We held our 2nd LinkedIn Livestream with LinkedIn Expert and Speaker, Beth Granger.

Watch it here and...

...you’ll learn a super-simple place to start…

Plus, get some handy LinkedIn etiquette and tips for introverts.

Here’s what other creatives loved about it:

💡“Great advice from Beth.” @Alan Long

💡“Very helpful insights, thanks so much for this.” @Kathy Pinnell

💡“Great ways to handle LinkedIn Beth and Ilise!” @Alice Watts

Give it a watch (or a listen below) today…

Here are the questions I asked: 

• What is networking to you? And how can we do it authentically (not salesy)?
• Let’s focus on who to network with. I often hear: “How do I network if I don’t know who my people are yet?” What would you say?
• How do I find my people? How should I connect with them? (Note or no note?)
• What do you think about the phrase, “working your network?”
• How do you keep a conversation going with someone you want to work with?

Listen to the podcast version here and below. 

If you like this, you'll love the free webinar I'm hosting on Monday, May 15 at 12-1 PM. It will change how you connect with people - especially potential clients - from here on out.

You won't want to miss this. I do hope you'll join us.  Sign up here now!

 

And scroll down for the full transcript. 

ilise benun

In the world of the Simplest Marketing Plan, Q2 is all about strategic networking. That is the topic of our new series of LinkedIn Livestreams, and we did our second one this week with yet another short but meaty chat with online networking expert and speaker, Beth Granger. Lots of great tips here about who to network with (especially when you don’t know yet who your people are) so listen and learn.

Bonnie Fanning:
Yay. Hi everybody. Welcome back to Talking Networking. I'm Bonnie Fanning, and I'm here with everyone's favorite marketing mentor to creatives, Ilise Benun of marketing-mentor.com. Hi, Ilise.

Ilise benun:
Hello, Bonnie. Good to see you.

Bonnie Fanning:
I'm so glad we're doing this again too. And we're here with Ilise's special guest, LinkedIn Trainer, Consultant and Speaker, Beth Granger. Hi, Beth.

Beth Granger:
Hello. Hello.

Bonnie Fanning:
Welcome. So today we're focusing on one of the biggest questions that folks have when it comes to networking. Who should I connect with and where do I find them? And so with that, Ilise, take it away.

Ilise benun:
Thank you so much. And Beth, I'm thrilled that you're here and we're doing yet one more experiment, and streaming this to your LinkedIn page as well. So we'll see how that goes, but I'm thrilled. We're just going to talk for 15 or 20 minutes and make it short and sweet, but really give a lot of substantial tips on this question of, who, right? We're talking about who we want to focus there, but I always like to step back and have definitions a little bit first to make sure that we all know what we're talking about or talking about the same thing. So what is networking to you, Beth?

Beth Granger:
Oh, that's a really great question. So for me, it's all about conversations. It's having conversations with people in different ways, in different places, one-to-one in groups, and getting to know and trust each other so that we can support each other in different ways.

Ilise benun:
And how do we do it authentically without being salesy? That is one of the biggest questions I am constantly getting from people.

Beth Granger:
Yeah. In fact, just this morning I got a LinkedIn in mail and I'll read it to you. I won't tell you the name or the person or anything, not to embarrass anybody. So this was a salesy one. It said, "Hi, Beth. How's the job at Beth Granger Consulting treating you? I hope to connect with you soon. I partner with people who want to focus on retirement planning through tailored investment income and tax strategies. Would you be open to a conversation?" That's not how to do it, right? So I think if you approach it trying to learn about the other person and trying to help the other person, and not thinking about yourself, I mean, yes, we all want to get business, we all want to get referrals. But if you approach it thinking about the other person, then you're going to get what you need as well.

Ilise benun:
Yeah. So and I talk a lot about curiosity as a marketing tool and asking questions. And in the minisode, actually, one of the minisodes that Bonnie and I did recently, I talked about just going in not wanting anything, offering to help people, generosity as a marketing tool. So clearly we're on the same page with that. So let's focus on who to network with, because often that's one of the self-imposed obstacles that I see people putting in their way and they say, here's what I hear, "How do I network when I don't know who my people are yet?" Right? And often I say your people meaning a niche or an industry or an area of focus, but I like to think about it as your people, especially because there are actual people on LinkedIn that we're talking about. So what if you don't know who those people are yet?

Beth Granger:
Yeah. I think you just start with people that you know already, it could be a relative, it could be the person watching the soccer game with you on a Saturday. So if you don't know who your people are, you just have conversations with everyone or as many people that make sense as possible and that will become apparent. And plus, you don't want to make an assumption that just because somebody is in a completely different industry or business that they aren't a good person for you to network with. Because you don't know who they know, you don't know who their relatives are, their next door neighbors are, all those kinds of things.

Ilise benun:
And often people seem to imagine that starting with who they know is kind of cheating, and there is a lot of making assumptions about who would or wouldn't want to know about my services, need my services, know someone who needs my services. So in a way, I'm constantly saying, "Let's just stop making stuff up about that and start making friends." I've been talking about networking as making business friends as well.

Beth Granger:
I love that perspective.

Ilise benun:
So when I do find my people or start connecting or reaching out to people who I already know, and actually one tip that I've been giving lately is, just look through your contacts on your phone and make sure everyone on your phone is in your LinkedIn network, right? There's probably a disconnect between the people that you actually know and the people that you're connected with on LinkedIn. So I think that's a good place to start. And as well, all the people in this stream could connect with all the other people attending, and that would exponentially expand your network, right?

Beth Granger:
Yes. Yes.

Ilise benun:
Okay. So often once we have a sense of, all right, we know who we're going to reach out to, it's just everyone we know, then what to say? Should I add a note? What do you think about the note versus no note invitation on LinkedIn?

Beth Granger:
Ah. Yeah. So I just wrote a newsletter, actually, I don't know if you're on my newsletter list, but I just wrote a newsletter about what I call LinkedIn Invite Purgatory. And the different people do different things on LinkedIn, but the way I do it is there are some immediate yeses, there are some immediate nos, and then there are all of those in between that I have to do the work to make a decision. And that means I'd have to check out their profile, especially if they didn't send me a note. So if someone sends a note, it allows me to understand why they want to connect with me, how do they find me? Especially if it's somebody I don't know.
Or when I send an invitation, I always like to include where I met, and that way it reminds the person plus six months down the line if I haven't talked to them, perhaps. I'm thinking, where did I meet this person? Who is this? I want to have a conversation with them. I can go back and look at that as the first message and say, "Oh, we met because of that event." So I believe in sending a note.

Ilise benun:
So you believe in including a note, and I heard you say earlier that LinkedIn is basically a networking tool. Talk a little bit about that for me.

Beth Granger:
Yeah. So I mean, it has so many purposes, right? It's great for recruiting and being recruited, it's great for sales, it's great for marketing. Where I like to focus is using it in concert with the offline or non-LinkedIn networking that you might do because there's so many things you can keep in touch with people, you can support your network, you can make specific requests of your referral partners. So Ilise, if you said to me, "I want to meet creative business owners," suddenly my mind goes blank. I can't think of anybody. But if you look through my connections and say, "I see you know," whoever, that's a much more powerful request and is more likely to happen.

Ilise benun:
Yeah. And I think that by itself is also a good tip, right? Go to my profile and my connections, or Beth's profile and Beth's connections, or Bonnie's profile and Bonnie's connections and see who they know. And then what do you do? Do you just reach out to them? Do you do that thing that LinkedIn? Used to be the thing to do on LinkedIn and ask them to make a connection or an introduction through LinkedIn? I don't see anyone doing that anymore, do you?

Beth Granger:
I don't. And I think we have this amazing tool, it's probably within a foot of us 24 hours a day. It's your phone and it does something you might not use it for. You can actually dial a number and talk to a person. And I'm partially joking, but the idea is if you're requesting something, an introduction, have it be a conversation because the person might say, "Oh, I don't really know them," or, "Oh no, you don't want to talk to them," for whatever reason. But then they might think of someone else. Plus it allows you to, at the same time as you're asking for a favor, see how you can help them. So you can say, "Oh, thanks so much for making that introduction. How can I help you today?"

Ilise benun:
Now Bonnie, I'm going to let you, if you have any thoughts or questions, jump in.

Bonnie Fanning:
Well, yeah, I love that you mentioned the phone and talking on the phone. There's also Zoom. You could set up a Zoom call and talk to people like this, get together and meet people that way. But there was somebody asking in the comments, "How do you go about collecting the emails of people and would that be kosher? What do you think about LinkedIn versus phone versus email versus in-person and all that?

Beth Granger:
I'll start, but I love to have different ways to contact people, but appropriately. So what I mean by that is when you go to an event and somebody gives you their business card, that doesn't mean you can put them on your email list. And I think there's a lot of that behavior out there, unfortunately. So I like to get to know people. So if I first connect, maybe I meet somebody first in person, then what the next step might be, I might connect with them on LinkedIn, maybe I'd see if we could have a phone call. If I met somebody first on LinkedIn, I would probably have a conversation there before trying to take it somewhere else and emailing them, et cetera.

Ilise benun:
And I know that you can often download the contact information of all the people in your network. Do you ever recommend doing that? And then what do you do with that information? Can you put those people on your email list?

Beth Granger:
So if you're talking about your LinkedIn network, you used to be able to get email addresses. They stopped that because of CAN-SPAM, and all that kind of thing. Now, the only email addresses you get are if people have consciously gone into their settings and said it's okay. So most of the time when you download that file, which is very useful and do it, it doesn't include the email address. But it includes really good information, their name, their job title, and one of my favorites, the date you connected. Go back to that very first LinkedIn connection and have a conversation with them.

Ilise benun:
Bonnie, what else is coming up in the?

Bonnie Fanning:
Well, we also had somebody asking, because you guys mentioned another place is you could just connect with everybody who's here watching this. And someone was saying, "How would we connect with everybody who's watching this?" So my question is actually to change that a little bit and say, "Would you go through and find the names of everybody who's commenting and look at their profile and decide whether or not to connect?" What would you do?

Beth Granger:
That's a good one. Because you don't want to, you can't just... I mean, there are times where even ahead of this event, someone sent me a note saying, "I see you're attending X, Y, Z event. How about we connect?" Well, for me, that's a little, I feel like they're doing it to everybody on the list and they're just going to try to sell me something. So whenever you're wondering if you should say something or do something on LinkedIn, I always say, "Imagine you're in a room full of people. Would you say that thing? Would you do that thing? Or would somebody walk away from you?" So I don't know if people are going to literally connect with everybody that's attending, but for instance, if you like a comment somebody made, reply to the comment right now live and you've started a conversation.
And if you reach out to somebody, to me, just being attending the same event is not enough of a reason to connect with somebody. So you have to get to know them first. And different people have different connection philosophies. So certainly there are people who connect with anybody. There are people who will connect with nobody and you have to have their email address. And then, most of us are somewhere in between.

Ilise benun:
I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I am very loose. I am very easy. And I love the idea of knowing who's attending an event, whether offline or online, and reaching out to them and inviting them to connect and saying, "I see we're both attending the same event. I can't wait." I might say, "What are you looking forward to?" Or, "Here's what I'm looking forward to. Let's connect in the meantime," And most of the time people say yes.

Beth Granger:
Yeah, because you have a common interest. And that's great to do ahead of an in-person event too, right? A conference that you're going to, because there's already something you know about a person if you're attending the same event.

Ilise benun:
And especially if you're an introvert, because I know we have a lot of introverts in our community and they don't want to go to an event where they don't know anyone. And so the fact that you can connect in advance and then say, "Well, I'll see you there. Let's look for each other there," just paves the way even if you never find them, right? It paves the way to make a connection and begin a relationship.

Beth Granger:
I know someone who purposely for in-person events will connect with people ahead of time and say, "I'm the one wearing," and she wears something very distinctive like, "I'm wearing a flower." Actually, it might have been, I wonder if I heard it from, I see we have Janet on here with us. I might have heard that from Janet. I think she may do that.

Ilise benun:
I used to do that for sure when I was in my more colorful days in New York. I have two more thoughts. One is I want to know what you think of this, I've been giving the tip lately of if you post something, and even if you're not actually the poster. But when you're involved in a conversation on LinkedIn, I like to make sure that I'm also connected to everyone else that is commenting on that post and saying something about it. Because, again, we all have this point of connection. So I go through all the reactions. I'm usually first degree with most people, but some I'm second or third, and I say, "Thanks so much for commenting on my post. Let's connect," or, "I see you commented on that post. We obviously have something in common. Let's connect." And again, I think that's just a nice way to expand your network, even if I'm doing it to more than one person.

Beth Granger:
Yeah. Well, because again, it's something you have in common, something you can talk about a way to start a conversation.

Ilise benun:
Right.

Beth Granger:
So yeah, there are all sorts of, it's easier to join a conversation than start one. It's the way I look at it. So if you're commenting on a post and other people are commenting, it gives you something to say when you reach out to them, "Hey, I liked your comment. What do you think about this? What do you think about that?"

Ilise benun:
And we're still answering this question of, how do you decide who to reach out to? Because it could just be everyone on here, everyone who has made a comment on a post. And we're not talking about doing it on mass, right? That isn't even an option on LinkedIn. You have to do it one by one, and that's what could potentially make it personal. All right. We just have a couple more minutes, and one question that I've been asking everyone, actually, two questions that I've been asking everyone, which I would love your take on. One is, what do you think of this phrase, "Work your network. I'm working my network?"

Beth Granger:
Well, I'm not sure I know what it means, but I think what it mean to me when I hear it, it means that you are keeping in touch with people. You're not just connecting with people and letting those relationships sit. You're making sure to have conversations follow up and be strategic about it, right? So we only have 24 hours in the day. How many coffee meetings or Zoom calls or phone calls can you have? So for instance, I was just thinking today on the way home from a speaking gig this morning, I know who gives me my referrals in the past, say year. Have I talked to them recently? I should, right? So that's really smart. If there are people who have given me referrals in the past, how can I help them? Let's make sure I keep in touch.

Ilise benun:
Are you sure it's not cold and calculating to think that way?

Beth Granger:
I don't think it is. No. Not at all. It's strategic.

Ilise benun:
It's strategic. That's another way of saying not cold and calculating. I agree with you that it's strategic. All right. Last question, and then Bonnie, I'll let you wrap it up with whatever you have in mind. But the other question we're asking is, how do you keep a conversation going on LinkedIn with someone that you really want to work with? And they accepted your invitation to connect, but they're not really getting into the conversation. What do you do?

Beth Granger:
That's a good one. So to me, there are two different types of, or many, but in that case, a conversation with a referral partner and someone you're networking with is very different than a conversation with a prospect. If you're having a conversation with someone you think could be a prospect and they don't seem to want to have that conversation, then maybe it's the wrong person for you to be having a conversation with.

Ilise benun:
At that moment?

Beth Granger:
At that moment. But to me, curiosity is the fuel for conversation. So are you talking about yourself and your services? Or are you asking them about themselves? So there are ways to have conversations by showing that curiosity. What are you up to? And it has to be authentic. It can't be like working off a script because people feel that, right? If you're just asking questions to try to have a conversation and not to really learn about them, they're going to know.

Ilise benun:
I agree with that. It's very tricky. And my response in general is when people try to get me into a conversation, I don't have a lot of extra time to do that, and I'm not in the market for many things right now. If it's someone I'm in the market for whatever they're doing, then I will get into that conversation. But that just goes back to the idea that it's just always all about timing. Timing is the most important characteristic in this equation.

Beth Granger:
And I'll add one thing that we all want people, for instance, on LinkedIn to engage with our content and be part of the conversation. But there are the hidden people, the people in your network who just are never going to comment, but they see it and it may turn into something because you're keeping them aware of what you're up to. I had that happen to me. There's someone I've known for over 10 years who's never commented on my post, who reached out last fall, and they have a new job and they're putting it an event together, and can I come down and speak at that event? So yes, the obvious things, the real conversations. But don't just out the hidden people, the people who are just listening.

Ilise benun:
The invisible audience, the lurkers.

Beth Granger:
Yeah.

Ilise benun:
All right. Awesome. Thank you so much, Beth, for sharing these little tips. Bonnie, take it home.

Bonnie Fanning:
Thanks so much both of you. These have been great tips and people are commenting that they're so glad that they made it for this. So thanks so much, Beth, for being here and, Ilise, for thinking up this whole thing. And then everybody, just so you know, we're going to have a big networking live event where we're going to show you inside the businesses of, I think two or three different people and different ways that they've used networking to grow their creative business, including even if you're a massive introvert. So that's coming up May 15th from 12 to 1:00 PM Eastern and is totally free to join.
So if you want to do that, I'll pop the link up right there. You can register for it right there at that link. Or there's also, I have a QR code. If you're watching on your computer and you have your phone up, you can also, always takes me a minute to find it. There it is. Go to the QR code right there, and I'll pop that banner up one more time. I'm also going to put it in the comments. But anyway, thanks guys. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for watching. Thanks for commenting, and we'll see you guys in the next one.

Ilise benun:
Yeah, next week.

Bonnie Fanning:
Next week.

Beth Granger:
Great chatting. Bye.

Bonnie Fanning:
Bye.

Ilise benun:
Thanks, Beth.

The baby step I’m recommending again is that you join me on Monday, May 15th for a new webinar called Jumpstart Your Networking. It’s totally free and it starts at 12 PM ET – 12-1 PM ET.

You’ll hear all about it – and the next LInkedIn Livestream too – when you sign up for my Quick Tips at marketing-mentortips.com. Once you’re on the site, you’ll find lots more free resources.. Enjoy and I’ll see you next time.