This Advice Changed My Business

When I first got started in my business, my Dad recommended I join the Chamber of Commerce, go to networking events, all these things where I was supposed to get out there and meet a bunch of people. He told me something then that didn't click until a few years later into my business, and what he told me was, “You need to build relationships today because you never know how those relationships are going to create future opportunities that are really going to change the face of your business.”

When he said that, it kind of made sense. Like, “Okay, I'm going to meet someone today and maybe they'll refer me to someone and they'll refer me to someone else and then it'll lead to some amazing project.” It really shaped my business and my life. All these amazing things. I'll tell you though, it was really hard to use that as the incentive for me to get out there and go to these events and meet people and put myself in that position. To go from a guy who was really comfortable behind a computer screen at the keyboard, to somebody that had to go talk to a bunch of people.

Don’t Drag Your Feet

With that advice in the back of my mind, I reluctantly went out there and met people. And one day we landed this amazing project. Now, this was a handful of years back. It was for a local casino and it was a really big deal, both financially and for visibility and all this stuff. In that moment, my dad's advice totally clicked. Because, you know what, when I first started my business looking into the future, there's no way I could have predicted we would get this big job. Only looking back could I actually trace the connections back to some random morning laying in bed debating whether or not I should get myself out of the covers and get myself dressed and drive to this thing, where I was going to talk and meet with some people just to build some relationships.

It was that morning that if I would've stayed in bed, hit snooze like I was known to do and not show up, the likelihood of this deal actually happening would've been very low. Because that casino deal was referred by somebody's husband that worked there and I met that person's spouse at an ad agency. I met the ad agency because we worked on a magazine project where we were doing some website work for them. I met that person because of a friend that owned an IT company. The person who used to work at the IT company was someone I met at this networking event!

Doors Will Open Where You Least Expect

That's a crazy chain of people to randomly steer me in the direction of getting up to that point, one of the biggest projects we ever had. So looking at building relationships isn't easy, because it is totally a long-term game. There's just no way to really shortcut and get these big jobs through relationships and just snap your fingers. You've got to get out there and meet people.

Understand that looking forward into the future, you won't see those connections, but I promise you as those big jobs happen, as those relationships are developed, you'll look backwards and be thankful for the small actions you took right now in order to build those.

So get out there and build those relationships; meet new people, make friends. Those friendships, those relationships are the ones that are going to lead to some of those major changes in your business. And I know that because that's exactly what has happened for me.

One way to gain confidence in approaching new prospective clients is knowing that you have processes and proposals in place that keep you organized and help you close deals. Through years of trial and error, we have developed our Digital Agency Momentum Kit which includes the same proposals and training videos we use in our agency. The momentum kit gives you the boost you need to step up, lead, and believe in what you do. 

Mike Schmidt
Founder
AgencyCoach