0:00:00 A: I’ve been trying and, you know, I’ve been tested. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast with your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemimah Ashleigh. Ben, known as the sales strategist, and Jemimah, our resident visibility expert, are here to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with a little fun along the way. Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or aspiring business owner, this is the podcast where we share everything we know about business to help you succeed.
0:00:31 A: Let’s get started. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast. Ain’t nothing gonna stop me now.
0:00:43 Ben Wright: Hi, everyone. Hi, Jemimah. Welcome Back to episode 15, I think we are now. Wow. Things are moving along quickly.
0:00:53 Jemimah Ashleigh: It is going well. We’re all surprised.
0:00:57 Ben Wright: Certainly are. Now, tell me.
0:01:02 Jemimah Ashleigh: Mean comment. And I was like, I just got so much love back.
0:01:04 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, I just crossed it.
0:01:06 Jemimah Ashleigh: Ignoring me at this point.
0:01:07 Ben Wright: Tell me, how’s your week been so far?
0:01:09 Jemimah Ashleigh: Really busy, obviously, up in Noosa at the moment. Lots of business events going on, networking events this week. How about you?
0:01:16 Ben Wright: Actually, I am moving into something you just mentioned, then moving heavily into events season. It starts to get really big as we get to the back half of the year, but also I find that I’m needing to gear up for a few key networking events that are coming up for me. So that’s. That’s been a logistical challenge as I try to organize family around all of that. But at the same time, look, I mean, we’re getting into a really nice time of year, so life is good. It’s really hard not to be grateful for what I have, so I’m very pleased. It’s hard not to be grateful to have another session with you. We are twinning today.
0:01:51 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. We really need to work on things because I pack. I have to bring the clothes. Yeah, you should really. We should check this.
0:01:58 Ben Wright: Well, I wait until you come out for the podcast and then, yeah, I go and find something I can say that’s really, really similar or make me feel really awkward. So, success. Job done.
0:02:07 Jemimah Ashleigh: Surprisingly much cooler here than normally when I get to visit. So, yeah, yeah, we’re just doing a little. A little matchy sweater. Sweater. Best of you.
0:02:15 Ben Wright: Cool and windy. All right, so today’s topic. We have spent a bit of time around networking. Very early in the podcast, we had an entire episode dedicated to it, but I think it’s worth revisiting because I gave a structure around networking with intention, and it was all around having your mindset. Right. And having a system and a process behind it. I think there’s some softer skills around what to do and what not to do at networking events that worth exploring a little bit and I’ll try and add some value to it. But I think today this is your floor. This is your. You’ve got a ticket to the big show today.
0:02:51 Jemimah Ashleigh: My literal wheelhouse. Literal wheelhouse, Yeah. I love it.
0:02:54 Ben Wright: So start turning that wheel.
0:02:55 Jemimah Ashleigh: Well, we met at a networking event and we were very lucky that we had that opportunity. We met in networking event and just we had a really good conversation, very tenderly for the first 10 minutes. Then it was like, oh, we should catch up again soon. And then there was actual follow up. So for my background, for those who aren’t aware, I did, I have done a lot of networking. I’ve probably been to a minimum 2,000 networking events in the last couple of years. And a big reason for that is I worked for a networking group for a long time. Truly amazing. I got to meet so many incredible people. But today I really want to deep dive into the mistakes I saw because they were mistakes that ruined not only that person’s opportunity in the room, but also that they just didn’t recognize were mistakes. And just going, you have to remember, this is not a transactional environment. This was relationship building. We wanted to really deep dive today into teaching people how to do it better.
0:03:47 Ben Wright: And why don’t. As we look at those mistakes, I’ll try and add some input around the upside. Right. The yin to the yang there.
0:03:53 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. And I’d also love to hear your experience as well because obviously we talk about, but we often don’t explain all the points who were in the podcast with each other. I’d also love to hear your experiences with these because I’d love to see like if you’ve seen these issues that happen a lot.
0:04:07 Ben Wright: Okay, great. Well, we normally unscripted, but we’re even more unscripted. And actually for me, I think being able to talk through these topics unscripted is really important because you get some realness through it, which means we’re going to get the occasional blooper.
0:04:19 Jemimah Ashleigh: So yeah, wait for the Christmas reel that’s coming. Our wonderful editor has been compiling those on my request every time. Like, please look at a real for me.
0:04:27 Ben Wright: Well, thankfully I’ve actually deleted a lot of my bloopers. Okay, so over to you.
0:04:31 Jemimah Ashleigh: Great. Amazing. The first one that I see is that people, number one, do not understand the event they’re going to.
0:04:37 Ben Wright: Right.
0:04:38 Jemimah Ashleigh: I see this all the time. People get there and go, oh, hi, how are you? Sort of immediately just not understanding turning up inappropriate clothing is What I saw a lot because often it was quite early morning. Number two that I saw was immediately coming in there with non business energy. I worked for a business networking group and we’re coming in with wanting to sing Kumbaya and make a candle. Super common that I saw that. But please understand the room that you’re walking into. There is a couple of rules of thumbs of this one. Number one, if you’re paying more, less than $20 or free networking event you are. Congratulations, you’re at the wild wild west. You could get anything. You might get the best networking event but I can guarantee you to that yin you’re getting the yang of the worst thing. Have you been to a free networking event?
0:05:27 Ben Wright: Plenty and plenty. I won’t go to again.
0:05:29 Jemimah Ashleigh: Wild. Right. It could be anything. The second thing is know that the more money that you’re putting down, the higher quality person that’s attending that event. What’s really important is if people are willing to put 60 to $70 on a table or a ticket people are expecting high expectations from the owner as well. But also if lots of people are there, you know it’s worth money. It’s a very general rule. Money’s put on the table you’re going to have.
0:05:53 Ben Wright: So they’re generally going to be not necessarily high caliber of person but they’re going to be more experienced or focused in the networking event.
0:06:00 Jemimah Ashleigh: And understanding the potential ROI being.
0:06:04 Ben Wright: Yeah, okay. ROI is a great way to phrase it. Okay, great.
0:06:07 Jemimah Ashleigh: Not understanding. Number two mistake that I saw all the time just people trying to sell immediately don’t buy a house. Hi, do you have candles at home? Hi. Do you want to back up? Yeah, it’s like I. It is 7:30 man, I am not there. I don’t know you. How are we here at 7:00am?
0:06:25 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. So it didn’t add any first one because I think you covered that. But this one here is so easy to fix. So easy to fix. And it all it takes is a couple of things. Number one is time.
0:06:36 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:06:37 Ben Wright: So spend a bit of time getting to know the person. Show your care by actually saying how are you? Tell me about your day.
0:06:44 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:06:44 Ben Wright: Find some common ground.
0:06:45 Jemimah Ashleigh: Hi, how are you? Lovely to meet you. How did you hear about this group? How long is this your first time being here? What kind of line of work are you in? What did you get for breakfast? Have you got a coffee? These are questions that I would ask on daily basis and be like are you interested in joining Isagenix? No, I’m not Susan actually. Thank you do you want a coffee or not? Because now I don’t want to talk to you for the rest of the day. No, I’ve got three hours where I’m not going.
0:07:07 Ben Wright: And you quickly scurry around the corner and you do anything but talk to Susan. So. So number one is time and I think number two is to know what you’re going to talk about when you’re ready, when you will talk about it. If you have your pitch well versed or your questions you’re going to ask that are very much a business focused, well versed, then you don’t nervously just blurt into them because you know that you’re ready to go and they’re there and they’re waiting. It’s that gift that’s just sitting on the side that’s going to present itself when the time’s right. So, yeah, really easy to fix. But look, I think that’s actually the biggest mistake people make is in fact they’re shaking your hand asking you to sign the deal. Right. Just doesn’t happen.
0:07:44 Jemimah Ashleigh: I don’t know like or trust you. And the fact that you don’t know that those are the rules of sales. They’re fundamental. For me to give you money, I have to know you, sir. I don’t know you. I’m literally shaking your hand right now. I don’t like you. You have now ruined every additional opportunity you have to sell to me moving forward because I now no longer want to have a discussion with you because you’re just seeing dollar signs above my head. And I don’t trust you because you have no interest in knowing, liking or trusting me. Yeah.
0:08:15 Ben Wright: Yeah, cool. I like it. All right, what else?
0:08:17 Jemimah Ashleigh: Third thing I saw regularly was not being clear about even what you do. This is the thing I saw all the time is what do you do? Oh, I mean PR and you know, I’m business and I work with everyone and I’m like, I don’t. What did you. I want to see some of these written down because they would be wild or just. I work with people and we help get financial future sorted and make sure they have recurring revenue. And I work with everyone, mostly women. Sometimes women also work with men. Kevin, sit down.
And this is a fundamental issue I saw time and time again generally from new businesses coming through, but generally around the 18 month mark, stuff starts to shift. I want to know what problem you solve. Yeah, I don’t necessarily know how you do it, but I want to know what you do, who you work with and what you’re currently working on.
0:09:07 Ben Wright: Yeah. And I think, to be fair, this is a hard part. This is to make one of the hardest parts of networking is. And a lot of people don’t know how to pitch what they do. And it’s okay,
0:09:21 Jemimah Ashleigh: For Sure. But distilling your entire business in of what you do, this is a very near impossible task. If you look at our businesses van life like, give me one sentence. That’s hard. Yeah, that’s really hard. And this is where you have to spend some time before and I know we’ve talked about time before networking groups to think about it, but you have to know, you know, as simple as my name is Jemimah, I actually I’m the founder of the Visibility Lab. We specialize in helping entrepreneurs who are great at what they do step into the spotlight and get seen. We help them win awards, be on podcast, or be in the media.
0:09:51 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. And where I think it’s okay to not be really clear on that, that’s fine to be comfortable with it, but it’s not okay to then continue to not be clear with it. Right. Once you recognize that you haven’t nailed it, spend that time to get it right. I like that from tell me again, what’s the problem you solve, who you solve that problem for, who you solve that problem for?
0:10:09 Jemimah Ashleigh: And what are you currently working on?
0:10:11 Ben Wright: And what are you currently working on? What’s your problem to solve? Who do you solve that problem for? And what are you currently working on?
0:10:16 Jemimah Ashleigh: So my name is Jemimah Ashleigh. I’m the founder of the Visibility Lab, the CEO, the founder, whatever you want to use that your name, what your business’s name is. And I was like, what you help people with, what problem you solve?
0:10:26 Ben Wright: Problem you solve? Yeah, yeah.
0:10:28 Jemimah Ashleigh: And then you’re saying, what we’re currently working on. We’re helping people get on podcasts get on. And it’s. No one’s going to give you that information. I think this is really important to back this up as well. No one’s going to say, ben, I’ve been thinking about your LMO Pitch and so you should say what you can do though. And we’re great with this. Please email us, have a conversation with us, send us a message about this.
0:10:47 Jemimah Ashleigh: If you’re stuck on this stuff, ask for help on it. Ask for people who go to networking groups a lot because they’ve seen these mistakes four dozen times. I promise you.
0:10:56 Ben Wright: Cool.
0:10:57 Jemimah Ashleigh: Okay.
0:10:57 Ben Wright: I like it. What else?
0:10:59 Jemimah Ashleigh: Number four. Not following up. Oh, yeah, when start. Yeah, I want to tell You a story that I’ve never told you before. And I was thinking about this was. I was writing a little points today and I thought I did an experiment about this many years ago on another podcast I did where I went to an event. This event was in Melbourne. It was at one of the Comm bank rooms. It was huge. There were five to 600 business owners and I took in 100 business cards. I left with 37. So I handed a lot of cards out. 63 cards were left in that room. I can’t do math. Yeah, I left 63 cards in the room.
0:11:39 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:11:39 Jemimah Ashleigh: And every single person. So this was the conversation. Hi, Ben, I’m Jemimah. How you going? What do you sell? Make something up for me.
0:11:46 Ben Wright: Broad beans.
0:11:47 Jemimah Ashleigh: Do you know what? Oh, my gosh, it’s so interesting that I am meeting you right now. I actually need to buy 500 kilos of broad beans. Every single person that I met on this day, I had this conversation. I needed my house red carpeted. I needed painting done. I needed. I wanted a nap plan. I wanted to buy a salt lamp. I was morning candle, glasses, you name it, I was buying whatever you were selling. Of those 63 people, where I was like, call me. Here is my card. I want you to tell me. And then we tracked real numbers of this. I had a spreadsheet going. It was wild. How many people emailed me back.
0:12:23 Ben Wright: Well, I run at 35 and networking events for people that follow up. So it’s not going to be more than that.
0:12:29 Jemimah Ashleigh: We’re significantly lower of the 63 people. Three people reached back out to me, not one person. And I was like, please call me. I want to buy 500 kilos of war beans from you tomorrow.
0:12:40 Ben Wright: A lot of broad beans, Jemimah.
0:12:41 Jemimah Ashleigh: Hospital at that point or something, I was like, I was saying anything to get these people. I am telling you, the amount of people who you’ve been given a hot lead and ignored it crazy.
0:12:51 Ben Wright: I’m sorry, I can’t get past. You needed 500 kilos of broad beans for a hospital.
0:12:55 Jemimah Ashleigh: I do all the catering for every hospital.
0:12:58 Ben Wright: Oh, wow.
0:12:58 Jemimah Ashleigh: I’m the catering manager for all hospitals.
0:13:01 Ben Wright: And you own a hospital also. Yes, very diversified portfolio.
0:13:05 Jemimah Ashleigh: I am a catering company as well.
0:13:06 Ben Wright: So I’m just trying to make sure I got away with saying that I sold broad beans and you didn’t pick me up as being completely ridiculous.
0:13:13 Jemimah Ashleigh: No, but this is the point. The amount of people that don’t follow up. This was an actual experiment I ran because I wanted to know what’s The ROI here. Now I’m going to tell you, that room was free to me to be in. That was a free room. I got a ticket to go to that. But these people were selling legitimate products of I do carpet cleaning. And I’m telling you, I suddenly owned 50 houses that needed carpet cleaning.
0:13:33 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah.
0:13:34 Jemimah Ashleigh: So one person called me and they didn’t really call me about the thing that they. I wanted to buy.
0:13:39 Ben Wright: So the end of the aim here is that whenever you finish up with networking events, do your follow up. So the first thing you do is put them into CRM.
0:13:45 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes.
0:13:45 Ben Wright: Add them in through social media.
0:13:47 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes.
0:13:47 Ben Wright: Right. You write yourself, make sure the CRM’s got a task written in there for you to follow up that person. Right. Just build that momentum. Because as soon as you do the first little pieces, post a networking event, everything else will follow. Quite.
0:13:58 Jemimah Ashleigh: We Talked about this 42 days, someone will forget you.
0:14:01 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, you will at that.
0:14:03 Jemimah Ashleigh: Second have no link. Final thing number five, just seeing the people as potential sales. Right. One of the biggest mistakes that I saw was people trying to sell to me and I’d be like, oh, thank you. I actually don’t need social media. And they would walk off and I would just think that all my clients do. And I just kept thinking the amount of the times that people burnt relations because they didn’t get that immediate $500 sale, not recognizing there was a $50,000 one potentially behind the scenes if we continued that conversation.
0:14:34 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. So it’s almost that you are leaving a conversation too early.
0:14:39 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes.
0:14:39 Ben Wright: Before you flesh out what could happen.
0:14:41 Jemimah Ashleigh: But just also establishing that it doesn’t have to be a sale. That every time you go into a networking room you need to be looking at what relationships can I build here? Are they a potential referral partner? Are they a potential client? Are they someone that will go into the CRM and become one later? They might not be able to use me right now, but maybe in years to come. Just seeing it. So transactional.
0:15:00 Ben Wright: Yeah. So that’s actually all about preparing for your event and knowing exactly what you want to get out. Do you mind if I add one today?
0:15:06 Jemimah Ashleigh: Here we go. Of breaking the rule of three and five. Here we go.
0:15:09 Ben Wright: It’s two episodes in a row. By the way, last episode you mentioned storytelling a couple of times today. Last episode, episode 14 was about storytelling. I would really encourage you to listen to that before you go to your next networking event. Number six here for me is that people spend too long in a conversation so they go to a networking Event, they find someone they know. Right. Or they meet the first person they can through that networking event and they sit with them for the whole rest of the event. Right. Networking is speed dating.
0:15:40 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes.
0:15:41 Ben Wright: Whether you like it or not, you’re there to meet as many people as you can. Now that said, sometimes you will go to a networking event and you know there will only be one person that you need to meet. And it’s worth spending the entire event just to build a relationship with them. Particularly when you get to hire transaction value sales, that’s perfectly fine. But for the most part, networking is about meeting multiple people.
So need to be able to have that strategy that has the conversation, builds a connection and exit the conversation so you can talk to others. Now I’m going to give you a couple of strategies here to do that. And I definitely get laughed. I’m always eating, I’m always hungry. And when I go to networking events with my friends or any events where it’s food, I always say to the people, have a circle. But one side of the circle is open. And you look at me and go, you’re an idiot. You just want to welcome the food in. And I’m like, yeah, I want to make sure when that platter goes past that they come in through us. And we’re not a closed circle. So we miss out on our sausage roll or our pie or our prungiosa. The only if I say foreign gauze is when I go to a networking event. The same thing goes for when you’re talking with people, have an open circle that welcomes others in. And if you bring people into your conversation, you’re not spending too long with one person. So that’s number one, welcome people in.
0:16:54 Ben Wright: Number two.
0:16:55 Jemimah Ashleigh: And really simple, like what I love about that, it’s not like, oh, we’re in this one conversation even now, we’re sort of welcoming everyone else on video.
0:17:02 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:17:03 Jemimah Ashleigh: But when you’re in that one on one, that’s a very blocked conversation. And humans, 85% of what we read is through.
0:17:09 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:17:09 Jemimah Ashleigh: Body language.
0:17:10 Ben Wright: So bring people into the conversation. In fact, story here, my first job problem I had is I wasn’t getting cut through in interviews. Right. And it was making me feel as if I wasn’t going to get a job. So what I actually did is the next interview I went to is it was a round table. We had a number of people in this. I tried to bring every person into that conversation because I wanted the outcome that everyone felt like I engaged with them and I built a relationship Great. Love that I got that job. And the feedback I had as to why I got that job was because I brought others into the conversation.
0:17:41 Ben Wright: So when you bring others in, it’s very powerful. By the way, I just use the storytelling framework from episode 14 in telling that story. So please get back and let’s do it. Second piece is know how to exit gracefully. And I often will do that by putting the exit on someone else. And that says, you know what, I’ve taken up heaps of your time tonight. I’m really grateful. I can’t wait to talk with you soon. But I want to make sure you meet lots of other fabulous people. And what comes out of that is you’re either both together, then go to the next conversation. Right. Or you naturally move.
0:18:10 Jemimah Ashleigh: Right.
0:18:10 Ben Wright: So. And you can do that. And that’s all about them right now. Yes, of course it’s about you, too, but genuinely. And if you say this genuinely and you do want them to meet other people, then you leave the conversation feeling really good about yourself and so does the other side. So there you go. I’m sorry to add one in, but.
0:18:25 Jemimah Ashleigh: I think I love that one.
0:18:26 Ben Wright: Just.
0:18:27 Jemimah Ashleigh: Do I need to add more in? All right, so let’s go through those again. Number one, people don’t understand. You understand the event you’re going to like. You just need to understand the type of event you’re going to and understand that there are different qualities in events. Yeah, there is different. A different quality of event and also the expectations you should have in said room. Yeah, I think it’s really important. Number two, selling immediately. Just really remember you’re there to build that no lack and trust in those relationships, selling will naturally happen. It does. But you have to build the no lack of trust. And if you try to sell immediately, really dangerous, really detrimental, actually, to the long term of what you’re trying to do. And almost like you get like other people, like, be careful of them. They just want to try to sell to you. It’s very, very mindful of that. Not everyone who’s not being clear in your elevator pitch of what you do, what problem you solve. And again, I’m just. We kitchen. That storytelling thing. These are really closely related. The storytelling podcast from the last episode that we did. I would recommend going to listen to. If you’re having trouble with that elevator pitch and understanding how to do that. And you might not have a great one right now, but it’s your responsibility to get another one for not following up. Goodness gracious. People just leaving it be in the world of what it is. And number five, just seeing dollar signs. When you’re looking to read it, look for the referral partners, look for the other people. Build those relationships. I think because ultimately networking is about changing those relationships. We wouldn’t be sitting here if we hadn’t had one conversation. If I walked up or you had walked up and tried to sell to each other, we’re not doing this right now.
0:19:59 Ben Wright: Yeah, great.
0:20:00 Jemimah Ashleigh: And your number six was.
0:20:02 Ben Wright: Number six is don’t spend too long in conversation. Get out. You need to welcome in people to the conversation and of course, the hors d’oeuvres, but make sure people are welcome and you’re not spiritually. All right. Your number one from today.
0:20:13 Jemimah Ashleigh: Number one from today is probably something incidentally said was the build the. No lack of trust. This is a relationship building exercise. That’s what you’re there to do. Their sales will happen in verbally, but you can’t be the fundamental, the forefront. People can see it, they can smell it, and it will immediately do the complete opposite of what you’re trying to do. You’re in there to be known, your name represented. You have to be known. You have to be like. And people have to trust you.
0:20:39 Ben Wright: Yeah, great.
0:20:40 Jemimah Ashleigh: What about you?
0:20:41 Ben Wright: I’m exactly the same. Invest in the relationship. It may take a little bit of time, but you can start it in that networking piece. Because if we go in with that mindset that we’re going to build relationships, we’ll be successful.
0:20:52 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes.
0:20:53 Ben Wright: So importantly, as we finish up today, we’re there to build business relationships. If we go in with the mindset that it’s just about friendships and making friends, that’s not necessarily going to work either.
0:21:04 Jemimah Ashleigh: Right.
0:21:05 Ben Wright: So know what you need from your business relationship, but where you want to make friends, you come to us because we’re your friends in business. We’ve loved every moment. Jemimah is cringing again.
0:21:17 Jemimah Ashleigh: I just think these are so terrible. And you’re such a. It’s the worst dad jokes. And I so love them every time because every podcast then you say something and I go, where is he? Oh, that’s where he’s going with it. Yeah.
0:21:31 Ben Wright: Next one.
0:21:31 Jemimah Ashleigh: 10 out of 10 for the final.
0:21:33 Ben Wright: See you next week, everyone.
0:21:34 Jemimah Ashleigh: Thanks, guys.
