In this insightful episode of The One Small Change Podcast, host Yvonne McCoy talks with a seasoned connector and innovator who reveals how a simple decision to embrace her natural gift for connection sparked a major career transition out of corporate tech sales into entrepreneurship. Through candid stories and actionable advice, listeners learn why building authentic connections and communities is essential for thriving as an entrepreneur. The episode dives into strategies for effective networking, systemized follow-up, leveraging technology for ripple effects, and maintaining curiosity as a key to personal and business growth.

Guest Bio:

This week’s guest is a dynamic entrepreneur and the founder of LinktoEXPERT, an innovative collaborative cloud community designed to help experts and entrepreneurs be found quickly by those who need their expertise. With over 20 years in high-tech sales and a million miles traveled for face-to-face meetings, she pivoted her career after a pivotal downsizing, embracing her superpower as a ‘connector’. Her platform streamlines collaboration and visibility for coaches, consultants, trainers, and thought leaders, helping them expand their reach through leveraged actions and strategic partnerships.

Chapters:

00:00 "Reflections on Two Decades in Sales"

03:10 "Grateful Exit for Better Opportunities"

06:50 "Quick Expert Matchmaking"

11:02 Effortless Marketing Through Collaboration

16:17 Effective Networking Strategies

18:15 "Building Trust Through Consistency"

21:37 Curiosity vs. Judgment in Life

25:16 "Empower Business Growth: Embrace Change"

Quote From Guest:

"You should always learn something new, try something new, do something new, meet somebody new, because I really feel like that keeps you alive and fresh and excited about life too."

Links:

Joanne's website - https://www.linktoexpert.com/

Consider The Value PDF - https://www.linktoexpert.com/siteupdates/Consider-the-value-of-your-LinktoEXPERT-membership.pdf

Welcome to the One Small Change. And as always, I am thrilled

that you're here with me to embark on this journey of exploration and

transformation. And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost thirty

years of entrepreneurial experience. And I have a passion

for discovering growth through the power of seemingly small change.

So excuse me. So I wanna thank you

for joining me on this entrepreneurial journey. And this week, we

have the amazing Joanne Wildman.

Jo do you like to be called Joanne or Joe? Well, the

majority of people call me Jo, and but Joanne's fine too. And

why land why because it's easier to you know, why

land when you can fly is what I always say to help people remember how

to say it because most it's spelled, like, the German way, which is

and people call me Wieland, but I just try to help them remember why

land when you can fly. But either one, Joe but, you know,

Yvonne, I know you and I, you know, met as me being Joe, and that's

totally fine. Because like I say, I I I

learned that my real name was Joanne when I was 12. My

dad had three daughters, and he wanted a son. So I guess I was

the top became the tomboy and became Joe. But I I'm

fine with kids. I'm actually enjoying it, so it's

fine. I I want to because I know you and I can really chat. So

I wanna make sure that we get started because I want you to share with

us the smaller insignificant thing, you

know, change your decision that sparked that, you know, remarkable

transformation and growth that has, you know, made you much better at doing

what you do. So if you would tell our audience what it is you do

and why you do it, what made you do it, that would be

great. Well, I appreciate it because when I listened to your

podcast and you talk about that, I thought, you know, that is so

true. But what is it? And you do think you have a lot of them,

but then I wanted to think about something that was really more

powerful. So what I thought of was, for twenty years, I was in the

high-tech business and meaning I was in sales and Yvonne back then

you actually physically went and visited people. You didn't do what we're doing

now on Zoom and, you know, online. You actually made an appointment

and you flew there and you had breakfast, lunch, or dinner with them, and you

did training and all kinds of stuff. So I've flown over a million

miles, because, like I said, back in the day, that's what we

did. And so I was just when

you do something for twenty years, it's kinda like you're

stick. You that's what you know. That's what you think. And, anyway, so

one of the companies I worked for, they were bought out by

Intel. I felt like the merger claimed also. That's another thing that kept

happening where everybody was merging, not just even who I worked for, but my

clients. So it was so crazy that you really, you know, had

to just be flexible. So I was at this meeting I

didn't tell, and the guy that actually I

knew from he was my competitor before we became

one company. He's like, Joe, look around the room. Do you see

anybody here that doesn't work for Intel or Zircon?

Because that's who I was with. I said, well, I didn't really know all

the Intel people, but I just said, no. Why? He says, because we buy

companies for their product, not for their people. Well, that might

seem like big deal. But what happened a couple months later,

they had this downsizing, this rightsizing, asking you to leave.

And I thought, what Jay said might be true, and I'm

either gonna get kicked out or I can get paid to leave

now. And so I'm so grateful. I listened to him,

and I I took the package. And the reason I'm so

grateful, and this is the small change, I was able to part of

the package was to go at that time, it was called right management, and

they might still be called right management, But I was blessed to actually get six

months of training, and it reminds me a little bit about your training.

But the point you know, your VIP did, month

because of the fact that they helped you recognize

your strengths and your weaknesses and what's you would be good at and and

because they were trying to help you transfer into another type of

position. And what was interesting for me and all those tests I

took at that time, it kept coming up that I'm a connector. And

I thought, well, big deal. Everybody's a connector. You know,

because if you ever realize it, a lot of times, whatever

you're good at, you just think everybody knows how to do it. And so

I thought, big deal. But then, you know, I started

asking myself, who's connected me lately? Because when I was

in sales, that's why I was so successful. I was always doing global

alliances from people all over the world. I was introducing people to

different people so that they could sell more packages because they want to

created this, one created that together. It was a whole new solution.

So, anyway, but then once I realized, okay, it was a

gift. But then it was like, what do I do with this? You know?

Because I have to stop you right there because the first

thing that is such a powerful idea. And

what I would say to people is if you are still in a in

a job, get as much training as you possibly can

because you your skills are portable. You can

take your skills either to another job or you can take it into your

business. And so you, regardless whether you're an employee or

whether you're an entrepreneur, you are your business. And even

in a job, you need to be able to promote yourself and know what your

strengths are. So that is, I think Definitely.

Definitely. Definitely. You're so right. Because, you know, there's

it's it's so true. So that's when I created link to expert. I

decided, okay. Well, what I was doing was so

powerful because of the fact you would find an expert and you

would connect them with another expert. And they, like I said, they would either create

a new product, a new service, a new solution. And,

but I also found that a lot of times, it

took months to get all the information that

every expert I mean, every client might need to

to before they hire that expert. Most of the time by then, another

fire drill came up, something else happened, so we lost the deal. I'm not

gonna kid you. It was you know, because I would go to the board meeting.

I would promote three different people that I thought would be perfect for their

project. And the you know, everybody had a different idea

too, Yvonne, of what made that person the right

ideal candidate for that project. So I learned from

that. I actually kept track of what everybody asked me, and

it actually turned out that when we created LinkedXpert, the collaborative

cloud community, you can now find 40 different things

and many of the same thing about that expert. So you

know if they're the right fit for you, and you can actually find the expert,

check out their credentials, and hire them in minutes because that was our

challenge to get people to know each other. Like, you always say, be

found. So these people can be find each other and know

right away if they're the right fit because even if they have, just like back

then, a committee that's, you know, deciding who's the right

fit or if it is, a board of directors, many

times it was a board of directors, and they would all have a different idea,

what made that person the right fit. So now they can all from anywhere in

the world go on link to expert.com, find who

they're looking for, see if that's what they feel like it is,

have what we call a seven minute strategy session because you and I have

discussed this before. Sometimes you you they're not the right fit

for the client, but sometimes it's also not even the right fit for the expert

because if they find that person isn't coachable, just as an example,

and then they want to keep doing what they've always done and then they, you

know, feel like you're a fraud. But you told them what to do, but

they just didn't do it. So it this is the strategy session is

designed so both parties know if they are

the best fit for that project. So so

there are a couple of things that that I just really wanna highlight for for

entrepreneurs. First of all, you need to go to link to expert.com,

and that'll be in the notes so you can find it. But the other thing

I think that that as a connector that you

found so natural to do Mhmm. Most

entrepreneurs do not. And, you know, I'm always putting together acronyms

and models. And I have Yeah. I love that about you. Model called the three

c's. And it started with competency. You know,

the way that we always start. You know, I have to become an expert. And

as I was putting it together and I added a fourth step, I put

added community. Oh my god.

That needs to actually be first. So tell

us about the importance of connecting in community

and, you know, as entrepreneurs, why we need

it and how we can use it to our benefit.

Well, I feel like so true. And we even call linked to

expert the collaborative cloud community, meaning it's in the

cloud, of course. It's a community like you're talking about. But the

big difference, what we find, is the collaboration.

Most of the time too, I find people really genuinely wanna help

each other. Just as as an example, you were recently on

our show, and I'm gonna be on your show. That's true collaboration. We're

helping each other. We're promoting each other. But we do know, like, this is

taking more time out of our day to do things like this, and I'm

not saying it's wrong. All I'm saying is that we are

collaborating. With link to expert, what we also

did was when somebody that's a member,

consultants, coaches, team builders, trainers, facilitators, authors, but people that

really wanna be known as an expert, upload something new, just say a blog

or even an interview like we're doing right now. Well, when

they do that, our system automatically sends

out an email blast to all their contacts. There's a CRM

right built into link to expert. But the power of that is

three other experts are always mentioned on the email

blast. So you always have a chance to view on their email blast

too. And, like, with me, I have over 10,000 people in my database.

So 10,000 go out, but you have 10,000

chances to get on many of those because there's

only three. And so that happens. And then twice a

month, our newsletter goes out. And whatever you did in those

last two weeks, the newsletter picks that up, puts

it together automatically. Again, you don't touch it, and it sends

it to every member's people because we

found that many people, you know, they hire

you, but it's not like they're gonna hire you over and over and over because

they have different challenges every time you they turn around.

So they need different experts. And so on the news center, they can find

different people. And just like you could be found by somebody

else's contact in their database, and it's and

sometimes they even hire we had one time when one guy hired 10

people at one time for his project.

So it's not like we're hurting each other. We're helping

each other without having to do anything extra because what

you all know, marketing is really time consuming if

we allow it to be, but we kept trying to make it so that you

spend five minutes a week uploading something that you already did, that

you can write about it. You you can have it on video

like this or audio like this as well.

And so that takes you five minutes to upload, but

then you get out there. And then we also put it on Facebook, on

LinkedIn, on Twitter, everything that we keep

exposing it. Often, our affiliates expose it. We put it

in the media. They actually send it to all their subscribers, and there's

many times it goes to hundreds of thousands of people by you spending five

minutes. So I I wanna stop you for a minute because

what you said is amazing, and I think

there are a lot of people who are not gonna grasp it. Okay? So I

wanna I wanna come back and start on a really basic

level. If you are an entrepreneur, it is

really hard to build your business by yourself because there

are only so many hours in a day. There are only so many people you

can talk to. There's only so many things that you can do.

Yes. The one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is the

follow-up. Do you know? I somebody somebody was

nice enough to refer somebody to me and you forget, you don't follow-up, so you

don't get the benefit of it. And and and it sounds

sad, but to a certain extent, our business is the numbers. You know, you

have to get in front of a hundred people, you know, maybe 15 of them

will call you, whatever. And that is very time consuming. This

so what you're talking about, one, is what I call the ripple effect.

Okay. Do one thing and a whole bunch of other things. Somebody else a

more a more professional way is you take a leveraged

action. You know, you do one thing and you get multiple

results from it. Right? So that's you're talking

about that because of what you went through, you invented the systems, you

know, a program that will do that for ordinary people.

Right? And and for entrepreneurs, that's a wonderful thing. The

other thing that I will say about connection and community

is you can learn more about why you're special by

talking to other people. I think our mindset is I have to be

ready before I go into a community because I wanna be able

to add value. But in essence, if you go into a

community when you're first starting or at any time, you

can see what has worked so you don't you know, my husband has this saying,

if you're gonna walk through a minefield, follow somebody.

Right? So I love it. So you can see what mistakes

other people have made so you don't have you can learn wisdom is learning from

other people's mistakes. Right? Right. So when you do connections and

you talk to somebody, you know, the more you talk to people, the more, you

know, they go, well, I do this. And you go, I do this and they

go, well, you know, I don't do that. I had to know lots of people

who need that and you go, oh, that's good. You know? So so the

connection is so powerful,

when you're connecting and in community because it gives you a reflection.

Not only do you meet more people to get that ripple effect, to get your

message out so that you're found, you have more eyes on your business, you

get better and you have a better understanding of it as well. I mean, I

find this so amazing and it and I find it exciting because

I really came to the whole connection and affiliate

and community stuff within the last couple of years. I mean, I've

been in business for a long time, and I just never I mean, it was

really kinda word-of-mouth that I didn't work really hard at.

And now that we whether you wanna be or not, your business is

global. You put boundaries on that and say, you know,

I don't I don't stay up to midnight, so I'm not gonna be easily

accessible to this market, which is fine. But when you put

something on, you know, like social media, it goes all over the the

the globe. Right? So you need to have a that that's, like,

too much. You need to have a way to be able to connect with them.

So if you were talking to somebody who was just

getting started, what would be, like, three actions you tell them to

take to to improve their connection and follow through?

Just getting started in business, you mean? Well, you're an entrepreneur, and you

haven't put a lot of energy into this or a lot of thought, or you

don't know how to do it, but you wanna do it. What you said

earlier is really, really, really important, and most people never

do, is follow-up. Oh, it's

It's amazing to me. But I think that's you know, you

have to have a system to be able to follow-up. And I

really can tell you that so many people tell me they can't believe I

follow-up the way I do. But I, you know, I cheat. Not

cheat, but, you know, I have it in my CRM. And I know, you

know, after we talk to him when we're gonna decide to work together.

So that would be number one, I would think. But and, also, when you're going

I guess, even before the follow-up, of course, you when you're meeting people.

When people go to a networking meeting as an example, many times

they either get turned off or turned on immediately. But even

if you get turned off, I recommend that you go three times because a lot

of times it's different speakers each month or whenever the next

meeting is, whether it's online or in person or that

there's even another person that is introducing you

to other people. That's different. So I think that, you know,

do before that, though even so the third one, I keep going backwards,

but find out what that group is. Are they the type of

people you wanna work with? Because a lot of times when you do go to

networking meetings, let's face it, they're there to sell you. They're

not really there to care about what you're doing. So make sure

that when you do pick the different groups that you want

to network with, that they're not just

your ideal client, what most people call it, but people that also are

willing and wanting to work together and promote each other

instead of just themselves. Can I just comment on

that? I think a lot of people are like, I go to networking and I

never get a client. And I think that, you know,

the question I always say to people when they do something is, what's the

purpose? And if your purpose is to get a client, you probably are

gonna be disappointed. Okay? But if your

purpose is to make connection and to get the

word out there and try to support other entrepreneurs

Mhmm. Then then you're probably gonna do much better. Because once you,

you know, make the connection, then you can start talking about, oh, I have I

know people who can do whatever. And so, you know, when

I have follow-up calls with people, I don't, you know, think of it as a

sales call. The first thing I go is, how can I support you?

Right. Exactly. What can we do together? And so I think

that's really important. And I think the point that you said about going three

times, is a really good one too because people won't

get you know, if you just pop in once,

there's no consistency for people to get to know and trust you. It's like, okay.

They came once. You know? If I'm gonna follow-up, I'm gonna

follow-up on somebody that I've seen us several times who's got

consistency and, you know, I feel like I can trust.

So okay. So the other

thing that I wanna ask is

we I know that you brought a free gift, so I wanna make sure that

I get that in before we run out of time. So if you tell us

about that, and then we keep talking. So did we

get all three steps? One step was, to go to networking three

times. One step was to we we talked about follow-up, how important it

is. And I have to say, no matter where you what point you are in

your business, unless you find a system that you like working with,

follow-up is gonna be hard. I mean, one of one of the

exciting things that's happening for me is they're setting up system up with me with

it. I can put in some notes and it'll do stuff, you know, and start

the follow-up process without me having to put my hand on every single

person. Well, I forgot the first thing you said. I'm sorry. Oh,

because I was doing it backwards. But, meaning the first step

is really finding out the kinds of groups that really are right for

you because of the fact that, you know, it might not be, like you

said, that they are gonna be your client. But are they even the ones that

wanna collaborate, that wanna help each other, that are there for each other

versus just there for themselves? Because, I mean, we've all

gone to so many networking meetings. Everybody's trying to throw a card in your face

and sell you what they're doing. But are they even interested in what you're doing?

Most you know? So I would look for groups that

are compatible with, you know, helping each other

help each other instead of just there for Mhmm.

Themselves. And that that's my OMB found is

outreach with purpose and that it aligns with what you're trying to accomplish.

So Right. I mean, if you're trying to set up a a a freezer, you

know, a freezer in Antarctica, it's gonna be a really hard slog.

Right? Yes. Right. So I

apparently, I'm on the ice cube thing again. So It's okay. I

loved it. This is from when we talked earlier today, guys.

Sorry about it. I'll share that with you at another time. So I wanna ask

you, the magic question. When was the last time you did something

new for the first time? Oh, I try

to do something new every day. Like, today, I went for a walk just as

an example, and I walked a whole new different way than I ever

went. I I have this thing because I feel like there's

neurons in our head, in our brain, and, actually, if we keep going on the

same route, it just gets deeper and deeper and you'd really don't get anywhere. Where

I do my best to lay in bed at night and ask myself, what did

you learn new today? Because I feel like you should always learn something new, try

something new, do something new, meet somebody new because I really

feel like that keeps you alive and fresh and excited about life

too. It's true. I mean, that's why I came up with, I, you

know, the, the thing, stay curious. So I asked myself I

love that. When I asked myself, am I being curious or am I

being judgmental? And I used to be the kind of person who was very judgmental.

I still work to not be that way. But something would happen, you

know, because and I think that's why I resonate with you don't need

to be fixed because my family always goes, you're always trying to fix people.

So if you're curious, you you don't see that there's a problem. You're

just trying to get information and, you know, get clarification.

It does make things a lot more exciting. So let me just take a step

back for a minute and and kinda do my commercial before we end and run

out of time. What we will do is, so I'm asking

everybody to make sure that they subscribe and share and engage, you know,

with this podcast on social media, because it's

designed to supercharge your business through connection. Our way my

way of giving back and trying to build a vibrant community and

helping you to fuel your growth for growth and impact.

And I wanna make sure that you join me for the one small change

and discover that even the smallest shift

can yield monumental transformation. And if you haven't listened

to my first episode, you might wanna do that to see why

I'm doing it. And I'm also doing something a little bit new. I'm gonna I'm

gonna be doing a quarterly clarity

check-in, that I'm gonna be be posting. So

that's something new that I'm working on, and I hope that you'll find that useful.

So before we finish, tell me,

if you had to sum up a lot of stuff and just give us some

words of wisdom, what would it be? What you just said

about people think you're judgmental, I can just tell you a ditto with

me. I mean, my mom just the other day told me again that, you know,

I'm so nosy is what she says. And I told her I'm gonna

be on your show, and you always say be curious. I honestly

think people like us are not judgmental, that we could just

see so much more than they can. And when so we're not really

judging them. We're trying to give them ideas, but I have to also be

careful how I word it because it does come across, and

I'm judgmental sometime. But I'm really, truly I just can see so

much more than they can see. It's just one of my gifts,

and I'm grateful for it. So I feel like you're probably like me. We

actually even grew up in the same area of Pennsylvania.

And so I don't know if it's because of that. I don't think so because

most of the people aren't crazy like us. But I can also tell you that

they also do sometimes get stuck.

And when I hear what somebody's doing and I wanna help them,

it might come across as judgmental, but it really is because I'm curious. Like,

have you tried this? This could really work for you. Okay. You know? Does

that make sense? Yeah. Well, you know, and and just, you know, one of

the things that I wanted to cut I call I call them speed bumps

that keep me from jumping into things wholeheartedly. You know? Right.

Because I'll say, you know, something just popped into my

brain. Do you mind if I explore this with you? Do you know?

Oh, good way to say it. Yes. Because I I know

I can be judgmental. One of the hardest, limiting beliefs I've ever

had, and I have to work really hard at this, is when somebody says to

me, you're really smart. My first reaction is, how dumb are you

then? Because, you know,

you're not meant to to to you know, instead of saying thank you

Yes. We were not taught that. Anyway, that's that's going off on a tangent.

Alright. So, Joe, people need

to to check out link to experts.com.

They need to see your free gift. They need to follow you, and

all those links are gonna be in there. This has been so wonderful. If you

are trying to grow your business and you do not have the outreach

that you want, Joe can help you solve

that in such a simple and affordable way.

So believe it or not, our time is up. And so

just remember that change is simple, but it isn't always easy. And

we you have to get to your comfort zone, so it requires courage and

resilience. And, you know, to be

curious, you have to, you know, take a chance. So join me for the next

the one small change again as we embark on this journey of

innovative possibilities. And until the next time, stay

curious.