I'm thrilled to announce that The Guy Who Knows A Guy podcast is back for its sixth season, and I couldn't be more excited about what's in store. In this upcoming season, I'll be sharing my own insights on networking in solo episodes, and all our guests will be focusing on various networking topics. We've also embarked on a broader venture known as JV Connect, inspired by a game-changing networking experience I had back in 2021.

JV Connect is all about bringing together a diverse group of entrepreneurs, ranging from beginners to seasoned experts, for networking and deal-making. The main focus here is forging meaningful connections rather than pushing high-ticket programs. We'll offer affordable classes and share valuable networking content through the podcast to prepare attendees for our event in December. My ultimate goal is to create a thriving community of entrepreneurs who can collaborate effectively and make a real impact together. So, if you're eager to transform your business through networking, I invite you to join us for JV Connect in December!

Mentioned in this episode:

JV Connect, December 12-13, 2023

Join us for JV Connect, the dedicated networking event December 12th and 13th, 2023 https://www.jv-connect.com

 The Guy Who Knows A Guy podcast is back, baby, and I am excited, not just for the podcast, although I do like talking to a mic, and there will be solos, so more chance for me to talk to the mic and for you to learn from me, but I'm excited because of what this is all a part of, which is JV Connect, which I'll get to in a moment.

But everything I'm going to be doing is going to be focusing to that for reasons that will become immediately clear. This is season six of the Guy Who Knows A Guy podcast. It's going to be different a few different ways. First off, solo content, where I'll be teaching you directly, sharing what I know. I know a bit about networking.

I am the guy who knows a guy, and I'm going to be focusing on that. And then all the guests we have will be focused on networking. In the past, the content has been more around, let me show you my network, let me show you what networking can do. I kind of needed to prove myself. Who is this guy who says he's the guy who knows a guy?

Does he really know anyone? What kind of network has he built? Well, I think I've proven that, and if I haven't, well... The horse is out of the barn, and it, uh, it's a little late for that. So, hopefully you now believe I am the guy who knows the guy, I know a bit about networking, and now it is time to share what I know, and share what some of my network knows about I found in previous seasons, people might not be listening because they're like, Well, what, what's this show actually about?

And I find this myself. I go to listen to a podcast and I'm like, well, I like the host, but it's not about the host. It's about all these random people they have on who got gets on a podcast. Let's be awesome here. Let's be awesome. Let's be honest here. Let's always be awesome. But let's be honest here, who gets on a podcast?

The person who asks really nicely, and they say, Yeah, you seem pretty cool, I'd love to have a conversation with you. Which is great, if you're looking to meet people through a podcast, if you're looking to build connections through a podcast, but it's not great for the audience! The audience is listening to the podcast, and they're like, Okay, well last week it was this, and now it's this, and now it's this, what's going on here?

What is this show about? There's so many podcasts out there. How do I hold your attention? Well, I hold your attention by providing valuable networking content and more importantly, networking content that builds up to, and provide you the resources you need to thrive at JV Connect. What is JV Connect? I am glad you asked.

Because it was a three day networking event. It was built to create connections. It was built to build, make deals and create strategic alliances and just bring people together. And the people I needed to meet were there dozens. And of course they knew more, and they knew more, and they knew more, and we were off to the races.

I came out of that event with fifty five zero meetings on my calendar. I was meeting people for three months after that event. But here's the interesting thing about that event that happened two years ago. It didn't actually happen. the way I remember it. Objectively, the event that I remember is not the event that other people experienced who were there with me.

Interesting, hmm? The event that I attended was a, an enrollment event, a three day enrollment event. Now, if you're not familiar with a three day enrollment event, common structure, three days long, There just works virtual and in person. First day, you got a bunch of content. Second day in the first half, you got a bunch of content.

Second half starts with a sales pitch. So an hour or so presenting some kind of product and a sales process, building up sales, tension, go see the coaches, whatever to close the deal. Then some more content beginning of the third day. Revisiting the pitch, making some other bonus offer, you got some guest speakers selling some stuff, and then some more content and time to close more people.

That's a three day enrollment event. Great structure, a lot of people use it. And this networking event was that. The problem is... That you cannot serve two masters. You're either running a great enrollment event or a great networking event. Now this, this came as close to being both as you could imagine.

But, it was a great networking event because they didn't quite hit the mark on the enrollment event. The event actually ended up losing money. And part of the reason the event lost money was it didn't necessarily attract the right people. The people ready to buy. Because it attracted the people who were ready to network.

And those people didn't necessarily need what the offer was. I also realized that the sales strategy for this event was to throw you into the deep end if you were new or in business, and leave you feeling somewhat inadequate. So, over the course of the first day and a half, by the, the first day and a half, by the time it came to the pitch, you were exhausted.

You were overwhelmed. Wow, what's this mean? What's that mean? What's this mean? What's that mean? I don't even know! But you were surrounded by people who did know. You were surrounded by these experts who were, who were doing just fine and were totally comfortable with it all. And so the pitch could basically be, You feeling overwhelmed?

You wanna, you wanna be in the know? Well, give us some money, we're gonna teach you. So, there were some issues with it. When I talked to people later, they said it was really pitchy. It was really salesy. It was really aggressive. And it wasn't super comfortable for me. I'm a networker. Died in the wool. So when it came to pitch time, no problem.

I'm over here in the chat. I'm sending private messages. I'm still networking right through the pitch. Because I'm not interested in the pitch. I can't afford the product. I don't need it. I'm doing my thing here. I'm here to network. That's what I came for. But most other people who are not natural networkers, they got overwhelmed.

And some of them did take advantage of it. And those who didn't felt it was not a terribly comfortable experience. And they didn't love it. The event ran again a few months later and they re optimized for the thing that makes money, the pitch, the enrollment. So they brought in more of the people who needed to buy the product and less of the people who were the great networkers, who were making the great connections.

How the heck did you do it? Most of that came from other people I met through the event or people I met through them. That's where I got exposed, that higher echelon of successful entrepreneurs to learn from. It was absolutely revolutionary, absolute turning point, probably shaved two years off of my, my business development.

So I wanted to share that with people. And for the longest time, I said, Well, I can't yet. I don't have what I need. This event had a tremendous back end technology. When you went in, there was this complex dashboard that changed throughout the weekend. It had a communications feature. forum so you'd be communicating people with people through this portal.

It had this gamification system that measured your clicks and what pages you went to and what things you did and oh my goodness and then the the funnel to get you in there was a sales page and upsell down sells and a follow up but oh but oh oh like I couldn't possibly build that structure I need to partner with some some big player to build this thing for me and then I learned how much money the event lost.

It lost an amount of money that I couldn't even figure out how to spend. Alright, if you, if you gave me the amount of money they lost and said, spend this all, you know, Brewster's Million style, you gotta spend it all. They're like, I don't know, Facebook ads? Which is some of how they lost the money, it's too much ads.

But it's because they're trying to build a million dollar enrollment event. So I said, wait a minute, let's peel away everything that's not a networking event. Take away all the enrollment stuff, alright, let's just take everything that was great from that event, all the networking stuff. And get rid of all the enrollment stuff.

What would that need? What would that look like? What would the revenue model look like? And finally, I was actually lying in bed a few weeks ago, Saturday morning, didn't have to get up, staring at the ceiling, thinking, going through all that, and suddenly it hit me. I have everything. I need to run this right now because if I'm not trying to sell a 10, 000 program and I'm not trying to do all this fancy sales marketing stuff, I'm just trying to get great people in a virtual space to make great connections.

What do I really need? I need a Zoom room. I need a great schedule, a great plan. I need good people in my network, which I've obviously got that. I'm the guy who knows a guy. That I've got in spades. I need maybe some system to sell tickets, some system for affiliates. You know, I'm going to have a 50 percent affiliate, so I'm going to share, share the wealth with anyone who helps me grow this thing.

And, that's it. Reminder sequence, Moosen can do that, that's easy. I don't need all this fancy stuff. I've even got some gamification ideas that are gonna be simply Google Forms. We don't need computers. I mean, computers we need, but we don't need a very expensive, fancy, built out backend system. We just need to bring people together.

You know, I want to be an entrepreneur. I'm curious about this. I'm looking to figure this out. I'm starting, I'm dabbling, put them all in the same room. And this works great for. Because the high level people that I'm going to be calling guides, the ones I invite will be guides. Now there'll be others who are at that level who aren't guides, because guides is something I invite someone to be, because I know they're at that level and trustworthy and have integrity.

Whereas some people are at that level, and I don't know if they have integrity, so I'm not going to let them put the word guide on their name, but they'll still be there. Anyway, these people, these experienced entrepreneurs, the higher level entrepreneurs, first off, they're going to get to meet each other.

Boom. Networking happening right there. They're going to get to meet the mid and low range. You know, this is not a judgment call, just saying in terms of revenue and experience level. Uh, the, the high range is going to meet the mid and low range, and maybe some of those mid and low range folks could promote the higher range.

Someone with a 500 person, 1, 000 person, 200, uh, 2, 000 person email list could absolutely promote a bigger player. Right? Some of the, uh, the... 500 person email list could promote Tom Poland, or could promote Danny Innie, or could promote, uh, Imani Guy, or, uh, James Lamb, or any of them, and maybe make a few bucks out of it, learn how a launch works, learn how JVs work, and so those bigger players, they're gonna get the benefit of the promotion.

From the, the smaller players, the smaller players will have the chance to meet mentors will have the chance to connect with people who have been around, you know, what's going on. And a variety of them, not just one, not just one coach who says this was my way, but a number of them, they can have a number of conversations.

And of course they can meet each other because even if they are entry level into the business, they're probably experts in something. So, you know, someone who's newer to business meet someone who's newer to business, but maybe One of the people who's newer, they're really good at, uh, I don't know, nutrition.

And so they, they know their thing and nutrition. They just don't know how to sell it. And they meet someone who's really good at, uh, I don't know, Facebook ads. They, they know Facebook ads. They don't know how to sell it and build a business around it. Well, they can share, they can exchange and learn from each other.

There's so many great things going to happen when you put a variety of people in the room and the focus is on the connections, the deal making and not about selling a higher. Ticket program. So my model is the event is the offer The thing I'm selling is tickets to this event. I'm also selling sponsorships.

If you're interested in that, reach out to me. Michael at GuyKnowsGuy. com Uh, the sponsorships are not terribly expensive. It's 1, 000 to be a sponsor and to be live in front of everyone. Now, this is not a 40 minute speech because this is not a speaker event, but you will have the chance to get exposure to everyone present and I'll go into detail on that later if you want to know.

But, uh, it's a tremendous value because this is the first one, but that's the revenue model. It's all this event I don't have a high ticket coaching offer. I don't have a high ticket course I don't have anything high ticket to sell people into for this and that's Sort of on purpose. Uh, it's also just kind of want to build something like that.

I want to build the space where you don't have to be a master networker to get incredible results. You have to be a decent networker coming in with the right mindset and the right energy and do some of the stuff I share with you and how are you going to learn that it's going to be in this podcast. So you listen to the podcast, that's your training.

You don't have to take course. Now I'm also going to have some classes that are low cost, charging 30 bucks for each class. There's some low cost, you know, some classes like Affiliate JB 101 and, uh, Never Cold Call Again. So have to use networking to find prospects, what to say when networking, going deep into introductions and how to have conversations, that kind of thing.

And then, uh, how to use email. Infinite effortless follow up. Use email to follow up with the people you meet when networking. So I will have those classes. For a few bucks, again, not high ticket, but you can just listen to this podcast. Listen to the solo episodes of this podcast, and I'm going to teach you what you need to know.

And by the end of those calls say, holy mackerel, when's the next one? This is going to be, this has been amazing. That's my goal. And everything else I'm doing around that is building towards that. So season six of the guy knows guy podcast. Is again, focusing on that. Now, full disclosure, some of the interviews I did, I recorded before JV connect was launched.

So they are great content. They are around networking. They may not mention JV connect specifically. There's still going to be great networking content. I encourage you to check them out. We've got some great ones, the, and of course the one I'm most excited about is Bob Berg, the co author of The Go Giver we got on the podcast.

I've wanted to interview him for two years now, uh, maybe longer since I first read The Go Giver, and I am thrilled to be able to share that with you. But we've got so much great stuff coming up. Uh, I would love to answer any questions you have. You have questions about networking, things you want to learn, questions about the event, whatever.

You can email me at michael at guy who knows a guy dot com For anything I talk about the links are at guy who knows a guy dot com just right up there at the top or on The sidebar somewhere. I'll make them easy to find for you guy who knows a guy Dot com everything is there if you want to go straight to the JV connect page.

It's guy who knows a guy dot com slash JV connect, but if you forget that just go to guy who knows a guy calm. Everything is right there. I Really really want you to join me in December not just because oh, I need your ticket price Because the tickets at the door if you wait till the last minute are a hundred and fifty bucks But they start way way way lower than that and they will ramp up I'm not going to say what they're starting at because I don't want you to listen to this in late November and get that like, Oh man, I missed the lowest price.

Yes, you missed the lowest price. As I record this, there was a price in the past that was lower. It's fine. The price today is the lowest it's ever going to be, but it's not 10, 000. The reason I want you there is not because I want you to buy a ticket because that helps me. I do. I do. I'll admit that. That is how...

I pay the bills. That is how I'm able to do this. I want you to come because I'm building something that I think almost everyone in business needs. Which is the networking event where they'll actually find the people they need to meet who can grow your business and bring you forward. Whether it is partners or mentors or vendors or resources or trusted companions or whatever it might be.

That's why I want people to come to this. I realized I was doing the right thing because I, I had this realization that It's not a matter of, Oh, I want to sell X number of tickets because that makes so many dollars. It's, I look at my list, which is currently about 2, 500 people. And I say, if I only sell 200 tickets, then 2, 300 people missed out on what I created.

So you may be hearing, I'm a little bit excited. Maybe you're not in which case I've completely missed the mark, but I'm pretty sure you're probably hearing. I am a little bit excited. I would love for you to connect with me. Email me, michael, at guywhoknowstheguy. com Go to guywhoknowstheguy. com Uh, whatever's, whatever's cooking right now is gonna be at the top of that page.

Of course, JV Connect is the big thing. I'll have more and more ways for you to connect with me. Uh, including take a look at the networking gathering, the Entrepreneur Village. And a few other things, all of which should be linked on guy knows the guy. com. But, join me! In December! Let's change the world.

Because when we put a few hundred people in a space, all collaborating together, creating hundreds or thousands of connections among them, it's gonna make something happen. It's gonna be big. And we're gonna do it together. All right! I will see you in the next episode! And then, of course, in December.