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Donnie Boivin [00:00:00]: Their entire life has been spent regurgitating that crap somebody else talked about or hearing something, and that became their belief. But they didn't understand why they actually believed it. They just become a figurehead and a talking point for what it is. I'm a firm believer if you're not pissing somebody off, then you stand for nothing. Kenny Lange [00:00:24]: You welcome to the how leaders think podcast, a show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I'm your host, Kenny Lange, and with me today are not one, but two guests and their brothers, the Beauvine boys, Donnie and Keith. Donnie is the CEO and founder of success champions Networking. He serves as the CEO and is the founder of the Badass Business Summit. He is a top podcaster and a five time bestselling author, including a cookbook. So go find it. It's out there. Motivated by a desire to transform the landscape of networking, Donnie established a business to business networking group that goes across North America. Kenny Lange [00:01:07]: How? With hundreds of members, myself included, they have created a business that is more than a community, and it is now a support system. And I wholeheartedly endorse that sentiment. SCN is a B two B business family that recognizes networking as a vital driver of growth and success. And they are dedicated to providing their members with the essential support, a thriving community, and valuable education to ensure their B to B success. His brother Keith is, after 27 years in corporate America, he works with Success Champions Network. As you can tell from the hat, right? Because that's where it's all about. It's all about hats today. But he is now finding himself in his third year as a business owner, and networking has become 90% of his business development. Kenny Lange [00:01:58]: And he's got some cool stories also. They didn't put it in here, but both gentlemen have served in our nation's military, which we are grateful for. Welcome to the show, Donnie and Keith. Donnie Boivin [00:02:10]: What's up, brother man? Keith Boivin [00:02:12]: Thanks for that, man. After going after that introduction from Donnie that lasted like 25 minutes, I'm like, you could have just said, and Donnie's. Donnie Boivin [00:02:19]: Brother, well, I mean that anyways. He's always going to be the afterthought, so it's okay to go ahead and put that out there. Kenny Lange [00:02:28]: Is it like Donnie boving and in the pips or something like that? Keith Boivin [00:02:31]: Yeah, exactly. Pretty much supporting cast in the band behind him. Donnie Boivin [00:02:36]: I would say Keith walks in my shadow, but I don't cast a large enough shadow to cover him. Kenny Lange [00:02:42]: That's fantastic. As you can tell, they're in different locations. Otherwise we'd probably see a cut and it'd be like off his linebacker all over again. Keith Boivin [00:02:50]: If you look at that baseball bat above his head, it's got a few. Donnie Boivin [00:02:53]: Dents in it that's trying to knock some sense into me. It didn't work. Kenny Lange [00:02:58]: It did not work. Well, I heard you're the marine of the two, right? So I don't know if marines. Do marines have scents? Donnie Boivin [00:03:07]: No. I mean, our knuckles are rare, raw, and we like purple crayons. The knuckles are raw just simply because as we walk, we're just dragging our knuckles on the ground. Kenny Lange [00:03:19]: Okay. Between that or you're just like punching people? Keith Boivin [00:03:23]: That too. Kenny Lange [00:03:24]: It could be both. A little column A, little column B. Well, tell me, fellas, what is on your mind? Donnie Boivin [00:03:32]: Know, I tell you, one of the most fascinating things right now is there's a phenomenal TV series called welcome to Wrexham and it's Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. And it's fantastic, right? Literally, you know, these two guys know a football club over in Wrexham, wherever the hell that is. And watching them, probably the most fascinating thing right now. It's the first time that I can truly see how much legitimate throwing money at something moved an entire business and community forward. So they went into a club that was broke, falling apart. Their stadium was literally falling down. The town was struggling. All the Mills had gone. Donnie Boivin [00:04:19]: So a lot of the jobs were gone. So the only thing the town had to rally around was a failing soccer club, right? And these guys came in, they overpaid for a coach, they overpaid for a couple of top players, right? They literally just threw a shit ton of cash at it. And in doing so, they have completely flipped that town on its head. And I took a step back as I continued to watch that. I just wrapped up season one and I went, all right, that's the answer to a lot of businesses problems is how much money can they throw at the right things to move the business forward. So the big most thing I continue to think about right now and I'm fascinated about is where is the big revenue plays that will even push our business forward. Where do we go find that elite talent? Where do we go find that top tier person to bring them on the team to really project this forward? Kenny Lange [00:05:15]: That's really interesting. And my household, we are soccer fanatics. So you can see behind a cheer for Chelsea, it's on the curtains. It's on everything. As a matter of fact, my son was telling me that Wrexham, I think, are in a place to even be promoted from the league they just got promoted to. Obviously, there's several months, as of this recording, there's several months left in the season, but they're in a great position to move up again, which is something very difficult to do in the English football system, soccer, for you Americans. So as you're thinking about that, if it's standing out to you, I'm curious, what do you see as the current thinking or the prevailing wisdom around investing money or throwing cash at problems, at initiatives? Because if that was the answer, it's like, just throw some money at it. But it doesn't sound like that's what you're saying is just throw money at it. Kenny Lange [00:06:17]: Throw money over, invest in the right things to get the disproportionate outcomes. So what are other people thinking about this in the marketplace that's not leading to that sort of result? Donnie Boivin [00:06:30]: Well, I think a lot of people are looking at investing what they can afford and versus actually now, Ryan and them had almost a blank checkbook, right, when they took over this team to be able to go after and do the things they do. But I think oftentimes people are, well, I can afford an executive assistant at this level, right. X amount of dollars a month. Well, that's going to get me somebody that's a doer, but not somebody that is going to constantly, proactively move forward, be thinking out forward. They're going to be able to do a job that's given to them. Keith Boivin [00:07:07]: Right. Donnie Boivin [00:07:08]: And instead of looking at if I can hire to the level and to get the individual, I need really throw some big duckets at it to really free up the time, then it changes the actual game. So now people think I need marketing? Well, I'm thinking I need the world's greatest LinkedIn expert. I need the world's greatest Instagram expert. I need the world's greatest TikTok expert to come in and just tackle and dominate those platforms, not a marketing department, if that makes. Kenny Lange [00:07:43]: Keith, I mean, obviously, you're helping run two organizations at this point. How are you thinking through that same issue? Or do you have some other observations from your connections in the marketplace? Keith Boivin [00:07:57]: Yeah, a lot of the questions that I get revolve around what do I spend money on? When do I spend that money and who do I spend that money with? And a lot of times when I'm talking to these folks that are new to networking or new to networking organizations, I always tell them, go figure those things out on your own first, because if you're going to hire someone to outsource your marketing. How are you going to tell them what to do unless you've gone and figured out what works or what doesn't work, right? I said, the one thing that we all have, we never have enough of, and it costs us way too much, is time. And it sucks because you got to put in the time. It was my biggest mistake when I came on board here, learning how to network, right? I went out and was an idiot for probably three or four months. Networked, like way only network four months. I didn't network with the right people. I didn't network the right way. Right? And I had to learn how to do all these things. Keith Boivin [00:08:52]: It took me a good solid 18 months to figure out who I was and what did I do, what problems did I solve, who did I solve them for and who did I need to talk to when I'm asking these questions and stuff? And once you figure that out, now, if I wanted to outsource someone to help do this on me, I could tell them exactly what I expect for them to do on a daily basis. Right? You're not going to know that unless you actually put in the time and the effort to figure that out. Kenny Lange [00:09:20]: How do you all approach the thinking from the. There's a famous quote from Steve Jobs is, we don't hire smart people and tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do. Right? So I'm all for the getting your hands dirty figuring it out, but I think every founder, every entrepreneur runs into an obstacle, a problem or something like that, or just an inflection point where their own thinking, their own hard work isn't sufficient for overcoming that obstacle. Be it like, hey, I want to figure out how do I dominate LinkedIn or how do I dominate Instagram or something like that. If you don't have it, then is that when we go and hire somebody and say, I need you not just to do this thing I'm telling you to do, because I need help with the volume and I need my time back. Now that I figured it out, I need to hire someone to help me figure it out. How do those steps jive with each other in your experience? Donnie Boivin [00:10:25]: Man, I would tell you that if you don't have a base understanding of what the hell you're hiring for, you're going to piss a lot of money away. Every time I've hired somebody to do something where I had no working knowledge of it, I'm like, they're the expert. This is what they should do. This would be their job. Every time I've done without working knowledge, it's cost me. So you, to Keith's point, have to go in and learn the basis of what you need them to do, because if you don't, you have no idea how to vet the person to come in and do the thing you need to have done. It's cost me a ridiculous amount of money over time. I mean, literally hired somebody to do automation for us that we found out cost me $100,000 last year because I didn't know enough about the vetting process to know what I needed to hire for. Keith Boivin [00:11:21]: Well, then a great question is, how do you know what to go learn, right? Or where do you go learn this stuff? What you don't know. And I tell people, go find the people on LinkedIn is a great spot. Go find the people that are cranking out incredible posts and have a ton of followers, and then get your r d department together. And R d, of course, is research and duplicate. Right? You're going to find what they're doing, duplicate their efforts, what they're doing, research what you can do, and then improve on it and make it your own. And that's when you can start separating yourself from the person that you're following. And then just by doing it, you will eventually get better and better and better and better. Right. Keith Boivin [00:11:59]: I'm going to go back to it one more time. It takes time. Right. But you got to put in the work. You're not going to put in the work. I promise you, it's not going to work. Kenny Lange [00:12:07]: Right. There's something, though, that both of you have mentioned, Keith in particular. I think you may have said it. Keith Boivin [00:12:14]: More explicitly because I'm the smarter one. Kenny Lange [00:12:18]: We'll go with that. Well, I'll have my editor add some sound effects for that. But about figuring out who you are, what you stand for, because you could get somebody, you can go and figure out LinkedIn and study the algorithms and know, like, okay, we need to do this. And the best performing posts have, like, 1900 words and all this stuff, and seven hashtags, you can do all that. But if it's not yours, right? If you're still R and D, which I've also heard as rip off and duplicate, but it's not uniquely you and it's not your unique point of view, I think that's the part in my experience. My background is owning and running a marketing agency. Right. So I was hired to come in and help people figure out their brand and their voice. Kenny Lange [00:13:14]: It's really easy for me to do that. For others, it's been very difficult for me to figure that out for myself. But one thing I really admire about you all's brand with success champions, is you have a unique point of view and a unique voice. So then figuring out the tactics becomes, in my opinion, a little easier. Can you speak to the process of creating a unique point of view? Because I don't see many people doing it. I do see them rip off and duplicate. And you've got a lot of me too content and AI generated content as well, which we may want to get into, but a lot of people just copy and paste what somebody else is saying and change like three words and it doesn't sound like them. How do you go about establishing that and having the level of certainty that I see? Donnie Boivin [00:14:01]: The two of you have nine months of pure craziness and deciding that I was going to take LinkedIn on as a profile. So January last year, I said, LinkedIn is going to be my. I cleaned it up for your show. LinkedIn is going to be my dog, right? Kenny Lange [00:14:17]: Just say it. Keith Boivin [00:14:19]: My female dog. Donnie Boivin [00:14:21]: And so I decided in January that I was going to post every day, Monday through Friday on LinkedIn, come hell or high water. Took me nine months to start getting traction. About four or five months in, I truly found my voice and figured out the message and we had it all packaged up and ready to rock. About nine months in, right? At ten month mark, I hit 10,000 followers. In the year of 23, I'm hitting on almost 12,000 followers now on LinkedIn. But it came from, people don't know their voice because they have nothing to stand for, right? Their entire life has been spent regurgitating that crap somebody else talked about or hearing something, and that became their belief. But they didn't understand why they actually believed it. They just become a figurehead and a talking point for what it is. Donnie Boivin [00:15:15]: I'm a firm believer if you're not pissing somebody off, then you stand for nothing, right? So you've got to be able to put out content. Like, I started testing content this year to see, and the attempt is not to piss people off, but if you're standing for something, the content will piss somebody off, right? Kenny Lange [00:15:33]: It's not the point, but you've got to be okay if that is a byproduct or an outcome. Donnie Boivin [00:15:38]: Well, yeah, it's going to be an outcome if you're actually standing for something. So, prime example, I put a post out that said elevator pitchers are stupid. Like we're not shark tank, and nobody cares about your jingle. You should have seen the people that are elevator coaches come at me, right? They're like, but you got to. There's a point. And I'm like, no, right? An elevator pitch is to try and convince somebody right then and there to buy my crap, right? Nobody cares, right? It's finding those things. Like, I put out another post that says, if you have a business card in this day and age, welcome to the 21st century. Let's get out of the stone age, right? You don't need a business card. Donnie Boivin [00:16:16]: Pull out your LinkedIn profile, get a QR code, right? Well, I hope your poker chip wins your fishbowl contest, because it should. Kenny Lange [00:16:26]: It's also good if people are sleeping while I'm talking. I just like, whip it out in the head, right? Donnie Boivin [00:16:33]: But let's talk. Even the business cards. I don't want to carry a business card because that's something I'm going to hand you. And now I'm going to end up in your newsletter, some other crap, whatever else. If I need to talk to you and I want to follow up with you, I'm really quick. I'm like, hey, give me your cell phone number, I'll text you my information. Because outside of email, everything else, there's no greater thing to have than that cell phone number, right? That's the power. I don't need a business card. Donnie Boivin [00:16:59]: If I want you to have my information, I'll make sure you get it. But finding our voices come from a ridiculous amount of content. Just getting smashed out on a regular basis to figure out what we stood for and how we plan our feet. Kenny Lange [00:17:13]: Gotcha. That's helpful. Keith, how about you? I mean, obviously, I know you all have a collective brand voice, but you have your own. How's that experience been for you? And obviously you're running your other company, which, if you'd like to just talk briefly about what that is and how you're helping people discovered it. Keith Boivin [00:17:34]: I've got a 45 minutes elevator pitch I'd like to run by you. Kenny Lange [00:17:37]: So long as you have an eight and a half by eleven sized business card and all the things that you do. Donnie Boivin [00:17:43]: If you don't sing a jingle at the end, you're fired. Kenny Lange [00:17:48]: I'm going to kick you off the call if there's no jingle. Keith Boivin [00:17:51]: I know. Yeah. Love those jingles. And know my advice, especially on social media, LinkedIn. I tell people, act like Nike, just do it. I don't think there's a wrong way to do anything when you're in the networking side of it. And the reason I say that is because if you fuck something, it's not working. Just change the people that continue doing the same thing over and over and over and expect different results. Keith Boivin [00:18:15]: Definition of insanity. There's not a wrong way to do, just go out and do things if it's not working. Fix something, change something, alter something. If you're not getting the right people on your video calls and all this stuff. And that's what took me 18 months to figure out was how do I get people that are qualified to give me a yes on the other side of this video call? Because that's the point of growing your business, right? Just getting the opportunity. And if you're coming in like Donnie said and you're doing these stupid jingles and you're pitching in the comments, you're pitching when you get a chance to talk on video, nobody gives a shit, right? I even think it's funny as people going so far as saying your first and last name, nobody's going to remember your last name, let alone your fucking first name, right? I did this one time in front of an audience and I asked the first five people in the front row to introduce themselves, right? I didn't cut them off and they gave me this stupid long introduction. Then I asked somebody in the back row, what's the first person right here, last name? Nobody had a clue. And I'm like, right, you should be able to introduce yourself in about 7 seconds, right? If you can't tell somebody who you are, what you do and who you do it for in 15 seconds or left or less, you're pitching. Donnie Boivin [00:19:28]: Or left. Keith Boivin [00:19:29]: Or left. Kenny Lange [00:19:30]: Yeah, or left. I've heard it both ways. No, I agree with that. And getting people on the other side to talk to that are meaningful. I mean you're spot on. But so much of, and at least in my experience, I was driving two and a half hours one way to go to a lot of networking events in the DFW area. I live in Tyler and I got pitch slapped and also ended up getting in rooms with a bunch of salespeople and they weren't my target. And I tell people, think as I've been sharing about my experience in success champions, is that it's been really unique because I think I got more introductions in the first 45 days than I did in 365 days prior that were qualified, that have led to meaningful relationships now and connections to people that I actually want to talk to. Keith Boivin [00:20:33]: Thank you for saying that because that never gets old. Kenny Lange [00:20:36]: No, you can never that out for you and you can use that on your social. That's a free endorsement, no charge. Donnie Boivin [00:20:44]: I appreciate that. Here's the thing. Networking in general was created by a bunch of broke ass people that couldn't sell. Keith Boivin [00:20:53]: Literally. Donnie Boivin [00:20:53]: If you go read the stories behind every major networking organization, that's out like. And I'm not bashing on any organization like B I. Ivan Meisner lost his number one. Right. And had no idea how to sell. So he created BNI to try and open doors. Leytip same think. Right. Donnie Boivin [00:21:10]: All the major big networking organizations were created by people who couldn't sell. Nobody came at it from a sales guy perspective. So you got. Keith and I have been sales guys our entire career. Nobody came at it from think perspective of networking should be a portion of your overall business development strategy, not the entirety of. So. So you're now bringing together groups of people that know how to sell and know the power of opening up right doors for each other. It changes the dynamics of. Keith Boivin [00:21:43]: You. Kenny, you actually proved a great point earlier, and you said you walk into a room and it wasn't the right people, but I guarantee everybody in that room thought you were their next client. Donnie Boivin [00:21:53]: Yes. Keith Boivin [00:21:54]: Right. And that's the old. Kenny Lange [00:21:55]: It wasn't bi directional. Keith Boivin [00:21:56]: Right. That's the old way of networking, and that's still a lot of networking that continues on to this day, is people walk in and they expect you to be their next client, and they don't understand the difference between an introduction versus a referral and why you're networking versus where you're getting your actual referrals from. Kenny Lange [00:22:15]: Could you briefly define. Because that's been something really game changing for me, was changing the definitions of those words and sort of the point. So could you just break down those words and how you all have defined them? Donnie Boivin [00:22:30]: Yeah, I mean, it's really simple. An introduction is you're introducing people to the right places, the right opportunities, and the right things. Right. It's two people get together, have a conversation. A referral has a sales discovery or a sales call attached. So it's Bob, go meet Sally. Sally, I've told Bob all about your right. And he's really excited to speak with you. Donnie Boivin [00:22:52]: There's an expected sales call to happen, and you have to separate the two. So what most people are told over the years is a referral is you introduce them to anybody. No, it's not a referral. That's just an introduction. Right. And if you understand the difference between the two, there's extreme power in going, hey, who do you need to meet? I can make a ton of introductions for you. And so for me, I'm more fascinated to know who is their best synergy partners, who are the best people they can work with, they can do a lot of business together versus the end user client. Most people, I'll ask them, I'm like, okay, what do you sell? Who do you sell to? Who are the two industries that also sell to that same person that are not competition? And as soon as I figure that out, man, stand by, because I can just start ripping through LinkedIn and make you as many introductions as I possibly can in a short amount of time, because I'm not putting my brand on the line. Donnie Boivin [00:23:48]: I'm literally introducing you to people that already have your client base. Now, if you flip it on me and go, hey, this is who I need to do business with. I'm looking for people that need x, y, and z. I'm going to go stone cold because very rarely am I going to ever get into your perfect conversation and talk through the people that are like, oh my God, I need that service. Keith Boivin [00:24:09]: And I'll just add on real quick that when you're networking, you should be 100% focused on finding the best introductions you can get, right? And then people say, well, wait a minute. Yeah, where do I get my referrals? From them? Well, you should be getting them from your clients. If you're doing a good job and you're serving your clients and they love what you're doing, they should be the first one with their hands up saying, hey, I have a friend over here that would love to use your services. And they trust the fact that what you're doing for them is working, right? Kenny Lange [00:24:36]: Yeah, that was huge for me, and even in other groups I've been invited to or gone to since I joined back in December, I've now gone in with a different mentality and a different mindset, and I've just come away with more positive outcomes. And my conversations have been a lot more positive because they didn't feel pitch slapped by me either. Is like, let me go on about this. I'll give you the short version. Here's who I need to meet. Does anybody know this? These sorts of people? I even used it in a LinkedIn post not too long ago, was, hey, I'm looking for this kind of people. Do I have anybody like this in my network? And got really positive engagement on that post, a lot more than I originally thought. Keith Boivin [00:25:25]: I'll tell you a quick funny story. We had a guy sometime early last year, I think, and he had asked for medium sized companies that do $3 million or less with 50 employees. Right? The whole thing that people go to and nobody knows a clue who to introduce you to when you say stupid shit like that. I said to him, I'm like, what are you really looking for? And he happened to be over in Manila, the Philippines. And he goes, well, I'm actually looking for more businesses here in the Philippines that I could connect with that want to get into the US market. And I'm like, then ask for that. And he did. And three people in the call had contacts in the Philippines that he connected to. Keith Boivin [00:26:03]: Got like four or five incredible introductions and end up earning business six months down the road from like. And he looked at me, he sent me a message. He's like, holy shit, that was so simple. And I'm like, it is simple. If you just stop for 1 second and think about what you're trying to do, it's not that difficult. Donnie Boivin [00:26:20]: Well, and even to add on there, I had a gal. Just to show this works in any industry, she did college tuition assistance. So she would sit with families that were trying to figure out how to get their kids to college, and she would help them get better scholarships or maybe choose a different school and all these things. And when she sat across me, I don't know, it was around June of last year. And she's like, I'm really struggling because I can't get people to introduce me to these people who need to help out with college tuition. I said, you're not going to. Because people don't want to admit that they can't afford to send their kids to college, right? Nobody wants to just throw that out there. So nobody's hearing that conversation. Donnie Boivin [00:26:56]: I said, but if you went through your contacts, what industry sent you the most referrals? And she didn't skip a beat. And she was like, bookkeepers? I'm like, really? Bookkeepers? That's fascinating. And I said, why do you think that is? She goes, because they're talking about finances, and inevitably it comes up in a conversation that they're working with a family or something that is trying to figure out how to pay their kids to school. I said, what would happen between now and the end of the year? You met 100 bookkeepers? She goes, it'd be absolutely transformational. I said, from here on out, what you tell people is you do financial assistance for college, you'd like to meet every bookkeeper they know and just see what happens. She called me three weeks before the end of the year, she tripled her freaking business and had to stop business coming in because all she got to do is get introduced to a different bookkeeper, bookkeeper, bookkeeper, bookkeeper, over and over and over again versus trying to go after the end user. It's easier to get business with people who are already working with your ideal clientele versus trying to always go for the will. Always go for the kill. Keith Boivin [00:27:54]: I mean. Yeah. Or the willing. Donnie Boivin [00:27:57]: Or the willing. Kenny Lange [00:27:58]: Or the willing. Yeah, there we go. Donnie Boivin [00:28:01]: As long as I got a heartbeat. Kenny Lange [00:28:03]: Cog this mirror, which is some people's sales process, that's a conversation for a different day. So when you see people who aren't operating this way, they just constant end user, which to some extent, I can't necessarily blame them. They're thinking about who are the people I help? Where do those people hang out? How can I get in touch with them? What ultimately is making that unproductive? Because shouldn't you want to find your end user and go talk to as many of them as possible? Donnie Boivin [00:28:41]: Yes. On your own accord. Like pick up the phone, cold call. You can cold call them directly all day long. You can cold email them all day long, and you can get in those conversations. But very rarely am I like her situation. We'll go back to her. I don't have kids, so I never talk to anybody, really, who has them. Donnie Boivin [00:29:01]: I got some nieces and nephews, but almost none of my friends have kids, right. So I'm never going to be in conversation. That's going to be round people that need college tuition assistance. However, I know a crap ton of bookkeepers. So if people would focus more time on who are those synergy relationships, who are those people that already have my client base, that are not competition, they'll get introduced to them because we just run into those people more often. Kenny Lange [00:29:31]: Got you. Keith Boivin [00:29:33]: The answer to that for me is actually no. And the reason why is I don't spend any time direct marketing and selling to an end user client anymore. So we had in the HR market, Sherm put out a thing last year that only 9% of the market is actually looking to change the service that I provide. So how do I get to that? 9% is my goal, right. So I know there's 9% that are willing to look and looking for a change. I can't go find those 9%. But if I network with 600 more people and they network with 500 more people each, I guarantee you I can find a little bit more of that 9% with their help, versus trying to do it on my own, or I'd have to go hire a salesforce or outsource that, or do something like that and do these direct mail things and get a 1% return rate. It just doesn't make any sense for me. Keith Boivin [00:30:19]: So network. That's why I said networking makes up more than 90% of my business development for that reason. Kenny Lange [00:30:25]: Yeah, that's great point. I'm curious now if you've laid out some great tactical things for leaders, business owners, founders, entrepreneurs to do, but let's dig a little deeper. I think the reason this isn't happening is because there's a mentality, there's a way of thinking, and I'd be curious if you think people come about it naturally, or if there are other institutions drilling this home, what's the thinking, the mentality, or the mindset, or the story that's getting in their way, and what does it need to change to? Because you can throw out all the tactics you want, but if you don't change the thinking at the core, you're probably not going to execute it very well. Donnie Boivin [00:31:14]: So two things played into this. One, networking was created by a bunch of broke people that didn't know how to sell, right? So they have convinced the world that referrals are the answer. Right? Referrals win. Referrals win. Referrals win, right? Referrals are a beautiful thing, but what people don't understand is oftentimes the introduction is 100 times more valuable than referral. Let me explain. We'll go back to the gal who does the college tuition assistance. If I happen to run across one family that needs her help, I can give her one referral. Donnie Boivin [00:31:48]: Right? That's awesome. I give her one whole referral and I could probably know her for the next ten years, and that might be the only referral I can give her. However, if I introduce her to ten bookkeepers, that's 1020 30 40 potential referrals, because they're constantly into the conversations. So what has to happen is people have to understand the power of a real introduction getting into those right room. What would happen if she got introduced to a bookkeeper's association and now found herself as the only person with hundreds of bookkeepers? Right. That's the things that she can ask for and look to do. So they have to reframe what they've been beat into their heads through networking as a whole of referral, referral, referral. And flip it to how do I get the right introduction so I can get the referrals? Keith Boivin [00:32:41]: Gotcha. Kenny Lange [00:32:43]: Keith, was there anything different there from. Keith Boivin [00:32:46]: Your perspective on mentality he said it perfectly, right? It's second nature. Kenny Lange [00:32:55]: We have it recorded now, right? Keith Boivin [00:32:57]: We do this all the time and all day long and everything else. And it's easy for us to regurgitate, but really, neither one of us learned it right. This is all, again, putting in the work, doing these things. Both of us are extremely hard headed. And Donnie used that to his advantage to get me to understand how to network better, because he set me down a path where he knew I was going to fail. Well, it is kind of a cool story. So a couple of years ago, when I got into ornament business, Donnie called me and said, hey, congratulations. He goes, I can help you. Keith Boivin [00:33:29]: And I pretty much told him to go pound sand. I'm like, I don't need your help. I've been in corporate America for 27 years, leading teams of billion dollar companies. I got this. And within six months, I picked up two clients and I called him and I said, I don't know what's happening here, right? I've been so successful my entire career, now I'm falling flat on my face. And we had probably a four hour conversation about the difference between corporate America and the business ownership. And so he laid out a plan. He gave me a 90 day plan, and I went out and I did everything. Keith Boivin [00:33:57]: He probably did 150% of what he told me to do. I was meeting close to 25 to 30 people a week on 30 minutes virtual coffees, right? I took my LinkedIn network from less than 500 people to almost 4000 people in 18 months. All of it due to virtual coffees and meeting as many people as it could. What did I get out of it? Not a whole lot, right? Because I wasn't networking with the right people in the right places at the right time. It took me those 18 months to figure that out. Now I do 10% of the work. I do maybe four virtual coffees a week. And I've ten x my company in the last six months because I'm getting the right people. Keith Boivin [00:34:38]: Right now, 90% of the time when I'm on a virtual coffee, through an introduction from somebody, it's somebody that's pre qualified that can probably give me a yes. Kenny Lange [00:34:48]: I'm curious on that. Did you have to go through the 18 months of, like, I'm meeting everybody, all these people, they're not the right fit to get to the place to where you could make the adjustments and the changes? Yeah, six months could be more valuable. Or was it just, hey, if I had done this from the start, I would have gotten the same result. Keith Boivin [00:35:12]: You don't know what you don't know. Right. It would take me a good 90 days because you can't do something for a week and expect to know what you're doing or know what you're supposed to change. Right. So for me it was about every 90 days where I'd look back and say, okay, here's where I got business. This is where I'm doing. Well, how did I get that? How did I get there, right? And then I'd go do that and focus on that. And then I'd keep going back and say, okay, now what's working? But instead of qualifying things, I disqualifying a lot. Keith Boivin [00:35:37]: Now, the thing that I got out of this whole thing because I said there wasn't a whole lot of value in those 1st 18 months, there really was, because now I have a network of people that I can introduce the world to. Right, got you. So if you need a financial advisor, I know 78 of them. You need an insurance claim for your roof, I know 62 of those. Donnie Boivin [00:35:58]: In all seriousness, I knew Keith coming into this, his sales style and all the things he'd done with other companies. I knew he had to go get to a place of frustration and that he was going to have to go, okay, I got to be a better way of doing this because I knew as soon as he did, he's built like me, where we're going to try and find the fastest, quicker, easier option because we're both lazy as hell. Right? Keith Boivin [00:36:24]: That's a superpower, by the way, 100%. Donnie Boivin [00:36:27]: And so once he got frustrated, he completely came up with this whole new concept of how to get people pre qualified for him. And we rolled it out through all of SCN to start teaching them how to get to that level. But to Keith's point, you're going to need 90 days at minimum, if not longer, to embrace this, because it's a lot of rewiring. Keith Boivin [00:36:49]: So to regurgitate that, Kenny, what he said was everything successful in SCN is because of me. Donnie Boivin [00:36:54]: I'm sorry, can you delete that out? Kenny Lange [00:36:57]: It wasn't just me. I wasn't just hearing that. I'm good. I wasn't hallucinating that. It sounds like a lot of the shift in the thinking is from growth by addition to really like, growth by multiplication or even exponentially. Right. Like in your example, with the financial assistance, you can make one referral in a year, or you could make ten introductions and she may get 30 solid referrals that year. Keith Boivin [00:37:30]: And over that ten year period that same person that she got introduced to is going to continue making referrals and referrals, right? Because every time they get a new client and they've got a college age kid coming up, guess who's getting that referral, right? Kenny Lange [00:37:44]: I don't know if you guys follow Alex Hermosi. Donnie Boivin [00:37:48]: I used to. Kenny Lange [00:37:49]: Yeah, it's got good stuff. But his big thing is the point of your business is to increase how much people are buying, how often they buy, and for the time, like, they extend the time, and you just increase the lifetime value. So you get those referrals. Like, you make that one referral, that pay that person once. Whereas if you make ten introductions and then they keep making it, like you were saying, Keith, they keep bringing people in as they onboard new clients or those families get more kids going to college, that lifetime value keeps going up. Keith Boivin [00:38:25]: How we explain it to make it simple is it's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah. Right. It's that simple. Like you said, I'll take a referral any day. I love a good referral. Who doesn't want business, right? For me, it's monthly recurring revenue because of what they're doing with my software. But I don't focus on that because it's so narrow minded. Keith Boivin [00:38:45]: And I would grow at a very small percentage rate if I did that. Where I can grow at a much rapider rate when I include my entire network into helping me. Donnie Boivin [00:38:53]: Yeah, imagine going to a happy hour, and instead of saying, hey, I'm looking for people who need marketing, you say, hey, I want to talk to people who are website builders or they're brand consultants or something. That's a synergistic introduction for you. At that event, somebody's going to go, oh, hey, I just met a web developer, or, oh, hey, I just met a copywriter, or, oh, I just met somebody, and you're instantly getting into really cool conversations. And by the way, that copywriter probably has ten to 20 clients who likely need your service, right? So it just makes more sense to. This is big boy networking, right? This isn't the stuff we grew up with, right? Kenny Lange [00:39:37]: No, I love it, and it's made a huge change. I told Keith on our last call that our first call where I was taking the notes and you were breaking out, your methodology for me is that I took some of those pieces and updated my scoreboard, my KPIs for 2024, based on that, because I was like, okay, these are the changes I want to make, and now I need to work the plan and hold myself accountable for that, and I'm already seeing some benefits there. But if somebody is listening to this and they're like, this is great, awesome. Donnie Boivin [00:40:13]: Change my thinking. Kenny Lange [00:40:14]: Do these tactics, all these different things, they're taking notes, but it can be a lot. And you didn't arrive to this place and this methodology overnight. What would you tell somebody who wants to take that first step in the next 24 hours? Lower, no cost. To get started down this path, go. Keith Boivin [00:40:32]: To Staples and buy the easy button. Donnie Boivin [00:40:35]: Yeah, I agree. I like that option. Kenny Lange [00:40:38]: All right. Thank you so much for coming on. Donnie Boivin [00:40:44]: Now, I think for anybody, you literally have to, if we were going to draw a triangle on the board, you put you at the top of that triangle, right? You put the ideal client in the dead center of that triangle, and then down below both bottoms, you go, okay, what two industries do not compete with me, but also sell to that person in the center, right? And if you can identify those two industries now, you go out and you start telling everybody, look, I do x insert whatever it is you sell. Stupid. One statement, black and white. I'm looking to meet this industry and this industry. You do that one shift and watch how much it impacts and changes your. Keith Boivin [00:41:28]: Business in the next 24 hours. What I would tell somebody is, don't make yourself an island. There are so many business owners out here that are willing to help you. Matter of fact, if you're watching this right now, find myself, find Donnie, find Kenny on LinkedIn, reached out to, I guarantee you we would be willing to have a conversation with you and said, hey, let's expand on the questions you have. And we're not going to come at it as a, you have to do this right. Think is what worked for us, right? If you do everything the exact same way I did, you're not going to have the same, you know, listen to people that have been through there, they've done that and they've got a little bit of knowledge to share. That's really good. Kenny Lange [00:42:05]: If somebody wanted to know more about the two of you and success champions and what you have going on, where would you send them? Donnie Boivin [00:42:13]: So before we do that, guys, if you're still hanging out and listening with us, you listen to the banter of me and Keith. Go back and forth, Kenny laughing at us as we do this. Do Kenny a favor. Take a screenshot wherever you're listening and watching this, and post it on social media. Tag us in it. Because if we see that tag, I promise you I'll come comment, I'll come interact. Keith Boivin [00:42:30]: Absolutely. Donnie Boivin [00:42:31]: But having our own podcast, Keith, and I doing in our lives and tell you growing an audience is one of the toughest things in the world. So if you get value out of this episode or any of other Kenny's episodes, man, share that stuff out for him because it's just a tremendous value for him. So if you guys need to get in touch with us, successchampionnetworking.com is the easiest place to find us. Or literally go to LinkedIn, type in Keith or Kenny bovine and we are all over it. Keith Boivin [00:42:58]: And don't forget. I mean coming up September 18 at 20, we have our live in person summit in fort Worth, Texas. Go to badassbusinesssummit.com or go to successchampionnetworking.com. You can click on the Babs button up there. Either way, find us. You're going to want to be there. If what you heard today is a little bit altering and changing from what you're used to, just imagine doing it in person with another 150 business owners. It's an incredible experience. Kenny Lange [00:43:23]: I didn't get to go to last year's. I just wasn't aware of you all at that time. But I've spoken to several people who were able to attend and they just raved about it, said it was a fantastic experience. So I'm excited. Now I have the chance to go do it and I don't have to fly. I can just drive in. Keith Boivin [00:43:41]: There you go. Yeah, you're only a few hours, about 3 hours away. Kenny Lange [00:43:43]: Yeah, something like depending on how much caffeine I've had and how heavy my foot feels. But I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing your wisdom and hopefully we get to do another episode in the future. Donnie Boivin [00:43:56]: Let's do it live at the summit. Kenny Lange [00:43:58]: That's what we should do. Keith Boivin [00:44:00]: There we go. Kenny Lange [00:44:01]: Awesome. Boom. Done. Collaboration. So if you have enjoyed this, obviously you can do all the things that Donnie just said, but a like a subscribe a review a share we're out here just trying to help people, help leaders think differently about their businesses, about their lives, so that they can make the progress that they want to make. So helping more people discover this content is going to be tremendously helpful to them and I deeply appreciate it. Until next time, change the way you think you'll change the way you lead.