In this episode of The Hyperfast Agent Podcast, host Dan Lesniak speaks with Larry Perkins, the author of the relationship-building book, Don’t Be A Stranger, and an experienced entrepreneurial consultant with over 18 years of experience. Listen to hear why building your relationship base is so important for your business, especially during the current pandemic.
Episode Highlights:
- The Zoom world has taught businesses and entrepreneurs how to pivot their businesses and use their time differently.
- Larry has become passionate about building relationships over the last 13 years since he started his business.
- Don’t Be A Stranger is all about how to build relationships.
- The art of building relationships is more relevant than ever right now because of the global pandemic.
- Larry has kept the relationships the same, meeting people where the relationship sits naturally, just over Zoom.
- As it relates to networking and marketing, group calls with a moderated discussion can be personalized to connect on a human level.
- So much content and Zoom communication has brought about a certain level of Zoom fatigue.
- Leverage the group calls to create client relationships at an individual level.
- Efficient follow-ups ensure that you are top of mind when they need someone to solve their problem.
- The human brain can only track about 150 things at a time, so you must stay relevant.
- CRM helps when you are coordinating amongst different people when it can be kept simple.
- The context of the conversation does not necessarily matter as much as that the conversation is happening.
- Having established organic touchpoints help people remember that you are alive.
- Stay in touch with someone because you like staying in touch, because they won’t pick up when you are being too pushy.
- You never know when these random relationships will blossom into a business relationship, or put you in front of the right people.
- Don’t bring a negative into the conversation.
- Focus on the things that people actually want to read about and stay away from how great you are.
- Aspects of networking are going to look unique when the pandemic is over.
- Larry offers advice for both experienced and brand new entrepreneurs as it relates to following up with the people in their network.
- Don’t be afraid to look dumb doing something that you have not done before.
- Larry keeps busy with a plethora of interesting hobbies, including hip hop dance lessons.
3 Key Points:
- The need for building relationships hasn’t disappeared with the pandemic, it has only changed forms. You can still keep relationships in the same manner, just over Zoom.
- People are going to remember the most recent and most relevant. It’s important to make sure your follow-up system is well thought out so that you are top of mind when the time comes that someone needs your services.
- Networking, amongst everything else, will look different post-COVID than it did pre-COVID. We will probably see a hybrid that has some aspects of pandemic networking that will stay, while others will go back to normal.
Tweetable Quotes:
- “At the root of it, relationships are about having people remembering that you are alive for moments at a time.” - Larry Perkins
- “The follow up is what it’s all about...It’s called strategic serendipity. You’re strategically in the right place at the right time.” - Larry Perkins
- “It’s not so much what you’re talking about; it’s that you’re talking.” - Larry Perkins
- “It’s okay to be weird and memorable...that’s the stuff that I want to talk about.” - Larry Perkins
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