A Personal Note from Orion

You’ve probably heard the following question more than 100 times in your life: “How are you?” Well I bet you haven’t heard an answer to that question like this one, from my guest Cami Baker – “I’m fabulous, fearless, and on fire!” Because wouldn’t you agree that an answer like “fine”, “good”, or “ok” simply doesn’t create a memorable impact on the other person, or even on ourselves? If you say you are fine, then you’ll be just fine, but if you say you are on fire…then you’ll definitely start feeling like you are on fire, like your invincible and ready to take on the world!

Because when it comes to networking, one of the top secrets is that your energy will precede you – meaning if you get pumped up before an event, you’ll be more lively and energetic and attract more people to you. But if you come into it scared, insecure, and timid, you’ll likely end up in the corner scrolling through your phone. But hey, we are all human, and guess what – another big secret we discuss in this episode is that everyone else is just as nervous about networking as you are, so don’t be afraid to make the first move!

 

 

In this Episode

• [02:24] – How did Cami come up with her response to being asked how she’s doing (“I’m fabulous, fierce, and on fire!”)?
• [03:47] – Cami talks about how she became a professional networker who teaches others to network. In her answer, she mentions her new book Mingle to Millions: The Art and Science of Building Business Relationships and Mastering Referrals. She also goes into some depth about her background.
• [07:51] – Orion shares her own experience with not being a natural entrepreneur.
• [09:55] – What does Cami do to show up naturally and build rapport immediately in a networking situation, especially when everyone around is putting up a facade to show themselves as the best?
• [14:13] – Orion reveals that she sometimes experiences feelings of inferiority when she’s surrounded by highly successful people.
• [16:56] – Cami responds to Orion’s discussion about feeling inferior around certain people or under certain circumstances. She offers a story about Ashton Kutcher.
• [20:53] – How do you get over feeling pressure to make a good impression?
• [23:17] – Cami talks about giving, helping and sharing, offering some concrete tips and suggestions for how to use these techniques in your networking attempts.
• [25:41] – Upon seeing someone for the first time in a busy room, how do you approach them? Cami tells a story that reveals the power of associating yourself with the right people.
• [30:45] – Cami recommends going straight to the big dog in the room and introducing yourself. Everybody is watching everybody, and this positions you positively.
• [32:44] – Another of Cami’s tips is to let other people talk first, as she explains here. She also advises strongly against simply asking “what do you do?”, and offers advice on what to do next time someone asks you that question.
• [38:58] – How do you take it from the networking stage and into the real world? Orion offers herself up as an example of someone who struggles with the follow-up part.
• [43:18] – Communication and rapport-building isn’t taught in school, Cami points out.
• [46:58] – Cami did something really impressive with Orion, as we learn here. Cami then talks about her program: Up to 30 Highly Qualified Leads in 30 Days with as little as 30 Minutes a Day!
• [50:18] – Orion brings up the topic of introverts and extroverts, and why she finds the duality problematic. Cami agrees that putting ourselves in boxes is limiting.
• [53:12] – What are Cami’s three tips to living a stellar life? 1. If you want to step into who you want to be, change your playgrounds and your playmates. 2. Feed your mind by making deliberate choices about what you read and listen to. 3. If you have to choose between the two, be ignorance on fire instead of knowledge on ice.

About Today’s Show

‏‏Hello and welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. I’m your host, Orion. My guest today is Cami Baker, an international speaker, furiously entrepreneurial, and founder of the Worldwide Net Web. She has given over 1,000 presentations to audiences as large as 30,000. Her keynote, Mingle to Millions: The Art and Science of Building Relationships and Mastering Referrals is also the name of her new book. Cami will teach you the art and science of building resources, relationships, and revenues that rock. She’s been featured in Success from Home magazine, on HDTV twice, and as a judge on NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice. It is my honour and pleasure to introduce to you somebody that can change your networking life and networking skills forever. She will teach you how to approach people in the party, how to follow up and how to convert this conversation into sales and money. Without any further ado, I am proud to introduce to you, Cami Baker. Hi Cami and welcome to Stellar Life podcast.

‏‏Thank you for having me. I am fabulous, fearless, and on fire and excited to share some great information with you and your tribe.

‏‏I love it. I love what you just said. “I’m fabulous, fearless, and on fire.” That’s amazing. How did you come up with that? Because when you ask somebody, “How are you doing?” They’re like, “Fine. I’m okay.”

‏‏It’s interesting that you say that because I am a professional networker. I teach people how to create relationships and therefore, when we’re out networking, listen, we already know most people say, “How are you?” We can either get weirded out—I’ve got a client, I got on the phone with him a couple of weeks ago and I said, “Hi Jason! How are you?” He immediately just got resistant and pissed off, he said, “You know I really hate it when people say that because they really don’t care how you are, it’s just the nature of the reaction, blah blah blah.” I said, “Here’s the thing, this is a teachable moment. We already know people are going to ask how are you and since you’re going to hear that 2, 10, 20 times a day, it’s just going to happen. You might as well come up with a response that sets you on fire, it gets a great response from the other person and it helps to affirm inside of you, that you are that what you say you are.” I don’t know about you Orion, but I don’t want to go through life being good, or okay, or fine. I am fabulous, I am fearless, and I’m on fire. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to say that one more time today.

‏‏Can you say that again?

‏‏Fabulous, fearless and on fire! You have to go up with the fire. Fabulous, fearless and on fire!

You have to go up with the fire. Fabulous, fearless and on fire! Click To Tweet

‏‏On fire! Amazing. Networking, tell me a little bit about how you started with your expertise. How did you become a professional networker that teaches others to do so?

‏‏I appreciate that you ask me that too because the book that I have is Mingle to Millions: The Art and Science of Building Business Relationships and Mastering Referrals. It took me a year and a half to come up with that title. I’m so glad that the universe gave me that title because as lengthy as it may sound, it really says exactly what I do. I help people to build business relationships and master referrals. What brought me to this place is I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was eight years old. When I was eight, going to school, I saw kids with coins in their pocket and they all wanted gum and candy so I would stop at the store and buy gummy candy and sell it to them for profit and replenish my store with candy. That’s why I started my first business, selling candy to other kids. I’ve always had the entrepreneur mindset but I have not always made the right choices. I owned a brick and mortar business when I was 23 to 30 years of age and then I moved from one part of the country to another part of the country and having been very entrepreneurial and having been the boss many years and owning business etc., I got to this new part of the country and I found myself as other people’s employee at first. I’ll be really honest, 16 years ago, I was laying on my couch at [9:00] in the morning with a bottle of Bacardi and basically wanting to die. My daughter was about a year and a half old at that time and the only reason I didn’t kill myself was because I didn’t want her to grow up wondering what was so wrong with her that mommy didn’t want to live.

‏‏Wow.

‏‏I share that because people will say, “I don’t have time to network. I’ve got kids, I can’t go network. You don’t understand, I wasn’t a born networker. I’m not extroverted. I’m introverted. Cami, you don’t understand all the woes I’ve seen.” I share with people, if I can go from being a full-blown alcoholic, laying on the couch wanting to kill myself to cleaning that part of my life up and being able to go out and create business relationships and write a book and talk about it, than anybody can. Over the last 16 years, what happened was I sobered up, I got a job in real estate, I found coaches in real estate that helped me. First of all, I found coaches, if you will, that helped me get sober because when you want something that you don’t have and you can find other people who have that what you want, it just makes sense to get into the same box and play with those people. I found mentors that helped me get sober, I found mentors that helped me in real estate, I found mentors that helped me in network marketing, which leads me actually into answering even deliberately more your question, how did I start teaching this. In network marketing I have a team of 10,000 people all over the world and that’s another whole story, but the thing is, people would say to me, “Cami, how do you go to a networking event at [7:00]AM, you meet a complete stranger and at [6:30]PM, they come into another stranger’s house and join your business. How do you do that? What are you saying to people? How do you build rapport? How are you following up? What does this look like?” I started teaching it by default. It was part of that business structure, I’d sit down with one person at a Panera’s and then before you knew it, I have 15 or 20 all sitting on the couch, on the floor of my living room, then it went to 30, 50, 100 people on the stage. I’ve spoken to stages as large as 30,000 physically in an auditorium and it’s all about the art and science of building business relationships and mastering referrals.

‏‏Wow. Such an important skill. I was not a natural entrepreneur. I hear the stories of successful people that started selling avocados when they were two. I’m like, yeah, I never seen myself as an entrepreneur until recently, just the last few years where I started taking myself seriously and my mission seriously and understanding that what I have to share and give to the world is very important because I can save a life just by sharing what I’m sharing. What you’re doing is of great service to humanity. It’s very confusing because every time we network—I’m a seminar junkie. I’m addicted to seminars. Just the last three weeks, I’ve been to three. It’s great but it can be overwhelming because on my third one, I was just like, “Oh my god, I’m meeting new people, introducing new people.” Then, it’s not only about meeting the people and being outgoing, but it’s also the follow up that we’re going to talk about later. So many questions. The first one is what do you do to show up naturally and build rapport immediately in a network situation especially when you’re in an environment that is extremely formal and everybody is trying to show that they are smarter, more successful and they hold that façade of like, “I’m the best thing ever.”

‏‏You know what? There’s so much in that question. That is a beautiful question. The thing is, people are trying to hold a façade. I am the seminar junkie queen. Believe you, me, we are peas in a pod. I went to a seminar about 14 years ago Orion where I learned in some exercise that they did, that the person sitting next to you is just as worried about how they look, how they smell, what they say, are they going to be rejected or accepted etc. The old analogy, that guy put his pants on one leg at a time just like I do, truly plays out. What I found when I was in that network marketing company, when I was working with people one on one in small groups, large groups, I was doing case study after case study, hundreds and thousands from just the whole group. What I realized was everybody has the same dreams and goals. I try to not stereotype and pigeon hole and say everybody because it’s such a blatant statement. However, human beings are. There’s a lot of fear that goes on and there’s a lot of worry. “Am I saying it right? Do I look the right way? Etc.” The first thing I would share with you is will we really, really, really get that? No. Everyone in the room does not have the handbook to life except for you. In other words, they’re holding up their façade to use your word, that’s perfect. They’re holding up that cardboard cutout that says, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m great. I’m dressed this way because I’m professional, because I’m very successful.” Understand that they feel just as uncomfortable as you do. There’s a very small percentage of people who absolutely are extroverted, they’re the life of the party, they love being at that event. Even the ones that I know personally that are extroverted and seem really life of the party, when it comes down to it and I have conversations with them about networking, they don’t follow up, they feel uncomfortable in those situations as well. There’s something to be said Orion about taking the icky out of the networking situation. We all have friends, we all have romantic relationship, we all have family that we get along with fine. It doesn’t matter what situation you’re in, you feel comfortable with them. Why is it when we walk into this networking situation, all of a sudden, we feel weird and icky about it. Just like the work that you do with women to help them all get juicy, and all feminine, and help them find their right soul mate, all of us as coaches, have people come to us because they want to learn a skill set. Your women want to know, “Where’s my man?” My people want to know, “What do I say when I walk into an event? What do I say when they ask me what to do? What do I say to create conversation? How do I follow up?” People all want to know all these skill sets but at the end of the day, it’s the mindset that we really have to work on first and foremost. To answer your question, first of all is how do you feel about yourself? How do you truly, truly feel about you? By the way, networking is not a place we go or something that we put on our schedule. You and I are networking right now. Every time we communicate in line at Starbucks, at those big seminars, at the PTA meeting for the kids, any time we’re communicating on Facebook, in an email, how are we showing up? Who are we being? When we can be really solid in our footing as a human being and get centered, then walking into those situations is not nearly as awkward and now, we start to notice Orion, that all those people are carrying a façade. Even the most successful person in the room still has insecurities, still has fears, still has doubts and is still rather grateful when you come up and treat them like another human being.

‏‏That is so powerful. To your answer, I love the distinction that you made between networking as an entity like, “We’re going to network.” We are actually networking everyday all day, on Facebook, on social media, in the supermarket. But for me, it’s easier for me to have a conversation with—I talk to everybody, that’s who I am. I’ll talk to everybody. There’s something in me that I want to make people comfortable and loved. But when it comes to if it’s very fancy shmancy networking event and everybody, you know that they’re extremely successful, I personally feel somewhat inferior and it’s harder for me. It’s like my whole personality changes. It’s like I need to fit in and become—they’re almost like robots. I feel like I need to change myself up a little bit to match the room or match the energy. I don’t open up the way I open up.

‏‏See, this is perfect. This is exactly what I was saying, that the expressive person that we all think is so outrageously outgoing and all that kind of stuff. Even they, can have issues. It’s the same thing here. I’ll give you a couple of skill sets but the thing is, once again, we are back to what I said originally, it’s how you feel about yourself because the word that you use was, “I feel inferior.” If we walk in the room already feeling that away before we’ve even entered the room, our energy does precede us, and we carry it with us. What if we farted, and we carried it in the room with us, I’m just going to say it. You just carried that energy into the room and what I just did right there was not only me being real and not being able to come up with another analogy but it also helps you laugh. There is nothing wrong with being in the situation. Even the most formal situation, to be able to say something, to crack a joke and make others laugh, when you can make somebody laugh, you actually break the ice right then and there.

‏‏That’s what I find myself doing. I make people laugh. I’ll be very serious and then I will say something and they will be like, “Huh?” And they’ll start laughing. The connection just happens immediately. When I say inferior, I’m exaggerating. It’s not always like that. But especially when I’m near somebody who has a celebrity status, people that make a lot of money, it’s like, “Oh yeah. It’s them.”

‏‏Let me share something to you about that though because I know you go a lot to seminars just like I do and you’re probably even talking about some seminars that I’ve been to or some of the people who are little more the higher echelon and make not just seven figures but eight. Here’s the thing, last year, I went to one of these conferences we love to go to, one of them was Sage Summit and one of the speakers was Ashton Kutcher. I think of Ashton Kutcher as he was on that 70’s show, he’s a stoner. But he’s actually a really, really successful businessman. He has a piece of over 600 companies at least at the venue I was at, it could be more at this point. Somebody asked him, he said, “What did you attribute your success to? How did you start learning and become such a great businessman?” He said, “I got myself into rooms where the people in the rooms were smarter than me, and I shut my mouth and I was present and I listened. I listened and I listened for a couple of years until I had something important to say. What I take from that, what I’m taking that into this conversations, sometimes when you’re in that type of environment, number one, learn what’s going on there. For example, if it’s a hotsy totsy party, and it’s on a yacht, you could always read and learn about yachts so that you have something to talk about. Find out what they’re about. If they’re investment bankers, then take an hour, do a little bit of research. There’s a system I have called research, reach out, relationship build. We can talk about that another time further on in the podcast. But the point of it is do a little bit of research on who’s going to be there, on what the topic or the subject or the overall theme of that engagement is so that you don’t have to feel like when there are conversations going on, that you don’t know anything about it. For example, some of these conferences that we go to are all about internet marketing. If you walk in there and there are seven-figure earners and you don’t know anything about internet marketing, of course you’re going to feel inferior. Go ahead and do a little bit of research about that particular subject so that you can bring a little bit to the table. The other thing I was saying about, what Ashton was saying about, keep your mouth shut until you have something of value to say, I love being in a room with people that have more knowledge about things than I do, that have more influence, that have more, more, more and lot, lot, lot. Because I tell you something, the saddest place to be is when I’m the smartest person in the room. When I get into a situation like that, I am present, I am aware, I am awake, I am on, I am engaging when need be but I am also quiet and absorbing because just because we’re in that networking type of environment doesn’t mean we have to be using our mouth more than our ears. Remember God gave us two ears and one mouth, let’s use them accordingly.

‏‏I love everything that you’re saying. I do live by that. I will not speak if I can learn something. I’ll let them talk because sometimes I’m tired of hearing myself talk. Still, I’m going to that energetic place of even approaching and talking, and being in that circle with that person and actually connecting with them more on a human level which I do to a certain degree but there is still that my heart can be racing and I’ll be really excited. I wanted to make a really good impression. How do you get over that mindset, that piece of mindset?

‏‏The mindset thing is really something that we take more in the next 30 minutes that we have but what I can share is on building the rapport and being present and exercising our question muscle. Being able to just look at that person in the eye and just say, “Hey, what are you working on right now?” Human beings are human beings. They do like to talk about themselves. Some more than others but overall, people would much rather talk about themselves than listen to you. Like you just said, sometimes you’ve got a lot to say, sometimes you just got to be quiet. But when we ask somebody, “Hey, what are you working on right now?” or “I’m really curious, can you tell me something about you that doesn’t have anything to do with your career and your work, or your family? Something that nobody else knows about you.” Or even ask them, “What’s a good book that you’ve read?” or “Who do you find to be the most influential mentor in your life?” I’m telling you something Orion, especially in that kind of a room, in that kind of a room, to ask questions are so powerful because if you want to find out what’s the best place to invest your money, if you want to find out what’s the best book for business success, if you want to find out where’s the best vacation place to go in the world, if you want to find out who’s the best of anything and everything including mentors, courses and seminars, girl you’re in the right place. Here’s what you do with the mindset, stop focusing on yourself, I’m not saying you are, I’m saying to any of our listeners, don’t focus so much on yourself and what you can say that’s clever but ask a question and just absorb and focus on them, focus on them, focus on them, and really be interested in them. It’s way more important that we be interested in the other person than we make ourselves interesting.

‏‏Yeah because when you are interested, you are interesting to that person. What I found out with the big guns, the mega successful, the very famous, is that they really love to help and they really like to teach, and they really like to share. When you do that, you give them a gift because you give them an opportunity to share their mission, their purpose with the world and they appreciate that.

‏‏That is so true. And actually, that leads me to another thing that you just made me remember which is giving, helping, and sharing. I tell people all the time, my clients where I’m coaching them on having better results when they’re out networking. If they’re going to a physical, actual networking event, all these conferences and stuff you’re going to, I’ve got 50 plus tips on how to network at expose, trade shows, and large seminars. One of those tips is to get there early. Early, early and volunteer, volunteer, help and sign people in and all that. I’ve got a million reasons why that’s important but one of the things, like you said, to your point, the higher up the echelon, the higher up the food chain, the more someone has, not for everyone, of course we’ve heard people in high finance or whatever including our wonderful president who are not necessarily this way but for the circles of us, heart-centered visionary entrepreneurs, they are going to be givers and helpers. It’s important that you have some kind of cause that you feel strongly about. For me, when I work with my clients, especially the coaches and the speakers that I work with, if they’re wanting to be seen more and speak more, get on stages more, I can help with that. One of the things I’ll share with them is when they’re doing a venue is to have an organization that they are giving proceeds to. I always say, “Stay away from religion or politics because you can alienate and ostracize people with those two things.” It has to do with animals, or children, or older people, or vets, or the environment or something. If you’ve got something like that that you’re really passionate about, that’s something great to talk to these folks about to. You can ask them, “May I ask what kind of cause marketing are you doing right now? What is your passion? What are you making your most contributions to, whether it’s your spirit or your wallet? I’m just curious what your hot about because I’m interested in this, this, and this. I’m always interested to see if there are other things that I can put some focus on as well.

‏‏Cami, you see me for the first time in a busy room, what would you say and how would you approach me? Something about me, like you’re intrigued, how will you approach me and what will you say?

‏‏Well first of all, I’ve seen you and you’re strikingly beautiful. When a woman can give another woman a compliment, holy moly does that break the ice. It doesn’t matter if I’m at a local chamber of commerce event or if I’m at a big national conference, there’s a little bit of that standoff-ishness between women. I don’t know how it is between men. I was looking at people and thinking that they are at a different level than we are, whatever that is. If I’m wanting to build rapport with you, first thing I’m going to do is give you a compliment. “Oh my god girl. I love them shoes. Where did you get them shoes?” Or “Wow, your cheekbones are striking.” Like in other words, a compliment is absolutely true, it’s not something that you make up. If you can’t come up with a compliment like that then come up with something else. A compliment is a great way to start a conversation and it’s a great way to break the ice between one beautiful woman to another. That is so powerful. I’ve got a whole story about walking up to a table full of beautiful women. I was at an event at New Jersey and it was for the Ronald McDonald house. It was an event that I was actually helping to put on. At the time, I was in the midst of training and teaching hundreds of people about networking and I saw this table of women in the middle of the room and they were all staying there just as tall and beautiful and expertly dressed and groomed as you’ve ever seen in your life and no one was talking to them. This was at a Ferrari dealership. The parking lot was full of at least 100 of the most bright, beautiful, expensive Ferraris you’ve ever seen. It was a fund-raiser. There were guys there that were single. They were some groups of guys. You name it. And no one was talking to these women. I looked at them, I was just standing back and looking at the whole situation and I remember thinking to myself, “Isn’t it interesting that no one’s going over talking to them? Isn’t it interesting they’re not talking to anyone else?” I’m taking up the whole scene and I think to myself, “Well, if I don’t go talk to them, how can I ever tell my clients and the people that I work with that you can talk to anyone anywhere, anytime. If I stand back and resisted talking to them like everybody else in the room, shame on me. I can’t be a coach anymore.” So, I start walking over to these ladies, making the whole journey straight across the room. I had no idea what I’m going to say, Orion. I have no idea. But I know that if I don’t go over there and start a conversation with these women, I can never look at my people in the face again. And so I’m walking over there, they start to notice me coming over, they’re all looking. When I tell you they were dressed and beautiful, they were stunning. I did, I just walked up and said, “Ladies, this is the nicest group of shoes I have ever seen standing at one table.” They were standing, it was like a bar top table. It immediately broke the ice. We ended up chitchatting and there’s a lot coming out of the story. I’m excited that I thought about telling you this. We started chitchatting. I stood there and talked to them for a few minutes, I found out that they were the models that had came. There was a really expensive affluent, luxurious, magazine that had the Ferraris, and the Rolexes, and the whole thing and they were the models that were there to promote which they weren’t doing because just like all human beings, they’re afraid of talking to people, of course they are. They’re going to gather the three of their beautiful selves at one table and not talk to anybody because they’re afraid to. But anyway, I chatted up with them, I stood there for maybe 10 minutes. Here’s what’s beautiful out of that. As I left that table, no one else in the room knows. Do I know those women? Do I not know those women? Did I just introduce myself? Are we friends? If we’re friends, have we been friends for a day, week, 10 years? Nobody really knows. The level of association for me elevated immediately. The way that people were looking at me when I walked away from that table because I had just associated myself with those women was was that people started to talk to me differently, they started asking me to come over to their table. Something to be said for association, who you associate with is so important. I learned that lesson that day. I learned the lesson that everybody was watching this beautiful table of women, nobody had the balls to go over and talk to them because I did, I was automatically raised in the eyes of everyone in that room. Does that make sense?

A compliment is a great way to start a conversation and it’s a great way to break the ice between one beautiful woman to another. That is so powerful. Click To Tweet

‏‏Yeah, you brought light to the table, you brought light to yourself, you elevated everything. Little things like that can change—you probably really influenced the way they see themselves or maybe the way they network.

‏‏I don’t know if I did that for them but what I did learn was a couple of lessons that had played out time and time again for myself once I was able to notice them and that I have been able to share with thousands, maybe millions at this point. Case and point, here we are on this podcast and what I want to share with your listeners is this, no matter what kind of event it is, if it’s the local chamber of commerce or whether it’s Laurel Langemeier event, go straight to her. Go straight to the chamber president. Go straight to the big dog in the room and introduce yourself because everybody’s watching everybody, everybody can see everybody. That’s one of the reasons why I say get there early. When you get there early and you have a chance to meet the movers and the shakers and the coordinators and the people that are putting the event on, and you meet Rich German, Christian Mickelsen, when you get there early and you meet them, now, they’re going to actually remember you, you get a chance to build rapport and build relationships with them. Sometimes you get a chance to have some one on one million-dollar coaching and training because you’re in the room helping set up chairs with multi-millionaires and the other thing is, now, if you’re just at a regular event and you walk up to say, “Laurel.” And you’re talking to her, you introduce yourself and you’re talking to her, anybody that comes to the room when she introduces you, there is immediate credibility on your behalf, immediate. They don’t know how well you know her. They don’t know what’s going on. They’re just thinking, “Oh, you know Laurel, oh nice to meet you.”

‏‏Yes, it’s like that. Rich used to be my coach for a while. I totally understand and I always approach them. I always associate with the movers and shakers because if I want to be a mover and shaker, I have to have mentors around me that are movers and shakers and associate myself with these people. It’s so true.

‏‏Well, another thing about it is to let people talk first. Back to your original question, how would I just walk over and talk to you, which took me off on tangents, I hope you are okay with that

‏‏I love your tangents, they’re amazing. I learned so much. That’s awesome.

‏‏When you do walk up to somebody that you’ve never met before though, it’s really important that you do not vomit “here’s what I do” all over them and then you let them talk first. I’m a huge proponent of stopping saying, “What do you do?” It’s so boring. It’s so overused. It’s about being more creative. Like I said earlier with, “What are you working on right now?” or “Hey, who’s the most influential person you know in the room and can you bring me over and introduce me? I’d love that.” Just anything else outside of what do you do because at the end of the day, if you go up and give a woman a compliment on her shoes and she starts talking about she bought it for herself, for her birthday, before you know it, you started chitchatting. Now, you’ve gotten to know her, and we’re just on the phone right now but you’re going to hear the difference in my voice. There’s a difference between, “Hey, my name’s Cami Baker. What do you do?” There’s that kind of question and then there’s 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour later, or maybe even sometimes days or weeks later when that person says, “Hey Orion, what is it you do anyway?” Now, that’s a different question. When you’ve been talking for 5 or 10, or 15 minutes and you built some rapport, and look, I know that when you’re at a networking event that’s 1 hour, you’re not going to stand up for 10, 15 minutes. You shouldn’t be anyway because you’re moving to the room. But the point is when you had a chance to build rapport and it could be a couple of minutes, it maybe that right then and there, hopefully it doesn’t even come up. Maybe you just set up a follow up for later on to talk to them but by the time they actually say to you, “So, what is it that you do anyway?” Now, they care. Now, they actually give a  shit. Now, they are actually interested. That is a much better way of answering that question than us walking up and saying, “What do you do?” Or if somebody says to us, “What do you do?” Or if somebody says to us, “What do you do?” It’s like Pavlov’s dog. Dog here is ding ding. Dog can’t help it. Dog doesn’t want to salivate. Dog doesn’t think about salivating. Dog just does what’s been trained. When we walk into an event, if somebody says, “What do you do?” We have got to be so centered and so present that we don’t start salivating when the bell rings. The next time someone asks you, “What do you do?” This is your turn to exercise a different muscle in your body which is your brain and just say something to get it back on them. You can say, “You know what? It depends on the day and who I’m working with. Tell me more about you.”

‏‏I love that. “Depends on the day and who I’m working with.” Oh, that’s so cool.

‏‏Understand, that’s fun and it’s equipped and I’ve got a million of them, but at the end of the day number one is how you see it. Number two, it really doesn’t matter what you say as long as you get the conversation back on them and let them talk because within two minutes, or five minutes or whatever, they will tell you everything that you need to know so that when it does come back to, “So, what do you do anyway?” Now, you can tailor what you’ve got to say based on what they need to hear.

‏‏It’s so nice. You have to be a detective and then match your message to what they need instead of just, “I do this, and this, and this, and this.” They’re not even interested.

‏‏Yep. Match your message. I love that. I’m going to steal that. Because my thing is “ditch the pitch”. I wrote a song about it. “Ding, dong, the pitch is dead. 30-second pitch, the elevator pitch. Ding, dong, the wicked pitch is dead.” We want to kill that pitch off and stop saying the same thing to everyone we meet and nobody cares and you are not even passionate about it. We’re just saying this one rhyme. There are four different distinct personalities and people have a myriad of different combinations of them. For us to have one pitch that we think everybody’s going to hear is just insane.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏Like you said, be a detective but don’t make it feel like it’s work. It’s more of like God gave you two ears and one mouth. Use them in proportion. Let that person talk a little bit because I can say to you Orion, I worked with entrepreneurs and business people and coaches, and speakers, and I help to lead generate because what I find is they don’t have the time to network and when they do network, they don’t have the results that they want. I can ramble, ramble, ramble or when I talk to you and I find out that you are a coach for example, now I can bring that right down. But what I do is I work with coaches looking to generate high quality leads. What I find is, they do network, but they’re not getting the results from the networking that they really want and what they want is to find those high quality leads to talk to about their wonderful life changing services.

‏‏Right. How do you take it from the building rapport and, “Hi, this is what I do. My message is a match to you and you probably need my services, you don’t say it but you hint it.”, how do you take it from the networking to the real world because this is everything. Let me take a personal example, which is me, I end up with a bunch of cards. Sometimes I don’t remember who I spoke with and what I spoke with them about. For me, the whole follow up part is a little more challenging because it feels a little forced like, “Hey, how are you doing? We just met on that party. I would love to talk to you.” I don’t know it just feels robotic.

‏‏There’s so much to say in what you’ve just asked. There are so many different directions to go and we don’t have time. Maybe we should have a strategy session. I could help you with this. That’s one of the things I’ll say to people, “You know what? I can help you with that. I can. I can help you with that.” Now, first of all, you said follow up because you think that they need your services or because you want to talk about your services and maybe they didn’t say that but that’s what you’re thinking. Let’s have a bigger picture here, Orion. Let’s have a way bigger picture because for example, you do podcast, you have some huge names on this podcast. I am humbled to be a part of what you’re doing here based on some of the names that I know have been interviewed by you. So my dear love, when you are at one of these conferences, it may not be that they “need your service”, it maybe that they would be good interview person for your podcast. Yes?

‏‏Oh yes, absolutely. It could be that they could be a collaboration partners in a joint venture. In other words, it’s not just that they are good for your services, but here’s what I say, communicate, to conversate, to collaborate, to create the impact, income, and influence that you’re wanting to have. Because we are wanting to generate the resources and relationships, and revenue and all these funnel iterations that I have, the thing is, I find that when we focus on the few as opposed to the mingling with the masses and grabbing all these cards, and not knowing what we said or who they are, and what are we going to do when we follow up, because there are some people that will go there and collect 50 or 100 business cards and go put them on their e-list, on their e-magazine or email list or whatever, if that’s your mode of operation, that’s fine, that’s you. To me, that’s just spamming.

‏‏I rather have quality over quantity.

‏‏Here’s what I would coach you on as I do my clients now. If it’s a local event and you’re there for an hour, one and a half hour something like that, no more than three, do not overwhelm with over three, now we’re talking about an event where maybe there’s a speaker and you’re not even talking to people for an hour. Maybe it’s 30 minutes of networking time but the point is to limit yourself. Reign yourself in and if it’s a big conference like some of these that you and I go to that are three days in a row, okay great. Let’s not take no more than 10 or 15 cards. Every single one of them, when I walk into an event, I’ve got my cards and I’ve got my pen. That’s it. And my phone. I’ve got my pen, if somebody gives me a physical card, I’m old school. I like to write on it unless it’s glossy or black or something and I can’t write on it, I’ll make notes right on there. Been on the business for 25 years, struggles through this, has four kids, whatever was it that we talked about that I think is most important to them, so that when I do follow up, I have something to follow up about. If we talked about how that person loves sushi, then I’ll send to them, “Hey Orion, Cami Baker here, we met at the Chamber of Commerce last Tuesday, we were talking about sushi. Here’s a link to that restaurant I was talking about. I found out it’s 25% off on Tuesdays. Hope you have a great time.” In other words, now we have something to follow up about. Do you see what I mean?

‏‏First you build a relationship, you don’t just attack them.

‏‏Never attack. I know that you don’t attack because I can hear how heart-centered you are and how friendly. You genuinely want to help people but once again, this is a great example because if you’re really introverted and a wallflower, and you never talk to anyone, that in and of itself is a conversation. I have a lot of people who say how shy they are and they don’t know how to get out of their own way. This is different. This is someone yourself who is beautiful, who is outgoing, who will talk to anyone anywhere as you’ve already mentioned and even still in a business networking environment, there’s all of the shit. Yeah?

‏‏Yeah, a lot going on.

‏‏A lot going on. That’s okay. It’s human nature. Listen, when we were in school, no matter what country you live in, no matter what city your state, they don’t teach communication, they don’t teach us how to shake hands. We go out fist-bumping kids instead of even shaking hands for god’s sake. Nobody really understands how to just build rapport with someone, not from a place of what’s in it for me or what’s my ulterior motive or what do you want out of me or when are you going to pitch your shit to me so I could pitch my shit to you, but just meeting people from bridging the humanity standpoint. Just branch that humanity gap, man. Bridge that humanity gap so that when you do follow up—I’ll tell you, because we’re on the phone and you can hear the difference in my voice, I’m going to do another example like this. Have you ever had a call where you called somebody and you said, “Hi, this is Orion.” And on the other end you hear, “Oh, hi.”

‏‏No, actually.

‏‏No? You’ve never had anyone? Well, you’ve never prospected then if you’ve never called somebody who wasn’t excited to hear from you. Or here’s something fun I’m going to sit with you. All those cards that you’ve gathered up, if you called everyone of them, you would hear that.

‏‏Okay. I’m not prospecting correctly. Got it.

‏‏It’s not that you’re not prospecting correctly, it’s that you’re not doing it at all because if you’re actually picking up the phone and calling people and bridging the humanity gap with your voice, you would hear people that don’t recognize who you are. Was my point, right? Somebody that you call and they don’t know who you are, “Hi, what can I do for you.” There’s that kind of a call like you sound like a salesperson as opposed to someone that you spent some quality time with that you say something more like this, “Hi, this is Orion. We met at the conference in San Diego last week. I was the one with the red shoes on. Remember we were standing over next to the dessert tray.” “Oh yes! Hi Orion, how are you?”

‏‏Okay. This is the type of calls that I do and this is how I start my calls where I always remind them who I am.

‏‏Nice. That is a huge skill that most people are totally, totally lacking. Good for you that you do that. But if you’ve got that big stack of cards and you’re telling me you don’t really remember those people and you’re telling me you haven’t had a call like the first one I was talking about—

‏‏If I don’t remember them, I don’t call them.

‏‏There you go. In other words, why did you get their card?

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏It’s like our dear friend, Tracy Thompson says, “If you’re getting 100% buying from everyone you talk to, you need to raise your prices.” In other words, if you’re having a conversion conversation and everyone wants what you have, your prices are too low. I would flip it on the other side if every time you reach out to somebody, they recognize who you are that sometimes, you’re just not reaching out enough. In other words, I’ll reach out to people that I haven’t met before. I’ve got a little system now where I’ll reach out to people on Facebook on messenger. I will send not a type, not one of those cut and paste, “Hey, I’d love to be your friend, I see we’re on the same kind of business, hit me up sometime.”, or some weird flowers that people send through. I’m talking about leaving a voice message to introduce myself to people or video.

‏‏You did something really impressive with me. A, I don’t know if I was subconsciously testing you, maybe, but I wasn’t very responsive. Because I approached you and then I was not very good with my response but you kept following up and then you did something extraordinary. I thought it was freaking brilliant. You impressed the hell out of me when you sent me a video message on messenger. I was like, “Really, she does that.” Wonderful, incredible.

‏‏Thank you for bringing that up because it actually leads me to something I wasn’t going to talk about but now that you’ve mentioned it—I have a program now called Up to 30 Highly Qualified Leads in 30 Days with as little as 30 Minutes a Day. Up to 30 Highly Qualified Leads in 30 Days in as little as 30 Minutes a Day is the program.

‏‏I want it.

‏‏Thank you. What you do with women and helping them find their soulmate and getting their juicy on, that’s the name of your program, get your juicy on. I would want that. But I created this program because of all of that, all of these fun little tricks and strategies and how I sent that video. Like you said, you reach out and then you drop the ball. It’s an epidemic of people that never reach out so congratulations for reaching out at all. But then, I got creative, and I said well, here’s what I’m going to do. I sent you a video. I did that, that day Orion. Check this out, for 30 minutes before I had a call with Tracy that day, for 30 minutes I went through my Facebook messenger and I sent out about 30 of those. Mind you, that was about a 45 second video. My hair was done, my makeup was on, I was sitting in a nice place which is all important. You don’t want to be all greasy and dirty looking sitting in the bathrom or something. You’ve got to set yourself up. Once I was set up, I sent out about 30 of those in 30 minutes. I’ve got three strategy sessions, I setup this interview with you and I’ve got a speaking gig in 30 minutes.

‏‏Holy guacamole. You are a machine. That’s impressive. Wow.

‏‏This is what I teach people how to do. Thank you for allowing me to voice that out. Once again, networking doesn’t have to be a place you go or something that you put on your calendar. It doesn’t have to be something that you walk into that seems uptight and boring. It can be while you’re sitting in the car, in between appointment or waiting for the movie to start, going to pick up the kids, waiting on an appointment at Starbucks, whatever it is that you’re doing, people can stop and do exactly what I did for 30 minutes and do the exact same thing. Set up appointments, set up interviews, whatever it is that you do, set up whatever, it’s 30 Highly Qualified Leads in 30 days with as little as 30 Minutes a Day and you can do it too.

‏‏Wow. Impressive, impressive, impressive. I just want to touch a little bit on the introvert or extrovert personalities. I personally believe that people characterized themselves as an introvert or an extrovert. When you put yourself in this type of box, then you don’t have space for more opportunities or you block yourself from having this space to show up in a different way in the world. What do you think about that?

‏‏I think you’re absolutely right. Any time that we put our self in our box that we keep our self in that place. That’s one of the reasons I’m a huge proponent to stop saying, “What do you do? Because you would agree, I’m sure, just like anybody would, don’t you do more than one thing?”

‏‏Oh my god, I have expertise in so many areas. I can coach somebody on wellness, on fitness, on nutrition, on mindset, on love. Right now this is my niche but it’s so much broader and my knowledge is so much more expensive.

‏‏When you’re talking to somebody, let’s say for example, you’ve got your current niche right now but if you were building rapport with someone and you found out that they had a desperately urgent need for a wellness coach, they’ve got $10,000, they’re going to give it somebody to help them with this problem. Now, here you have representing yourself as this other niche and you just lost the opportunity both to serve and to get paid. That’s one of the reason I say, do not say what do you do and don’t try to put yourself in the box of here’s what I do because frankly, you don’t know who you’re talking to yet. You don’t know what their needs are. You just don’t and you’ve got so many things going on in your life that you’re pitch and holding yourself. They say introvert and extrovert is only one of the many ways we put ourselves in a box. If we say, “I am.” What do we say after that? We are creating.

‏‏Beautiful.

‏‏That is why when people say, “Hi Cami, how are you?” I say, “I am fabulous, I am fearless and I’m on fire.” Because that is what I’m creating, that is who I am, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in my personal life or in my business life or anything or anywhere else. In that moment, I am fabulous, I am fearless and I’m on fire. The more I am that, the more I am that.

‏‏Nice. Sometimes in big events when it’s 1,000 people or 5,000 people, I personally, even though I have some ways to manage my energy and replenish my energy, something that can be overwhelming. It’s very loud, it’s very crowded, there are so many people, everybody has this fanatic energy of, “We need to network, and we need to make money, we need to show that we’re the best people in the whole world.” How do you deal with this energy and just keep yourself centered when you enter a room like that.

‏‏I’m going to give you a tip that I gave a woman at the last big conference I was at that I met that had this exact same basic question and then I’m going to suggest we set up a strategy call. This woman that I met at this convention, she was extremely intuitive. She was extremely sensitive to the energy and to people. I could just see her, and I don’t see energies and auras or anything like that, but the more we’re around each other as heart-centered visionary entrepreneurs, the more we develop our intuitive muscle and I can see that she was very, very sensitive to the energy. She was very drawn to me. I had been doing Facebook Lives in these particular groups leading up to the event which is another—damn, I’ve got to write that down as a tip. She already seen me, she already knew what I stood for as far as networking and things. She was drawn to me. We’re standing outside one day, it was November in San Diego kind of area so it’s beautiful outside, she said, “You know, when I’m inside there with those 300 people, I feel like I can feel the energy, like I’m being stabbed by energy. It was just too tied. I feel closed in. I don’t want to network in there and I don’t want to talk people in there. But when I’m outside it feels so good. It’s so nice out here. I feel open, I feel free, I feel like me.” I said, “Well Cynthia, don’t go in there. Don’t go there to network. In other words, go sit it in there for the seminar, for the note taking, for all that but during the networking part, when people are inside mingling around, there were plenty of people that came outside to get some nice fresh air. There would be 50 or 100 people outside at any given time on breaks and at lunch time etc. Don’t try to force yourself to go in there and do what they are doing. Just stay out here. The people that need to talk to you, you’re going to run to them out here.” I would say the same thing to you, Orion. The fact that it doesn’t matter if there’s 10 people, 100, 1,000 or 10,000, you still are only going to be around a certain amount of people. In other words, there may be 1,000 people there but you’re not required nor you’re expected to talk to all 1,000 of them.

‏‏Yes. I do that. I go to the sun. I enjoy the sun energy and network outside and there’s still the majority of the time you spent inside indoors talking to people and do you have any tip how to manage your energy when you’re inside a conference without trying to network outside?

‏‏Only really being present with that. One of the things that you said in setting up this question was that you’re expected to network or they tell you, you should network or that you feel obligated or whatever words that you use, something along the lines of this is what people are expecting to do or to be done. I’ve heard a couple of things in what we’ve talked about and thank god this is being recorded. We’re having such a wonderful conversation. Go back and listen to it and see what those words are for you but what I would say is, don’t do that what you think is expected of you. Do that what you’re comfortable with.

Don’t do that what you think is expected of you. Do that what you’re comfortable with. Click To Tweet

‏‏No, it’s not about doing what is expected out of me. It’s not about forcing myself to network. It’s like I am in the circle, should I just be quiet and say nothing? Well, I’m not even talking about networking. I’m talking about managing it energetically.

‏‏That’s what I’m talking about too. When you say you’re in the “circle”, my question to you would have been well why are you in the circle? Unless it’s one of those things where the whole group is doing a big break out, now you’ve got 10 people in a circle here and over there. In other words, if you’re in a circle of people and you’re wanting to manage your energy energetically and your question is how do I do that, my first question to you is why are you in the circle if you feel like you need to manage your energy just kind of as a broad statement. You’re an energetic woman and I’m sure that you know a lot of people like I do that I’ve met at these different seminars who could help you with that. I mean there are people that talk about cloaking yourself in the white light and protecting yourself from other people’s energy or pulling your energy in because if your energy is way out there, then there’s all this that’s going on and it can be static-y and overwhelming too much. There has to be a point in our own reality where we say, “Why am I staying in this circle if the energy doesn’t feel good, number one.”

‏‏That’s a big point.

‏‏Right? It’s a choice. It’s a choice that you made to stay on that circle.

‏‏Usually I always meet a lot people that I know and if I just—it’s not going to be polite, there are some who are in friends level so they’ll be like, “Why is she going?”

‏‏That’s your mindset. Trust me when I tell you that all those people that you know, that like you and love you and all that, they are more worried about what’s going on in their reality, they’re having conversations about their business, they’re meeting new people, they’re not so worried about what you’re doing and where are you going and why aren’t you hanging out. I mean, come on, seriously. That’s just part of the mindset. As an alcoholic, my first day of not drinking, the first thought is, “Well, what am I going to say when somebody offers me a drink? What are they going to think? How am I going to not have a drink when they offer a drink? How am I going to answer that?” At the end of the day, the bottom line is, once I say no thank you, they’re on to the next thing in life. They’re not focused on me for the rest of the night, “Why aren’t you drinking? Where’s your drink? Shouldn’t you have a drink? How come you’re not with us drinking?” It’s the same thing with people that we see especially in big seminars and conferences, it’s so overwhelming to everyone, not just you, all of us. You’ve got to do what’s safe and healthy for you and when you say, “Well, I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want back out of it.” I would say that you’re being rude to you if you don’t back out of it.

‏‏That is super powerful and thank you for sharing that. I also want to add that I had Dr. Irlen on the podcast and she was talking about Irlen Syndrome and how there is a huge percentage of the population that are very sensitive to neon lights and so if any of you are interested, just go and check out that episode with Dr. Irlen. We’ll find out that sometimes just by putting on different color of glasses, your brain translates color in a different way and then you don’t get over activity in your brain when you’re in these big conferences, under neon lights, under bright light, and you can communicate and connect with people on a different level. We just have to throw it out there because I think it’s really important for people to know about that too. If you want to know more, check out Dr. Irlen’s podcast. I so appreciate you, Cami.

‏‏Thank you.

‏‏I think that you’re brilliant. I love how honest and authentic and bold you are and fiery, fabulous and phenomenal. Before we leave, I have two questions. I can speak to you more and I will speak with you more but for the purpose of this episode, two more questions. One, what are your three tips to living a stellar life? And two, where can people find you?

‏‏Living a stellar life, number one, if you are wanting to enhance, step up, step into who you want to be, change your playgrounds and your playmates.

‏‏I love that.

‏‏Change your playgrounds and your playmates. Your playgrounds, if you’re currently not going to events in other parts of the country, change your playgrounds and your playmates or get a mentor, get a coach. That’s changing playground and a playmate. Listen to different things on the radio or don’t listen to the radio, listen to CDs. Feed your mind. My favourite mentor is Darren Hardy. I love Darren Hardy. I listen to Darren’s dailies. Every day I get a text on Monday through Friday, that’s just three minutes but it gives me something to ponder. I’m just going to ramble. This is going to encapsulate all those three. It’s changing playgrounds, playmates, what are you feeding, who are you listening to, what are you reading. If you are listening to rock music all the daylong that’s got negative beat, we can talk about water, when you look at water, it’s around something negative it’s turn dark and murky under a microscope but when it surrounds something positive, it crystallizes and it’s beautiful like snowflakes. Just be cautious about what you’re putting into your brain. Garbage in, garbage out as they say. The third thing is, I was talking with somebody yesterday and I said, “There’s a big difference between ignorance on fire and knowledge on ice.” When I work with somebody, I would much rather have somebody that’s ignorant on fire instead of knowledge on ice. In other words, what does that mean? Ignorance on fire means you’ve got the fire in your belly, and you know that this is what you’re meant to do. You’re not really sure on what to do or where to go or how to handle or how to network or how to get on stages or how to find clients, damn it I’m out doing something. I’m like Taz-Maniac, I’m just spinning around and I’m figuring it out. I want somebody like that that I can give a Xanax to and say, “Alright, let’s chill for a second and let’s get a plan,” as opposed to somebody that is just full of knowledge and knows everything, and has read everything, and has studied everything, and has analyzed everything, and they know it, they know it, they know it but they’re not doing shit. I would share with people that if they know a lot but they’re not doing anything, that’s the worst place to be than at least doing something but needing guidance. Knowledge without work is dead. Knowledge without applying is not power. People say knowledge is power, not if you’re not using it. It’s knowledge when used is power. Put it to good use. Where can they find me, they can find me at www.camibaker.com, www.mingletomillions.com, Cami Baker on Facebook, Cami Baker on LinkedIn. Carry your pigeons, smoke signal, I’m not hard to find. Not only am I raw and real, and relatable, I’m also reachable. That’s one more tip I would give people. If you want to live a stellar life, stop hiding. I cannot believe the business cards I get that don’t have a phone number on them or don’t have an email. They just have a website or you go on their meet up or their LinkedIn profile and it’s limited access. Dude listen, if you’re in business, be reachable. Let people find you. That’s how you build a stellar life.

‏‏Awesome. That was great. Thank you so much.

‏‏You’re welcome.

Your Checklist Actions to Take

✓ Think about how I respond to the question, “How are you?” Am I just good, fine or OK? Consider how I am presenting myself to the world.

✓ When attending a networking event, remember that everyone feels just as insecure as I do about networking. Don’t be afraid to approach someone – we are all humans anyway. 

✓ Networking opportunities don’t just occur at scheduled events. Network when in line for Starbucks or at a PTA meeting, because I never know who I might run into.

✓ Before stepping into a networking event, stop and think about how I feel and the messages that I’m telling myself. My energy precedes me, and I need to show up with the right mindset for success.

✓ Identify who I want to be, and surround myself with successful people in that field. When I go into a room with those people, listen and learn.

✓ Before a networking event, read up on the subject before attending. It helps to be at least somewhat knowledgeable on the topic, and will help make me feel more comfortable.

✓ People love to talk about themselves. Keep this question in my back pocket for networking – “What are you working on right now?”

✓ Get to networking events early and talk to people. Volunteer to help. Get involved.

✓ Genuine compliments are great icebreakers. If there’s someone I want to speak with at an event, consider opening with a compliment.

✓ When networking, focus on building a relationship first. Try to find common points of interest. Then, later on, it will feel more natural to sell my product or services.

Links and Resources:

About Cami Baker

Cami Baker hears the words, “I’ve seen you somewhere. You look very familiar.” all the time. Since she’s appeared in “Success from Home”, “House Hunters” on HGTV, and was a guest judge on “The Celebrity Apprentice”, along with hundreds of other media outlets, she SHOULD look familiar. Cami’s forte is the ability to help you never feel odd about networking again. She can help you feel confident and own your space in every business situation you participate in. And she can teach you how to meet 10, 50, or even 100 people a week that are the perfect clients for you! After working with Cami, you’ll know what to say and how to say it to create strong, solid, and memorable business relationships.