The Art of Manliness - #92： How to Network Without Networking With John Corcoran

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:19.280 Now, when people say you got to network to be successful in life, right, successful in your

00:00:24.380 career, people really don't know what that means. Like when they do network, they usually do it in

00:00:29.320 a way that's sort of not effective where they just take business cards and just hand them out

00:00:33.480 to anyone and everyone who will take one. They'll go to these networking events and just hand out

00:00:39.380 their business card and just talk about themselves and say, here's my idea. Let's network and let's

00:00:45.600 do lunch. And it never really goes anywhere. And it seems a lot of people, because they had such

00:00:51.280 bad experiences with networking, they just give up on it because I think it's a waste of time.

00:00:55.200 Well, our guest today has spent his career mastering, studying how to be a better networker.

00:01:01.880 His name is John Corcoran. He is an attorney, but he also owns a website called Smart Business

00:01:06.940 Revolution, where he writes content, has a podcast about how to be an effective networker. So you

00:01:13.080 have more success, not only in your career, but also in your personal life. John is also a regular

00:01:17.700 contributor on the Art of Manliness. You've probably seen some of his articles on our site about

00:01:21.060 networking and social skills and things like that. They're always do really well on the site.

00:01:26.580 So today we're going to talk about how to be an effective networker and how to do it in a way

00:01:31.840 that it's not annoying. It doesn't seem sleazy. It's comfortable for all those who are involved

00:01:37.020 and how to do it in a way that it actually make a difference in your life and the life of the other

00:01:42.020 person. We're going to talk about how you can systemize your networking so you can keep track of

00:01:45.960 all your contacts. We'll discuss why even if you have a quote unquote blue collar job,

00:01:51.140 you should also be networking because you often associate networking with sort of office white

00:01:55.380 collar jobs. And we'll also discuss why college age men who are still in college, still in school,

00:02:00.500 should start networking now so they can have more opportunities presented to them when they

00:02:05.420 get out into the workforce. So just a podcast that's just jam packed with actionable information.

00:02:11.160 I think you're really going to enjoy this. So let's get on with the show.

00:02:15.960 John Corcoran, welcome to the show.

00:02:23.180 Hey, happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Brett.

00:02:24.960 Hey, well, it's a pleasure. You've been a contributor for the Art of Manage for a while

00:02:28.700 now, so we've always enjoyed your content there. And it's nice to get you on the podcast to actually

00:02:32.740 talk about this stuff.

00:02:34.380 Yeah, I've listened for a long time, so I'm happy to be here.

00:02:36.480 So before we get into talking about your expertise, which is networking, you kind of have a really

00:02:40.940 interesting background because right now you're an attorney and you also run your

00:02:45.840 website, Smart Business Revolution. But before that, you worked in the Clinton administration

00:02:51.560 and you were like the Office of Letters and Management, right?

00:02:56.960 Letters and Messages.

00:02:57.900 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:58.320 Letters and Messages. Can you describe what that job was and how old were you when you

00:03:04.060 got that job and how did you land a job?

00:03:05.920 I was 12 years old, actually. No, I was 23. And yeah, I was a writer in Presidential

00:03:11.640 Letters and Messages. I kind of describe it as I was like a second-tier speechwriter or

00:03:16.980 if one of the speechwriters pulled a hamstring, then we'd have to step in, basically. We wrote

00:03:21.800 everything that the speechwriters didn't want to write, like letters, messages, video scripts,

00:03:26.580 proclamations, which are kind of a historic importance and paid people who have less attention

00:03:31.400 to them now. You know, letters to VIPs, that kind of thing. And I had previously been in

00:03:38.020 the speechwriting office during college, actually. During college, I did an internship in the

00:03:42.440 White House Speechwriting Office in the fall of 97, which was right before the whole Monica

00:03:46.300 Lewinsky scandal hit. I went back, graduated from college, kept in touch with people, and

00:03:50.820 I can get into the whole story of how I ended up getting a job there, but ended up coming

00:03:54.340 back and getting a job when I was 23.

00:03:56.780 So was it networking that landed you that job?

00:03:58.640 Better believe it, yeah. So it was basically keeping in touch with, you know, the other

00:04:04.260 speechwriters who were there, other people who worked at the White House, keeping in touch

00:04:07.760 with people in Washington, D.C. What happened was I graduated from college. I knew I'd like

00:04:11.400 to get a job back there at the White House, but not everyone who interns is able to get

00:04:15.080 a job there. They take, you know, hundreds and hundreds of interns each year, and there are

00:04:19.700 not a lot of people who get those coveted jobs at the White House. So I was on the lookout

00:04:24.740 for it, but, you know, you can't just, like, pester people regularly, like, send them emails

00:04:29.680 or call them and say, so is their job, is their job. So, you know, I just tried to be of use

00:04:34.160 to the speechwriters. I would clip out things and send things to them, you know, speeches

00:04:38.960 that I saw that I thought were helpful or quotes or articles, you know, just keeping in touch

00:04:43.820 with people and trying to be of use to them. And then what happened was, it's kind of a funny

00:04:48.700 story. I heard from one of the speechwriters that there was this job opening for a writer,

00:04:52.460 and I'd been an English major in college, and I'd been a writer my entire life, so I

00:04:56.020 wanted to be a writer, so I was very excited about it. And so I knew I might be getting

00:05:00.860 a call one of these days from the person who was hiring for it, and so one day I do get

00:05:06.020 this call out of the blue from the woman who eventually ended up hiring me, and she calls

00:05:09.220 me up and says, yeah, you know, I just wanted to see if I get a resume and a writing sample

00:05:13.260 and find some more information about you. And I said, sure, that's great. I'll send you

00:05:16.960 my resume. And actually, if you want to see a writing sample, you can open up today's New

00:05:21.860 York Times. I have a letter to the editor in today's op-ed page of the New York Times.

00:05:27.500 It was a bit of a coincidence, but I knew that they might be calling around them then, and

00:05:32.820 I'd sent that letter to the editor a couple of days earlier. It just happened to hit on

00:05:37.480 the very same day that I got that phone call. And the reason I tell that story is because

00:05:42.000 if you have an opportunity that's coming along, then you can position yourself. You can do things

00:05:47.260 in order to create opportunities for yourself so that you look the best that you can. You

00:05:53.300 put your best foot forward, so to speak. So after that, I ended up interviewing for the

00:05:58.060 job, doing a writing test, all that kind of stuff, and ended up getting into the job.

00:06:01.920 Okay. So you started, you kind of mastered, or started mastering networking at a pretty young

00:06:06.440 age. Now you're an attorney, but you also have your website, Smart Business Revolution,

00:06:13.980 where you talk about networking. And why did you decide to devote an entire blog to networking

00:06:21.560 and teaching people about it?

00:06:23.780 I'd love to say that there's this master plan behind it, but it was more of an evolution. So

00:06:29.500 what happened was I've always written for the web. I've always enjoyed writing. And so I started

00:06:35.760 blogging years and years ago, and it kind of evolved. And what happened was I would write

00:06:41.020 related to my legal practice, because I'm a lawyer. I'm still a practicing lawyer. And

00:06:44.980 my clients are mostly entrepreneurs and small business owners. And I would write for that

00:06:49.840 audience. And eventually, I realized that writing about legal topics was too disorganized. People

00:06:54.760 would come and go. There was no way of creating a sense of community or anything like that. So

00:06:59.220 I pivoted. I rebranded. I changed it. And I started writing more aimed towards entrepreneurs.

00:07:05.240 But I also found that at that point, it was too broad. Also, I was talking about a lot of

00:07:10.540 different topics that were of interest to entrepreneurs, but not narrowly focused enough.

00:07:15.340 And at the same time, actually, Antonio Centino was one of the big influencers, who also writes

00:07:20.420 for Art of Manlias. He kept on saying to me, you're really good at using relationships and

00:07:26.580 knowing how to develop relationships with people. You should do more on that. You should tell people

00:07:30.700 more about that. And another of other friends had done the same thing. They said, you know,

00:07:35.420 they're constantly asking me questions about, you know, networking, building relationships,

00:07:40.420 that sort of thing. And so finally, you know, it's like one of those things, you got to listen to what

00:07:44.340 other people say. And sometimes I think we're drawn to the thing that we struggle with more rather

00:07:49.420 than the thing that we're better at. And so eventually, I pivoted and I started focusing more

00:07:54.560 on, as I call it, relationship building. And, and that's when things really kind of started to

00:08:01.780 pick up for me. Okay. So let's talk about that. Like you're, you're calling it relationship building.

00:08:07.280 Most people would call it networking. And yeah, I think most people, when they hear the word

00:08:11.360 networking, they're like, that sounds, I just, they just put up the, that sucks. That's so lame.

00:08:16.640 Yeah. Like they, images of like, you know, networking events and like hotel lobbies where they're

00:08:21.740 handing out near their business card and like shaking hands and giving their elevator pitches.

00:08:26.820 That's what comes to mind. Yep. Um, I mean, so, I mean, what are the biggest myths about networking

00:08:32.360 and what would you tell someone who's like, yeah, that's stupid. I'm not going to network or

00:08:37.540 relationship build. It doesn't matter what you, if you rebranded relationship building,

00:08:40.920 I'm not going to do that. What would you tell them to convince them that you need to start doing this?

00:08:46.240 Yeah. So, um, I think it does have a negative connotation. I think exactly because

00:08:51.540 there's so many people that do it wrong. There's so many people that turn it into a sales pitch

00:08:56.820 immediately, you know, and we've all been in that situation where we're at some event and we meet

00:09:01.560 some person and they're immediately trying to sell us on something. And that's not the way to do it

00:09:05.900 anywhere in any circumstances. In, in any circumstances, when you meet someone, you got to

00:09:11.700 take some time to get to know them. I mean, it takes a while for these things to unfold,

00:09:15.780 you know, whether we're talking about building a relationship through someone,

00:09:19.640 through the media or online or offline or in person or whatever, it takes a while. And so

00:09:25.580 the people who do networking bad, and the reason that networking has a bad connotation

00:09:29.500 is because of people who try and force it, try and, and make it happen too quickly.

00:09:35.220 I advocate a slower approach. I mean, I could even call it slow networking or something like that.

00:09:39.960 Maybe that's a word I need to use is because honestly, you need to take some time to build a

00:09:44.140 relationship with someone. And how do you do that? You do that by being of use to them, being

00:09:49.100 a friend, being useful, providing value to them. And we can get into what that means exactly. But

00:09:55.080 as far as what networking myths are, what common networking myths are out there? Well, one, I think

00:10:01.280 is a big myth is that you don't need to do it. The fact is we're all building relationships. We're adding

00:10:07.900 people into our lives and we're dropping people into our lives over the course of our life. So over the

00:10:12.980 next 12 months, whether you like it or not, you will add some people into your network and you'll

00:10:16.640 drop some people into your network. It just happens organically. What I advocate is taking a more

00:10:21.040 proactive approach, a more deliberate and intentional approach, and actually thinking in advance, much

00:10:25.640 like you would choose a major in college, thinking in advance about the types of people that you want

00:10:30.080 to surround yourself with, the types of people that you want to develop a relationship with,

00:10:34.020 rather than just letting it happen completely organically, which is what a lot of people do.

00:10:38.720 I'm not talking about friendship, of course. When it comes to friends, it's fine to let things

00:10:42.380 evolve organically. But when it comes to business, when it comes to your career,

00:10:46.040 I think you should be more intentional about it. The other common networking myth that I think we

00:10:50.760 hear really frequently is that either you're born good at it or you're not born good at it,

00:10:57.240 and so you don't do it. I actually think that you can get better at it. And some introverts are very

00:11:03.360 good at, quote unquote, networking, very good at building relationships. And it's because they put

00:11:10.160 effort into it. And really, building a network is not about being the most outspoken, most effusive,

00:11:18.500 most social animal, social butterfly at a networking event. It's really about building relationships

00:11:25.020 with people in that initial meeting and then following up and continuing to follow up with

00:11:29.320 that person and keeping them in your life. And one other example I give is oftentimes people,

00:11:34.740 they say, I don't like going out to networking events, and that's fine. But this is what people end up

00:11:38.640 doing. They go because people have to go because you have to build relationships. You can't just

00:11:42.720 live like a hermit in your home at all times. So they go to events, but they don't follow up with 0.99

00:11:48.400 people. They just let it drop. And what that does is like dooming yourself to the hamster wheel of

00:11:54.580 networking for the rest of your life. Because you don't take relationships, the relationships that you

00:11:59.060 do develop at events, and you don't do anything with them, you end up having to go back again and again

00:12:05.080 and again to all these different events. So even though you don't like it, you're dooming yourself

00:12:10.300 to continue to do it. So I think being intentional on the front end, deciding in advance who you want

00:12:15.840 to develop relationships with, and then on the back end, after you've met people, continuing to be

00:12:21.640 in touch with them and continuing to remain in touch with them with the people who are really of value to

00:12:26.860 your career, to your business, are the two real big important points there.

00:12:31.360 Okay. I thought it was a really interesting point. You said you don't have to be an extrovert to

00:12:34.020 network well, because I think a lot of people stay away from networking because they're like,

00:12:37.820 oh, it just, it frightens them. Like I got to go and like talk to these strangers and I have a

00:12:42.140 minute, right. To make that first impression. It's going to be like, it's, if I don't get the deal

00:12:46.700 there, if I don't get the job interview offer there, then it's, it's all, it's all done for.

00:12:50.700 Right.

00:12:51.100 Just like, there's so much pressure. Like they're already sort of like, you know, have social anxiety

00:12:54.760 and then just the, the, the, the, the scepter of having to like make something happen. And that this

00:13:00.880 one moment just like makes it even more, you know, anxiety, um, producing, uh, thing even more.

00:13:08.840 Yeah, no, I totally get that. People put too much pressure on themselves. And the reality is,

00:13:12.960 is that it's a lot longer process than that. Yeah. I don't think you need to worry about

00:13:17.080 getting everything, you know, smushed into the initial meeting. You can actually, that can take

00:13:23.540 a little bit of the pressure off. In fact, one of the tools that I advocate that people use

00:13:28.640 is called a conversations list. And conversations list is basically just taking the time to define

00:13:35.340 in advance the 50 plus people who you'd like to develop a relationship and deepen a relationship

00:13:41.300 with over the course of the next 12 months. And there's a couple of things I do intentionally

00:13:45.900 there. I call it a conversations list because I want you to think about it as an ongoing conversation

00:13:50.720 with you're going to have, which you're going to have with these 50 people over the course of the

00:13:55.780 next 12 months. The reason I say 12 months is because that way you don't worry about trying

00:13:59.800 to get everything accomplished in the first meeting or the first couple of weeks, you realize

00:14:04.680 you can take your time with that. And if you do that over time, over the course of a couple of years,

00:14:10.740 you can really radically revamp the circle of people that you have around you, which is something

00:14:16.580 that I've just done naturally throughout my career. I looking back on my career now, and I realized

00:14:22.040 that I did it over and over again. I did it in politics. I actually worked in the entertainment

00:14:26.280 industry. I worked, I was an early employee for DreamWorks. So I worked for both Bill Clinton and

00:14:32.300 Steven Spielberg at different times in my career. After that, I went and worked in Silicon Valley for

00:14:37.280 a couple of years. And now, of course, I'm an attorney and I depend on relationships in order to get

00:14:42.160 clients. So I've actually done it over and over again with these different types of circles. But

00:14:46.700 if you, let's say you're listening to this and you're not happy in the job that you have right

00:14:51.520 now, or not happy in the career that you have right now, or you want to start a business or

00:14:54.340 something like that, you can evolve your circle of connections around you by being deliberate and

00:15:02.000 intentional using a tool like the conversations list and deciding who are the people that you want

00:15:06.740 to develop relationships with and then going out and doing it proactively.

00:15:09.520 Exactly. So you decide you want to be proactive and network and do all that stuff. But how do you do

00:15:17.700 it in a way that's not annoying, right? And that it just doesn't, you know, just doesn't, because I

00:15:24.900 mean, there's, there's, I mean, I get approached all the time with people who want something with

00:15:29.500 like, they want to work with the art of manliness and they want to network, but like, there's always,

00:15:34.160 it's, it's a lot of times it's just very annoying. Like they just, it's just ask, ask, ask. And it's like,

00:15:38.160 I only, you know, I, I only have so much time and energy, so I can't give myself all, you know,

00:15:43.440 to these people. So like, how do you do in a way where it's just like, it's useful, like, as you

00:15:47.340 say? Yeah. Well, um, the, the first thing I'd recommend is checking out the book, how to win

00:15:53.220 friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie, which a lot of people have heard of, but a lot of people

00:15:57.580 haven't read. So I'd recommend reading that book. The book is almost a hundred years old. And yet the

00:16:02.200 reason it sold tens of millions of copies is because the advice in it is timeless. And the

00:16:07.920 advice is that if you're meeting someone, if you're developing a relationship with someone

00:16:12.020 to be attuned to what they're interested in and to be inquisitive and to learn about that person.

00:16:20.880 So that's the first thing that I think that you should do and, and, and, um, uh, should be doing

00:16:27.500 when you're should do and should do. That makes a lot of sense. Uh, you should be doing when you're

00:16:31.940 developing a relationship with someone. You should be learning what is going on in their

00:16:37.080 life, learning about them, learning what their interests are, learning what's going on with

00:16:41.060 their family. If they want to share that learning what they, what their goals are. And only once

00:16:47.020 you learn those things, can you not be annoying? I mean, the people who are annoying and the people

00:16:50.780 who are just interested in themselves, right? You know, and I mean, in, in Dale Carnegie's book,

00:16:56.280 there's this classic, there's a number of classic examples, but there's an example of a guy who goes

00:17:01.220 to a dinner party and he ends up having this conversation with, I think it was a biologist

00:17:05.160 or Marine biologist or something like that. And he has this great conversation and, and the person

00:17:10.300 was asking questions of the biologist all night, like question after question, because he'd never met

00:17:14.880 a biologist before. And he was really interested in the topic. And he was, he was using the Dale

00:17:20.400 Carnegie strategies, which is to ask questions of people. And then at the end of the night,

00:17:24.360 the biologist goes to the host and says, you know, I had this great conversation with this guy.

00:17:29.600 He was a great conversationalist. And what's so funny about that is that the guy who was asking

00:17:34.500 questions wasn't really making conversation. He was actually just asking questions and taking

00:17:40.420 interest in that person. And most people really enjoy talking about themselves and they really

00:17:45.040 enjoy talking about things that are of interest to them. So the lesson in that is you don't need to

00:17:50.400 be the world's greatest conversationalist. You just need to take an interest in that person and

00:17:55.660 then to pick up on details about them, what's going on in their life, and then find ways in

00:18:01.700 which you can add value to that person's life. You know, and so what I try and do when I meet

00:18:06.580 someone new is just try and find out what's going on with them, what's going on with their business,

00:18:10.520 what's going on with their life. Do they have a son or daughter who's about to go off to college?

00:18:14.540 Maybe I can give them some advice on colleges that they're considering. Do they have a favorite

00:18:19.140 type of food? Maybe there's a restaurant that they haven't heard of nearby that I can recommend to

00:18:24.020 them. Maybe they're going on vacation sometime next month to some place that I've been to before.

00:18:29.180 Like Brett, you and I have both been to Vermont on vacation. Maybe they're going to Vermont. We can

00:18:32.480 give some recommendation of somewhere they can go to in Vermont. You know, something like that.

00:18:36.660 I think that is the way that you ensure that you're not annoying.

00:18:39.660 Okay. And but even when you start, so you start, the whole goal is to be provide value,

00:18:44.600 be useful in any way. Right. But you, I guess there's a point like you shouldn't like provide

00:18:49.680 value than like, Hey, follow up with, can you help me out with this? Like sort of the give and take.

00:18:55.140 I mean, should you just be more like give stuff and then wait? Like, how do you know when you call

00:19:00.240 in that favor? I mean, it sounds very like godfather mafioso, but like, how do you know when you're,

00:19:05.540 it's a good time to, you know, capitalize on this relationship that you're developing?

00:19:11.160 Yeah, I think it's, I think it varies with each person and with each relationship. You know,

00:19:16.820 if you develop a tighter bond with that person, then they're probably more likely quicker to

00:19:22.340 come to you for whatever service it is you provide or think of you. I think that you need

00:19:27.800 to weave into the conversation, um, things that, that are helpful, but that are also remind the

00:19:36.460 person of what it is you do. So if you're a service provider like myself, then one thing you can do is

00:19:42.560 just provide helpful advice. So let's say that you're a photographer listening to this and you

00:19:48.720 want to get photography clients. Well, you could just weave in advice and tips. Like maybe you're

00:19:54.200 talking to someone who, who you've met and they just, you know, they mentioned that they just had,

00:19:59.060 uh, pictures taken, formal portraits or something. Maybe you can give a little tip,

00:20:03.580 like you can say, oh, by the way, you know, um, it's fall right now. So the colors are, uh, you know,

00:20:10.740 browns and oranges and greens. So, uh, you know, before you have your photo session, you should try and

00:20:17.160 wear, um, uh, a sweater that matches that palette. If you do an outside, outside a photo shoot, you

00:20:24.500 know, that's one way that you could be of use to that person. And it's not saying like hire me to be

00:20:29.580 your photographer. It's actually the opposite. It's actually just being useful to them. And if you prove

00:20:33.900 that worth, if you prove that you're so useful, then that they're going to immediately think of

00:20:38.660 you either. They're going to think, wow, we should really hire this person. They gave me this great

00:20:41.760 piece of advice, which is a really good tip. Or if they have a brother-in-law, a sister-in-law,

00:20:46.420 something like that, some friend who needs to hire a photographer, even if they don't hire you,

00:20:50.060 they might refer you out to that person. That sounds an awfully like, uh, like what's that

00:20:54.600 from miracle on 34th street where like Macy's was like recommending customers go to gimbals if 0.87

00:21:00.480 there's like a cheaper price or something like that. Do you remember that scene? I've heard people

00:21:04.860 reference that before and I haven't seen that movie in so long, so, but I should check it out.

00:21:08.240 Yeah. You should check it out. I think it's very similar. So like, yeah, the, the Santa Claus at Macy's

00:21:11.920 starts telling, uh, parents like where they can go buy presents that weren't at Macy's.

00:21:17.460 And like at first, like the, the managers were like, Oh, why are you doing that? But all the

00:21:21.800 customers loved it. They're like, Oh, you know, thank you so much for doing that. And I'm going

00:21:24.460 to keep coming back to Macy's because you guys are so useful.

00:21:27.500 Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the Nordstrom's approach. Nordstrom's is famous for providing

00:21:32.200 amazing customer service and to the point where they will provide all kinds of recommendations or

00:21:37.220 Zappos, a more modern contemporary reference. Zappos is famous for if they don't have the shoes,

00:21:42.440 their customer service people are trained to get on the web and start helping to find people,

00:21:46.940 uh, where the shoes can be bought. Um, but I think there's truth to that. I think that,

00:21:52.100 you know, that establishes credibility that establishes trust. When you do something like

00:21:57.920 that, it shows that you have confidence in your own skills, that you're not worried about the

00:22:03.480 competition. In fact, for me as an attorney, I found that the clients that are most likely to

00:22:09.280 become really attached to me are the ones that I've tried to talk out of hiring me in the first

00:22:13.940 place. You know, I've had conversations where I explain why they shouldn't hire me for whatever

00:22:18.980 reason, maybe because I don't think they should pursue a certain path, or maybe I think there's

00:22:23.000 another attorney can help them with something. And then it's inevitably they turn around and they're

00:22:27.740 like, Oh, we really want to hire you. It's like, yeah, I guess you weren't listening or else

00:22:32.180 like you'd rather hire me. That's fine. All right. So I guess the key to networking,

00:22:37.660 or as you call it, relationship building is first, uh, pay attention to the needs of others,

00:22:43.780 right? Be attuned to that. Um, and then second, just find small ways to add value, uh, in any way

00:22:51.840 you can. And even if that means referring them to someone else or it's a competition, or even they

00:22:57.600 don't use your service immediately, be valuable. Um, but here's the question I have, how do you

00:23:02.680 make time for that? Right? Cause like you only have so much time in the day. You only have so

00:23:05.720 much energy. Um, and if you're spending all that time helping others who, you know, you might not

00:23:11.520 be able to, you know, this is your thing about your business, right? You're making an investment

00:23:14.340 in your business and they might not, uh, you know, might not have any return on investment at all,

00:23:20.560 or for a long time. I mean, how do you manage that? How do you decide, okay, I'm going to spend my time

00:23:25.740 helping this person as opposed to not helping that person. Yeah. And this is a common objection

00:23:31.580 that I hear from people, um, that are worried about the amount of time that it takes. You know,

00:23:36.900 I don't advocate taking a ton of time, spending hours and hours of your day, um, devoting to this

00:23:42.940 really, it can be, it can be very, um, not time consuming. One of the problems is, is, and the reason

00:23:51.180 I advocate using conversations list strategy is that people are developing relationships with the

00:23:55.160 wrong people. They're sometimes it's because they're pursuing someone who they see is successful

00:24:00.540 and they're trying to build a relationship with that person when there's no conceivable value to

00:24:04.380 them, or they're not aligned with their business goal, or they're not aligned with their career

00:24:09.360 goals. So they're just pursuing the wrong person. So I think taking the time to define who are the

00:24:14.760 people that you want to build relationships with will help to prevent that from happening. And then

00:24:19.820 you'll focus on building the relationships with the people who really matter to your goals.

00:24:24.180 But I think you need to take the long game. You need to decide that I'm going to devote a little

00:24:28.520 bit of time throughout my week to doing these sorts of relationship building activities,

00:24:34.240 you know, going to coffee with someone or going to lunch with someone or connecting with them,

00:24:38.460 interviewing. I mean, what we're doing right now is a great tool for building relationships,

00:24:42.260 interviewing someone, whether it's for a podcast or whether it's for an article that you write in

00:24:47.140 the newspaper. Um, it's a lot better than asking someone for an informational interview,

00:24:51.100 which is actually asking them for a favor, doing an interview where you're going to publish it to

00:24:56.780 a podcast, to an article, to a blog or whatever is actually not asking them to do a favor. You're

00:25:01.840 actually doing, you're actually doing something nice for them because you're giving them a bit of

00:25:05.720 publicity, but there are also tools that you can use. And one that I advocate is called a CRM

00:25:12.520 program. It stands for customer relationship management. And typically, historically salespeople use

00:25:18.080 them because they were for building relationships with people. Well, as we, our economy has become

00:25:22.760 more entrepreneur focused and jobs have become more temporary, people tend to jump from job to job

00:25:29.920 from company to company now, whereas people used to stick with the same job. It's more important that

00:25:35.740 you put effort into building these relationships if you want to be serious about your career. So you can

00:25:41.480 use a CRM program, which are a relatively, relatively modest investment. You know, they can be anywhere

00:25:47.840 from, you know, zero to a hundred dollars a month. You think of like Salesforce, uh, Zoho, Podio,

00:25:54.380 there's a bunch of new ones out there. Insightly, I use one called Contactually, which I'm a big fan of.

00:25:59.040 And, and like they have a suite of, of basically different tools that are involved, but I'll just

00:26:05.000 mention one of them is like introductions. I love doing introductions to people because anyone who's

00:26:09.840 listening to this right now, I guarantee you, there are two people in your network who would benefit

00:26:13.960 from knowing each other and you are the one who can do it. And if you introduce two people and they

00:26:18.760 get along, they hit it off, they do business together or whatever, they will always remember

00:26:23.520 it. And then that is a great way for you to get introduced to other people as well. So Contactually

00:26:29.500 and probably every CRM out there has a tool for doing introductions where you can, in a couple of

00:26:35.380 clicks, like very quickly make an introduction is some of the best use of your time period.

00:26:41.960 Because if you make an introduction, they hit it off. Just people are just tremendously grateful. So

00:26:47.360 that's one tool that you can use that, that would be helpful. There's another one called

00:26:51.620 intros.to, which is another website, which is actually free. So I think it's an open source

00:26:57.300 platform for tracking introductions is another one you can use.

00:27:01.420 Does, uh, speaking of, you know, like systems you can use, I mean, you, I guess you, to be really

00:27:06.800 effective with this, you need to systemize and organize your networking, um, besides, you know,

00:27:12.840 organizing your introductions, I mean, what else should you be keeping track of, uh, with your

00:27:18.200 relationship building? Um, what else should be keeping, well, one big one is, and this really is

00:27:25.500 dependent on, um, how, what it is you do. So if you are a, this works best probably for a service

00:27:35.180 provider, um, someone who's providing a service and just trying to get clients. But I have a tool

00:27:41.700 that I talk about. It's in a free ebook on my site, um, called the, the ebook isn't, but the, the tool is

00:27:47.080 called the results and revenue worksheet. And basically it's, it's basically tracking all of the incoming,

00:27:52.880 uh, business that comes into you and where it came from. And this is a tool that over time you can

00:28:00.220 see patterns emerge. So let's say we'll use the photographer example again, or let's say you're a

00:28:05.440 plumber or something like that. And you get phone calls throughout the year from different people,

00:28:09.780 new clients. Well, every time a new client comes in, you just write down the name of the person who

00:28:15.620 came in and what their source was. It could be from a person who referred them. It could be from an

00:28:20.160 organization that you belong to, like a BNI or something like that, or a chamber of commerce,

00:28:24.020 or it could be an event that you attended, like a conference or some kind of quarterly event or

00:28:29.080 something like that. It could be from your kid's preschool, whatever you write it down over time.

00:28:33.500 You'll be able to see patterns emerge. You'll be able to see that. Oh, Hey, look, this one person

00:28:37.640 referred me three times back in March and they haven't referred me since then. Well, what has happened

00:28:43.780 in the interim? Oh, well, it turns out I haven't communicated with that person in the last six months.

00:28:47.840 So what that tells you is you need to really reach out to that person again and make sure that you

00:28:53.260 keep a strong connection with that person. This isn't rocket science, but if you implement a strategy

00:28:58.760 like that, it will help you to be efficient and to be smart about the relationships that are really

00:29:06.700 important to your business, your career. Okay. Let's go back to introductions because this is

00:29:10.980 something you and I have talked about in emails back and forth before. Like what's the etiquette of

00:29:16.100 introduction making? Because I have lots of people who make introductions to me, uh, all the time.

00:29:20.880 I know they're trying to be useful, but oftentimes what happens is that the person that, um, they're

00:29:25.780 introduced me to, like, there's just, I don't see any value. Like I just, there's nothing there.

00:29:29.580 Like I'm like, this is not, this isn't a good fit. And so it's always awkward. It's like, uh, nice to

00:29:34.820 meet you, but no thanks. Cause I mean, I don't want to seem like I'm a jerk. Right. Yeah. Um, so like,

00:29:40.120 what is, I mean, should you ask before, like you say, can I introduce you to someone or she just

00:29:45.280 make the introduction? Yeah. It's funny. Cause you and I have talked about this and, and my

00:29:49.900 opinion on it has evolved a little bit. Initially I did feel like, you know, just go out there and

00:29:55.760 make the introductions. And if, you know, if it's not a good fit, it's not a good fit. But then

00:30:00.940 after talking to you about it, talking to some other people about it. And, and also honestly,

00:30:05.000 I get more introductions now than I did a couple of months ago than I did a year ago. And so I've

00:30:09.840 been on the, on the other end of those as well, where you get an introduction and you're kind of

00:30:14.240 like, ah, I'm not sure what, you know, why this benefits, you know, that's kind of on the other

00:30:20.220 person. It's the person who's doing the introduction. Um, they're the one who's, you know, a little

00:30:26.660 not attuned to what it is you need. And there's a couple of things you could do. You could say,

00:30:30.860 you could email back or, or just say to the other person who's done the introduction to you,

00:30:35.300 this is kind of what I'm looking for right now. I'm looking for, you know, or this is what I'm

00:30:40.360 working on. This is what I'm focused on so that they don't make the same mistake again later.

00:30:44.220 You can do it in a polite way. Um, uh, or, you know, another thing you can do is if you get an,

00:30:49.780 if you get an introduction to someone where you can't really see what the benefit is, what the value

00:30:53.900 is to you, you can just say, great to meet you. And how can I, how can I help? Or if there's

00:31:00.040 any way I can help, just let me know. And it might be something tiny, you know, even if you can't see

00:31:05.120 any benefit from that person whatsoever, at least initially, just based on their vocation or whatever

00:31:10.660 it is they do, maybe they have some tiny little question. Maybe they have some tiny little request

00:31:16.660 that takes very little amount of your time. And actually there's a great, um, strategy is called

00:31:22.760 the five minute favor. There's a guy named Adam Rifkin who was named by fortune magazine as their,

00:31:28.020 uh, best networker of 2011, I think. Um, and he does what he calls a five minute favor,

00:31:34.280 which basically if anyone asks him for a favor, he'll, he'll do it as long as it takes less than

00:31:37.980 five minutes. And so sometimes I'm not saying you have to commit five minutes, but it could be 30

00:31:42.640 seconds. I mean, like sometimes people will, it turns out they just have some like tiny little

00:31:46.820 question. And with you, Brett, I mean, you're, you have the advantage of you've been putting out

00:31:53.140 advice for five, six years now. And, and a lot of your advice is out there. So, um, someone might

00:32:00.000 ask you a question and you probably answered it in 2000 words or more, um, you know, at some point

00:32:07.380 in the last five years. And so you can, you can think off the top of your head, you know, I know

00:32:11.700 exactly where the answer is this, and you could send an article to that person that doesn't take

00:32:15.600 much of your time, but you never know what will come from that result. You know, that person might be

00:32:20.520 so grateful from that personal touch, you know, from getting that from you that then they go and

00:32:26.880 refer their next 20 friends to read art of manliness every month, you know? So that's how I would

00:32:33.460 probably approach it. But I do agree with you that I think that, um, you have to perceive on the,

00:32:40.100 first you have to be attuned to what the other people need. And anytime you make an induction,

00:32:44.480 it needs to be mutual. It needs to be, there's benefit to both sides. That's what I always try and

00:32:50.460 do. I don't know if it always works out, but that's what I always try to do. And then the other

00:32:53.900 thing is I also try and judge how busy the other people are and the busier the person, the more

00:32:59.140 likely I'm going to send an email in advance. It says, Hey, I'd like to introduce you to so-and-so

00:33:04.440 here's why I think it could be a benefit to you. Would you like me to make that introduction? If not,

00:33:09.600 no harm, no foul. And I've done that with you. I've done that with lots of other people before,

00:33:13.840 and it takes a little bit more of your effort, but even if you don't actually make the introduction,

00:33:18.140 the person that you've offered to make the introduction to is grateful that you offered

00:33:22.880 to make the introduction, even if they respond and say, that's okay. I don't think I need the

00:33:28.080 introduction. Um, I think that they're, they're so grateful that you, that you, uh, put out the

00:33:33.860 gesture that you wanted to make the introduction. Okay. Here's another question that, um, I have. So

00:33:38.680 you, you, you, you're, you're putting yourself out there. You're trying to build relationships,

00:33:43.260 add value. Um, I mean, how do you deal with like rejection, right? Like someone says, no, thank you.

00:33:50.060 I don't want your help. Uh, cause I'm sure that happens a lot. Right. Um, so what, and for some

00:33:56.140 people or for some guys that could be like sort of devastating, um, because for whatever reason,

00:34:01.180 right. Uh, so how, what's your advice on handling rejection in the networking process?

00:34:07.700 Yeah. Um, that's tough. Um, you know, it, it's part of the process. I mean, you have to recognize

00:34:15.500 that you're gonna experience some rejection and you're gonna have to be a bit resilient. There

00:34:22.320 could be a number of reasons why you're experiencing rejection or why someone doesn't, oftentimes the,

00:34:28.460 the rejection doesn't come in the form of no, sorry, I'm not interested in meeting you.

00:34:33.420 It might come in the form of them not responding to your email. Um, you know, you, you send an email,

00:34:39.500 you don't receive a response, which there could be a lot of different reasons for that. It could be

00:34:43.820 the person just is really busy. It could be their business is busy. It could be, they have some

00:34:47.480 personal thing going on in their life. You never know what's going on in someone's life. So the first

00:34:52.420 thing I would say is don't take it personally. You know, a lot of people receive a lot of email,

00:34:57.880 or they just are very busy or the timing isn't right. I mean, the oftentimes it's just the timing's

00:35:05.280 not right for you at that time or with that person. You can't expect every connection to be

00:35:12.860 dynamite. You know, even if it's someone who maybe you're really excited about meeting or really excited

00:35:18.080 about the potential of getting to know, you know, maybe that person has lots and lots of people in

00:35:24.540 their life. They, of the category that you fall into. So, you know, getting back to like, if you're

00:35:29.720 a photographer, maybe that person has lots of photographers in their life. And so they just don't

00:35:34.840 have a need for another photographer in their life. And so, you know, you got to take the approach of,

00:35:40.400 well, it won't always work out or maybe, you know, I've had lots of great relationships work out

00:35:45.160 where the first time we connected for whatever reason on my side or their side, it was, the timing

00:35:51.440 was not right. Something was going on in one of our lives where we didn't make the connection. And

00:35:56.700 then something happens later. You circle back a month or two later, you email each other once again,

00:36:02.240 or you meet at another event and then a nice relationship blossoms. So take the long game,

00:36:07.780 like I mentioned earlier, take the long game and realize that sometimes there are going to be

00:36:11.480 little minor setbacks and you, you know, might, the tying might just not be right.

00:36:16.300 Okay. So a lot of our listeners are in college or in grad school. How can college age guys start

00:36:24.200 networking now?

00:36:26.220 Yeah, that's a great question. And yeah, I know because I get a lot of emails from college age

00:36:30.920 guys after I write articles. So, so I hear this a lot and I got a great example. There's a guy who's

00:36:37.900 in college who emailed me a couple of months ago, I think it was after reading one of my articles on

00:36:44.560 art or manliness and said, um, I'm interested in developing a relationship with the president of

00:36:50.480 my school. And so I, and they have open office hours. So I was just going to go in and introduce

00:36:55.640 myself. What should I talk about? And it was kind of funny. It was like, okay. And, um,

00:37:03.060 first of all, I was like, good for you for doing that. I mean, I guarantee you this president's

00:37:08.500 probably sitting in the office hours and very few people take the, uh, initiative to come in

00:37:14.500 and introduce themselves. And then the second thing I said is think about what perspective you

00:37:20.400 can provide that can be of help to that president. And you'd be surprised. There's probably a lot you

00:37:26.620 can do. And so I said, think about, you know, maybe there's some initiative that that president is

00:37:30.920 really passionate about on that campus that they want to get going. Or maybe they, they just want to

00:37:36.420 want some feedback from what the pulse of the students is. They want to know what the word is

00:37:41.900 on the street, so to speak in the college. They want to know, you know, what it's like, or they,

00:37:46.280 maybe they're interested in what if we were to, you know, do bands in the plaza at lunch on Fridays,

00:37:52.020 would that go over well? Is it worth the investment? Would that improve morale? Um, you know,

00:37:57.500 something like that. And so I said, go in with an attitude of that and just offer, you know,

00:38:02.240 to, to be a liaison to the students or to, to, um, inform the president about things that are going

00:38:09.820 on that the president might not know about. So this guy ends up going and doing that ends up and

00:38:14.440 emails me a couple of months later and said, it went fabulously. They ended up having this great

00:38:18.680 conversation. Um, and the president, you know, wanted a ton of feedback on these exact things that

00:38:24.680 we talked about. So you might have more perspective than you think, and you can do the same thing out in

00:38:31.040 the real world where you can provide perspective to people, you know, basically on, on, you know,

00:38:36.860 what your, your view of the world is. The other thing I would offer is again, introductions,

00:38:41.320 getting back to introductions, no matter how much you think your network isn't worth anything,

00:38:46.280 there probably is someone that you know already, even if you're in college, who you can introduce

00:38:51.300 to someone else. You don't need to start with your dad's friend, who's a partner at a big law firm

00:38:57.320 downtown. You know, you can probably start smaller. You can start with a couple of people

00:39:03.200 within your network. Just start the practice of, it turns out that, you know, my friend who goes to

00:39:08.640 this other college, you know, maybe you've got a, maybe you've got a friend who went to UCLA and

00:39:13.200 another friend who went to UCLA and it turns out that they don't know each other and you can

00:39:16.760 introduce them. That's it. You could start by doing that and then you can build it as a practice

00:39:21.780 throughout your life and just continue doing that. Eventually you work your way up the scale.

00:39:25.740 Eventually you find yourself introducing more and more people at higher and higher levels.

00:39:31.220 And I mean, I've had amazing results from introducing people. I've had people

00:39:34.300 start businesses together. I've received emails from people. I had an email from a guy

00:39:38.900 a couple of months ago who I'd introduced to someone else. He said, I probably got $10,000

00:39:43.400 out of that introduction because we did business together. And I get that sort of thing and I am

00:39:48.240 just so glad. And then the second thing I say is, great, next round of drinks is on you.

00:39:52.260 Yeah. And that, that's a really, I mean, just find ways to be, I'm sure, even though you're

00:39:57.980 in college, you can probably find ways to be useful for people that, you know, you want to

00:40:03.280 work for eventually or within the, you know, university administration. Have you, do you know,

00:40:08.580 Charlie Hohen, I think is his name?

00:40:10.640 Yeah. He's really good at this too.

00:40:12.180 Yeah. Like he's the big advocate. This is what he did with his, like when he was in college,

00:40:15.340 he basically like worked for free for these, just these big tech people. Right. And he ended

00:40:20.900 up landing a job, uh, being like Tim Ferriss's body man, basically. Uh, and he did really well,

00:40:28.140 like made a lot of money from it, but it all started with just like being useful. He just

00:40:31.860 says like email out of the blue here, I want to help you with this. There you go. I'll do it for free.

00:40:37.960 Yeah. And I mean, oftentimes it's, it's just being aware of what's going on with them. So with

00:40:42.040 Charlie Hohen, I think he might've connected with Tim around the time of one of his books launching,

00:40:46.420 but you know, if you know, someone has a book coming out, there's a lot of things you can do.

00:40:50.160 You can help to promote it. You can introduce them to other people who might buy it. Um, I just thought

00:40:55.800 of another example of someone in college who contacted me probably through another Art of

00:40:59.120 Manly's post. This is a guy who was in a band. He was in a band and he wanted to do more, his band to

00:41:06.860 do more gigs in the local concert venues around the college town that he lived in. And he said,

00:41:11.600 how can I, what do I have to offer these people who own these concert venues around town? What can

00:41:17.120 I, what benefit can I provide to them? And I said, well, you are a student at the college. They want

00:41:23.060 to get more students into their venues. So maybe what you could do is you could do a profile feature.

00:41:28.900 You could interview the owner of one of these venues, interview them and write a profile and

00:41:34.040 then publish it in the local newspaper. They'd probably love that. If you go and do that,

00:41:39.040 that vent, you know, that then you're building a relationship with that particular venue owner

00:41:43.960 and they're probably, you know, next question after that's probably going to be, so what's

00:41:47.700 going on with you? And you're like, Oh, by the way, I have a van, I have a band and, uh, you know,

00:41:51.540 and pretty soon you've got a gig, right? So, you know, thinking from their perspective,

00:41:56.500 oftentimes we have more assets at our disposal than we think we do.

00:42:00.880 Okay. Uh, what about guys who are in blue collar jobs? Cause I, we often think of

00:42:04.180 networking as sort of like this white, you know, middle manager thing that you do. Um, 0.84

00:42:09.620 but, uh, how can blue collar guy guys use networking to improve their career?

00:42:15.140 Yeah, I think it starts with what your goal is. So what you want to do with your career

00:42:21.200 and blue collar can, it runs the gamut. It can be a lot of different types of jobs,

00:42:25.300 but if you're self-employed and you want to get more customers, then it's going to be one kind

00:42:31.900 of goal. Or if you're working in an organization, maybe you're a mechanic and you want to work your

00:42:37.720 way up to head mechanic, then that's going to be a different set of goals. Um, I think it starts with

00:42:43.000 the conversations strategy that I talked about. Another thing you can do is create a conversations

00:42:48.400 list of the organizations that you could join that would be helpful to your vocation as well.

00:42:55.980 So let's say you're, uh, an apprentice, uh, learning to be an electrician or a plumber or something

00:43:01.360 like that. Well, there are probably organizations in your local community where you could build

00:43:06.420 relationships. So it would be helpful to that career to help you work your way up your lap up

00:43:10.180 the ladder and get more income. So you, you could identify, you could brainstorm a list of 10 different

00:43:16.220 organizations that you could join. It could be like a local chamber of commerce. It could be like

00:43:20.680 a BNI group, business network international. It could be like a, uh, electricians union that you

00:43:26.680 could get involved in. And then how can you deepen your involvement with that organization?

00:43:30.340 And I'm talking like, what I think a lot of people make the mistake of is they join 20 different

00:43:35.620 groups and then they don't attend or they go as one attendee of amongst a hundred people or a thousand

00:43:40.900 people to some event. I don't think that's a great strategy. What I think you should do is actually

00:43:44.800 focus on a handful of organizations and then deepen your involvement with that organization. So maybe you

00:43:50.060 join the board or maybe you organize an event for them, uh, or maybe you organize a training or you

00:43:55.540 speak or something like that. So doing those sorts of things, even if you're in a blue collar job by

00:44:01.060 first identifying what your goals are, whether it's, you know, adding, getting more clients or

00:44:06.220 customers, or whether it's working your way up the ladder, it starts with that. And then identifying

00:44:11.180 the people, the events and the organizations that you can involve yourself with, and then starting to

00:44:18.520 do that. And you can also test it over time. So you could take 12 months, say, I'm going to send 12

00:44:22.620 months deepening my involvement in these two to three groups and then see if it works. And if it

00:44:28.740 doesn't work, then you try something else at the end of the next year. Awesome. Um, do you have any

00:44:33.660 tips? Cause you've written about this before, but what are your tips for connecting with VIPs? I mean,

00:44:37.140 let's say on your, your conversation list, you want to connect with the president of some corporation,

00:44:42.240 some, you know, high profile journalist, a politician. What, what are your tips for connecting with

00:44:48.800 those types of people? Okay. So one of the things that this has been, uh, this is a little

00:44:54.360 controversial. Sometimes I have a strategy that I talk about, which is keep it personal, stupid.

00:45:00.400 You've heard of keep it simple, stupid. So this is keep it personal, stupid. So if you have the right

00:45:06.300 opening, the right opportunity, you should look for an opportunity to have a conversation with someone

00:45:12.300 about something, uh, having to do with, um, their personal life rather than their vocation.

00:45:19.600 Personally, I find it very boring when I meet someone and we immediately launch into talking

00:45:24.880 just about vocation. It's not a great way to get to know someone better, but you have to look for

00:45:30.660 the opportunity. So you have to wait for someone to open the door. Maybe they mentioned something,

00:45:35.220 you know, maybe you're at an event and you're talking to someone and they mentioned, oh, you know,

00:45:38.440 I have to leave in a little bit cause I'm going to my daughter's volleyball game. And then that's

00:45:42.900 an opening for you to say, oh, really your daughter plays volleyball. What level of college,

00:45:47.380 high school, take interest in it and then follow up with it. And maybe you have some connection to

00:45:51.640 volleyball that you can follow up with them as well. Um, and I, you know, I'll give an example.

00:45:57.140 Like I asked an example on, on social media a couple of months ago, I asked people, what would you

00:46:03.620 say to Oprah, if you met Oprah and it doesn't need to be Oprah? It could be someone else who's of equal

00:46:09.560 accomplishment within your industry. I just use her as an example cause she's famous. But if you

00:46:14.040 were to meet Oprah, what would you say to someone who's of that level, the caliber of success and the

00:46:20.140 types of questions that people responded were these deep, deep questions. Like, you know, like how do I

00:46:25.940 get started in starting my own TV network? And like, how, how do you publish your own magazine? And how do I

00:46:32.220 break into the TV industry? And you know, honestly, if I was talking to Oprah Winfrey, I wouldn't talk

00:46:37.540 about any of those things. The handful of things that I know about Oprah Winfrey, which admittedly

00:46:42.180 are not that much, would be that she likes Yellow Labs. I've read that somewhere. She has a house in

00:46:46.620 Santa Barbara, which is where I went to college and a few other things. And I'd probably just end up

00:46:51.140 talking about those little personal things cause that's so much, it's so much, you're so much more

00:46:57.280 likely to build a personal bond with them. And I'll just tell one quick story about working at the

00:47:02.020 White House. So one of the perks, I guess you can call it, when I worked at the White House,

00:47:07.420 I don't know if they still do this, but they, the president would record the historic radio address

00:47:14.240 in the Oval Office on weekends, on either Saturday or Sunday morning. And they would invite some VIPs

00:47:19.460 down and employees down to, if you get it on the list, it wasn't a lot of people, down to listen to

00:47:25.900 him record it. And then they do a very quick photo line where you get a picture with the president.

00:47:29.320 And so I did this around the time I was leaving and my family came in from out of town and in order

00:47:35.900 to do it, because when do you get a picture in the Oval Office? And I'd been given a tip beforehand

00:47:40.480 about, um, that if you want to get a little extra time with him, bring him a gift. And at that time,

00:47:46.720 he was actually, President Clinton was actually collecting DVDs. He was building up his DVD

00:47:50.320 collection and he liked old Westerns. So we go and get a couple of old Westerns. We put a bow on them.

00:47:54.560 We bring him with us. We go down the Oval Office. He, he comes in at the last minute, walks in,

00:47:59.280 records the radio, radio address without a beat, without skipping a beat. And then immediately does

00:48:04.660 the photo line. And they're like members of Congress and like Hollywood directors and famous

00:48:09.260 people and stuff. And everyone's going by really quickly. And they get up to us and we hand over

00:48:13.260 this gift to him and he immediately looks at it. And then we end up having like a five,

00:48:19.080 10 minute conversation about old Westerns, about like, you know, going to see movies as a kid in

00:48:24.860 Arkansas. My dad actually was a TV, uh, film critic on when I was a kid. And so he can talk about

00:48:30.700 movies with anyone. And so we have this, you know, just like a very normal human conversation

00:48:36.560 with the leader of the free world, standing in the heart of power in the Oval Office with all these

00:48:41.800 other VIPs behind us waiting in line. And the reason I tell that story is because if you can,

00:48:48.820 if I can have a very personal conversation with the leader of the free world in that circumstances,

00:48:53.500 then you can have a very personal conversation about a quote unquote mundane topic with someone

00:49:00.640 who's very successful in your industry, be it a CEO, be it the president of your company,

00:49:06.260 be it a very successful salesperson, whoever it is, find that commonality, find that thing,

00:49:11.540 old Western movies, whatever it is, find that thing that you can talk about and then just have

00:49:16.240 a normal human conversation with them. And then that's the way that you start to build the bonds

00:49:20.700 of a relationship. Awesome. So keep it personal. Yes. Okay. All right. So it's our last question.

00:49:26.560 Uh, it's been a lot of great information here. Uh, but what can listeners start doing today? Like

00:49:31.740 as soon as they get done listening to this podcast, what can they start doing to be a better networker

00:49:35.700 or relationship builder? Excuse me. I'm not going to live that down, am I? Yeah, no,

00:49:41.220 it's, it's a really, it's a really good way to reframe it. I mean, it's nice. I like it.

00:49:44.920 Yeah. I mean, I think most people like building relationships. They don't like networking and

00:49:48.000 that's fine. Yeah. You know, I mean, what I would start with is the conversations list strategy that

00:49:52.440 I talked about, you know, taking 20 minutes to sit down and define the net, the 50 people you'd like

00:50:00.380 to either deepen an existing relationship or start a new relationship with, cause you haven't met them

00:50:06.740 yet over the course of the next 12 months, that 20 minutes. And honestly, you don't need to take

00:50:11.700 more than 20 minutes could take you 15, um, could save you 20 years of wasted effort. And that's not

00:50:18.600 an exaggeration. So often people do not take the time to decide and to define who are the people who

00:50:26.600 I want to surround myself with, who engage and inspire me, who are the people who I want to be my ideal

00:50:33.440 circle, my ideal network of friends and confidants and people who I can just pick up the phone and

00:50:39.240 talk to a couple of years from now. Who are those people? Define who those people are and then start

00:50:45.260 taking steps over the course of the next few months to start to build those relationships. If it's

00:50:51.780 someone that you know already, then just be sure to remain in touch with them every once in a while,

00:50:56.920 get to get together with them for lunch or a drink or coffee or go for a walk or go for a hike.

00:51:03.400 Or play a pickup basketball game together or whatever, do whatever it takes to in order to deepen

00:51:08.120 that relationship. Um, I think that's the best thing that you can do to be intentional about building

00:51:14.160 the network that you'd like to have in the future. Awesome. Well, John Corcoran, thank you so much for

00:51:18.060 your time. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Brett. Our guest today was John Corcoran. He is the owner of

00:51:23.320 smartbusinessrevolution.com. Uh, go check it out. It's a great blog with lots of great, useful

00:51:28.720 information about how to be an effective networker. He also has a great podcast where he talks about

00:51:34.220 how to be a networker, has guests who are experts in that field. Uh, if you go there, sign up for his

00:51:39.360 free email newsletter, you'll get a free ebook called double your income by building relationships

00:51:43.700 with influencers, uh, with just jam packed with information on how to connect with VIPs and

00:51:49.480 influencers who can help you progress in your career. So great ebook, smartbusinessrevolution.com.

00:51:54.920 Go check it out. Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For

00:52:01.020 more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com.

00:52:06.440 And if you enjoy the podcast, you're getting something out of it. I'd really appreciate it.

00:52:10.420 If you would go to iTunes, Stitcher, whatever it is used to listen to the podcast, give us a rating.

00:52:15.700 I don't care what it is. It's just the more ratings, the better. And I'll get the word out about the

00:52:20.260 show. And also just to let you know, we have started transcribing our podcasts. So if you

00:52:25.700 want to go back and you're more of a reader, you can go read through all of our past episodes. Just

00:52:31.400 go to artofmanliness.com slash category slash podcast. Um, you'll have the archives of all of

00:52:37.460 our podcasts and you'll be able to access the transcripts of all those shows. So that's

00:52:41.880 something else to check out until next time. This is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

00:52:50.260 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - December 06, 2014

#92： How to Network Without Networking With John Corcoran

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