Cultivating relationships to build your network is the absolute highest ROI activity you can spend time on when it comes to growing your business.

Having a solid list of personal connections that are either potential clients or referral partners (if they aren’t your ICA) that can refer clients to you is one of the best asset your business can have!

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1. Identify ‘collaboration partners’ – product or service providers that share your ideal clients and partner up with them to share your audiences. It’s a Win/win – you build your audience’s trust by providing them with another amazing service provider they need and you gain access to a fresh crowd of potential clients with their audience Look for yoga teachers, life coaches, meditation coaches, personal trainers, nutritionists/dietitians to grow your collab squad!

2. Participate in a JV (joint venture) digital giveaway – connect with a group of collaboration partners for a hosted digital giveaway, where you all have a freebie to give away. The group all promotes the giveaway to their own list and their social media audience, allowing all of you to grow your own email list and social media following.

3. Do a virtual summit – like a giveaway but instead of a freebie you’re presenting on your topic of expertise. Look for upcoming summits where your ideal client is likely to be attending.

4. Stay in touch! Put it on your daily to-do list to reach daily to at least 5 contacts. You’ve probably heard the quote: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago… the next best time is today.” Waiting until you have something to sell/pitch to try to grow your potential leads list is a huge mistake. (we all have that high school friend who slides into the DM’s after 20 years of silence to recruit you into their direct sales business, right??)

Don’t be that guy. Stay in contact regularly with people in your network (other coaches, past clients, and potential clients) by checking in, being genuinely interested in what’s happening with them, wishing them a happy birthday, or forwarding content you think they’ll like (In other words, just be helpful!)

5. Do a podcast tour – Podcast hosts are almost always looking for guests to provide expertise to their audience (ask me how i know!). Research podcasts that share your ideal client (remember we talked about collaboration partners?), so it’s not a competitor but someone who already has the attention and trust of your ideal client and be sure to share so much value that both the host and the audience will want to find a spot in your network!

6. Routinely reach out to past clients to see if they know anyone who is looking for help with whatever it is you offer. They may know someone (maybe them?) if nothing else, it reminds them that you are ‘their guy’ they know to send people to

7. Promote your local businesses on your social media – while we mostly focus here on the online aspect of business, don’t overlook the power of the Shop Local movement in your community! Your business may be virtual but that doesn’t mean all of your clients have to be miles away to hire you!

8. Grow an email list and connect with your subscribers regularly – Create an amazing freebie that captures the email address of your ideal client and provides them with a quick win will start the trust building process on day 1! Share this lead magnet in all of your social media platform bios, on your website, and on the podcasts you’ll be appearing on.

9. Join a membership collective of like-minded health and wellness experts (like you’ll find in the Profitable Health Coach Collective – doors open soon!) We will be hosting regular events to help you connect with amazing collaboration partners!

Episode Transcript

Welcome everyone. In this episode we’re going to be talking about the nine ways that you can build and strengthen your network to grow your business and the undeniable power of community and collaboration when it comes to business growth. Now relationship building has the absolute highest ROI when it comes to growing your business.

Having a solid list of personal connections that are either potential clients or referral partners, even if they aren’t your ideal client, is one of the best assets that your business can have. So number one is identify collaboration partners.

You may have heard me talk about the circle of trust. In the beginning of your business when you are first building visibility and getting your name out there, your circle of trust is pretty small. It’s limited to your immediate personal network and maybe your Facebook friends list.

So what you’ll need to do, and this is a really critical strategy to use in the beginning, is identifying collaboration partners. And these are product or service providers that share your ideal client and if you partner up with them to kind of borrow the trust that they’ve already established with their audience, this can really help you move the needle along in your business growth because you are aligning yourself with somebody that your ideal client already trusts.

If these collaboration partners are willing to kind of vouch for you, it’s like telling their audience, “Hey I trust them, you can trust them too.” And this is a great way to get your first set of clients.

It’s a win-win because if you are the collaboration partner, then you’re building your audience’s trust by providing them with another amazing product or service provider that they need and then you’ll also gain access to a new crowd of potential clients with their audience.

So you basically you’re sharing audiences because you offer complementary services and products. So if you are a health coach, you know, look for yoga teachers, life coaches, meditation coaches, personal trainers, nutritionists, and dieticians to grow your collaboration partner list. Now the second way that you can build and strengthen your network is to participate in what’s known as a joint venture digital giveaway.

And this is when you connect with a group of collaboration partners who all have the same ideal client for a hosted digital product giveaway. And this is where you all have a freebie to give away and the group all promotes the giveaway to their own list and to their social media audience, allowing all of you to grow your own email list and social media following by sharing audiences.

Now the next way that you can build and strengthen your network is to participate or host a virtual summit. It’s kind of like a giveaway but instead of the freebie, you are presenting on your topic of expertise.

Now what I would recommend is looking for upcoming summits where your ideal client is likely to be in attendance or that’s geared towards your ideal client. And this is a great way to get in front of them and establish yourself as an expert and really build trust.

Now the next way to build and strengthen your network is to stay in touch, right? So put it on your daily to-do list to reach out to at least five contacts. Now you’ve probably heard the quote, “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the next best time is today.” Waiting until you have something to sell or promote or you’re running a launch to grow your potential leads list is a huge mistake, right?

Don’t we all have that high school friend who slides into your DMs after 20 years of not talking to you to try and recruit you into their network marketing business, right? Don’t be that guy. Stay in contact regularly with the people in your network.

These could be other coaches, these could be past clients, potential clients. Just by checking in and being genuinely interested in what’s happening with them. Wish them a happy birthday or forwarding content that you think that they’d be interested in. So in other words, just be helpful. Go in with the intention of just service and connection, not looking for a sale.

And this is how you cultivate a network of potential clients and referral partners.

Now the next way to build and strengthen your network is to do a podcast tour. Podcast hosts are almost always looking for new guests to provide expertise to their audience. #AskMeHowIKnow. Do a quick Google search and look for podcasts that share your ideal client.

Remember we talked earlier about collaboration partners? So it won’t be a competitor of yours, but somebody who has already got the attention and the trust of your ideal client, who provides a complimentary product or service, and be sure to share so much value in the podcast that both the host and the audience will want to find a spot in your network.

The number six way to grow and strengthen your network is to routinely reach out to past clients to see if they might know anybody who’s looking for help. So keep in touch with your past clients. Retention marketing has one of the highest conversion rates in marketing. So somebody who’s already worked with you is highly likely to work with you again.

So it’s worth it to stay in contact with them to see if they are ever interested in signing up for a refresher or signing up for a new program. And if not, you can always ask them if they know somebody who might be looking for help with whatever it is that you offer. And if they’re not interested and they don’t know anyone who’s interested,

if nothing else, it keeps you in top of mind to remind them that, oh yeah, you are the person that they know who’s the expert in whatever topic that you work in. And that’s who they should send people to if in the future someone needs a recommendation. Now the number seven way to build and grow your network is to promote your local businesses on your social media.

Now while we mostly focus here on the online aspect of business, do not overlook the power of your shop local movement in your community. Okay, your business might be virtual but that doesn’t mean that all of your clients have to be miles away to hire you. The number eight way to build and strengthen your network is to start an email list and connect with your subscribers regularly.

Create an amazing freebie, any kind of lead magnet that captures the email address of your ideal client and provides them with a quick win that will start the trust-building process on day one.

Share this lead magnet and all of your social media platform bios on your website and on all the podcasts that you’ll be appearing on when you do your podcast tour. Now the number nine way to build and strengthen your network is to join a membership collective of like-minded health and wellness experts just like the ones that you’ll find in the Profitable Health Coach Collective.

Keep an eye open because doors will be opening soon.

We’re going to be hosting regular events that help you connect with amazing collaboration partners that will help you build and strengthen your network.

I hope these tips were really helpful for you because relationship building is absolutely the most critical thing that you can do in your business and I really hope these nine tips will help you get started on it today.

Thanks for listening and if you liked this episode go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe so you’ll be notified when the next episode is live. Check out our show notes for this episode where you can find any of the links and resources that were mentioned during the show.

Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you in the next episode.