Everyone has a network that they influence. This makes them a person of influence (POI). But not everyone is a good POI for you. A good POI for you is someone with a high percentage of your target market inside their network. You and three other POIs can create a power network.
How Do You Create a Power Network?
You need to find four people to join your network. Start with your current clients. Tell them you are looking to expand your network. Tell them you like them as a client and want more clients just like them. Tell them you trust their judgment and would love a list of their current vendors.
Find out what other services your clients are paying money for. These vendors are going after your client, so they probably have a target client like you. It can be their bookkeeper, their insurance company, or their landscaper. The services they offer don’t matter.
The more clients you do this with, the better your list will be. Remember, you are looking for four familiar people among all your clients. Look for a vendor that often shows up across these people you already do business with.
Once you find four perfect people with a similar target client and are looking to improve their business, invite them to a monthly meeting. It can be lunch, coffee, a beer, or a Zoom call. Just get everyone together for two hours once a month.
What do you do at the meeting?
At the meeting, give each person 20 minutes to share their biggest successes and challenges that month. Each person gets that time to get feedback and ideas about their business from the rest of the group. Talk about how you overcome your challenges and see how others have overcome theirs.
These sessions are magical. Every time we meet, I get brand new strategies for my own business, and since we all are going after the same type of client, we get to learn from each other what is working and what isn’t in our arena.
In our group, we send out a worksheet before the meeting so we can all be prepared once we arrive. Another way to look at these sessions is as a monthly mastermind session. This is the number one strategy I have used to build my businesses, and I highly recommend you use it.