How B2B Marketers Can Expand Through Networking

There are several misconceptions about networking out there, but it truly is a missed opportunity for many in the B2B space. When done right, empowered B2B marketers and professionals can build influential networks and businesses based on genuine connections and community support.

That’s why we’re talking to master B2B networker Donnie Boivin (CEO, Success Champion Networking) about how B2B marketers and other professionals can harness the power of networking for growth. During our conversation, Donnie highlighted why most networking falls flat, what pitfalls to avoid, and the importance of having a networking and follow-up strategy.

https://youtu.be/NQxdNBLm3vU

Topics discussed in episode

What is networking and where do most people fall flat? [2:37]
The difference between an introduction and a referral [4:49]
How to deal with push-back when it comes to networking [5:58]
How the networking landscape has evolved [10:41]
What B2B marketers should avoid when it comes to networking: [15:22]
- Giving out business cards
- Ditch the elevator pitch
The importance of having a networking strategy [20:57]
How to conduct “Follow ups” the right way [23:58]
How to get internal buy-in for networking [28:49]
Donnie’s actionable tips: [33:50]
- The 4 places for B2B marketers and professionals to network
- Build a personal brand
- The synergy triangle
- Do something else besides networking
Status quos that Donnie disagrees with: [39:51]
- Networking is for broke people
- Networking is just a social club
- People network because they don’t know how to sell

Companies and links mentioned

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Donnie Boivin

Christian Klepp 00:03

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for changemakers, where we question the conventional, debunk marketing myths, provide actionable tips, think differently, disrupt the industries, and take your marketing to a new level, from improving your campaigns to making you a better marketer. These are the inspirational stories that will help us change the way we think and approach B2B marketing, one conversation at a time. This podcast is brought to you by EINBLICK Consulting, helping you to stand out in the market and drive revenue to your B2B business. And now your host, Christian Klepp. Welcome, everyone to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. This is the show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host Christian Klepp. And today, I’m joined by someone on a mission to create B2B networking experiences that connect you with your ideal clients. So Mr. Donnie Boivin. Welcome to the show, sir.

Donnie Boivin 01:03

Hey, Christian, thanks for having me on. A couple of conversations we’ve had in the past… I am looking forward to this one, it would be a fun conversation.

Christian Klepp 01:10

Absolutely, absolutely. And like I said before we hit record, I think this is such a pertinent topic, not just to B2B marketers, but to people in general that are attempting to put themselves out there, build their network, build their businesses, and, you know, leverage, something that’s existing or even new. So, you know, why don’t we just jump right into it and get this party started? What do you think?

Donnie Boivin 01:32

Yeah, for sure, man, just, you know, from my perspective, networking is such a key fundamental skill that people have got to have. And I think a lot of people don’t understand what networking is, how to use it, what to use it for. So, you know, we can chase down all those rabbit holes and have some fun with it.

Christian Klepp 01:51

Let’s do that. So why don’t we kick off with this one. You’ve been on a mission to deliver, I love this one, networking experiences that don’t suck, for B2B. So if we’re gonna try to narrow down that topic, and this is going to be a handful, so bear with me here. But the topic is how to empower B2B professionals to build influential networks and businesses based on genuine connections and community support. So if we’re going to start off this conversation, let’s start off with two questions. And I’m happy to repeat. One is why should B2B marketers care about this? And number two, where do you think most networking falls flat?

Donnie Boivin 02:33

Great stuff. So I’m gonna answer both of those. But first, I wanted to define networking, because I think people just don’t understand what networking really, really is. And just so your listeners know, I look at networking completely different. And I tend to try and flip networking on its head for people. So for me networking, by definition, in a business development role, we’ll come at it from that perspective, is building other people’s companies. Most times, if you’re selling B2B, your clients are bigger companies, right? Like, you may not be doing a million dollar business, but your clients are likely to do, you know, a million $20 million plus in revenue. And if you’re selling to companies at that level, guess what, they’re not out networking. They are not at your after hours, they’re not at your breakfast meetings, you know, they are doing all kinds of things that are not traditionally networking in nature. So if we understand that networking is about building other people’s businesses, then we have to come at networking from a completely different perspective. What people tend to think networking is, is that happy hour, going to a conference, a trade show, right? All these things going maybe to a weekly meeting type thing, all this stuff. And they come at it from a perspective of I do networking to find clients. Well, it’s a surefire way to lose, because as I said, your clients, they’re not out there, right. They’re not sitting in those places. So if they’re not sitting in those places, what a heck should you go to those places, and it’s really, really simple. Because everybody who is networking, they’re usually in the same size business you are, selling to those same type of clientele that you’re trying to get to, right. But you’re not going to meet somebody at an after hours or at a breakfast or lunch, whatever else. And they’re not going to instantly say Oh, my God, I’ve been looking for a marketing company my entire life, where have you been, let me give you all my clients. Like it just doesn’t happen. So we have to understand that we’ve got to learn to leverage our network to actually get into their network. And to do that I’ve got to grow their business in a way I grow their business is through introductions and referrals.

I think we have to define what an introduction and referral is. An introduction is let’s just introduce two good people and put them together. You don’t know what’s going to come out of it. Maybe it’s a good collaboration, maybe It’s a good conversation. You know, maybe they do workshops or conference together, who knows. But a referral is the introduction with a sales call expected. So what I mean by that is, somebody’s come to you says they’re looking for XYZ services. And you say, I got a guy. I know who I can introduce you to, and you introduce them to them. So the basis for everything that I teach and the philosophy is understanding that you’re not networking to find clients, you’re networking to get introduced to people that have your client base, open doors for them, build their business, so then you can grab opportunities to have doors open for you. I don’t know if I fully answered both of your questions. But that’s a good foundation from start to sail off.

Christian Klepp 05:48

Yes, you have answered my question. And I’m gonna follow that up with two questions. Right. So number one, I’ll start with the devil’s advocate question first. What do you say to those doubters that push back on that and say, well, we get all that Donnie, but man, that takes a lot of time. That takes a lot of time and effort, and we need to hit those numbers, we need that quota right now. What do you say to those people?

Donnie Boivin 06:12

Everything takes time. There is no overnight plan, there is no shortcut to anything. And I’ll tell you, every time you try and find the shortcut, every time you’re trying to find a hack, every time you try and find the workaround, you’re just costing yourself the opportunity to learn what’s actually going to move your business forward. What people don’t understand, is we’re naturally wired to find the shortcut. And it’s just almost in our DNA. If we go play games, we look for the cheat codes, if we, you know, I don’t know, play Madden, we want to find that one trick play that always works. So we’re always trying to do these quick workarounds. And every time we do that, we literally cost ourselves. So instead of being like playing Madden, and looking for that one trick play, put Madden on the hardest damn setting and play it over and over again until you figure out how to play it. Right? It’s the same thing. It’s just like marketing. Like if somebody comes in buys marketing services with you, and they’re like, man, I’ve got to get deals right now. I’ve got to get numbers coming in right now. I want those marketers to tell me, what marketing can I do that instantly puts clients saying yes, to me, and I’m printing cash. Right? And they don’t have that answer. It’s the same thing here. Right. So to understand that this is all a long game. And the faster you wrap your head around this, the faster this will work for you. Now, I can 100% say that if you got into your head that I can leverage the network to get introduced the people I need to get introduced to. So like for marketers, potentially a good referral partner for them, could be you know, fractional CMOs, it could be PR firms, right? It could be other extremely, really large ad agencies that don’t want to pick up a little bit work, right? It could be a plethora of people. If you understand this, anybody you get introduced to, you can ask to be introduced to somebody that has all your client base. And if you can do that, then you’re going to find miraculously that you get enough of the right introduction. So enough of the right conversations, and people are going to open up the right doors for you. So for instance, I had a young lady mid… sometime around June last year come to me and said, you know, she was very, very frustrated because nobody would give her referrals. And we talked through what a referral actually was. And she said that’s what she was looking for. And interestingly enough, I said, Okay, walk me through, what’s your business? And she said, I do tuition assistance for people trying to put their kids through college. And I laughed, and I said, Well, you understand why you’re not getting referrals, don’t you? And she said, No. And I said, it’s because nobody wants to admit that they don’t have enough money set aside to send your kids college. Right. Nobody wants to have that conversation. I said, but somebody is intimately having that conversation with those families on a regular basis. I said, so if you were to look at all your industries, who sent you the most referrals, what industry specifically? And she didn’t skip a beat, she said bookkeepers? I said, Well, that makes sense. Right? bookkeepers are constantly in there talking about money. I said, so here’s what I want you to do. I said, I want you to go out and network and I say, Hey, I do tuition assistance for families trying to put their kids in college. And I’d love to meet your bookkeeper. And she goes, Well, that’s really simple. I said, Yeah, what happens if you met 100 bookkeepers before the end of the year? She goes, oh my god, it would change my business, when in fact it did because three weeks before the end of the year she called me up and said Donnie, you’re not going to believe this. I tripled my business and actually had to tell people to stop introduce me to bookkeepers, because about every second or third bookkeeper, had already made client for me. And it works the same way in marketing is you just got to understand who’s got my clientele, and how can I leverage these people I’m talking to, to get connected to them. So now we can go talk about what collaboration between the two of us looks like, you know, how can we partner up? Right? How can we open doors? And if you understand this philosophy, it’s transformational for your business, and how he’s going to push it forward. So, yeah, instant success. Not a thing.

Christian Klepp 10:16

Absolutely, absolutely. It almost sounds like marketing 101, understand your target audience, understand where they’re at. But yeah, you’re absolutely right like that. A lot of people go down a really long path or the wrong path, I should say, and we can get into that in a second. But here comes the second follow up question. And you probably know this better than most, how is the networking landscape evolved? And why should people be paying attention to that?

Donnie Boivin 10:41

Yeah, a couple of things. You know, there’s an organization, just from the business landscape like BNI, you know, everybody’s run across them, great company, they’ve put the name, you know, networking on the map. Monsters, as far as number of members, and they, you know, kind of set the tone and pace for what networking was going to look like in the marketplace. What they went for was market share, right, and they didn’t care about who particularly came into their network. So it’s not a bad thing. It was a great business move, if you’re B2C, BNI is a phenomenal place to be. But if we look at where networking and how it was created and started. Networking, the way we know it, was created by even Ivan Misner, founder of BNI. And all your networking, all of it was created on the back of I don’t want to cold call. I don’t want to kick in doors. So there’s got to be an alternative to get clients and insert networking. Like Ivan Misner’s story is he lost his biggest client, created networking groups, right? You know, in almost every networking organization on the planet, it’s founded this way. But if we go further down, we think about, okay, cool. Who is, you know, literally, you know, teaching networking. Historically, everybody who’s taught networking over the years has been transactional in nature. They were a financial advisor, they were an insurance agent. They were a realtor, and I’m not knocking on those industries. But transactional networking is the idea where, and I’ll tell you this is not true, but it always is the case. But transactional networking is where everybody can say yes to you, like whatever you sell, everybody come by. So this is very much a B2C type world, because in B2C, if I sell a house, I can sell a house to anybody. If I sell financial advisory services, I can sell that to anybody. If I sell whatever MLM craps out there, I can sell that to anybody. So if we understand that networking was taught in a very transactional nature, even though they said, you know, you’re not supposed to sell your network and everything else, everybody does. And so traditional networking sees everybody go into a room, and everybody’s looking at everybody else going, please God, can you say yes to me, because I need the business, right, to really enact a desperation. Where networking really started to evolve, of course, when COVID hit, and everything went online, where the scale really tipped was, now you go, and you take traditional formats of networking, into an online space, and they don’t work. Because nobody wants to sit around and watch 45 minutes of people talking about what they do. I mean, you’ll watch cameras get turned off, you watch people not interacting, right. And it’s also not an environment where you’re going into a happy hour. And there’s, you know, different people, you can just walk up to and say hi. It’s a very capsuled way to do things. So we took that, that idea, and we created virtual groups around multiple meeting types and everything else to really shake it up. The interesting play that’s going to happen in the future, is with the continued advancement of AI and how it’s coming to come into place. One of the things that we’re absolutely watching is the World of Warcraft kind of style of business going to be a real thing, like am I gonna go to be able to create my own avatar, right, go to a virtual conference of some sort, and this is already out there. It’s already built. You know, I’m just watching to see if it really takes hold. Because it’s very much early adopter stage. You know, but most people that are networking are actually introverts, because a lot of your extroverted, you know, type salespeople in a business development role. They’re not networking, they’re the ones cold calling, kicking in doors, yada, yada, yada. So you got more introverts. Now you put introverts in a space where they can be a freakin purple dragon, and, you know, go to an event, you remove a lot of the traditional barriers that kick their butt when they’re trying to do any sort of networking. So it’s gonna be fascinating to see how it continued plays out over the years, but there’s a lot more to it, but that’ll give you at least a good you know, journey of it.

Christian Klepp 14:59

Yeah. absolutely. That’s incredibly interesting. I would be curious to see where, where they take it to next in terms of AI and whatnot with that kind of technology. But some of the things that you’ve brought up in the past couple of minutes. It’s such a great segue into the next question about common pitfalls, specifically with networking that B2B marketers should avoid.

Donnie Boivin 15:22

Yeah, I got two huge ones that drive me nuts. One is why the hell do you have business cards? So business cards, they’re just unwarranted in this day and age. And I don’t know a good solution. I mean I don’t know, a good reason, not solution, why anybody carries a business card. We’re all using LinkedIn, especially if you’re in the B2B game, right? So if somebody wants to connect, open up your phone, hit the search bar, hit that little doodads, your QR code pops up, connect on LinkedIn. And look, let’s be honest, you collect a bunch of business cards anywhere you go, what are you gonna do with them, you’re not going to put them in your CRM, you’re not going to scan the damn things in, they’re just gonna become a cluster pile on your desk. So what I’ll tell everybody is not carrying a business card is one of the most brilliant ways to quickly filter who you want to talk to and follow up with. So like Christian, like if you and I are out networking, and I’m like, Man, Christian’s the guy I really want to follow up and talk to with, and Christian goes, Hey, I want your business card, I’m gonna look and say, you know what, do this, give me your cell phone number, I’ll text you my information. And then you know, we’ll have each other stuff, right. Because a cell phone, there’s nothing greater than having somebody’s cell phone. Right. It is like the strongest thing in the world that you could have. So after I had sent you a text with my information, get your information, your phone, I’m gonna say, you know what, Christian, if we keep talking like this, we’re going to end up into some sort of business type conversation. Let’s go schedule a zoom. And then I’ll text him a link straight to my calendar. Right? So we can go grab a time, and then I’m gonna get out of the conversation, right? Because if you stay in that conversation much longer than that, somebody’s getting pitched. It’s unintentional. It’s a nervous tic, right? So we’re gonna get out of that conversation.

Donnie Boivin 17:07

The second thing that people need to get away with, and it’s my other biggest phob…, just hate it… is get rid of the stupid elevator pitch. Nobody gives a damn what you do, especially in the B2B game. I want you to listen and to really think about this. Have they ever gone to a B2B networking event in general, walked up to somebody and said, Hey, what do you do? And whatever their answer was, they’re like, Oh, my God, I’ve been looking for your services forever, right? It may happen, but very, very, very rarely, if it ever does. All you got to do is tell people in simple black and light language, what you do. After you tell them what they do, tell them specifically who you’re looking to meet at that event at that night, you know, where you’re out. So it’s, Hey, I do marketing for XYZ type companies. I’d love to meet anybody, you know, connected to marketing, PR, copywriting websites, anybody that touches that side of realm of things. And what’s fascinating, is what you do doesn’t matter. Because the people that are out there networking, they’re networking, they’re not, you know, they’re hoping you’ll say yes to whatever the hell they’re selling, right? That’s just the way they’re looking at it. So if we get rid of the pitch, and understand I’m here to grow their business, I’m going to tell them quickly who I’m trying to meet. And then I’m gonna flip the script as fast as I possibly can. Right? Because it’s networking, we’re gonna run into each other again, right? It’s not like we’re going to be a one time see and never see you again. So I’m going to say, Hey, I’m Donnie. I run B2B networking groups all throughout the world. I’m looking to meet people, people that have business communities and podcasts. And then I’m gonna immediately say, Tell me about your role. How did you get into what you do? And I’m gonna kick it off me as fast as possible. And how did you get into what you do is one of the greatest questions you can start off with to get people really connecting with you. But yeah, those my two biggest thing, get rid of the pitch, get rid of the business cards. And you’ll get a lot further in your conversations.

Christian Klepp 19:08

Absolutely, absolutely. No, those two points really resonated with me, because it was one of the things that frustrated me in the beginning. And now I realized, like, yeah, you know what, I actually don’t want people’s business cards anymore. Just connect on LinkedIn. And that’s it. Right? And to your second point, I’ve hated elevator pitches from the get go. So I’m kind of glad that they’re eventually like fading into the ether.

Donnie Boivin 19:32

There’s some organizations going to keep them forever. Like, I’ll go to LinkedIn, and say, you know, guys, stop the elevator pitches, and there’s elevator pitch coaches out there. And they come at me every time. It’s the funniest thing in the world. But if you need a jingle in the backend of what you do is because what you sell sucks.

Christian Klepp 19:49

Yup absolutely. And let’s be honest, how much can you really pitch to these people or tell these people within those 30 to 60 seconds? Yeah, I mean… correct me if I’m wrong, but then the elevator pitch like… wasn’t it developed because of cold calling like because you know, you only have…

Donnie Boivin 20:06

It was actually developed because of the elevator ride. So people were in these big cities, and they would find themselves on an elevator with somebody, and you got, you got like 10 floors or whatever to, you know, somebody asked what you do, then the frickin sales guys got a hold of it. That’s what it really evolved from the cold calls and whatnot. That’s where it got… Is bastardized bad word? I don’t know. But it got destroyed at that point. Because of, once salespeople get it, we’re gonna screw it all up and destroy it, and try and make it some sort of tactic or skill to convince you that, oh, my god, you need us.

Christian Klepp 20:06

You kind of alluded to it earlier. But why do you think it’s important for folks that have a networking strategy, and not just wing it.

Donnie Boivin 20:57

Because if you don’t calculate an ROI on every bit of activity you do, and marketers, you guys shouldn’t know this. Like, if you can’t put an ROI to it, you can’t look at the metrics, how to hell do you even know if it’s actually working? Right. So… and ROI has got to be defined as well. ROI does not always mean return on money, right? It can be money, time, opportunity, you know, information, like I’ve gone to events, just to figure out where a certain individual is going to be, right, or I’ve gone to events to figure out other events I needed to go to, you know, and different things. So you have to define what ROI is for all of this. And when you look at networking most times, most people because they don’t look at it as a business development tool. They don’t know how to effectively track everything that works. So that would be like sending out an email campaign, and not looking at the open rate. And you know, the accepted rates and all that like. It’s like sending out a postcard and not having any sort of QR code or some trackable mechanism on there to know if it’s working. Networking is going to be done the same exact way. So when you think about networking, like if you got a group of business development folks, or you’re going yourself, and I think, okay, I’m going to this after hours, what am I going to accomplish here, and it needs to go through your head, I need to set two appointments, not with clients. If the clients happen to be there, cool. But I need to set two appointments with strategic referral partners, people that can open doors for me, if I’m going to a trade show is… okay, if it’s a one day trade show, how do I set two appointments here? If it’s a trade show, that would be with the prospects. You know, if I’m going to a conference, can I set up a referral, you know, conversation while I’m there can you know everything’s got to have a trackable ROI. And all the way down to where we we look at networking as a whole, based on two solid parameters. How many introductions do I have to give before I get an introduction? And how many referrals do I have to give before I get a referral? Based off of that activity, I can tell a lot about how or what the things I have to maintain and do on a regular basis to keep my business coming in and get me into enough of the right conversations. So you can’t wing it networking. This. Just like marketing. It’s the same principle, same philosophy.

Christian Klepp 23:36

Absolutely. You brought up something and I’d like to go back to it. Following up. They do say that the fortunes in the follow up or whatever it is, um, what would you suggest to folks out there that are listening to the conversation like what’s the right way to follow up? Because certainly spamming the living crap out of people you met at a conference is not the way to go.

Donnie Boivin 23:58

Here’s what I’ll tell you. Everybody sucks at follow up. And you know, people have asked me all the time, well, how long do you wait to follow up with somebody after a conference or something. And my answer is very simple. Set the appointments at the event, so you don’t have to worry about the follow up. So, I’m just… let’s get the action done now. And this is what I tell you. Most times your clients aren’t networking. The difference being like maybe if you’re going to trade shows and stuff, they might be there. But either way, nobody wants to be the greaseball sales guy, right? So and that’s what following up usually feels like is that really greaseball sales maneuver. So if that’s the case, we have to start looking at it from okay, if I’m not gonna follow up, then I have to take action right now to get into a conversation. So I’m having a dynamic conversation with somebody and it makes sense that have a second conversation. They’ve got their calendars sitting right there in their hands. I’m gonna take them right then and there and go, Hey, you know, let’s do this. I’d love to continue this conversation, can we grab the zoom? Or maybe lunch, coffee, cocktail, whatever, and continue this conversation? And most times, people will go, yeah, for sure. Let’s do that. And I’ve done this with Mom and Pop companies all the way up to heavy decision makers and fortune 5s. If the conversation and the mood is right, they will almost always say yes. Right? If they say no, it’s because you are seeing a different part of the conversation than they are. But if you have to follow up, I’m of the firm belief that you need to be the first person to follow up because you know why? Because nobody else is going to, because everybody else sucks at the game. So it’s as soon as you get back to your hotel room. As soon as you get back to your office. As soon as you get home from that conference tradeshow. First thing you do is you shoot them a message. And the message needs to first remind them who you are. Remind them what you talked about, ask for some sort of next step. Right? Of where do we go from here. And then if you have a drip campaign, you have someplace, you know, you can put them off to the side and go, cool. Put them in a sequence, a series of emails, that takes them on a journey and path, right. But if you come hit them every email with Well, we do XYZ, the best of everybody, you know, you buy my crap now and all that stuff, you’re just gonna get lost in the sauce. Right? Remember, desperation smells, and everybody knows it. Right? So you know, keep it simple, but think through it like a marketer should. And what is my follow up campaign for these individuals. And you can’t send just the same generic crap to everybody, either, right? You’ve got to personalize and think about this way, if every one of these people you’re talking to can either introduce you to your ideal client, or they are your ideal client, right? There’s a lot of zeros on the back end of that conversation that that potential person is worth to you. You need to treat them like so. And if you don’t want to treat them like so, then why are you in the game in the first place? Right. So it’s, I suck at follow up. So I get it done right out of the gate.

Christian Klepp 27:23

Absolutely, absolutely. No, I love that. Well, desperation smells. And boy, is that true. But like, it’s to your point that you brought up earlier, it’s really a balance of timing, finesse. And there’s a bit of an art and science to it, right? Because of course you want to get them to a yes. Or you want to get them to a “sure, let’s jump on a call” or what have you. But there’s got to be a lot of these factors in between that help massage the… I always say massage the message a little bit instead of like, you know, Hey, Donnie, we’re gonna get on call. And you know, we work with companies from A to Z. And I’ve worked with dropping all these names of people you’ve never heard of, right? I mean, we get them all the time. And I just don’t understand why people don’t evolve because that stuff didn’t work before. And it sure as heck doesn’t work now.

Donnie Boivin 28:09

It does work, if you have a massive volume, right? If you’re going for volume, that stuff works. If you have a million contacts, you’re gonna capture a percentage of those contacts. But most of us don’t have a million contacts, right? We’re sitting on a list of a couple thousand people, we can’t blow that list, you know, and destroy the people we have in there, we got to nurture the hell out of them.

Christian Klepp 28:33

Absolutely. You brought this up a couple of minutes ago, but like how do B2B marketers get buy in from somebody up high for something like networking? Because you know, they get things thrown at them, like ROI questions and what have you. So what do they need to do?

Donnie Boivin 28:48

So they need to go into the conversation. One with a predetermined, this is how we’re going to track the success of this. So these are my key performance indicators. These are my metrics, my KPIs that I’m going to measure for this. So what happens to most people is they hear about networking, and they’re like, You know what, I’m gonna go to a couple of happy hours, I’m gonna go to this association and this thing, and they go into it. And because you can’t get immediate returns on it, you know, they’ll just tell your boss, hey, I’m going. Boss goes, Hey, what you get from that? And they’re like, nothing. They’re like, Okay, you’re not doing that anymore. Well, of course you didn’t getting nothing. Nobody does business, especially in a B2B game in the first conversation, right? It’s gonna take a couple of conversations, you know, and oftentimes, you got to see somebody multiple times at multiple events, before you’ll even be willing to have that second conversation with them, right? Because in B2B, things take time. This is not B to C, where anybody can immediately say yes to you. This is B2B and you can’t look at it as I go to event. I find a client. I go home right. It doesn’t work that way. So determine what your metrics are, of what makes it successful for you. So you can look at going to after hours and say, okay, my goal, higher up boss, whatever is I’m going to go this after hours, I’m going to attempt to set two events, you know, two meetings out there, I’m gonna try and find a couple of strategic referral partners, from those strategic referral partners, I’m going to try and get them introduced to a couple of people. And hopefully, I get introduced to a couple of really good people, right? And then you track the metrics of those things. But if you just go to a boss and say, Hey, I’m going to network, they’re gonna look at you like, you got two damn heads, right? Most times, because they don’t understand networking. They are introverted. So the idea of going around a bunch of other people is scary as hell, right? So you have to come at them. And it’s almost like doing… I’ve always said, there’s two sales in every sale, sale number one is gonna go get client. Sale number two, is you got to sell your company on taking care of that client, it’s the same thing for networking, you got to sell, you know, let me find the networks and number two, you gotta sell your company on letting you go to the network. And then it’s your job to buy you time, because networking does take time. So and if you’re a higher up trying to get your people that work for you, you know, network, then you need to buy them time. Like if you’re gonna join an association, if 6 months to a year, 18 months before you’re gonna see an ROI on that. Right. And you need to go into that expecting. You also need to tell your higher ups. I’m gonna go join Association. We’re playing for year two, we’re not playing for year one.

Christian Klepp 31:35

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you brought it up earlier, but it’s also… there’s a heck of a lot of nurturing going on here too.

Donnie Boivin 31:54

Yes. Right. Yes. Yeah. You know, it’s B2B networking. If people are networking, then they network, they’re not cold calling. So networking is likely their top strategy to do business development, you’re gonna see them again. And think about it, you go to an event the first time, you walk in, you don’t know anybody. Yeah, it’s awkward. It’s even for an extroverted guy like me, you know, I’m more situationally extroverted. But, you know, it’s just weird that first time you walk in, there’s a lot of figuring people out, there’s men sizing each other up, there’s all the stupid things that are happening, right, you know, pissing contest, if you will, all that stuff that happens. So, you know, you go back to the second time, and you might bump into somebody you met the first time but by the third, fourth time, people start seeing you, they start recognizing you, it becomes a lot easier, and you’ll come more and more out of your shell. And over time, people will be more interested in what you do. And you know, everything we do, tells a story. This is personal branding 101. So how we show up, how we talk to others, what we do for other people all tell people, are we somebody that they can trust? Are we somebody they can approach? And the more you do the right things over time, the more your personal brand develops, and that’s when the real opportunities come to the table. You know, it’s over time doing the right things on a regular basis.

Christian Klepp 33:28

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, so we get to the part in the show where we’re talking about actionable tips, and Donnie, you’ve given us plenty. But if we’re gonna summarize it, or recap it, like and list 3 to 5 tips or things that B2B marketers can do right now, to leverage networking, what would those things be?

Donnie Boivin 33:50

So the first one is, there’s four places you got to be networking, very, very tactical. You need to have an association that is filled full of people who also sell to your ideal client. So if we go back to the gal who did tuition assistance, her finding a bookkeeper association would be like the greatest thing ever. Okay. The second place you need to be networking is you should be sitting on a nonprofit board. And the reason you sit on nonprofit boards is because if you look at nonprofits, especially the bigger that is, they’re filled with decision makers of bigger companies. So you find a nonprofit that you’re truly passionate about their mission, and then you go work with them to get on their board. Third place you need networking group like Success Champions Networking, not trying to a shameless plug here, but B2B networking groups, you need to be meeting with a group of people that are proactively invested in growing your company. The fourth place you need to be networking is a private club. So this is anywhere where somebody’s paying a private membership. And business conversations can happen so this can be a business club, Country Club, cigar iounge, wine club, I don’t care, you know, but anywhere, and if you are part of a country club, cigar lounge or something, and there’s not a business club inside of that club, create it. But if you do those four places, you’re gonna find yourself freaking just blown away at the level of people you need to meet. Two, you need to understand, people buy you then get what you sell, you need to be building a personal brand of where I mean, because let’s be honest, people are talking about you. Right, we might as well help them tell the right story. So that means you need to be doing the right things, the right activity at the right time. And opening doors for other people. Think about everybody else is at these events and things they’re looking for business, they’re trying to get things going. Be the person that knows everybody in the room and can open up all those right doors. And watch what happens. Three, understand that your clientele are not networking, right, you’re leveraging your network to get introduced to people who have your clientele. And the more you do this, the better off you’re going to be. We call it a synergy triangle, we put you at the top, we put your favorite client in the center. And then at the bottom of that triangle, I want two industries that sell to that favorite clients industries, right, and find as many people in those industries as you possibly can. Think the bookkeeper and the tuition assistance, right? The huge combination. And then the last thing I want you to think about is if networking is the only activity you’re doing, you’re going to lose, networking alone will not build a business, you still need to be selling, you still need to be marketing, you still need to be connecting, you still need to be doing cold outreach, you still need to be doing a combination of all the regular stuff that you do to grow a business. My scariest thing that somebody tells me is their business is 100% referral based business. That means you have no control over what business comes in. And you’re literally living on the work and efforts of other people. Right, you’ve got to create an overall networking referral system, I got a whole bunch more but that’s good enough to get him started.

Christian Klepp 37:08

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well that will get them jump started on the road to success, hopefully. Right? Just to recap, so those four places that you mentioned, that’s a good place to start building the personal brand. Clearly. The next one is, and you brought this up, I think I lost count now but at least four times during this conversation: Your ideal clients are not networking. Yeah. Right. So keeping that in mind, and I do have a follow up question for you on that one. And number four, is doing something else besides networking. Right. So it’s none of this like, Okay, we only work off of referrals, or we get all our business from, you know, through word of mouth and what have you, right. You brought it up earlier in the conversation, but I think it’s worth repeating. Just define for us, you know, from your professional perspective, what a referral actually is.

Donnie Boivin 38:04

So, a referral is an introduction with a sales call attached. So it would say I specialize in building websites. A referral for me would be Hey, Bob, I hear you’ve been looking for a website. Let me introduce you to Donnie who does websites. I’ve told him all about your company, the things I know, he’s really looking forward to meeting you. Both parties know that there’s a sales call expected. So it’d be like for me Christian, if I ran into somebody who was looking for marketing services. I’m like, have you meet my buddy Christian? Regan, I would say Christian meet so and so they do XYZ. This is our business. As we were talking, they told me some of their marketing struggles, some of the things that they were frustrated at. I told them, they should talk to you. They’re really looking forward to the conversation, right? There’s an expected sales call and that’s a referral. Everything else is an introduction. And you have to separate the two out, because it allows you to define what you’re doing for somebody. Because what most people think they’re doing as a referral is actually an introduction. And for me, I want more introductions than referrals. Because if you know, a referral oftentimes is a one and done, you know, type deal. But if I can get you introduced to the right person, it can be 1000 referrals over a lifetime. That’s where I want to be.

Christian Klepp 39:33

Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. I’m Donnie. I get the sense that you’ve been on your soapbox all this time, but please stay up there a little bit longer for this next question. A status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why.

Donnie Boivin 39:51

Yeah, so for me, there’s a couple. One, networking’s for broke people. Two, everybody thinks that networking is just a social club. And the third one is people only network because they don’t know how to sell. Right. And so, I want to go after all these, I mean, I’m a 25 years sales guy, almost 20 years spent working for other people, you can Google me doing live cold calls. And to hear both sides of the conversation, I can do all the traditional sales stuff. I look like a traditional sales guy, right, but I hate it. I don’t want to do that cold prospecting stuff. So if I’m going to network, then I’ve got to get damn good at networking, it cannot be a social club. Right? I run a multi six figure company, and it continues to grow. And I’ll tell you that when you’re out networking, most of the people sitting on the walls in networking events are decision makers in companies. They’re out there networking, because they know they need to get into conversations, they just don’t know how to pull themselves off that wall. So go rescue them off the wall. And, you know, overall, networking is a full contact sport. Like you literally have to be all in and do this right. So if you’re gonna do networking, you better study it, you better become a craft, it better becomes something that actually does business development for you, and grows your business. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it? So if you’re not gonna get good at networking, you better get good at cold calling, you better get good at email marketing and all the other things, right? Or social media, something. You’re gonna have to get good at something, or you’re gonna constantly find yourself struggling to grow your business.

Christian Klepp 41:43

Absolutely, absolutely. I love the sports analogy, by the way. I mean, it’s almost like, it’s almost like working out, right? Like you want to, you want to get fit. And you want to have a nicely toned body. And you know, you don’t give up after three weeks if you don’t see results. So you gotta keep at it. Right?

Donnie Boivin 42:00

Yeah, 100%.

Christian Klepp 42:02

Month after month.

Donnie Boivin 42:03

I’m a firm believer though, too. And I wouldn’t be this way until this year, that if you’re not trying to work out and physically take care of your body, and I’m not the biggest dude on the planet. Like I got a long way to go to get where I want to go. But if you’re not working your body, literally you will not find success. Right, right. Even Elon Musk works out even though he doesn’t always look like it. But, you know, all the most successful people in the world have a huge fitness regimen. I think it’s a huge portion of figuring this all out.

Christian Klepp 42:39

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Two more questions before I let you go, Donnie.

Donnie Boivin 42:44

Cool.

Christian Klepp 42:45

Here comes the bonus question. If you had a superpower, what would it be? And why?

Donnie Boivin 42:52

If I had a superpower… I probably want to fly. Man. There are just so many cool places to go and see and do and that would save me a crap ton of money on flights and everything.

Christian Klepp 43:06

Security check.

Donnie Boivin 43:07

Right. Right. I just think that would be fun. I don’t know if I can put my wife on a backpack or something and take her with me. But you know, I think that’d be cool.

Christian Klepp 43:16

Or you could hold her like this. Right?

Donnie Boivin 43:18

Right. (laugh)

Christian Klepp 43:22

Yeah, see how long that will last. But um, man, Donnie, thank you so much for coming on the show and you know, for sharing your expertise and experience of the audience. Please quick introduce yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Donnie Boivin 43:35

Well, before we do that, guys, if you’re still hanging out with us, and you got any value out of this, do me and Christian a favor and take a screenshot wherever you’re listening or watching this, go post it to social media. Tag us in there. If I see it, I promise I’ll come comment on it and engage with it. But you know, building a show takes a lot of work and trying to create that following. It’s a lot of things to do. So do Christian a favor. Take a screenshot, tag us in there. If we see it, we will come say hi. But it let him know that this is the kind of content you guys want more of and you’re more interested. As far as me, LinkedIn is the best platform to come find me so Donnie Boivin on LinkedIn. If you want to go check out our B2B networking group, successchampionnetworking.com. And if you want to come check out our summit, earmuffs really quick if you’re sensitive. It’s badassbusinesssummit.com. I didn’t cuss through this whole thing. Christian.

Christian Klepp 44:27

I’m so proud of you. Fantastic. Fantastic. Thanks so much for that shout out. That means a lot.

Donnie Boivin 44:35

Absolutely, brother.

Christian Klepp 44:37

So thanks again for coming on the show and take care, stay safe, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Donnie Boivin 44:41

Same.

Christian Klepp 44:42

Alright, bye for now.

Get the future of podcasts.