Nevertheless, you need to ensure that your team member is not expecting the CC intro session to perform magic! Especially with an unsuitable candidate!

Advise your team member that they should only invite people who they believe...

- See the importance of building their relationship based network alongside others doing the same.
- Are willing to consistently devote a small amount of time to build their network.
- They believe will fit with the culture of the CC.

Your team member mustn’t skip the Intro call and go straight to registration. They could be tempted to shortcut the process (by skipping the Intro Session) with someone they know well who they know is keen to join. The problem with missing the Intro call step, is that their new member will not be able to enthusiastically talk about an intro session to - their - candidates.

Ensure your member know how to use the CC booking system to book themselves and their candidates into an intro session. Walk them through the appropriate option from the Builders menu. This option provides a detailed explanation of how to book into an intro session.

It’s also essential that your team member contributes to the success of the intro session.

In particular, they should ensure that they and their guests arrive on the Zoom session a few minutes early. It is awkward for those on the Zoom to fill in time waiting for the last people to arrive and preventing the facilitator from starting the session.

Encourage your team member to come to the intro session well prepared so that they can positively contribute. In particular, they should have a powerful yet brief introduction of themselves. It also helps if they can have a brief statement about the positive experience they have had with the CC so far. They should also know how to introduce their guests.

Ask your team member to be deliberate about helping to create a great atmosphere.

When people join the CC, we want them to instantly have a great impression of our culture, our positive atmosphere and the way we warmly welcome newcomers.

Your team member should be deliberate about playing their part to help create a great atmosphere at every CC Intro session.

They can smile, be attentive and if an opportunity relevant for one of the attendees of that intro session springs to mind, briefly mention it.

This automatically shows the culture we adopt in the CC.

Finally, they need to “strike while the iron is hot” and make sure they book an immediate follow-up time.

They can do this before or during the intro session.

Your team member needs to know that they should book a follow-up time immediately if possible. Otherwise, it may be quite some time before they can get in touch with a busy candidate to have a follow-up discussion. Also, it is very inefficient when your team member has to keep making calls to arrange a follow-up.

The intro facilitator will give attendees ample time at the end of the session to book follow-up times.

However, as they gain more confidence in the value of building their network rather than just networking, they will want others they also know to benefit and become part of their team.

A common mistake for new people is becoming excited about the Connect Collaborative and setting up a Zoom to sell the benefits of becoming part of the CC.

Your team member’s objective is to build a team of team building advocates. Although this will be much easier using the CC tools, culture, and systematic approach, your team member’s job is to build their network, not the Connect Collaborative’s network.

The best way to discover like-minded others who also see the value of building a team of team building advocates is to make a list of good potential candidates and set up a Zoom conversation with them.

The purpose of the Discovery call is to connect with their candidate, ask them enough questions to discover what they are looking for and determine if your team member would like to invite them to a CC intro session.

Ensure that your team member understands that ultimately, they are looking to onboard a few great network-building partners into their team. In other words, they are looking for people who see the value of building their team and advocating for others.

As your team member to imagine they are starting a new business – say an accounting practice.

Would they be looking for a partner that they believe are at least as committed and effective as they are?
Or would they be happy to invest a lot of time helping their new partner develop to their level of commitment and expertise?

Your team member is looking for great team-building partners who are also seeking to develop their own teams rapidly.

Your team member needs to understand that they only need a few others committed to expanding their networks.

They are not looking to onboard everyone – just the people excited about what we offer and who they are excited about being part of their team.

In particular, your team member is NOT looking for customers.
They ARE looking for partners.

5 great partners who find 5 great partners means they have a rapidly and exponentially growing network!.

Ensure your team members understand that they should not feel obliged to invite every person they have a Discovery call to an intro session. It’s easy to end the call by letting the other person know that they will keep an eye out for them.

Ask your team member to consider the following during their Discovery call:

1. Do they have a good feeling about the candidate they are speaking with?
2. Has their candidate indicated that they see the value of building a network?
3. Does the candidate seem to be a giver (rather than a taker) by nature?
4. Does it seem like their candidate would be a good fit for the CC culture?
5. Does your team member like them enough to give them the benefit of the doubt?

Let your team member know that they will get better at selecting better candidates and asking better questions as they gain more experience and attend more workshops.

Here are some great tips for your team member:

1. The skills they learn when making Discovery calls will help them in many other ways, so it’s worth deciding to get good at these calls.
2. They need to relax and not worry about - stuffing it up - (because there are plenty more fish in the ocean).
3. Keeping it brief is important! Your team member doesn’t have time for a long conversation, and they’ll be surprised how quickly they can connect with people (especially if they’ve selected well in the first place).

One thing that will help your team member keep their Discovery calls brief and improve their overall efficiency is using a diary booking system such as Calendly. Using a booking system makes setting up an event type such as “A 15-minute chat” easy.

This will inform their invitees that it’s going to be a quick call (even though, in practice, it may extend a bit longer). A booking system like Calendly also saves them from frustrating and time-consuming communication to find a time that works for both parties.

4. Emphasise the importance of the initial connection with a candidate... Remind your team member that many people communicate well. However, few people connect well...

Initially, connecting well is far more effective than communicating well.

The energy and enthusiasm your team member exudes are super important in establishing a strong and rapid connection with their candidates.

Encourage your team member to...

- Smile.
- Ask ice-breaking questions.
- Have a look at their profile for clues as to good questions they can ask their candidate. For example, I notice you are in Melbourne - did you manage to get to the tennis over the weekend?...
- Suggest your team member asks questions that lead the conversation where they want it to go. For example:
Mary, I loved your profile. Especially the part about collaboration and building business relationships. I feel very much the same way, and it is really why I suggested we meet ‘face-to-face’ here on Zoom. Could you explain a bit more about how collaboration with others has helped you?...
- Make sure your team member understands that: Questions are the answers!
The better they get at asking questions, the faster they will achieve their objectives (this also applies to most other things they do in business)...
He or she who asks the questions is in control!

It’s also good to encourage your team member to visualise the flow of their Discovery call.

In the early part of the conversation, they should ask questions to connect and gather valuable information from their candidate about what they are looking for.

Then your team member can give a brief background on themselves and why they are interested in building their network with like-minded others...

It’s worth your team member talking some time to learn some key phrases that work for them.

For example:

For as long as I can remember, people have emphasised the value of networking.

However, I feel we’ve actually reached a point in time where networking is no longer an optional extra – it’s really something we all need to become good at. Would you agree?...

I have found building my network has become far easier since COVID because people are more comfortable with Zoom calls like the one we’re having right now. So, in a way, it’s become the new way of meeting face-to-face, hasn’t it?

When you think about it, the reason networking is so effective in gaining business or other opportunities is simply that:..

“Anyone can sell anyone except themselves”

If we attempt to sell ourselves, it’s usually very ineffective, isn’t it?...

(Watch them nod in agreement)...

On the other hand, if we have many others genuinely advocating for us, we typically solve some of the biggest problems we all have – such as gaining high-quality business with minimal effort and cost.

The real problem is that no one has taught us how to build a relationship-based network of like-minded others.

The networking that has been available to date has often been transactional rather than relationship-based.

However, I’m much more interested in learning how to build an advocating network based on trusted relationships – how about you?

I’m looking for people who believe in building relationships and trust through advocacy. That’s why I reached out to you in the first place. I had a feeling from your profile that we would be like-minded.

I finally found a group of people who want to engage in online, relationship-based network building rather than transactional networking..

Looking at your profile and from our conversation so far, it seems like you also see the value in building your relationship-based network of others who will actually advocate for you as well as you for them.

How important would you say it is for you to build your network?

Suppose their candidate seems to be excited about building a relationship-based network. In that case, your member should suggest that they attend an introduction to the Connect Collaborative to gain some more information.

Your team member does not need to go into a lot more depth about the CC during their Discovery call – that will be handled by the facilitator of the CC Intro meeting...

Your team member also needs to be prepared for questions that may come up during the call.

Fortunately, there are just a few commonly asked questions.

This means it’s easy for them to learn how to handle them!

Here are a few commonly asked questions and potential answers your team member could give...

What sort of time commitment would I be looking at?

Well, that’s actually the great news!

Because all our network-building is done online, you don’t have to travel to meetings. Also, our discussions tend to be shorter and more focused.

Typically that saves somewhere between 1 and 3 hours per week.

Perhaps even more importantly, our online meetings give you national and international reach.

It’s up to you how much time you invest.

In the beginning, we realise most people will need to make some adjustments to fit in.
However, as we all know, you benefit in proportion to how much you invest.

It really comes down to how important you feel it is to build an advocating network.

I there a cost?

Actually, there is also good news regarding cost.

The first month is free. The reason for this is that we want people to verify the value of the system for themselves. After that, there is a subscription of $85 per month that can easily be cancelled at any time. In other words, there is no risk.

Also, there is no upfront commitment – you don’t have to pay a year’s fees in advance – you pay as you go.

(Ensure your team member understands that If the small cost of the CC subscription is a barrier for their candidate, then this is probably a good sign that this candidate may not be who your team member is looking for)...

Another question a candidate may ask is: I already have a great network – why would I want to expand it further?

A good question to ask in response to this question is: How much does your existing network pro-actively advocate for you?

It's wise not to overload your team member with all this information at the same time. However, over time, you may be able to help them gain better results from their calls using this information.

Some will have great confidence and know many like-minded others.
Others may believe that they know very few good network building candidates and may therefore take longer to gain the confidence to reach out to strangers on platforms such as LinkedIn.

Everyone will move at different paces, and some who start slowly may surprise you and build quickly after they gain belief in how building a team using the CC system can help others.

Gaining a feeling for what is appropriate for a team member is part of your leadership development.
Typically, you will get better at guiding & encouraging team members as you lead more people.

If the team member you are working with has a good list of people and has gained confidence in the value of building their team using the CC system, encourage them to make a list of everyone they know.

As they write down the names of the people they know, one name will typically remind them of another they can add to the list.

Then encourage your team member to make a shortlist of people they believe would benefit from building their networks and would be open to the concept of network-building.

Often, they will have close relationships with great network-building candidates.

They may also be excited about the prospect of working more regularly and closely with these contacts in an environment where they can help the people they already know by introducing them to other members of their team and other members within the CC.

In some cases, the person introduced by your team member may be able to build a team faster than your team member can - at the moment.

You are always looking to build a relationship with people who can become leaders and multipliers quickly. So when someone in your team introduces a potentially great leader, it’s great news! Treat that leader as though you had introduced them yourself.

If several people in your team are introducing people with good leadership potential, think how much time this has saved you!

When a person with good leadership ability and a strong desire to build their network becomes part of your team, they may initially benefit more from your help than the person who introduced them.

In many cases, this will simply be because the person that introduced them has much less experience than you. And the person that introduced them may benefit from observing how you help the team member they have introduced.

So, as you build your team, you will discover and build relationships with leaders that others have introduced to your group. In other words, to some extent, you now have others “scouting” for leaders as well as yourself.

Put yourself in the shoes of a team member you have helped to onboard one of their associates. Suppose this associate is keen to build their network and is grateful for being introduced to the CC ecosystem. In that case, your team member is bound to be excited and eager to start introducing others.

However, at some point, their list of great potential team-building partners will run out. Before their list does run out, it is important to show them how to start finding great candidates on platforms such a LinkedIn. As described by Tanya Menon in her excellent TED talk, the secret to great opportunities lies in the people you have not yet met.

Fortunately, we have developed some great tools to help us find like-minded others on LinkedIn.

When your team member discovers and onboards someone using our systematic approach, their new member should also have confidence in reaching out to others they have not yet met.

Some of your team members may have barriers to reaching out to others they don’t know. For example, they may fear that others will believe they are contacting them intending to sell them something.

You can overcome such barriers with your team member by explaining that they are reaching out to others intending to benefit them. They are not reaching out to others in the hope of achieving a transaction or any other immediate benefit.

Your team member will, of course, benefit indirectly when they build trusted relationships with others who will in turn ad-vocate for them.

It is also good to point out to your team member that those they send connection requests will not see them as wanting to sell them anything if they have a small paragraph at the top of their “About” section which has words to the effect:

“Although you and I may not be able to do business together directly, it is highly likely that I will know others that will be good contacts for you. I enjoy helping others who (like me) also enjoy building trusted relationships and have a pay-it-forward attitude.”

This will be further supported by a connection request message saying what they liked about the other person’s profile and suggesting that they get to know each other face-to-face with a quick Zoom conversation.

Let your new team member know that you will help them set up the process of searching for like-minded people on LinkedIn; make minor tweaks to their LinkedIn profile; and set up great connection request messages.

Also, point out that we have some great tools to make this process much easier for them.

This is where you build strong relationships with a selected group of close associates that refer business to one another.

Let’s say you deliberately built a network of 10 such people.

However, what if instead, you empowered those 10 to rapidly build a network of 10 using a duplicatable system?

We suggest finding 5 people who understand the power of building a team of 5 and are keen to learn how to do it.

With the tools we have available, finding 5 people who will consistently take the action necessary to find 5 like-minded others is not at all difficult.

Even if your team member introduced no one they currently know, with consistent daily action of approximately half an hour per day, they could easily have 5 people join their team within 3 months of joining the CC. Obviously, it will be a lot faster when they introduce good network building candidates with whom they already have a strong trusted relationship.

If all the people that become members of their extended team, build trust and advocate for one another, the results are very powerful. And when this happens with people in the team of other network builders using the CC eco-system, the results can become very exciting!

Notice that the topics in Session 03, focus on making a list, and having a Discovery call with the people your new team member ALREADY knows, rather than people they have yet to meet by reaching out on LinkedIn...

The advantages of this approach are:

1. You can explain the purpose of the Discovery call sooner rather than later.

This helps your new team member understand that they are reaching out to the people they know to discover if they would like to engage more closely with them, in network building.

In particular, you can explain that they should not sell people on the CC, but instead, on network-building with them, using the resources of the CC.

2. Many new members can usually on-board a few people quite quickly. This helps them gain confidence that people they know see the value of network-building (rather than just networking) using the tools of the CC.

On the other hand, some of your new team members may want to gain more confidence before they start speaking to the people they already know.

A good strategy with such people may be to spend a few weeks showing them how to align their LinkedIn profile, search for like-minded others, and send messages on LinkedIn.

During this time, they will meet many other great people in the CC and gain the confidence to contact people they know.