The NBS
The purpose of the NBS is to minimise the amount of time and effort you have to commit to building your network. BUT as with anything of value, some effort is STILL required, and it needs to be consistent and performed on a daily basis. The reason the NBS is so effective in reducing the time you need to invest in growing your network is that it multiplies your effort and allows for duplication.
The NBS provides a predictable and personal system to help you achieve the results that you seek, including weekly coaching and a culturally aligned environment.
Your part is simply to be teachable, respect the time of your coach (as you will expect the people you are coaching to respect your time), work on maintaining a good attitude and, most importantly, strive to put in a consistent effort.
Weekly Coaching Sessions
Habits make life so much easier! .. so work with your coach to set a time that will work well for both of you. We all have the occasional unexpected things come up that may potentially prevent you from making your pre-defined coaching time.
** NOTE – your coach is busy too. Make sure you respect their time!
Try to stick with your coaching time and if you absolutely can’t make it let them know and ask if they can reschedule to another time. Also, although it’s great to build a relationship during coaching sessions, it is also easy to ramble onto unrelated subjects and take longer to achieve less.
How Do Professionals Get Better at What They Do?
When you begin, it is important to arrange a regular time to catch up on Zoom video / Google Hangouts / the phone with your coach so you aren’t working alone and wasting time on things that don’t produce a result. That being said, it is important that you come prepared for each call so that you make the most of your and your coach’s time.
Take Note ..
Coaching and mentoring should be regarded as a partnership between you and your coach, and is offered voluntarily.
Choose a time that suits both of you and commit to it, as you would with any appointment you might set with a doctor or a client. If you find that the time isn’t working and you are consistently changing or missing your call, then you should re-arrange the sessions to a time that works better.
You are in control of your diary, and your actions will reflect how you are prioritising your and your coach’s time. i.e. Work with an Agenda.
Your first coaching sessions will focus on:
- The value of building a network compared with just networking – This will become increasingly obvious and exciting as you attend more workshops and learn how easy it is to introduce new people to the Connect Collaborative.
- The importance of consistent effort – “fingers to keyboard” – Your coach will help you to set a level of consistent activity that you can maintain, given your current schedule and circumstances and one which will allow you to progress.
Setting up your future
It is critical that you decide how important you believe building your network is for your future. If it is actually ‘very important’, you will always find ways to “make time”.
Many believe that, while building a network is very important, they must first deal with their ‘urgent‘. However, succumbing to the tyranny of the urgent means that life can slip by without you experiencing what is truly Important! … Such as holidays with the family, creating MEMORIES, RELATIONSHIPS and EXPERIENCES – or anything that you really like to do with your time.
Caution! – The “i will when” trap
The activity outlined in the NBS is meant to contribute to both the Urgent AND the Important at the same time and right now!
If you start thinking “I will build my network when I … have more time/ it’s more relevant/ I just finish this / get more clients etc. … then you have misunderstood the purpose of the NBS.
Make sure you speak to your coach!
Solution: Multiply Your Time!
The solution to the battle between your urgent vs. important is to learn how to multiply your time rather than just manage it! The tools of the NBS are there to enable you to do more with what you have right now! Building your network contributes to everything you are trying to achieve – it’s not something ‘extra’ for you to do.
Warning: The following video may contain life-changing “Penny-Drop” moments!
When we see Network Building (multiplication of time and relationships) as being important enough, most of us will find some hours during the week to become consistent network builders.
In many cases, the ‘extra’ time we devote to network building actually saves time in other areas – so it may not be extra time anyway! But given many of us come with a ‘time poor’ mentality, it is worthwhile considering the following advice from Tim Ferris – great advice as you embark on your journey to build your network.
In a recent podcast, Tim Ferris (author of the 4-hour work week) said:
It is my opinion that if you choose one event properly and you build a network there in the right way, in a methodical way that really focuses on long-term mutual relationships, as opposed to transactions … you will never have to network again, ever.
Once you set that ball in motion, it’s like a snowball going down a hill and before you know it, you have this unstoppable Goliath of inertia that can carry you forward for years and, in fact, decades.
Not MORE effort, just Consistent Effort
Building your network is not an all or nothing exercise!
There is room for flexibility.
Especially when you start. The first step is to understand why it is important for you to build your network and from there it is most critical to find a level of consistent daily and weekly effort that you believe you can stick with. To do this,
Hint
Have a conversation with your coach as you go through the ‘Start Here’ tab of your activity sheet so that you can talk about what’s important to you, and they can give you the best advice to achieve it.
How much time is involved?
How long is a piece of string? While no effort is always going to lead to no results, the NBS is not intended to take hours upon hours each day! As a general rule, the time we suggest you invest can be broken into 4 parts:
- 30-45 minute Coaching session each week
- Attending Workshops
- Inviting guests to virtual introductions
- Fingers to Keyboard
1. Weekly Coaching
It is so valuable to you to have someone coaching, encouraging and keeping you accountable – isn’t that why most people engage a personal trainer?
Use the “Agenda” Tab to work through the NBS agenda.
We all need someone to help us do what we know we should and to help us maximise our time. Imagine trying to build your network without any support, all by yourself and with no-one to assist you or point you in the right direction. How much time and energy do you think would be wasted?
The relationship you develop with your coach is valuable because they can:
- help you make the subtle tweaks that can achieve greater results as you progress.
- advocate for you into their relationships; both within and outside the Connect Collaborative events so you can have better conversations and achieve tangible results.
- help you make your guests feel comfortable and introduce them to other people they might know to help build your reputation as a great advocate.
- be a sounding board for your ideas and thoughts.
- point you to resources within the NBS that can help you grow.
Hint
Play nice with your coach as you will want the people you are coaching to play nice with you! Above all else, respect your coach’s time by staying on track and avoid complaining. Your coach is busy just like you, so it’s important to be solution-focused!
The tabs have been created to assist you and your coach with the NBS agenda.
2. Attending Workshops
Being subscribed to the network comes with the invitation to attend the Workshop, which is attended by key network builders who are committed to helping one another achieve tangible practical results. Here you will see the immense value of using the NBS, the great talks, and hear of the tangible results people are achieving as they talk about their good news stories.
One of our goals is to keep expanding the number of people who are deliberately building their network so that there is greater opportunity for us all. The first step to do this is to invite qualified candidates to a virtual introduction the Connect Collaborative (held daily). The Workshop is the platform where you can build your relationship with other collaborators who are building their networks the same as you and alongside you.
In general, we highly encourage everyone to start thinking about solutions rather than seeing problems as being insurmountable – most people can set and maintain some level of consistency.
3. Inviting guests to virtual introductions
The objectives of your call (phone, Zoom or Hangouts) with people you have met on LinkedIn are:
- To determine whether you want to invite the person you are speaking with to an introduction to the CC Zoom, and
- To book you and them into this meeting and follow up afterwards.
4. Fingers to Keyboard
The purpose of the NBS is to teach people how to build their own network by meeting and developing strong, trusted relationships with their digital connections. The NBS does this by enabling you to search for the people you want to meet on social media platforms – like LinkedIn – and inviting them to meet in person at great platforms like the Hub. We call this activity “fingers to keyboard”.
“Fingers to keyboard” time is very flexible and, with the help of your coach, you can work out when you can make it happen around your busy schedule. For example, you could put in 15 minutes after lunch and another 15 minutes late in the evening. It doesn’t matter when you do it, the important thing is to do it!! Your level of planned consistency is one of the main things that your coach will discuss during your first Coaching session.
Hint
We have found that the most effective time to put your ‘fingers to keyboard’ is in the morning before your busy day gets overrun with the ‘urgent’.
Win the morning, win the day!
Getting Started
Downloading an Activity Sheet
An Activity Sheet will have been downloaded as part of your 45-minute getting started session, or you can be proactive and download it beforehand to make the most of your, and your coach’s time on the phone.
However, in some cases, the registration needs to be completed quickly e.g. so that you can attend a workshop.
In this case, your coach will help you download your Activity sheet and go through the ‘Start Here’ tab of your Activity sheet during your first coaching session.
When you download it, take the time to fill out the first section of the Start Here tab so you can talk to your coach about what’s important to you.
The Start Here Tab
It is important that you carefully go through the Start Here tab together with your coach so that you clarify why network building has the power to make your WHY possible. Most of us fail to achieve the lifestyle we’d really like simply because we fail to start with WHY.
Instead, we typically jump to WHAT and HOW.
Typically, the way we’d really like to live will depend on us having enough free time as well as a secure income.
When that is your WHY you tend to look for strategies that will deliver that result in addition to earning enough income to survive comfortably.
Network Building has the ability to multiply your time and leverage your income. That is why we recommend building a network while allowing great ideas to become evident to you. This is far safer than investing heavily in an idea you believe “can’t fail”.
Different thinking for better results!
What’s in your Activity Sheet?
After you have gone through a few more set up steps, you will find your Activity Workbook is one of your most useful tools. We will go into more detail about the specific functionality of your Activity sheet in the coming weeks. In the meantime, following is a quick overview:
The Daily Activity Tab
This tab is used to record your daily fingers to keyboard activity each day, and is broken into:
- Connection request messages sent (message 1)
- Thanks for Connecting messages sent – would you be open to a call? (message 2)
- Call (by phone or Zoom)
- Book suitable candidates in for a virtual “Introduction to the CC”
Potential Partnerships
The Potential Partnerships sheet is very useful for keeping track of the people you have invited to an introduction to the CC and are guiding through the process. The predefined filters are especially powerful to you when you want to view lists of people with varying levels of interest in building their network. This tab will become far more relevant as you start bringing more people to the Hub.
Agenda Tab
Use this tab to follow a basic agenda during your coaching sessions; it will assist in keeping you (and your coach) ‘on-track’.
It can serve as your documentation of progress as you work your way through the NBS, the discussions and overview of topics to be raised with those you are coaching in the future.
Mail Merge Audio Tabs
When you want to stay connected to your network by adding value, these sheets make it easy to send messages with links to talks that might inspire them, help them with some great information and even assist them in understanding the concept of building their network alongside you at the Hub.
Hint
The ‘Mail Merge Audios’ tab contains a vast list of audios that are helpful in moving people forward in your conversation towards collaboration and advocacy, without you needing to be there in person.