170 – Best Practices for Returning to In-Person Events

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 170.

Intro 0:05
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 170 of the good girls get rich podcast. And this podcast is brought to you by she’s linked up the family of products and programs where we teach women simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing, the marketing that gets you on the phone, the actual phone talking to people on that phone that does more than text consistently with the perfect people, people who can change your business, your life and your bank account Forever, forever. We create wealthy women of influence in the she’s linked up family and we are looking forward to sharing some of that yumminess On today’s episode, you know, at the end of the day, this is digital marketing with the human touch human to human marketing. And we’re gonna dive into that in today’s episode because it is a lot about that humans human marketing that we’ve only been able to do virtual for a while right now we’re like venturing back into whatever we’re venturing back into. So you know that if you’ve listened before, or if you love what you’re hearing today, we love when you share this subscribe to the show, we want you on our future shows, leave us a review. You know, we want to we want to know what you love and what you know, so that we can do more of that. I’d love for you to share this episode on your social media use the hashtag good girls get rich, you can tag me I’m at Karen Yankovich. And then of course when I see it, I’ll share your post with my audience. And then we get all we all get more visibility. Right That’s so cool. So, so so much fun. in the show notes, which you can check out at Karen Yankovich comm slash 170, you’ll see a link for speakpipe you can leave an audio message there, you can leave an audio review or you can leave a message and let us know about a guest you think we should have on the show or a topic you’d love for me to cover. Please use that link. We love getting audio messages from you. And you know, sometimes we’ve replied with your audio message, which is kind of fun, too. So I’ve talked a lot on this show in the last couple months about how much I really enjoyed virtual networking. Now listen, I definitely miss people. I xO x, it’s so amazing to be able to go to parties, again, birthday parties, I went to a birthday party yesterday and another one a couple weeks ago and you know, having dinner with friends. And you know, I am was very cautious in the past year and a half very, very cautious. I have elderly, elderly parents and I have grandchildren and you know, I just want people to see them. Right? They’re the most important people in my life. So I was, you know, did a lot of soul I did a lot of of quarantining for a good part of the last 18 months. So now as things are opening up, I’m finding that like, I’m not in my groove. I don’t know if you can relate to that. Right? Are you relating? Can you relate to like, trying to remember what life was like back two years ago, and trying to get back into that groove? You know, I found that for some reason, finding, it’s very easy to get swamped by this, you know, I went from like doing nothing for like a year and a half, to having like back to back to back events and more, I’m going out a couple times a week. And like, I bought a car. I’m not even a year ago, like September of 2020. And I had like, no marijuana for the first six months. And now it’s got 15,000 miles on it, right? Like, how is that possible? Because I’m running around a lot more now. And it’s not great. It’s not great. I found I kind of went straight from, I don’t know, from not doing anything to doing too much. So I had to pull back the reins, and I’m going to talk to you a little bit about how that worked for me. I mean, I don’t know, it’s not like riding a bike. You know, I just it’s not like riding a bike. It’s, it’s different. It’s different. And, and maybe, you know, this is me completely, you know, my armchair psychoanalysis of the last two years, I think we’re gonna be learning for many years about the the psychology around having to quarantine and all that crazy stuff. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s just, it’s just for me, and for many people that I talk to, it’s just not that easy to just kind of go back into it. So I’m following some best practices. Now that I’ve pulled back a little bit, and I want to share them with you today. You know what, what I’m doing? So first thing we want to talk about is like before we do something, right, like so the before we go anywhere, I have learned that it’s even more important than it’s ever been for me to be discerning about what I say yes to, you know, I’m hoping that there’s still going to be a virtual component to a lot of networking events because I was able to do networking with organizations that I never would have driven to right so and maybe I won’t be able to do it anymore with them. Who knows, but I can tell you this. I’m not driving along. over the place to go to go to networking events and and nor do I ever really do that before to be honest. But somehow, I found myself not being discerning about what I said yes, say yes to. So take, you know, it’s okay to say no, it’s okay to not go straight back to whatever you think you should be doing. It’s okay to take baby steps, right, like so think, be really be really mindful of what you’re saying yes to. And then once you make that decision, maybe it’s one event a month, maybe it’s one event a week, please don’t do more than one event a week initially, though, I mean, that’s just my my request of you. Because I think that what I’m hearing from not just not just my experience, that many people are just like, a little overwhelmed by, you know, kind of getting back into the real world. So pick an event, whether it’s one a week, one a month, whatever that works, whatever works for you, or, you know, when you’re ready, maybe you’re not ready yet. Right, but, and then connect with people ahead of time there maximize the impact of these events, you know, even prior to like, you know, 2020, like, even five years ago, I you know, I talked to people all the time about networking, right, LinkedIn is virtual networking. And I would talk to people that I knew locally, and that would go to all these different Chamber of Commerce meetings, and for all these different organizations, chambers of commerce and local women’s organizations and, you know, 2345 networking meetings a week. And then they tell me, I know, I know, you’re going to follow up after these meetings can but I just don’t have time I live well, maybe if you didn’t go to five networking meetings a week, you’d actually maximize what you’re doing with these meetings, right? Like, I mean, I can’t I can think of people very clearly, I can see them very clearly, people that were not profitable in their business. And they’re like, I’m not working, I’m not working, I’m not working. But it’s not working. I’m like, Yeah, because you’re networking, and you’re not following up, right. So maximize the time you’re spending pick one thing and then maximize it, Are there speakers at this event, connect with them on LinkedIn ahead of time. By the way, I’m going to like take a little pause here and say, this all works really well, if your profile is great. And you know, I’ve got lots of episodes about that. And actually episode, an upcoming episode, Episode 172, is actually going to talk a lot of a lot about that as well. But for now, just know that you really want to do a good job of maximize of creating a great LinkedIn profile, because it makes this all a lot easier, but connect with the speakers ahead of time connect with the event organizers ahead of time, if you know of other people going to the event connect with them ahead of time, right? So, so Connect ahead of time, so that when you go to the event, now we’re gonna move on to during, so before, we want to be discerning, and we want to do what whatever connection we can do ahead of time, right? So that when you go to the event, you already have some people you’re you’re looking forward to, to talking to. And then once you get to the event, you know, it’s so funny, when I was doing this, when I was creating the outline for this episode, it was really interesting to me how you know, if you may not have noticed this, but on most of my episodes, I have three pieces of content that I want to share. And in this case, it’s the before the during and the after. And the before and the after I can talk for 20 minutes, the during I didn’t have I don’t have I don’t have much to say write, which is interesting, because it’s the drawing that people think is the most valuable part of this, but it’s not. It’s not. I mean, yes, you want to meet the people in person, and you want to, you know, hopefully you have business cards. And I know like sometimes people feel like that’s 1980 you know, networking, but at the end of the day, you want people to follow up with you, right. So if you have business cards, make sure your LinkedIn URL is on that business card. So people can because what it does is it gives people implicit permission to connect with you afterwards right to follow up with you. Because that’s where the money is, it’s not talking to all the people while you’re at the event, and eating cheese and crackers, it’s the follow up, it’s getting actual business out of these, you wouldn’t be going through these things, unless you’re looking to get business out of them, right. So make sure that your LinkedIn URL is on your business card, share it, you know, share it generously. But take note of the people that you meet and kind of just try to think about like, obviously, you want to follow up with a bunch of people that you meet. But there should be a couple people one or two, maybe three people that you really see some potential and, and potential doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to hire you. Right or they’re going to buy from you potential might be there’s collaboration opportunities, maybe there’s people they can introduce you to, you know, you never really know. But think about those couple people and make make make me able to store on their card or something, something that will identify like, for whatever reason, this is somebody that I really want to check out once this is over. But you know, do your do your thing, go around, do the schmooze and talk to people get their business cards, give me your business cards. And then afterwards now first of all, when you’re putting this event on your calendar, also put an hour on your calendar for the day after the event for follow up. This is probably the most profitable piece of advice anybody’s ever gonna give you in your life. Right? I can tell you like if I if I’m speaking at an event if you want if you need a LinkedIn speaker, by the way, reach out to me if I’m speaking at an event, let’s say the events on a Tuesday and Sam flying to the event. I make sure that my ideal calendar is to fly back late Wednesday. So I have a Wednesday morning to do my follow up. So if the events a Tuesday, I get a flight for Wednesday afternoon. So Wednesday morning, I can do my follow up. Obviously you don’t, you know, obviously, we’re not flying to all networking events. So you don’t need that much time. But just put an hour the next day, I can tell you there are times that I don’t do this, for whatever reason the networking event was last minute, or just as a busy day, I couldn’t do it. And I always regret it, I always regret it. Because what’s the point of going if you’re not going to follow up with people, and you know, look to try to get some actual business out of this stuff, right? So, but you’re on the calendar, you know, the day before you even go to the event, put the hour on the calendar for the next day. So that you know, or maybe later that same day, if it’s a morning thing, right? And then use LinkedIn to follow up. Now think about this. If you meet somebody at an event, and they follow up with you the next day on linked on an email or Facebook, you don’t know any more about them than you knew before. Frankly, Facebook might be a little nervy right. You don’t really know them that well yet. So they’re gonna follow up with you on Facebook, right? Like you’re not friends yet. You just met them last night. So and an email, like you just going into the black hole of most people’s email box. But if you follow up on LinkedIn afterwards, and you’ve done the work on your profile, then you’re shining a light on your best self. Right. And now you’re following up on LinkedIn, you know, hey, Mary, so great to meet you last night. Hopefully, you’ve got some little notes about it. You know, I really I know you’re going to Disney World next week. And I’m so I can’t wait to hear how it goes. But I really do I really, I’m really impressed by the work you do. I’d love to connect with you here on LinkedIn. And maybe when you get back, we can get together and have some coffee and really get to know each other. Right like something like that actual relationship follow ups on LinkedIn. Now remember, if your LinkedIn is a vast wasteland of you know, dust, because you haven’t touched it in five years, this isn’t gonna be all that all that, you know, effective for you. But if your LinkedIn profile positions you as a rockstar, then when Mary sees that, she’s going to be saying, Wow, I have no idea this person that I met last night was such a big deal, I really, I am totally looking forward to following up and getting to know them better, right? It’s on you to do that it’s on you to do that, to do that, to make a pro to have a profile that shows the best of you. So when you’re doing that, and you’re following up, make sure you’re following up with the people that you have stars, right, that’s really important to follow up with the starred people. But obviously follow up with other people too. Like, I don’t want you to connect with everyone. Because frankly, that’s a complete waste of your time and their time. Nobody needs to have 100 new new connections every week. But if you’re going to this networking event, or this conference, or whatever the in person event is that you’re doing, you are going there because you think there’s business opportunities, right that there’s people there that could further your business goals. So make sure that you’re I mean, how many times have you gone to a conference, and you leave, and you’re like what just happened, like what just happened? Because it’s crazy. So the drawing is fun, but it’s the before and the after that are valuable. And even more. So now that it’s like second half of 2021. Because, like I said, we are have no real learning how to do this in many, many ways. Like some of it is definitely, you know, like riding a bike, but some of it somehow isn’t. So, so be discerning, let’s just review this for a second, be discerning about what you say yes to. And then when you make those decisions, whatever, that’s whatever you’re comfortable with one a month, one a week, you can always add another one, right, but start small and then build on it. Because somehow like me, then you won’t be like me and swamp yourself, right. So be discerning about what you say yes to, and then do your due diligence before the event, make that put that calendar item on the day after right so that you can make sure you do the follow up. And then connect with people ahead of time. Maybe the speakers at the event, the organizers for the and other people that are at the event that the second thing part of it is while you’re at the event during the event, you know, make sure that you’re like just identify a couple people that you think you know what I want to know more about this person, it’s really not the time to do that when you’re you know, having cheese and crackers and wine or soda or coffee or whatever, you know, you really, you know, it’s small talk, but it’s the time to do the, you know, to kind of to do to kind of vet the audience, vet the people there and see who is it that you really want to follow up with. And obviously, I don’t want you to do with everyone because I don’t want you to waste your time. I don’t have time for it. And I everything I teach is really about maximizing your time. And then the last thing is follow up afterwards. Follow up on LinkedIn afterwards, follow up with a great profile, show the best of you and do it in a way that is very personal, so that you’re literally building actual relationships, not just having lots of pen pals and connections, right. You know, it’s okay to ease back into in person. Work, do when you’re ready. You just no need to dive in headfirst, like somehow I ended up doing right. If because if you know, here’s the thing, if we’ve learned anything from the 2020 pandemic, we’ve learned to choose the people that we spend time with carefully, right like what do we have cohorts like who was in your cohort, we can extend that to our business who are the people? We don’t you don’t have to be you don’t have to spend time with everyone. When you don’t have to connect with everyone, be discerning be choosy, and then only follow up with and really dive into the people that you think that there’s real value to because this maximizes your time and I don’t want you spinning your wheels. I want you to go to less events, dive deeper and come out of those events with a couple people that can really change your business your life and your bank account for ever. That’s what we do in our she’s linked up program right I talked about the fact that our goal is to create wealthy women of influence is these are the kinds of things I talk to you about here are the kinds of things we teach in that program. Obviously, there’s tons more and it all starts with our on demand masterclass. I talked about LinkedIn as my money tree, it is where the business comes from in my business, so if you go to water that money tree.com you’ll get to our our free masterclass, and it’s where it’s gonna it’s gonna help you shift your thought process around LinkedIn from a place that your your resume used to live to a place that you can build relationships that place that your personal brand lives, right, and you’re gonna learn exactly the shifts that I think you need to make. Let’s make the second half of 2021 the best six months of your business that you’ve ever had. I do this podcast to support you I’ve got a free training courses free masterclass where that money tree.com to help you get started. There’s lots of companies, I spend a lot of time giving you everything I can think of to help you get started. I would love for you to help me help you. Right. Let’s lift each other up, share this podcast, take a quick screenshot of this episode on your phone. Share that on social media tag me use the hashtag good girls get rich so you’re sharing my content. And then of course, I will do return the favor and share your profile with my audience. And that gets both of us more visibility right. I’m ready to kick some booty for the second half of 2021. I hope you are too. I’m here to support you. I will see you back here again next week for another episode of the good girls get rich podcast.