4 Steps to Networking Success

In this episode, we review the steps Moses used to integrate into an adjacent community as he was fleeing from Pharaoh. These four steps are essential to integrating into any culture - especially when trying to network for business success. Holy Profits Radio (http://www.holyprofitsradio.com) airs live each Saturday on 95.7 WGNW LP The Choice (Candler), is hosted by Bradley Waldrop and a production of Chrysalis Consulting, LLC (http://www.leading4achange.com).

Transcript:

Announcer:
Welcome to Holy Profits Radio, a business show that applies God's word to your work. Discussing business basics ranging from starting your own company to complex human resource challenges. Check out our complete schedule, archive shows, helpful downloads, and much more at holyprofitsradio.com. Now, get ready to be part of the revolution by applying biblical truths to your work with Holy Profits Radio hosted by Bradley Waldrop.

Bradley Waldrop:
Good morning. Welcome to the show. The engineer, Mike Kaiser, is in here making fun of the introduction, and you can't see him, but, boy, what a character hanging out here. Hey, we have a really great show here this morning, and I wanted to say that if you think we have like a 30-minute time block, you know, we may go way over today. We have two people here, me and Mel, that have a tendency to not stick to very strict timelines. So, we might need a hook during the day today, but we're gonna do it anyway.

Recap of Previous Show

Last week, if you missed the show, we talked about what life is like for the family-owned business and trying to figure out who is gonna take over that next position as the CEO, as the new leader in the organization, and whether or not it's the traditional step or something way out of the norm. If you missed that show, it will be up on the podcast in the next couple of days. Feel free to go to our website at holyprofitsradio.com and subscribe to the podcast, and you will have it downloaded automatically as soon as it's available. It will be uploaded onto the YouTube channel as well.

If you are interested in understanding the behind-the-scenes of the show and what happens here, joining in on the conversation, feel free to join us at facebook.com/holyprofits, and we will pay close attention to the messages coming in. There is a very special project I'm working on, so if you're out there and you're willing to pray for me and pray for this show, I have a couple-hour television special that I am currently working on. We don't know what all the details are and whether or not that's gonna ultimately be in God's plan, but if it is, well, I wanna be prepared, and I wanna have the right guests on the show so that we can really make a great impact and show what life looks like when you take the character-building process and implement it right into business.

Topic Introduction: Integrating into a New Community

This week in today's show, we're gonna talk about what life is like when you do somewhat of a parachute drop into a new community. So, if you are a home-based business, if you are a direct marketing business, if you are a new business trying to get settled into a new area, if you're well-established somewhere else and you want to move someplace, if you are in ministry and you get called to be somewhere else, all of this is for you. This show is very specific to how to get started and how to get plugged into and how to sort of become part of the fiber and the fabric of the new community in which you land.

Personal Experience

I have some personal experience. The guest that I have in the studio today is Mel, and he has some experience as well on the parachute drop. For those of you who don't know, I was living in Southern California all but a year ago. And, when I came to North Carolina, I didn't have a friend. I didn't have a business associate. I didn't have a relative. I was purely a parachute drop with my family and I had to figure out how to get plugged into the local environment. That's hard to do. It's really hard to do if you expect that you're going to just sort of stand on your laurels and have a reputation that precedes you because it doesn't. You're just kind of out there by yourself. If you are contemplating this kind of move, then pay real close attention. What we're gonna talk about are very practical ways that you can get plugged in.

Biblical Example

But before we do that, I wanted to talk about a really great example from the Bible that really displays what this looks like. We are going through the Exodus era right now. And if you remember, the Exodus era is where Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, "Let my people go." There are a bunch of plagues that happen and finally, Pharaoh says, "Get out of here," and they leave and they go to a new territory. What I wanna do is sort of stop before we get to all of the plagues and really pay attention to what happened with Moses when he was a young man.

Moses' Story

Moses, for those of you who know or who maybe don't know, was born in Egypt to a Hebrew family. Pharaoh was a little bit frustrated in how fast the Hebrew nation was growing and growing stronger inside Egypt. They were the slaves of Egypt. If the Hebrew nation got to be too strong, they were gonna overthrow Pharaoh. And what he decided to do was work with the midwives of the Hebrew midwives and say, "Hey, look. For every boy that's born, I want you to kill him." And what that was trying to do was limit the strength of the Hebrew nation that was enslaved to the Egyptians. Well, Moses being a boy was at risk, and his mother decided to hide him for three months. And, after hiding him for three months, decided to put him in a small little basket boat that was waterproofed and send him down the Nile in hopes that he would be able to be found and tucked into an Egyptian family somewhere along the way, and they would be able to protect who he was. Well, Pharaoh's daughter found him and he grew up as the grandson to Pharaoh, the adoptive grandson to Pharaoh. So his whole life was nothing more than royalty. Every time he turned around, there was somebody there to serve him. He got special treatment because of who he was. He was in the royalty of the Egyptians. He was the prince of Egypt.

Moses' Transition

Sooner or later, he understood that he was Hebrew. He saw a Hebrew gentleman being beaten by an Egyptian. He took matters into his own hands and he killed the Egyptian. And when he did, his grandfather decided that he needed to die and started to chase him down. Moses left Egypt. When he left Egypt, he left everything that he knew. He left his family. He left his finances. He left his culture. He left all of the servants. He was out on his own. He was the parachute drop. He was trying to figure out how to get assimilated into another community.

Moses' Four Steps

If you pay close attention in Exodus chapter 2, around verse 15 or so, there are only a few verses in there that actually really talk about how he first integrated himself into the local community. And one of the things that's really so interesting in this are four actual steps.

1. Humility: He was humble. He came into the new territory without banging his chest and saying, "Guess who I am?" They wouldn't like that anyway. They didn't like the Egyptians, but he certainly wouldn't garner any sort of friendships that way. If he was relying on his reputation, he would have just sort of alienated himself.
2. Visibility: He went to the well where the community came on a regular basis to water their cattle. So he showed up where everyone else was gonna show up. He made sure that he was standing out in this particular area for people to be able to meet him. He wasn't hiding. He didn't find a little cave somewhere and say, "Hey, look. I'm just gonna hang out here." He went right to the public forum.
3. Character: The seven daughters of the local priest came out to the well, and they were gonna water the cattle. The local shepherds decided that they didn't want the ladies there, and so they were rather rough with them and pushed them away from the troughs to water their sheep. Moses stood up for them and served them. He showed his solid character and provided service back to the people he just met.

Applying Moses' Blueprint

These four things are essential when it comes to getting integrated into an organization or into a community. Let's look at you if you are a direct reputation and you really humble yourself and say, "Look, I've got a lot to learn here." When I came to North Carolina, I had a lot to learn. The culture here is totally different. The dialect is different. People know that I'm not from around here. You dress differently, and so you sit and listen more than you talk. When you do that, you're sort of humbling yourself and saying, "Look, I may not be the best solution for everyone here. I might be a good solution, but I've got to really figure out how everybody's wired and how I can fit in rather than them trying to just sort of accept me the way I am." I need to be sensitive to the fact that they have a culture, a language, and a way of doing things, and I need to figure all that out. Being humble is really essential in all of that.

Visibility and Risk

The other thing is, I can't stay at home. I've got to go out. I've got to put myself at risk. For those of you who are saying, "You know what? I just bought into a direct marketing program. I just bought a franchise. I just bought something. I have a plan for business, and I think it's a really great plan, but I'm scared to death if someone says no." You have to get out and put yourself at risk. You have to go out and hear "no." "No" is not about you. "No" is about the solution that you're providing to a need that they have. Whether

it's the right solution, whether it's a good cultural fit, whether it's a good societal fit, who knows? But it's not a personal judgment. Most of the time, it's simply a product judgment or a presentation judgment. They just didn't understand what you were trying to say, and they didn't see the value in it for them at that particular moment. So, move on. Go on to the next one. And that's going to be okay. So, you have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to get out of your house. You have to walk around. You have to get out of the office. You have to go meet new people.

Character and Service

And out of all of that, you're going to find some great friends along the way. You're also going to be judged by your character because you're not from around here, and people are gonna pay attention to what it is you do and how you match up what you say you care about and how you react to all of that, the integrity that you have as a person. Know who you are, know what your values are, stand up for your values. If someone doesn't like you based on your particular values, then move on and find someone who does. As long as those values are centered in good moral value, you should find friends very quickly.

Service

The last bit is trying to be of service to someone. Try to help them out. This networking effort is a two-way street. The more helpful you are to others in helping them succeed, the more helpful they're gonna be to you to help you succeed. As long as you view this as a selfless act and an opportunity to meet people and help them out, your network is gonna grow very quickly. It's amazing to see what Moses is showing us as far as this blueprint. He is a renegade. He is running for his life, and he needs to figure out how to save his life and be integrated into a local community. He humbles himself. He stands for something, shows really great character. He goes where everyone else is gonna be so that he can meet them, and he's helpful in all of it.

Bradley Waldrop:
When we come back from the break, we are going to have a conversation about practical things that we can do in our local businesses, in our local communities to be able to integrate and build our network so that we can help ourselves and help others. Thanks for staying with us.

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Announcer:
You are listening to 95.7 The Choice, where we're not afraid to play a 6-minute song.

Bradley Waldrop:
Welcome back to Holy Profits Radio. We have for us today a really great man. His name is Mel Fergenbaum, and he's a friend of mine. He has come to 95.7 The Choice, WGNWLP, to have a chat a little bit about networking and trying to understand how to integrate into the local community. And before we went to the break, we just sort of said, "Hey, look, there are some key steps that the Bible shows," and what I like to do is bring people in and say, "Look, this is where the rubber really meets the road, and this is how it happens." So, Mel, if you could do us a favor and just simply introduce yourself, the businesses or business that you work with, and then, if you could also tell us, what the character of a parachute drop looks like for you.

Mel Fergenbaum:
Thank you, Brad, and thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. My wife, Linda, and I own Mountain Spirit Wellness, which is a wellness center committed to body, mind, and spirit in Waynesville, North Carolina. We live in Maggie Valley. At Mountain Spirit Wellness, we do massage therapy, yoga, Pilates, and wellness seminars. We're also a franchise for Juice Plus because we believe in healing through nutrition. I do workshops on self-improvement. One of them is called the Redirect Your Life Experience, which is a weekend self-discovery program on the unconscious self-imposed barriers that we have in our lives. So as you can see, we're totally committed to helping people body, mind, and spirit. We came up to Waynesville back in 2009 not knowing anybody here, like you mentioned earlier in the show. And once Linda got established in Waynesville Rec Center, I was faced with how to take something that I'd been doing for 20 years and bring it to western North Carolina. Nobody knew me here. Although I had a reputation around the country, nobody knew me here. So it was a matter of getting myself known to people.

Bradley Waldrop:
Nobody knew you here, although you had a reputation around the country, nobody knew you here. So it was a matter of getting yourself known to people.

Mel Fergenbaum:
Exactly. The way I did that was I went on meetup.com. I found a lot of networking groups. I found those that I thought would be conducive to what I wanted to share with the community. And the key was I went to those religiously. I went to those every week, every month, whatever it was, so that people would get an opportunity to know the face, know what I do. It's now almost four years later, and that consistency has really paid off. People now know what I do.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. Not only that, but what's kind of interesting is that through social media, when I announced that you were gonna be on the show, just quickly this morning, I received an email from a mutual friend of ours, and she said, "Hey, I love Mel." And the funny thing about that is that four years ago, nobody would have known who you were. And they know who you are because of what you have been doing. You've been showing up and been very deliberate about that consistency, right? So you came here, no network at all. Now you have a network of friends. You have a network of people who provide services and goods that can help yourself but also help others, right? And you're a great connector. What does that really mean, though, as far as getting plugged in?

Mel Fergenbaum:
Be interested instead of interesting. You said that earlier in the show as an example out of the Bible. It really is the law of abundance. It really is the energy that you're putting out there. You've heard "what goes around comes around." My intention in networking is helping people. I have a three-ring binder full of business cards. And when I do meet with people, I have that with me. So if they need anything or want anything, I can just open a book and refer them to two or three people in the category in which they are looking. That, to me, is very important. Being interested is important as well because when you are there and you're trying to sell yourself always, you're not going to make friends.

Bradley Waldrop:
That's for sure.

Mel Fergenbaum:
The wall's gonna go up. When people know that you are really sincerely interested in serving them, then they're going to feel it. Not only will you make business associates, but you're also going to make friends as well.

Bradley Waldrop:
I think that's kind of interesting too. One of the ways that you serve others, you just said, "Look, I try to connect people." But not only do you try to connect people, but you help kick doors open. Right? "Hey, look. Joe over here needs to meet Mike over here. I'm gonna send an email to Mike and let him know Joe is gonna come and meet with him." I think that's really helpful for a lot of us who have to go to these cold-call type meetings and meet someone. It's so nice to have a friend kick the door open, do the introductions, and sort of back out of the way and let that relationship happen however it happens but still be helpful in all of that.

Mel Fergenbaum:
Fear is part of our daily lives. All I'm saying as far as networking and building your business is concerned is to feel the fear and do it anyway.

Bradley Waldrop:
That's right. Manage fear. You know, it's funny you should say that. I used to participate and still help do some coaching on presentation skills. And standing up in front of an audience is one of the biggest fears anyone has. And everyone who does it says that all they really do is sort of manage the fear. They just, you know, bury it.

Mel Fergenbaum:
If anybody has that kind of a fear that's debilitating, I have a course for them.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. That's great. That's great.

Mel Fergenbaum:
Where's the fear coming from, and how can you modify that behavior?

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. No. That's really fantastic. Now, if you had to give one suggestion to the listeners on how to make the most positive difference in their specific network, what would it be?

Mel Fergenbaum:
Keep your word.

Bradley Waldrop:
Oh, that's so great.

Mel Fergenbaum:
Keep your word no matter what. Bradley, people do business with people they know, like, and trust.

Bradley Waldrop:
That's right.

Mel Fergenbaum:
How do you get to know, like, and trust them? Networking would be the way to do it because you're going to expose yourself to the community, and you're gonna wanna fit in. Now, while you're there in the community, if you say you're gonna do something, if you say you're gonna make a call, if you say you're going to be there at a certain time, no matter what,

keep your word. There is so much power in keeping your word, and people will get to know you, like you, trust you. They're gonna be friends with you for that reason, and they're gonna wanna do business with you for that reason. Conversely, if people do not keep their word, are you gonna refer them?

Bradley Waldrop:
Right. No. You're exactly right.

Mel Fergenbaum:
I wouldn't.

Bradley Waldrop:
I wouldn't either. Why put my reputation on the line if somebody's not gonna follow through?

Mel Fergenbaum:
It's your integrity. When I refer someone to someone, my reputation, my integrity is on the line. If the person that I am referring to is not going to honor my referral, they're not gonna get any more referrals.

Bradley Waldrop:
That's right. Absolutely.

Mel Fergenbaum:
So I have a trust account with people that is full to start with.

Bradley Waldrop:
Absolutely.

Mel Fergenbaum:
As long as they keep their word to me, that remains full. When they don't, and I don't have that trust in them, I'm not going to make any referrals.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. And there's another phrase in there too that I end up using an awful lot when I'm coaching, and that is keep your word and earn your keep. Provide the value back that you said that you were gonna provide and follow through on what your job is. And as long as you do that, wow, what a difference the relationship is. It becomes very strong very quickly. If the audience has… So that's one thing that they can do to stand out of the crowd. What do they need to avoid doing? Is there something in there that they need to avoid doing?

Mel Fergenbaum:
Most of us are doing business in a category, especially here in Asheville, where we're talking about self-improvement seminars that other people are doing.

Bradley Waldrop:
Right.

Mel Fergenbaum:
Now, how can you stand out? What is it about you that you want to promote that people will see a difference and want to work with you instead of somebody else? When I came here with the self-improvement seminar, the Redirect Your Life Experience, there are many self-help gurus in this community.

Bradley Waldrop:
Sure.

Mel Fergenbaum:
There are many self-help junkies in this community as well.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yes, there are.

Mel Fergenbaum:
So how can I present myself in a way that would take me out of the realm of competition? How could each of us promote ourselves in a way that takes us out of the realm of competition? Avoid sort of 1z, 2z, shotgun approach type behaviors, you know, just being not very planned out, being sporadic rather than being consistent.

Bradley Waldrop:
And look for immediate results. Sales 5 to 8 exposures will get you a definitive answer, a yes or a no. When you're there for the first time, and you get up, and you tell people what you do, and nobody gave you an order at that particular meeting, you say, "I'm not going back because I didn't get any business the last time." That is what you want to avoid. You gotta keep going back, you gotta get people to get to know you, like you, trust you, then you will get some business and give them business as well.

Bradley Waldrop:
So the big takeaway there is don't give up.

Mel Fergenbaum:
Don't give up.

Bradley Waldrop:
And I think inconsistency. I don't know how many people who are listening to the show really understand the human psychology behind buying something and how many times you have to be asked in order for you to feel comfortable to buy it. And that number is huge. It's 5 to 8, sometimes 12 times. It just depends on the product, the service, and the environment. That's a lot of times. So you have to have this wherewithal in the process to not take it personally and just keep asking. Just keep it up. Keep it up.

Mel Fergenbaum:
If other people want to know more about who you are or how to get connected to you, how do they do that?

Bradley Waldrop:
There are websites. I'll give you my email address, mel@mcinsightsinc.com. Through that, I can connect to any of the product services that we offer and help people in a way that they would like to be helped.

Bradley Waldrop:
That sounds great. We're gonna go ahead and post all of that online to our website, and post it on Facebook, we'll Twitter it, or tweet it, or I don't even know the technology. But next week, we are going to be talking about beating your competition in the conquest era. Sorta how to set yourself apart, how to develop a value proposition that is completely and totally different than someone else. I'm gonna take another biblical principle there and figure it all out. If you have questions for me, comments for me, certainly send them to bradley@holyprofitsradio.com. You can get online on our Facebook page at facebook.com/holyprofits. You can go to Twitter at @holyprofits. I mean, there are so many different ways to get connected. It's absolutely amazing. Hey, have a really great week, and may God richly bless you and your business. Take care.

May God Richly Bless You and Your Business! We'd be honored if you shared with your crowd.