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.

It’s a good idea to follow up with your candidates who have attended a CC Intro session as soon as possible.

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.

What sort of time commitment would I be looking at?
"Well, that's actually great news!
All our network-building is via Zoom meetings like this. So, you don't have to travel to meetings, and our meetings tend to be shorter and more focused.
Typically this will save you somewhere between 1 and 3 hours per week.
Perhaps even more importantly, it gives 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.
However, as we all know, we only benefit if we consistently contribute.
It really comes down to how important you feel it is to be building an advocating network in advance of when you need it.
Is there a cost?
Actually, there is good news on the cost front as well.
First, in my experience, the value proposition is excellent. It's only $85 per month.
Second, your first month is free.
Third, unlike most networking models, there is no upfront commitment - you don't have to pay a year's fees in advance - you pay as you go.
(If the small amount of our subscription is a barrier to them checking it out further, then this may be a sign that they may not be who you are looking for).
Another question your candidate may ask is: I already have a great network - what is the point of expanding it further?
In this case, a good question you could ask is: “How much does your existing network pro-actively advocate for you”?
Let’s say your candidate answers this by saying: “Not a great deal, but I know that if I asked, they'd do anything for me”.
You could then reply:
Do you really want to have to keep asking?
Wouldn't it be better if you built your network in a culture that continually reinforces the value of proactive advocacy?
Make use of the resources provided by the CC.
When it comes to interacting with others, there is so much we can learn.
We hear a lot about the value of people skills and self-development.
And it's true!
It's so worth continually learning more about such things; it makes all the difference!
Consider role-playing with your Connector or someone they recommend.
The more Discovery Calls you do, the better you'll get
Initially, you may feel nervous and that you didn't 'flow' very well.
Don't worry - you'll get better with consistent practice.

In some ways, having a Discovery call with someone you don’t know is easier than having one with someone you do.

Firstly you have the opportunity to build rapport by asking connecting questions about their background and what they are looking for. Whereas with someone you know, you already know their background.

If you have selected well, there is a good chance that the person with whom you are having a Discovery Zoom is likely to be open to building a network that focuses on relationships rather than transactions.

The initial part of the call is where you need to connect.

As the leadership guru, John C Maxwell, said: Few people focus on connecting before attempting to communicate.

If you connect with others, they start listening to what you have to say.

Refer to their profile and ask connecting questions and questions that determine how much they value building their networks.

A couple of great questions:

What are you looking to achieve?
Where has most of your business come from so far?
How much of your business has come via referrals from others?
Who would be great contacts for you?
What other great questions can you think of that could help you move conversations in the right direction?

Discovery call Hints & Tips.

Make sure you exude positive energy. Remember, people follow confident, passionate people.
As you conduct more Discovery calls, write down questions that you have found to be particularly effective.
After connecting and establishing rapport, get on with the purpose of the call. You really don’t have time to ramble (and nor do they). In this regard, it helps to send a time limit in your Calendly invite of say half an hour.
Don’t start a Discovery call with the intent of promoting the CC. Instead, start by connecting, finding out what your candidate is looking for and how important building their network is to them.
If they are on the same page as you about the type of network they’d like to build, invite them to meet some great network-builders and attend a session introducing them to the CC system you are all using to build your network.
The best way to improve your Discovery calls is simply to do more of them.

Before sending out any invitations to meet you face-to-face on Zoom, you must adjust your LinkedIn profile so that people will want to connect with you after visiting your profile.

When you invite others to meet you on Zoom, the first thing your invitee will do is look at your profile and ask themselves: what’s in it for me?

What do you want them to see when they visit your profile?

The first thing you want them to see in your Summary section is a paragraph with wording similar to the following:

“Although you and I may not be able to do business together (directly), it is highly likely that I will know people who could be great contacts for you. I'm always happy to help other people who also have a pay-it-forward attitude.”

When they see words to this effect, there is a good chance that they will want to meet you because it’s apparent that you know many great contacts who could be good connections for them. After you have established trust with them, you are willing to introduce them to your contacts.

The words: “I'm always happy to help other people who also have a pay-it-forward attitude”; should indicate to them that you are expecting that they are also willing to reciprocate by introducing you to relevant people they know.

It’s important to realise that your value to others is not what you can personally do for them.

Your value to others is the people you know.

In most cases, the people you know will be much more helpful to them than you will be.

Similarly, the people your invitee can introduce you to will most likely be of far more direct value to you than the person you are zooming with will be.

It’s all about who others can introduce you to, after they have come to know, like and trust you.

Before reaching out to anyone on LinkedIn, it’s a good idea to align your profile so that others are likely to want to connect with you beyond LinkedIn. This is covered in the next topic of this workshop.

Your First level LinkedIn Connections.

If you already have a significant number of connections on LinkedIn, an excellent place to start is to reach out to a filtered list of first-level connections suggesting that you increase your relationship beyond LinkedIn, beginning with a short face-to-face meeting on Zoom.

Your message could go something like this:

“Hi Mary,

We've been connected on LinkedIn for a while, so I thought of reaching out to you.

This year I'm looking to build a community of like-minded professionals so that we can all advocate for each other.

My experience is that this is by far the most effective use of our time in producing Tangible results.

It's not about pitches, sales, offers or deals - and for me, it's definitely NOT about immediate transactions - it really is about building genuine pro-actively advocating relationships.

I reviewed your profile and realised I have a number of close associates in my network who could also be good connections for you if you are like-minded.

We all know that recent events have significantly impacted business.
However, on a positive note, I think it's made us all realise that we all do better by working together.
So, my motto is: Build trust by "giving first".

If this resonates with you, just click the following link and book a time for a quick Zoom call in the next few weeks so we can see how we may be able to help each other.

Click the following link to choose a time that works for you.

You would then include your Calendly link.

There’s no point in just being connected on LinkedIn - let's take it further!

I am looking forward to getting to know you better and seeing how I may best help.

Cheers
Fred”

Your Second Level LinkedIn Connections.

When you reach out to second level connections, LinkedIn limits you to a message which is 300 characters long.

We recommend your connection request message is structured as follows:

(1) A positive message about what you have seen on their profile.

This is the reason you want to connect with them.

For example:

Hi Fred,

It looks like you have a great deal to offer that may interest some of my contacts.

The more you can personalise this part of the message to what they have on their profile, the better.

(2) You would follow this with a standard message written in your own style.

For example:

Hopefully (like me), you also value stronger connections outside LinkedIn?
If so, let's connect with a view to meeting on Zoom or equivalent.
Cheers
Brooke

Be aware that roughly only 30% of the people you reach out to will accept your connection request. So anything above a 30% connection rate is cause for celebration!

When someone does respond, it is becoming common for them to send you a Calendly (or equivalent) link to book a time in their calendar.

If, however, someone connects and indicates some times they are free for a Zoom, you can instead send them your Calendly link.

In this case, your message could go something like:

Great, Brooke,

I’m looking forward to having a quick Zoom to meet you face-toface.

To make it easy and save juggling diaries, it would be great if you could choose a time that works for you using the following link.

Really looking forward to meeting you and seeing how I can best help.

Cheers
Fred

The next step is to have a Discovery Zoom with your new contact at the agreed time.

There are some great hints and tips about having a successful Discovery call in another topic in this workshop.

It is vital that you only reach out to people on LinkedIn that look like a good fit.

Bearing in mind that you are looking for partners to join your team, it is vital that you glance at LinkedIn profiles and be prepared to quickly move to the next profile if they have scant information or you just don’t feel they’d be a great part of your team.

Examining and selecting profiles to send an invitation to connect can be pretty time-consuming. However, it is critical to remember that you are only looking for a few leaders who will become great team-builders. When this happens, your team of team building advocates will rapidly expand.

In other words, it’s worth putting in a small, consistent effort every day selecting only potentially great candidates. In other words, eat the elephant bite by bite!

There are 2 things that can significantly speed up this process:

(1) Becoming good at Boolean searches to help you find like-minded candidates.

We have another workshop devoted to getting better with Boolean searches.

(2) Using Arnie the Analyser

Arnie is an advanced tool that works on a point system. You specify the number of points a profile gets (positive or negative) depending on whether the words you define are present or absent.

As an example, you could say that if the Summary section of a LinkedIn profile does not contain any of the following words:

I
My
Me

You would allocate minus 3 points.

This would screen out profiles that are written in the 3rd person.
In other words, where someone has written their profile like an online CV.

For Example: Fred, has a demonstrated history of; whatever.

Typically, Arnie can reduce the number of profiles you need to examine to about 25% of the initial results produced by your Boolean search.

Although Arnie is a fantastic, tedium-saving, productivity tool, it is complicated to set up. In other words, you will need someone to help you to set up Arnie.

We recommend you become thoroughly familiar with MyMostTrusted and how to do Boolean searches before you transition to Arnie.

Close friends are important – but research shows that building networks of casual acquaintances can boost happiness, knowledge, a sense of belonging and more leveraged financial results.

In 1973, Mark Granovetter, a sociology professor at Stanford University, published a paper entitled The Strength of Weak Ties.

It went on to become one of the most influential sociology papers of all time.

Until then, scholars had assumed that an individual’s well-being depended mainly on the quality of relationships with close friends and family.

Granovetter showed that quantity matters, too.

One way to think about any person’s social world is that you have an inner circle of people whom you often talk to and feel close with, and an outer circle of acquaintances whom you see infrequently or fleetingly.

Granovetter named these categories “strong ties” and “weak ties”. His central insight was that for new information and ideas, weak ties are more important to us than strong ones.

Granovetter surveyed 282 Boston-based workers and found that most of them got their jobs through someone they knew.

But only a minority got the job through a close friend; 84% got their job through those weak-tie relationships – meaning casual contacts whom they saw only occasionally.

As Granovetter pointed out, the people whom you spend a lot of time with, swim in the same pool of information as you do.

We depend on friendly outsiders to bring us news of opportunities from beyond our immediate circles – and so the more of those acquaintances we have, the better.

As the coronavirus changes our routines to interact with fewer people on a daily basis, we shrink our network of important weak-tie relationships.

The coronavirus pandemic may have a direct impact on people’s weak ties, and the benefits they reap from them unless they engage more in what has become the new face-to-face - online conferencing.

Companies that have been forced to change working practices by the crisis may end up making a permanent shift toward home-working and virtual workspaces.

Although workers stand to benefit in many ways, including increased flexibility, one possible downside of this change is that it can shrink our social networks.
For new increased advocacy, information and ideas, weak ties are more important to us than strong ones
Encounters with weak ties can be good for our mental wellbeing, too.

When Gillian Sandstrom was living in Toronto as a graduate student in psychology, she often had to walk between two university buildings, passing a hotdog stand on the way. “I’d always smile and say hi to the hotdog lady," she says. "We never even had a conversation, but I felt recognised, I felt connected – and that made me feel good.”

That episode inspired Sandstrom, now a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex, to investigate the extent to which people derive happiness from weak-tie relationships. She asked a group of respondents to keep a record of all their social interactions over the course of several different days. She found that participants with larger networks of weak ties tended to be happier overall and that on days when a participant had a greater number of casual interactions with weak ties, say, a local barista, a neighbour, a member of yoga class – they experienced more happiness and a greater sense of belonging.

Even seemingly unimportant encounters, like buying lunch from the same familiar face each day, can lift your spirits.

Lockdown is making such encounters rarer for all of us. Weak-tie interactions happen when we are out and about, particularly when we’re taking part in an activity of some kind, like singing or cycling.

A 2016 study, for which psychologists recruited respondents from Italy and Scotland, showed that regardless of nationality or age, people who were members of groups such as sports teams or church communities, enjoyed an increased sense of meaning and security. And the more groups of which they were members, the better.

“Sometimes it’s harder to talk to people we know well because those conversations come with an emotional burden,” says Sandstrom. “Weak-tie conversations are lighter and less demanding.”
By engaging in a wide variety of conversations with weak ties people can learn about how to cope with the various difficulties of life.
They are also a source of novelty, at a time when the days can all feel the same. Sandstrom shared a story about a colleague who has a weekly video chat with her family. “She says they’re running out of things to say, because nobody’s doing anything right now.”

As Granovetter’s work showed, we get much of our new information from weak ties. That provides stimulation but also, in a time of uncertainty, guidance on how to behave.

As we spend more time interacting with only strong-tie relationships, we begin to miss out on lighter conversations that can be less demanding and burdensome.

For all these reasons, we should continue to try and find ways to cultivate weak-tie relationships, in lockdown and beyond. Even under conditions of social distancing, our more distant friends are important to us. “We’re all curious to see how others are coping, what they’re doing, to help us figure out how to behave,” says Sandstrom.

Social media, she points out, is a useful substitute for weak-tie conversations. We can use it to reach out to people we don’t know well for: light, but meaningful interactions. She adds that we can also engage in more weak-tie-style interactions with our strong ties, checking to see how people are without engaging them in a full conversation. The goal, says Sandstrom, is to let others know you are thinking of them without asking for a great deal of time, energy or attention.

After this pandemic has passed we should take care to rebuild our networks of casual acquaintances. We can learn a lot from talking to people we barely know.

In 1973, Mark Granovetter, a sociology professor at Stanford University, published a paper entitled The Strength of Weak Ties.

It went on to become one of the most influential sociology papers of all time.

Until then, scholars had assumed that an individual’s well-being depended mainly on the quality of relationships with close friends and family.

Granovetter showed that quantity matters, too.

One topic of this workshop delves into the incredible value of your weak ties.

The strong conclusion is that we should all deliberately strive to increase our weak ties.

One of the best ways to build our relationships with like-minded others is by very selectively reaching out to those we have not yet met using LinkedIn.

This is powerfully reinforced by a great talk by Tanya Menon titled: “The secret to great opportunities - the person you have not yet met”

In this topic, we start by explaining the process of proactively meeting people who could be a great part of your team.

However, before reaching out to others on LinkedIn, it helps to understand the power of weak links.
And primarily, that the secret to great opportunities lies in the people you have not yet met.

We cover these concepts with a great article by Ian Leslie and a classic talk by professor Tanya Menon.

It’s vital to know that consistently making an effort to meet others on LinkedIn is so valuable.

It’s also important to know that you are potentially doing those that become part of your team a huge favour because you can help them meet so many others and help them build their networks.

We then cover the process of finding great people on LinkedIn and inviting them to meet you on Zoom for a “Discovery Call”.

Following your “Discovery” call, you may want to suggest your new contact attend a CC Intro session to meet others who are also building their networks using the tools & culture provided by the CC.

After the Intro call, they may want to become part of your team of team building advocates and register for a trial of our Network Building System.