Your new members must have a great onboarding experience. In other words, it is not just a matter of signing them up and hoping they do well.

You are building your team, and the 4-6 week onboarding process that we recommend; gives you the opportunity to work through the Syllabus with your new person. During this time, you can facilitate introductions to relevant others in the CC, and, most importantly, build your relationship with them.

If you feel you are not yet confident about taking a new person through the onboarding steps, ask your Connector to do it on your behalf.

In fact, for the first few people you onboard into your team, we recommend you allow your Connector to take your new members through the 4-6 week onboarding process while you watch. That way, you get to learn how to onboard new members.

That way, it will be fresh in their minds.

Here are some questions you may want to ask them:

What would you say is the difference between networking and network building?
Do you feel you would be more successful (both as an individual and as a business) if you built a strong network?
Do you have an interest in building your network?
Would you be prepared to set aside some time each week to learn the skills of building a team of team building advocates on the one hand; and leveraging commercial value from your network on the other?
Would you be prepared to dedicate some time each week to put what you have learned into practice by proactively reaching out to those you have not yet met via Social Media?
Are you prepared to invest some time each week interacting with and advocating for others?

These questions are so valuable; we refer to them as the “Golden Questions”.

Busy people understand that it is worth making time for something that can multiply their time.

If building a network is important to them, taking a trial of the NBS should be a no-brainer!
Their first month is free. After that, they can cancel their subscription at any time.

They will be building their team along with others in the CC who are also building their teams. Their team-building efforts will be greatly assisted by the Syllabus, Workshops, other meetings and resources provided by the CC.

Their goal is not to build the CC network. Instead, their goal is to build their team (which, as a by-product, also builds the CC community).

If you would like them as part of your team and they are keen to build their networks, book a time to register them in the system and start the 4-6 week onboarding process.

The next topic shows you how to register someone in the system.

Our Intro sessions are very compelling!

They will give your guests a good feeling about the culture, atmosphere, size of the CC and help them distinguish between networking and network building.

While your guest attends the Intro session with other guests, you can participate in other workshop sessions.

It’s great to have a goal to bring guests to a CC intro session regularly. In fact, it is pretty easy to have a guest attend at least every second week, if not every week.

You need to book your guests’ into an intro session to gain a good idea of how many guests will be attending; and, therefore, how many sessions we will need to provide.

Booking a guest into an intro session also allows the facilitator to learn more about them to engage better with them during the session. It also allows us to provide them with additional information, including the link to join the session.

The best way to learn how to use the CC Calendly booking system to book your guests into an intro session is to view the webpage associated with this topic. It contains some great screenshots showing you exactly how to do it.

(1) You think you’d like to have as part of your team and
(2) You think could be prepared to invest some time in building their networks

It is essential to understand that the purpose of your call is not to sell joining the Connect Collaborative. Instead, the call is to discover how important network building is to your candidate. If network building is important to them, suggest meeting like-minded others by attending a CC Intro Session.

If your candidate asks questions, by all means, go into more detail. If not, let them know they’ll learn a lot more by attending a CC intro session and that it’s not a sell as we only want people on board who want to participate.

Most importantly, don’t plan to spend too much time on your Discovery call. Allocate a set amount of time to the call (say half an hour) and try to stick with it. One of the best ways to do this is to send your candidate a message such as the following:

Hi George, It’s a while since we caught up!
Would you be up for a quick Zoom catchup?
If so, please pick a time that works for you using the following link.

Ask Questions

Good questions are very powerful.
In particular, good questions allow you to direct the conversation so that you can gather enough information to decide the next best steps.

We highly recommend getting into the habit of writing down good questions that work well for you.

Following are some examples:

We haven’t caught up for a while; what are you up to?
What are you looking to achieve over the next year?
This year, I’m keen to amp up my network building activities; how about you?
How much of your business has come from others advocating for you or referring people to you?

What are the possible outcomes of your Discovery call?

Having spoken with your candidate, you may decide that you do NOT want to invite them to a CC Intro Session.

Possible reasons for this are:

You feel they are not someone who you would want as part of your team.
Timing is not good for them right now - you are just not getting a good vibe from them at the moment.
You have discovered that they are Takers rather than Givers.
You feel their current focus on immediate transactions means they are unlikely to dedicate any time to building relationships for longer-term benefits.

If you don’t want to invite a candidate to a CC Intro Session, it is very easy to gracefully end the call with a positive message such as:

“George, it’s been so good catching up. We must not leave it so long till we catch up again. In the meantime, I’ll keep my ears and eyes open for anyone I think would benefit from your service…”

On the other hand, if you feel your candidate is keen to increase their network building activities and you’d like them as part of your team, the next step is to invite them to a CC intro session.

If your candidate has responded to your questions indicating that they are keen to build their network, you could progress your candidate with a conversation that goes something like this:

“I couldn’t agree more, George! You are so right! In the end, none of us can easily sell ourselves. So the aim of the game has to be to build trust with others who will genuinely advocate for us.

Interestingly, I have just recently started working with a group of people taking precisely this approach, and I can see some great things coming out of it. We are following a process that teaches us how to build our networks alongside others doing the same. Our goal is to create advocacy not only in our own teams but also between teams.

The result is fast growth which creates greater opportunity for all of us.
The group is called the Connect Collaborative.
Would you like to meet some of the people I’m working with and find out a bit more about how we build our networks together?”

The CC Intro session is a part of every workshop.
It may be that your candidate is keen but has a regular commitment at the times our Workshops are held.
The reality is that our workshops are a significant part of the value of belonging to the CC.

In some cases, your candidate will see great value in building a team of team-building advocates and will be prepared to move other regular commitments to attend a CC intro session. If not, look for another candidate who can attend.

Inviting as many good candidates as possible to attend each CC intro session is an excellent use of your time. At the same time your candidates are attending the CC intro session and experiencing the workshop’s atmosphere; you can participate in other workshop sessions.

It works especially well for you to book a follow-up session while you are booking your candidate into the CC intro session. It’s ideal to secure the follow-up for immediately after the workshop.

You must book your candidate into a CC intro session using the CC Calendly booking system.

There are several reasons for this:

(1) Depending on the number of people attending at the time of the Workshop, we can decide how many breakout CC intro sessions we will need to accommodate the number of guests that have been invited.

(2) Your guest will be sent a confirmation email from the CC containing some more information. They will also be sent a reminder email and a reminder SMS, greatly increasing their likelihood of attending.

(3) You can include a link to your guests’ LinkedIn profile and any additional information that may help the facilitator interact with them.

There is an excellent explanation of how to use Calendly to book your guest in for a CC Intro session in the next topic of this workshop (click the topic to access the web page, which has detailed screenshots).

At the same time, use the CC syllabus and workshops to learn how to build your team by creating filtered lists of people you have not yet met on LinkedIn and invite them to connect with you.

Start by making a list of current and past work associates.
Put everyone you can think of on your list and keep adding to the list as the names pop into your head.
The reason for putting all names on your list is that one name reminds you of another.

Next, start making a shortlist of people that you think you’d like to have as part of your team and who you believe could be interested in building their networks.

Today, most people realise the value of having an extensive network of people they trust and who will advocate for them. Moreover, most people are beginning to realise that building their networks is no longer an optional extra. And since video-conferencing has become the default way of meeting face-to-face, network building has never been more accessible or powerful.

It’s important to realise:

1. The CC culture and system is precisely what many people are looking for, and you may be able to do them a huge favour by onboarding them into your team.

2. You only need a few like-minded people to come into your team. You don’t need to sell people on the CC. When you have discovery conversations with many people, you will discover a few who want to join your team and will be grateful for your help to build their team.

3. You are looking for people who are prepared to consistently devote a small amount of time to build their team of team building advocates.

4. You are looking for people who see the value in building their network rather than just networking with others in the CC.

5. You only need a few builders to create an exponentially growing team. When you have 5 builders in your team who onboard 5 builders, it’s easy to see how rapidly exponential growth can occur.

6. Take people through a Discovery Zoom and a CC Intro Zoom and then let them decide. Many people are looking for a different approach.
Many people want to build relationships rather than hunt for immediate transactions.
Many people will love and benefit from building their team within the CC ecosystem.