How to become a world-class connector With Derek Coburn

Author of Networking Is Not Working – Derek Coburn

The right way to do your introductions and qualify in advance if it’s a good use of someone’s time. The one thing that makes all your introductions immediately easier to write. How to connect people in such a way that makes them look good and benefits both sides.

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Jaime: I'm Jaime Tardy and I have Derek back on the show. I'm super excited. We're going to be talking a lot about introductions, networking, connections and how the heck you do it right, because I know there are a few of you who are either scared to do it because you don't know how or you're doing it wrong and not even realizing, so thanks so much for coming on the show today, Derek.

Derek: Thanks for having me, Jaime. It's good to be back.

Jaime: So let's go over this - you mentioned in the last interview, and I was really excited, that you have templates. As soon as anybody says there are templates I'm like "Okay, I want to know what those are," and I feel that this is a better format to go through them. So tell us what you've learned over years and years about the right way to do this - are there specific templates you have for specific things? Give me the rundown.

Derek: I have templates for making these introductions and/or asking people to bring someone to an event or refer someone to me and my business. I recently have been building up my template library for different ways to say No to different things. I have, I think, 20 different e-mails, and I got the idea from Michael Hyatt, he wrote a blog post that was "Here are some of the e-mail templates I use for saying No? and especially with my book coming out now it's like "Hey, here's this introduction, you guys should talk," even if it sounds like somebody I really want to talk to, I don't have time to do it before my book comes out. So then I can just pull up a template and say "Hey, I'm working on my book right now." So whether it's a request to meet with me or a request to learn more about CADRE, I can say "I would love to chat with you but first I want to make sure that you go to the website first, that clearly highlights who we're a good fit for and who we're not a good fit for. If you get to the bottom of the description of our business model and still feel like it's a good fit for you, use the form at the bottom and we'll schedule a 15 minute phone call."

Jaime: Okay, are you selling these templates? My gosh, I want all of your templates.

Derek: I'll give them to you.

Jaime: I'm so excited! Because that's something that sometimes I don't feel I have enough time to do. I know how important this stuff is, like Michael Hyatt talks about how to say no, because I have to say no, and I write a new one every time. Not that I don't use canned responses in Gmail and all of that stuff, but having templates that do it in a really nice way, like being able to be really tactful and awesome is huge. So let's go over one of them, an introduction one, right now, because, again, people do this wrong all the time. How do you make a really good introduction?

Derek: I like to qualify that it's a good use of someone's time and do that with both parties involved so that's very rarely going to be one-sided in terms of benefit - "Here's why I'm thinking about introducing you to this person", the same thing for the other person and, believe it or not, that actually makes it easier, in some cases, to make the introduction, because then you don't have to go into a lot of detail, you can just say "I've already filled each of you in on why I think you should talk. Please connect, keep me in the loop, let me know if you think I can help," so that it does not seem as burdensome when it's time to actually send that connecting e-mail.

Jaime: Sometimes I do that and sometimes I don't. So do you always do that, where you check in with both of them, just to make sure that they want the referral in advance?

Derek: I'll give you an example - I've been trying to connect Chris Brogan with Adam Grant. Do you know who Adam is?

Jaime: No.

Derek: Adam is a professor at Wharton and he wrote a book last year called "Give and Take". I think it was on the New York Times Bestseller list for five months. Those two would have a lot of great stuff to talk about and I was surprised to hear that they didn't know each other already. It seemed like, for both of them, now is not a great time. Adam is on a book tour, promoting the paperback version of his book; Chris just came out with his book, "The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth", which is amazing, by the way, so he's focused on that, so I scheduled a reminder for myself, 30 days out, that I'll circle back to see if it's still a good fit. There wasn't any urgency there and it wasn't necessarily something that had to be done so I checked with them and they said "If you could wait, that would be great."

Jaime: That is awesome - because normally what you would do is say "You two people should meet" and then they feel bad that it's going to be 30 days or more before they can actually meet so it's almost a burden to them and what you're doing is taking the burden off of them and really paying attention to what they want and need, which is awesome.

Derek: You know this, as somebody who just came out with a book. I don't expect anybody to feel sorry for me if I'm getting introductions to people who could potentially help me but if I get one of those introductions in the next week, before my book comes out, it's going to make me look bad because I'm probably not going to be able to respond to that person or at least not in a way that I would under normal circumstances. When you're connecting people and you are being a connector, something that is important to you, something that is important to me, people like us, we want to make sure that we are setting people up in a way that is going to make them look good and benefit them.

Jaime: So when you talk about the e-mail that you're sending to the person with the reasons why they should talk to them, because sometimes, like with Chris Brogan and Adam Grant, they could just be really good friends. They may not do business - they may or may not. I love connecting people who could be really good friends, like "How come you don't know each other? You totally should." But how do you validate that? Like, "Hey, you should know him because he's really cool," how do you write those e-mails?

Derek: In that instance, Adam Grant read an advanced copy of my book and gave me a great blurb and Chris wrote the forward for my book so Adam said "You know, I have so many friends in common with Chris and we've never met. It might be interesting to meet him." So in that case he told me, but I have found that there is a lot of value in connecting people even when we think that they know each other. We've been on each other's radar indirectly for the past year - I was talking about you on John Dumas's podcast because he was talking about his coach and I loved the story. I didn't know who you were at that point, I just knew I loved your approach to business, but Ian was the one that made the connection. There are a lot of people who could have made that connection but Ian gets the credit for it, not that we're keeping score.

Jaime: One for Ian!

Derek: A lot of times we assume people know each other when, in reality, we can add value and be the person that made it happen for people when a lot of other people just assume "Oh, they probably already know each other."

Jaime: When I was chatting with Ian I was actually meeting with Ian in person in San Antonio and he was like "I'm going to write the e-mail right now," and the e-mail said "Hey, meet Derek," one sentence or something like that and because I was busy it took me a couple of days to get back to you but it's so funny how you're there, he's like "You should definitely know him," and you probably didn't know who the heck I was. Well, you might have beforehand, but it's funny how he can write a simple e-mail and have us connect with no problem at all - and now we don't need him for the connection anymore, which is really cool.

Derek: I love Ian and if not for that e-mail we would not be talking right now, but that was not a great e-mail, from my perspective. As somebody who has got a book coming out in a couple of weeks and you are so busy doing what you're doing that I had to respond, saying "Who is this person and why am I supposed to talk to them?"

Jaime: That's why Ian's not talking about how to do introductions here.

Derek: Right, exactly. Ian's a great friend and he is the best sales consultant I've ever encountered so I'm just giving him a hard time. Again, if he hadn't done it, many people just sit here and say "I need to make this introduction," and it never happens, so what Ian did is way better than doing nothing at all.

Jaime: That's the problem that I have - I'll write "Introduce so-and-so to so-and-so," and then it sits there for a while. I think that's why the templates are so good; that's why I'm so excited, because if I could just bring up a template while I'm there, thinking about it, that's huge, compared to going "Now I have to write an e-mail and hopefully remember." I had a huge list of them and not doing intros or saying you're going to do one and not doing one is bad. How do you deal with that? Because I'm sure you deal with that all the time.

Derek: Under normal circumstances, when I'm not getting ready to come out with this book, because I've been bad lately, as I mentioned to you earlier, I'm usually pretty good about it because connecting people is my juice, it's how I get my rocks off - I love making connections that are going to benefit people who are important to me. I notice that if I am ever in a bit of a funk or I am ever just kind of blah when it comes to working or doing business, during business hours, that if I make a couple of these connections I automatically feel better.

Jaime: That's insane. You fuel yourself and you're helping other people? Is that not the best life that you could ever have? What we get to do is just insane and awesome. I know we have to start wrapping up so I really, really appreciate it. Tell us more about when your book comes up and how we can get it and all of that fun stuff.

Derek: It's going to be out around the first week of May - "Networking is Not Working - Stop Collecting Business Cards and Start Making Connections," and you can get it at DerekCoburn.com/book. Depending on when you go there, you can get a free chapter and it will link you to where you can make the purchase, and I'm on Twitter - @cadredc

Jaime: I love how your stuff is really fresh and new. Seth Godin is a thought leader and he's talking about this stuff. You're right up front with everybody and I think it's awesome. So giving people, right now, what they need, not like reading books from the 1980s, going "This is how we connect!" It's a totally different world now so I hope everyone checks it out. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Derek. I really appreciate it.
Derek: Thanks so much, Jaime.

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Tags: Derek Coburn, Email Campaign, Email List, email marketing, millionaire interview, Online Connection

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