Today we chat with networking expert Patty Farmer, who shares how she went from 10,000 connections to 10,000 dollars. Patty also shares her best tips on finding the best networking events to attend, following up with your connections, and how to have conversations that convert into cash.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 1:34 – Introduction.
• 5:03 – Patty had just moved to a new town where she did not know anybody so she organized a kitty party but then she thought that she is not B2B or B2C but she is in the people business, she is in a brand-new town and she doesn’t know anybody and so she identified that as an opportunity and she changed her thinking a little bit to have a shift. She made a decision to meet 100000 people and make $100000.
• 6:50 – According to Patty your goal has to scare you if it doesn’t scare you, it’s not big enough.
• 6:59 – The next tip is to make a plan and so she started doing research about where should she network and who are the right people to network with.  In today’s business environment, relationships are the currency but you need to network with the right people because you can waste a lot of time by networking with the wrong people and so you should ask better questions.
• 9:18 – Even in social media it’s not just about the numbers but the engagement. Patty has dealt with clients who had a list of 700 but hadn’t made multiple six figures. It’s all about how much engagement there is and the only difference between a contact and a contract is the relationship.
• 10:10 – You must know the movers and shakers in town and where should you hang out. You should do research and find out who are the influencers and how should you connect with them.
• 11:11 – Patty used Meetup, Eventbrite and Google to find the movers and shakers. She also used social media to find them.  According to her you should let the people you connect to, connect you. So after meeting people and having a conversation with them she would ask them where are the best places you find to network where you get the best results and could you tell me the next three people I should connect to and they would tell her who she should connect to and that led her to connect to the next three people and so on.
• 12:31 – When Patty is confirming an appointment she would confirm the time and place of the appointment and she would also ask them who are the top three people they would really love to meet and who are great strategic partners for them and if she knew those people she would bring them with her.
• 14:45 – Sometimes people ask what if you meet those people and you are not so impressed with them. But Patty had just said that she would go through her database and bring them with her if she had them but people don’t know whether you had them in your database or not so if you meet them and you are not sure that you want to bring them then don’t bring them along.
• 15:37 – Patty’s next tip is to serve first and she will ask them how can I best serve you. She not only wants to serve people but she wants to do it in the most strategic way she can.
• 16:37 – Patty comes from a serve not sell mentality first because she believes that if you lead with contribution, compensation will follow.
• 17:09 – Once you have made the connection it’s all about taking that conversation and turning it into cash.  Once she asks them and finds out who do they serve, the question that Patty asks them is ‘I know a lot of people and if I was going to tell them about you, what would you want me to tell them’ and that enables them to tell Patty what is the value they bring to the Marketplace. All this leads to a very strong conversation that tells her what the next step should be and it opens up the conversation for how they can collaborate, where is the synergy, is there something they can do together and is there a revenue producing activity they can do together and that’s really what she is looking for.  
• 20:01 – Patty always has a conversation on the phone before she meets anybody in person and it is very short so she knows a lot of information in a brief amount of time. She tells the person you can ask me anything you want for ten minutes and then after ten minutes we go on the clock and so they either write her a check or otherwise they are done in ten minutes.    

Resources Mentioned:

• Patty has a gift for the listeners of this podcast. It's the 6-Figure Biz Quiz and it will tell them everything they need about where they are excelling, where they need some help and how they can have massive growth this year and they can access the free gift at PattyFarmer.com