How to Improve the Quality of Your Network – A Knowledge Bomb

Audio Transcription

Grabbed the duck tape and mentally prepare yourself for yet another mind expanding knowledge bomb from America’s number one business coach. Clay Clark.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Thrive nation. Welcome back to another exciting edition of the thrive time show on your radio and podcast download. And on today’s show we’re answering a question from Michelle. Andrew, are you prepared to read the question from Michelle? Oh yeah. Now Michelle, a last name starts with a p, a. This goes out to you. I’m going to send you a link to this shortly after we record it, and Andromeda is, I’m going to queue up some, you know, some good reading music for you. That way as you’re reading there, you don’t feel that, that sense of of pressure got it. That you could normally feel while reading a question from a thriver to the hundreds of thousands of people listening to this show. So here we go, Andrew. So

I am a current listener to your show and frequently hear yourself and guests on your show mentioned or alluded to, the five person principle. Basically, you are the average of the five people you spend your most time with for some reason, or for someone who doesn’t currently have a large support systems, positive and productive people around them. How and where would you recommend meeting the people to further, uh, meeting the best people to further their journey? I’ve discovered that it is very difficult to find other people who are driven, have integrity, are successful, and are genuinely pleasant

and helpful to be around. Any suggestions for Michelle? I do have some suggestions. Michelle. I kind of ended up with a heart. I actually, I should’ve hit the boom. Oh yeah. We’re going to read the question. Read the last line one more time please. Alright, here we go.

Discovered that it is very difficult to find other people who are driven to have integrity, are successful, and are genuinely pleasant and helpful to be around.

Oh, that was a better ending. Okay. Now I’m Michelle. I have a notable quotable I like to read. For all the listeners out there that aren’t familiar with this concept, I’m Jim Roan, the best selling author and the renowned speaker and in business trainer he wants said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So, um, I’m going to share with you, uh, the methods for getting ahold of these people. But, but Andrew, um, you, you are here with me during the day. Um, you, you see me in the office there. Do I often go out? Um, you typically never leave the office and do I do? I go around networking a lot of never. And you do that. Okay. And why do you think that is?

Because you’ve created an environment in the office of what you want with the people you want. So there’s no need to leave the office of everything that you want. Need is right there in the office. So what I want to share with this is teaching woman number one. I want to put this on the show notes for Ms Dot Michelle. Okay? The a team is rarely available, okay. The a team is rarely available to people who’ve really done it. The entrepreneurs who are really doing it, the people who have really achieved success, the top leaders, these people are hard to get ahold of because they’ve built either literal physical walls, they live behind a gated community, um, or they have built a digital boundaries, you know, so they’re not spending a whole lot of time on facebook or linkedin. Use the people at the very top of any industry that people, Michelle, that you want to network with, there are going to be harder to get ahold of.

Now the B team is readily available and want me to repeat that on the show notes. The a team is rarely available, but the b team is readily available. I mean, these guys, they’re ready to go. You can find them at any panera bread pitching their newest multilevel scam. And by the way, if you’re involved in a multilevel, that’s not a scam, congratulations to you, you would be the outlier, but the bd team is available. They’re available to teach you all their systems, all their moves. Now they’ve never done it and they don’t know how, but they’re able to. They’re able to teach you. They’re their magic money system. They’re getting rich quick pitch there. No money down real estate scam there that that’s what they do. The the team is readily available, so if you’re, if you’re trying to reach out, Michelle, to high quality people, please no idea.

Number one, the a team is going to be harder to get ahold of, but the b team is readily available. Now there are methods, so andrew, could you read method number one for getting a hold of the a team? We have four methods were teaching and I would encourage our listener today, Ms Dot Michelle to write all these down and if they don’t make sense a sense to you, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad student. Do means I’m a poor teacher. So please feel free to email again to [email protected] if further clarification is needed. Back to you, Mr Andrew. Alright, so method number one is intern for free for a person that you desire to connect with. Is it not true, Andrew? At the last in person workshop we had Michael Levine present. That is very true, and Michael Levine has been the PR consultant for Prince Michael Jackson, you know Nike, Charlton Heston, Nancy Kerrigan, and there was one lady in the audience who put her hand up and said, I don’t know if you remember Michael, but I what you say intern for you a long time ago.

So we had a girl in the audience who had once interned for the Great Pr Guru, Michael Levine years ago. Is that. Is that a true story? Yeah, it was really cool actually. So again, the method number one is you could intern free for a person that you desire to connect with. That is a powerful move. And Andrew, can I go ahead and list some examples on the show notes here? Oh yeah, let’s do it. Example number one, example number one, Steven Spielberg once worked for free and for the sake of time I won’t share the whole story, but that’s how he got his first job. He showed up on a Hollywood studio set, found his way onto the set and volunteered to work for free. Kind of hard to turn down a guy who’s willing to work for free. Another example that the human mind can hopefully handle. Ryan Tedder, the Grammy Award winning artist once worked for free.

Yes, he interned for industrial light and magic in Beautiful Nashville, Tennessee. Ryan tedder. Oprah once worked for free. Oh, Oprah. Oprah, Oprah, Oprah, Oprah. Once worked for free. Really? Clay. How do you know all these things? Because I read all these books and they’re all the same story. Did you know thrive nation? Did you do Andrew Carnegie? What’s worked for free? The world’s second wealthiest man during his lifetime. He once worked for free. Did you know injured? Do you know John d Dot Rockefeller, the world’s wealthiest man. He also wants worked for frank. Really? Did you know that? P Diddy, Aka Puff Daddy, Aka Sean combs, he now has five new songs added to the office playlist and he wants worked for free. By the way, do you hear that? The overhead music did. I had intended to write new songs coming in there. It was almost a triple the size of the playlist, so very exciting.

So again, these are all people that have once worked for free, so that is a move. Now, Andrew, you represent the people who are trying to learn something and I represent the poor teachers. Am I miscommunicating method one in any way? Does that make sense to you? Or any questions that you have on behalf of the listeners out there about working for free? No makes sense and tearing them worked for free. The people aren’t going to be having a sign that says now hiring for free. Either you’ve got to call them and volunteer to work for free. Call them, email them, text them to what you have to do. That’s what you got to do. Now, method number two, method number two, Andrew. Breakdown method number two about increasing your network because your network is your net worth viewing. Increase the quality of your network.

This is method number two back to you, Andrew. Method number two is do work for free for the person you desire to connect with, which we talked a little bit about. Uh, so this is different. Well, this is kind of different than interning though, right? This would be like just doing work for free. So I’ve done that with Mr. Clifton Taulbert the a renowned speaker, the man who the first African American west of the Mississippi who launched the stairmaster. Uh, I’ve done work for free for Mr. Maurice Kanbar, the guy who launched in started skyy vodka. I’ll put police on the show notes, please. Okay. Clifton Taulbert. I’ve worked for free for him. I’ve worked for free for a, again, Mr. Maurice Kanbar of skyy vodka. I have done work for free for the Tulsa oilers hockey team. I have done work for free for the Tulsa drillers. I have done work for free for Boeing Airlines.

I have done work for free for a quick trip. I’ve done work for free for outback steak house. I have done work for a store that Kevin Garnett used to have in the mall of America back in the day called kgs. I have done work for free for a great many people at a time when I couldn’t afford it, by the way too. So let me explain to you the four step process for expanding your social circle. Okay. So step one in this, these are not. These are different than the methods. Okay? So put these steps underneath method to, okay, step one, you do work for free, right? Step two, after you’ve done a good job working for free, then what you do is you do work for under market value. You do work for less than the market is charging today. Three, step three, you do work for market rate, be overdeliver the entire time, the entire time you have to overdeliver. When you’re working for free, you overdeliver. When you’re doing work for under the market value, you overdeliver. When you’re doing work for the current market rate, you overdeliver. And then fourth, step four, you get overpaid. That’s how you do it. You get overpaid Andrew and you get overpaid because you have the habit of over delivering. Yes, that’s how you do it. This is, yes, I am no longer a poor teacher.

Okay? So again, method number two was what Andrew method number two is, do work for free for a person that you desire to connect with. Because why in the world would somebody who’s been busting their butt for years, for years, having three jobs, four jobs, why would they want to take time out of their schedule to invest in every random person that asks for a moment of their time? Because if they did that, Andrea, would they ever have time freedom? No, not at all. They even have financial freedom if they spent their entire day volunteering for people. Nope. No, that’d be called a philanthropist, and that’s not usually what successful people are now. Method number three would be what Ms Dot Andrew. Method number three is attend workshops or conferences that they also attend. Yeah, so attend workshops or conferences that super successful people attend. Don’t go to every conference.

Don’t go to every networking event, but go to the ones where there are that are attended by super successful people. An example would be a country club. I know many, many people who’ve taken their career to the next level. Andrew, by signing up for a country club by joining a country club and you know why that works, but probably because the people at the country club are the same kind of people that they would like to associate with. Yeah. That’s a really a place where a lot of wealthy people go golf, they hit tennis balls, they go swim, and uh, it’s a proximity thing. If you’re in the room, you can be in the deal, in the room, in the deal. Yes, it is possible. That’s something that you can do. You get in the room, you can get in the deal. Now, method number four, Andrew, is what I got.

Method number four is relentlessly cold call. Then an offer to pay them to pick their brain. Ah, so you’re relentlessly cold, called him and then offer to pay them to pick their brain. Now, how does that change the game? When you offer to pay somebody to pick their brain? That means that that means you’re serious when you’re offering them money or something in exchange for their time that shows that you are serious and, uh, you know what you’re talking about. And I have offered to do this, Andrea, and put it on the show notes. I’ve offered to do this for Mr George Foreman, the two time heavyweight champion of the world. George Foreman. I’ve done that. I’ve done that with Mr Chen. I’m the president and CEO of the quick trip convenience store. That’s Mr Chet Cadieux c a, D I e U X. Mr Chet Kadjol. I’ve also done this again, this office offered to pay somebody to pick their brain for a Michael Levine, the PR consultant, as we mentioned earlier, for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson, for Andrew.

Why would I offer to pay? Why does, why does that work? You offer to pay because you realize that the things in the world that are free, like these, these guys have spent their life’s learning this stuff and they are a great wealth of knowledge. So you see the value in what they have. Therefore you are willing to pay for that because the things that are free, you can’t find free things with that much value. So, and when I offered to pay somebody to, to meet with them, for them to network with them. Yep. What does that do to the conversation in your opinion? Uh, from the outside perspective, when I call, if I call it, if you called me today and you said, hey, Click Clark, I’d love to pick your brain for lunch. I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not that interested, you know what I mean?

But if you said go ahead and throw it out, throw me out of number 100 bucks. 200 bucks. A thousand bucks. A thousand dollars would be more than I make per hour. Uh, but it would be probably at least 500 bucks to do lunch. Really? Yeah. Because it’s just not worth it. Yeah. I mean, I, I, if I met somebody for lunch to, to pick my brain, um, that would be Tom. I’m not with my kids. That’d be time not working out. You know, Tom, I’m not working on the podcast time. I’m not writing a book time. I’m not going to atwoods time. I’m not going to Atwoods uh, or guitar center or Hobby Lobby, the big three going around and around just to atwoods hobby lobby, Guitar Center. And Andrew, why? Why though have I had to learn to set boundaries and learn to say no to people that want to pick my brain anyway because I used to always say yes.

Why do you think I’ve had to learn to say no? Because once you, uh, once you know so much and once are that valuable to people, people are willing to pay you for that. So you have to set those boundaries. Otherwise those people will control your schedule and instead of you directing where you’re going throughout the day and your scheduled and your, your, your life, then you will allow everybody else who has, you know, uh, the ability to contact your who has 500 bucks to control your schedule. And if you do that, you’re not going to get anywhere. Uh, and this is a true story. This is how I started business coaching. It was a 2000 and like maybe seven. And I was meeting people for lunch all the time because people said, man, your company Dj Connection, just slam, man, you guys are rocket. Can I pick your brain for lunch?

And the first time I said, yeah, sure. I met a lady. She had a bakery that was struggling. I had met her, showed her what to do. She follows a pate that’s going great. Could you teach me this next step, this next step, a, a wedding store. Wedding gown store asked me for help. What a wedding businesses, multiple hotels asked me if I could help them fix their wedding reception booking department, uh, their, their events, their banquet department, other DJ companies started calling, other photographers were calling videographers. Then that expanded into insurance companies were calling, mortgage companies were calling. And Andrew, you know what I did every time, uh, you said yesterday and my wife pointed out, hey, it is so cool that you’re running around teaching people how to grow companies for the low, low price of free, but you’re not spending time with your own kids.

So maybe on this quest to mentor millions, you know, maybe you could mentor your own kids. And I thought to myself, that’s approved. So again, if you’re out there and you’re saying, gosh, it’s hard to find good people to network with, that’s true. But the bd team is readily available. Beware of the readily available bet because the B team, Andrew, they are mentally ready, but they’re willing, they’re ready to meet your right now to sell us some. Anything, anything you can buy a, they will sell you some serious crap hole. That’s what the team does. So again, hopefully that answers your question there. Ms Dot Michelle. I know you have the capacity and the tenacity to do this. Um, I can say personally I have invited so many successful people for lunch or for breakfast and I get rejected on average before they tell me yes about a half dozen times.

So usually on a, you know, I’d like to ask somebody no more than like once a quarter. So I’ll reach out every three months and they say no. Three months later, no, three months later I usually get the, what do you want, what do you want? And I’ll say, I’d be willing to pay $500 for 15 minutes. I have 10 questions I want to ask, and they’ll go, you’re going to pay $500 for 15 minutes because you have 10 questions. I said, Yep, they’re there preprinted, they’re typed and I’d love to meet and I can say that in many, many instances when I met the person who I wanted to meet with my printed list and I handed them a copy and I had a copy and I showed up on time a little bit early and I had the check ready, they usually did not accept the payment, so people just want to know that you value their time and hopefully that answers your question.

Ms Dot Michelle. We are. We’re so excited for you and your career and I’d be honored to meet you at an in person. Thrive time show workshop. I believe right now. I’ll let me pull it up real quick here. As of right now, as of a 4:53 on this beautiful Tuesday as we’re recording here, the. Let’s see here. The next workshop is going to be. Is it not? Is it not up here yet? February Andrew. We have. We have the email ourselves, a note right now to know ourselves. Note that apparently the February conference date is not up on the website as of right now. Do you see it up right now or am I missing something? I don’t see it. Okay. We’ll email our self right now, but book your tickets today by going to thrive time show.com. Hopefully we have the new dates up before you receive this podcast, and as always three, two, one boom.