Listen for the opportunity.
So how am I meeting all these people to reach a goal of 5000 conversations in one week?
My new thing has been the Dover Chamber of Commerce. I am not a member. Actually, I had an exploratory conversation with their membership rep who rather quickly talked me out of joining. Her suggestion was that maybe I wasn’t ready for a membership, that the membership required a $398 commitment, and heavy levels of participation. I’m headed into that membership direction. But for right now, I’m attending the Chamber’s monthly morning mixers. Not all Chambers utilize this specific networking event, as different chambers run differently according to their local needs.
I have never participated in speed dating. That is exactly what the Dover Chamber’s morning mixer is, but only for businesses and networking. Every two minutes you are in front of somebody new and you present each other your spiel. I collect as many business cards as I can. Then, over the next two days I record the business cards in my rolodex, and I proceed to email all the people inviting them for coffee. Almost everyone says yes. During the coffees I may or may not bring up real estate; the main focus is on what they do and how I can possible help, even if that help is nothing more than introducing them to more people.
Because of the morning mixer, I met 11 new friends this week.
I’m the Dover Literary Laureate. With he support of the library, the Chamber, and a few local businesses, we are working on a huge community-wide project called One Book, One Community where hopefully everyone will be reading Linnea Hartsuyker’s novel The Half Drowned King. Plus, we’ll have various Viking themed events throughout the city. This project puts me in front of a lot of local businesses. I currently have a count of three new people through this initiative. Additionally, because I’ve been placed ad hoc on the Dover Art Commission Board, I’ve met several local artists. As of this week the count is 2 artists.
Just this month for the first time attended the Media Makers coffee meetup in Newmarket, and I learned about this group through a friend of mine who I asked who she thought I should know. She immediately thought I was talking about real estate and said point blank, “I don’t know anyone who wants to sell their house, Steve.” And I was like, “No-no-no. Like you know me, you know I’m just not about real estate. I mean, it can be real estate related, sure, but you do you know in the writing community that I don’t know? Who do you know in academia that you think I should know?” This one conversation with my friend led me to Media makers, where I met six new friends, one was an attorney who deals with divorces!
I came home so excited that day. I told my wife, “I finally met a divorce lawyer!”
She hi-fived me.
I don’t plan on getting a divorce, but a high percentage of divorcing people unload real estate and the way through that door is a divorce lawyer. But if you send marketing materials to divorce lawyers, your flyers are immediately trashed because no one has the time to read your marketing materials. Besides, this divorce lawyer, I didn’t care about his law practice. I didn’t care he did criminal litigation. I didn’t care about anything he did professionally to make a paycheck. What was eternally more fascinating to me was the fact the dude writes, directs, and films independent movies! Why in the heck do I want to talk about divorces when I can talk about his new sci-fi comedy short!
I also on a daily basis talk to a lot of Realtors. I kept hearing the same comment over and over: who did your website? Your website is amazing!
Let’s be honest. My website is just an exploded business card paired with a blog. I used a template to put it together. There was no reinventing the wheel. Yet still, Realtors asked me to design their websites and I kept saying no. I kept saying no because I thought I didn’t have the time. You can read more about the web site business idea in the Passive Income Side Hustle post and the Stacking Tranches post. Basically, I turned down two years worth of opportunities because I wasn’t listening to what people were saying. They had a need, and I ignored their need.
