192: Discover The Hidden Opportunities In Your Network

Melissa:

Hey. Hey. Hey. I hope you guys enjoy these, what I'm calling podcast shorts for my burnout to all out community. This is just a little peek behind the curtain of the coaching that goes on inside of my programs. We're bringing to you Some of the best nuggets and coaching I'm giving, within hot seats of all of our different programs, whether it's our LinkedIn Method Academy, our mini mastermind business basics all the way up to our higher level mastermind. If you're hearing some of these questions and you're like, man, I wish I could get my burning question answered by Melissa. Hey.

Melissa:

Guess what? You could be featured on my podcast. If you've got a question that you want answered and you submit it to my team and we pick it, we will bring you here to the podcast for our podcast shorts and, do a hot seat with you. Where can you submit your questions? Send them to team burnout to all out .co. We'll make sure we drop that in the show notes for our podcast shorts, and I hope that You guys find as much value in these shorts as our clients do inside the program. Need some effective tactical advice that actually helps you get results and makes a real difference in your life and business? You've come to the right place. If you're finding yourself here today, it means you're getting ready to gain serious traction in your business, rapidly multiply your income and impact, and you're ready to make it happen while living all out. Guys, I'm Melissa Henault, your trustworthy corporate dropout turned 6 figure business burnout turned happy and healthy CEO of a multimillion dollar online business, and you're listening to the burnout to all out podcast. On this show, we're serving up innovative growth strategies, simple implementation methods to put them into practice and action stimulating inspiration tailored specifically for the modern entrepreneur.

Melissa:

Let's dive in.

Shantel:

But It's really just how to make connections on LinkedIn organically, and I feel that we are very Intentional with who we connect with, and I'm seeing that it doesn't take just, like, 5 minutes. It takes, like, hours a day To really sift through and find people who I think there's, like, a bond with, a connection, some kind of relatability, a reason to connect. And so we're having a a great time as far as finding people who we can really build with, but it's like maybe 3 people a week because of the sifting, but, yeah, putting in so many hours. So the hours of time, I think, in real life, like, Equal the amount of times that you would actually make connections with real people in real life. Right? So we want quality over quantity, but I feel like we're, like, doing something Wrong, almost. So we're too critical or we're too analytical. So I was just hoping for some guidance in that.

Melissa:

Yeah. So if you're spending hours a day and you're getting about 30 a week, then you're probably spending what?

Shantel:

Like 3 or 4 a week, Not 30 a week. That would be awesome.

Melissa:

Okay. So you're spending hours a day, and when you say 3 a week, you're saying you're getting 3 accepts to request back.

Shantel:

We're probably putting out like I think we have like a pretty high accept rate, like, good 80 to 90%. Really high, but it's the amount of people we're actually inviting to connect with us that is low.

Melissa:

Okay. So how many people do you think you're probably sending an invite out to per week?

Shantel:

Per week? I wanna say 10.

Melissa:

Okay. Yeah. So I think that you're spending too much time qualifying your leads. Talk me through your process.

Shantel:

Looking through, like, the hashtags that we're following, seeing what resonates, reading through them, then for those that like connect and where we can see there's some sort of spousal relationship or even that they're a business owner or a consultant or even like They're faith based. Any almost anything. Or they're just mentioning, like, it's my anniversary. We're, like, finding something to connect with and then writing comment and then looking through their page, just see, okay, does this person seem like someone I'd wanna connect with or is a potential client or potential partner and then moving from there. So really just going from that explore page also just like on the back end researching, Like, who are couples that are in business that I'm learning of? Do they have LinkedIn pages? Are they active on LinkedIn? When's the last time they posted? Going through their recent post, is that anything that they write, like resonate with me beyond what I could see a dashboard or their profile. So lots of stiffing. Phase.

Melissa:

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now when we talked last time, we talked a little bit about so these guys are entrepreneurs. They're small business owners, and they're married couples. And you're looking for faith based business owners who are in business together. One of the things we discussed last month was, are you open to marketing to founders and entrepreneurs whose spouses maybe aren't out of their career yet? Or Is it exclusively only for people who are already in business for themselves and no longer either one of them have a w two?

Shantel:

Yeah. So for that conversation, we really shifted where we were focusing attention. And so, yes, we're we're not even the ideal Avatar, I guess, would be someone who is Christian or has but that's not even, like, the way to get through. We're really reaching out to just, like, Family, anyone who's part of a family business. And then it's like, hey, Eric, or is anyone married? And are you trying to see, like, is there any connection to what we're talking about Even just on a a content creation side because our main business is content creation. So now we're starting to look for content creators that also We're looking at photographers because when the photography field, a lot of couples work together. So, no, they don't have to be married as far as what we're sifting for, but we've opened it up to Even people who work in, like, 9 to 5 jobs, but they're showing some interest of, like, happy anniversary to us.

Melissa:

Right.

Shantel:

I was like, wow, that's awesome. Happy anniversary, Cheryl. I have no idea who you are, but just trying to find some kind of connection.

Melissa:

So here are my thoughts. So just follow me on this kind of thought process for a minute. I think that where you're starting is It's not wrong in the sense that you're being super strategic about who your ideal audience is, but you're also going straight to trying to find a needle in a hay pack, which is taking you hours every day. Right? And so I wanna cast a vision to you that Instead, you actually create a much larger top of funnel that's really focused on small business owners and entrepreneurs because, a, those are gonna be a whole lot easier to find than trying to figure out who's in business together, who's got a great relationship that's Christian based. Right? What I would do if I were in your shoes is I would start throwing a large umbrella network of small business owners, founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs of small businesses. Okay? That's top of funnel. Like, it ain't gonna hurt to have those people in your network even if they're not married or their spouses are never leaving their career because there's a number of advantages still to having those entrepreneurs in your feed because they still may resonate tremendously with some of the content you put out. They may like, comment, support it, and now their entire network season.

Melissa:

And you better bet they've got people in their network that are entrepreneurs as well, that may be faith based, that are in a marriage. The thing I wanna cast a vision for you is we want a big funnel that then your content And your continued conversations kind of help you drill down to that individual who really is like, yes. That's exactly what I need and want. Right? And so, also, think about this, building that top of funnel with founders and entrepreneurs, The day you connect with them, they may be by themselves and their spouse may be working in their 9 to 5. Like, I'm a classic example of this. If you connected with me today, it would just be me. And my husband is still a senior vice president at a company where he's supposed to be president in a couple years. But there's a huge likelihood with the growth of my business over the next 2 to 3 years that He could bow out of that and end up collaborating with me.

Melissa:

Or any of you, like, didn't connect with me Because I'm not publicly in business with my husband, you may completely miss the opportunity in the pipeline for that kind of warm pipeline that's evolving to where people are where they need you. I see it all the time where 1 entrepreneur 1 person leaves and they get wildly successful, and then the other person is still in their job and they're wishing they had the time freedom that their spouse does and they're looking for ways to become part of it. So I want you thinking about your beginning of phase pipeline as well as your actual ideal audience today. Right? And then you also may have some folks who may be attracted to you because of your faith base, because they've lost their faith. And they're attracted to you because they wanna reign that back in. But if you exclude people who aren't faith based because they're not Openly talking about it, you may miss the opportunity to literally like transform their relationships. And so where I'm going with this is, I want you to envision building a top of funnel of entrepreneurs, founders, small business owners, and start growing a whole lot faster. And then your content For those that it resonates with, they're gonna engage in it.

Melissa:

They're gonna have conversations with you. They're gonna follow-up with you. Right? And it may not be them directly. It may be someone in their network. I know we talked about this a little bit last time. My friend, Kara And Mike, if any of you guys are coming to my live event, you're gonna hear from them. They run a couple's mastermind that's faith based, super high ticket. And I can't tell you how many people I referred to it even though I have never been in it.

Melissa:

And my husband's not working with me. And so what I'm saying is you don't want your network to only be your buying customer today. You want your network to be a pipeline of potential future customers. You want your network to be power partners who may never purchase or participate in anything you do, but that would highly suggest support and connect you as a resource. And I think that's gonna keep you from spending hours trying to find a needle in a haystack. Does that make sense?

Shantel:

Totally. Totally. Thank you so much. Yes. All set.

Melissa:

So how many do you have in your network right now?

Shantel:

Like, for connections or followers? Or is it

Melissa:

Altogether. Yeah.

Shantel:

Okay. So, like, 136? Okay. I started at like 82. I was like, yes, this is great.

Melissa:

So what I want you to do is I would love to see you grow by 6 connections a day and then for a week and then go to 7 connections options a day for a week and then go to 10 connections a day for a week. And I want you to be a little less picky. Okay. And I want you to be looking at just entrepreneurs, founders. Really just wanna be looking for people who are active on the platform form when you find them. And let's just get started with business owners and then we can drill down to business owners who are attracted to the content that you put out.

Shantel:

Alright. Sounds like a good plan. Thank you so much.

Melissa:

Absolutely. And the last thing I'll say is as you get growing, like, 2.0 for this, after you've got a nice network of about 3 to 400, Really, the goal is 500 of new fresh growth. The people who do engage and acknowledge your content around relationships, faith based business, Message them directly and thank them for their support and go look at their network. And birds of a feather walk together. Right? So look at their network and find out who in their network are business owners, entrepreneurs, and request to connect with them. Because out of that network, there's gonna be some who have overlaying core principles, values, all the things.

Shantel:

Definitely. Alright. Stay tuned.

Melissa:

Alright. Keep us posted next month.

Shantel:

Thank you so much.

Melissa:

-: 2285

Melissa:

Can't wait to see you guys. Come find me over on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, wherever you like to hang. Cannot wait to here, how you are enjoying and applying what you're learning. You guys reach out to me over on social because I love hearing what's resonating with you. When you reach out to me and you send me those personal DMs, they really do impact the content I continue to bring forward to you. So, again, come find me, melissa_henault over on Instagram, melissahenault over on LinkedIn and Facebook. Can't wait to see you guys over there.