Top 3 Strategies for Profitable Networking - Stephanie Bonte-Lebair

Website: http://buildempoweredpartners.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theempoweredvoice

00:04 Hello everyone. I'm Stephanie Bonte-Lebair and I am the founder of Empowered Business Networking, and I'm excited today to share with you the top three strategies for profitable networking. Just a little bit about me, I'm actually a professional singer with a bachelor's and Master's in vocal performance and I have sung in operas, cabarets, musicals and dinner theater, including in New York City and all over the country. And my original business was as a singing teacher. And about 11 years ago, I had a friend take me to a business networking event and I loved it so much that I became the managing director of that chapter within two years. And I ran all in person networking events for many, many years. 

00:48 And then I launched my own group in January of 2020 as a virtual networking group. And I serve the creative coach, speaker, trainer, marketing or sales professional who can do business with pretty much anyone anywhere. And we network a little bit differently, which is how I'm going to jump into our topic for today. So maybe you've had some of these challenges when you're networking, you meet great people, but it doesn't always translate to clients. You struggle with how to best talk about your value and stand out at networking events and follow up calls can become sales pitches. Sometimes you even find that you are giving a lot at networking you're helping a ton of people but you are not getting much in return it feels a little one sided. 

01:39 What if networking always led to a positive, quantifiable result? You knew exactly how to introduce yourself to stand out and get results, and you could reduce your networking time and effort while also increasing referrals. The top three strategies we're going to discuss today will help you in all of these areas. So the first one is what to do before you start to network and the umbrella over this is intentional preparation. I see a lot of people out there throwing spaghetti on the walls they are showing up a lot they're going to different places they're just trying to see what's going to work. 

02:23 And you can network less and get better results when you're much more intentional. So I like to set what I call inner and outer intentions. And inner intention can be one word of how you want to feel while you're networking. And an outer intention can be one sentence of what is that tangible one goal you'd like to achieve as a result of that networking experience that day. Then, depending on your goals, plan your introduction accordingly. Make sure your introduction actually matches your intention. 

02:56 If you for example, want to have one great aligned follow up call with someone in the room, then make sure you are very intentional in asking for the type of person you'd like to have a call with so that they can identify themselves and raise their hand. Finally, know who your ideal empowered partners are. These are your best referral part partners in the market and they have a lot greater chance of getting you in front of your ideal client then by showing up at random networking events hoping that your ideal client is there and wants to buy from you. 

03:35 Your ideal empowered partner, which is a term that I have now a registered trademark for, has a similar ideal client to you. They have a complimentary service your client desires or needs. They want to be your cheerleader in the marketplace and here is the key, you empower each other to easily take action. We are all busy entrepreneurs we have a lot on our plate, so trying to market ourselves can feel like a lot, let alone marketing someone else's business. 

04:08 But when you have an empowered partner who makes it easy for you to be able to share who they are are and what they do, then you can create a reciprocal win win relationship with that person without it taking up a lot of your time. You want to be able to describe your ideal empowered partner when you go to networking events so they know who to introduce to you. So ask yourself, what are the complimentary products and services that my client also buys besides mine? Then what are the titles or industries of those services? And are there any values or qualities that you appreciate in a person that make you feel excited to want to share about them and be their cheerleader in the marketplace? Then you can create what I call is your empowered partners statement. 

05:01 So this is A1 sentence that describes who they are. You can use these prompts to help you. I want to be connected to describe their title or the industry that they're in, who sells, what is it that they're selling and who serves and this is going to be a similar ideal client to you you're going to describe your ideal client there so here is an example. I want to be connected to coaches and networking leaders, building communities who sell memberships to creative heart centered entrepreneurs. 

05:33 One sentence number two this is how you show up in the room when you're networking, you want to show up powerfully. And this means if you have a clear, captivating introduction, if you are describing your ideal and powered partner, and if you have an ask that leads to action, how you show up is going to make you stand out from everyone else in the room. So let's talk about these three things. I recommend that you have a one sentence introduction that describes what you do. Some people can talk and talk and talk about what they do, but when you're networking and someone meets you for the first time, you want to really narrow it down and be clear. 

06:17 So I love these prompts I work with. Describe your ideal client who struggles with what are some of the pain points that they have that keep them up at night and who really desires and this is the vision that they have for themselves this is what you help create with them. Here's an example. I work with busy creative entrepreneurs who struggle with HIT and Mississippi networking results and they really want consistent referrals that lead to clients. 

06:47 And then here's another version of my empowered partner statement my ideal empowered partners are community builders such as coaches with membership programs and networking leaders with communities of service based entrepreneurs. If I say just this and nothing else, I will get a great introduction to a potential empowered partner or I will get an interest in tell me more i want to have a phone call with you. So this alone can be great. And if you want to put this on, you know, rockets and go even further, have an ask that leads to action. And here are some key little features that help you create an ask that leads to action. 

07:30 A captivating title, a value, attach a value to it, a limited quantity, a limited time, and then clear instructions to take action now, now this doesn't have to mean you're selling something. You can apply this to a free offer that you have you can apply this to, you know, a clarity call. I never called a clarity call, by the way that's why I put a captivating title there. You want to speak to the value that that call is going to provide that win win value because people can see right through that and and suspect that you might be trying to give them a sales call and you definitely don't want to do that when you're networking do not try to sell your stuff on the very first conversation unless they ask you and they say I want to know about your services i think I might be your ideal client. 

08:19 So here's an example of one that I use all the time, a virtual networking ticket. It's a 44$ value because that's what I sell them for on Eventbrite you can network with 60 creative entrepreneurs and hand selected breakout rooms receive a full attendance list and personalized recommendations from me. Only 15 non members per meeting just go to <a href="ebnticket.com">ebnticket.com</a> So I have used this call when I network, this call to action when I network, and it helps bring people right into my networking meetings all the time. 

08:50 It has a title, it has a value, it has limited seats, it has clear instructions to go to <a href="ebnticket.com">ebnticket.com</a> And of course, I describe it a little bit as well so that they can sense what the value really is going to be. 3 is strategic follow up this is what happens after the networking event. So the first thing you're going to want to focus on is connecting with your empowered partners. Don't just go through the list and say, who are my ideal clients here because you're going to come across as a salesy weirdo. 

09:21 Ok, Focus on the people who are connected to your people. Then you want to choose a strategy that helps you reach a goal that you have in your business i'll talk about that here in a second. And you want to send a win win invitation to connect so that they know this is not a sales call. Here are the five strategies I teach inside empowered business networking. The first is called the Empowered Partners cross promotion strategy. This is everything you do with email social media, cross promotion techniques, on websites, on using your newsletters, all of those things. Cross promotion is a great way to have easy wins when you're building a relationship, especially if it's a new relationship with someone. 

10:11 The next is the empowered partners speaking strategy and this is all about finding those stages for each other that when you have a complimentary coach, for example, who maybe has a talk that's not exactly like yours, but also speaks to the audience that you tend to serve. When you find someone like this, you can send each other a lot of speaking referrals and can really help you grow your business quickly. Then we have Empowered Partners affiliate strategy so this is affiliate programs where you are giving a thank you gift or a percentage to someone when they share about your service and that person buys. 

10:49 This can be a great way to create additional revenue in your business when you're strategic, when you're picking those services that you know your client also needs besides yours and you really love that person, you can really speak authentically about that person. This can be a great way to boost your revenue. Then we have the joint venture strategy and this is a little more in depth strategy where you are really going in on something together maybe you're also splitting the cost of something together as well as the rewards that come back out on the other side. 

11:24 This is when you find a really aligned partner that you want to work with, perhaps long term or you know, maybe across the next 6 to 12 months or longer. Finally, we have the empowered partners creative collaborative strategy. These are all the other outside the box thinking ideas. For example, I have a collaborative book and besides having experts write inside my collaborative book, we also turned the book into a workshop series where every chapter is a workshop where you can go deeper and you can work to get things done to help you create better networking and partnerships. 

12:01 So that you know, is outside the box of traditional, Hey, let me just send you some referrals and you can send some to me, right? You actually leverage yourself in a different way you get a bigger audience going because it's a group of you working together towards a common goal. So once you have a strategy and you can choose more than one, by the way, strategy that you're working towards that's connected to one of your business goals, you want to invite people to connect with you with a win win message. So it could be, hey, it appears we both serve this similar client or my clients are often looking for your services or I noticed you're speaking topics are complementary to mind or you requested connections to someone with my background and experience. 

12:49 Finally, I would love to connect to discuss whether we can support each other with ideal connections in some way. Can this sometimes lead to finding a client? Yes. But you should always go in with this networking idea of building a relationship and supporting the other person so that they feel comfortable and you're not bringing a pitch deck with you you're not trying to sell them your service or your software. You're literally saying, is there a way for us to work together thinking about one of the strategies that you've already selected for yourself based on a goal? And then can I invite this person to a conversation and of course, if you want to go deeper, I actually teach how to have those conversations, how to execute on those five strategies and really turn networking into a consistent referral source for you in every kind of way. 

13:45 So that's it those are the top three actions you can be taking to be more efficient, more profitable, more effective, and building relationships that really are going to make a difference and create win wins for everyone all around. Thank you so much for listening to this and if you ever want to come visit Empower Business Networking, I am gifting tickets as a result of today's presentation so thank you so much.