All it takes is one great connection to change the course of your life or your business.
Often, when I talk with someone at the very beginning of their entrepreneurial journey- or someone making a pivot- and they ask where they should start, my first questions to them are about their connections, network and friendships.
The wealth of connection that you create, build and nurture will be more powerful than any idea, skill or business that you can think of. Even in the world of memberships, your connections are immensely more important than whether you should use Kartra or Kajabi, what your lead magnet is or even what your specific niche is.
Why?
Because the power of your network is the one thing that will make everything else you do more successful.
When I first entered the online business world, I had few connections, a vague idea about what I wanted to do and a vast amount of experience from the career that I was planning on exiting.
What were my first moves?
Before I even had a business started, I invested- financially and time wise-in two different business masterminds and attended three live, out-of-town events within six months of starting. I knew I needed to get around people that were doing what I wanted to be doing. I knew that by being around others in the online business space that took the time and money to invest in themselves, I would connect with the ones that were actually doing it.
I wrote about this in my first book, Freelance to Freedom, but at one of those live events, I met a guy named Kyle. Kyle had a membership teaching parents how to take better pictures of their kids. His membership was $10 a month to be a part of, and he had more than 1,000 members. I knew I could learn from him.
What I didn’t realize was that I had something that he needed as well. Kyle had been wanting to create a course for his members on how they could take better sports pictures of their kids. His problem was that he had no experience shooting sports, and he didn’t have the equipment to do so.
At this event, I learned about his membership and he learned about my twenty-year career as a sports photographer. I looked at him and said, “I have an idea…”
“Yes!”, he quickly responded.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” I said.
“Go ahead and tell me,” Kyle responded.
“I think you and I should team up and create a course for your members on how they can take better sports photographs of their kids,” I proposed.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he countered.
For three months, Kyle and I collaborated on creating, writing and recording a course for his membership. And when the course launched, it made $32,000 on the first day, and more than $54,000 in less than a week.
Just like that-because of one connection-my entrance into the online world of courses, memberships and content, got a ten-year head start. I learned that, in our situation, we created a great combination. I could not have launched this course to that kind of success because I had no audience in this space. Kyle had built an audience of 1,000 members and nearly 100,000 people on his email list.
Kyle could not have created such a powerful course because he didn’t have more than 20 years of shooting professional, college and youth sports from the sidelines. He didn’t have the images, the stories and the technical explanations to make the course roar. That was my part.
But with just one connection-we combined to make something amazing and incredibly successful.
That is why the wealth of connection is the most powerful starting point of any business-membership or otherwise. But most people pay lip service to creating deeper connections with humans and continue to spend most of their time trying to create viral content, working on their website or obsessing over their funnel or lead magnet.
Can you imagine if your main focus in building your dream business and life was simply focusing on making that next great connection?
If you did, you might not be so slow in responding to that private message.
You might not say that you are too busy to get on an impromptu phone call.
You might be a little quicker- and more committed- to investing in yourself, being around others who are either on the path that you are on, or in learning from those who have done what you would love to do. I say proudly that in my first two years of trying to break into the online space, I invested more than 20% of our income in masterminds, memberships, live events and coaching. And it was the best money that I could have spent simply from the network that I built from it.
I hear from people all the time that balk at investing $1,000 or $2,000 a year to learn from and be in the presence of those who are where they need to be. Those people are often stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. They haven’t learned yet that it’s almost all about building trust and relationships with people who can not only elevate you, but also make connections and referrals to others that can elevate you.
One great connection can change the course of your life or business. I suggest keeping that at the top of your mind when you start work each and every day.
– Vincent
P.S. If you would like a free audiobook copy of my book, The Wealth of Connection, click HERE!
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