Networking is an investment in your business. It takes time and when done correctly can yield great results for years to come.Diane Helbig
Check Out These Highlights:
I love this quote. I feel so many of us sometimes feel like we keep hearing we need to network, we need to post and create content on LinkedIn, FB, or other SM platforms. Sometimes I feel like it is one more thing to fit in, yet it is very necessary to the success of our business and careers! So where do we start? How do we get organized and create an organized plan of attack to boost our network by adding value every day?
Generating LinkedIn Leads & Referrals 15 Minutes A Day With Joe Apfelbaum (EP. 88)
On your journey of change and the word sales, I know people get all wigged out and think it’s disgusting, sales is horrifying, and all of that. For me, sales is about love, care, and respect. I hope the show provides some context between my guest and myself, and that we give you a little bit of strategies on how to make sales not be icky but come from that love, care, and respect.
To help you on your journey of changing that mindset, I have a free gift. If you go to my website, I have a free communication style assessment. It will give you two reports. It will show your natural superpower of how you communicate and receive by others. It will also share with you your blind spot so that you can hopefully shine a light on that and make that a little bit stronger and/or learn how to navigate it a little bit easier.
My quote is by Diane Helbig. She says, “Networking is an investment in your business. It takes time and when done correctly, can yield great results for years to come.” I love this quote because it sets the stage for our conversation. I feel like many of us sometimes keep hearing, “You need to network. We need to post and create content. Post on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and all those other social media platforms.”
Sometimes I feel like it’s more thing to hit and it is necessary for the success of our business and our careers, and yet we don’t even know where to begin. How do we get organized in zero in our energy so that our content is worthwhile and posted correctly? I have a guest who is an expert in all things that are networking and social media.
Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of Ajax Union, a B2B digital marketing agency. Joe is a business strategist, marketing expert, and certified Google trainer. He is also the author of his new book, High Energy Networking: Get Anything You Want In Life While Building Meaningful Relationships That Last A Lifetime. Joe is a LinkedIn expert and trains hundreds of coaches, consultants, and sales professionals each month with his courses and group coaching programs. When Joe is not motivating entrepreneurs at events and on social media, he enjoys being with his five kids in Brooklyn, New York. God bless you, Joe. Welcome to the show.
About Joe Apfelbaum:
Joe is the CEO of Ajax Union, a B2B digital marketing agency. Joe is a business strategist, marketing expert, and certified Google trainer. Joe is the author of his new book High Energy Networking: How to Build Relationships and Get Anything you Want in Life.
Joe is a LinkedIn expert and trains hundreds of coaches, consultants, and sales professionals each month with his courses and group coaching programs. When Joe is not Motivating entrepreneurs at events and on social media, he enjoys being with his 5 kids in Brooklyn, NY.
How to Get in Touch With Joe Apfelbaum:
About Joe Apfelbaum:
Thank you so much for having me here. I’m excited to be here. I love what you said about people having their ick that think that sales are iffy. Often, what I find for people that have that mindset is they themselves are also afraid to reach out to people as a result of that. If they get irked by other people reaching out to them, they’re going to feel irked. They are not going to want to reach out to other people. Isn’t that interesting?
It is and it’s crazy because my feeling is if you have something that can help me right here, right now, I would buy from you. Why would you hold back and not share that information? It’s apprehensive of being rejected. I think it’s about rejection.
It’s not wanting to be rejected but also feeling like things are transactional, “You just want me for my money. You just want me for my transaction. You don’t really want me.” Ultimately, the biggest fear that people have internally is they feel like they’re not enough. If you feel like you’re not enough, there’s a very powerful pull and reminder when someone tells you, “You’re just a transaction.”
The biggest fear that people have internally is that they feel like they're not enough. Share on XGetting Started
We’re not. It’s all about building the relationship, not only for the short-term but for the long-term profitability of ourselves and our clients. It’s creating that win-win environment. I know that’s what you’re all about, what you teach, and how you teach your different programs. My first question is, how did you get started? What was your journey to get you to where you are now?
I used to build websites for people. Do you know the famous saying, “If you build it, they will come?” I built it and nobody came. I’m all alone. It’s like an island. I’m by myself. Nobody’s here. People started asking me, “You built me a website and nobody came. What are you going to do?” I was like, “I don’t know. My job is to build you the website.” I started researching and it turns out that you can do something called marketing. With marketing, you can promote people. I started doing marketing and all types of things. I was able to build a significant company because I was getting results for clients. The thing is I was getting the wrong clients.
Just doing cold calling and all types of marketing is great but the best clients I found came from relationships and referrals. I started researching, “How do I build relationships and get referrals? I want the clients to pay me 10 times more and last 10 times longer.” I learned the art of networking offline, but then I realized Microsoft paid $26.2 billion for LinkedIn. They changed LinkedIn from being a place where people post a resume to a place where they’re networking, posting content, and building relationships.
What happened was they wanted to turn LinkedIn into a professional version of Facebook. That’s exactly what they did. They started sending traffic to people that are posting. I said, “This is a great place for me to take the skills that I learned in offline networking generating millions of dollars through my offline efforts, and do it online as well.” Many people started asking me, “Can you teach me how to do this as well?”
Throughout the pandemic, we have helped over 600 people be able to learn how to go from a lurker, where they’re just watching, to an influencer and get referrals, close clients, and so on. We have one coach who signed up. Within seven days, she closed a $40,000 deal because she was doing it correctly. A lot of people are doing it wrong. They’re selling. You don’t want to be selling at a networking event. The last thing you want to do is shove your business card into somebody’s face when they didn’t ask for it.
You don’t walk over to somebody and say, “Give me your number.” “I don’t even know who you are.” Who are you? Let’s talk. Let’s build some rapport. Let’s build a relationship. Let’s serve instead of sell. That’s the idea. I went from a person who had no idea how to market to becoming a marketing expert, doing it to over 1,100 companies, building up their companies, becoming a networking expert, and now I’m teaching people how to use LinkedIn. I’ve been teaching for the past ten years. In the past three years, we’ve built a course and a coaching program that’s very effective.
It’s the reiteration. You have a skill and you amped it up. People think, “I know how to network. Do you?” I feel like we’re in a whole new world now that we do have to get very well-versed in LinkedIn and build those relationships on LinkedIn. I know you’ve had this. Somebody reaches out, “I saw your profile. I wanted to connect. I think we have a lot in common.” They think, “That’s nice. We have people in common.”
You accept, then you get this email where you get a message on LinkedIn saying, “I’m an HR professional, and if you need me.” I think, “Are you freaking kidding me?” Me being sales, it’s offensive. That’s the ick factor that we’re talking about to eliminate. Your way is not about blasting someone or what I call vomiting on someone what you do because you don’t even know that I need your service or that my people might need your service.
The first thing you want to do is have a strategy. Most people are spraying and praying. They’re showing up and throwing up. Instead of showing up and throwing up, show up and follow up. Learn how to train the people in your network as to what you do and who you are without vomiting on them because if you just vomit on people, people are going to be dirty and smelly around you. Instead, what you want to do is thank people.
Instead of showing up and throwing up, show up and follow up. Share on XFor example, I sent you a direct message on LinkedIn during the show, and I said, “Thank you for having me on your show.” That’s a great way for me to build a relationship with you. Most people are not even sending correct direct messages. You need to have the right strategy. Take a step back and ask yourself, “What is my plan? What would I like to achieve from this? My business plan, my marketing plan, and my LinkedIn plan?” We have an easy framework to fill out that helps you identify your plan and make sure to organize, document, and then follow it.
The next step is figuring out who your target market is. The average CEO has 930 connections on LinkedIn. You almost have 3,000, but are they the right people? There are 830 million people on LinkedIn and if you’re not targeting the right people, you’re not going to be successful. The third step is making sure you have the right message to those people because different people need to hear different things. If you are at a networking event and you say the wrong thing, people are not going to want to refer business to you.
What you need to do is say the right things. In order to say the right things, you have to know who you’re talking to. I asked you before we started the show. You’re like, “Joe, do you have any questions?” I said, “Who am I talking to?” Depending on who I’m talking to, my message would change. If I’m talking to moms, I would have one message. If I’m talking to business owners, I have another message. If I’m talking to sales professionals and business development professionals, I have another message. Depending on who I’m talking to, I’m going to customize my message to them. Knowing who you’re talking to on LinkedIn is extremely important, and then telling stories.
During this show myself, I’m not just sharing insights and information, I’m also sharing stories. Remember I told you about the coach who signed up? She had no idea what to do. She signed up for our program. She closed a $40,000 deal in the first seven days by targeting the right people and giving them the right message. You could be spraying and praying all day long. Praying is not a great thing. Hope is a great thing, but it’s not a great strategy when it comes to business.
You’re not going to be successful by just praying and hoping for the best. You need to make sure that you nail down the right strategy, and also have the right profile. Most people don’t even have a profile video. You know that you can add a 30-second video next to your image so that when somebody looks at your image, you can have an actual video there? Most people don’t know that you can do that. There are lots of new features to LinkedIn. There are twenty different things you can do on your profile that most people have no idea how to do.
We give you that checklist with the pointer step-by-step on exactly what to do on your profile in order for you to get results. If you don’t even have a plan, how are you going to know what to put on your profile? You’re just going to be hoping for the best again. Building those relationships is key. Getting that exposure, building credibility, and then booking meetings. We teach you how to do that.
Instead of selling in the DM, you can use the greeting, feeding, and meeting approach. There’s science behind all this. There’s the psychology of what people need to hear in order for them to lean in. The number one thing that you need as a business owner or sales professional is more conversations with the right people. That’s the key. If you have conversations with the wrong people, you’re not going to get business.
If you don’t have enough conversations, you’re not going to get business. If you’re trying to sell at a networking event, you’re not going to get business. You’re going to get a rejection. You’re going to feel the ick factor that you say in your LinkedIn message. What I want people to do is take a step back and ask themselves, “How many conversations am I having with the right people per month? How can I have LinkedIn to help me be able to get more conversations with the right people?” That’s the problem that we solve for most of our clients. We help them get more conversations with the right people using LinkedIn.
Here’s the thing, and I hear this all the time with my clients. They come to me, “I need to get better at sales.” I always say, “Wait, pause. Let’s take a step back quickly here. There are two camps. First, are you getting enough leads in qualified leads?” When I say qualified, it’s in front of your ideal client. If you have zero leads coming in and you say, “I have to improve my sales conversation,” that’s a great objective, but you’re not in front of enough people that you could even practice improving your sales conversation or those communication skills.
We have to pause and look. First, are you getting enough qualified leads? If you are, and then you’re having those conversations and your close ratio is 20%, then you have to improve the conversation piece of it. If you have no leads coming in, forget about the conversation for now, we have to improve that. That’s where I bring people like you into my orbit because I am not marketing. I am not going to teach them how to use LinkedIn. That is not my zone of genius and I have zero desire to do that.
I want to help them live in front of that client, make sure you’re creating the right profile, including the right information, writing the right articles, all of those pieces of the puzzle so that your marketing strategy is being supported. Now you’re getting the leads in, then we can improve that conversation and what that looks like. You mentioned follow-up. We need to follow up. That’s where another area where most businesses, business development officers, and salespeople don’t do the follow-up at the end. Linkedin is another great tool to be able to keep those conversations going post the sales conversation.
Why LinkedIn
Every single time I speak to somebody on the phone, the first thing that I do is check them out and connect with them on LinkedIn. Why? Because on LinkedIn, you can see their first name, last name, company name, where they worked, how long they worked there, what different roles they had, when they went to school, when they graduated from school, and who else went to school with them, who left them reviews, what are your mutual connections, everything they liked and commented on, and everything they posted on LinkedIn.
You can see so much about somebody on LinkedIn that you can’t see on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or any other social media platform. You can’t even see that if you’re talking to them because they’re leaving all their tracks on LinkedIn for everything they did. You get to know somebody when you’re checking out their LinkedIn profile. If you’re not leveraging this correctly, it’s because you don’t have the education. It’s not because you’re not smart. You need to take a training program that will help you be able to learn how to leverage LinkedIn correctly. Once you know how to do it, then you are subconsciously doing it as part of your habits.
I want people to have a habit of networking on LinkedIn, to learn how to do it, and then set it as a habit so that they don’t stop doing it. A lot of the time, people are dabbling because they never made the habit happen. They never followed the checklist for long enough. Even for fifteen minutes a day, taking the right actions will help produce more clients. You meet somebody and then you forget that they exist. You add them to your contacts and never message them again. If 40% of people on LinkedIn are logging in every day and you’re posting constantly, you’re going to be top of mind with them. I’m sure you saw some of my posts between the time that we spoke last to the time that we spoke now, how many times have you seen me on LinkedIn? I’m curious to know.
Several. I’m on your email list so I get little videos from you. I think they’re on email and not on LinkedIn. I watched the videos because they’re really short. They’re quick tips. I love Joe’s tips. Get on his email list so you can watch the videos. Probably, I would say good fifteen times that I’ve read or seen, “That’s Joe.”
The more times you log onto LinkedIn, the more likely it is that you’ll see me because I’m in your DM and feed. If I look at your profile, there are certain actions that I’m going to take that’ll help me stay top of mind with you. Most people have no idea what those actions are. They don’t know how to do it. I love teaching people how to do those things because staying top of mind is where it’s at. There’s no way that someone’s going to remember to refer business to you if they don’t remember that you exist. Learning how to stay top of mind is key.
What’s the one thing you would change if you could in your career overall? What would be your biggest change for yourself?
Hire Coaches Earlier
Hire coaches earlier. When I was twenty years old, I believed that all coaches were coaching because they couldn’t run their own business. I believe that coaches were a waste of time. I thought I was the smartest person in the world and I could figure it out myself. The truth is I was wrong because the most growth I ever had was from hiring coaches. When I started to learn the power of coaches, when I realized that every athlete has a coach, I started hiring a coach to become a writer. I became a writer and published five books. I hired a coach to learn how to rap. Now I love rapping, and I rap for audiences.
I hired a coach to teach me how to do standup comedy. I make jokes during my seminars. I hired a coach to help me be a better CEO, father, and public speaker. In everything that I’m serious about, I hire a coach. I have a coach for my fitness. I have a running coach. Thinking about the things that you want in your life, if you want to become better at prospecting, LinkedIn, sales, and business, you need to find the right people that would support you.
The one thing that I would change is to hire coaches sooner because a coach will help you be able to see your blind spots. The reason why you can’t see your blind spots is because they’re blind spots. You can’t see blind spots because you’re blind. You’re like, “No, I could see my blind spots.” “No, you can’t.” “I have a special mirror.” If you’re in the jar, you can’t read the label. How are you supposed to see what you need to see? A coach asks the right questions. They’re inquisitive, supportive, and have a lot of experience. They say that a person can only take you as far as they’ve gone. You want to find somebody that has gone places, has done things, can share their experience, and also help you see things that you couldn’t see.
The jar example cracks me up. When COVID hit, all of my business had been live. I spoke, trained, and networked live. Everything was live, then COVID hit. The world shut down. I thought, “What do I do now?” I remember I was in a three-day seminar. I went upstairs to grab something to eat. My husband said, “How’s it going?” It was over the weekend. I looked at him and said, “I don’t know how I’d been in the business for twenty years. I don’t know anything.” That overwhelming of information was all new to me, and this new world of digital. He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “I feel like I have all the ingredients and I’m inside the jar, but I don’t see the directions of what to do.” I had all of the pieces of the puzzle, but I didn’t know how to pull them together.
I hired that coach. He’s one of my coaches. I hired a writing coach. That’s why I’m giggling at that. The third thing that I always say to my clients is, “If you want to coach people and you don’t have a coach, shame on you,” because as a coach, we all have blind spots. You can’t be good at everything for everyone. What are my blind spots? I wasn’t a great writer. I’m working on it. I hired a coach for that. Having all of the authority, being in business for long, being published, and having courses. All of the pieces of the puzzle weren’t working together. We have blind spots. You need a coach. It’s funny, I wish I hired a coach sooner in my career as well.
It’s something that a lot of people don’t realize like, “I need a coach.” A lot of people are not willing to make the investment. The time investment, mostly. They’ll buy courses and won’t watch them. Having that one-on-one or that group coaching thing can be helpful because it is almost like an appointment. People keep their appointments. You got to make an appointment with yourself. At 8:00 in the morning, I have my personal trainer waiting for me.
I’ll feel like an idiot not showing up because I don’t want to make him wait. He’s going to charge me anyway. I don’t care about the money so much. I don’t want to be embarrassed and be like a person that doesn’t keep his word. It’s very powerful when you have people waiting for you. When you make a meeting, you feel terrible that you come fifteen minutes late to a podcast. I feel like a total idiot, but at least you gave the person some time to catch up on their emails.
The Big Changes Happening
It’s accountability. We all need to be accountable to, whatever that means. You finish the blanks. I have another question for you. I’m curious because you deep dive into the technology and LinkedIn. All of these social media platforms or media platforms are constantly changing algorithms and all of this stuff. When you feel like you have a grip on things, they change something. Where do you think or where do you see things going in the next five years? What big changes do you see happening?
I think there are going to be more micro-communities. We see Facebook and there are people who have 5,000 friends. On Twitter, they have millions of followers. You can’t manage that. What you could is people getting used to what happens in real life. We get used to the whole influencer thing, the one-to-many thing. That doesn’t work. That’s an entertainment thing. That’s not community. That’s not a relationship-building thing.
There are natural communities that you can have. There’s something called a Dunbar number. Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist, did studies on human relationships. They found that humans can only have 150 relationships at one time. You can’t have more than that. Your brain can’t handle it. I believe there are going to be many more niche micro-communities based on your interests and on who you are.
We have many hobbies in our life. We have many different parts of our life. We have the professional, personal, community, and spiritual. In different areas of your life, you’re going to have different communities and you’re going to be able to have those online as well. Would you rather join LinkedIn or a group of business development people that are in your niche that you can learn from, grow with, and get everything that you need from them, that are also into the things that you’re into like bowling, personal development, or whatever it is? You find your tribe and that’s where you live.
You don’t need to go out there and try to find a million different people unless you’re a Gemini. If you’re a Gemini, then you want to find everybody. You want to be friends with everyone and anybody. You want to be like the wind and flail around. That’s what my parents are. They are both Geminis. For me, what I always tell people is the future is all about customization. It used to be that you would email everybody and everybody would answer their email. Now nobody’s answering their email. What are you doing? It’s about curation, customization, connection, and community. All those things, the one thing they have a comment on is they all start with the letter C.
I’m sponsoring a book called Ready, Connect, Grow. It’s funny that you’re mentioning this because it’s all about community. I’m bringing together 30 to 40 authors. I’m trying to create a micro-community. I call it a mini ecosystem. I’m hand-selecting the authors. I’m vetting, “Who have I worked with? Who have I used for different aspects of my business?” I’m bringing everybody together so as the tide rises and so do the ships. That is the premise of the book. I love that you’re saying these almost microcosmic ecosystems for us to refer to, get to know each other, and become intimate with.
I don’t mean that in a weird way, but super familiar so that I understand who Joe is. I can then in turn support you in what you’re doing. I like you. I think you’re authentic. You’re in integrity and knowledgeable. You move the needle. You get a return on investment and a return on time with your clients. Building that mini ecosystem allows for exactly what you’re saying, almost that customization of who I’m hanging out with, that community. I think it’s important.
If a sales rep, a business developer, or even a small business owner is tuning in, sales is important and critical for our businesses to thrive and survive, not just make it through the day. I’m all about understanding all the concepts you’ve shared. At the end of the show, what one thing can they turn around and implement to get a reaction or to start to build momentum?
Intentional Personal Brand
The number one thing that I want you to think about and implement is having an intentional personal brand. You might say, “What the heck does that mean? It sounds like a general thing.” It’s not a general thing. If you Google yourself, what do you find? “I never googled myself.” Right now, that’s the first thing you’re going to do. You’re going to stop everything you’re doing. If you’re tuning in to this, you’re going to Google yourself. Do it in private because you don’t want to get in trouble. See what comes up for your name, your company name, with a combination of your name and your company name, and inspect. You can only expect what you inspect.
If you have expectations around your personal brand, then you see you don’t have a personal brand, that is your personal brand. You can go to my LinkedIn profile. You can find me at JoeLinkedin.com. I have a video about personal brands. I talk about the concept of a lot of people are afraid to create their personal brand, but if you didn’t create one, you have one that’s not created. I always tell people, “Be intentional about it. How do you want people to see you? Do you want to be the person who looks like luxury or be the person who looks frugal like Warren Buffett?” He is happy with a Coke and driving a used car in a broken-down house. That’s his style. He is one of the richest people in the world.
Do you want to be like Dan Bilzerian, who’s running around with a bunch of models and living the good life? How do you want to be perceived and seen in the world? Make one change to your LinkedIn profile to be perceived that way. Make one change to your presence online by either adding a video, adding some content, by being more intentional with your headline or with your About section. Be a little more intentional in the way that you put yourself out there because people will see you the way you present yourself. They say, “Never tell a book by its cover.” Do you know why they say that? It is because that’s what people do.
Be a little more intentional in the way that you put yourself out there because people will see you the way you present yourself. Share on XPeople tell a book by its cover. You look at the cover of the book and you’re like, “Do I want to read it? Do I not want to read it?” If you look at my book, High Energy Networking, if networking resonates with you, you’re going to want to read that book. If you read the book, you’re going to want to develop a relationship with me. You’re going to be like, “This guy is a connector. He’s a maven.” I want to build a relationship with him. What I want you to do is think about your personal brand. That’s the one takeaway I want you to think about because your personal brand will either make you or break you in any role that you have in your life.
Your brand is there, whether it’s intentional or not. People say, “I don’t have a choice.” They’re at a job they hate, their business isn’t doing well, or something. What are you going to do? “It is what it is. I have no control.” I laugh because I’ll say to them, “You do have control. Doing nothing is a choice.” That’s okay, but are you intentionally not making a choice because you don’t know what to do or you’re too busy and you don’t want to think about it? Not making a choice is a choice.
It’s exactly what you’re saying. Saying “I don’t have a brand” is a choice. Go in and do something about it so you can create the brand. Start to create and generate the leads or the people in your world that you’re seeking and want to do business with or want to play with or want to do community business with, or whatever it might be. Go and create your brand and be intentional about that. It’s fascinating how we leave things just is.
The more you are intentional with what you want to create in your life, the more you get back. The more you set your goal and you know what you want to achieve, the more likely it is you get to your goal. Napoleon Hill wrote a book called Think And Grow Rich. It’s very popular. Tens of millions of people have read it, but a lot of people don’t even understand what the secret is and what does it mean. Getting what you want is knowing what you want first. A lot of people are floating. They know what they want. They want more. More is not specific. When you’re setting goals, they need to be specific, measurable, and attainable.
You need things that are time-bound. You need things that are measurable. If you don’t have smart goals, you’re not going to be successful because success needs to be specific. You can’t just be general. Generalizing is not going to help you be able to get to where you want to go because you don’t even know where you want to go. If you’re targeting everybody, you’re targeting nobody. That’s why they say the riches are in the niches. Otherwise, people get stitches if they just go out with pitches to the random world.
If you don't have smart goals, you're not going to be successful because success needs to be specific. Share on X
What Holds People Back
One more thing. What is the number one thing that people say to you that holds them back that you hear over and over again?
They make excuses, “The reason I don’t want to post on LinkedIn is because I’m a private person. I don’t want to look like a spammer. I’m not sure that this even works for me. My clients are not even on LinkedIn.” All the one common denominator that I get is a bunch of excuses. Excuses are like drugs. Say no to excuses. Say no to drugs. Instead of excuses, you want results. You either have reasons or results. If you want results, you got to take those reasons that you have and you got to still take action and be unreasonable.
Don’t allow your excuses and your reasons to stop you from taking action. Say, “So what?” and take unreasonable action because if results don’t come from excuses, results come from action. If you take massive action, you’re going to get results. That’s going to change your perception and your belief. It’s going to help you eradicate all those excuses because your excuses are there to protect you from the thing you fear most. Your excuses are there to protect you. FEAR stands for False Evidence that Appears Real.
You try to find evidence and have excuses. You try to have reasons why you’re not taking action, but you’re not taking action. If you take action, even if you have fear, that’s called using courage. Courage is taking action in spite of fear. You need the courage to take action even if you’re afraid of your own personal brand, even if you’re afraid of looking stupid, even if you feel like you’re not enough, even if you feel you’re not the authority or, “Who am I to put myself out there? Who am I to reach out to a successful CEO? Why would a CEO even want to help a little old me?”
What you don’t realize is the secret to living is giving. People want to be providers. People have a fetish to provide and add value. I love making introductions. I don’t need anything from you. You don’t need to give me anything. I’m just a giver because I believe that the secret to living is giving. If you haven’t read The Go-Giver, go read it. If you want more, you got to do more. If you want to do more, you first have to be more. To be more, you have to do more because that will transform you to start creating more in your life. Creation comes from action, not from laying around and watching Netflix with your hand in a bag of potato chips, which is fun, especially if you have munchies. What I want you to think about is, “How am I going to take more action and say no to excuses?”
It’s funny because it goes back to what we said earlier. That’s why we all need coaches because that’s the accountability so that you can’t make excuses if somebody’s going to check in. Inspect what you expect. They’re going to say, “Did you do the assignment? Did you implement whatever the strategy is on LinkedIn?”
If you did make excuses, someone would call you out. You are wearing a mask. Many people are busy protecting themselves and their egos from getting hurt. Hurt your ego. Have some pain. Fail a little bit. If you want to scale, you first have to fail.
Don’t fear making mistakes. I wrote an article on that. It’s along the lines of even if it’s a misstep, it’s okay because you’re moving. Even if it’s not going to get you closer to the exact result, what you learn from it might get you to another result that you’re working on as well. Missteps aren’t a bad thing. Non-movement is a bad thing.
There is no losing in business. There’s only winning or learning. Learning is the key. If you keep failing with the same mistakes over and over, then you’re insane. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. That’s where coaches, consultants, and people come in to support you along the way. It doesn’t make you look weak to ask for support. If you need to change a sales game, speak to Connie, she’ll help you get the ick out of sales. If you need to learn how to use LinkedIn, speak to me. I’m happy to show you the way. We are helping hundreds of other people do it. The key is for you to ask for help when you need it because when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. There’s a reason why you’re tuning in to this shoe right now.
There is no losing in business. There's only winning or learning. Share on XGuys, I know you need more Joe in your life. Go to his website, which is BusinessNetworkingWorkshop.com. If you have a question specific to Joe, please email him at Joe@AjaxUnion.com. One more time, the title of the book.
Some people say that I high have high energy, so I wrote five High Energy books. My latest one is High Energy Networking. If you want to check it out on Amazon, you can go to HighEnergyNetworking.com and it forwards you to Amazon.
He’s a New Yorker. We’re both East Coaster. Jersey and New York meet here. I’m giggling because the speed at which you and I talk is an East Coast thing. Your energy is amazing. I love being in your orbit.
Some people get annoyed by the energy because it’s too much energy for them if they’re from the South. They’re like, “It’s too much. I need a break. I need to take a shower after this.” Go take a shower.
Thank you so much for being on and for your humor and insight on LinkedIn, and that perspective of being impactful by creating that brand and having a strategy. Without a strategy, hope is no good. We need that strategy or that strategic plan to help us move the needle. Thank you so much for your wisdom. Everybody, buy the book. Check him out. Email Joe if you have any questions. Thanks, Joe, for being on. I appreciate you.
Thank you for having me. Everyone, remember, the right strategy will save you a decade.
The right strategy will save you a decade. Share on XI hope you will join me weekly as we question, build, and discover together that no matter where you are on your journey of business, sales, building your network, or business development, whatever it might be, I hope my guests and I provide those tips, ideas, and strategies like Joe did to help you move that needle for you. Joe said it, and I say this at the end of every show. Information is a beautiful thing. If you do nothing with the information, it’s simply information.
If you take the information, tips, and ideas that Joe shared, and put them into motion and action, results will come, I guarantee it. That’s when the magic starts happening and life becomes super fun. Thank you all for joining me and tuning in to Changing the Sales Game. As always, I am truly honored to have you on this journey with me. I will see you all in the next episode. Remember, put Joe’s ideas into motion and report back as to the magic that starts happening in your life. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Joe.
Important Links
- Ajax Union
- High Energy Networking: Get Anything You Want In Life While Building Meaningful Relationships That Last A Lifetime
- Ready, Connect, Grown
- JoeLinkedin.com
- Think And Grow Rich
- The Go-Giver
- BusinessNetworkingWorkshop.com
- Joe@AjaxUnion.com
- https://www.Amazon.com/Books-Joe-Apfelbaum/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AJoe+Apfelbaum
- https://LiinkTr.ee/conniewhitman
- https://ChangingTheSalesGame.mykajabi.com/All-Star-Community
Stalk me online!
Connie’s Website
Connie’s LinkTr.ee
Connie’s #1 International Bestseller Book – ESP (Easy Sales Process): 7-Step to Sales Success
Download the FREE Communication Style Assessment
Join our All-Star Community
Subscribe and listen to the Changing the Sales Game Podcast on your favorite podcast streaming service or YouTube. New episodes are posted every week on Web Talk Radio. Listen to Connie dive into new sales and business topics or problems you may have in your business.
