199 – 5 Myths about Networking

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 199.

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 Karen Yankovich. And this is episode number 199 of the good girls get rich podcast. And this episode is brought to you by she’s linked up where we teach women simple relationship heart based LinkedIn marketing strategies that get you on the phone with the people that can change everything for you, the people that can help you get the biggest deals that people that can hire you for the biggest deals, the people that can feature you in their newspapers and magazines, just really cool people, we help you meet them and take your business to new levels. We create wealthy women of influence, and she’s linked up. So if you’ve listened before, if you love what you hear today, you know, we love hearing from you make sure that you subscribe to this show, wherever you’re listening to it. We love it if you leave us a review so that we have some kind of, we have a better idea of the episodes that are resonating with you, right. And of course, I’d love for you to share this episode on social media, use the hashtag good girls get rich, make sure you tag me, I’m at Karen Yankovich. And I will do what I can to share your post with my audience. And then we both get more visibility Right. in the show notes. There’s a link for SpeakPipe where you can leave an audio message. I love your audio messages. Sometimes I get messages about guests who think I should interview or topics you’d like me to talk about or even just a review, right. So go to Karen yankovich.com/ 199, you’ll see the blog for this page, you’ll see the link for SpeakPipe. And all the other information we talked about here today on the show. And you know, this episode is actually you know, it’s really interesting because it really encapsulates why I do the work that I do. Because as social as women are, you know, I didn’t find this surprising, maybe you find it surprising that women don’t build business networks as well as men do. And that’s really why I focus on women. It’s not that I don’t help men, I do have lots of men that are clients. But I think women need to do a better job building our business networks. You know, there’s a sage publishing, which is a global academic publisher of books and journals and a suite of library products. They conducted a study recently that showed that women’s tendencies to harbor moral concerns about exploiting social ties caused them to under benefit from networking activities. Right. And this tendency is further exacerbated by women’s predisposition to underestimate and undersell their professional self worth in the first place. Right? Can you relate to that? Can you understand that? I can understand that. I definitely understand that. I understand that I’ve been there. And I’ve talked to many, many, many women that are feeling the same way. But here’s the reality if you know, we’ve heard our whole lives, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, right. And I, you’ve heard me say this, I do think you need to the what you know, is important. But I know that if you are ignoring building your network, you are damaging and limiting your opportunities. you’re limiting your career, women hesitate making connections. Maybe it’s because we’re hardwired for deeper, more personal connections. So maybe I don’t know business or transactional relationships, maybe feel insecure. But really what I want from you and what I want from me and you know what I want to help everyone that listens to this podcast, or joins us in our shoes linked up program, is I want you to build a high quality network that’s diverse, so that you can experience all kinds of points of view that’s trusting, right that you can rely on the information from the people in that network. And that’s mutually beneficial, diverse, trusting and mutually beneficial. Isn’t that sound amazing? Doesn’t it sound amazing? So what I want to do is kind of cover a few myths that maybe you’ve heard about networking. And the first myth is that networking is insincere and manipulative. You know, it couldn’t be further from the truth it couldn’t be further from the truth. Are there insincere, manipulative people that network of course there are, but there are insincere and manipulative people that you know, walk to the grocery store, right? That’s just the world that we lived in, there’s always going to be people that are not as they don’t ours, as well intentioned as we’d like them to be. Networking does not have to be insincere and manipulative. It absolutely can just be genuine, genuine, that’s what I want for you. I never ever ever want you to have to cold call anybody or walk up to somebody called ever again. And there’s never a reason to and these are the strategies that we teach in our shoes linked up program, but you know, this is about building trusted relationships, right? trusted relationships. The second myth that I hear a lot is networking is only about politics and getting ahead you only network if you need to get ahead. Again, not true. Not true. Right. We talked about relationships being mutually beneficial. What if you you know, have a physical location maybe you’ve got an office, right? I don’t know an office if you have an office and you’ll rent me your you know, we build the relationship and I To use your conference room so that I can host meetings there or maybe, you know, brainstorm or do masterminds, there are one on one VIP days there. That’s mutually beneficial, right? That’s mutually beneficial. I love networking with people that I can support. And that can support me. You know, I remember when my kids were little, I was a single mom, it was always I was always asking for favors, you know, pick up, pick up my kid at school, can you feed my dog, you know, and I loved when people ask me for those kinds of things, because then I got the opportunity that I can feel so bad about always asking them, right, so So networking is not just about I didn’t want just to take advantage of them. Right? It wasn’t about me getting ahead and me not having to do this stuff. I wanted to support them. Right. So true. Networking is mutually beneficial. The third myth is networking is done when you’ve done all your other work. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. It might be the complete opposite of that, you know, if you’re a CEO of your business, or the CEO of your world, or if you’ve got a sales revenue goal at all, networking should be the very first thing you do. It should be the big rock in your world, it should, it’s important that you What are you doing, that’s more important than growing your business? Right. And this happens when you talk to people, because people who know people who know people, right, not ask you to network with people and walk up to them at a networking event, stick your hand out and say, you know, hey, I’m Karen, buy my insurance policy, or my 401k. I’m asking you to do that. But networking has to be the first thing you do continually building relationships, continually introducing yourself and introducing people to people that can further your goals with the intention of also furthering their goals. That needs to be the very first thing you do because if your revenues line is the is the problem is the line that having a problem with everything else is a problem. Right? So start with the networking because that is where the income comes from. That’s where the profit comes from. Another myth is networking is about how many contacts you have. Not at all true. Like I have said many, many times about LinkedIn size does not matter on LinkedIn, I don’t care how many contacts you have. Right? I haven’t have a lot because I teach this stuff. A lot of people connect with me. But that is not what I teach. I don’t You don’t need to have a lot of connections on LinkedIn. I want you know, the, somebody you know, I reached out, I regularly get asked how I feel about people that reach out to 100 people a day or 100 people a week. And you know, if you do that, right, you can book yourself a lot of phone calls, but they’re their phone calls that are not targeted, right? It’s not targeted. It’s just a complete waste of your time, and a complete waste of your network and of the time of the people who you’re doing these outreach with, right? I don’t care how many contacts you have, I just want you to get a few more every week. That’s it. A few new ones 2345, maybe 10? Have you got a big push going on every week. That’s it. Networking, it doesn’t matter size does not matter. With networking size does not matter on LinkedIn. Because if you are doing this in a micro targeted way, if you are researching your contacts before you do any outreach to them or for you connect to them or before you start to build a relationship with them, then you’re making sure that it’s mutually beneficial, right? And there’s and you’re building trust. So these are you know, that doesn’t matter how many people you have as you’re doing this work. And the last myth I want to talk about is that networking is for extroverts that is absolutely not true. I’m an introvert. Many of the people I work with are introverts. In fact, most of the people I work with are introverts. Networking is a beautiful thing for introverts because we’re doing it from this place of genuine relationship building, right? Not this, walking into a room and just talking to people that you don’t know about things, it doesn’t matter. I’ve never been able to do that. I’ve never been able to do that. So to me, I feel like you know, networking when I’ve done a little research and I I have already know what I want to talk to them about right? As an introvert. That is, you know, that makes it a lot easier for me to do this work. Networking is a beautiful thing for introverts. So let me repeat these five myths again, Myth number one networking is insincere and manipulative. Myth number two, networking is only about politics and getting ahead. Myth number three, and networking is done when you’ve done all your other work. Myth number four, networking is about how many contacts you have. Myth number five, networking is for extroverts, all these are myths, none of it is true. All you need to do is connect with others authentically to be building your network. Ladies, can we please start building beneficial networks like men, write, share and comment on each other’s posts, right genuinely providing value? ask advice from your connections. Those are, you know, that’s another great way to start to network with people. Tell me you know, I noticed you do this. How did you get started with that? Where did you learn about this right? And then track what’s working? What are the conversations that work best for you and let’s do more of that. Right? You don’t have to be doing like because we’re not doing this times 100 We’re only doing this times a few you know a little bit each week. You All the work that I teach everything that I do even at the highest level, once we’re done with our, you know, initial training, I just want you on LinkedIn a half hour a couple times a week. That’s it. That’s what keeps the ball moving to build your multiple six and seven figure business, right? But you’ve got to so when we’re tracking, we’re not spending a ton of time tracking, because we’re not spending a ton of time. With the outreach, we’re doing this in a very micro targeted way. And you got to be patient. Because sometimes networking has a long effect, always networking has a long term payoff, right. Sometimes it has a short term payoff. And that’s amazing. But I can track people back. Gosh, I’m thinking of, I’m thinking of somebody that I met at a networking meeting probably six or seven years ago. And she invited me to speak to a group that she had. And then one of the people in that group would join my shoes linked up program. And then that person had me speak to her audience. And at least four people from her audience then joined my choosing to program. And then and this is over, this is over a matter of five or six years, right? But it started with me networking, right? But you’ve do, you’ve got to be doing this consistently. And you got to be patient, because there is a short term payoff, but the long term payoff, that’s where this is amazing. That’s where this becomes really, really profitable. And that’s how you become really, really wealthy. Right? And then you got to nurture your relationships, don’t connect about them and forget about them. That’s why I can’t I don’t want you to connect with 100 people a week, connect with a few people. Maybe you saw somebody mentioned in an article or newspaper or interviewed on a podcast, connect with them, build a relationship with them, network with them, right? Let them know how much you love their message that whatever you heard about them heard them talking about, right? That’s what we want, nurture these relationships actually build actual relationships. And what right back to the beginning where I said, you know, it’s so funny that women are social. And it’s surprising that they don’t build business networks, like one of the things we’re really good at is nurturing relationships. So let’s do more of that for our business, right. And then schedule those couple half hours a week on LinkedIn, to spend time networking,I promise you, it is going to pay off for you, I promise you, this is going to pay off for you. If you schedule this and you make an intention. I mean, I even have an Asana task. That’s you know, what I part of the work that I do how many people I want to reach out to. And you know what it’s there’s so many I’ve done, I’ve done lots and lots of podcasts about how to do that in a warm way. And if you want to me to talk to you about that, personally, just get a call, there’s a link on the page with the show notes to get on our calendar, I’d love for you to see your name on our calendar, we’re gonna talk about what that looks like for you. But schedule a time to do this regularly. Don’t skip this, don’t skip this. Because remember, I said earlier, like, don’t do it. After you’ve done all your other work. This should be the first thing you’re doing because this is the client getting stuff. This is the money making stuff. This is the money making stuff. You know, women tend to downplay their knowledge, we tend to downplay our skills, we tend to downplay our accomplishments, what when you’re networking, you need to play up those characteristics. That’s why your LinkedIn profile so important, right? If you’re networking on LinkedIn, then you have your profile that does a lot of that heavy lifting, you don’t have to walk up to people and or call people and say, hey, you know, I’m Karen Yankovich. And you know how many Twitter followers I have? Like, you don’t have to do that, right? You like your LinkedIn profile, do that work for you. That’s why we pay so much attention to your LinkedIn profile here, and all the work that we do here. So you have to you know, it’s not always easy for us to do that. It’s always easy to talk, you know, I talked about this a couple weeks ago, right, the importance of owning what you did, and that it’s not bragging, your networks are could very well be the most valuable asset in your business. But you have to nurture it, you have to nurture it. If you take your networking seriously, you’ll be able to make connections that help you grow your business, and have really, really meaningful relationships. And your network is there as you build it consistently. It’s there when you need it. Right. It’s there when you need it. You know, in all of the work that I do in my programs, and all the private client work I do this is at the heart of all of it, the what’s at the heart of all of it is showing up in a way that people will want to know you so that you can build relationships and network from this position of strength so that your network is building your net worth, right. I’m full of cliches today. But that’s but it’s true, right? It’s true. It is when you have people that you can reach out to when you need them, everything changes in your business, everything changes in your business. So I hope that this was helpful. I hope this gives you a little this was just a short one. But I hope it gave you a little inspiration to really spend some time networking this week. I would love for you to share this episode of rising tide lifts all boats, more cliches, right? I do this podcast to support you. I’ve got a free masterclass. To help you get started. All of this information is in the show notes. I would love for you to take a quick screenshot of this episode share on your social media networks. Tag me so I know it’s there and I can share it with my audience. And let’s lift each other up. Right help me help you. I am here for you. We are back next week with episode 200 of the good girls get rich podcast. Remember if you have won any help with us, Karen yankovich.com COMM slash call gets to our calendar. There’s a link in the show notes as well. And I’d love to chat with you and help you with your networking plans. I’ll see you back here next week for episode 200.