Making your 4Networking Team Role Work For You – Grant Dempsey and Edward Zia Webinar Recording – Let us know if any questions!
4Networking Australia has been a massive part of my life and beyond money it’s of amazing importance to me; it marked the start of helping me turn around my life after financial and emotion ruin after losing the farm following the Global Financial Crisis.
I was very lucky to meet the amazing Grant Dempsey and started my 4Networking role as an Operations Assistant collecting money for 4Networking Liverpool (out in the South Western part of Sydney, Australia). Life changing, brilliant and loved it – over time it has become a core part of my life and my successful business today.
This is one of the reasons why I was more than happy to host this Webinar on my Birthday – June 23rd with Grant Dempsey at my side. The Webinar Recording and it’s associated transcript is perfect for Team Members and Coming Team Members of 4Networking Australia.
Grant the brilliant Managing Director of 4Networking Australia and Edward Zia (me) Regional Leader and Marketing Mentor combine our experiences with how to make the absolute best out of 4Networking from the team roles. The recording captured some great times and some compelling questions from our viewers – provided for you right here.
Feel free to watch the recording, or read the transcript below. You can also download the PowerPoint by clicking right here (PDF Format).
On behalf of Edward Zia and Grant Dempsey – thank you for watching and please let us know if we can help.
You can visit 4Networking Australia right here to learn more!
http://youtu.be/J60DJN-po2o
Webinar Transcript:
Edward Zia: Hello everyone, and welcome to the 4Networking Getting Involved and Making the 4Networking Platform Work for You. Be it you’re here live at our webinar tonight, or you’re listening to this on my blog or YouTube years later, just want to say thank for joining us. This is Edward Zia, here, originator of 4Networking, and we’ve got the MD of 4Networking, Grant Dempsey. Say hello to the audience, Grant.
Grant Dempsey: Good evening, folks. great to be here and thanks for showing up. It’s going to be a great webinar, and it’s Ed’s birthday, so — Yep, you know what means?
Edward Zia: Yep. So, what it means is … it’s funny though, a lot of people have said, Edward, I can’t believe you’re doing a webinar on your birthday, and I thought, “Grant Dempsey and 4Networking gave me a new shot at life,” so the least I can do is donate my birthday to them. I cannot think of any better way of spending it than doing a 4Networking webinar. What do you think about that, Grant?
Grant Dempsey: What else with you rather be doing?
Edward Zia: Exactly.
Grant Dempsey: Look, there’s Renato on the line!
Edward Zia: Yep. We got one great turnout, so I’m going to be very quiet, and I’m going to let Grant take the show, and feed me what he needs to be. Grant Dempsey, the show’s all yours. Yeahhhh!
Grant Dempsey: Terrific. Well, look, thanks for being on the webinar, folks. We want to just have a chat about the team roles, because it’s so important for networking, so what we’re going to cover today is going to have a quick intro to 4Networking. What’s in it for you that’s really important? What’s in the team roles for you? Learn how to get involved and what happens next? I will start off with just the intro. Some of this you already know. It’s just to do a quick overview of 4Networking and what it means as a refresher, and for those who are new, and those who are not familiar with 4Networking. 4Networking is the world’s largest joined-up business network. By joined-up means that you can go to any of our groups. It gives you the essentials that you need.
The people, the appointments, the businesses, and support. I’m just going through this very quickly … and the 4N culture’s relaxed and friendly with complete lack of pretension. You stay in control, you network where you want and when you want. We’re 50% business and 50% social. It works.
It’s all about being yourself, and you’ll be very welcome. People say, what are the rules? We only have two rules, be yourself, and be nice to people. They’re the two unofficial rules. That’s, basically, a quick overview of the premises of 4Networking. We work on the principals of meet, like, know, and trust. Being open and transparent, relaxed and inclusive.
We’re not exclusive, we’re very inclusive. We’re about collectively supporting one another. Rather than competing against one another, we’re about collaboration. We’re at building trust in one another and in yourself, as well. Business can be difficult, you can build trust in yourself, back yourself, so it’s about independence and self-belief. Also, about being interdependent with others in the network, as well. The next slide is coming. We won’t go in through all of this. You’ll get these slides, we’ll make them available to everyone’s who’s registered, so don’t worry too much if you miss these. This looks rather complex and we’re not going go and spend a lot of time on this. It’s really just to overwhelm you with the member value that 4Networking provides. We show this because a lot of people think networking is just about getting sales. That’s totally the wrong view of networking. Networking’s about a lot of value which is going to help you as a person and is going to help your business. 4Networking provides your marketing platform, and I see you have to do the 42nd pitch, you get the 4 sight slot, the online presence, the testimonials on our website. If you haven’t filled in your membership profile, do that because we’ve got people who are getting sales from their membership profile. Make sure you fill those in.
Edward Zia: Also, as well, just supporting Grant, as well. I’m obviously a massive advocate of 4Networking considering I am doing this on my birthday. That’s how much I think of 4Networking. I think the thing is that the marketing platform is very amazing. 4Networking has allowed me to build, from scratch, a six-figure consulting business, which I am absolutely proud of and very thankful to 4Networking for it. I think that 4Networking is an amazing marketing platform, if it’s used correctly. Exactly just going to breakfast and going home is a good way of not exploring the potential of 4Networking. I think, definitely, in this one we want to get across the main points, which can help any of you, really, utilize that platform.
Grant Dempsey: That’s exactly, right, and Ed’s proven, it, so, I need to tell him he’s right. He is. We’ll send that member value thing out later. Have a look at that because there’s all these different value elements of the network and you’ve got to see it as a marketing platform. It’s not a sales generator. You can pay people to get you leads that you can then try and turn into sales. That’s what networking does. It’s not only a lead generator, it’s a marketing platform, and it’s going to create all these other areas that you can get value from, make you a better business person, which will help you get sales down the track.
This is what we call a team member time-line, and it’s really, again, you’ll get this and you can have a look at it more in depth, later. It’s really about looking at how you … networking is a long game. The most frustrating thing that I find is when people come in and they say, “Oh, I’ve tried a couple of networking meetings and it didn’t work” They don’t understand that networking’s a long game. It’s about providing you a marketing platform for you to build your network, so that you can get opportunities from it down the track.
We’ll mention this about meet, like, know, and trust. What being on a team does, is it helps accelerate the networking and learning curve if you like.
If we look at the bottom left, when people join a network, in the early days it’s about starting to get to know people. When you become a team member there’s and instant increase in people who know you. You’ve got to remember, networking is not about who you know, it’s about how many people know you. The more people who know and trust you, and know about you and your business, who know the benefits of your business. and understand the benefits of your business, the more opportunities that are going to come your way. It’s that simple.
What thing on team does is it accelerates that more people get to know you. We know that from our statistics, we know that when people are on a team, that they get more profile views. When you go to book into a meeting, it’ll show the team members down below, people click on those, because they say, “Oh, that Edward Zia, he’s handsome-looking dude, I’ll click on him and cyber-stalk him.
Edward Zia: We at Excellence Above and working for Edward Zia fully agree and support that statement.
Grant Dempsey: We know that more people will click on your profile if you’re a team member. That’s going to help your Google Rank. If we’re moving along the bottom in the blue, because we piggyback on the 4N UK site, which is very highly-ranked. Any activity on their site, helps our site, and any activity on our site is going to help you, so it’s going to increase your Google rank. You get a whole bunch of support from the team. The team’s get quite close and build good connections, support one another, encourage one another. There’s benefits that speed up when you’re in a team. A lot of people, some of those things can take a year or two before they actually start to kick in, and in team that’s going to happen quicker.
You can also use … if you look up the left-hand side of this graph, you can have co-brand your emails, so you can use it when you’re on a team. You can use the 4Networking brand when it suits you and ditch it when it doesn’t. You can co-brand, you can put it on your email, and say you’re a team member of 4Networking, wherever. It’s just another little marketing tool that’s going to help you and your emails.
You can actively use the 4N cards, you can use 4Networking to open doors. Someone might not be interested in talking to you about insurance or whatever it is that you do, but they might be interested in talking to you 4Networking. If you say, “I’m actually a team member of a group that meets locally, whatever, it just gives you a few more opportunities, so it can accelerate the benefit that comes from networking. We’ll move on from that one.
Edward Zia: Just start supporting Grant Dempsey on this one, as well, I’m talking personally in some research that we did. At 4Networking Bella Vista I asked the question of how long it takes to get your first round of business in 4Networking. Eighty percent of respondents answered between three and six months. Interestingly enough, I did the research, again, recently in the 4Networking LinkedIn form on Facebook. Again, the results from Australia and the UK is three to six months. What was interesting, when you talk to those people who get business early, almost always they were team members of some form. Interesting results, huh, Grant?
Grant Dempsey: Interesting because … I’m not sure Fabian’s on the line from Sutherland … who’s one of the best-dressed men in the Network, and that was nicknamed “Fabio” apparently at 4Networking Sutherland. He’s joined and he said, I think he’s been around six months, but he said he started getting referrals.
Edward Zia: Not that long.
Grant Dempsey: — Referrals within the first two to three months, and he’s getting … Oh, I can’t remember what he said now, but their getting a good percentage of the business has come through 4Networking already.
Fabian’s worked really hard. He’s gone to a lot of meetings, he’s made a lot of connections, and he’s on team. He took a team role as soon as he could. I think that backs that up. He hasn’t just come in and eaten his bacon and walked away. He’s, actually worked really hard. There’s people like that you can talk to who can back that up.
The next slide is probably the most important one tonight, that I want to speak to. That’s the underlying principal of the team roles. Is you don’t work for 4Networking, 4Networking works for you. It’s very important that any team member understands this because, what happens is, we don’t want people filling spots because they want to help us out. Of course, we want help, that’s fine, but we actually want people in the roles who see the role as an opportunity to benefit them and their business. If you say, “Gee, this role is going to help me,” you’re going to work harder. Because the more you work, the more benefit you’re going to get.
It’s not like you’re working for 4Networking, it’s actually an opportunity. That’s exactly the ideal team member for us. If we have people … and we’ve done this in the early days, we’d be desperate and Ed and I would just talk non-stop, convincing people to take on a role, to fill the roles, and it just didn’t work. We put some people in roles that we shouldn’t have, and it didn’t work for them, and it didn’t work for us. What we want is people who can see that 4Networking works for them and as long the role is working for you, as long as you’re getting benefit from the role, then you keep doing. If you stop getting benefit, if you’re circumstances change, if you get busier. That often happens. Often we’ll have people who take on a role because things are quiet for them, they had a bit of spare capacity and they say, “Yeah, I’ll take on a role.” Then they get busy, they’re in a really busy part of their business, so they step down from it, and that’s fine. That’s exactly what we want.
It’s really important, tonight, that you go away thinking, “What benefit am I going to get from the roles? What’s in it for me?” Often we say, “The problem with the world is everyone’s thinking, ‘What’s in it for me?” The more benefit that you see in the role for yourself, the more benefit that 4Networking and our members will get from you being in that role.
Let’s move on. This is the value for you. These are really some of the key benefits for you. What’s in it for you in the 4Networking role? Raised profile. We’ve talked about that a little bit already. Everyone in the Network knows Ed Zia, and that’s because he’s done all the roles. Ed’s done all the roles, and he has his profile raised slowly in the Network. I tell people, “When Ed joined us he probably had a negative five profile.”
Edward Zia: Grant’s just saying that because I’m Middle Eastern and he’s a racist. No, he’s not a racist, I’m Middle Eastern, he’s half Maori, but not racist, that was a joke everyone.
Grant Dempsey: There’s other people in the Network that might … people know Martha, people know Edward Wright, people know William Cownie, people know Renato, people know there’s a lot of people in the Network who had team roles where they’re known quite widely throughout the Network. So, there’s that benefit that you can raise your profile in the Network. You can also use the role to raise your profile in your local business community.
If there’s things on with the Chamber, or the Council, or whatever, in your local area and now looking for someone from 4Networking, and you want to be part of that, and get involved in that, we’re happy for you to talk to us, to talk to Ed or myself. You can represent 4Networking so you can raise your profile within the Network, but outside of the Network, as well.
The other thing is, support structure. When you’re in a team, you get to know people more, the trust builds more quickly. That’s not good English, is it? Your trust builds quicker and within the team, so you’re able to support one another when you can be a bit more open and honest with one another, and help each other out, so there’s a great support structure. We will always preference support to …. Ed’s just put a selfie on the Facebook! We’ll always go out of the way to help out team members because that’s just how it works.
One of the other reasons is an excuse to engage. You have a reason to contact people. You have a legitimate reason to contact members, phone them up, see how they’re going to make coffee chats. To talk about 4Networking, or other things. Because you’ve got a leadership role. You can say, “Hey, Bob, how’s it going? How you finding the Network? How’s your business going?” You’ve got a legitimate reason to be …. you’re a leader, so you’ve got a reason to actually engage people.
The same outside, you’ve got a legitimate reason to engage businesses you your area. Again, you might phone and say, “Hey, I’m Bob from Bob’s Insurance, and, it’s “click,” they’re not interested. Where if you phone and say, “Hey, I’m Bob from 4Networking, we run a business networking group in the area, we’re just ringing local businesses to have a chat and see if you’re interested in finding out a bit more.”
People are more likely to be interested in networking than the old product, by and large. That’s not to insult anyone, that’s just how it is. You’ve got an excuse to engage when it works. Other times, it might not be appropriate to you use the 4Networking label. You pick and choose. Is 4Networking going to help me open the door? If it does, you use it. That team role just gives you a little bit more kudos from members, as well. You can ask people for testimonials. When your group is going really well, you get the kudos, not sure if Paul on the line, is he? Yep. I tell people Paul Sheaffe joined as marketing assistant in the Sutherland Group, and since Paul joined, the group has really gone gangbusters. I don’t know if that’s got anything to do with him or not?
Edward Zia: I think Grant, it’s because Paul Sheaffe is very handsome. It brings all the boys and girls along. I think that’s the actual reason, Grant.
Grant Dempsey: I think it is, I think it is! They put his photo everywhere and people just flocking in.
Edward Zia: Yeah, we call it the Hugh Jackman effect!
Grant Dempsey: It’s now known as the Paul Sheaffe affect. That’s the thing, since Paul has been very proactive doing marketing role in the group. He deserves a kudos for that, because he’s contributed. The Sutherland Team of all, that’s a good team there. I’m happy to give Paul the kudos and talk him up, because he deserves it. Equally, if a team’s not going so well, and people aren’t functioning so well, then maybe it’s time to look at making some changes, because it’s going to look bad for you if the group’s not going as well.
You get the kudos when you’re part of a winning team, and it’s great. Actually, I asked Paul what are the three things that he got out of being on team, and he said about profile and support. One of the other things he said he gets to wear silly hats and gets away with it. You get a bit more leeway, as well, when on the team.
The other couple of things values that you going to get I skills. You can get to develop your skills if your group-leading, presenting. You’re going to get to improve those. If you’re an Ops Assistant you’re going to get to make a lot more phone calls, it’s going to help you on the phone. If you’re a Marketing Assistant, it’s going to help you develop marketing skills.
You look at different avenues to promote the group. You can develop those skills, as well. You’re going to get confidence. One of the great things, one of the things I really enjoy seeing is people who come in in a team role and who are quite shy and withdrawn and after a year or two, they’re really a lot more confident. That impacts on their business and their ability to connect with their clients and make sales. There is a lot of value there for you. There’s a whole bunch of other things, as well, but they’re the core things that we see people getting value out of.
What does a 4N group team do? The main roles of the team are to actively promote the group. We want all the team members out there actively promoting the group. Being a little zealots for the group. We want them to encourage and by encouraging they confirm attendance, so the Ops people can confirm the attendance. The marketing people’s role is to get a couple of visitors along at each meeting. We want the team to meet and great and look after visitors. One of the things that’s really, really important for us is that our visitors are looked after.
I went to a business meeting a couple months ago, I won’t tell you where it was it wasn’t 4Networking, but I walked in, I was little bit early, there was hardly anyone there, the woman took my money, and then left me, and it’s like, “I don’t know what to do, I don’t where to go, no one wanted to talk to me.” I was thinking, “Oh, I hope some other people come.” I was starting to think of it negatively. I’m trying to make the most of it going, “People will be here. I’m feeling confident,” and all the rest. I think if that’s someone who’s not very confident and thinking twice about going anyway, it’s not a very good impact. We want our visitors to be greeted, so if you love hosting things, then a team roll is great for you. We want our visitors to walk in the door and see a smiling face and feel like they’re being really well looked after.
The Ops people sign people in, collect the money, and we want the team to explain the benefits of 4Networking to the visitors. The team are really getting first contact with the visitors, and the visitors will remember those people that they first connect with. We want a really positive experience and that’s a good opportunity for the team to have that impact on the visitors.
An important thing that we want our team members to do, is ask visitors to join. That might seem very obvious. If you’re on a team, now, what we really want you to do at the end of the meeting is go up to the visitors who are there and say, “Hey, how’d you find the meeting? Would you like to join us?” At a workshop, just recently, with one of our members at his boot camp, and there was a guy who set up Harvey Norman’s computers. The computer side of Harvey Norman, and he does a lot of talking about sales. One of the things that he said was about, “Good sales people ask for the sale.” This is following up from this point, but this would be useful for you in your own business, as well.
They’ve done some research and they’ve found, and I can’t remember the exact numbers poles online. He was there videoing it, so he might correct me. It was something like 15% of people actually ask for the sale. So that’s a staggering 80-odd percent of people don’t actually ask their client, or the potential client, their lead for the sale. Now, there’s a right time to ask and the wrong time, but there’s a point in the sales conversation where you need to ask for sale. The statistics show that of those 15% who ask for the sale, get 60% of the total sales.
Edward Zia: Yep. Just supporting Grant there, as well, and talking about our own businesses, too, and my own learnings. One thing that’s been very important for me, especially in my own business is … again, even though I started off in sales years ago, it wasn’t until, probably, about the past six months, I got really, really good at closing them. Surprise, surprise, my business is increasing significantly. One thing I found was that in 4Networking if you’re say in business and you’re having trouble asking for the sale yourself, like if you’re a graphic designer, like awesome Lisa Starr or whatever, and you own business, doing your own thing, you’re having trouble asking for the sale. 4Networking’s a good way to practice it, because by practicing inviting people to join, in a way, even though you’re doing it for 4Networking, it’s actually opportunity for you to develop your own skills so you can sell more in your own business. From that point of view, it’s a very, very, very stress-free and pleasant training ground. What do you think of that one, Grant?
Grant Dempsey: Yeah, it’s exactly right. It’s a great way for you to practice your sales close using 4Networking when you’re on a team. You can just go out and ask people if they want to join. If they don’t join, you’ve lost nothing. We have as 4Networking, but you haven’t lost anything. It’s any easy sell. It’s a great way to build the confidence. The main reason the people don’t ask for the sale, is fear. Fear of rejection, fear of whatever. That’s the main reason. If that’s you, then you’re just like a lot of other people in business. That’s going to be the biggest barrier to you not getting more sales.
One of the things we do want our team members to do is go up to the visitors and just say, “Hey, Bob, how’d you find the meeting?” “Terrific!” “Are you going to be joining us?” Would you like to join us?” “We’d love to have you join the Network.” It’s that easy. Remember, as well, every time someone joins the Network, that increases your opportunity that either that person will do business with you, or they’ll refer you to someone that does business. Don’t get us wrong, we at 4N, we want the network nice and big, because it’s good for us. At the same time I’m putting on my own business hat, the bigger the groups are, because we all put our bid in, all helps us all make money and become more successful.
Edward Zia: Exactly. One of the benefits about profile and having a leadership role, is the more people in your group, the more people with a higher profile and higher the level of leadership you have in your group.
Grant Dempsey: They actively promote the group, all the extra stuff. The Group Team. What do they actually do? Quickly go through the roles. We’ve got the Group Leader role. The Group Leader owns the meeting, they set the pace, they lead from the front, they take control. They’re the face of the meeting. They deliver the script and sales message with energy and enthusiasm. We just don’t want someone up there going, “Hi, folks. How you going? Welcome to 4Networking.” We want someone out there who goes, “Good morning, and welcome to 4Networking.” They understand the value of pace and the energy in delivering that. They’re up there delivering the meeting with energy and enthusiasm. They manage the format and the timings so the script is all timed and formatted, they manage that. They maintain a focus on growing the membership. They’re a big zealot for the cause. They’re out there pushing the group because they’re the face of our meeting. We want people with energy and pace and to get out there and really enthuse the members and the visitors. That’s the Group Leader role.
The next, I’ll visit quote, and I need to update these, so my apologies. This is by one of the UK guys. “Being Group Leader has helped me not only to raise my business profile, but also to fully realize the sales, and marketing and public speaking skills that I didn’t even know I had in me.” I’m just giving that some Australian context.
I know Ciaran Keating from Bella Vista. That’s exactly his argument. He’s done an amazing job at group leading 4Networking, Bella Vista, and it’s exactly what he says. He exactly comes in there from point of view, “Group Leading has given me amazing scales … scales, he’s not a fish … sales skills that has enhanced his overall business in his life.” I think it’s quite amazing, Grant, and I must say, it did the same thing to me, too.
Grant Dempsey: I think it does for everyone. It’s the ability to get up there every couple weeks and go through and deliver with energy and pace, and also to take a leadership role. It’s some great, great skills to develop. Then we have the Marketing Assistant role. This role is to actively promote the group, bring visitors along, ensure visitors have a great 4N experience, make introduction, and build the membership.
I mentioned Paul before, and he’s really the pin-up marketing boy, at the moment. He’s done really well, and he’s used the … and he can come online and disagree if I’m telling lies … but he’s used the role to really promote 4Networking and promote himself to the point where his profile, in Wollongong has really increased. It was little while ago, Paul was saying he’s the Illawarra’s number one video guy. I was thinking, “That’s a bit steep, you’ve only just started going down there,” but a couple months on, he probably is, now. He’s just really raised his profile and he’s done that through using 4Networking and promoting himself.
Actively promoting the group, bringing visitors along, ensuring people have a great experience, and introducing people, getting people connected. As a team member, that’s what you want to be doing, connecting people. Not just looking out for yourself and what this person can do to help you, but going, “I’ll put you I contact with Bob.” That adds real value.
It was interesting, the other day, I put Fabian into contact with a guy who I thought Fabian could really help out. It turned out that guy was actually using a printer who Fabian knows, so Fabian decided, ethically, he won’t do that. But, we can be looking out for each other, and you need to be looking out for the members, and when you connect people, your kudos goes. Your value to the group and to those people goes up. It’s like you’re putting credits in the networking bank. That’s the Marketing Assistant.
Edward Zia: Also, as well, a key function that … and, this is implied with actively promotes the group and makes introductions. Especially, the Marketing Assistant can be the perfect person, as well, to help out the Area Leader and other people, and actually speaking to visitors from start to finish, telling them how the meeting works. Sitting down with them for a number three appointment. Also inviting them to join. It’s very important that the marketing system also helps that visitor host side of things as well, Grant.
Grant Dempsey: That’s exactly right, and it’s interesting, George Germanos has made a comment, “Every time I ask someone to join the Network, they run the other way. That’s why we’ve got a pretty lady on our team.” That just reinforces the factor of having the pretty Paul Sheaffe on team has helped Sutherland.
Edward Zia: Are you saying, Grant, that Paul Sheaffe is a pretty lady, because I agree.
Grant Dempsey: With his purple hat, maybe if you look the wrong way. But there we go. You might burn, these, again, these … we need to update these slides. He says that, “Being Market Assistant gives me a reason to talk to a whole raft of contacts, every week, on the basis that I can help them raise their business profile, which means it does wonders for mine. Martin and others see it as an opportunity to talk to people about 4Networking that they probably wouldn’t get if they just tried to talk to those people about their business. By raising the 4N profile, it raises their profile.
The third person on the team is the Operations Assistant, the Ops role. These are the people who organize the group and the meeting, they confirm the attendance, manage the relationship with the venue, they meet and greet visitors, and they look after the cash. They’re generally the first people that the members and visitors see when they walk in the door, so it’s a great opportunity to be that first contact to welcome people and extract the money from them.
The Ops people get to phone and contact the members every two weeks. That’s a great opportunity just to stay in contact, and I did some calls for group the other day. People say, “How long does it take?” It really depends, it’s totally up to you. I tend to, and Ed’s probably the same. I get the list and just plow through it. Other times, if I’ve got a bit more time, like I spent about 15, 20 minutes talking to someone the other day when I was doing the Ops calls. I had the time, and we were having and interesting conversation about a few things. It’s really up to you how long you want to spend time. It is a great way to connect with those people and build your relationship.
Edward Zia: Just on that one, as well. Operations Assistant is a great opportunity to really connect with people. For example, at times in my own business I sell tickets to workshops. One thing I’ve found is that while I’m doing operations calls, quite often, people actually say, “Oh, Edward, about that workshop, can you sign me up, please?” So, anyone who’s quite sales-minded thinks this way, the more opportunity you have to speak to people, directly. The greater opportunity having them doing business with you. Actually, today, I had to ring up, no exaggeration, 43 people for 4Networking Sydney CBD because we’re building up a team there. It’s a great thing, because it helps me promote my business, and that’s the thing. It took me about an hour and a half, so I’ll be doing and hour and half of phone calls, but at the end of the day I make money out of it, and it’s good for my business. What do you think about that, Grant?
Grant Dempsey: It’s interesting, and this is where we come back to that saying, “You don’t work for 4Networking, 4Networking works for you.” If you look at the phone calls and go, “Oh, I don’t want to spend an hour making phone calls for 4Networking, then you probably shouldn’t be Ops assistant, because it’s not going to work for you, it’s going to be work. Whereas other people will go, “I’m here to contact, make phone calls to those people, and sign me up.”
It’s like if you work for some of the banks, or some of the other places, you’ll need to make many phone calls a week. You’ll have KPIs for phone calls a week, and I can tell you I know people in banking, who every Wednesday morning, or Wednesday afternoon, the whole team sits down and just makes phone calls. That’s part of the job. The bank values those that contact and if you value that contact then Ops is great role for that.
Paul’s made a comment here, “That is a heavy-duty role, and team does need to help out.” It certainly can, particularly when the groups get larger, some of them has been regularly getting between 30 and 40 each time. That’s a lot of people coming in. If you are on a team one of the things you would do is … we do want people to help each other, so if the Ops person being swamped, we do want people to jump in.
Edward Zia: I suppose my other side of that is, if I could, maybe, debate that point, is with Sydney CBD today. There are about 42, 43 calls to make. To be honest, I should want to make them all myself, because it helps me sell my business more, and the thing is, to be straight up with the audience, I find it very odd. If someone says, “Ringing up people to promote myself is a waste of my time.” I question them from a range of points of view, because at the end of the day, we’re all in business to help ourselves and what better way than ringing up 40 people to say, “Hello,” and them getting to know who you are. My view is that I think Operations Assistant’s a real privilege and it’s a role, I think that, one you would probably get a lot of mileage out of. Why would you want to give the calls to someone else?
Grant Dempsey: That’s where I say if you’re a person who values that, you’ll be jumping at the chance. If you’re not, then you won’t. I so often tell the story of one of our group leaders, Ron who started 4Networking North Sydney, he was group leading at Sutherland and then started North Sydney. He’s been in insurance all his life, he’s a guy at the top of game, and he just thought, “I get to phone those people every week, I get to …” Ron was an overachiever, he did everything. He wanted to do everything because he’s in sales, so his job is to sell. The more people he could talk to the more people he could get connected to one another, the more people he could help, the more sales he got. He’d been in business in insurance most of his working career. He knew that, so for him, it was just, “I get this opportunity.” He retired at the end of last year. It’s interesting because not everyone sees it that way, and if you don’t, you probably should question your sales processes and your marketing processes, if you don’t want to talk to people. That’s the Ops.
It’s a great look … if you’re not currently in a team role, and you’d like to try it out. It is a role where you can help out on the day. If you are interested in dipping your feet in you can just help out our Ops Assistant on the day, sit at the table and help take the money and greet people. It’s a great way to dip your toe in without too much commitment or anything.
Edward Zia: When I started in 4Networking, started my business, my self-esteem was wiped out with my bank account after the global financial crisis. For me, operations was a very, very light role that helped me rebuild myself and my life and really get traction through the Network.
Grant Dempsey: We’ll just put the final testimonial out, and that’s, a woman, Jessica, says, “The benefit of being Ops Assistant is that you meet everyone right at the start of the meeting and you can “cherry-pick” your one to ones before the other members have even arrived.” That is one of benefits of the team role, is that you get to pick the people that you want to have your one to ones with.
Edward Zia: So, our Australian version of a blond woman who is virtual assistant would of course be Lauren Watts from Liverpool. So just mentally replace that with Lauren.
Grant Dempsey: It’s interesting we’ve had … whose our longest-serving Ops? Suzanne?
Edward Zia: Yes. Suzanne Goldsmith.
Grant Dempsey: Out at 4Networking Penrith. She was Ops for at least two years running, I think longer, and she’s having a bit of break, now. She was our legendary Ops person.
Then we have the Area Leader, and this person may lead two groups two groups of it, and basically, the management of the Group starts with the Area Leader. They manage the membership and sales process, so then we want the Area Leaders following up with visitors, and making sure that they’re well looked after. They recruit, support, train, and inform the team. They develop and expand the Network and they administer the paperwork. They take and process membership payments.
It’s more of a managerial, middle-management role, and it’s a great role for people who have been in the Network for a while and understand networking and want to take on just a bit more of the management of the group, and really get the group running. We’ve got some terrific Area Leaders, and it’s really them who keep the groups going really well.
Did you meet John?
Edward Zia: I did meet John very quickly I believe.
Grant Dempsey: Yes, some of the Area Leaders, he may be a Regional Leader, now. Some have been Area Leading for years, and he says, “Being an Area Leader has enabled me to help others to get the best out of 4N which has resulted in me getting more new clients for my business. Typically, my potential clients do not network. However, the power of selling through the room has never been more evident than in my case. Over the past few months I have had two to three appointments per week with potential new clients referred to me for 4Ners.”
As an Area Leader you have access to the whole network base that you’re responsible for. You are the leader, you’re the person who is following them up. Giving them a call to see how they’re going. Spending time with them, connecting them to other people.
There are the roles. One benefit of the team roles I didn’t say is that if you are a team member, every two days you spend in team role, you get one day of membership. If you have a 12-month 4Networking membership and you spend your 12 months there, you actually 6 months extra, so you pay for 12, and get 18 months.
The other thing, too, with our 4N for Free, if you’re actively promoting the group and bringing people along, you can add to that as well. If you bring 6 people along who join, you’ll effectively get 2 years membership for the price of 12. That’s a pretty good benefit.
The whole thing is we want to enable member success and our team members really enable members to network more effectively. Through running great groups and connecting with them outside of the meetings. When members succeed, then the whole network succeeds.
That’s a bit of an overview of the roles, so maybe, I think we should open it up see if people have some questions, and —
Edward Zia: Yeah, so we can wind up the webinar very shortly. So please get your questions through while I give some additional commentary, and just supporting the webinar, talking more personally. One thing I do say, and, obviously, we’ve come at this from a team member’s perspective.
For me, one thing that’s been very important with 4Networking to make it work for me, is I can … and if you know me in the real world you know what is right. One about this is the importance of coffee chat, so for example, we always say, “Regardless of what networking group you’re in, be it us or a Chamber, or whatever, it’s really important that for every meeting, you identify someone to meet up with pro-actively.” For example, we always say, “Per one networking event you meet one person for coffee.” Someone you really like, and be it, you can buy or sell to them or refer to each other. Someone you really like and connect with them. Take business outside of the room and work at how you can help each other. They might need to buy your product, you can buy from them, or, you might be actually able to partner and throw business to each other.
The people that really understand these private networks are, generally, team members first, but secondly the people that understand often make the most money. We actually did a straw pole at a few of the networking events. I did this in the UK as well. We asked everyone to put up their hands of who makes at least 50% of their revenue, their business revenue from 4Networking. Surprise, surprise, almost always team members make a lot of money from 4Networking, and, I think it really is just a testament to the truth and the accuracy and the brilliance of what Grant Dempsey is saying. I have to say everything that Grant Dempsey has taught me has been 100% accurate. He’s totally revolutionized my life and business.
Grant Dempsey: I think the key to the network is seeing it like a gym. If you sign up for your gym membership and you don’t show up, it’s not going to help you. If you do show up and sit in the café and have three lovely meals a week, but don’t actually get out there and use the equipment, then it’s not going to help you.
If you see 4Networking like that and you have the tools, the team is one of the tools, it’s going to help you profile, it’s going to help you connect with people, it’s going to give you more influence over people, and it’s going to help build your confidence. It’s going to accelerate your networking. The other thing is with the teams, if you’re on a team it’s going to really help you if you use the tools. Like Ed says, if you’re connecting with people, if you’re meeting with people outside of the meeting, it’s going to help your experience in network, it’s going to increase you’re profile, it’s going to add to your bottom line down the track.
The other thing is, in terms of … Lisa just asked a question, I’ll come to that in just a second, but one of the tools that we’re not using a lot in Australia and I’m going to start ramping up, is that we have their online forum. In the UK, the forum is used extensively, but Facebook’s not as strong over there, but the forum is a great way to boost your online profile. Also, to meet people who come across our website and make a comment. It’s worth just having a look at the forum on our home page, making a few comments, getting a few conversations going, and that’s going to increase your profile, as well.
Lisa’s asked, “How often do team roles come up, and how do you determine who gets the role if more than person would like it?” That’s an interesting —
Edward Zia: Grant, what we know what might do, you know those gladiator shows, Lisa, where they get the two paddles over the slime pit? Yeah. No, that’s not it.
Grant Dempsey: You are up against Renato and the person who comes off best…
The roles, we don’t have contracts, no one signs a contract. We put people in a role, we usually say, look, have a go for two or three months and then we’ll review it, see how you’re going, see if it’s working for you and it’s working for us. Some people will stay in the role like Suzanne, she stayed in a role for over two years. Other people might try a role and it’s just not working for the, so they might move out quickly. It doesn’t mean they’ve failed, it just means that it doesn’t work for them.
Other people might go in the role and they’re going really well and then something changes in the circumstances, they might get a contract that commits them to time, they might take their businesses in different direction. We had one of our group leaders, her husband was doing night shift so he was home to look after the kids in the morning, then his shift changed. He had to work during the day, so child care became a problem, so she stepped down. They do come and go.
Renato just said, “Tell Lisa she’s not taking my role at 4Networking Penrith. I was trying to think of something witty to say —
Edward Zia: We can say, Renato, it all depends on how well you … no, no, no, you’re doing a great job, Renato, you’re a … Lisa just said to Renato that Renato’s scared of the gladiator duel. I don’t think it’s fair, if I was up against him, and I’m an ex-government trained guy, too. I think I’d be very scared going up against or Lisa Starr.
Grant Dempsey: Generally, like group leaders we’ve known here, which is why Renato, and George, and —
Edward Zia: Give me three months, everyone.
Grant Dempsey: Now, how do we determine who wants them? Ideally, if you want a role the best thing to do is have a chat to your Group Leader or your Area Leader, and just say, “I’m after a role.” Often the Area Leaders will know if there’s something going on. There might be someone whose circumstances are changing and it might be a good time for them to move on.
The best thing is to have a talk to your Area Leader and let them know that you’re interested in a role. The other thing is, sometimes what we’ll do is put someone … people can fill the role, like I said, the roles aren’t set I concrete, you’re not locked in for six months, so they do move on and come and go. The best thing’s talk to your Area Leader and say that you’re interested in a role. They can ask around. Paul Sheaffe saying, “He can loan his hat, but he’s not giving it away.”
George is saying that, “Liverpool started a sub-committee.” Oh my goodness, the accountant with their meetings. If anyone is interested in helping out a group.
Actually, that’s a good point George, to be fair. When the groups get quite large, there is a bit of pressure on the teams. There are some sub roles where you’re helping out. It’s not an official team member, but it is where you can help out. That’s what George is saying, “I’ve got created a subcommittee where they’ve got people helping out because the group does get larger and more pressure.”
The best thing is have a talk to your Area Leader, and just say, “What’s going on?” You can email Edward and see if there’s any team roles going, but the Area Leader’s a first point of call and just … because what can happen is someone might say to me, “Oh, my business is getting really busy, I’m finding the role’s … I’m not quite giving it the time that I should. If someone else wants it, then let me know.” Sometimes people do that, they’re under a bit of pressure through other things and sometimes people might just want to have a break from the role for a little while. They might want to have a holiday for several months but they want to come back to it, so we can talk about those things, as well.
Edward Zia: There we go, by the look of things, the questions have dried up and I just want to say, thank you for an amazing live webinar. For those of you, as well, that are listening to this through my blog, The Edward Files are recording somewhere. Just want to say thank you for being very attentive and we really appreciate … it’s great having you all spend your valuable time with us. Of course, 4Networking, Australia is committed to your success in helping small business owners kick butt.
Grant Dempsey: Exactly. We just know the more … if you’re in a role, and you want some help, we’re be going to be coming around and doing team training in each group, so we’ll let you know when that’s happening. Do your best to be there, because you will benefit from it, and be able to help people
Thank you for your time, and we look forward to seeing you on the 4Networking circuit.
Edward Zia: Very much. On behalf on of Grant Dempsey and Edward Zia, good night.
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