How I built a network worth $50 Million in a few months using 3 tactics
I quit my job and started a consulting business because I thought it was a logical decision. After all, I felt I carried the right network of people to bring in work for my current company — turns out when I quit, so did all my leads. You see there’s a mile-long stretch from when someone says “oh interesting” to “oh I’m keen” and a 10 mile long stretch from that to “lets sign” — and all hell breaks loose in between…if you don’t plan right.
I want to share with you my journey through a fictional character called Pete, and what Pete learned and did to build a network of people who were looking to contract $50 Million worth of work — Disclaimer: this story would be too good if I actually got that entire amount, unfortunately not the case, I worked with a small % of that, but one that is growing every day.
Pete kicked off his consulting journey and struggled to get projects or clients, after all, who would trust him, he has a crummy landing page with no proof of actual projects and no team, how does he go from nothing to a team of 10 staff and 28 apps in 18 months backed by a strong network of High Net worth Clients ? Any guesses?
His network, his non-existent unaware network, that's how Pete gets to that metric. So lets breakdown the strategies and tactics Pete put into place to reach out to his already existing network as well as build his network to a much wider, and targeted audience.
- Local Meetup events
- Getting on B2B platforms like Facebook / LinkedIn (Personal Branding)
- Compounding free content
Local Meetup events
The key to effective networking is quality, not quantity, I mean it. When you go to a meet up the one thing you need to keep in mind, your primal goal — who will remember me after this event.
I see meetups the same as clubbing for teenagers, except the goal isn’t to hook up and get drunk, its to find potential sales and eat food (well sometimes get drunk as well) — only difference is not everyone who goes clubbing is interested in hookups, in meetups, almost everyone is interested in getting something out of someone else — which is a perfect opportunity for you to add value. People underestimate this so often, add value, share as much as you can with people. (more on this in point three)
This is where your intent needs to be ironclad, if your intent in a meet up is to walk out with a sale, might as well go home, the intent should be to be memorable — extremely memorable, enough for people to take your number the next day, type it in and call you and ask for a coffee, how do you achieve that ? add value, you’ve got to be good at something right?
Well that's exactly what Pete did, he found out he was great at making really complex tech stuff sound very easy and approachable, he’d go to nearly 30 meetups before he started to become a regular and then get invited to “exclusive” dinners and catch ups, Pete was the “tech guy”. Before we move on, remember the golden rule of adding value is not bogging the other person in technicality, its to educate them with your experience, keep it simple, find comparisons to your field and daily life — that's what Pete often did.
Get on LinkedIn and Facebook
I come from the generation that’s camera shy, so trust me I get it when people say they’re not comfortable putting themselves out there. You don’t need to, start off by sharing your thoughts on the multiple things you’re good at, and trust me you’re good at something!
LinkedIn at this very moment is a hotbed for content creating, there’s a lot of absorption and minimal creation, come in and stand out very quickly — most people that have a strong following on that platform achieved it in the past 2 years. Have a strategy of the information you want to share, with clear number focused goals of time spent vs direct revenue gained.
It is the largest collection of powerful business owners in the world. LinkedIn actually helped Pete grow his brand the most, he spoke at multiple events, met 100s of people all peddling of some content share on LinkedIn.
If you’re a person selling accounting services, start off by finding people in that field, connect with them in a non-automated way, build at least 100 genuine friendships online, that itself will be more than enough for you to explode your reach.
Then start sharing tips on how you can help others save money with some information others won’t know, people buy from people not from companies, build that trust, this will happen gradually. But most importantly remember the 10x1 rule, interact with 10 different people with comments, or shares (likes count for nothing) in order to get one comment/like on your own post.
This is how the world operates, you need to give a lot more than can ask, it creates an imbalance in the cycle which is balanced out with non-social media validations like actual relationships and business.
Pete started by sharing a lot about the business journey, rejections and technical decisions that will help save a lot of money for companies, along with negotiation tactics, sales tactics, he just put things out, some people loved it and some didn’t but he put content out and after a few months it compounded, and his network grew from small-time founders to corporate executives
A quick note before we move on
Compounding free content
The theme of this entire article boils down to this post, sharing things that you would consider “special sauce”. Pete followed the 80–20 rule with this, he would provide great value in meetups, personal calls, online but the value he provided would always just be enough. Those consuming his content would eventually need his assistance and advice to execute his tips.
Pete is a direct result of compounding, because for the first months he has literally no leads and after a few months, they came pouring in, he was confused, never picked up why or how, but reflecting back after two years, he realised it was not one thing but the whole thing, the articles, the posts on LinkedIn, the comments, the youtube videos, the online courses. He left a trail and people followed it to the source, and they got convinced to hire him whilst following the path. He didn’t need to convince in the end, he just had to re-assure. Which is certainly easlier.
Pete would drive numerous conversations this way, people would reach out and ask for assistance after they implemented his techniques in sales or in software. Often Pete would get called in to do training sessions and talks, even though he hadn’t done any form of public speaking before.
Through these events, his network would become stronger and word of mouth, the most powerful form of marketing, would spread and people would reach out. Pete didn’t spend a $ on this traction, he spent a lot of his time though, which for all purposes is money.
Pete now has a reputation in the industry for a certain vertical, Pete made sure his messaging and branding was consistent in the information he shared. Even if Pete loved football, he would rarely write articles or share content about that, because his audience knew him for software and business, make sure you verticalize your brand and keep it consistent. It is extremely important you do so.
If you liked this article, make sure click the follow button — I’ll be getting more frequent, and of course, like any social consuming human, I’d love an appreciation clap or two 😁
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With that being said I hope you enjoyed reading this, I’m very driven about growth and personal definition (branding) which has lead to the build of https://laddr.com.
You easily build a compounding brand in one place, check out mine here
