The key points to remember about Core-5 are

• If Core-5 were done using only LinkedIn, it would take only about 200 specific LinkedIn connection requests.
• What are “specific LinkedIn connection requests”?
• Specific LinkedIn connection requests are offers to connect that you make to potential candidates you feel could be good candidates for your team. In other words, people with whom you can see yourself engaging in our 4 to 6 weeks progressive relationship-building process. 
  • You are looking for people who see the value of and are willing to regularly commit a small amount of time to find good partners for their teams.
  • In essence, when you get to speak with candidates via a Discovery Call, you will interview them to see if you believe your team would be a good fit for them.
• How long would it take to send 200 connection requests to a relevant list of LinkedIn candidates?
  • At the rate of 5 per day, this would take 40 working days.
  • At the rate of 10 per day, this would only take 20 working days.
  • In other words, if these rates are consistently maintained, achieving Core-5 in the 90-day challenge should be easy.
• We can all focus for short periods of time. 
  • And achieving Core-5 is more powerful than most people realise. 
  • When you discover how easy it is to find a few great partners using Linkedin, you realise how easy it will be for others in your team to do the same. 
  • In other words, when your team members duplicate Core-5, you have exponential growth of a high calibre team.
• Most importantly, don’t miss the power of duplicating Core-5 rather than just achieving Core-5 yourself.
  • What if 5 people you introduce also expand their team by 5 in 90 days? 
  • You would now have 25 people in your team, of which you have only personally introduced 5.
  • When that repeats, the number becomes 125, and you may still only have introduced 5.
  • In other words, your team rapidly grows when your team members commit to achieving Core-5.
• The process of achieving Core-5 and encouraging your team members to achieve Core-5  is extremely manageable because everyone focuses for a short period of time to build their network and builds strong relationships with the key people in their teams.
• The benefits of this approach are
  • First, you develop trust with an increasing number of people in your team as your leaders begin to edify you to the new people in their team.
  • Second, many people in your extended team can benefit from facilitated introductions. In other words, they are being advocated to highly relevant others in your team and throughout the entire CC.
    • This is an incredible benefit because time is wisely invested where it’s likely to produce the best results.
    • We find a lot of great partnerships and business opportunities are generated this way.
• One of the most significant and least expected benefits of creating exponential growth using Core-5 is the potential for multiple streams of income.
  • Although you may have a primary business benefiting from your trusted relationships, you are also building the connections that others need to make their ideas work. 
  • In some cases, this can develop into a commercial arrangement—possibly even the potential for ongoing income.
  • Such commercial arrangements can be highly effective because they require very little of your time beyond connecting the right people together. However, bear in mind that such connections are made possible by you investing the time to build a trusted relationship-based network. In other words, you have built an asset you can commercialise in multiple ways.
• One of the greatest benefits of creating a duplicating Core-5 culture in your team is that your team is continually contributing to others in the CC with what they most need. That is new relevant connections.
  • In other words, relevant contacts they want to meet. 
  • Better yet, their praises have been sung by other CC members so that new contacts are keener to meet them.
• So when you achieve Core-5, others in the CC have much greater respect for you and will be more focused on doing what they can to help and encourage you to continue building your team.

We want the process of learning how to effectively find great partners on LinkedIn to be as effective, easy to understand and duplicate as possible.

That’s why we focus so much on LinkedIn in our Workshops.

Let’s say you have achieved Core-5 and beyond without using LinkedIn at all.

That may sound like an outstanding achievement in networking terms.

However, you have not equipped your team to create growth using a duplicatable process that works with LinkedIn.

Furthermore, when you introduce people you already know, they tend only to want to introduce people they know. This can massively slow your team's growth, advocacy, and referrals.

Ground-breaking work done by Professor Mark Granovetter at Boston university in 1973 shows the value of weak ties such as those you meet on LinkedIn. In other words, much greater referrals come from those you have recently met than from those you know well. If you are in business, how many leads have been referred to you by your family members compared with leads referred by weak ties?

Several other credible studies have since substantiated the study by Mark Granovetter.

You will also find it easy to connect face-to-face with like-minded others you meet on LinkedIn.

You will look forward to meeting this person on Zoom when you find a LinkedIn profile with statements that align with your passions and values.

Furthermore, the conversation will likely flow well because you can ask questions and establish common interests.

There are a massive number of people on Zoom. Some of them will be looking to join a team like yours where they can start building their networks.

When someone becomes a CC member through the process of reaching out on LinkedIn, they are confident they can use the same method to find other great people on LinkedIn. On the other hand, when someone joins the CC due to an introduction from someone they know, they may not know many others and need to be shown a duplicatable process that will work for anyone.

Workshops 4, 5, and 5a  explain how to find others on LinkedIn and use the My Most Trusted Chrome extension.

Workshop 5b, on the other hand, is pure gold. This is where everyone will contribute their hints and tips on how to most effectively and efficiently find great potential members for their team.

In other words, Workshop 5b is vital for those who have accepted the 90-day Core-5 challenge.

We encourage people on the challenge to attend Workshop 5 b as often as possible.

Workshop 5b is also great for finding solutions to any problems you may be experiencing.

The other advantage of regularly attending workshop 5b is that you can keep yourself accountable to a group of others with the same goal.

In summary, if you have not yet achieved Core-5, we suggest you accept the 90-day challenge and stick with it until it’s done.

It’s incredible how you can accomplish so much more with the same amount of work when you have a goal.

Achieving Core-5 using the 90-day challenge will increase your expectation that others in your team can use the same tools to achieve the result.

Once you have a duplicatable relationship-based network-building process in place, you can look forward to some great results in network-building and advocacy.

Why?

Using the Progressive Learning mind map every week allows you to build your relationship with your new team member so that you can:

• Advocate for them to highly relevant others.
• Help them on board and build relationships with their first few team members.
• Continue this process until you find several leaders in this team who are capable of and willing to repeat this process consistently.
  • We call this process “rolling the ball on”. It is a process that helps you find and develop leaders quickly.
  • While rolling the ball on, it is worth remembering that leadership is taken, not given.
  • As they say: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

Let’s say one of your team members does not engage in the relationship-building process. In other words, they register a new person without booking regular onboarding sessions to go through the Progressive Learning mind map.

In this case, your new team member is unlikely to become engaged, will gain little from their experience with the CC and may speak negatively to others about the CC.

So, what is “progressive relationship-building”?

As a leader, you should set regular times to meet and build relationships with the person you are onboarding. Typically these regular catch-ups will last for at least the first 4 to 6 weeks of your new team members' journey in your CC-Team.

This sets an excellent example for your team to do the same. In so doing, you can answer their questions about what should happen during these regular relationship-building sessions.

As you develop a trusting relationship with your new team member, you can begin to authentically advocate for them to highly relevant others.

Isn’t this what your new team member is looking for? 

You are not just introducing them to other great contacts; you are advocating them to highly relevant others. How much more effective would this process be for your new team members than chasing leads and transactions on their own?

Regular progressive relationship-building sessions are essential to make possible the process of building trust and triggering in your mind relevant contacts for your new team member. 

• During these sessions, you often think of others that could be great contacts for your new team member
• At the same time, you learn more about your team member’s character and capabilities

Progressive relationship-building sessions are structured around our progressive learning mind map. 

The progressive learning mind map and associated podcast focus on regular relationship-building sessions. Although this mind map contains some tremendous practical learning steps, more importantly, it contains homework to be reviewed with their leader. This homework includes questionnaires about what is important to your new team members.

Good leaders are constantly attempting to help their team members achieve the goals that are important to them rather than being mono-focused on what is important to make their businesses grow. 

Helping a team member’s business grow can cause significant stress for them. 

Without the proper steps in place, business growth alone is no guarantee of personal happiness.

Furthermore, what delights your new team member is knowing that you will help them onboard their first few team members while they watch, learn and gain confidence in their ability to onboard new members on their own.

Your new team member knows that you know many more people in the CC than they do at this point in time. So they know the first contacts they on board to the CC will be in your fabulous hands regarding facilitated advocacy. 

This helps them get excited about onboarding their contacts rather than fearing it. 

Your new member will often become excited about people they know who would thrive in your CC-Team and the CC ecosystem.

Most importantly, when your new team members introduce new people, it gives you a chance to meet their contacts and “roll the ball on”.

A case study may help to illustrate some crucial principles.

Using the CC system, George became good at finding like-minded others on LinkedIn. For example, through this process, George found Terry.

After working for 20 years for the same company in the oil and gas industry in Melbourne, Australia, on medical advice, Terry decided to leave this company to move to a different area with a better climate.

When George met Terry on LinkedIn, Terry had been searching for a new role for 18 months. Although Terry had averaged 3 interviews per month, he had, as yet, received no job offers.

George explained to Terry how we reach out to others on LinkedIn for their benefit. After doing this for a while (with George’s active involvement), Terry gradually grew his CC-Team and helped them make great connections.

A (pleasantly) unexpected consequence of this process for Terry was that within 3 months of starting this strategy, he received 3 job offers. One of them was a dream job for Terry.

How did these job offers come about? 

When Terry developed a relationship with people he met on LinkedIn, and it became obvious to them that Terry was out to help them, a few of them asked: what are you looking for, Terry - how might I be able to help you? 

Three such people had close personal relationships with ideal contacts for Terry, and they were happy to advocate for him to these contacts.

The moral of this story is: why do it the hard way? 18 months of searching for a job or 3 months of network building with great side benefits?

There are many similar stories in the CC.

Terry introduced several great contacts to his team via his consistent outreach on LinkedIn. One of these contacts, Roger, is an entrepreneur in software development with many great connections.

George onboarded Roger while Terry observed. In the process, George developed a great relationship with Roger.

With George’s help, Roger onboarded several people to his CC-Team. 

One of them is Stuart. 

Stuart is also a highly successful software developer with an extensive list of trusted relationships.

Unfortunately, though, Terry began to experience some unexpected circumstances in his new dream job. 

Due to some temporary (or, as it transpired, some not-so-temporary) circumstances, Terry was unexpectedly required to fill in for site managers in remote locations, working long days every second week. 

These problematic circumstances significantly disrupted Terry’s ability to reach out and onboard others to his CC-Team.

Fortunately, though, as a true leader, George had developed a great relationship with Roger and could continue rolling the ball forward on Terry’s behalf. 

George then began developing a great relationship with Roger’s team members, Stuart and Nancy.

Unfortunately, Nancy came down with an illness and was temporarily unable to build her network. After 3 months of illness, Nancy re-surfaced and (with the help of George) she is now actively building her network en route to Core-5.

With George rolling the ball forward in Stuart's team, Stuart became hugely excited about the potential for building his network with the CC. 

Meanwhile, Roger suddenly had a surge in business (mainly due to meeting relevant others in the CC), became distracted and decided to put his CC membership on hold. 

However, since Roger put his membership on hold, he has introduced one of his close associates (Steve) to the CC. Steve joined a great team in the CC and has now onboarded his first member.

Back to Stuart (introduced by the now inactive Roger). 

Stuart has introduced several people to his team, including Lauren.

Due to personal circumstances, Lauren left the CC after a couple of months. However, before leaving, she introduced Denise. 

George has built a great relationship with Denise, who recently became excited and set a goal to achieve Core-5.

As a true leader, George keeps rolling the ball on. George knows this is the fastest way of finding leaders that can eventually replace him.

Following are some of the principles demonstrated by this case study

(1) If George had not practised progressive relationship-building in Terry’s team, Terry’s team would probably not exist today.

(2) Unlike many in his team, George is a true leader capable of consistently rising above his circumstances to build his network. 

(3) The many great benefits accruing to those working with George (including the job for Terry and a large amount of business for Roger and Stuart) would not have occurred unless George was actively involved in building relationships and rolling the ball forward. So they have a lot to thank George for.

(4) People typically do not leave the CC because they no longer benefit from it. Instead, they often leave because they allow other circumstances to distract them from the longer-term benefits of consistently building their relationship-based network.

• It has been said that it is not what happens to us that counts. 
• Instead, it’s how we choose to react to what happens to us that counts.
• Have you ever noticed how people have entirely different reactions to the same event?

(5) Team members are excited and more engaged when they see their team growing (even if this primarily results from their leader's efforts). 

(6) As a leader, you will more quickly find the leaders that can eventually replace you using a progressive relationship-building strategy than by introducing members without helping them to build their teams.

(7) It is critical that you continuously add personal contacts to provide team-building options in case you are temporarily or permanently unable to keep rolling the ball forward in a team you are building.

(8) Many people see the benefits of building their networks but become distracted by the tyranny of the urgent, losing sight of the important.

• One way to ensure this does not impede your network-building activities is to become good at rolling the ball on. 
• In other words, encourage your team members to bring their great connections to a CC Experience and show them how to onboard them.
• Apart from showing your team members sound onboarding principles, this strategy allows you to build relationships with those they have introduced and keep the ball rolling forward.

At any point in time, you can visualise the status of those in your team as being one of:

• Leader
• Leaner
• Lover
• Looker

However, it is essential to realise that a team member's status is not set in stone and can easily change over time.

Lookers are those checking out the benefits of network-building using the CC tools and whether they are prepared to make a consistent effort to grow a team of team-building advocates.

Lovers are those who love the CC community and various aspects of the tools provided by the CC, such as the podcasts and the meetings.

Leaners have decided they want to build a network consistently and are looking to you to help them develop as leaders.

Leaders are people like you who are committed to building a team of team-building advocates.

True CC leaders have caught the vision of achieving Core-50. 

Most importantly, they understand that Core-50 is simply a matter of finding 4 members of their team who want to achieve Core-10. 

In other words, they are not looking to personally onboard 50 people!

They are looking to onboard enough people to find 4 leaders who will achieve Core-10 and, in turn, find 4 such leaders. 

When these 4 leaders grow a team of 10, they will also have a team of 50+, and the original leader will then have around 200 in their extended community.

Leaders with Core-50 in their sights know it only takes 4 leaders, but they also realise that such leaders are not thick on the ground.

Leaders who see the value of finding and developing 4 Core-10 leaders and are committed to the consistent action required to make it happen will typically comprise only about 5% of your entire team at any point in time.

This podcast series is designed to help you develop as a leader, find other leaders, and help them develop their leadership skills.

It is important to realise here that everyone in your team (not only the leaders) has value.

Our goal is to help you learn how to find and develop leaders while supporting the other 95% of your group.

Why are we so focused on finding and developing leaders?

The Podcast titled “the benefits of network-building in addition to networking”, covers some of the benefits of finding and developing leaders. New members receive a link to this podcast in their onboarding emails.

As explained in that podcast, the more people in your team, the more people there are available to advocate for one another. And with growth, fresh advocates are always becoming part of your team. This also helps other teams in the CC as you can provide contacts for them. In addition, there are various possibilities for collaboration and the chance to develop multiple income streams and learn how to earn more in less time.

John Maxwell, the author of over 70 leadership books, says everything rises and falls on leadership.

When you have momentum and growth in your team, it is easy to maintain excitement within your team. Likewise, with growth, leaders emerge more quickly. 

Without growth, your team can quickly become stagnant and rapidly lose motivation.

The focus on helping leaders grow their teams distinguishes the Connect Collaborative from many networking groups. One of the main goals of those that founded the CC is to help leaders develop their own communities (or tribes) using the tools provided by the CC. Our vision is to have many such communities interacting with and providing value for each other.

In general, our brain is wired to visualise leadership and team growth as an arithmetic progression rather than a geometric progression; on the contrary, leadership-driven growth is always a geometric progression.

For example, let’s say it takes you a year to find 4 true leaders.

At that point, if these 4 leaders make up 5% of your group, you would have roughly 80 people in your group.

In addition to the lover category, you would also have some people keen to develop and lead their own team; in other words, in addition to a few leaders, you would also have some leaners, lovers and lookers.

You could quickly become disheartened if it took you a whole year to find only 4 true leaders in your team. However, let’s assume these true leaders also find 4 leaders in their first year. 

So now you would have 24 leaders in your team (including an additional 4 you introduced in year 2) and a group size of around 400.

In terms of reward for effort, year 1 may not look great. However, years 3 and 4 look incredibly good.

As Bill Gates said: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”