Hey, parents join the LA Kings on Saturday, November 25th for an unforgettable kids day presented by Pear Deck. Family fun giveaways and exciting Kings hockey awaits. Get your tickets now at LA Kings dot com slash promotions and create lasting memories with your little ones. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with knowledge, skills, insight and encouragement.

You need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Joshua. I am your host. And today on the show, I want to talk to you about some skills that you can develop that will help you in life, in business and in your finances, but these skills are not hard skills, they're not math skills, and we're not going to talk about a specific financial planning tactic.

Rather, these are soft skills, things that you can use and develop to enhance your career and enhance in the longterm, the outcome that you gain from your work. I generally tend to keep Radical Personal Finance free of current events. Unless they are somehow related to some impending financial news that you need to know, and of course, from time to time, there's some of that, or unless there are valuable lessons in it.

And today we're going to talk about networking and developing influence and how it can help your wealth. But I was inspired to do this based upon recent news events. As I record this episode and release it on Monday, September 30, 2019, there was quite the brouhaha in the United States over the alleged actions of President Trump, as well as the alleged actions of former President Joe Biden.

The details of that are not material to our conversation, except as it relates to the income that politicians can gain from their involvement in politics. My interest is specifically in the story of the son of former President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden. And that story is part of the fact pattern over which is being vigorously debated in the United States over what the son, Hunter Biden, was doing in his work.

Now for context, let me just reference a USA Today newspaper article from October 17, 2014, headline, "Biden's Son Fails Drug Test." Is discharged from Navy. Hunter Biden, the youngest son of Vice President Joe Biden, has been kicked out of the military after testing positive for cocaine. Two people familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The younger son of Vice President Joe Biden failed a drug test for cocaine a month after his commissioning last year into the Navy Reserve and was discharged. Hunter Biden, an ensign, had been selected for commission as a reserve officer through the direct commission officer program in 2012, according to Commander Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman.

He was commissioned into the Navy Reserve Unit for Navy Public Affairs Support Element East in Norfolk, Virginia. Biden, who had no prior military experience, was one of six officers commissioned nationally into the Navy Reserve Public Affairs Division. Skipping one paragraph of platitudes, the incident, two paragraphs, Biden, 44, was discharged from the Navy Reserve in February.

He has worked as a lawyer, lobbyist, and managing partner at the investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners in Washington. He was hired in May to join the board of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine's largest private oil and gas producer, and be in charge of its legal department. A spokeswoman for the vice president declined to comment.

That was from 2014. And the little piece of news that more people today have become aware of, than they were in 2014, 2015, is that Hunter Biden was allegedly, as far as I know, this is not a disputed fact. I guess I should say he was being paid about a salary of $50,000 per month or $600,000 per year in his work for the Ukrainian oil and gas company.

Now, the facts of this case can be disputed depending on what perspective you have. Different people look at it and see different things. I simply want to point to the bare facts. The bare facts are that a man was discharged. It was called an administrative discharge. Some would allege it's a dishonorable discharge, but the man was discharged with something other than honorable discharge from the United States Navy out of a position that he was recently ushered into, which was fairly special.

It wasn't the typical thing you think up with the military, go to bootcamp and work your way up. It was just come on in here and work as a lawyer in this spokes department. A public affairs kind of thing. Discharged from that for drug use and yet was immediately caught by the safety net of a $600,000 annual salary.

Now, if you think about that, that's a fairly unusual experience for most people who go through a similar fact pattern. I had a good friend of mine, similar in age, served in the Navy. In his case, it was a more traditional role. The lower end role was discharged from the Navy for among other things, drug use.

And his life did not go very well after that Navy discharge. He was not ushered into a $600,000 per year job immediately following a less than honorable discharge from the US Navy. There are many people that you know, and that I know whose lives have been turned up upside down for far less than being caught in the Navy using cocaine.

And many of those people, unfortunately never recover from such a thing and they never recover financially. So the question is this, what's the difference between Hunter Biden's experience and my friend's experience? The basic facts were similar. Discharged from the Navy after drug possession and drug use, but the ending result and the luxury of that result was extremely different.

In the one case, my friend ended up barely getting a job working in the kitchen of a pizza hut as compared to Hunter Biden, immediately ushering, being ushered into a job making $600,000 per year. Well, there are a lot of things we can discuss. We can discuss the rules that apply to the elites versus the rules that apply to those who are not part of the elite.

There's some other directions we could go, but I just, we want to focus on the power of a network and try to talk to you about how you may be able to build this for yourself while hopefully not being involved in the seedy side of politics. We can see from politics that if somebody is able to build a network and develop influence, they can leverage that influence into financial gain.

It is very hard to find in the United States of America, probably in most countries, it is very hard to find a politician who achieves prominence and notoriety, who is not financially set for life through a variety of means. Now that can be the flat out illegal thing of directly selling influence.

It can be the obvious immoral thing of just simply adjusting things based upon those who lobby, but not illegal, based upon those who make campaign contributions to you, et cetera. Or it can be just softer things. Have you developed access and influence? And so you leave office and go and join the board of this company and generate your salary there through your boardship director and just simply make some introductions, things like that.

You can talk about insider trading and there are lots of ways that you can profit off of politics, but it's very hard to find a prominent politician who does not become very wealthy during and after their time in political service. Now they do exist. It's hard to find on a presidential level.

I think the last president who didn't abuse their position was probably Harry Truman, famously avoided the limelight. But at this point, being a president or former president is pretty much a ticket to a very high income post-presidency, six-figure speeches and beyond. President Obama famously got, I think, a $65 million book advance for his most recent book.

President Bush has been more quiet, but still gives six-figure speeches. Former President Bill Clinton gave a series of speech, about a dozen or 15 speeches at about $500,000 each. So the public speaking circuit is very profitable. The writing circuit is very profitable. But this also extends to the children of former politicians.

We see the example from Hunter Biden. You can think back and Chelsea Clinton, for example, a few years ago was announced as being a board member on Expedia. Now think about this, think about what you know of Chelsea Clinton and ask yourself, what does Chelsea Clinton bring to the board of Expedia?

Now, I don't know. I don't know what she's done. I don't know what she studied. Maybe she's become a tremendously competent businesswoman and is really amazing, but it was reportedly that reported that they're paying her $300,000 a year to sit on the board of Expedia. That's not an insubstantial salary for someone to earn when that person is at least not publicly known for being an incredibly bright businesswoman who's able to turn company profits around.

Going back prior to that Expedia announcement, Chelsea Clinton was brought on with a job with NBC as a special part-time correspondent and was reportedly paid $600,000 per year for her work there to produce some occasional feel good news stories. Probably a normal compensation was, if you go back to the news stories at that time, normal compensation, more like a hundred to $200,000.

Well, she was paid $600,000 per year. Last we pick on the Clintons too much, the Bushes, similar, similar things. The daughter of former president George W. Bush, Jenna Bush Hager reportedly paid $4 million for her work in the TV business. Her sister $4 million per year for her sister, Barbara Pierce Bush, a little bit more private, less in the public eye, but still extremely effective and productive currently reportedly.

Of course, you never know how these things are, are because of the public. There's not reporting requirements, individual private people's net worth, but reportedly has a net worth of something like $5 million at this point as a young woman. So she's been able to profit off of that. She gives keynote speeches and famously a few years ago, headlined for planned parenthood at a keynote keynote speech event there.

And so I don't know what she was paid for that. I don't know if anyone has ever to able to find out those details. I don't know if she did a pro bono, but it's not unusual for someone in that position to make several tens of thousands of dollars for such an event.

And, you know, former president Obama's children are still young, but they will, as they go through their elite college path and whatnot, they will emerge and they will be well taken care of for their careers. And of course, president Trump's children, the same thing will happen in the coming years.

So it's extremely obvious for presidents and it applies to lesser degrees to other people as well. So here's let's move past the seedy side. Cause I have no interest in politics. I have no interest in getting you to go into politics. I, it is important for me to cover the show is called radical personal finance.

And yes, you could become a, a multimillionaire and assure the future of your children by going into politics, but you often will have to sell your soul. Maybe there's a few people who don't sell their souls, but you will have to sell your soul. It's a seedy, disgusting business.

And what does it profit a man if he gained the whole world and yet forfeit his own soul? I see nothing. But are there lessons that you can learn from that and apply to your own life? And my answer is yes, because at the end of the day, developing social capital as one of the forms of capital to develop is not in and of itself wrong.

It's not in and of itself immoral. In fact, it's extremely important. And essentially what politicians do is simply on a large level, what you and I should do in our local communities. The difference is of course, that politicians do it through the levers of the government, which has a monopoly on force.

You and I have to do it and should choose to do it by being those who are committed to nonviolence and non-coercion. You and I do it through persuasion and influence rather than force. I want to talk to you about how you can develop skills of networking and influence.

If there are crimes that are developed or that are actually committed, I don't know if there are or not by politicians. Usually it's a matter of leveraging influence. And sometimes that's a direct payment for services. You made this payment and funneled the money through to me in some way that passes the smell test.

And then we find over here that this thing happened that treated you well. And this happens every day. All big major companies have their lobbyists on Capitol Hill. They're constantly involved in saying, how can we tilt the laws in our favor? And wealthy people, et cetera, do exactly the same thing.

But from your and my perspective, the right way to do this is to think about how can I be of service to the people that I serve? How can I help them? And one of the ways that you can help them is by developing influence, by developing the way to serve people so that it creates loyalty among your customers and your clients so that in helping them in the long run, you'll be able to help yourself.

Zig Ziglar's old saw, you can have everything in life that you want. If you just help enough, other people get what they want. I myself am trying to get everything I want in my life by helping you get what you want in your life. I'm trying to build financial freedom and impact and influence for myself by helping you to do that for yourself.

So at the end of the day, we're all doing about the same thing. When most people go into networking, they think of networking in terms of this kind of glad-handed go into an event, you know, some kind of local chamber of commerce event, how are you? Who are you?

Kind of a smarmy thing. Now, it's not that that stuff isn't helpful. Of course, smarmy-ness is not. My experience though has been that people who are really good in that context aren't actually smarmy. But rather good networking goes beyond and it goes to the point of service. How do you serve people?

And so if we take the lesson of saying, if I can develop influence for myself and for my family, that I can set the safety net under myself and my children so that if my child gets discharged from the Navy for cocaine possession, they're quickly ushered into a $600,000 per year job, that's a really useful thing as a parent to have as a backup plan if you're trying to help your child versus they're going to go and become a cook in a Pizza Hut kitchen.

That's going to be the difference based upon how effectively you develop your networking skills or even for yourself. How can you set things up so that if you appear on the front page of a newspaper for some scandalous thing that you've done, and then some months later, you're trying to put your life back together, you need a job.

Can you pick up the phone and get yourself a job? Now, to give you some practical advice, I want to read you a few pages from the introduction of a book that influenced me deeply years ago called Networking with the Affluent and Their Advisors. This book was a book written by Thomas Stanley, Dr.

Thomas Stanley, most famously the co-author of The Millionaire Next Door, and then associated follow on books. But he wrote a series of books before The Millionaire Next Door that are very poorly known. One was called Networking with the Affluent, one was called Selling to the Affluent, and one was called Marketing to the Affluent.

But when I was a young financial advisor, I was studying this topic because, of course, if you're a financial advisor, you want to work with the affluent. And the workbook, and I didn't know, I wasn't a good networker. I didn't know how to do it. I never liked the how are you, who are you's at the cocktail parties.

It just wasn't my scene. And I always thought there's got to be a better way. And so this book was particularly helpful to me. And I want to share a few pages from the introduction because it lays out the basic premise of the book, and there are things that you can add to your own life to be one who helps and serves the affluent, and there are things that you can do to help and serve other people that will generate additional influence for you.

In the book, he spends a lot of time, Stanley spends a lot of time talking about the things that the affluent value most and how to then engage with those. But he lays out basically eight different types of networking to do. And he covers these each in long chapters with long lists of examples, et cetera.

But in the first, in the introduction, he talks about the basic types of fate or faces he calls them of people who help the affluent and how that helps their own business. I'm going to read you these descriptions of the eight faces of those who effectively network with the affluent.

And as I'm reading them, I want you to think about your life with those that you serve. My job is to serve you, but your job is to serve your customers and think about how you can do these more effectively with your customers, the people that depend on you so that you could develop political influence in your community so that you could develop social capital in your community so that you could develop that social safety net, which will serve you and your children well in your time of need.

And then at the end, if you find this interesting, I think you should pick up a copy of Dr. Stanley's book, in my opinion, is probably his least appreciated book. Um, but one of the most useful, the eight faces of networking. Networkers can influence the influential in eight ways.

This book discusses these eight faces or dimensions underlying influence networks. The following chapters contain case studies of some of America's top rated networkers. Most of these networkers employ more than one of the eight dimensions. However, each is classified according to the major dimension of influence that he or she utilizes.

The extraordinary networker described in chapter eight actually employs all eight dimensions. However, his major dimension of influence is that of someone who saves considerable money for clients and prospective clients. He does so by negotiating the purchase of expensive automobiles and homes for them. Face one, the talent scout. Most affluent individuals are either successful self-employed business owners or self-employed professionals.

They are in constant search of quality suppliers. Now consider for a moment, the number of quality suppliers that sales and marketing professionals prospect, productive networkers come into contact with hundreds, even thousands of suppliers each year, why not act as a talent scout for clients and prospects? They will appreciate the efforts of networkers who play this role.

However, truly enlightened networkers focus their energies when playing this role. They provide talent scout services to people who influence large numbers of affluent prospects. By targeting in this way, a young sales professional recently gained the endorsement of a millionaire who headed an important trade association. This sales professional, a financial consultant successfully targeted important opinion leaders who represented the most affluent industries within his trade area.

How is this accomplished? He established an industry advisory council that provided top notch speakers to these affluent affinity groups, free of charge, the council also made available the names of top ranked suppliers and industry experts to members of the trade association. The experts he provided included leaders in such fields as advertising, estate planning, commercial real estate, marketing, public relations, production management, and materials procurement.

How was this sales professional rewarded for referring these top suppliers to industry leaders and other prospects and clients? His revenue was enhanced. The main topic of chapter three, the suppliers felt indebted to him and many of them became his clients. Within 14 months, he was no longer a six hour per day, cold calling low level producer.

He is now viewed as a talent scout, an investment expert by members of one of the most affluent affinity groups in America. Most recently, he was asked to manage the investments of a trade association that represents thousands of affluent members. Chapter two contains several important concepts regarding the way in which a high grade networker generated significant sales volume via the talent scout strategy.

In addition, a portion of chapter eight details the talent scout activities of the ace of aces of networking. His list of talent suppliers has 80 categories. So phase one is the talent scout. And I'll interrupt the reading to simply say that if you can be one who helps other people find the people and resources that they need, you will generate for yourself political influence and you can do it in a nonviolent, non-coercive way.

Phase two, the revenue enhancer. What is the most powerful method of influencing those who influence many other affluent prospects? As a general rule, it is the discussion of networking called revenue enhancement. Ask most successful business owners, professionals, and other self-employed prospects this simple question. What is your number one need?

Most will answer revenue enhancement. Given a choice, would these prospects prefer to patronize a supplier who provides only a core product or service? That is the basic or conventional offering or one who provides more than the core? Dull, normal truck dealers offer only trucks. Unenlightened accountants offer only accounting services.

Run-of-the-mill attorneys offer only legal advice and so on. Truly gifted suppliers, however, offer more than the core. For instance, consider the truck dealer who goes out of his way to find business and customers for his clients. Also note the business generated by Father Fred, a construction equipment dealer who lives by the networkers' creed.

You can't sell construction equipment to contractors who have no contracts. Father Fred is a master of networking via the revenue enhancement mode. This strategy accounts for a major portion of his own revenue. Prospects have sought him out. Influential clients have gone out of their way to refer business to him.

Why? Because he enhanced their revenue. He is in constant contact with major contractors who employ his customers. Most of Father Fred's customers are subcontractors. On their behalf, he debriefs contractors about their needs for subcontractors. Thus, Father Fred creates his own demand. He enhances the demand for his clients' offerings.

In turn, the enhanced demand for those offerings enhances the demand for Father Fred's construction equipment. There are thousands of equipment dealers in America, but there are only a few Father Freds. If you needed equipment, what type of dealer would you seek? Revenue enhancement is not limited to the construction industry.

Look at the case of a truly enlightened auto dealer in Texas. To target top sales professionals from the investment industry, he networked with a regional sales manager from a brokerage firm. The sales manager referred his top producers to the auto dealer. Why? Because the auto dealer enhanced the sales manager's revenue.

The auto dealer not only referred his top suppliers to the sales manager, he also sent the sales manager the names of people who had recently been awarded major construction contracts in Texas. Almost all of these winners had bids in the over $1 million category. How did the auto dealer obtain this information?

He once asked a euphoric customer why the customer had just purchased a top of the line model. The answer was quite simple. I just won a major construction contract. He then asked the customer another question. Auto dealer. Sir, is there any publication that lists all of the people in your business who won construction contracts?

Customer. Why, yes. Read the big one section in the weekly publication called the Texas Contractor. It lists a dozen or more big winners each week. Not far from the city where this took place, another revenue enhancing networker, a young financial consultant, recently landed a $15 million account. His client was the owner of a successful welding company.

When this financial consultant first visited the owner, what did he say? Two of my most important clients own hundreds of oil drilling platforms. They're looking for a welding company to service their platforms. I would like to put you in touch with them. Both owners of oil drilling platforms did in fact hire the welding company.

And in turn, via the revenue enhancement strategy, the owner of the welding company opened a major account with the financial consultant. In another case of revenue enhancement, a young sales professional enhanced the business of major suppliers to the food industry. These suppliers included leading industry experts on such matters as advertising, public relations, marketing, business valuation, estate planning, production, planning, and commercial real estate.

How did the sales professional identify these experts? They all published articles in the top food industry trade journals. When the sales professional in this case first prospected owners of food companies, they often said, at the moment, I don't need what you're selling. His response was quite simple. What are your most pressing needs?

If the prospect stated that he needed an advertising agent, the sales professional made a referral to the advertising agent who was published in the trade journal. The advertising agent reciprocated by opening an investment account with the sales professional and by referring his food industry clients to the sales professional.

The top networker who employs a revenue enhancing strategies once stated, the most important thing you can do to convert a prospect into a client is to say, give me a stack of your business cards. I have many clients who are likely to buy from you. Revenue enhancing methods are simple, logical, and highly productive.

Why then do sales professionals use them so infrequently? Because these professionals lack empathy for the real needs of prospects. Fortunately, that empathy can be acquired. Revenue enhancement is the central topic of chapter three. Phase three, the advocate. The affluent in America typically agree with the following statement. Although thousands of well-qualified accountants, attorneys, architects, financial consultants, bankers, and other types of professionals can provide basic services, few of these professionals have demonstrated any interest in supporting the causes that are really important to me.

The two service professionals described in this section are skilled in their respective disciplines, however, their success in generating endorsements from key patronage opinion leaders is explained not only by their core skills, but also by their advocacy of the needs and rights of their targeted audiences. Mr. Allen is a successful financial consultant.

He helps clients and prospective clients by providing them with quality financial advice and investment management services, but he also plays the role of advocate. Take a recent situation as an example. One of Mr. Allen's best clients is a timber grower. This client owns thousands of acres of high grade forest and periodically harvests timber from various tracts, but the client's livelihood is being threatened.

Mr. Allen discovered this because he is a strategic reader of the editorial sections of both local and national newspapers. Recently, he read a letter to the editor of his metropolitan newspaper that proposed banning the harvesting of timber in the state. This completely one-sided letter was written by an advocate of woodpeckers rights, the letter stated that keeping woodpeckers in the forests was of more importance than the needs of landowners.

In a letter to the editor of the same newspaper, Mr. Allen advocated a more balanced approach to the issue. He pointed out that earning a living was a basic democratic right and that "not even timber people are exempt from having to feed and clothe their children." Mr. Allen mailed copies of his letter to all the timber growers and trade association officers listed in "Who's Who in Timber" and to selected lawmakers and clients.

He attached this note to each copy that he mailed to members of the timber industry. "I trust the enclosed letter will help your cause. If I can be of any further assistance to you and your colleagues, please let me know. I'm a strong supporter of the rights of business owners.

Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated. Please call or write me." Several timber growers called Mr. Allen to thank him for his kind support. All of the others took his telephone call immediately or returned the call within a day or two. Several eventually became his clients. A steady stream of prospective clients has been referred to him by the timber growers listed in "Who's Who in Timber." How many other professionals who service the members of "Who's Who in Timber" played the role of advocate?

According to Mr. Allen, the answer is zero. And only Mr. Allen reaped the benefits that advocates receive. He has been endorsed as an outstanding financial advisor and asset manager by an increasing number of industry opinion leaders. Mr. John is a landscaper whose case history is similar to Mr. Allen's.

Although only in his mid twenties, Mr. John is already an accomplished networker and marketer of his services. As an example of his high level of networking, consider his recent role as an advocate of the rights and freedoms of senior citizens. During a recent visit to his grandfather, Mr. John learned that his grandfather was quite upset by an article that had appeared in the local newspaper.

The article argued that seniors were unable to operate motor vehicles safely and suggested that they be required to take a driver's test every year. Yet the author of the article provided no hard statistical evidence to support his contentions. On behalf of his grandfather and all the other seniors who operated motor vehicles in the community, Mr.

John wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper. The letter advocated the right of seniors to retain their driving privileges and provided statistical evidence documenting the ability of seniors to drive in a safe and prudent manner. That evidence was gathered and disseminated to seniors by the state's mature citizens association.

Mr. John sent copies of his letter to all of the senior citizens among his clients and closed with the letter was this note, most of my clients are seniors. I really appreciate your business and hope that the enclosed letter will help your cause. A copy of Mr. John's letter was placed in his firm's new business development dossier, also known as a promotional packet.

The letter was also published in three area based newsletters to which seniors subscribed Mr. John's trade areas in the center of affluent retirement communities. And when Mr. John's firm submits a written proposal to the managers of these communities, it encloses something that none of his competitors can match. Mr.

John's letter to the editor, which documents his role as an advocate of the causes of senior citizens. Mr. John also provides free landscaping services to two rest homes for underprivileged senior citizens. This contribution is noted in his dossier. Mr. John is quite frank about his view of landscapers. He will tell you that scores of qualified landscapers within his trade area are skilled in the development and decorative planting of gardens and grounds.

Beyond this core service, however, only Mr. John distinguishes himself as an advocate of his target market. Chapter four details several examples of the advocacy role played by innovative networkers. Phase four, the mentor. Many top grade networkers play the role of mentor for clients. But only a much smaller number have been clever enough to play that role for the entire membership of an affluent affinity group.

Bart Carr is one of them. He is the mentor to the members of several dental societies. Mr. Carr is not just a financial planner. He is also a skilled business consultant. His consulting specialty is enhancing the productivity of professional practices. How did Bart establish himself as a mentor to dentists?

He asked the various officers of the endodontist society and other key informants, this all important question. What do endodontists really need? Interestingly, Mr. Carr's survey of key members proved that financial planning and insurance services were not at the top of his target audience's list of needs. What issues were at the top of the list?

Two of the most important were one, how to make the dental practice more productive. Two, how to value or sell the dental practice. Mr. Carr proposed to the leaders of the endodontist profession that he and another expert conduct seminars on these issues. He persuaded the nation's leading expert on valuing and selling dental practices to conduct seminars with him, not by offering to sell him life or disability insurance, but by offering exactly what the expert needed, an opportunity to address thousands of prospective clients.

To date, thousands of endodontists have heard their message, a message from mentors. This is why so many endodontists have sought Mr. Carr's advice concerning financial and insurance matters. Would this have happened if he did not first position himself as a mentor to the leaders, the society, and the rank and file of the endodontist profession?

No, is the answer he gave to this question. But Mr. Carr is not the only networker who has served as a mentor before receiving the benefits gained by mentors. A young top producing financial consultant recently asked me to send an autographed copy of my book to the owner manager of a luxury automobile dealership.

I asked him why he was being so kind. He told me that he had developed an interesting method of generating new business. He conducts selling to the affluent seminars for selected automobile dealers and their sales professionals. In essence, his task as a mentor is to teach clients and prospects how to fish.

At the end of each of these seminars, this financial consultant has given time to lecture on investment related topics. Each time he converts a dealership owner into a client, he asks, "Do you know any other dealers who might benefit from my services?" A financial planner is even more resourceful.

He had the courage, intellect, and audacity to network with the regional sales manager for a manufacturer of luxury automobiles. What was the theme of his letter? "According to a recent newspaper report, the public views most automobile salesmen as being unprofessional." Copy of trade article enclosed. People in my industry have long faced the same problem.

Along these lines, I conduct seminars on how to put professionalism back into selling. I'm sure your dealers could benefit from my message. I have been a mentor to many people who today are truly sales professionals. Hopefully we will be able to discuss these and related issues in person. I will call your office next week." The regional sales manager did not wait until next week.

He took the initiative of contacting the mentor in this case. Why? Because the mentor offered to help solve a major problem facing him and his industry. Yes, it is often productive for sales and marketing professionals to become mentors to influential people. Most networkers are by definition influential. So consider the value of becoming a mentor to networkers.

This is truly a worthwhile vocation. The Dean of Networking, the Networker of Networkers, is Ms. Jeannie Johnson of Dallas, Texas. A recent news release featured her contribution to this growing field. "Jeannie Johnson may not have invented networking, but she perfected it. In February of 1988, Jeannie left her own investment advisory firm and concentrated on networking full-time.

She started a company called CEO Network. CEO Network's mission was to enhance the professionalism of networking as a potentially unlimited means of generating business. With the capitalization provided by member dues, many new and exciting networking concepts were initiated. In just three years, over $24 million in new sales were generated among the members of CEO Network.

Networking works. A network group is a marvelous asset for each member. The group commits to helping members generate clients. Members actually become a prospecting force for each other." Why does the Johnson system of networking produce good results for its members? Because Ms. Johnson actually custom designs each networking group.

For instance, take a moment to place yourself inside the shoes of a CPA who wishes to target surgeons. Ms. Johnson will recruit members who can help in this regard. She will find non-competing professionals and other types of suppliers for a network group. But not just any non-competing professionals and suppliers.

The members she recruits will already have many clients and customers who are surgeons. And ideally the CPA will already have a client or contact base that he will share with the other members of his network. It is Ms. Johnson's hands-on approach that makes her networking system so productive. Her proactive role as a mentor to affluent networkers also bears fruit for the Johnson system.

As a direct result of her personal efforts, many influential people go out of their way to refer business to her. As an example of high caliber mentoring, consider the following case study of how a Johnson network operates. The plastic surgeon in the network gave a lead regarding a vineyard owner to the network's commercial real estate agent.

The real estate agent helped the vineyard owner select a site for a wine shop with a tasting room in Dallas. After choosing the wine shop location, the real estate agent passed the lead to the network's advertising agent, who in turn recommended its printer and its property and casualty insurance agent.

Each network member landed the vineyard owner's business. The vineyard owner was happy dealing with vendors who knew one another and cared about his success. The members of the network felt that it had put forth a collective effort from which all of them benefited. All the members of this network are taught by their mentor to give first rather than to receive first.

Most people fail in their attempts to network because they violate this procedure. Chapter five details the strategies of several mentors. Phase five, the publicist. Generating publicity and related endorsements for others is often more important than promoting oneself. This view is part of John Gorslein's philosophy of doing business. It is one of the major reasons that Mr.

Gorslein is regarded by many as the premier supplier of life and disability insurance to world-class race car drivers. The concept of insuring high-risk athletes is a very interesting one. It is especially interesting to the reporters who cover auto racing. Many of them have written feature articles about Mr. Gorslein's commitment to insuring race car drivers.

Such articles have appeared in Auto Week, On Track, USA Today, The Detroit News, The Montreal Gazette, and The New York Times. In the 17 paragraphs of The New York Times devoted to telling the Gorslein's story, the reporter posed an interesting question. Quote, "Who in his right mind would sell a policy to someone who makes his living weaving through traffic at speeds that often exceed 200 miles per hour?" John Gorslein is one who does.

In fact, the Rochester-based insurance broker specializes in life and disability coverage for racing drivers. The key to Gorslein's success is the individual approach he takes to assessing risk. Insurance companies customarily evaluate and rate the riskiness of whole categories of people. But Gorslein has persuaded several underwriters to insure his clients on a person-by-person basis.

Close quote. But person-by-person evaluation is not the only reason for Mr. Gorslein's success. Many world-class race car drivers refer their peers, other colleagues, and up-and-coming drivers to Mr. Gorslein. Why? When these world-class drivers were novices, he helped them with more than their insurance needs. He went out of his way to endorse them.

He made important referrals on their behalf to writers, reporters, sponsors, team owners, and race car owners. In fact, several of the top race car drivers in this country will tell you that Mr. Gorslein helped them obtain their so-called "rookie test." Passing this test is required to obtain a race car driver's license.

Mr. Gorslein has very close ties within the car racing community. He serves on several important boards that represent the car racing industry. But perhaps most important in terms of networking, he is a key source for the car racing media. He goes out of his way to supply ideas, wisdom, and case studies to various reporters.

In essence, many members of the press rely on him for provocative case studies and new ideas for their articles. Many members of the car racing media are in Mr. Gorslein's debt. He always makes himself available to the press for interviews and debriefing sessions. In regard to the car racing circuit, he is a cosmopolitan man.

Last year, he logged over 300,000 miles flying to car races all over the world. He also spends considerable time debriefing other key informants about current events in car racing. Mr. Gorslein is an information and influence conduit within the car racing industry. So when he endorses a novice driver to the car racing press, sponsors, and other important players in the industry, that driver is likely to be recognized as a future superstar.

Interestingly, Mr. Gorslein does not limit his endorsements to his clients. In fact, he endorses any driver who he feels has exceptional talent. His integrity in this regard is one of the most important reasons for his success in networking. It took Mr. Gorslein many years of hard work and dedication to become a distinguished member of the car racing community.

Do all sales and marketing professionals have to wait for years before they can benefit from networking via the publicist role? No. Several of the successful publicists mentioned in chapter six are relative newcomers to networking. Phase six, the family advisor. Most accountants, bank credit officers, financial planners, financial consultants, and life insurance agents can estimate the costs that clients are likely to incur in providing their children with a college education.

But funding may not be the major issue in this matter. Some children of the affluent do not generate good high school grades. Thus they may be unable to gain admittance to the college of their choice. Developing an investment plan for funding Johnny's college education makes little sense if Johnny cannot get into college.

Several innovative networkers therefore play the role of family advisor to affluent families by helping them get into college. Chapter seven addresses this and other problems that the affluent family may face. The problems include the wish of children to move back home after completing their undergraduate or graduate programs, the drug or alcohol dependency of children or other family members.

The wish of grandparents to move into the home of a son or daughter, the inability of adult children to provide for the education of their offspring. The conflict of children or grandchildren over the allocation of the proceeds from the liquidation of the family business. At the very least, networkers can help families solve these problems by referring them to skilled specialists, thus playing a role akin to that of the talent scout.

Influential clients will go out of their way to endorse the networkers who helped Johnny to get into college. The role of family advisor is also discussed in a section of chapter eight. Phase seven, the purchasing agent. Even extraordinary sales, marketing, and new business development professionals never fully utilize their skills and inherent talent.

This statement holds especially true for the dimension of networking that relates to acting as a purchasing agent for clients. Do you want to attract and retain an increasing number of important clients? Do you want to influence opinion leaders of the affluent? Do you want these opinion leaders to go out of their way to refer affluent prospective clients to you?

If your answer to all of these questions is yes, then consider playing the role of purchasing agent. If you're even moderately successful in selling, you are by definition an accomplished negotiator. Selling is in essence, negotiating. Each year you negotiate the sale of your offering with hundreds, perhaps thousands of clients.

Are you tired of always playing the role of seller? Why not reverse that role from time to time? Act as a buyer, working on behalf of clients, prospective clients, and other influential people. What is the most distinctive role played by marketing professional, whom I designated as the ace of aces of networking?

He often acts as an informal purchasing agent for clients. See chapter eight. Follow his lead. How can you acquire the knowledge you need to become an astute buyer? You already have it. List the tactics that your toughest clients and prospective clients employed when you negotiated with them as a seller.

Use these tactics when you make purchases for clients who are not skilled buyers. Compare your skills and experiences with those of your clients. Most of them lack your skills in relating to people. And many of them don't have the time, interest, or courage needed to ask sellers for a so-called better deal.

Most of your clients are not seasoned buying professionals. Yet these clients often make both personal and business purchases. Many of them lose thousands of dollars each year by cutting bad deals. Describing his own experiences with such clients, the ace of aces of networking notes that many of my clients find it demeaning to ask the seller for a discount.

This applies to the purchases of everything from expensive homes, luxury automobiles, commercial real estate, even businesses. That's where I come in. I offer my skills free of charge as an informal purchasing agent. It's a lot easier to negotiate on behalf of a client than to negotiate even for yourself.

I have saved my clients thousands and thousands of dollars. It is just part of my commitment to clients. There is another benefit of being a purchasing agent for clients. How difficult is it for a client to ask you to reduce your fees? It may be very difficult if you recently saved the, that client's $70,000 by negotiating the purchase price of a home offered at $1.1 million.

Not long ago, the ace of aces of networking cut this deal for an influential client. No, the client never asked him for a discount on his fee, but he did refer several important prospects to him. Whom would you like to represent you? A professional who provides only the very basic service or one who will negotiate aggressively and wisely on your behalf.

Chapter eight provides a profile of the best networker in the context of a summary of the eight faces of networking. While this networker often acts as a purchasing agent for clients, he also plays the seven other roles. Face eight, the loan broker. Mr. W. Robert Williams is no ordinary attorney.

He is a senior partner of a highly successful law firm. Mr. Williams will tell you that he owes his success to providing clients with more than mere legal advice. Take for example, some of his recent exploits in the role of loan broker. Keep in mind that credit is one of the most important needs of affluent business owners and professionals.

Recently, Mr. Williams contacted the publisher editor owner of a fledgling trade journal directed to owners of family businesses to propose that the journal publish his article on estate planning. However, before discussing his own objective, he debriefed the publisher and discovered that the trade journal was suffering from growing pains.

Although the journal clearly had significant potential for making considerable profits, it was in dire need of a short-term credit infusion. Two local banks had turned down the publisher's loan applications. Another financial institution had agreed to lend him money, but he felt that the loan rate and the origination fees were far too high, Mr.

Williams is highly skilled negotiator and networker offered the publisher his assistance in obtaining a loan at a competitive rate, he said. I often help my clients obtain competitively priced loans. I do it all the time. I work with over a dozen enlightened bank officers. I send them a lot of business.

They owe me a lot of favors. So they rarely turned down an application that has my endorsement. If they turned down someone I recommend, I never send them any more business. And they know I'm a man of my word. As a result of Mr. Williams' loan brokering activities, the publisher obtained a short-term loan four days after applying for it.

In fact, several financial institutions competed against one another in attempting to obtain the publisher as a client. Mr. Williams also benefited from this arrangement. The publisher had Mr. Williams' firm develop an estate plan for him. Eventually the publisher also endorsed Mr. Williams and the firm to all of his major suppliers, printers, office equipment dealers, media sales representatives, graphic designers, and so on.

And perhaps most important, the publisher proposed that Mr. Williams write a series of short articles about the estate planning needs of owners of family businesses. And a column responding to readers' questions about such topics as minimizing estate tax, transferring the family business to the next generation, and dealing with insurance and estate tax liabilities.

The publisher also invited Mr. Williams to share his booth at his industry's National Trade Association meeting. At that meeting, Mr. Williams' theme once again was, "Ask the expert about your estate planning needs." How should Mr. Williams have responded to the publisher's proposals? How would you have responded if you had been in his position?

Today, more than 10,000 owners of family businesses subscribed to the once struggling trade journal. Several thousand people attend the industry's National Trade Association meeting as a regular contributor to both the journal and the trade association meeting, Mr. Williams can invite other non-competing networking professionals to get access members of his targeted affinity group.

In this way, he can give visibility to top-notch accountants, public relations experts, marketing consultants, and so on. Mr. Williams' networking efforts are not limited to for-profit organizations. When he moved into a new home several years ago, Mr. Williams also changed churches. He contributed his talent and skills to his new church.

The minister asked him to serve on its executive committee. The executive committee consists of more than 150 church members, most of whom are successful self-employed business owners and professionals. The church's credit problems were discussed during the first executive committee meeting that Mr. Williams attended. The church had an outstanding million dollar note.

This loan was used to complete the church's youth center. The interest rate on the note was well above the current norm. However, the minister informed the executive committee that the lending institution holding the note absolutely refused to lower the interest rate. After the executive meeting, Mr. Williams obtained the minister's agreement to arrange another meeting with the officers of the lending institution.

He accompanied the minister to this meeting. Within 10 minutes, the church was no longer burdened with an unconscionable interest rate on the note. Why did the lending institution lower its interest rate? Mr. Williams explained to its officers that he had contacted several other lenders and that two of them were already committed to lending the church money at one over prime.

One of these lenders happened to be the major competitor of the lending institution. Thus, Mr. Williams' network of sensitive lenders contributed to a higher cause. Mr. Williams was ultimately rewarded for his efforts. To date, more than two dozen members of his church have become clients of his firm. Positive word of mouth endorsements spread very rapidly through tightly knit affluent affinity groups.

But what was the cornerstone of the rapid diffusion of positive information about Mr. Williams? Remember that people will go out of their way to endorse you if you do things that go beyond the core offering. During a recent executive committee meeting, the minister told the members, "I have some important news.

We have recently been informed that the interest rate on our note has been substantially lowered." He then went on to acknowledge Mr. Williams' efforts. He introduced Mr. Williams as "an estate attorney who obtains credit for noble causes and even clients. It's all part of his service commitment to our church and community." Mr.

Williams' estate planning business is a very successful one, but his estate planning skills do not fully explain his success. Much of his business is generated by his efforts to cultivate strong relationships with what he calls "enlightened credit sources." Chapter nine details the loan broker concept. End of the introduction.

I hope that I have piqued your interest in Stanley's book. It is quite excellent. And I hope that I have piqued your interest in thinking about how you can more effectively serve others. When you look through the headlines, you and I have no way of knowing and probably will never know whether somebody has a certain connection or a certain bit of influence and whether that is just the normal functioning of human life or whether there's some kind of special backroom deal.

Right? How would we ever know? So all we can do is presume innocence until proven guilty and try to believe the best about other people. But what I've just read to you doesn't involve government politics. It involves individuals, individuals helping and serving other people. If you study politicians, what you'll usually find is that politicians prior, at some point prior to their move into politics, have learned and perfected or are in the process of perfecting these basic skills.

And what they do is they go from dealing with one affinity group that may be around an industry or a certain cause to going to an affinity group that usually involves a geographic area. And they simply apply those same skills. So whether that's the mayor of your town lobbying for your town to be successful as compared to other towns, whether it's a local representative of some kind or a local governor of some kind, they just simply take one affinity group.

Previously, they worked with car dealers and they just simply adjust that into a different direction. But the basic principle for you and me to always remember is the principle of service. I always go back to that most important statement by Jesus. "He who would be the greatest among you must be the servant of all." If you think about that, that sets out the basic paradigm of success in this world.

If you want to be effective, if you want to be great, you must serve effectively. So if you want your clients to respect you, you need to serve them effectively. If you want your customers to appreciate you and to promote you, you must serve them effectively. And if you want your constituents to vote for you and to move you forward, you have to serve them effectively.

You cannot forget who it is that you actually serve. If you've never discussed the topic of networking, you've never studied it, just consider this. If you're looking for a safety net to put underneath your family, your social safety net that you develop is a powerful tool in your arsenal.

If you can pick up the phone and get yourself, get your son a job making $600,000 per year, you now have a powerful tool that you can use for the success and well-being of your family. When you can do that, it really doesn't matter how much money is in your kid's 529 account.

Really doesn't matter how much money you have. So while you're developing your financial capital, develop your social capital. And if you've never studied the topic of networking, I encourage you pick up a copy of Stanley's book, Networking with the Affluent. Read it, consider the examples and see how you can apply them to your own life.

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