Over this year, we will be sharing a lot about financial management, networking, and relationship capital (a fancy name for having and developing excellent social skills). Understanding these three components and how they work together is essential for raising finance in any endeavour.
Last year, a good friend of mine, Frazer Grant, dragged me kicking and screaming (seriously I was dead tired) to an event. This event reminded me of several key components of business and wealth. I had just got off a plane from Spain and had no sleep for nearly 26 hours and Frazer insisted I attend an event with someone called JT Foxx.
It takes a lot to keep me awake. It takes me even more than a lot to keep me awake, after having no sleep. However, the JTFoxx event was special. Two of the most interesting sessions were on how to reach and network with multimillionaires.
- One is via a personal introduction (a friend of a friend)
- One is via a networking event
In this article, we share the ten-step plan on how to network with millionaires that JTFoxx shared with us and how this ten-step plan has worked in reality.
JTFoxx’s ten-step plan to network with multimillionaires
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Step 1: |
Hi my name is <enter your name>,
Enter a SPECIFIC compliment, a congratulation or statement |
| Step 2: | You must have a conversation starter in mind. It must be relevant, topical, and not a yes/no question |
| Step 3: | Ask a question that will showcase your intelligence but will also be a softball for the other person:
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| Step 4: | The person will ask you about what you do.
If it took at least 10 minutes before the question got asked, you are in great shape and you are likely to be successful and impactful with your networking. |
| Step 5: | This is where you insert your 29-second presentation.
You have 29 seconds to make an impact or not. |
| Step 6: | Be ready for objections they will use to test how committed you are to your business. Example objections include; “you’re new”, “the marketplace is bad”, “the country’s laws don’t allow that”, and so on. |
| Step 7: | Cover the objections. Show the person you are talking with that you have already got a strategy in place to deal with the objections. |
| Step 8: | It’s your time to shine:
Remember Facts Tell – Stories Sell |
| Step 9: | You want to be the one who ends the conversation.
Well thank you XYZ, that was a fascinating conversation, I would love to chat with you again and help you with (insert what was the most important to them). |
| Step 10: | If you want to make a good impression be aware that the millionaire will be watching you for the rest of the night. |
Quick disclaimer: The above table is just a summary of my notes on how to network with millionaires – my interpretation may not reflect JT Foxx’s views.
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Network like the IRS
This ten-step plan was particularly useful and it has mirrored my own engagement with wealthy business owners.
Remember the IRS Model which woks with the ten-step plan. You need:
- To be Informative
- To be Relevant
- To Stand out
My experience using IRS and combined with JT Foxx’s plan was that in the majority of scenarios, the ten-step plan will work fine. As you get better at using the ten-step plan, you will understand that multimillionaires are just like everyone else. By everyone else, I mean they are all different. Multimillionaires are not only all different, they come in different categories and income brackets. The categories include:
- Multimillionaires who have made it by hard work
- Multimillionaires who have inherited their wealth
- Multimillionaires who have won their wealth in the lottery
Each category will have different perspectives to offer and different ways that they engage with people, so it is important you know what you want to talk with them about and whether they have the experience you are interested in.
In summary:
- Ensure that you come prepared
- Do not bore multi-millionaires with facts (you can do this with us or our analysts later if we like you)
- Ensure that you are courteous to everyone (if we are interested in you, we will look at how you treat other people in the room)
- Understand that millionaires will probably walk away if you talk about non-disclosures to share your ideas. Ideas are bountiful and most ideas die with their owners.
- Be prepared to get it wrong the first few times
- Understand that at networking events people only have time to talk to a fixed number of people. So if your conversation will take up to an hour or monopolise the multimillionaire’s time, then ask the multi-millionaire if you could sit down with them or talk with them at a later time
Good luck with your networking and do share with us what you do to be successful in your networking strategies in the comments below.
If you found our notes from the JT Foxx event, helpful, then do check out our other articles from the JT Foxx event:
- Five essential Success Habits
- Cerebral Palsy, Paralysed, Blind and successful
- Why your best intentions fail and how to fix it
- Bleeding is part of success – A conversation between myself and Paul Kanofski
- Fear induced obstacles to success
You will also enjoy the following:
- Achieve any dream with buckets of rubble
- Turn your dream into reality in four stages
- The seven deadly sins of business owners
- Why being busy is a waste of time
- Five essential habits to reach impossible dreams
