didn't know was a flop?
00:21:07.471 --> 00:21:10.019
Now I know you mentioned that People are telling me I didn't know it was a flop.
00:21:10.019 --> 00:21:11.865
Now I know it was a flop.
00:21:12.155 --> 00:21:18.260
But what was crazy was everyone I told about it was like oh my God, that sounds awesome, that sounds like so much fun, let's do that.
00:21:18.260 --> 00:21:19.305
Oh, definitely Come.
00:21:19.305 --> 00:21:21.903
And so there's.
00:21:21.903 --> 00:21:38.575
It's one thing if a networking event doesn't have very many people at it, I've had successful networking events where five people came, because if only a few people come, what that means is those who come just get this richer, more in-depth experience.
00:21:38.575 --> 00:21:45.685
And if you, you know, if you I mean, I had one of my, one of the best networking events ever, and I think it was like 15, no, it was over 20.
00:21:45.685 --> 00:21:47.157
It was over 20 people registered on Eventbrite or Facebook or however.
00:21:47.141 --> 00:21:47.226
I did it.
00:21:47.226 --> 00:21:47.644
And I think it was like 15.
00:21:47.644 --> 00:21:47.897
No, it was over 20.
00:21:47.897 --> 00:21:50.498
It was over 20 people registered on Eventbrite or Facebook or however.
00:21:50.498 --> 00:21:52.903
I did it, and then five people came.
00:21:52.903 --> 00:22:07.702
So what we did was we just got a table, I bought everybody drinks and apps and we just sat there and we talked about how everybody's business was doing and how we could each help each other, and it became this really cool mastermind thing, that's more intimate.
00:22:14.555 --> 00:22:14.855
Yeah, absolutely.
00:22:14.855 --> 00:22:17.506
And I got to know those people and one of them wound up joining my, you know, nia group and that was awesome and you know.
00:22:17.506 --> 00:22:18.770
So now we've become close.
00:22:18.770 --> 00:22:38.048
But the so the karaoke thing, I had one of my, one of my NIA members, who by day does social media marketing for other companies, by night he's karaoke DJ, and so I hired him and we got the venue and we had like special drinks and we had the.
00:22:38.655 --> 00:22:51.882
This restaurant down the street, you know, brought in platters and it was so exciting and 11 people and like the first few people like came in the door early and are like right on time and I was like, hey, guys, let's get warmed up.
00:22:51.882 --> 00:23:10.618
And you know, the DJ did a couple songs to sort of, you know, get people going and then like no one else came out and so, you know, we wound up but we kind of turned it into a thing where everybody sang, even the people who swore they were not going to sing.
00:23:10.618 --> 00:23:27.791
So everybody got a chance to sing and it was kind of like we were all laughing together and sort of making, you know, making fun of ourselves and singing silly songs and I mean it wound up being a lot of fun, but it felt like a friend gathering, more than a networking event.
00:23:27.811 --> 00:23:31.634
A lot of fun, but it felt like a friend gathering more than a networking event.
00:23:34.276 --> 00:23:43.988
Yeah, I get what you mean, so like it was still enjoyable, but you guys didn't actually get to the networking part, yeah yeah, because most of the people who came already knew each other from one way or another and so as a networking event it was a flop.
00:23:43.988 --> 00:23:48.383
People joke about it all the time like you're gonna throw another.
00:23:48.383 --> 00:23:53.483
You know networking karaoke event and I might, I might do it again, but no, I.
00:23:53.483 --> 00:24:02.878
You know there's so much of the same out there that, just like any any sort of marketing, you know, if everybody's going right, go left, sort of idea what what's?
00:24:02.878 --> 00:24:04.301
How can you spice it up?