Hey there, listener! Thank you for checking out our older seasons! We're adding this note on the top of the show notes to keep you up-to-date with the show. Connect with Jen Amos and get bonus content when you subscribe to our private podcast show, Inside the Fort by US VetWealth, at http://insidethefort.com/

Last Updated: September 2, 2024

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195: Scott R. Tucker and Mike Wallace Discuss How to Use LinkedIn to Strategically Connect with Industry Leaders

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8b59-EDvcGo

Jen Amos takes a break from hosting on Thursdays to introduce replays of her husband's live show, "Take A Knee" Tuesdays.

US VetWealth Founder and CEO Scott R. Tucker is joined once again by Blue Water Advisors (BWA) CEO Mike Wallace to discuss how to approach networking opportunities with a servant mindset rather than the "frontal assault" approach. They discuss the challenges military retirees face with feeling unprepared and networking only for jobs rather than personal growth. They make suggestions on how to research companies on LinkedIn and have meaningful informed conversations when the opportunity arises.

Notes About Thursday Replays of "Take A Knee" Live Show

• The show was formally titled after Scott's latest book, "Don't Forget Your War Chest," which is available for purchase at: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08HJVPW1M/allbooks
• Mentioned events and updates may be outdated. The intent of sharing the replays is to (1) get a glimpse into Jen and Scott's ever-evolving entrepreneurial journey, and (2) to discuss career progression for military retirees seeking employment in post-military.
• Recommended to watch via video - If possible, we recommend that you watch this episode on our YouTube channel as the hosts may reference visuals. Each episode will provide a direct link to the YouTube video in the show notes for your convenience. Or subscribe now at: https://www.youtube.com/@holdingdownthefortpodcast
• To stay up-to-date with "Take A Knee" Tuesdays, please subscribe to US VetWealth's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@usvwtv

Resources Mentioned

• Connect with US VetWealth Founder and CEO Scott R. Tucker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottrtucker/
• Connect with Blue Water Advisors CEO Mike Wallace on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-s-wallace1/
• Learn more about Blue Water Advisors: https://www.bluewater-advisors.com/

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Read our Monday, September 16th, 2024 newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/4823cbefda7d/holdingdownthefort

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Do you want to do more than “follow orders,” think outside of the box, and manifest your dreams? Then you’ve come to the right show! The award-winning podcast, Holding Down the Fort by US VetWealth, returns for Season 8 to highlight motivational stories of personal growth, financial awareness, and autonomy in our military community. The show is hosted by Jen Amos, a Gold Star daughter, Veteran Spouse, and Entrepreneur.

Our show continues its partnership with The Rosie Network by featuring Service2CEO Graduates every Monday! Read more - https://issuu.com/therosienetwork/docs/me_mag_2023/16

We're also excited to be featuring replays of the "Take A Knee" Live Show with US VetWealth Founder & CEO Scott R. Tucker and Blue Water Advisors CEO Mike Wallace, which discusses career progression for military retirees. Tune in every Thursday!

Our main sponsor, US VetWealth, proudly offers Life Insurance and Annuity Strategies for The High-Income Military Retiree. Let's help you capitalize on your above-average health and substantial income-earning potential for post-military life. For a free consultation, https://usvetwealth.com/

In the Fall of 2023, Jen Amos was sought after by InDependent to co-host the 8th annual InDependent Wellness Summit™. In August 2022, Jen Amos' work on the podcast was recognized by Disney Institute and she was hand-selected as the only non-Disney employee to moderate the first Military Spouse Employment panel for the Veterans Institute Summit. March 2022, former co-host Jenny Lynne has voted the 2022 Naval Station Norfolk Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year. November 2020, Jen Amos was awarded “Media Professional of the Year” at The Rosie Network Entrepreneur Awards! The show continued to collect award nominations in the following years. In September 2021, the show made the Final Slate in the 16th Annual People's Choice Podcast Awards for the Government & Organizations category. In November 2021, the show was an Award Finalist for the 5th Annual National Veteran & Military Spouse Entrepreneur Awards. December 2021, the show was a Golden Crane Podcast Awards Nominee. September 2022, the show was a Finalist for the 13th Annual Plutus Awards presented by Capital Group for “Best Military Personal Finance Content.”

Holding Down the Fort has also been featured in multiple media outlets including Military Entrepreneur (M.E.) Magazine, MOAA’s Never Stop Learning Podcast, The Leadership Void Podcast, Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast, Sisters in Service Podcast, Get 2 Vet, Blue Star Families of Dayton & Southwestern Ohio, Legacy Magazine, U.S. Veterans Magazine, The American MilSpouse, VeteranCrowd Network, It's a Military Life, VirtForce, Military Veteran Dad Podcast, and much more.

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Scott R. Tucker 0:00

All right, good afternoon, and welcome back, everybody to another take any Tuesday with Norm, Captain, retired Mike Wallace. Hello, Mike.

Speaker 1 0:09

Hey, I'm doing good Scott, little bit kind of a sore throat going on here today. So if I go mute and kind of have to do a quick coffee, I'll be right back with no tracking. So no worries. And

Scott R. Tucker 0:23

I think that's always one of the byproducts of the topic of today. You know, sometimes when you're out there networking, you find yourself throwing energy in ways you weren't quite expected it, I bet, actually, this might even be kind of the tail end of your trip out the tail hook for their fun, you know, I know what it was like, go into those types of conferences. And it's just like, all of a sudden, I'm a super extrovert on all the time, I can be in two different conversations at once and want and you go pretty hard for a couple of days. But that could take a toll physically? Yes, well, right.

Speaker 1 0:58

You know, Steve Wieman, was out with this this year do and I think between he and I kind of tried to divide and conquer and have as many conversations as we could with, you know, as many of our members or future members, but yeah, you're going, right? I mean, two and a half, three days of just go, go go. But it's a good time, we enjoyed it. And so this topic,

Scott R. Tucker 1:20

you know, just to, you know, keep it and I think when we don't have an interview on, you know, try to keep it a high level and, and to the point if people have questions or comments for today, but I like to think of the aspect of it. Well, if all of our conversations as you hey, we're learning as well, you know, we might be learning from a slightly different perspective as small business owners, but we're also, you know, military veterans ourselves trying to figure it out. And what makes our approach a little bit different when it comes to networking. And we all know we're supposed to network, to if we want to get ahead you whether it's internal to an organization or externally at some point, you'll meet people at a professional environment. But from our perspective, I've always been self employed in a way. So I've kind of always treated myself that way. And in so I'm networking for just any opportunity that might pop up that I'm not even expected it. And what I noticed that a lot of military retirees and those transitioned out of the military, they're taught to network to get a specific job. And in that can obviously do that's a strategy and a tactic to get specific results. But what I was always curious about in your day, because I'm kind of learning as we go is, I just learned that it really it's just personal branding, it's sales and marketing, it's communication, it's persuasion, it's all these skill sets that are tangible across lots of different environments. And so why not just treat ourselves as an individual business, we're trying to get a salary, you know, one way or the other, we're trying to get income. That's what this story is all about. What if we kind of reframe this whole conversation and made it less challenging, and remove some of the expectations of oh, I'm networking, I'm expecting, I'm waiting for somebody from this organization to get back to me, you know, kind of that approach, versus the, hey, I'm here, this is what I have to offer. These are the kinds of people I know, here's my Oh, you gotta network. Let me connect you with this, you know, being a more of a useful, valuable person, as you're figuring it out, you know, as you go, because that's kind of how I've always approached my military, that's just, I'm just kind of figured it out. But the more people you know, the more situations you run into, and you learn experiences and stuff, you know, from all different environments. So

Speaker 1 3:28

Scott R. Tucker 6:44

And that's the challenge. I mean, cuz you when we think about this stuff, okay, what are the biggest challenges that military retirees face that I've seen from the years of talking with them? It's like, if, if you don't want to, if you get it, like, alright, I don't want to just go and ask, but I don't necessarily know how to be useful to this person. And, you know, how could, you know, maybe let's put ourselves in the shoes of the person receiving the ask or the connection request from a new retiree who say, Hey, I'd like to connect, what is going to be useful to that person, baby, some common things that we could have in our back pocket just to say, hey, I don't know if you're looking for this. But you know, this is something I could, you know, help you out with? Or is it knowing what HR managers need to to make it easier for him? Or is it just maybe connecting with more influential people kind of like us? Who are more likely to just be basically open networkers alike? Do? Should we even ask the question? Hi, are you open to networking right now? Because if not, I don't want to waste your time or mine, trying to have this awkward conversation just to have it when we all kind of know, you know, we're trying to exchange value. That's why we're willing to give put the time. Well, I think it's, I think it's a good ask, right? And a lot of our membership here at Blue Water, right? We're gonna bridge beyond that conversation. We've

Speaker 1 8:09

built a network that is ready to network for all of these purposes and research, right? I mean, so we get beyond that, first, you know, a query very quickly, hey, do you want to have the conversation while we built this network to have the conversation with our members, so they're prepared and they're ready. But you know, if you want to go back to the scientific side of this, and you want it is to kind of like make a step one, step two, step three, right? Step one is, be prepared, right? If you're going to have a conversation with an individual from the North American headquarters at steel, and your sole goal in this engagement, at the end of the day, is to make that person so enamored with you that they want to have a follow on conversation, or they're so impressed with you that they go, hey, you know, I really have enjoyed this conversation, Scott, and I just want to make a leap of faith. I know you're, you're stepping into your career progression. I'm not sure what you're looking to do. But would you be interested in meeting a person on you know, a peer team, I think you guys might really have a lot in common, I think there's value in it, right? Ultimately, that's how you want this to go down. But you got to be prepared. So what do I mean by that? I mean, you've got to do your homework, you're gonna reach out to us here at Blue Water, you're gonna start doing your what we call quantitative deep dive, qualitative, deep dive, you're going to look at the company, its environment, it's in culture. We in the military, we're ignorant. A lot of times, when we look at a company, we just go up well, it's company makes a lot of money. It's got a lot of people. It's got to be a good place to live. Not necessarily, right. I mean, they all have personalities. They've all got environments, they've all got cultures, and very rarely are two companies that are even in the same industry, the same environment and culture. You got to eat that. You got to dig a little bit. How does that company Make its money. How long has it been around? What mergers and acquisitions have gone into that company? Right? What did the annual report look like? What does the forecast look like? Is it a healthy environment for you to even pursue? Right at this point, right? These are the kinds of things when we say be prepared, such that when you get the information all lined up, and you're on having a conversation, you can at least have an intelligent conversation, right? You're not going to be asked him for anything. But often in you know, networking conversations, you know, you're looking for additional insight, maybe in an area that you're not completely knowledgeable on, right? Maybe you want to engage and go, Hey, I've read a couple of interesting articles, Scott lately about the strategic engagement that the company is looking to kind of push over into the European sector. I've wondered if you had any insight on that? And what does that look like for the company in the coming, you know, three to five years? Right? That just let somebody know that you're up to speed on it, right? And you're read in and you can have some meaningful conversations. So you know, step one, you got to do your homework, you got to be prepared. I can't tell you the number of people that will try to reach out and have informational conversations with me. And they have no idea what they want to talk about. They really don't. In other words, it's awkward silence. It's so I go, okay, like, we've got 30 minutes, like, what do you want to talk about? What do you want to know? They go? Well, I don't really know. And, you know, that's awkward, right? You got to be a little bit more prepared than that. Right? So well, if you're looking for that analytical approach, step number one, you got to do your homework. What do you think on that? Is that that kind of makes sense? I mean, I don't have absolutely,

and you know, that that that isn't, you know, unfortunate thing, kind of the story we hear often, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. And so, you know, we're used to showing up at briefings and getting briefed and our boy sites or our processing or in processing centers, there's checklists, there's no boxes to go through. So it's nobody's fault that we're kind of put in this situation. And I think, you know, requires a degree of curiosity, we forget to have one we're on active duty, your curiosity to explore as you present, going deeper dive into these companies. But you know, maybe on the individuals, I mean, the fact that so much information is now available online, even on LinkedIn, you can be pretty strategic about connecting with people who are more likely to actually have a conversation with you. And you can enhance the chances of that by you connecting with the people who are obviously active on LinkedIn, and then commenting on their posts a lot, you basically, they appreciate, you know that that's one of the easiest strategies and tactics to build a network because you won't even realize it. But people are going to start connecting through you, your name just starts showing up more often. So my next question for you was, have you noticed any success stories out of your cohorts where someone has kind of mimic your role as the connector, you know, just kind of out of the for whatever reason, people started honing in on them, when all of a sudden they started connecting more people in forever? Is that happened where a certain type has turned into the person that's attracting more people whether or not they're given insights, or they just happen to be the person who's maybe a step ahead. Hey, I already met the guy who did that.

Yeah, it happened varying different degrees. Right. But it's an interesting, you know, query that you make here. And I think it really comes down to there are individuals that will warm up to this networking task at hand quicker than others will. Right. I think I see all of our members mature through the process. I'll be honest with you, most members, you know, we don't like the idea of networking with somebody who we may not know. Right, right. If we don't like that, yeah, let

me yeah, let me kind of this list. I wrote this morning of things where it's I've just noticed a fresher Hey, I've gone through this myself, it took me five or six years before I even understood the concept of actual networking. What is it a mixture and accomplish? You know, when we either don't understand networking? We don't I don't want to network? Like I just, you know, I don't want to meet more people like of course not, you know, inherently, you know, we have to struggle against that. I don't think you need to kind of know it. A lot of people in these circles. Why wouldn't I know more people in other circles, don't feel comfortable? You know, it's it can be awkward when you're you put yourself out there, don't have a system might have a goal. Yes, I'd like to have a job. Why not have a system? Why not study the same way that you would if you've read Sun Tzu and the art of war to win a battle? Why would we do the same? It's just skill sets and talent stacks that we can do. And

if I could riff off of that just really quick, you're 100% Right. And all of those things you said we typically members typically don't like to know right? They think a little bit is enough or they don't really see the valuing sir they go, they don't really understand that the engagement, that they're going to be the engagements I should say they're going to be having with people, it's not all going to be about them. I think as military members were so quick to just, you know, the frontal assault, we want to stand here, I want to regurgitate everything I've done in 30 years of my life, and then I'm gonna take a step back, and I'm gonna go now, love me, why would you just not hire me right now? Right. But I think in this process, our members begin to understand that while that may just make perfect sense to them, and even, you know, prior military individuals, it doesn't resonate with them, because I try to translate that for our members. I go, Okay, you said those things. But now let me translate it for you. Let me tell you what the hiring manager just heard, right? And if you look at it this way, in that networking example, right, you just spew forth all these great things you've done? Well, I imagine you're gonna go well, you know, I guess that sounds exciting. I'm not really sure. But you know, I'll give you the courtesy upgrade. And I'll go, Okay, you seem excited about it. I guess I'm excited about it, too. Number two, you didn't say anything about the type of work that you wanted to do you just regurgitated all the things that you've been successful at in your 30 year career? You haven't told me? Do you want to be a program manager? Do you want to get into quality? Do you want to get into process? What do you want to do? And furthermore, you didn't even mention the challenges that I have in the company, or how you're going to take all these cool things that you are espousing, that you have, and how you're going to use them to solve my problems for me and raising the bar and deliver results here. You know, I was uncomfortable before, you know, you see the picture on pain, right? You're pushing people away. And we just keep approaching them with a look at me. I can do all these things. There's nothing in the world I can do. And the irony in that statement, Scott, you've heard me say this before, I look at our members and the ATAGO The irony is, I know you can I believe you, I've seen you do it, I've worked with individuals you have to that can move mountains, and just move to heaven and earth and accomplish great things. But that's not how it's translated in a networking environment when you're trying to, you know, bring your best self forward. Right? And so, yeah,

well, no, because because that would be the challenge, from my perspective, because it's like, well, you know, how do I know how to solve your problems in that kind of direct environment, so And honestly, it's just gonna cause someone to probably overthink it, and maybe do even too much research and how to talk to the person that can be awkward as well. So I like to you reframe the conversation, or the idea of networking in kind of a system where I'm trying to surround myself more with people I want to be like, then, because you think about you're getting out of the military, you have no choice who you're around, you don't have a choice who's in your command, you can sort of choose who you hire, but this is the first time and this is the strategy to do it. Like never like the whole whatever you whatever networking means to you. It's it's the strategy, you can decide what are all your parameters. And so

it's exactly right, right. And we, you know, we we say, and you've set in with us during the day, right? I mean, our members, we talked to them very first thing, right in the morning is about preservation of your mission, your vision, your priorities in life, what big rocks, do you want to make sure that you secure and so you hit the nail right on the head, you go, maybe I want to work with people that I like, right? I mean, one of them or want to be like, you know, whatever, you aspire that you want to do, okay, well, if you're networking in an environment, and you go, I don't want to be in a you people, and I don't really like you guys. And so why am I networking? And maybe somebody's going well, that company will pay a lot of money, or they'll do these kinds of things. I'm going, Okay, do you have alignment? And that's when we say and you're doing your market analysis, you're having networking conversations, does this what you're pursuing, preserve all of these things up here. And if one your number one on the list was I want to work with people that I admire, and then I want to be like, and then I also like, and you're talking to a bunch of people that you go, yeah, I don't think I really want to hang with you guys all that much. Well, then, what are you doing? You go Yeah, well, but you know, they're pursuing me. You know, they're coming after me. They you know, I'm getting a good vibe that they may like me, that may be the case. But we want Bluewater members to empower themselves. You've heard me say this before, but for the audience out there today, I don't want you to step into your career progression, like a third grader who's stepping out onto the playground at recess. And by that I mean he's gonna sit there until somebody comes up and is nice to you, and then they go, Hey, we want you to be on our cue. small team, and then they go, Okay, well, hey, I now want to be on your team because you pick me because you like me. So I'm going to do this right? Don't approach your career progression. That way, if you go to some job fair, you want to go to your naval academy, senior leader, you're gonna go to a sack, or you're gonna go someplace, right? A corporate great job fair, you're just going to stand out there until some company starts paying you attention. And then you go, well, they are paying me attention. I must like these things. Well, really, and don't mislead me here. I'm not saying that that may not be a good opportunity for you. But I'm saying prove it to yourself. And one of the best things you can do to prove it to yourself is how many people are you talking with that are at the company now, or more importantly, have been at that company in months or years past? Right? Those are the conversations that I want you to have. So two things I want to back up and just you know, as we're we're talking about networking, people come on, they go, they often go, Mike, in fact, I just got an email today, if you can believe this, at the end of our cohorts, we send out a networking connection document. So everybody in your cohort, everybody at the lunch roundtable, all of our corporate partners, all of our senior leadership, we give a great breakout on everybody's LinkedIn profile, their email address, this is your cat shot into the blue water network. I literally got an email from a member today saying, Mike, what am I supposed to do with this? And I'm like, I'm not even really sure I was kind of taken aback by that question. I'm like, wow, really, like, these are individuals, many of them that are stepping into career progression, just like you and the power of meeting them and asking them any question, Hey, have you had any luck getting a hold of at a company or an individual at you fill in the blank Company X, Y, or Z, right? That's getting over your paranoia. Networking is a contact sport, you have to get out there and engage people. And so they sometimes don't even know where to start when they're pursuing a company. And this is what I'll tell people I go, you know, especially for senior military, I encourage you to go back and look at your network, because you may actually be connected to somebody who is now with the company that you're pursuing. That happens frequently, Scott, we lose track, we know, you know, track of our network. We know a lot of people, but I didn't keep up with it for 25 years. And now all of a sudden, I realized the guy was went to college with I go holy cow, I didn't realize you were you know, an executive director at Company X, Y, or Z. And I had no idea because I didn't check. Well, step one is if you're pursuing a company, I want you to go back to your network and refresh your own networking connections. Find out are you actually connected with somebody at the company or not? Right? That's step one. Because if you are, that is a great first step to re fresh that connection. Right? So step number one, step number two, if you're you've exhausted your own network, and you don't know, right, anybody there, I want you to look for those points of contact that you want to get, you know, in touch with and find the go between right hey, I want to talk to Steve women that I don't know Steve Whitman, but I know Scott Tucker Scott Tucker know Steve Wayman. So I'm gonna go to use Scott. And I'm gonna say, Scott, could you introduce me to Steve, and oh, by the way, it's more than this, Hey, here's what I here's a little bit about me. And here's why I'm interested in meeting Steve. And if you would tee that up in a connection, I would really, really appreciate it, of course, you will. So do I know the person directly refreshed it if I don't find a go between and never pass up an opportunity to get introduced to somebody? Right, that's very important. And then the last is the cold call. And I think our members in networking just really discount this far, far too much. We have seen over the last three years our membership have great success with a structured approach to cold calling individuals as they're in pursuit of their next success. But I emphasize structured approach, right, and we have our video tutorial on how to do this right on our website. And I would absolutely encourage for our members to log back on and check our content periodically, because we do update that, but review that in this case, because it absolutely walks you through that structure on how to best engage individuals and the landscape that you don't know that nobody in your network is able to introduce you to and this is how you can best your chances to engage these individuals. Right. So really, it's kind of a three step approach. But Scott, it's so important you have to network. And the last thing I'm going to say kind of a pet peeve of mine. I have individuals come back to me frequently and they said Mike I was interested in in pursuing Ernst and Young or I was interested in pursuing consulting job or KPMG or some company and I go, Okay, well, blue water, we connected you with a couple of individuals. Did you have those conversations? Well, yeah. And I go, Well, how did it go? He goes, Well, I talked to him, and then it was over. And that was it. Like, you're completely missing the point. And I go all the way back to what you started with. We're overthinking this, there's not a one or a zero, this is a meeting, this is a conversation, I now have a relationship with you. It's not just a one touch and you're done. You need to stay engaged. And yeah, there is a little bit of an art to staying engaged with somebody, but not being too intrusive with it, right. But that's important. One contact is rarely going to result in a job offer for you, you've got to have depth in that company. And I want everybody out there to treat networking points of contact, like floatation devices, imagine you're in the middle of the ocean, and you're hanging on to a networking, you know, point of contact. And that's the only thing that's keeping you afloat. I don't want you to let go of that until you're hanging on to another one. And the point I would make is, as you're having these networking conversations, as we wind down our time, Scott, I would just say, Hey, Scott, I really enjoyed the conversation, I really learned a lot about the culture environment, appreciate you shedding some light on, you know, fit opportunities. And you know, next steps. Thank you very much. Who else Scott, would you be recommended that I talked to in the company that could shed some more light on this, don't leave that conversation until you get another floatation device. Right? So you're working for that next handoff, right? And if you treat each networking connection, the same, now you're one now you're two, now you're four, now you're eight, right? You with me? I mean, you are network deep into a company, that's what you need to be striving for, you know, my

strategy, in talking with someone in this kind of corporate environment, it's like, I would require myself to come out of that conversation with a personal connection, like with something that I've found in there that I can relate to them, and maybe we'll have it every single time. But I'm gonna go in with that mindset, whether it's location. Now Hey, I'm well traveled, I've read all sorts of weird, I always have something that I can kind of chat with somebody about. And, you know, I think that's gotten me more follow up calls than anything, because it's like, we've chatted a little bit on the call, I know this guy, really cool thing, you know, the website for whatever it was great book, you should read on that top. And then at the end, right, yeah, the commonalities, right, so then I can follow up with something that has nothing to do with the thing that's my ask. It's literally that just some unique random thing that might be useful to them. And, and then it's that little bit is where now it's a personal relationship. And you know, if you've read Johnny's book of persuasion, you know, there's reciprocation now, and it's just by having just a mindset, if I'm going to genuinely try to find something useful to connect to this person about not even asking about the company or anything like, Oh, you'd like to ski? Oh, wow, where I went there. I mean, everybody, everybody likes to talk about themselves, in their experience. So nearly allow, allow that conversation to happen. Let them talk,

you bet, right, get them to talk about themselves. Right. And for those that have watched our video tutorial, and Scott, you and I have stepped into this and look at this a lot. You know, LinkedIn is a powerful tool, when you kind of use it in this fashion, right? You want to, you know, I mean, I think the example that we've talked about in the past, you want to look at a company like Microsoft or shell well, and it's got millions of people and and you're like, Okay, Mike, that's not very helpful. But then you start filtering it out with those commonalities that you just started hitting on, I want to know people in your case that were in the army, I want to know people that, you know, went to the Academy, I want to know people that live in the state or city that you're in, right. In other words, you're gonna filter that list of millions of people, by things that are important to you that are going to allow you to inject into that conversation. And now all of a sudden, when you filter that list, now you get 13 people. I mean, it happens just that quick. And those are 13 people in that company that were in the army that went to the to the academy, just like you did that graduated to live in the same city that you and maybe are also passionate about some other things, whatever you filter with that your list of injects as you're having that networking conversation, because you're 100% Spot on, right? It builds that bond and 30 minutes, you haven't expected of reciprocation, right, the individual wants to now help you kind of sees you more than just another face on a screen. And that's that important next step. Listen, members that don't embrace this and understand this are missing a huge opportunity. You and I know. In fact, I tell people, the single most important thing that's going to lead to you know, turning your vision of success into reality is networking. That is the single most important thing and people that are good at it do well with it and people that resist it, it just slows the process? Well, here's,

we'll leave it on one LinkedIn hack that for those willing to invest in themselves, can can maybe speed up that process, you're just talking about a little bit. And the goal is to start a conversation, right? A one on one conversation. Now, you know, having the skill set to make that conversation worthwhile. That's another part of networking. But first trick is to get in the door, right? So how do you get the attention to get in the door a little bit, and what I found to be the most useful when you get and we're talking about adding value. And so if we want to add value on the call, by being personal, that's one thing, but how do we add value to increase the likelihood that they're going to get on a call which, well, using your filtering technique, if we've also invested in the EQ, one of the extra components, I think might be only available through Sales Navigator, I'm not quite sure. But what might it be worth to you to vest $79 a month, or whatever it is, you know, to get a better job, when you do in the filters, you now have access to a filter where you can filter by people who have posted on LinkedIn within the last 90 days or something? Wow. So now, let's say you came back with you went for an industry whether it's you know, the the general Defense Contract contracting industry, you wanna talk to a bunch of people, for a bunch of different companies, you don't know which company you want to work at, but you kind of get an idea of who you want need to be talking to. But of all the project managers or hiring managers or whoever VPS, or CEOs, right, so you should probably be trying to connect with, yeah, hell, you could talk to the CEO, why not go for the CEO? Well, here's how you connect with the CEO, two pronged approach one filter by all the CEOs and these types of companies who actually are active posting on LinkedIn, you are like me, and Mike, when you comment on their posts, they're gonna notice it and appreciate it, because every time you comment it, they know how the thing works. And they know that LinkedIn will now send their post and more people, especially if you comment, I

love that, Scott. And let me just say some just really quick, short point, because I'm sure we've got members out there that are listening in, they're going, Oh, I get it. This is adult Facebook. And that's what you're doing wrong, you're missing the point completely. This is about you publicly showing that you're building your brand and educating yourself on what's going on in their environment, right. And that industry and that company, and that is invaluable. That is invaluable. If you leave

it, this was an old Gary Vee strategy for Twitter is you just leave your two cents, he called it $1.80 A day strategy, leave your two cents 90 times a day. That's a little excessive on LinkedIn, I think. But if you're leaving genuine comments among the type of people you'd like to be connected with, obviously, not Microsoft's CEO. But there's levels that you can, you know, comment with. But if the person's only got a dozen or so other commenters, I'm not you don't stalk them. But on a genuine post, especially if they post often. And then there are other like connections are going to start seeing those comments as well. And then you comment on their posts. And all of a sudden, you're just one of the known people. Now to enhance that make posts yourself. And because if you once you actually make the connection request, because you're if you're leaving comments on them on their posts, and you may set a connection request, more likely they're going to connect with you. So if you're also posting, you know, most people aren't posting like 1% of the people do what you posted. So if you're connected with a CEO level person, and they're only connected with about 1000 people, so if you're doing posts, and you're one of 10 people showing up in their feed every day. So over time, it's just advertising, you just see the same headlines over and over again, that's just how it works. So you got to play the game, the game is LinkedIn, you know, being active and being usefully active, not a stalker, obviously. So there's tactics and strategy there. And I'm happy to share new but

you threw out one of your favorite hacks, all riff off of that, and I'll kind of throw out one of my favorite hacks. So the listening audience is getting all kinds of insight here today, for those individuals. And I think you might agree, right? They stepping into career progression. It's intimidating to post, right? I mean, we're not typically used to that. We go, oh, my gosh, I want to post something. And what if I say something crazy or stupid or whatever, you know, and so it's baby steps, right? To Scott's point, you step up somebody else post, make a comment on it. It doesn't have to be big. I really appreciate it. Thanks for posting that. It was great insight, right, whatever it happens to be. Now to my hack. Let's say you're engaging the CEO like that. And this is a company filled full of people that you think wow, I would really like to aspire to kind of, you know, be in that environment. I would like to work with these people. Let's say maybe now down the chain, right? You've got a senior director or a program manager and somebody that you've been engaged in, you've had a couple of conversations, but people come to me off and they go, Yeah, Mike, I don't want to keep requesting a 30 minute, you know, discussion with this person just to keep my net Networking active. How about this SEO, to your point post something about their company, culture, industry, whatever it happens to be, you comment on it. But then when you comment on it, you tag right you with me, you tag that other director that you had a conversation with two weeks prior. And just say, Hey, Scott, I thought you might find this very interesting posted by CEO D women, you know that it was a great article, great read, it resonated with kind of what we talked about a little bit in our conversation, right? Something just very subtle, right? And you just you push it out there, think about that, that lets senior leadership know you're plugged in, you're now taking the message that they pushed out, right, and you're pushing it back and you're staying current. I love that hack. And more often than not, I'll get responses from people that I had informational or networking conversations with in the prior right, but works masterfully Well,

no, I love that. I mean, tagging. You don't want to abuse tagging people in posts, but in comments when it's like generally like, oh, this person could actually add a useful comment, like everybody wins, because the other viewers are going to now hear a more insightful comment. So the fact that you didn't just say nice post, and you said, actually, you know, it honestly, don't fight with the people you are. I hate it when people kind of get like little I know, it's adult Facebook. And so we can have our opinions. But it's like, if we if we say yes, and the old impromptu D can see yes. And yes. And in this ad, oh, by the way, this person has some great thoughts on it. Like that's what LinkedIn wants. LinkedIn wants a conversation on their platform that's genuinely useful for all involved. So that's the game, you know, to easily get your name out extra, because having a good headline, and then a good profile, and all those things we can do. Right, and we're brand but no, awesome. Left

and right here today, aren't we?

Yeah, well, I mean, I definitely want to build on this. It's this is obviously, you know, beyond the typical, how do I get a job? Or what I do with my finances? The whole point of what do I need my personal brand? What do I want to do I want to communicate with how do I communicate with them to get what I want? What do I want, you know, tie in that ask, what's the point of the money if we don't know that part of it, you know, the. And so what I'd like to do is put together kind of a mastermind or a little master class where, you know, we I don't know, give me five or six people here initially, that to kind of beta test some ideas. So people be interested in that, because I think you said your challenges. Having you know, never gives a whole nother course, you know how to do this, I think I think we could potentially teach you a couple different approaches and brainstorming as we speak. But

I would argue we don't do it. Well, initially, it was some awkward. That's what we want

to get over. We're not going to teach you how to you know how to do networking one on one and know, what are the quick wins that we can do just to have you reframe the whole networking conversation and just not not have it be awkward or uncomfortable or feeling needy or feeling like you're bothering somebody that what are some of the easy hacks to get, just get around those doors, whether it's, Hey, just going through the blue water networker who was already there, or some of those examples we just talked about, just to show up easier and allow things to come to you more, I'd love to share those ideas in a small group environment. We

could turn on it again next week. And kind of, you know, if we want to do a small group, kind of a masterclass or whatever, because I really in my heart of hearts, that after three years watching this and execution, it's intuitively obvious to me that many of our members are resistant to networking, or don't fully understand the benefit of networking, or don't realize the power and networking, right, or what it's going to do for you or how it racks and stacks as far as level of importance, right?

That's what I want to do. I'm gonna put together a survey, and I'll get your feedback at a couple of questions. Maybe try to keep it less than 10 questions, but only five but to try to glean we'll have some open end questions, but also kind of glean Hey, what are the priorities when it comes to networking? You know, what are the main challenges and again, not that you and I have all the answers but we might be a step ahead on where to find some of the answers or how to rethink about it or you know, just connect connect some things there so yeah, anyways, this is kind of good No, we're just kind of rattling up when an idea but hey, that's the idea the Show

All right. Well, tell me a wrap me up. Just real quick. Any highlights going on in your neck of the woods?

Yes, we've got Jen's podcast will be coming out soon and holding down the fort. So check that out. We get a bunch of episodes out we interviewed Tom Well should Tory about the tiki boat. By the way. We should totally ears definitely something I want to do. I don't know if we'll be able to do it. hear in the fall because Tory said he got booked up like crazy. Well, let's definitely all sponsor it or whatever. But let's get your you and me and a handful of, of your local people and again, our network where we want to kind of talk about what blue water is up to. And obviously what you guys build wealth up to, but here in the local community, just do right there on the tiki boat. So fun. That'd be fun. So far, if you're listening to this, you know, I gotta reach out to you and find a spot to worry when we could do that. Because, you know, I got, you know, I want to find good connect with other local business owner types, you know, whether or not their military transition related or not? Yeah, because I think, you know, obviously, you know, as we spread the word of kind of what we're up to it, oh, it's also good to get outside of our common circles a little bit because everybody knows a retiree who's not tapped in on LinkedIn. You know, not everybody's on LinkedIn bleeped out. Hey, only one of them. I gave it

to Tom Marsden, right. He's a VP over at Marathon consulting right down here at Town Center, right. And many members realized right there, they're going to be instrumental in taking our blue water digital efforts, right and moving that down. Right. So we're really excited remembers, in the future, you're going to have a Bluewater digital platform. And some of you are tracking what that means. But what that is basically going to do for our members is, you know, individuals go through and become very locked in with the cohort and the lunch roundtable. And the partnering professionals, we want our digital is going to bridge that gap from your cohort to the 35 other cohorts that are out there, right then that are up in DC and Pensacola, San Diego, you know, here in the Virginia Beach area, and you're going to be able to see that larger extended network and you're going to be able to see that larger extended network on who is where, right, where they have landed, do they have a landing report? Are they available to connect, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right. And that technology is going to bring all of that together. So we're really excited. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We've got so many different experiences on the platform, not only just for members, but for our corporate partners, our career progression consultants are going to have an experience on there. So it's just going to be good for all of us all the way around. We're really excited about that. So thanks to Tom and and the marathon guys down there for taking it to the next step. So works out very

cool. Well, hey, I've been pushing you to beat well, that's why we're on here. I want to get Mike Wallace digital and cool. I also want to have, you know, the digital component of this on the on the Bluecoat platform as well. So that'll fill it out as well. And I know good stuff. Lots of cool topics we can build on for the future. But you know, hit us up if you'd be interested in doing a kind of a networking master class. You're obviously gonna reach out to people anyways. But yeah, I think that'd be a lot of fun. A lot, a

lot of good insight.

All right. Well, we

appreciate you. Okay, you better