Transcripts
1. SkillShare Intro Video : All right. Hello, and welcome to growing your freelance business. In this course, we're
really going to talk about the power
of relationships and how they can help you take more control
of your future in terms of finding and winning the clients that you
actually want to work with. We're going to acknowledge
some of the challenges with networking in a section
called Why Networking Sucks and give you some tools
to overcome any fear you might have if you're an introvert, if
you're an extrovert. We're going to talk
about the power of warm introductions and the power of referrals and
how to get them. We'll be dabbling a
little bit into AI and how to leverage AI tools
to speed your outreach. We're going to do
a drill down on selecting new business targets. So selecting five to ten new companies that
you'd like to work with. Then in your final
class project, you're going to have
the opportunity to take tangible steps to build new relationships, rekindle
old relationships, and also build your brand
and profile so that you can consistently
build a new stream of relationships and hopefully
a new stream of income. Our new streams of income. So, we also finally
have a bonus section, which is a Q&A of the most common questions that people have
around networking. So I hope you enjoy the class. I think you'll find a
lot of value in it, and also included extras, such as a student
workbook so that you can take notes along the way and your practical class
project at the end. So look forward to seeing
you in the course. And if you do take it, let me know how you
think it went and how we can improve.
Thanks a lot.
2. Lesson One Why Build Relationship : Hey, welcome, everybody. This is growing your freelance business, mastering business relationships,
and I'm your host Paul. In this course, I think
the big question is, you may be asking why
even build relationships? Why invest time and
money potentially in getting to know people even
before you need a client? You may be fully busy
right now and think you have no time for networking
and throughout this course, I'm going to encourage
you to be networking. And so here's the thing. Building relationships
isn't just about making connections when you're
desperate for business. It's really about setting the foundation before you
need anything from anyone. You think of it like
planting seeds. You don't wait until you're
hungry to plant the garden. By the time the
vegetables would grow, it would be way too late. Think of relationships as an investment in
your future success. When you take the time to
genuinely connect with people, when there's no pressure
to sell or close a deal, you create space for
authenticity and that authenticity
really builds trust. Trust is ultimately the
cornerstone of any relationship. There's another
benefit to building these relationships
and doing it early. Then you get to really
know the person. It's a two way street. You're evaluating them, but
they're also evaluating you. You can feel and look and say, is this somebody that I would
like to do business with? Is this somebody that I trust? Is this somebody who I feel
like our values would align? You really get to understand them and you get to
spread the word. You can use an opportunity
to meet with somebody they could be a potential
client or they could be a referral source,
which we'll talk about. But waiting until
there's an emergency, you've lost a client,
a company merges, something happens,
then you're rushed. We want to get outside of that. When you haven't nurtured
your relationships, you might feel like
you have to take whatever client is available and sometimes you might
have to. That's true. But the more relationships
you build now, the more options
you can have later, and it allows you
to truly pick and choose the relationships and
the clients that you want. So overall, this gives you the power of choice,
the benefit of trust, and a confidence to know that if the time comes
when the time comes, you already have a solid
foundation to grow from. Don't wait until
you need clients to start to build these
relationships. I think investing today, investing in your future is
definitely the way to go. Now, in this course, I've also included a
student workbook, so I'd encourage you to
open that up and take notes along the way and this will give you a
place not only for notes, but your own action
steps that you can note. Thanks for tuning
into this lesson. As you'll see, our
next lesson is all about networking sucks. How do we deal with that?
How do we get over that? We'll see you over
in that lesson.
3. But Networking Sucks : I just want to dig
in in this one and acknowledge something
you all may be feeling, which is, hey,
networking sucks, right? Because I think for
a lot of people, it does seem like a chore, and depending if you're an
introvert or an extrovert, it may feel extra painful, I want to just acknowledge that that's okay
to feel that way, that you can feel like this
is going to be a challenge. You can feel like this
is going to be painful. But remember, keep your
vision on the end goal, which is a stable
growing business and you being able to achieve
your personal goals. I think that's great. Now, just to dig into some of
the stats and facts, I saw one study
that 40% of people fear rejection when networking and that's
why they don't do it. I think when you think about it, we have the various
parts of our brain and the Mgdala is one that is the fight or
flight, keeps us safe. This taps into primeval or
primal survival instincts. If I get rejected,
oh, that's dangerous, I don't want to do it.
Just acknowledge that. Sometimes there's
a technique I've seen where people take
an issue like that, the fear just imagine putting it in front
of them on the table, looking at it, saying,
that's interesting. I have fear around
this, but I've got to move forward and then
just pushing it aside. See if something like
that works for you. So if we reframe the way we're
thinking about networking, we can have greater success. And not only does this work in your business in terms of
growing your business, but also when you
think about friends and colleagues who
find new jobs, 80% of jobs today come
through networking. I hear the horror stories of
people applying for jobs and the AI bot scanning through their resume
and kicking them out. I hear people getting ghosted after they've gone through six, seven, eight interviews,
that is the reality. But where you go in
and you've built a relationship and you
have a connection, you have a much better chance of not only getting that job. But in keeping it as well. Then let's dig in a little bit to the
introvert extrovert thing. There's a couple of ranges. Myers Briggs, which does
the personality assessment, says that between 50-74% of professionals
identify as introverts, we think about introverts, they struggle with
large settings, but they thrive in a one on
one moment or connection. That's good to know. You might not be better off
at a conference, but maybe you're better
off coffee shop, right? Extroverts are comfortable
meeting people, but they may lack the
depth in follow up. Both have strengths and both can be effective
in networking. So just to wrap it up, I want to acknowledge that this can
be challenging, painful, depending on if
you're an introvert, depending on if
you're an extrovert. Some people may literally
be terrified of this and I acknowledge that
and say, that's okay. But if you take this
step by step approach, I believe you can be
successful and you can help gain control of your business and your opportunities.
Hang in there. I acknowledge it, we
acknowledge it together, and let's move forward. All
right. See the next one.
4. So How Do You Get Started : All right. Welcome back. Now that we've talked
about the power of relationship
building and how it can really help your own
business development, we're answering a
big question next, which is so where do I start? If you're serious about building the right relationships to secure more clients and just
to be more well rounded, you need a clear starting point. That begins with
taking a hard look at your current clients and type of work that
you're known for. So in analyzing
current clients is super important. Who are they? What type of work are
you doing for them? Are you known for a
particular niche or service? Is it graphic design? Is it some other type
of communications tool? Is it KNva? Who knows? But I think this
analysis will help you if you can bucket it
into big buckets like that, maybe design
communications tools. If you're a writer,
could be writing. This will help you assess where you're starting from today. Then ask yourself, am I
looking for more of this work? Because sometimes the same
work can get boring over time or it can
become lower value, for example, if we're
in the middle of a transformation like the
large language models in AI, hat GPT, all of that. You may be saying, I'm doing
business type X right now, but I really want to be
doing business type Y. That's a different strategy. I think this is going to guide your relationship
building efforts. Um, so for example, if you're really known in, say, the retail or
retailer space, but you want to get into
health care because you know it's a growing industry
or financial services, then that is going to impact who you begin to build
relationships with. Um, Next up, I think
industries overall. If you can do a breakdown
of what industries your clients are in and then take a hard look
at those industries. Are they growing or
are they shrinking? We know some businesses will do better in this environment and
some will do worse. If you have a bunch
of clients who are in an industry that is dying, for example, you may want
to be making some changes. There's a study I
read recently by LinkedIn that said 62% of business leaders say
networking within their industry has led
directly to new clients. By focusing on the industries
that matter most to you, this gives you your direct
relationship building efforts. That's part one. Who are your clients?
What type of work? Part two is where
they come from? Were they secured
through a referral? Were they secured through
just a random lead? You heard about it or you saw an open request for proposal
and you just went for it. This is going to be really
important because this will help you understand where your clients have
come from today. Then from there, you can also look at what
is your win rate. I've done this when
I've worked for big communications agencies
and found that our win rate was four times higher
where we had any kind of relationship versus just what I used to call over the transom, meaning that it was
a lead, somebody, we heard about it,
so we went for it. The win rate was much
lower in those instances. This can help guide
you. And as you think about where you go
after you've identified, the types of clients you have now, do you want more of them, the types of industries you're in now versus where
you want to be? I think the next thing
we'll talk in detail about is referrals and
recommendations. 84% of people,
according to Nielsen, trust recommendations
of people they know and making referrals as one of the most powerful new
business drivers. Importantly, it's
the lowest cost. If you have to go and even drive to go see a client
or if you have to go and prepare a bunch of
work on a proposal versus getting a warm introduction
from a current client, for example, or a former client, those are going to convert at a much higher rate and there's
almost no cost to that. So profitability of clients
is the last element, how profitable are
these clients? The way you think of this is if your proposal was
for 10 hours of design, but with the back and forth, you went over it and you
essentially gave 15 hours, but you didn't charge
the client for that. That is a less
profitable assignment than a five hour assignment
where you got to bill your time
throughout and there was no overages. Think
about that as well. How profitable is your business? So the last bucket here is really around
client retention. What are you doing today to nurture your current
client relationships? How can you add
more value to them? There's a Harvard Business
Review study that said, client retention
can increase by 5%, just a 5% increase in
keeping clients, right? Actually impacts your profit by up to 95% in the positive. Knowing which clients are
more profitable and then keeping them, it
is very important. New client acquisition is the most expensive part
of business development, and if you can eliminate those fees by retaining
your clients, oh my gosh, pure profit. So I asked the question,
where do you start? You start by analyzing
your current clients, understanding where
they came from, which industries they're in. Are they the kind
of work you want to keep doing? So
where do you start? You start by analyzing
your current clients, understanding where
they came from, and figuring out
which relationships are most valuable to you. This will give you
a clear picture of what's working and where you may need stronger connections and where you also want to grow. So remember,
business development isn't just about
finding new clients. It's also about cultivating
the right clients, the ones that are profitable,
aligned with your goals, and importantly, it's about retaining your current clients. So thanks for tuning in. I hope you've been following
along in the workbook, and we're going to
continue to dive into these actionable strategies
in our next videos.
5. Why Cold Outreach Doesn't Work : Welcome back. In this chapter, we're going to be talking
about something that probably a lot of us have
tried over the years, and that's cold outreach. What I mean by that is just randomly sending somebody
a LinkedIn message, an email, leaving a message on a voicemail or trying
to reach them live. Everybody tries this, especially
the harder times are, your boss may give you a list of number of people you got
to call or you may say, Oh, man, I really
got to get on this. But the cold truth is that
cold outreach rarely works. And there is a chance
you could get lucky. You might have a
situation where somebody has departed from their vendor, provider, partner, and you
call right at the right time. But the chances are super low. In fact, according to Mailchimp, the newsletter distribution
and email service, cold outreach works just 1%
of the time. Think of that. For every 100 cold emails
that you send out, that means one
person may respond. Then if your win rate is 25%, which we pretty good,
you're going to need at least 400 emails to
get one new person. To me, that is probably
not a great use of time. And just to put this
in perspective, according to Sales hacker, when you have any kind of referral or a warmer
introduction, if you will, the rate
can increase by 50%. So think of that. I think
if you focus on that, then you're really
going to want to focus on warm leads and introductions. Then another big reason
that cold outreach rarely works is it's all about trust. If you just send an email
blank or if you send a LinkedIn message and they have no idea who you are,
you have no trust. You have nothing built up,
you have no relationships, so it's no wonder they
just don't respond. For me, personally,
I probably get five of these types
of emails a day. They're arbitrary. I'm head of Comms and Marketing, right? They may be about
our health record or our phone service or
something else entirely. Um so when you get those,
it's like a double whammy. It's like, did you just buy
a list and spam America? What is happening? So
definitely doesn't work. Now, the flip side as to why you need to
build trust, Edelman, the huge communications agency says that 81% of
consumers believe that trust is a key factor
in their decision as to whether or not to
engage with a business, and you are ultimately
a business. So Cold outreach essentially skips that relationship
building phase, and that lack of any kind of meaningful connection means that your time is getting
wasted here. So one recent study by Topo found that 83% of people
who are in sales, they say cold outreach takes longer and delivers
less value compared to any warmer connection like a referral or even
inbound marketing where you get a receive a call of interest in your services. So if cold outreach isn't
the answer, then what is? What I call this is
around warm leads. Warm leads represent
a better way because there's some
relationship in fact in place. In fact, research by invest shows that conversion rates for warm leads are higher anywhere 4-10 times higher
than cold leads. Instead of spending your time
investing in cold leads, let's really think through
our warm lead strategy.
6. The Power of Referrals: Now let's talk in more detail about the power referrals
and how to get them. This one is really
important, I think, and you definitely
want your workbook out for this to take some notes. We've talked about new clients and there's always that buzz. We used to get so
excited when we went a big new client and it's like everything is
perfect right at that moment. But getting to that
point could be painful. You could send out
100 cold emails. You could make ten calls. Po rarely call anymore. But really the easiest way to find new clients is through
your current network, and I'll talk about that. Why do referrals matter so much? Because they aren't
just any kind of lead, they're the highest
quality lead you can get. When someone you've
worked with is willing to recommend you
to their network, that's a direct
transfer of trust. Trust is golden business
as we've talked about. I've mentioned some
of the referral stats before, but again, Nielsen has said
84% of people trust recommendations from
people they know more than any other form of network. And also referrals lead
to faster decisions and higher win rates because people have a high level of confidence. If someone has recommended you, that they're going to have
a good experience because someone's put their name on
the line to recommend you. Research shows that
referred customers have a 16% higher
lifetime value, meaning that they're
going to be able to spend with you on
multiple projects, and as I mentioned before, they close at much
higher win rates are conversion rates up
to 50-70% higher, which is what I
experienced as well. How do you go about
it? How do you go about asking for a referral? When you ask for a referral, you're really leveraging
an existing relationship to introduce yourself to new, high quality potential
clients who trust you. Instead of spending time
building that initial trust through a cold lead
or conversation, you're halfway there. Now one of the ways
you can research potential referrals
is through LinkedIn. Obviously, you've already done the work to understand the
type of work you want more of, the industries you
want to be in, and now you can start to
understand your buyer. If you're selling to a
chief marketing officer or a digital manager, it's a very different pitch. But you can use
LinkedIn to understand where people in your network may already know
these individuals. That is an easy way to say, go to a friend or a colleague or former co
worker and go to them and say, Hey, I'm interested in
breaking into this industry. I see you know so
and so on LinkedIn. I'd love to get an introduction
if you don't mind. Or if they're not comfortable, would you mind if I just
use your name saying, Hey, we know somebody in common, and then at the right
moment, perhaps service a reference for? The other thing
that's interesting is a lot of people are hesitant to ask for referrals because they think people don't
want to give them. But remember Dale Carnegie, that guy how to win friends
and influence people. Anyway, that company
has found that 91% of customers say they would give referrals if
they were asked. But only 11% of salespeople or vendors or partners actually asked for the referral.
Isn't that crazy? 91% would do it, but only 11% will actually ask. That's a huge gap. So many of your current clients may
be happy to refer you. What I'd like you to
do in the workbook is just put down there
an idea of who are your top three existing clients in terms of those you think would actually give
you a referral. Why don't you do
that now? Then when the time comes to ask
them for a referral, there's some easy language and I'll put this in
the guide as well. It could be something like, Hey, and so I've really enjoyed
working with you on this project and I'm looking to take on a few more
clients like you. Do you know anyone
in XYZ industry who might benefit from the same work we've
been doing for you? I'd love an introduction if
you think that makes sense. If you don't have any ideas now, maybe you could just
think about it. So I think something
like this makes it easy for the clients say,
they're pleased with you. They want to see
your business grow because they want to
make sure you can be a provider in the future.
It makes a lot of sense. Um, yeah, we mentioned LinkedIn. There's a lot of stats that
show that people who use LinkedIn to try and make those connections,
it really does work. Then I think you
can easily go to those mutual connections
that you have and just send a
message and say, Hey, do you know so and so is your relationship
close or casual, would you be comfortable giving me an introduction or referral? And I'm also curious about your experience in
terms of referrals. Have you used it before? I think a lot of people are afraid to. But if you can get
one or two or three of your current clients open
to giving you referrals, you only have to go
to them once a year, because you may take on three, four new clients a year, you wouldn't have to go
to them very often. So that just gives you a
glimpse at the power referrals. I really hope you'll
be part of that 11% who asked your client
base for referrals. Don't be afraid,
see what happens. The worst they can say is
no, I'm not comfortable, and then that's an
interesting conversation too, because you can say, Oh,
really, tell me more. Who knows? They may not be
happy with your work and then you can dig in and
make sure they're happy. So in the future, they
would give you a referral. All right. Power referral, we will see you in the next one.
7. Selecting New Business Targets: All right. Welcome
to our section on selecting your new
business targets. This is an important one
and we'll set you up for success in the class project. So I want to stress here that we've talked about examples and we've talked
about some theory. So I want to get
practical and make this really useful for
you and add value. And to do that, I want
you to come away with five to ten really good
potential new business targets. So I think, first of all, you want to understand,
as we've talked already, what category you
want to go after, where are your
strengths, and where you can add a lot of value now. So first of all, think
that through and then think about what companies you might
be interested in. We all have our dream
list of companies that we want to work for.
So who are they? And what I want you to do
is now go into LinkedIn. You can either do
this loggedI as you are because then you'll
see your connections, or if you don't want anybody to see you searching for them, you can also log out
and go in Incognito. But first, let's talk
through the scenario where you want to leverage
your existing connections. So if you go into LinkedIn and you'll put
in the company name, and then you'll quickly
be able to identify first or second degree connections
that you already have. With those first or second
degree connections, you can see how
close a relationship you might have to that contact, and then you can reach
out to that contact and ask how close their relationship is
with your prospect. Importantly, the
question to ask is, would you be open to
connecting me to that person? So I will do this with folks who I have a strong
relationship with. I do this actually
once or twice a week. I've done it now twice this week and it just
helps get the door open. It doesn't mean that
you're going to be successful with that company, but at least you'll be able to have what I'd call
warm introduction, and that's powerful
as we've seen. And when you think of selling in a business to
business, you know, there's two types
of organizations in sales business to consumer, meaning consumer
product, could be coke, could be pancake mix, could be gasoline
for your car, right? And then there's
business to business. So these are service
organizations, like many of you probably are. And with B to B, LinkedIn is the most
powerful resource for you, where LinkedIn did
some research, and they said that, you know, 80% of business to business leads are somehow
connected to their platform, either through research, advertising or some
other component. So that's the first step.
The second step is, I want you to get
really smart about your clients, your
future clients. To do that, a couple of things. One, you can use Chat ChIPT for this or Gemini or any of
the other AI platforms, or I think most of us
will go to Google, and then you want
to start to search that company name and then
you're looking for news. First of all, you can
go to their website, you can see their press releases
that they've published. But you can also
go to Google and search for any recent
updates or company news. I'll give you a mix of news
coverage, press releases. You can also see
major digital updates that they may have done as well. And this is important because you'll then want to
set up Google alerts. Google Alerts, to me, is the easiest way to keep
tabs on a company. There are also social
monitoring tools that Sprout Social or others that you can investigate for social media trends or
monitoring or alerts. But I think what
you want to do is just get familiar
with this company. So who the leadership? What have been there
big announcements? Now, this will look like
a disconnect at first. So let's say you sell some type of video service
or graphic design, writing services, why would you need to know if they're in
the middle of an acquisition? Why would you need to
know if they just had big earnings or if their
earnings tanked, right? Because all of that is
information to say, Hey, is there opportunity
in change here? Right? Even a company that
might be not performing well and announced
terrible earnings, they may be reducing
headcount internally, and then perhaps they're going
to hire more consultants. We've seen this time
and time again. On the flip side, if they're getting ready to
get approved for a big merger or they've
already made clear they want to acquire in
different categories, then you can get Smart and
follow and then be ready. Alright. And then the other
thing coming back once you've really started to learn the company and you want
to take it down a level, is you can go back into
LinkedIn and really start to explore the
organizational structure, key departments, and
decision makers. So if you've learned that one of the divisions of the
organization is really going to be a growth entity. Then you can go back into
LinkedIn and see who are their heads of marketing communications, who's their CEO. And then this will
allow you to start to study their posts and their projects and any
other shared content. And then when you go to make your warm introduction through someone that you've identified
as part of your network, you're going to sound
so smart, right? Because there's no
excuse right now to be under informed when you go after a new business prospect. The other thing which is really interesting, and it
depends where you live, of course, But if you live in an area where there are conferences, for example, and you find that one of these executives or individuals
come to the conference, what a beautiful way to
go, listen to them, speak, come up to them afterwards, tell them what you liked
about their presentation and speech and say, Hey, I provide this
kind of service. I'd love just to be able to
follow your company and just tell you that I'd love to do
work with you at some point. Do you mind if I connect
with you on LinkedIn? They'll probably
say, Yeah, go ahead. I've done this at even
the most senior levels, but you've got to be confident
and you've got to be strong coming in
with your message. Okay. So I think conclusion is we want to target those
five to ten companies. We want to use technology. So whether that's AI, Google, other search tools, we want to then begin to learn about our prospect and targets, right? And then we want to make
smart connections with them through trusted partners,
parties that we know. And then finally,
we want to look for opportunities by
tracking their news, tracking their speaking
engagements, other things. And then you'll be ready
to make your approach. And that'll be pretty exciting. So we'll talk about that as
well in the final project. Thanks. See you in the next one.
8. Skillshare Course AI and Networking: All right, and we're back with
one of my favorite topics. It's all about AI, and
this application is AI in networking and
outreach and management. So I think networking, as we know, is essential for
growth. It's hard to do. So how can you take some of
the mundane nature of it, some of the heavy
lifting by using AI? I think, first of all,
you're going to need a place to store
all your outreach, and that's usually a customer relationship management
or CRM tool. There are a number of platforms
that do this HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho. They track interactions. You can even do this more simply in an Excel spreadsheet,
for example. Um, but some of the automated systems
can help remind you. Send updates remind
you of when you need to follow up
with certain clients or it's been six months
or three months. Some of the tools
also can really personalize your outreach making your messages more effective. Tools like hat GPT, and Jasper, you can create
unique brand voices for you and for your company, and that can be. Think of what's on your website today or your LinkedIn page. You can create a
whole brand voice out of that and actually get assistance in
crafting first drafts. I wouldn't say just
use you know, bespoke, but you can definitely
create first draft. Let's say you've got someone
you haven't talked to in Ages and you want to reconnect
with an old contact. Instead of sending
some generic message, AI can analyze your
past conversations and suggest a warm
personalized email that references the
shared interests. Or you can just simply put in some of the key interactions
that you've had in the past and their interests and then it can generate a
first draft for you. There's a lot of tools for AI, what I call Lead Generation, LinkedIn Sales Navigator,
seamless Lusha. They help you find
potential partners based on their job
roles and industries. But again, a lot
of these are paid. Some of these tools can
actually scan LinkedIn, say, I want to find brand managers at companies under $50
million in sales and then it can go off and
actually find that for you. Also with follow ups, I think AI can help you
and make it easier. For example, if you said, Hey, I just met with this client, they're interested in XYZ. They're a big New York Mets fan, and we talked about maybe doing something around an upcoming healthcare
conference together. That can then create
a first draft for you that you then decide, does it fit my voice, tailor it, and then you can much more quickly follow up because I find the biggest struggle is you prep prep prep for
a big meeting. They say you can spend
up to ten times as much. 10 hours for a 1
hour meeting and prep and then a lot
of times the follow up just falls off because you've been so busy with spending this time in prep, but now you got to go back and
do your other client work. Using these tools to help you with basic overviews
of your company, basic follow up in advance and templating those can
really help you. So AI, for all its greatness
is not going to replace those human connections and what can happen in a one to one
meeting with somebody, but it can supercharge your networking efforts
from managing contacts, automating outreach to
potentially finding leads, and even scheduling follow up. It makes the process smarter,
faster, more effective. And so what I'd love
for you to do is just take one AI powered tool. It can be chat GPT, it can be a social
listening tool like Sprout if you have it. And basically, just for
the next week or so, just try it out and try and see how it might be and assist in your own relationship and relationship
building efforts. All right? Awesome, and we'll
see you in the next one.
9. Bonus Round Q&A : All right. Welcome to
the bonus section, which is a Q&A. So why don't we take
the first question? How do I approach
someone at an event? So how do I approach
someone at an event? I think that's a great
question. This one is tricky. Hopefully you've
done your research, you know who you
want to meet, so you'll have what I'd
call your warm open. Your warm open might be, oh, it's so great to see you. You're one of the reasons
I came to the conference, and in fact, I've
been meaning to ask you a very
specific question. So question. So hopefully that will help. What is a good way
to follow up with someone new after meeting
them for the first time? Yeah, what's a good way to follow up after
meeting someone new? It's a good question. I think this you'll want to really
be active listening. Now, this will be tricky
because you'll be usually revved up when you
meet somebody that you've been trying to
approach for a while. You're going to want to
make sure you're listening. If you're unclear on answers that they're
responding with, you could say things
like, tell me more. You could also use
in your follow up some anecdote of something
funny that might have happened in your conversation or some reference to
something that they mentioned that they really
like an upcoming game or something else that
they might be going to. I think anyway that you
can tailor it is key. Now, here's the other
critical thing. You've got to be
fast fast fast in the follow up because
there's usually a 24, 48, 72 hour window where someone
who's been at a conference, who has met a lot of people, they're digesting,
who did I meet? What did I or they've spoken and they've
gotten the feedback. I think it's important to really make sure you launch your follow up quickly and then ask for permission
to keep in touch. What if I don't know my focus? Should I still be networking? Yeah, that's a good one. What if I don't know what I want yet? Should I still be networking? I think the short
answer is, yes, you should always be networking. Because it's like if you went
to college when you went to college and some people are laser focused on their major
and what they want to do, others are undefined
or undecided. In a way, that undefined
or undecided is beautiful because
you're exploring what is it that you want? I think it's the same
thing with networking. The more people you meet more you get to practice your story, the more you get
to try things on, if you will, and
you get to learn. Again, if you're
a good listener, you get to learn about other businesses
and what people do, and that can maybe
even help you further refine what it is that
you'd like to do. If you're in doubt, I say
yes, always be networking. One last question. What if I haven't spoken
to someone in a long time? Oh, yeah, this is one of
my favorite questions. How do I maintain a
connection over time? This one is tricky, no doubt. I think the great thing is, though, once you've
built a relationship, you can keep it alive for a long time as long as you don't violate the
key factor of trust. This can be falling out of touch with
someone, for example, a former client of mine I hadn't talked to in
more than two years. He was from and lived
in Texas for a while, and so I found myself in
Texas at a big meeting I was at and I thought of him and I texted him and I said, Hey, I'm down in San Antonio. And remember you reminded me last time that we ate
at torchis tacos. So I ordered some torchis
tacos and thought of you, Hey, are you available in the next couple of
weeks to have a call? So we've since had a nice
1 hour conversation. I helped him with a project
that he was working on, and he helped me think
through a couple of things. So I think even if it's been a long time
since you've connected. It's never too late to connect or reconnect with somebody. I think a normal cadence would be at least once a quarter, try and having a meaningful interaction with your contacts. They can also send them
brief updates on what's new with you or
alerting them that you maybe want to break
into a new category or type of work. And
people want to help. They really do.
They want to help. Don't hesitate and don't let your any concern about
shyness or feeling like, they don't want to
hear about this stuff. No, people want to
hear. I say, go for it.
10. Final Project : All right, the moment
you've all been waiting for and that's
your final project. Welcome to the
wrap up of growing your freelance
business, mastering business relationships. The goal of this
assignment is fourfold. One, we want to strengthen existing business
relationships that you may already have but
aren't current clients. Two, we want to identify new business and new
networking opportunities. Three, we want you to try out at least one AI tool to
streamline your outreach. Then four, create a
personalized action plan. This doesn't have to be
extensive or exhaustive. We come away with a clear
one page action plan. So the first section is assessment of your
current network. I want you to make a list of five key professional
relationships that you already have. Write down when you
first connected and the last time that
you engaged with them and then identify
one action step for each person to maintain or
strengthen that relationship. This, by the way,
doesn't have to be in the last three
months or two weeks. This can be someone
who is strong in your network that you talked to in three years.
It doesn't matter. When you reconnect
with somebody, it's like time has
just not even gone by. This week, in fact,
I reconnected with a former business colleague
who I hadn't talked to in probably a year
and a half and we just moved right forward from
almost where we left off. Okay. Step two, I want you to identify new networking
opportunities. Choose one industry or professional space you
want to expand into. If that's healthcare, retail, automotive, then I
want you to find and list three connections that you'd like to make
in that space. Think of the companies
you'd like to work for. Think of individuals
that you may have heard of that seem like they'd be really
interesting to work with. Then I want you to use
that LinkedIn process that we talked about and research mutual connections and looking for a way to get
a warm introduction. Just quickly articulate what you see and then how
you're going to do it. All right then step three, we want to implement
a referral strategy. Remember that's your
most powerful weapon. Identify two current
or past clients or colleagues that
you've worked with who may be willing to refer you, draft a short
professional message asking them for a referral, and then send the message
and track response. This can be generic. Hey,
I just want to let you know I'm looking to build more business in the retail space. I'm hoping that you can help me. Would you be open
to that, or it can be much more
specific in that I'd love for you to be a
reference for me or an introduction in this space. Do you know any? So
that is something that it shouldn't be that hard to put
together, hopefully. Send the message and
track your responses. Then step four, I want you to actually boost your own LinkedIn profiles
because remember, 80% of those B to B leads
are coming from LinkedIn. This would be taking a
hard look and you may need a colleague friend
to join you in this. But look at your headline,
summary, and experience. Are you projecting
what you used to be or projecting what
you or want to be? Um, then I want you to identify three posts or links
within your industry, so those can be within your
new business prospects or can honestly just be in topics that
you're interested in. And then I want you
to engage with those. So like share comment because each time you like
or share a comment, that's going pretty much to your whole network as part
of their feed, right? Um, and then I want you to
send a connection request to at least two people with a personalized message.
This needs to be smart. Now, this is where
you can also use your warm introduction strategy if you want as an alternate. Do the research, figure two
people that you could get introduced to and
make the connection. Then step five, use
one AI powered tool. It could be Chachi
PT, a HubSpot, a LinkedIn Sales Navigator, whatever or Jasper to
assist in your networking. I want you to draft
one personalized email or LinkedIn message
for outreach. Ideally, again, once you've had a warm introduction,
you can leverage that. And then set a reminder for one week later to
track your reaction. Then just plan your follow up. You should schedule some weekly check in with these folks or make sure that they've heard from you in some
way, shape, or form. You can track this on Excel. But wherever you track
it just be consistent. So just quickly
complete each step, summarize your actions
in that document, and then upload your
one page summary. I promise to read them
all and give commentary, if you have questions
along the line, don't hesitate to send a
message feature in Skillshare. Be consistent, be meaningful, and keep on your engagement, and then also study the organizations that you
want to get to know and just continue to find ways
to make those connections, to make those warm
introductions. All right. I hope you
found this course helpful. Look forward to any and
all feedback so I can improve future courses.
I believe in you. I think again, regardless if the economy is booming or
we're in challenging times, uncertain times are
very predictable. All of these times, all of these periods, you should be networking,
you should be building those relationships and you'll feel more in control
of your future. I believe in you and
I think you can do. We hope you have enjoyed this course from
Wood Media Academy. Please leave a rating or review to let us
know how we did, and please do follow
for our future courses. Also, let us know what other
topics would be helpful. Thanks again and
happy networking.
Paul Wood
