The Jordan Harbinger Show - 180: Zvi Band | Success Is in Your Sphere

Episode Date: April 2, 2019

Zvi Band (@skeevis) is the founder and CEO of Contactually, and author of the upcoming Success Is in Your Sphere: Leverage the Power of Relationships to Achieve Your Business Goals. What We Discuss with Zvi Band: Why your network isn't just some intangible asset you tend at your convenience -- it's a crucial resource you neglect at your peril. Why a network is the best way to increase your luck surface area -- the number of chances you have to get lucky when things aren't going your way. How and why relationships decay -- especially in this day and age when we're ostensibly connected to everyone we know on social media. How to prioritize your relationships -- not merely organize them. How you can easily add value to your network and relationships -- even if you've convinced yourself you've got nothing to offer. And much more... Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. You already know that relationships are your most important asset, but what are you actually doing about it? It's possible to implement a specific strategy around your relationships that can make them deeper, more productive, and ultimately more beneficial. ZviBand is the founder and CEO of Contactually. It's a relationship-centric CRM that I've been using for years to maintain hundreds, possibly thousands, of important relationships which helps. helped us rebuild the business from zero starting last year in 2018. I know you've heard me talk about the software before. It's called Contactually. I've used this for a long time to great effect, and Zvi is the creator of this, and I thought I'd have him on the show because he's basically this introverted software developer who has the, he was the recipient of amazing experiences and

opportunities purely by having the right relationships and reputation. And today we'll cover some ground and dive into how and why relationships decay, especially in this day and age. We'll also discuss why and how to prioritize your relationships and not merely organize them. And I also want to pop the bubble and clarify how we can easily add value to our network and relationships. I know people say add value, got to add value all the time and people don't really explain what that means. And I also cover a ton of that at a granular level in our six minute networking course as well. And speaking of six minute networking, you can go and grab that. It is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

And we're taking you through a lot of drills and exercises to help you expand your network. Make sure you're engaging it in just six minutes per day. Again, that's free at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. All right, here's Zvi Band. Zvi, I talk about networking a lot, and I use your product a lot, contactually. And so I was kind of thrilled when I heard

that you were going to write a book. Normally, I wouldn't start with someone's story, especially if it's about networking, but you and I have kind of this shared background in a way where the network was what saved our asses. And so I think that's a good place to start with this because I think a lot of people go, oh yeah, I need to do more networking.

I need to know how to do this and that better. Having bounced back from the bottom because of the network, I think is a great way to start an episode to highlight the importance of this and then get into the tactics. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. I probably would have pictured myself to be the last person to build a company that was exclusively around relationship building, let alone write a book about the tactics and strategies behind it.

When I first graduated college, I remembered why I started my job, they gave me this advice of like, oh, you should go out and network with other employees. And I was like, yeah, that sounds like a terrible idea. I'm not going to do that. But as it turns out, you know, I end up building that amazing skill set. I didn't really call it networking. It was more just I was interested in other things beyond what my job offered. There was a growing startup scene here in D.C. I didn't want to work for a big company forever as I kind of came to learn.

So I wanted to learn more about startups. And so I didn't really know how to build a network, but I knew how to make friends. So I started showing up at these places where a lot of people that I wanted to work with were hanging out. started just doing what I did, just walked into a room and just, you know, made a beeline to the first person that was standing alone and just made friends with them and repeated that over and over again. And that ended up building an amazing network that served me in amazing ways, especially at times when I really, really needed it. Yeah, I like the idea that networks are there to save your, but the problem is a lot of people try to create a network when their

but needs saved and that's not going to work. You know, we always say dig the well before you're thirsty because we jacked that fancy phrase from Harvey McKay. And it sounds like your start was a little rocky. I mean, I know you had a job you didn't like and then you had some illness in the family and it was just like a whole stress bomb and you were able to escape because of the relationships that you had built. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, this is back in 2007, 2008. I was working for a job I didn't like. I moved to a startup that ended up being a really bad decision, just not necessarily the best environment for me, quit that in the middle of the night and said, I have no idea what I'm going to do next, but I guess I'll just start kind of taking some random gigs here and there. Almost at the exact same day,

my father had cancer for the past nine years. Turns out he needed to go to the hospital for surgery. and would spend the next four months in and out of different hospitals and surgery and, you know, and care centers, you know, over time. And this also happened to be, I look back and the day I actually incorporated my company was the day that the Federal Reserve officially declared that we were, that we had been in a recession. So kind of when you pile that all together, yeah, it seems like that was pretty much the absolute worst thing that could happen at any one point in time. But I did what I think anyone would do, which just start firing off emails to anyone that I knew and, you know, and phone calls and text message is saying, hey, you know, I'm on the market right now.

I'm a free agent. Just, you know, tell me like, you know, just if you have any work for me or have any leads of jobs, please let me know. And within the first couple of days, you know, I got an email. Like it was, you know, first off saying, hey, you know, my, you know, my dad's construction company needs and needs. website, you know, hey, like I am pitching on a project for Microsoft. Do you think you can help me out? Hey, my design firm is getting, is having trouble building out this website. Could you help out? And so obviously you start off with these really small gigs, but I was amazed that, you know, again, it wasn't my network back then, as I considered. It was just people I knew end up really

coming to my aid in amazing ways and kept on repeating over and over again for years to come. So let me dissect this a little bit because I think I don't want people to be like, great. So I don't like my job, I'm going to quit. And then I'll just email people and I'll find jobs. There's a lot that's that happened here that's not exactly going to play out like that. So first of all, you quitting a job in the middle or the beginning, I should say, of a recession, spur of the moment in kind of an impulsive way, not recommended, right? Like you wouldn't do that again, given the option, correct? You know, maybe, maybe not.

Like, I think I didn't have enough of a worldview to realize, like, how bad the economy was and how that would factor into my jobs. You know, I do believe that, and I strongly believe that everyone should wake up in the morning and decide whether or not they want to go into work that day. And for us, you know, for me, I had too many days where I was like, I don't think I can get out of bed. And so, yeah, you know, there end up being kind of enough of a dire situation that it was a, a, you know, not a rage quit, but like, hey, put in two weeks notice, you know, close my email and, you know, not check it for, you know, another couple weeks while I let the dust settle. It ended up being a pretty rough experience. But yeah, I mean, I do strongly advise people now that, you know, you should always make sure you have your feelers open. Honestly, even for our employees,

you know, work totally fine with them, you know, occasionally taking the call with a recruiter, taking, you know, maybe doing an interview or two, just to confirm that this is the right. thing for them. You know, just keep building that network and, you know, making sure your options are open. You say everyone should decide in the morning whether or not they should go into work that day, and I don't mean to harp on the whole quitting the job thing. But what do you mean by that? Because what I'm trying to avoid is people being like, you know, I've had a rough week. I don't want to keep doing this job. There's got to be a thought process that goes into this because there's, and I got to call this out and correct me if I'm wrong, but there's an element

of luck that went into you finding other gigs right away that a lot of people might not have. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, answering that question first, I think there's definitely an aspect of luck, absolutely. But, you know, one of the concepts that we very much believe in is that luck surface area, right? It's how do you increase the number of chances that you have to get lucky? And for me, that was just knowing a lot of people who happen to work in interesting companies and design firms and startups and things like that. So, yeah, like I was definitely lucky to, for example, get connected to, someone who the day before had just closed on around the funding and needed a CTO to kind of fill in for them. You know, that was a lucky moment, but there's a lot of work that went into that luck,

if that makes sense. It does. And we'll talk about what that work looks like and how people can do that. In fact, sneak preview, I do the six-minute networking course that replaces my old level one, and you know all about this to me, but essentially one of the exercises in there is called layoff lifelines and it's making a list of the, I don't know, 10 or 15 people whose advice you would seek if you got laid off today or your business implodes and then reaching out to those people now while you don't need anything. Because there's something to be said for, your luck surface area was you'd had a bunch of people in mind, you reached out to those people, they didn't say, who are you or hey, I haven't talked to you in 10 years. Why are you emailing me?

you had by the grace of whatever actually been strong enough connected to those people that they replied and some of them had work for you to do. Many people do not have this. They have not done any work on their network. They've been heads down networking into our office or whatever or working on the relationships at work or freelancing from home and don't have the ability, whatever excuse, you know, you can insert here. People have not done any work to create that or those sets of relationships. And so, yes, creating that luck surface area is kind of what networking is all about in the first place. Having all those relationships, people go,

how did you get that opportunity where you went and you got flown in a jet or you ended up going to this weird country with this set of really cool people? That's luck surface area. That's, hey, Jordan, long shot here, but do you want to go to Bhutan and have meetings with all these cool people? And the reason that they thought of me

was because I texted the guy last week and was like, hey, you're on my mind or whatever. and we'll get into those tactics in a bit, that's increasing that surface area for luck. But I want to highlight this because I think a lot of people are going, great, I hate my job, I'm going to quit, and then what I'll do is I'll sit down and blast everybody who's in my Gmail contacts, and I'll be fine. And that's kind of not true. Yeah, don't get me wrong. You know, what I went through was a do not repeat this at home. And, you know, when we talk to our employees and we talk to other people, yeah, I do very much

strongly believe that you have to make that decision that morning of whether you go into work or not. And the default answer should be yes. You know, if for no other reason then like you went in yesterday, you want to make sure you have a career. It doesn't look good to just up and quit because you had a bad meeting the day before. But if you find yourself just, you know, day and day out, realizing that, hey, I don't have the passion and the fire that I'm not excited about what I do. And this isn't really meeting my needs, whether.

the needs for my family, the needs for my career. I do think it's worth, you know, just that check to say, hey, is this the right thing? And is there something else out there? And to your point, that's where, you know, you should tap into the relationships you already have or start building those relationships, right? You know, maybe it is putting a two-year timeline to say, hey, sometime over the next two years, I want to switch jobs or switch careers, you know, who are the people I can meet, who are the relationships I can build, you know, that work really well. You know, I equate this a lot to, you know, at contaxially, we raised $12 million in venture capital. And one of the key mantras is that investors invest in lines, not dots. So if I showed up at your door, Jordan, said, hey, you know,

give me $100,000, you'd be like, who are you, who's your company? I have no idea why I should trust you believe in you. But if I'd gotten to known you when we were a seed stage company and shared with you what we're doing and got your advice and stayed in touch with you over time and you could see the line of, you know, the line of the company start to slope upwards and really start to build momentum. By the time that point comes out where I'm making that ask, then it's then, all right, you have that context. I think it's the same in relationships or careers as well, right? You know, We're all on a line, whether looking backwards at our past or looking forwards at our future trajectory. And it's a matter of being able to share that context with people that we know.

Agree. And I think I've probably told the story enough on the show, but my network was the single number one with a bullet reason why I was able to leave another company in early 2018 just over a year ago and then come back with the Jordan Harbinger show and end up, you know, most downloaded new show. of 2018 and being more profitable than the old company ever was. It's kind of a miracle, honestly. And so in the miracle, what's responsible for that is the fact that I had done all of that digging and increased that surface area, increased those relationships and everything that we're talking about here today and in the six-minute networking course, which, by the way, people can find, and there's plenty of info on contactually in that as well, our six-minute networking course, Jordan Harbinger.com slash course, where we teach a lot of this

networking stuff in course format. And I want to talk as well about the idea of having the right people behind you because it's not just knowing the right people externally and having that network. I think people don't think about their team as a network. They don't think about their staff, their employees, their family. You know, part of the rise, of course, was having people like Jason, who's hopefully still with us listening and patting himself on the back. But you get that because you put these networking concepts into action with those that are close to you,

not just random connections that are far away from you. And I think a lot of people think of networking as reaching out to random people that you don't know when really you're supposed to be doing this with everyone. Yeah. And I think that's probably one of the bigger falsehoods around networking. That networking is all about generating net new relationships and really the key aspects around relationship marketing. And that's what we really focus on in the book is not how to work a room, not how to cold email people, but it's how do you maintain and increase the value of the relationships that you already have. So you're right with your employees, right?

You know, and the team around you, again, you know, they're human beings just like the business development target that you have or the hiring manager at a company you want to work for. They have needs to. And so, you know, again, lifetime employment doesn't. really happen anymore, right? We're not going to be in the same jobs for the rest of our lives. And so therefore, the people that work for us aren't going to be there either. So we're very honest and we say, hey, let's be clear, you know, let's be clear, you're probably going to work at this company for maybe three to five years, hopefully a little bit more, hopefully not less than that. But that's a relationship for three to five years. And we really hone in on that

relationship and we think about, well, what does this person want out of it? What are their problems? What are they trying to achieve in the next year? And how can we help with that? So it goes beyond just kind of making sure they know what they're doing, but it's understanding their home life. It's understanding the challenge they face. You know, I was meeting with an employee this morning and they were talking around how one of their big goals is they need to get out of debt in the next couple of years with all their student debt. Well, how can we help and help guide them in some way beyond just giving them a paycheck? Because that's the kind of stuff that creates loyalty for life. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Zvi Band. We'll be back right after this. Thanks for listening

and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Now back to our show with Zvi Band. Let's talk a little bit about how and why relationships decay, because we talk about Dunbar's number and things like that where we can only, you know, the experts are like, we can only know 150 people, we can only have 150 people in the tribe or something like that. Our minds are not very good at maintaining large social networks, which is fine if you grew up

in a small town in Montana in the 60s and 70s, you knew. all the people around your age, and you kind of knew who their parents were, and that was good enough. You know, you were solid, good. You're going to work at the local whatever, and you're good. Now, with Internet, we kind of have this problem that we're not evolved to handle. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, let's face it, you know, there's this common knowledge that we all know that we

forget things, especially over time. And so I encounter this, you know, in my own career, which is, one of the reasons why I created contextually where computers can't really forget things. You know, I would meet someone for coffee and then two weeks later, not only forget the details about them, but even forget who I'm meeting with, right? You know, try and think back to what you had for breakfast two weeks ago. And most likely, you're not going to know and you're going to be thinking around, well, who else did I meet with that day?

So it's the same thing. So, yeah, I mean, there's, you know, human beings have always been faced with, you know, the issue of memory decay, it's even being more and more accelerated right now with the amount of information being thrown at us and we're always being interrupted with new information and new people coming in. I have probably like many others, you know, a couple thousand inbound LinkedIn requests that I haven't responded to. And so we're all forced around, quote, building relationships and connections. But the problem is, is that's causing us to feel even weaker and weaker.

One of the tests that we always say, and your listeners to try this today, is open up LinkedIn and go through all of your connections. And think of how many people there you actually know. And even worse yet, you know, think of how many people that you know well enough that if they reached out and asked you for 20 bucks, you'd give it to them. Yeah, that number is significantly smaller

than the total number of contact. that I have for sure in LinkedIn or anywhere for that matter. So yeah, what you're illustrating is that we have a lot of really weak contacts that we couldn't even, if you can't lend or borrow 20 bucks from somebody, how useful is that connection, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, again, we see all the stats, all the same statistics around, you know, around loneliness in the world, right?

You know, especially with social media where everyone's broadcasting their best selves and no one's really kind of going deep. I think there's a report by Cigna that came out last year that of a study of 20,000 Americans nearly half said they're lonely. That's kind of scary in a world where we could and should be more connected than ever. We actually feel less and less connected. And, you know, again, that's not just on the personal spectrum, but that's professionally as well.

When, you know, there are so many, it's easy to reach out to anyone and it's easy to respond to anyone. that means it's also harder for us to figure out, well, who should I be working with? Who should I be responding? Who am I not talking to today that I should today? Yeah, I think that's important. I also found it fascinating that our brains have a smaller neocortex than apes. And so apes had larger networks.

So basically, apes are better than humans at networking, which kind of checks out. Jibes with my experience. Yeah, I mean, but listen, you know, we can't be all doom and gloom. I mean, the great thing, you know, out there is that, you know, with technology and the strategies, you know, including kind of, you know, the book we have coming out in your course, you know, there is a solution. I think the challenge is is that people need to treat this not as a, oh, yeah, I want to be better in networking. I want to be better at relationships or things like that. But it has to be an actual strategy that they implement today. Yeah, agree.

and time decay theory, essentially, that memory's dull as time passes. We have to reinforce those connections. So using tools like six-minute networking, using tools like intactually is a great way to do that. Of course, we can do that using other systems as well, like scrolling to the bottom of our text messages and texting old contacts. I think it's important to note, though, that just because someone's fresh in our mind doesn't mean we're fresh in theirs, if that makes sense. So we have to be re-engaging even if we feel closer to that person because we don't necessarily know if that's reciprocated. And I found that to be true for me over time. A lot of people would be like, hey, great meeting you last week.

And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I went to a conference since then. So I have no clue who this is. But they may have met two people last week and I was one of them where I might have met like 200 people last week. And they were one of them, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely, right? And I think that's why we're always struggling to rebuild that social context between each other. So, yeah, I think it's pretty safe that unless you know that person so incredibly well, you know, when you're reaching out, you know, you have to do those things sometimes that, you know,

allow you to rebuild that context. Like even just casually like, hey, Jordan, it is really great meeting you at that conference last week. Or, you know, I really appreciated you answering that question for me about blah, blah, blah, and that will hopefully help establish, you know, or reestablish that social object between you two. That's why, again, one of the key parts of our strategy is to talk about intelligence, you know, even if it's around people you know, you know, building up that set of intelligence that of what people are really interested in, what people are really excited about, what their challenges are, even their kids' names, their hobbies, you know, what their spouse does for living.

You're understanding all of those things can be so important to make sure that you maintain the context of that relationship together. Yeah, this sounds, people are going, oh, great. So follow up with a simple comment. I already knew that. It's different because most people who are following up are sending an email like, it's great to meet you last week. They're not saying anything of more substance like, hey, it was great meeting you last week. I saw your talk at this conference and your point about X was really interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way.

The more specific, the better because then I'm able to attribute something specific. Like, that's the guy who was at my talk about podcast advertising in the next 10 years, not some guy I met next week. So it's not just following up generally. It's following up as specifically as possible. Yeah, absolutely. So that's why every interaction should be meaningful, relevant, and authentic. So that means, you know, the relevant is, yeah, like, all right, like, why should you know this

person, like, why should this person matter? Why does this relation matter? It's really kind of giving that relevance. But authenticity is obviously at a core of it. Some people try and be a little bit too exacting and almost giving like a, you know, some people gave me like a transcript of our last conversation as a way to like jog, quote, jog my memory. You know, that's the kind of stuff that comes out as overly mechanical. And at the end of the day, you know, we're human beings and we want to relate to people authentically. So as long as we maintain the authenticity throughout it, you know, we're going to be in good shape. Yeah, I think it goes beyond authenticity, though, right? It goes into specificity and it goes into treating, realizing that the value of the

network, the people in the network are valuable and not cheapening it by making it or the people in it transactional. Because I think a lot of people will go, okay, great, I'm following up specifically, but I'm following up specifically in that I'm asking for something that I want. And I want to cover this, at least touch on this, because it does feel icky to all of the sudden put a value on a relationship. But we also have to balance that with not treating networking as some kind of New Year's resolution that we do for two weeks

and then forget about it. So I think a lot of people will fall short on improving their relationships because they don't make it specific, but on the other hand, they're making things transactional. How can we balance that? How can we avoid that pitfall? Yeah, I think it's rooted in this belief that people do business with people they know. And so, you know, your relationship building is not just about like, hey, you just want them to like you, like you're going to think about you, like, you know, the next time they're

ready to transact. It is also about like, hey, you want to. want to work with people that you know and like you know I know a lot of you know a lot of people that have had their clients you know attend their wedding right you know and you know be like one actually like you had one their clients be the godfather of the kids because they built that type of relationship it's not that we need to go that extreme but I got this career advice early on that a business has made you know not as much by people you work with but by the people that you don't work with. And so you want to make sure that you're maintaining those relationships with the people

that are most interesting and exciting for you. And that's why that kind of opens yourself up to have a little bit more of an authentic relationship. I think, you know, per that point, you know, we're not necessarily really fishing for jobs every time we're reaching out. What we're doing is we're making sure we maintain a relationship because we like them because we care about them and we believe that we can provide value from them. So at some point, you know, when they're ready, when they're ready for something that we provide, that they think of us, right? Back when I was running a consulting firm, again, I was building relationships with past clients

and with entrepreneurs and startups and design firms. And if I were to ping them saying, hey, do you have any jobs for me today? Hey, do you have any jobs for me today? Yeah, that'd be really annoying. And they'd send me packing. Instead, what I would do is, you know, I was building a relationship. I was sharing what I was working on. I was really genuinely interested in their business because I cared about them and I wanted them to be successful.

And as part of that caring, you know, they'd reach out to me from time and time saying, hey, Zvi, you know, we have this problem or we have this project or, you know, a developer just quit. Can you kind of help fill in? And that would be my opening. So, you know, I truly believe that relationship building is not about, you know, kind of, you know, keep sending pains to your network, hoping for something to come back. But instead, it's maintaining, again, that luck surface area. So when something strikes, you're ready to go and they think of you. Yes, that I can appreciate. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Zvi Band. We'll be right back back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our

advertisers is what keeps us on the air. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget the work. for today's episode, that link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. And if you're listening to the show on the Overcast Player on iOS, please click that little star button next to the episode. It really helps us out. And now for the conclusion of our show with Zvi Band. Something that I also find fascinating that you brought up pre-show was none of this is taught

in business or law school. And it's so funny because I remember talking with a bunch of business school students. I think I've told this anecdote on the show before. but I was talking with a bunch of Michigan business students. Michigan's one of the top business schools in the nation. And I was like, hey, you know, let me come in while I'm here in Michigan and I'll give a talk about networking. It's my alma mater.

Michigan is and I'll do a talk at the law school as well. And law school was like, great. Come on in. We really need this. And then I was in the room and I remember the law school was like, yeah, you know, we could only get like one club to do this. So we're just going to record it. And I thought like, okay, so AKA,

no one showed up, failure of promotion. And then the B school students said, no, you know, we're already pretty social. None of us really need this. And I remember a couple of months after that getting emailed by the B school. And they said, we desperately need someone to teach networking because this is our single point, biggest failure point of all of our graduates is the network. And I thought, how funny. All these professors and the career counselors and the recruiters and everybody who works there

and the job, you know, where the rubber meets the road area, they were all like, oh, the networking is just not happening among the students. And all the students were like, we're so good at this. We don't even need to be instructed. And the truth is this isn't taught in business or law school. But then when you get to, let's say, a law firm, the people that make the most money that have the most job security that are able to choose which projects they work on that have the choicest opportunities,

they're the rainmakers. They're the people that generate business. and the way that they do that is they use these types of networking skills. And yet, you'll find that even among those firms that have virtually unlimited resources for training and development, they don't teach this. And I found that the reason now that I'm older and I can ask law partners because I've direct access to them, the reason is because they honestly, most people do not believe this can be taught.

They think you've got certain people that are good at it and certain people that aren't and the ones that aren't good at it. they just come in and they keep their head down and they do the work and the ones that are, well, we rely on them for business. So pay them 10 times as much and make them a partner, you know, a decade earlier than everyone else. Yeah, and that's, you know, you're right. And I'm glad you brought up the, you know, the law profession as an example. I've talked to a lot of lawyers who have this kind of tinfoil hat belief that the reason it's not taught is because, you know, the senior partners only want like a few people to figure it out, right? You know, it's kind of

survival of fittest that, you know, the some, a few people figure out how to become rainmakers and they need all these kind of, you know, lower level attorneys to kind of actually do the work for them. I don't really believe it, believe that's the case. No, me neither. There's no way any boss is like, I want a limited number of people generating business so that if they leave, I'm screwed. That's what I want. No way. Yeah. I think the bigger issue is that this is kind of a a challenge with just kind of, you know, our approach to education as a whole is that we spend so much time focusing on the hard skills, not the soft skills. So, for example, you know, I went to school for computer science and economics and, you know, computer science is all about algorithms and game

theory and, you know, program language A and program language B and, you know, and how to solve this problem, this challenge. But when you got in the real world, you know, those challenges are nothing compared to how do you work in a team? How do you deal with, you know, executives and, you know, build empathy with users and build the right product and test and iterate and refine. And that's almost never taught these days. So, you know, I think, you know, the big challenge out there, even when it came to networking, is that there are so many people that know what to do that have figured out how to build

and strengthen deep relationships. but it's all via years and years of trial and error. And when I ask them even just, you know, all right, well, how would you teach someone how to learn now? They'd say, I don't really know. And that's honestly one of the reasons why we decided to write a book over the past couple of years is because we didn't see anyone really out there teaching. So how do you build a network?

Yeah. And one of the first principles of building and maintaining relationships and networks is consistency. and that's something we've harped on quite a bit. In six-minute networking, it's kind of the foundation of that. The whole point is you spend six minutes a day doing it, instead of spending six days doing it when you get fired in a few years or when you have a crisis in your life

and then you're just doing nothing but that. But relationship marketing or creating consistency in networking as a habit, you can see the impact of relationships in the rearview mirror, but it's really hard to see, understand, realize, any short-term payoff without being transactional, right? Like, you need something, you email people, you get a job. Oh, great, I should do this more often, except I don't need a job, so you never do it again.

We're really stuck in this, as you put it pre-show, tyranny of the urgent, where, look, I've got email, I've got calendar appointments, there's a push notification about this payment thing. I got instant messengers on whatever, text, Facebook, whatever. I'm losing track of what's urgent, let alone what's actually. important. So we have to be intentional about getting important task done, not just urgent things, not just stuff that's in our face, not just the next meeting, but block the time off on our calendar. I don't know, a reward mechanism maybe. What do you do to maintain consistency? Because for me, I actually block off, let's say, an hour on Monday for contactually where I go through an email

people I haven't talked to in a long time. But I'm also doing the six-minute networking stuff where every day I'm texting people in the morning, I'm shooting emails in the morning, I'm blocking off that time to do it because otherwise I know it won't get done. It's like going to the gym. I don't really want to go, right? I have to. And if I don't, over time, I certainly look like I haven't been. But that's the same thing with networking and relationship development.

You know, what else are you doing to generate consistency? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you hit the nail on the head right there when you gave of that gym analogy, right? You know, just like working out in the gym every day, you know, won't make us feel better tomorrow or the day after. In fact, most of the times it makes us feel worse. But, you know, years down the line, it, you know, it makes us feel better. We're fit. You know, we live longer lives.

But when I choose that versus, you know, sitting on the couch eating Netflix and watching ice cream, well, what's going to bring me more value in the short term, right? And so as human beings, you know, were more wired for those short-term gains rather than those long-term gains. And that's honestly the root of our issue. If that weren't the case, and yeah, of course, you know, everyone would be in the gym for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. And, you know, we would no one would ever eat McDonald's anymore because, you know, we'd all just be eating like salads and lean protein all day long.

But the truth is, no, like we're wired for those short terms. And, you know, with relationships, again, the things that will net. benefits for us, they will change our lives amazingly as we've all seen looking backwards, but those won't net results for years to come. And that's really, again, the case scene time and time again. So the question we have to ask ourselves is how do we hack our minds or hack our processes so we're able to do things in the short term that will benefit us for the long term. So a couple of the tricks, yeah, I do really love the idea of time blocking. That's That's probably the most effective thing if you are a calendar-driven person to have that calendar in place to be able to say, all right, this is the time of day where I'm not going to answer the phone.

I'm not going to answer email. All I'm going to do is be proactive with my relationships rather than reacting to whatever push notification is sent at me. The other trick that we find works pretty well is to actually, you know, if you're looking and if your mind is wired for a short-term reward, then great, then give yourself that short-term reward, right? Say, hey, if I, if I, you know, if I reach out to 10 people this morning, then great, I'm going to go down the street and, you know, get that really like, you know, really, you know, full fat, you know, mocha frappuccino or something like that, you know, reward yourself for the, for the work that you've done. And that will kind trick your brain to say, all right, cool, this, I did, I did something and I got a reward.

Now, that reward might be false compared to the real reward that's years down the line, but doing things like that can really work. Other things, you know, consider having an accountability coach. So I've an accountability coach that calls me every Thursday afternoon and will yell at me if I don't do the task that I've laid out. Other things that you can think about is, you know, there is this concept of tiny habits by a behavioral scientist named BJ Fogg. You know, the whole idea is connect something you're always.

already doing with a habit you want to build. So after I open my laptop in the morning, the very first thing I do is I'm going to, you know, send two emails to people I wouldn't otherwise. So there are a number of hacks, but it's all about tricking your brain, for lack of a better term, to do something that won't net you results now, but will pay off in dividends later on down the line. Yes, this I can absolutely understand. I think creating those habits, creating that consistency is key, doing this in a certain amount of time. But how do we not seem transactional when we're doing this? How do we prioritize our relationships in a way that doesn't seem like we're picking favorites

based on who can help us? Or do we do that and just not worry about it? Yeah, I mean, I would say one of the key things is that, you know, there's, there are two aspects of that. I think when it comes to not picking people that, you know, may seem that it's all transactional nature. Again, you know, we have to think about the goals that we're trying to achieve and who the people are that fit those goals. Now, some people may wash out, right? If you have a past client, for example, that you could tell that they were treating you as a transaction, then great.

Maybe that you're, maybe that's the person that you choose not to work with. So they get filtered out of your database. They get filtered out of your mind and out of your lists. So I think there's nothing wrong with being able to selectively filter people. The core idea behind prioritization is when it comes to identifying who among our thousands of LinkedIn connections or among the thousands of inbound email connections or when you're in a room, who do you choose to engage with, you know, we have a tendency as human beings to bring order to the chaos, right? We want to organize the things around us and therefore the people around us. And what we see, seen with years of monitoring usage at Kentucky is it's not about organizing those relationships,

but instead prioritization. So oftentimes we might think we want to organize people around like important people or very important people. Like, for example, I met Mark Zuckerberg. Okay, therefore he's an important person. I should make sure I maintain a relationship with him. but if I were to instead think about my goals and think about what I'm trying to achieve and prioritize around the people that I believe could really be helpful around those goals and I can really be able to provide value to as well, you'd come up with a very different list. So that's why we focus on this whole aspect of prioritization, not organization. I think the key here is also to not forget people that don't have a

readily available sort of value add. So one of the things that we talk about in six minute networking as well, and also on the show here, is that a lot of opportunities are what is called over the horizon, right? So if I meet you somewhere, I'm not like, oh, this guy can help me do something specific. If I find that, then great, yes, I will follow up. But even if I don't find that,

I will still follow up and engage, because since this process is really scalable, And since we've already said, we're going to block off an hour, hour and a half a week to focus on this. You can keep in touch with thousands of people regularly. If you're blocking off, let's say, 60 to 90 minutes a week and doing this in little gaps, doing the six-minute networking stuff. So you don't have to only decide, oh, I'm only going to follow up with people who can get me a job. You can follow up with everyone. You should not be discounting people because you can't see a readily available sort of

transactional value coming back to you, you can focus on the people that you think can help you by maybe following up with them first or if they demand more of your attention, giving it to them because you see a reason to do this. But you should not be ignoring people or not following up with people based on the idea that you can't see what they can do for you because that will bite you in the ass. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, don't get me wrong, right? I don't think that like you should just be like, you know, kind of just robotically saying, will this person help me or not? And kind of, you know, and go kind of choose to toss people in the waste basket based on that. Absolutely not.

But at the same time, you know, I think where we have to be careful is that we want to prioritize our relationships around the people that, you know, will give us the most energy, not necessarily take it away or, you know, however you choose to filter it. So, yeah, you know, you can have thousands of people that you choose to engage with. Some of them honestly might, you might be, you know, keeping to just like stay in touch on social media and, you know, and being their Facebook friend and, you know, keep, you know, checking in with them once every so often if you see something interesting. Whereas on the opposite end, some of them you're reaching out to every couple months.

You know everything about their family. You've gone on trips together. You meet up and really understand what's happening in their business and, you know, how you can help out with them. So yeah, absolutely, right? I mean, Jordan, you probably even saw this, you know, in your own experience, right? You had some people that you had a loose enough relationship where they were like, hey, yeah, listen, you know, let me, you know, refer, you know, let me follow your new show and just kind of see, like, see what Jordan's up to these days, whereas some people were, you know, posting on social, emailing everyone in their database saying, hey, Jordan has

a new show. Whenever they saw links to your old show, they would email the website owner and say, hey, by the way, Jordan has a new show, go here instead. You know, you had some people that, you know, varied the level of, you know, investment. And that is in part because, you know, you were selective in terms of, you know, who you chose to spend more of your time and more of your attention with the round, right? Yeah, that is true. I did have actually a lot of success with fan. One of the reasons we came back was because of the fan engagement, not just people promoting it who were influencers, but those people who said, hey, mom, that show, we always listen to has a new host and we're unsubscribing,

but the host we liked went to the Jordan Harbinger show. So here's the new feed. I mean, that happened a lot and it's still, I still get messages where people are like, hey, I was on a boat trip in South Africa and I came back and you're gone, I'm on your new show now. Thank goodness for Google. I mean, I find that all the time.

I think a lot of people also struggle with how they add value, not just what am I gonna get from other people, but how do I add value to some people? And I've seen a lot, some more effective and others. I was just at a conference for podcasting and somebody literally mailed me like a $5 Starbucks gift card. Super thoughtful, but like kind of, I hate saying this. And if you're, look, if this was you, I appreciate it. And I did say thank you, of course. But it's still, it's a little generic. Something more personalized would have actually been better and cheaper.

Yeah. So one of the real challenges here, and this is where it gets really sticky, is that the whole $5 gift card kind of thing, at the end of the day, like what we're trying to drive is, you know, we're not trying to deliver value per se, you know, alone. You know, if it were value, then yes, I just, you know, literally just open up the mail and just, you know, send everyone 20 bucks on Venmo and say, hey, here you go. Here's value, right? It's really more around the feeling that we're trying to drive.

You at heart of it, we're all social creatures. So I know most people, you know, we talk around, you know, all right, you know, really understand them and understand their business challenges and understand. and understand how you can help them and know, you know about their, you know about their spouse's name and give us and give a gift to them. These are all really, really great things. But let's face it, most of that's really like at a higher, higher level. At core, we're all social creatures. And the core thing we're trying to do is just, hey, show we care, deliver the right feeling. And so I have absolutely no problem if someone, for example, just sends me a quick tax message saying,

Hey, Svi, just thinking about you. That alone is a really valuable experience because I know for that instant, someone truly is thinking about me. And so I think alone, you know, we shouldn't necessarily never engage because we can't figure out the absolute perfect gift to give to someone. It's really thinking about, hey, how do I show that person that I care about them and you deliver them some kind of valuable feeling? You also take notes on people when you meet as well. And I do this as well. I'll take notes on my phone. I also add notes to contact like has a pet pig.

And when I'm looking at the contact, I'm like, oh yeah, that's so random. I'll ask about the pig because I'm sure a lot of people do that. The other thing that we do also cherry picking from six minute networking here is the social media engagement or opportunistic engagement is more like it. David Burke has taught us this in the show. And essentially what this means is, look, if someone has a new baby or gets a new pet or goes on a vacation, we see that in our social media feeds, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. Most people will click like, other people will leave a comment. Instead of doing that, send that person an email or a text. It makes it through that social media filter,

which people like me just can't even really check a lot of the time anymore because there's too much noise to the signal. There's too many emojis to the actual words half the time. But if somebody shoots me a text and it's like, wow, your trip to Africa looked amazing, that's the person who's getting a conversation. I'll remember that. I'm not going to have the same level of intimacy with somebody who commented. on Facebook, wow, this trip looked amazing.

That's more of a thanks, man, or I click like on that comment. We're done. It doesn't turn into a conversation. So don't be afraid to jump away from the place that reminded you, that opportunistic place, because that news feed is doing the sifting for you. It's showing you people in your life who are having important things happen, generally, sometimes not. But it's showing you those people's life events.

Don't feel the need to only reply on that same platform, right? Let the platform do the work and then jump into their email, give them a call, I'll shoot him a text. Yeah. I mean, there are a number of basic tricks that I think, you can allow you to differentiate yourself. So you're right. Switching channels, you know, and differentiating yourself by channels really important. Like, that's why, like, one of the weird things that, you know, a lot of, you know, really, like,

you know, really top, top use of ours requested very early on that we finally built out was handwritten cards. And we're like, really, people send handwritten cards. But I get probably like three or four a week. and it makes such a bigger impact than just like, yeah, yet another Facebook message or, you know, yet another email, right? Not to say that, you know, those are bad per se, but if you're trying to stand out, there are different levels.

One of the other tricks that we also recommend is time shifting to. So, for example, when you see someone changes jobs, well, of course, everyone's, you know, you're almost like pre-determined on LinkedIn to like, oh, open LinkedIn, see a new job. there's a button that literally says, I don't have to type anything that says, congratulate them on the new job. And that's it. Well, instead, well, why don't you put a note in your calendar for 30 days from now to say, hey, check in with them.

It's been 30 days. And when you do even small little things like that that take like, you know, 30 seconds more, that can make such a bigger difference because you're now standing out from the crowd and building a real relationship. That's why I hate to say, I hate the idea of holiday. cards, right? Yes, I think sometimes you just need to do it as a baseline. But, you know, instead of sending out yet another holiday gift or yet another, you know, card that just goes in the pile at the office, you know, be the person that, you know, a week before Valentine's Day, email out your entire

network locally and say, hey, I, you know, I got reservations, you know, six months ago at all these top restaurants, you know, do you want any of these reservations, you know, in case you forgot about them, right? Small little things like that can go a huge, huge way and not cost more, not take too much more time, but really show that value in a very unique way. I hate to say it, but whenever I get something handwritten, I always open it, I always read it. I thought this was the dumbest idea in the world. And maybe it is if it gets overused, but I am in touch with a ton of people, and frankly, I don't get that much handwritten stuff. I really don't. And some people really shine through because they'll send that and they're like, hey, my kid drew you and I'm like,

oh my gosh, it's terrible, right? But, you know, it's still up on the fridge or on the bookshelf. It's kind of funny. I also want to implore people. Look, if you're taking notes on people, that's great. You need to put these things in a database. You need to organize your contacts in a database. I know we're a little biased because, see, you've started contactually and we'll link to that in the show notes because that's what I recommend. But look, if you don't want to buy that, I get it. Google Docs, Airtable, something. You do not use paper, do not just have some note on your phone with people, you'll eventually it'll get so big you'll stop using it. And then you'll either have to stop using it entirely, or you'll have to

digitize it, which you just won't do because it'll take you like four hours and you won't want to do it. So start now and keep it digital. Just trust me on this one. Yeah, and that goes to the whole idea, like one of the key parts of the capital strategy in the book is the L is for leverage. and it's how do you give yourself, like how do you increase the likelihood that you're going to do things later on by giving yourself leverage? So, yeah, listen, I actually know a lot of really great people

that don't need to take notes, you know, that don't need to, you know, keep track of who they're talking to because they have, you know, that, you know, amazing brain. They have like, I think it's called highly superior autobiographical memory, right? You know, they're able to just remember all these amazing things so they can just, you know, reach out to people that they haven't spoken to in six years and act like they spoke to them last week.

Most of us aren't like that. And so, yeah, if a piece of paper really works for you and you're able to make that work, awesome. But yeah, most of us, you know, aren't that effective with that. And so that's where, you know, even an Excel spreadsheet or, you know, Evernote or, you know, a CRM can really come into play. And that's why one of the best tips that I've ever received from one of our customers when we were talking around note taking is he literally told a room of of contactual users to have a small

bladder. And that's kind of a little weird. But like, you know, when he kind of went on to explain it, you know, he was saying that, hey, you know, the next time you're at a dinner or cocktail party or, you know, or something where there's a lot of different people, you know, after every conversation, you know, find some way of breaking away and kind of going off to the side and it can be as easy enough as saying, hey, sorry, I have to run into the bathroom. You know, step to the side and take notes about everything that you just, that you just heard.

And yeah, sure, some people may think, oh, well, something's really wrong with Jordan. But, you know, you're out there taking notes and that becomes incredibly useful fodder, right? You know, most of us completely forget, you know, the small talk around what they're doing with their kids that weekend or the traffic on the way on the way. here or, you know, what they're, you know, what annoyed them that morning. But capturing those small little things, you know, those are the keys to that really allow you to build a deeper and a more authentic relationship. I will say just take notes right there and say, hang on, I'm taking a quick note. I want to remember the name of your pig. Hang on. I'm taking a quick note.

I always want to put people's kids' names in my phone so that I don't forget later and have to ask you 10 times. Like, it's better to do that than to go to the bathroom 14 times in a conversation. Yeah, there's definitely, you know, you may want to not be the go-to-extream of running to the bathroom 14 times. But the thing we have to be careful about is we always want to be present in conversations. And so, yeah, that is actually, I hate to say, where like a piece of paper may work. Like, when I meet with my employees, I notice it's very different if I'm taking notes on a computer versus taking notes on a notepad. Because if I'm taking notes on a notepad, because if I'm taking notes on a notepad. Like they can clearly see what I'm writing and clearly see, okay, they're taking

notes from the conversation. If I have my laptop up in front of them, they're like, oh, he could just be, you know, checking Slack or, you know, checking sports scores or something like that. So you do want to make sure you're present in some way. I agree. Whenever you're writing on paper, you will look like you're taking notes on the conversation. Whenever you're writing on your phone, you look like you're texting. Whenever you're on your laptop, you just look like Gmail, for sure. So I agree with you there. I love the idea of having a small bladder's V. We are, up on time. I really appreciate you coming out, teaching us about networking because this is the core skill that saved my business, saved my butt. I really enjoyed doing it now finally after,

I don't know, 12 years of doing it. And it's just changed everything for me. And I think if people dedicate literally six minutes a day to doing this, it's an absolute life-changing type of thing. And so thank you for this. Thank you for the book. And thank you for making contactually, which helps the process flow in the meantime. Thank you so much for, uh, your support over the years. It's always great to connect with you because I feel like I'm not talking about anything brand new or different. And thanks for your six minute course. You got it. Thank you. Big thank you to Zvi Band. The book title is Success in Your Sphere. Leverage the power of relationships to achieve your business goals. Normally I don't do business-related shows,

but I really love this networking topic. It is near and dear to my heart and is extremely powerful, as we've seen in the last year, just firsthand. And if you want to know how I manage my network, systems, create tiny habits, use and leverage contactually, among other drills and exercises, check out our six-minute networking course, which is free, over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Now, the problem, if you're going to do it later, which I hear all the time, I'm just so busy right now. Oh, I'm getting Chinese object syndrome.

I got to do this. The problem with kicking the can down the road, you can't make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking. So yeah, you're busy with your school, your career, your whatever right now. It doesn't matter. If you postpone this, you do not dig the well before you're thirsty, and I get emails like this all the time, I never did that and look at this bind I'm in now. And it's sort of hard to feel that much sympathy when people say they've been listening for a year and they're in this bind. It's like, well, you knew better.

Once you need relationships, you're too late. The drills take a few minutes per day. This is the stuff I wish I knew 10, 15 years ago. It is absolutely crucial. And it's all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Zvi. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. The show is produced in association with Podcast One,

and this episode was co-produced by Jason Six Degrees of Separation, The Philippo, and Jen Harbinger. Show notes and worksheets are by Robert Fogarty. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Remember, we rise by lifting others. So the fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful. Certainly should be in this episode.

So please share the show with those you love and even those you don't. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format.

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