How to be a power Connector and Elite Networker with Judy Robinett

VC/Funding Expert || Author of @Inc’s #1 Business Book for 2014 || Book #2 Crack the Funding Code is out January 2019 – Judy Robinett

Judy is an entrepreneur, author, a business thought leader who is known as ‘the woman with the titanium digital Rolodex.’

She has mastered how to build and maximize her network and leveled it up a million times over. For more than 30 years, she has helped entrepreneurs find their needed capital by connecting them with venture capitalists, angel investors, and other sources of funding.

February 5th, she came out with a new book, Crack the Funding Code: How Investors Think and What They Need to Hear to Fund Your Startup.

Episode Highlights:

How to level up your networking to make a huge impact on your business
Secrets to cultivating business relationships
Tips to pave the way to get funding in your business (and when it’s time to exit)
The two ‘magic’ questions you should be asking your client

Links:

Crack the Funding Code: How Investors Think and What They Need to Hear to Fund Your Startup: https://www.harpercollinsleadership.com/crackthefundingcode/
Judy’s website: http://www.judyrobinett.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/judyrobinett
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judyrobinett
Facebook: http://facebook.com/thejudyrobinett

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I am Jaime Masters, and today on the show I've been waiting to have Judy Robinett; you can find her at judyrobinett.com. She just came out with Crack the Funding Code; her other book is all about networking and how to be a power connector. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thanks so much for coming on.

Judy: Thank you. I?m excited to be here.

Jaime: I had to stop you in advance, because we were going down paths of wonderful information, and I was like, let?s record first. So what I love about you in general is you took the networking and the power connecting thing and leveled it up times a million. And I thought I was good at connecting, but reading your book and knowing the true ways to do it was insightful, so I want to start there before I get into Cracking the Funding Code. So can you tell us a little bit about the premise of that book and how your network made such a huge difference to you?

Judy: Yeah, so I was in the corporate world, and I saw everyone else getting promoted. And I couldn't quite figure out what the deal was, and I figured out that rather than the org chart, there was this power network of people, and actually, research bears it out, is five percent of people in an organization really have the power. But I had been so shy and bullied, I actually went and got the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, and when I started saying hello and talking to people and got a little bit out of my comfort zone, then that just really blasted me up. And one of the things that happened was I started getting into a socio-economic level I?d never been in.

I?d never met a millionaire. Now I just got introduced to yet another woman billionaire, and I found out that everybody is just like us, and as long as you're alive you've got a problem, and your problem is somebody else's solution. And so that really took the fear from me, and you can help add value just by caring or listening, by providing a contact, doing whatever. And so the first book was really helping people understand that there's no lack of resources. There are 7.4 billion people, $279 trillion in private global wealth. That's the number one pot of money people go to to find funding for their startups.

Information doubling all the time, endless ideas, but I found most people were in the wrong room, and so I took what I had learned from being the bullied kid that grew up in Idaho and went to the same high school as Napoleon Dynamite to help other women, particularly, and minorities, because it's just harder; it honestly is just harder. And I'm 65; I used to think when I was your age, Jaime, that we're going to have these problems; we still do.

Jaime: So I so appreciate ? your story is a lot similar to mine, especially; small-town gal in Maine, and super introverted, didn?t want to talk to anybody; I turn bright red when I get nervous. So reading your whole story about how you cultivated that, so give us a couple of tips of advice, especially for the people that are trying to get better at networking, but it's kind of scary and getting out of your comfort zone. Can we start there first?

Judy: Sure. So I would find somebody that you could be their wingman. Find somebody you already know who's a connector. The second thing is be careful what groups you go to; probably 95 percent are a waste of time, of these networking events. And so if you go to a curated group that you know has people that can help you, the resources that you need, then you can spend 45 minutes or an hour, meet 10 high-quality people. And so that saves the time of having to network. People say, how much do you network, and I don't, really.

I go to high-end kind of groups, so for instance, all of your listeners who are in the growth stage of their business, a good organization to go visit is the Association of Corporate Growth, ACG, and this is all over the world. And you go, and you can go as a visitor, and it?s all CxO people, and so you could educate yourself, and I'm happy to provide some lists to people, but the people flock like chickens; I?ve got 14 pet hens my backyard.

Jaime: Do you really?

Judy: So think about what it is you need, where do those people hang out, and it and how do I get there. And then the other point I just want to make quickly is it is so important to talk to strangers, and research shows whenever we talk to strangers, two percent of the time it?s like, oh my gosh, I've met billionaires hiking in Park City.

Jaime: Seriously? We?re told as kids not to talk to strangers, though!

Judy: Strangers, right? Stranger danger. What the truth is, it?s your neighbors and your family that rape, murder, plunder, the statistics show. But the reality is if you, as Einstein said, decide is this a good universe, and you realize most of the people out there are good human beings, 95 percent, so five percent are that dark triad of Machiavellian, sociopath, narcissistic, and so those people you avoid, but if you just do little tiny baby steps ? I made it a game at one point to see if I could talk to anybody, and so I said to a friend of mine that was pulling up in the restaurant, whoever pulls up next to us, I'm going to figure out how to talk to them.

Well, I look and it turned out they had Idaho plates. And so I got out and said oh, I used to live in Idaho; where do you live? And I made it a fun game, and if you realize all of us want to be cared. All of us like being supported, so with strangers, if you give them a compliment, men love to hear about how nice their watch, their shoes, their suit looks. It takes a lot of effort to look good. And then the other thing is ask for directions, for help, ask a good question. Those are easy asks, and it's easy to do, and what I found is as soon as I did a few of those things, it was like oh my gosh, people are nice; people do want to talk to me.

And that has resulted in me being on boards with Mark Cuban, and being invited to the White House to Fintech conferences, and I literally was absolutely nobody, Jaime. And I found out being generous and going in that you focus on the other person. Don't worry about you; just focus on ? pretend they?re your best friend, and that will open the doors and provide relationships, and it will set you apart in a huge way that people will remember you.

Jaime: Well, you just said my name, and I love you more because I noticed you said my name, and I know that's another tactic, so I love these pieces and especially making it more of a game and not ? my mom will talk to anybody to the detriment of like, we have to go now, Mom. Let?s ?I know you just met a new friend, but we have to go. My dad's the exact opposite, and so growing up with both sides ha sort of been an interesting thing, so I can go up and meet people, but then I don?t know what to do to cultivate. So do you have any tips? Don?t get me wrong; I have lots of friends.

But how do you, and especially in business, how do you sort of lean towards the business side and actually ask for what you want and go after some of that stuff, too? Because I feel like the making friend part, especially for females that I know, is a little easier. We can make friends, and then when it comes to actually cultivating relationships, and asking, and business stuff, it's like ?

Judy: Well, if you?ve got a good match, if you know somebody that needs financing and you happen to know someone who has financing, everybody's happy; there's absolutely no fear in that equation. So if you can figure out how to add value ? so initially, when I meet people, I will say what are you working on now, or what's your favorite project. And I say, ?Is there anything I can help you with?? And I do. Literally, Jaime, after we get through with this, I'm going to say, ?How can I help you?? Whether it's a project, growing your company, getting some more exposure.

Jaime: Thanks for the prep. I?m gonna have to think about that before you ask me later. I appreciate it. So when you do that, though, how do you ? I love that you do that, and a lot of people do that and then don?t follow up, right? How do you keep track of all the things that ? because that means you?re getting asked a bazillion things. Does that make sense? And how do you keep track of all that stuff and who to help?

Judy: So I don't get asked bazillion of things. I'm careful with the people I meet, the groups that I go to, and you can feel if there's a chemistry between people, and if there is, and this is a person you think I'd like to have in my network, and we?re maybe on the same level, or maybe this person is a little higher than me, and then your number one goal is to build a relationship. So you want the second date. So initially, maybe you're not going to say don't you want to put a million dollars into my startup? No, they're not. No one invests in you unless they know you, like you, and trust you. So your first goal is just build a relationship. You only need 25 people, Jaime; you can do anything.

I mean literally, if you have a diverse, robust, deep network, you can make anything happen with 25 people. I had a guy in Utah that called me, and he?s a pretty famous VC guy, and he said, ?Judy, I?ve got 40,000 people in my Excel worksheet,? and I'm sending him Christmas cards every year. And I said, how many of those people have ever helped you? And he said 10. Well that's it. Just because someone will help you doesn't mean they will. So you look for a level of kindness and caring; you don't want any of those sociopathic murderers, and the second thing is some level of competence. But the third thing I look for his generosity, and indeed, just because someone can help you doesn't mean they will.

And so initially, you want to vet that person; make sure you feel good in your heart and your head and your gut. So one of my favorite quotes by Oprah is, ?When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.? And so you just realize ? I have people often write down who they currently have, like the top 25 people in their network, and then do a little bit of analysis. Do you have people you could call if you need funding? Do you have people you can call if you want to get on a TV show? And so I do follow up. So I will follow up the same day on LinkedIn invite. I will make sure in that conversation that I have found out what they're interested in.

I will try to find an article, think of a person I could introduce them to, do something that quickly adds value. And it's a great ? it's a powerful way; it's like the eagles on the thermals. It literally just pulls you up and up, and then one day you kind of ? I was in Belgrade over the holidays for 11 days, and I got invited to the Royal Palace for dinner, and there was six of us, and I'm sitting by Prince Alexander watching very carefully which utensil he picked up, looking around the walls of millions of dollars of artwork going, how did this happen? Well, I can track it exactly back to how it happened.

I helped ? a woman asked me to go on a diplomatic mission to Belgrade to help them with their entrepreneurial stuff, and I've done that all over the world. And initially, I thought, who would want to go to Belgrade? And then Dee, who you met briefly, said to me, ?Oh, come on, Judy. You can probably add value, help them, and you'll probably have a good time.? So Kevin Harrington of Shark Tank fame is a good friend of mine. He said, ?Oh, Judy, if you're going, I want you to meet this guy that I have been looking at investing in his company. Tell me is he a good guy, and tell me is his business model solid. Is he investable??

Well, I met this great, great guy, and I now own part of his company, and we have offices in Rockefeller Plaza. And he's the one that said. ?Would you like to go to the Royal Palace for dinner?? And so nothing happens without people ? nothing. And if you get people to kind of track back, or you watch what happens, it turns into magic; it really does.

Jaime: I love that you said magic, because that?s stuff that money can't buy. You can't be like Oh I'm going to pay a whole bunch of money because I want to be invited to the thing. It's all in who you know. I have so many pieces I want to unpack about what you just said. So the very, very first piece we talked about was higher levels. So I know we don't talk about that very much, right? Where they?re like I'm down here and you're up there. How do we navigate the higher levels, and how to help and really cultivate that.

Judy: So the secret really is realizing everybody needs help. So last year, I was at Pebble Beach, got introduced to one of the foremost VC?s in the nation, and I said to him, after he told me a little bit about him and I told him a little bit about me, nothing compared to him, and I said to him, is there anything I can help you with? And he said, ?I'm just having the worst time trying to find a couple of speakers for this conference on AI, artificial intelligence.? I said, done. I did the same thing with Mark Burnett, who's now the CEO of MGM, and that will result in you getting emails and phone calls back the same day.

I mean, when it came out that Mark Burnett was the new CEO of MGM, I wrote a short little email, congratulations to you and Roma Downey, his wife, and less than 30 minutes later he wrote back and said, ?Thank you, Judy.? So that shows, and it's based on that quality, the depth of that relationship.

Jaime: So I call them connection threads. I?m always looking to deepen the relationship, whether it be giving value or reconnecting, or being human to human instead of just mass email, because I feel like we don't have that. How do you deepen ? how do you know the level of depth that you are before you can ask something?

Judy: How do you know the level? So if you have developed a good relationship with someone, and they know you, like you, and trust you, you can certainly ask. And if you get a no, you just say ?next? and go to the next person. So there's different levels of the ask, and the harder ones are probably are you interested in funding my company, do you know about a JV contract, but you can do it pretty easily by saying I've shared with you about my company; we're going to be doing a Series A round. Two magic questions: No. 1, what other ideas do you have for me? No. 2, who else do you know I should talk to?

Jaime: That seems so much softer.

Judy: Yes, so much softer, and that's different than the punch to the head, like, give me a million dollars. And so and it gives them a way to save face. You don't know. Maybe they've got the money and maybe they don't. And you can also say would you mind looking at my pitch deck, or could I run through this with you, I'm going to be meeting with the family office, or whatever. People love to give advice.

There's a fellow in Salt Lake, Adam Slovik, who did a billion-dollar exit. He will meet with any entrepreneur as long as they buy him lunch, and he?ll spend two hours going through your business model, asking you questions, thinking about assumptions. And most of these people love doing that, so the angel investors, they all love to coach. They love to be helpful.

Jaime: That restores faith in humanity, right? Of people that actually have stuff, they really want to, because in the online world that we live in, a lot of times people are so guarded, like, I'm too cool for you, like, don't pick my brain. And that's where I feel like people have a hard time asking now. I mean, I have a hard time asking from amazing humans, going oh, I don't want to bug you. I don't know if our relationship is deep enough.

So how do you start on that, especially if you're somebody that's going through needing funding and you're going through and I want to ask; I want to be that person that, like in the quote in your background, I love that. How do you just pave the way so that way you can actually get funding or get the things that you know you need?

Judy: So No. 1 is build the relationships before you need them. I have people call me, and they?re frantically, they?re down to six months of cash, their burn rate?s too high, they?ve got to find funding, and they don't know anybody. Now that's a problem. If you?ve developed, nurtured, found out some of those, it?s really pretty simple. It's not simplistic, but it?s simple. And I go through this a lot in my book. There?s 300 Angel Groups in the United States, equally from north to south to west to east, but the secret is 75 percent of them only invest in the state they're in. So you can google Maine Angel Groups or Idaho Angel Groups. There's Angel Groups in every city, every kind of major city.

There certainly are in the bigger cities and those rural places we?re from, and you can get online, and the one I tell people to go look at it is the New York Angels, arguably, I think, the best Angel Group in the world. I mean, last time I was there, I think I counted six billionaires in the room, including Esther Dyson. And so a little knowledge will take you a very far way, so if you've done your homework, you've looked at this, you've looked at the application process, I will usually tell people meet with an entrepreneur who's been successful.

Ask them for some advice, to look at the pitch deck, and at that point, when you've got really good information back, and you?ve overcome barriers or hurdles, and you have put such a nice bow on your value proposition package, like you've got a Wilson Sonsini, a top tier law firm, you've got a top, maybe a fractional CFO, a couple of top board members. Then that increases the credibility around you and that company, so it makes it easier for them to say yes, I'll take a meeting. So the one thing to realize, Jaime, is all of the investors, their number one problem is finding a good deal. That?s their problem.

Jaime: Which is, everybody thinks that?s crazy on the other side, exactly. So we see Shark Tank, and they?re like oh, everybody is just trying to pitch their idea; well, good ideas are very different than random pitches, right? In general?

Judy: Well, yeah, I mentioned I was on a panel with Mark Cuban, and at that event, we were trying to increase minorities on Shark Tank with my friend, Dr. Rodney Sampson. And we had dinner, and I was sitting next to the TV producer I turned to him and I said dude, most of these deals like really suck. And he turned to me and he said, ?Well, you know, Judy, it's entertainment first.? So I put my little tail between my legs, and, but, so that probably isn't the most optimal place, but you can certainly go to pitch events at your local college, at universities. They have conferences all over the place; if you just google, you'll be overwhelmed with the number of investors.

The other thing is, if you find ? whoever you hire as a law firm, they need to be able to open doors for you. They need to have some gravitas, so a lawyer, everybody can do a contract; everybody can't open the doors for you, or has the expertise in that industry. So all of this I've been talking about is really packaging the deal. And Howard Stevenson, he was known as the Father of Entrepreneurism at Harvard, wrote just this terrific little book that teaches investors what to look for in deals. And I can send that for you for your show notes.

And he said there's two ways that you can position yourself as a high potential deal. The first one is be very clear on your exit. And it turns out those guys want their money back.

Jaime: Who knew?

Judy: Yeah. And the second one is mitigate risk as viewed by the investor. So many of the pitches I see, they?re so into their Kool-Aid, their product, and how we're going to have billions of dollars. And their customer, at that point, is the investor. And so looking at it through the investor?s eyes. And there?s always giveaway phrases that show me people are an amateur. So I had a guy day before yesterday write to me, and he said, ?Judy, I'm working with this company that has a cure for Parkinson's for hand tremors.? And I wrote back and I said please don't use the word ?cure;? you'll appear as amateur.

So he wrote back to me and defined the word ?cure? out of the dictionary, and I wrote to him and I said, I can tell you how investors define it: snake oil.

Jaime: Hopefully he takes that to heart, my goodness. Right? What?s so interesting is that it?s the nuances of being in the industry as long as you have that make you understand language, make you understand and intuitively know certain things. Like, this book, just so everybody is very clear is insanely detailed with things that are actually value, no offense to other people that write books, but a lot of it is generalizations of this is how it's supposed to be, and you break it down, which is really, really helpful, because you've been in it for so long. So when somebody is getting into this, especially the people that are listening right now, a lot of them have bootstrap businesses.

They're not the oh my gosh, I want to have a 5 million-dollar company and I'm starting from zero right now. So the people that have businesses that are ?successful,? maybe making six figures, should they even be thinking about funding if they want to grow? Do they need an exit? Tell me a little bit more about that.

Judy: So you always want to have those relationships in your back pocket, because who knows? Maybe you suddenly get a contract out of Europe, and you need instantly $100 million in inventory, or whatever, and most companies along their growth path are going to need money. Now if you're successful, you can get bank loans. And that's another thing; you should go to the SBA and score, the Small Business Development Center there's one in every county. It's free, really good information. And so, yes, I would always have those people, because at some point you probably are going to need funding.

If not, that's great, but most companies do, and so I would have developed a relationship with a banker, with a local Angel Group. I would find out the local family offices around you. Seventy percent of them now are investing in startups, early-stage companies. And there is no lack of money. $279 trillion; there's no lack of money. And it really is getting in the right room, and the reason I had to do this book is I was so frustrated going around the world globally and meeting people who had arguably great business ideas, and could not figure out how to get it funded. Some of them had fallen in with the bad actors, made lots of promises, just pay us $10,000; we?ll get you funded.

But most of them just didn't understand, Einstein said, ?If you're going to play the game, you?d better know the rules.? And it's kind of an interesting industry, and a lot of them that have kept private because they don't want everybody walking up, hey, don?t you want to give me $1 million? And I wanted to make it easy for people to see a pathway that works. So that's the nut.

Jaime: Well, and it?s so neat. I've heard so many horror stories. I haven't raised; I?ve worked with clients that have, and I've heard horror stories from friends of mine that have literally spent so much time and effort, years even, going through, and it feels like they're turning their way away from their business to go learn this skillset to try and figure out this whole thing, which is a totally separate line.

But then they sort of negate the business, and so it's like this double-edged sword of trying to go well, I'm going after funding, but we also have to pay attention to this. And they?re split into the horror stories of business didn't grow, or we couldn't get funding, or things fell through. It just makes a lot of people go okay, never mind. Back away.

Judy: And that's why you always need a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. That's why I always say it's important to develop those relationships, because you never know what may be happening. I recently ? I do some work with Walmart and different folks, and a person that I?d worked with, they said, ?Great, if you can get us literally $100 million in inventory, you're in.? And it's like, eek, eek, eek! Where do I go get that money? Well, if you have a signed LOI with Walmart, that makes the game a lot easier for you. But you should try to anticipate and look at where you currently are as a company, what industry, what you fit in, where you are.

I mean, really be clear on your numbers and how they fit with others. Is your industry going up? What is the future kind of trajectory? You need to pay attention to the marketplace. A lot of people don't, and then they're dead, because somebody has innovated above them, or somebody got the funding to do what was needed to grow that company to the next level.

Jaime: That's what I see also. We?re hesitant to take that risk, right, and so they back away. But then somebody else that's not hesitant just swoops on right by them, and they're like I could have been, right? So how do you know when it's the right time to be able to do it?

Judy: Well actually, there are a lot of excellent books that are out there, but Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma, often says you cannot estimate a market that doesn't exist. So the disruptors you can't really guess that way. But if you've really done your research, and you've had your team do the research, and you've talked to lots of people out there, that will help you mitigate the risk to you, and it doesn't have to be go raise money or run my business. I mean, if you've worked along with getting those relationships in place, it?s a lunch; it's a lunch meeting, and getting in front of some key people.

If somebody is getting no, more than, like, 10 times, their story is wrong. They need work on their story, their pitch; their pro formas don't make sense. David Meister, who is a friend of mine that I work with, he was referred to me by the New York Angels as their top go-to person for looking at pro formas. Now, people will call me, oh, I had my uncle, Bob, who?s an accountant, do my pro formas, or I've got this person, and I will make them have David go through their stuff, and it's $300.00. Every single time, he has found something, because he's able to look under the hood at the assumptions and make sure all of those things match.

And the other person I send people to is John Livesay, who?s known as the Pitch Whisperer, and he?s probably the best person I know to work on pitch decks, and I've worked with John for a number of years. I had a little start-up actually out of Idaho from a former Navy SEAL who was in Kuwait trying to save kids that somebody threatened to bomb the school, and came back to the U.S. and said most of these help the schools with safety are based on software, not real world incidents like he knew. And he had no background as a startup. We helped him kind of finesse getting some advisers and such, and I sent him to John.

John helped him with his pitch deck I think it was $500.00, maybe $1,000.00, and helped him with the story, the story behind that, and sent him to a family office in Salt Lake and he got an offer for $1 million. And so I will meet people and I will say if you?re getting those ? I worked with a woman out of Park City, a doctor, had an interesting medical device, and nobody in Utah was interested. And I said you?ve got two problems: you?re a woman, and you?re not LDS, not Mormon, and you need to get out of Dodge. And so I took her to Boston, San Francisco, we got $500,000.00; the company sold for millions.

Jaime: See, you know so much about the inner workings of the industry. Yes, that's why everybody needs to get the book, though, because you?ve been around the block so much that you can see oh, that's your problem, whereas when they?re in it, they have no clue, and then just feel like the whole world is against them. And that's the tough thing about entrepreneurship anyway; we just live in our own little bubble and we just assume, ? she could have assumed the whole world was against her, even though, like you said, it was just regional.

Judy: That one was in the wrong room. And that's a good point; I need to write an article on that, how you can tell exactly where you need to be, and people with medical devices, bio companies, will often go to regular Angel Groups ? wrong room. You need to go to the Life Science Angels in San Francisco, or some of the incubators that are currently dealing with big pharma that would be happy to invest in you if they have the right-of-first-refusal. So there's all kinds of ways around any kind of an issue, and I always say go over it, under it, around it, or through it. There always is a way; it's really strategy; it really is strategy. If there's no lack of resources, that's it. It's a strategy.

Jaime: I love that. It makes it feel so accessible to everybody. So when you're being preemptive in your network, so you don't totally need funding now, but it's really good to go after the right people, so that way you have relationships. A.) How do you go about doing that without distracting yourself from your current business, but B.) How do you keep in touch with them in a way that feels valuable, to make sure that you're not like hey, let me just keep checking in and making sure the relationship?s good and being annoying.

Judy: You're absolutely right, and I do that by adding value. I got free tickets to Pebble Beach. I sent out to about five people, said that I'm not a golfer; I'm going to be there; would you like to go with me? And just little things; send them a book. I recently, on a flight home from New York, met a guy who has a couple of startups, very, very successful, and he's pulling up on his phone to show me something, and he has these two dogs. And I said wow, and he goes, ?Yeah, they?re like brother and sister.? And they?re different colors. He said, ?This is Mac and Cheese and this is Chili Pepper.?

Well, when I got home, I wrote to him and said how?s Chili Pepper and Mac and Cheese, and tell your wife, Sarah, I said hello. Hope to meet you when I come to New York again. And that has resulted in him introducing me to the producer of Vice TV. So there I was, a stranger in an airplane, and you just be you, be real, find out what they care about. Michael Milken said, ?What we care most about is our family, our health, our wealth.? And I add pets; pets is a big one. And so if you just find out a little bit about them, and just reach out, I was thinking about you, saw this, thought it may be valuable for your business. Is there anything I can help you with?

Jaime: I've sat next to millionaires that I ended up interviewing on the show in airplanes going like, hey, nice to meet you. Dennis Yu was one of them, and I had no idea, we have 500 mutual friends now, right? So you never know where you are. I guess the question, though, that I have, is what tech do you do ? I have a big network, and I'm trying to ? who do I give value to right now. So do you use a software system, like a CRM? How are you paying attention to what you need to do?

Judy: No, so if you only are focusing on 25 people, you literally can just do a simple little spreadsheet. And I do make sure that those top critical people that are important to me, that I add value at least, maybe, once a month. But after you?ve developed a relationship, I hadn't written to Mark Burnett for three months when I send him that email.

Jaime: Three months, though, is not very long. Years can go by with me, but that?s amazing.

Judy: But if you add value, you really stand out to people, and if you care about them, their pets, their family, find out a little bit about what they're interested in, it really is simple. And in the first book, I talk about writing out who your current network is, and then breaking them into industry or what their expertise is, making sure you're covered with everything that you might need. A recruiter if you might be looking for a job, media contacts, different stuff like that.

And if you just do that, and it's pretty ? so one of the other things that I do is I subscribe to quartz.com and Mackenzie. So these are highly curated, top of the world research, and I may find one article I can send to 10 different people that made their day. It wasn't just junk; it was a simple way to curate some high-end information and say hey, I saw this, I thought this may be of value to you. And nine times out of ten, they write back yes, thank you. I was trying to figure out how to find something specific in this thing. Now, I?m a voracious reader, so I'll tell people about books, but just little articles, little things like that, and it takes five minutes to send off that email.

Jaime: I love this. And it seems, it makes it sound so simplistic, and yet we don't, or I don?t really do it, I should say. So that list of 25, how often do you change that out? If you feel like you do have a pretty good deep relationship, do they go on the follow up after every six month list? What is the ??

Judy: Yeah, it can certainly be, and people change, and where they're going changes, and they may not be a fit; they may drop off of your top 25 list, but they will always be there. And I tell people not to burn bridges, because you'll be really surprised. In a year you're going to say Jeez, I should have followed up with Joe because now I'm doing X, Y, or Z. But I don't even have ? I just use Outlook, and I do put who introduced me, and I can actually track back, because I started seeing the pattern of people would say to me, how on earth did you get invited to the White House, or how did this happen.

And I started thinking, and it's always from somebody who referred me, or a connection, and I've done things that would be considered fairly simple for someone. I reached out to ? somebody reached out to me about being on their podcast, and I said sure, and I looked at their background and found out they were kind of in design. Well I just got introduced to the woman who's the chair of Parson Design in New York, one of the foremost firms, and I said, would talking to her have value for you? And it's like yes, yes, yes, yes. So you can just think about what could be of value to them.

And really, when you just start practicing a little, Jaime, it comes second nature to you, and then it's fun. There's nothing I like better than to make things happen.

Jaime: Okay, question. Sorry to interrupt; I get super excited over this, too. My dogs are barking; they get excited too. So I do probably five, at least, introductions every single day, because I love connecting people, but it's always an interesting thing, like in the in the example you just gave, how do you know that that other woman wants to be introduced to the podcast. The high-end design person, how do you already know in advance that that introduction will be valuable to her if it?s a smaller-end podcast? Because I feel like I asked both, and it takes a while to get the thing back, and ?

Judy: So I don't even bother with that. I will just write and say, I got introduced to this person. Would you be interested in talking to them in the future? I don't do the introduction, or say would you like to talk? Would you like to talk? That takes up tons and tons of time. And then you watch, and do those people then help you? If those people don?t then help you, they are not in your network.

Jaime: Okay, let?s talk about this more, because I try, I love helping to the nth degree, and I know we have to start wrapping up in a second, but I find this very interesting. So I will go above and beyond and do introductions, and be, like ? but I have problem asking, so that?s why I was asking you those questions before. But I don?t know that I ? I don't go back and go, did they do anything for me? And I just keep giving, and giving, and giving, and then I get spread kind of thin. Give me advice.

Judy: I?ve done that in the past and felt really burned out. And so then I got better at being selective, and also the level of value, because I can get people in the White House, I can do all kinds of stuff, and so I will do something simple and see what the response is. My first book, I didn?t even know what a platform was. McGraw-Hill said you?ve gotta build a platform. It took me, like, three months to get anybody to interview me, and the lady who interviewed me for a blog, I was so thrilled I made a batch of homemade chocolate fudge that you have to beat, and set, I'll put you on my fudge list if you'd like.

Jaime: I love fudge.

Judy: She called me on the phone. She goes, ?Judy, 95 percent of people don't even say thank you, let alone doing something like this. And by the way, I know at least 10 other podcasters; would you like to be introduced?? So, there you go, it?s that generous ? and then you find out that podcasters, they need really good guests, so I will say to people, would you like to interview Kevin Harrington? Would you like to ? I mean I can set that up. Well, Kevin likes doing these kind of things, so if you?ve not had him on, I?ll introduce you.

Jaime: I haven?t. Yes, that would be really great.

Judy: I will introduce you. And so that's really how. So ?

Jaime: And now I want to go, which podcasts do you want to be on? Because I know a bunch of ? yeah, especially when you meet someone that is more of a giver and willing to sort of go above and beyond for you, then it makes a lot more logical sense. Is that how you find the people that you put on the 25, or is it ? how do know who goes on the 25, and who?s a giver-backer, if that?s a thing?

Judy: Well, you can tell that when you're developing the relationship. If they don't get back to you, they don't say thank you, they don't follow up, you want people who are gonna have your back, and have your future. If they don?t care about ?

Jaime: Because I feel desperate, like a desperate single person going wait, let me keep helping you. It?s sad.

Judy: Well, and I did that when I was younger. I started life as a social worker, but I finally figured out one day, why am I helping everybody else? I need to focus on my own problems, like, take care of myself. And so then I was careful who I spent a great deal of time on, and I try to be gracious. Everybody that writes to me, I?ll send them an article or do something, but those 25 people, those are kind of near and dear to your heart people. And they are people that you can pick up the phone and call, and they'll call you back.

Jaime: I have to redo my list of 25, because I read the book a long time ago, and I loved it, and I was like, oh, and I made it, and I categorized, and I have not come back to it. So ?

Judy: That?s okay. We?ll do another call and we?ll go through that.

Jaime: You are so awesome. Everybody needs to make sure they get the book, but besides getting the book, because, and you can get on Amazon, Crack the Funding Code, and at judyrobinett.com. I have to ask the last question. What's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million?

Judy: So I would find somebody who's at a level higher than you, whether they?re a millionaire, or whatever, and say, this is where I'm at; what other ideas do you have? Who else should I talk to? I would maybe to go talk to a wealth manager that's really well-known, and say, give me some advice here; this is what I've done. Where could I go? And just get out of that comfort zone; go visit one of those groups that you may not know about, and I'll get you some of those, like Renaissance Weekend is one of those highly curated groups that are invite-only. The Churchill Club in San Francisco, last time I was there, I met the CEO of LinkedIn.

And so if you just do a little bit of effort, you can get invited to curated groups, which are very different than going to your local Networking 101 meeting where everybody's broke.

Jaime: That's amazing and cute, and don't get me wrong, you're probably going to get a bazillion emails going hey, Judy, what ideas do you have for me? Everyone else doesn?t need to email Judy; you can email someone else. Tell her that you did the work that she said, though. I'm sure that would be appreciated, where you actually took action. The reason why I asked that question is because most people listen to this and then not do anything, so please heed her advice, people. She got invited to amazing, amazing places, and you can, too. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Where can we find more about you and follow you online, other podcasts, all that fun stuff?

Judy: I?m on LinkedIn, and I do have the website, and my email is judy@judyrobinett.com. No ?e? on the end. And I really do love to help people. Sometimes it'll take me a couple of days, like, doing a podcast like this, then I'll get 50 people will write to me, but I will get back to you.

Jaime: That?s amazing. Send her love and tell her thank you so much for coming on the show today, too. I so appreciate having you on, Judy.

Judy: Thank you.

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