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#dogoodwork is not a label but a way of living.
It is the constant and diligent effort to achieve a new level of excellence in one’s own life.
It is the hidden inner beauty behind the struggle to achieve excellence.
It is not perfect but imperfect.
It is the effort, discipline and focus that often goes unnoticed.
The goal of this podcast is to highlight that drive.
The guests I have on this show emulate this drive in their own special way. You’ll be able to apply new ideas into your own life by learning from them.
We will also have 1on1 episodes with me where we’ll dive into my own experiences with entrepreneurship and leadership.
Every episode is designed to provide you with ideas that you can apply and grow in excellence in all areas of your life, business and career.
Do Good Work,
Raul
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
Ronan, welcome to the pod.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
Great to be here.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: So for everyone
listening today, can you just tell us
a little bit more about who you are
and what work you're doing right now?
So that we can have that
preface before we dive in.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: Yep.
Awesome.
Yeah.
So I, in my career was a finance
and a tech guy who became more
of an entrepreneur as I got
older and further my career.
I've always been passionate
about creating community about
creating shared experiences.
I was thinking back before this
podcast, remembering when it was in
my twenties, I moved to Brazil and
opened a bar on an Island in Brazil.
So I was at the hospitality.
And then when I really jumped into the
founder experience, I started a company
called cross campus based here in
Los Angeles, and we built the largest
tech startup community in LA through
a shared office space concept, ran
that business for about eight years.
Unfortunately the pandemic came and
completely crushed the office market.
Uh, and then that was an opportunity
actually to join with an old and
dear friend, guy named Keith Farazi.
Who is a wonderful man, an author, the
author of a great book called Never
Eat Alone, an executive coach to some
of the biggest companies in the world.
And so I've been coaching teams,
coaching leadership teams with
Keith for the last three years.
And only in the last year did we spin
off a new business called Connected
Success, which is my primary focus now.
And with Connected Success, we
essentially train people to be more
strategic about their networking.
And better at relationship building.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: was that
an, like an insight as you work with
executives and like you did your
coaching that they lacked this skillset
is that where that stemmed out?
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: Yeah.
Not as much that they lacked it.
Role.
Relationships are at the heart of
team performance period, right?
Like this, the data shows that
success for a company or for a team
is more a function of the quality of
the relationships than the skillset
of anyone in a particular person.
So in coaching, Keith and I are
always focused on how do you elevate
the quality of relationships?
How do you create higher trust through
vulnerability generosity, accountability.
So relationships are
certainly at the heart.
Of teams.
But the aha moment was more about
thinking, we sat back and we thought
to ourselves 20 years have passed
since never eat alone was written and
has become this networking classic.
And we thought about it today.
You can literally teleport into any
zoom around the world with anyone.
You can meet anyone in the world today.
In theory, that's possible.
And with the A.
I.
Tools that are coming out and with
how powerful social media is, there's
really no better time to invest
in how you network than today.
books are great for that.
But when we thought about
it, we were like, this needs
to be a cohort experience.
This needs to be somewhere
where you practice with another
group of committed individuals.
So that was more of the motivation.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: Yeah,
it's more in the doing of it.
Let's talk a little bit more about
that and how you approach strategic
networking, because in the lay of
the land that I'm seeing in like the
entrepreneurial world, there's, you're
right, leveraging AI, but some people
depend On AI to write everything from the
sequences to the emails, to the outreach.
And then when you show up, it's okay, when
am I going to build a real relationship?
So talk me through your intent
behind relationship building.
Cause in my opinion, it might start even
before you have that initial phone call.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: Oh, yeah.
100%.
my philosophy on A.
I maybe like others is use
it as much as possible.
Like I used to craft long emails asking
for an introduction or asking for help.
And, 45 minutes would pass and I'd
get into my head and sometimes,
get into my head too much.
Now I does that kind of stuff
really well to leave this sort of
personal element, the authenticity
to the actual interaction.
But listen, networking is interesting.
It's got a little bit of a negative
connotation to a lot of people.
It feels icky, to people in
the program that we're running.
A lot of it initially is just
getting them into a new mindset.
Where, they're getting past that
limiting belief, for so long.
And I think a lot of us have
experienced this networking is
this hunter and hunted mentality.
Like you go to a conference
and it's everyone's hunting the
investors at the conference and
they're protecting themselves.
A lot of people have had experiences.
I know I have, I remember years ago, I
went to a conference, I was talking to
someone and as soon as they found out
that I wasn't a buyer for their product,
like I wasn't never going to be a an SQL.
The person just literally without saying
goodbye, just turned and walked away.
So,
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: It's terrible.
I've had that too, where
you're not important because
you're not in my target market.
I'm like, I get it.
But then it's also we're here.
Like it's a social thing.
You gotta be social.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: The key
to sales and to many other things is
focusing on the relationship first, right?
You build likability, you build rapport.
And from there, that's
when you have trust.
And that's when you can start
to, Help with your product.
Um, but there are a lot of mindsets,
a lot of myths about networking
that, we just wanted to bust right
off the bat when we brought people
in and develop that mindset.
Myths, like you have to be
charismatic to be a great networker.
Absolutely not.
You have to be focused and present
to the person you're talking to.
That's the thing that people respond to.
When you look at people like my
business partner, Keith Ferrazzi
or even politicians like Bill
Clinton who are famous for this.
They just zoned in on you
when they were with you.
And you.
feel like you're the
only person in the room.
So the shift is from charisma to focus.
Extroverts, introverts.
There's this myth that you've
got to be an extrovert.
And in fact, introverts actually
have a lot of advantages.
They're actually, the data
shows more thoughtful.
Often, the fact that they're more
introspective makes them better
listeners, better in conversation.
But of course, they don't have the same
appetite to meet with people all day long.
They need to recharge and recover.
Another myth is, I met someone.
I made a strong impression.
We had a great experience.
I'll be on their radar screen.
That's wrong.
You've got relationship decay that
happens after about two or three months.
You're no longer top of mind.
You fade in their memory.
And so that really systematic follow
up schedule and having a system for
your follow up keeps you top of mind.
Super important.
And then finally, the biggest one
I think is the myth of small talk.
The myth of small talk this idea
that don't go deep too quickly.
People want to start slow and there's some
fascinating research that essentially and
I'll skip through all the details of it.
We could certainly nerd out on
this, but the gist is that people
actually love talking to strangers
and love opening up much more
than they thought that they would.
And so if if you know how to
create that space of opening up
and vulnerability, and it's really
a dance, a conversational dance.
That could be really powerful.
That's fascinating.
I like those mindset shifts
when you define, how do you
define strategic networking?
So this is more like the mindset's belief
so that I can show up to the situation
or to the room or the virtual room,
but what does it actually look like?
what's the process feel like?
Or how do we execute that?
So that's a great question.
So I'll point to a few things.
One is intentionality
and purposeful approach.
So in your podcast description, I
was reading, I actually love this.
You put the effort, discipline and focus.
That goes unnoticed.
And when you look at the
people who are masters at this,
they do make it look easy.
But behind the scenes, there's
a system, there's intention
to doing things intentionally.
Now, intentional doesn't
necessarily mean inauthentic, so
you can decide very intentionally.
Hey, I want to invest energy and I
want to lead in with generosity to
role because I think is a good guy.
I think we have things
we can do in the future.
I don't know what those things are, but
I want to invest in the relationship.
That's intentional and purposeful.
But it's also authentic.
There's nothing inauthentic about that
as approached as opposed to what a lot of
people do, which is, hey, I meet people
and we connect and we like each other.
Let's follow up.
And then more often than not, as
they don't follow up and they lose
touch and they get frustrated.
Boy, why did I lose that momentum?
It's because you didn't start from
a foundation of what are my goals?
Where am I going?
What do I want my network to look like?
And who am I going to decide to
invest my energy into because our
energy and our time is limited.
So that intentionality is key.
The other component, the other really
important thing next to it is a system.
And that's what, when Keith and I sat
down to design this, the real North Star
hero was we wanted to build a playbook.
We wanted to build something that
showed you exactly what you needed to
do when you needed to do it, how you
needed to do it, because so many people
lack that organizational structure.
And when we now we're doing a lot of our
feedback and surveys from this first run
of the program, a lot of what people are
saying they got was that system that they
can now use and tailor to their own life.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
No, I love that.
Even just listening to
how you laid that out.
I took a note around, okay, two months.
I should be following up with people
around 45 days to 60 days out.
And the key of that was the
second question is okay, so how
do you stay in front of people?
And if your network grows to a certain
size, should you consider, I wouldn't
say automating in the term of like just a
bot, but there are ways to look human, to
create that touch that you're top of mind.
If it's visiting their LinkedIn,
if it's leaving a comment, there
could be a way for that to be
there, but it does take energy.
That's the one thing that I
also, you nailed it on the
head, limited energy and time.
How do you work with, you work with
the cohorts, but what are the things
that you, maybe the question is, how
do we in intentionally focus our energy
in knowing who to reach out to?
Is it based on just your goals?
Is it based on potential future
business, future opportunities?
'cause the thing that's the one, the
number one key thing that I hear a lot
is, Hey, I just don't have the time.
Or I'm just super slammed and busy,
especially with business owners.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: Exactly.
Let me give you three ideas.
One of them is focus.
The other one is carving
out time in your calendar.
And then let's talk about
what it means to follow up.
And we think about the concept of
packets of generosity, not necessarily
Up, but just throwing out little bits of
generosity to the people you care about.
Right.
So first focus less is more, right?
Less is more.
a really interesting in the fifties
who is a primate specialist.
And he theorized his name is Robin
Dunbar, and he theorized that
there's a limit to how many people,
how many meaningful connections we
can hold in our brain as humans.
And that number, it's often
called the Dunbar number is
150 meaningful connections.
Now the science behind it
is dodgy at best, right?
He compared the brain size of
monkeys to the brain size of humans,
looked at the social group size of
monkeys and extrapolated from there.
But it is interesting, right?
150.
There's a limit to how many
meaningful connections we can hold.
Oftentimes people don't realize it's
more valuable to go deeper with a
smaller group of people, develop the
intimacy, develop the rapport, become one
another's champions, coelevate together
than it is to spread yourself wide and
focus on a lot of loose connections.
And if you want to go deeper
and you do the math on how much
followup you need to do, right?
If you're going to do a bit of
followup every two months, right?
On 30 people versus 200 people,
you realize very quickly that
above 40 people, it's impractical.
So the first key is have a
dashboard, have the 30 to 50
people that you want to focus on.
And we can put aside the why them, that's
a whole other conversation, but have
a dashboard and focus on those people.
Have something that you can look at all
the time and come back to your CRM is
great, but there's a lot of noise in it.
There's thousands of people in it.
All sorts of data don't
get lost in that, right?
So that's one.
The other piece here is this
isn't just going to happen.
A lot of people think about
networking as okay, when I have some
free time, I'll send some emails
or I'll comment in social media.
The mindset shift here is to realize
this is a core activity for so many
of us in the professional world.
This is a core activity that will
drive your success treated as such.
Calendar.
Protect that time.
There was a fascinating piece of
research published last year in the
Harvard Business Review, and they
tracked 2300 professional services
partners at firms throughout.
I think it was New York City or
throughout the Northeast, and they
wanted to look at what made the
Rainmakers so good at what they did.
And so they found that there
are five general personas
for how people did biz dev.
They were like the experts.
These are people who spend their time
writing articles in the market and
pointing to that and saying, you should
work with me because I'm an expert.
There are the debaters who are like,
I'll give you my honest opinion.
I'm super smart, right?
So there's these five personas.
It turns out the persona that
absolutely crushed all of them was
a persona known as the activators.
And all the activators
They had a few hours in their week
devoted to nurturing their network.
That's it.
They spent hours in the week, that was
time they protected, making introductions,
commenting in social media, sending out
interesting articles, thinking about
how they could be of service to the
people who they're focused on and the
difference in revenue generation between
them and the worst performer, which funny
enough the experts, 50 percent higher
revenue between the activators and the
experts, not like a rounding error.
This is
significant.
So that's the second thing rule
is like change the mindset.
Don't look at this as Oh, I'll get to
Put it in the calendar and do it right
because there's got, there's an ROI to it.
And then the final thing is we always hear
about generosity and how powerful it is.
It really is the only way to get there.
You cannot be transactional.
You can't be keeping score.
That just doesn't work.
You have to identify
people who are special.
You have to focus on them and then you
have to just, the mindset is I want to
see how I can help Raul with whatever he's
struggling with, whatever he's interested
in, whatever is top of mind for him.
And the packets of generosity I
mentioned earlier, this was a concept
Keith came up with in the book.
This could be as small as like a,
Hey, just thinking about you in that
awesome podcast conversation we had.
Thank you for having me on.
Like just something that
puts you top of mind.
And there's got to be a
regular stream of these things.
Think of yourself as a line in
someone's perspective, in their
mind, not a dot that falls away.
Just like a line that's
ideally an upward sloping line.
As you get to know the person,
hopefully you meet in person, you
understand their personal life, you
get that vulnerability going where
you, where they open up to you.
You're finding out more about their
struggles, their dreams, their desires,
and you're there to support them.
You're not asking for
what you can get back.
Now now at some point you've built
up enough social capital with the
person, And if you need something,
they care about your success.
You've been there now you can make
the ask, but often people think
about making the ask too early
And they think transactional.
Again, the mindset shift here is play
the long game and lead with generosity.
And here's why I'll tell you something
really interesting and very fundamental.
If you meet someone and you
look at them and you're like,
should I invest in this person?
Oftentimes, it's not the people in our
network that potentially unlock value.
It's the people in our network.
It's the people that they know.
constellation of people in our network.
So when I met you, let's
say I meet you at an event.
I have no idea who you know, I have no
idea what you've done, but what I can
do is I can quickly determine if there's
likability, I can quickly step into a
place where we're opening up and getting
past the bullshit, the small talk, and
then I can put myself in this frame of
mind where I'm like, what does Raul need?
How can I be of service?
How can I support him?
I'm my text as a second
brain in real time.
I'm getting that in my CRM and
then I'm focused on at least every
month, I got a ping rule with
something that's the secret formula
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: I love, and
I appreciate that, that mix of 20 to
50 versus if we have 150, 200 that we
can remember, it's quite significant.
And that's the key thing that you just
mentioned, it's that constellation.
Do you have any research or
like interesting stats about the
constellation that you can create?
I remember reading one
that the average human.
And this again, like may
might be dodgy facts.
There's no real hard study, but
the average human can impact up to
10, 000 people in their lifetime.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
impact up to 10, 000 people.
Uh, that's a, that's a tough one.
I wouldn't even know where
I've heard other ones like you
meet three people every day.
The average person needs
three people every day, right?
At some point standing in line somewhere.
Focus really is the key here as we
hear as entrepreneurs, as founders,
as professionals, it seems like
the answer to everything is focus.
Certainly here.
Less is more.
Go deeper rather than broader.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: no, yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
The other question too, that I actually
support teams and founders with,
but I'd love to get your thoughts on
is, I think we overcomplicated, but
I still need to ask the questions.
what do you actually say?
Okay, let's give it to send out gift
packages or care packages or whatever.
If it's an email, a post
a comment, a message.
But people get tripped up on what to say.
Do you see that a lot in your cohorts?
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
absolutely.
And we actually have a week where we
talk about conversational strategies.
We talk about how to prepare for
conversations, but give me a little
bit more insight when you say what
to say in what specific scenario.
Right?
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
Hey, I'm just checking in.
How are you doing?
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: I
gotcha.
I
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
to overcomplicate.
just look at their website.
Look at their LinkedIn.
find something relevant
and just talk about that.
Just like you would at a burger
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: If it's
Dude, I thought that post
was really insightful.
And, obviously you engaged with it.
You liked it.
If you run across something,
you're constantly thinking about
what's interesting to your network
or to your sphere of focus.
You're obviously sharing those resources.
You're looking for opportunities
to introduce people.
But here's the magic of it.
If you don't have anything right,
what are you going to come in with?
It could be as simple as let's say
you know what someone's doing and
it lights you up and it's an awesome
project and you want to support it.
It could be like, Hey rule, I love
what you do with this podcast.
How can I help?
I don't know how, but how can I help?
that question, how can I
help is what I call it.
One of the golden questions.
Let people tell you, you're already
expressing generosity, creating
the instinct for reciprocation.
And oftentimes they'll be
like, yeah, that's awesome.
Let's, we'd love to enlist your help.
Here's another great question.
When you are speaking to someone,
let's say you're on, you have some
mission you need to Make a contact.
You need to learn
something to find a higher.
You want to start a business.
You want to leave your current job.
You want to find a new job and
someone introduces you to someone.
You're talking to them.
You're getting that advice.
One of the great things you
end the conversation with is,
Hey, this was really awesome.
Who else should I be speaking to?
Is there someone, either
specifically or even what types
of people should I be speaking to?
Should I speak to a
different type of person?
So you create this sort of chain,
often a chain of introductions that
gets you to the right people, right?
Yeah.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
It makes a lot of sense.
I like the strategic approach
to asking the right questions.
That could be a good
lead magnet for you guys.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: We've
got a whole week we do on asking
depth provoking questions, which
is super super fun And I can give you
an example of that if you want it's a
really interesting body of research now
where you know A lot of people struggle
with conversation to they're afraid
that the conversation is gonna go flat
They're not gonna know what to say.
So let's say Alright, let
me give you an example.
I'm getting to know you on a call we're
starting to get to know each other.
I go.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Hey, so are you in a relationship?
What are you gonna
Yes.
Oh, cool.
With who?
Tell me about It asking these close
ended yes or no questions create
a choppy conversation, right?
Versus are you in a relationship?
Yeah, awesome.
Tell me like, what's your dream
weekend with your partner.
Right away with question two.
Now Keep in mind that you
didn't just meet this person.
You've got a little bit of background with
them, but right away you're going
into this like aspirational open
ended question where you're asking
about someone's dreams, right?
if I'm at a conference, a great
question, is tell me about your work.
What do you do for work?
And someone says, they'll give you
the answer and a great follow up
question is wow, that's awesome.
Is that your dream job?
Do you love doing that?
And now you're getting them to talk
about what they love and their dreams
and values and judgments and beliefs, and
that's what creates depth in conversation.
So there's an art to asking depth,
provoking open ended questions
versus close ended questions.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: Yeah.
And it's to not to extract, but let
them explore and let them show you where
their mind is leading, what their values
are, where the other connections are.
And I do appreciate that.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211: Let me
share one more thing with you when we talk
about questions to ask and how to engage
someone in your network asking for advice.
One of the most powerful things.
If you talk to founders who have raised
money, they might tell you that credo,
if you want money, ask for advice.
If you want advice, ask for money.
advice is it's almost like
expressing generosity because
people love to give advice.
it.
Makes you feel authoritative.
It makes you feel helpful,
generous, relevant even,
and there's an interesting nuance
here rather than asking for feedback
from someone, ask for advice.
There's a subtle sort of psychological
shift, Hey, how can I do this better?
But asking someone for advice is a
great way to engage them and then
see where the conversation goes.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: This is
a really good section just to rewind
and repeat and just take notes on
how you're going to follow up with
people in your cohorts, there might
be several, but I'm curious, is there
a common theme or like a big aha
moment for people going through that?
I know there's probably
several with a mindset shift.
So what has been the number one prevalent
aha moment for most participants
that they get out of the experience.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
Yeah, that's a great question.
It's been a blast, by the way.
65 people in this first cohort
from all over the world.
that's what's mind blowing here.
22 different countries,
if you can imagine that.
Like one or two people from
so many different countries,
different cultural backgrounds.
Um, some of the biggest shift, and this
is something that's been so gratifying to
see because it goes beyond just networking
is I'm hearing things like you've made
me comfortable talking to strangers.
Uh, you've helped me understand that
I don't care if I get a no, I'm less
concerned if someone says no to me.
So we call it, the zone of indifference.
You make the ask, you set it up,
separate your action from the
result and be indifferent to that.
So we've seen some real personal shifts.
I heard one guy said,
you've allowed me to be me.
So we've Taken off these layers
that have held people back these
limiting beliefs from a more tactical
standpoint A big thing is the system
like now I know when I sit down
what I need to do and how to do it.
And then finally, this mindset of
leading with generosity, like people
really that opened people up when we
shifted from this idea of transactional
to leading with generosity, which
also again, let's be honest, right?
Generosity has to be a two way street.
So it's not like you have
to be a martyr constantly
helping
So there were some fascinating discussions
in our mastermind groups about what
to do when you've helped someone a
bunch, but then when you ask them for
something, they're not there for you.
Or how do you say no to people
when they ask you for something?
So there's a real sort of delicate
balance there, but generally speaking,
the way to view the relationship from
a strategic standpoint is I've decided
I want to invest in this relationship.
I am going to see how I can be of service
to this person as much as possible.
That's it.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: And
then from there carrying on,
depending on where those doors open.
I love that Ronan for the audience.
You're listening.
Where's the best place that people
can one, thank you for being
on and to learn more about the
cohort and the work you're up to.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
Yeah, no, it's been great.
Enjoy this conversation very much.
The website is www connected success.
com.
And if someone's interested in
leveling up how they manage their
network and how they go deep with
people consistently we're starting
our second cohort in late September.
We're taking all the stuff
we did in cohort one.
We're going to make the
second program even better.
And yeah, just put in an
application and book a call with
one of our enrollment advisors.
They're awesome.
They will help figure out
what you're struggling with.
They'll give you some tips and advice
and ultimately help you figure out
whether The program is impactful for you.
One thing I'll say also is that it
goes beyond just a training program.
What we're building here is a community.
So the folks that we brought together
actually tomorrow night, 40 out of 65,
are flying in to Keith's home for a
graduation dinner which is more than
I would have expected going into it.
These people are flying from.
India from Singapore from London,
and the reason they're flying in is
because over the last eight weeks, we've
watched them build these really deep
connections with one another online, and
now meeting in person is very rewarding.
raul-_2_07-25-2024_120211: The next step.
I love that.
I'll put those links in
the show note, Ronan.
Thank you.
ronen--he-_2_07-25-2024_120211:
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