The Pocket Swap: From Chamber of Commerce Mixers to Chamber of Secrets

The Trading Post podcast unlocks the secret formula to transforming business cards into profitable relationships using a simple, measurable strategy that works at any networking event.

• Approach networking events with the "40 card challenge" - emptying your left pocket of business cards while filling your right pocket with prospects
• Most people fail at networking because they collect cards but never follow up properly
• Calculating your true ROI helps determine which events are worth your time investment
• Simple equation: (deal value) ÷ (hours invested including prep/event/follow-up) = your hourly ROI
• Memorable elevator pitches like "We'll put the seat down" for plumbers create instant connections
• Use a permanent marker to note conversation topics on the back of collected cards
• Follow up within 24-48 hours with personalized emails referencing specific conversations
• Digital alternatives like LinkedIn connections and NFC cards are changing networking dynamics
• The key to networking success is viewing it as an investment with measurable returns

Email your networking success stories to be featured in a future episode.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction
• 1:34 The 40 Business Cards Strategy
• 4:52 Psychology of Effective Networking
• 8:25 Calculating Your Networking ROI
• 16:34 Memorable Elevator Pitches
• 19:25 Follow-up Strategies That Work
• 23:29 Digital Alternatives and Final Tips

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Trading Post podcast, where we unlock the secrets of business-to-business trade, dive into powerful networking strategies and share my exciting journey of using a podcast to market my business instead of relying on SEO. I'm your host, trader Stu. Welcome to the Trading Post podcast. I'm your host, trader Stu. So networking, return on investment, of course, roi from business cards to closed deals. Today's episode.

Speaker 1: 0:38

I want to talk about what I used to do back in the day and should probably do today too, but I just don't, is that back then my closing percentage was one out of 40 and that was the ADT basically standard where I'd work for the alarm systems company and it was a small business department. So we had to make 40 calls that would translate into four, maybe appointments. That would translate into one sale on average, right. So I got the idea. I was like, well, heck, if my closing rate is one out of 40 on the phones, then I'm going to use that when I go to networking events and we'll get into that. And what I did with the 40 business cards in one pocket to accumulate 40 cards in the other pocket Real quick, thanking the sponsors of the Michigan Renaissance Festival and Metro Trading Association, as well as Networking with Kids and let's get into it. So you have to show up with a goal at networking.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Some people say I don't network anymore. It doesn't work. It's a good old boys program or whatever, and either you're in or you're out, and if you're not in there every day then it's useless. That's what I hear all the time, because it's kind of half true. You got to like show your face more than once. You can't just go there collect some business cards and expect to get rich right. So you got to commit and it's actually. It gets easier after the second or third time when you go to the same group because you see some familiar faces and then you can pretty much just walk up non-awkwardly and start in conversations and then those people that are familiar are kind of like your grounding post right. So when you go out and you network and you come back, you you talk a little bit more and then you kind of get your energy back and then go back out again, because it can be an exhausting game.

Speaker 1: 2:38

If you're a bit of an introvert, I say I'm an introvert. My wife disagrees, says I'm an extrovert, but I think maybe I'm a hybrid. It might be a blend. I might be an extrovert with people I know and then introvert when I don't really, you know. It kind of takes my energy away when I'm around people I don't know as opposed to people I do know. I think there's a lot of variability in that.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Anyway, so what you do, you got to go in with a purpose. So I stacked 40 cards in my right pocket because or what did I do? Right pocket, no, left pocket, was my business cards, because I always shook hands with my right hand and then I would stash their business card in my right pocket. And the goal was was to leave with an empty left pocket of my business cards and a fat pocket on the right with their business cards to follow up with. And that's another thing that people don't do. That I've I've heard about is they have all these business cards and they paint their gold and then they never do nothing with them. They just sit in their drawer or they sit in their business card collection booklet, file thing, and I don't know, maybe they miracled themselves into a deal or I don't know what the problem is, but they don't get around to it. They'd rather make cold calls. I wouldn't. I'd rather get those business cards and do a follow-up email, even if you don't want to make a phone call, it's a simple email. Hey is right way. Talking with you yesterday, last night or last friday whenever the mixer was and you know whatever. Right, so you got to do that, otherwise, yep, you are wasting your time. So the other thing is that I've also noticed nowadays I guess nowadays has been years you also have to put the variability in there of 10 good conversations might be better than 40 quick hits, right. So I'm not saying if you don't leave with your 40 cards gone that you're a failure. You might have been a great success. Maybe you only got rid of three or four, right, but you had solid conversations. You only got rid of three or four, right, but you had solid conversations.

Speaker 1: 4:51

The problem is that it's too easy to linger along the side walls and approach anxiety. Or if it's kind of a dinner mixer or hors d'oeuvres, you have the excuse to maybe grab a beer or wine or whatever like that and go, sit down and start snacking on hors d'oeuvres and hide out but say make yourself feel good that you were there because you like. Well, I was at the mixer but I didn't get any deals, but you didn't. You talked to one person and they might. It'd have even been a sale for you. Like, for me.

Speaker 1: 5:18

I can't work with people that are real estate or that do insurance sales, which at these mixers you're going to find a lot of. So but that's just me, you know, I just can't work with them because of Metro Trading Association. You just can't trade or barter for that kind of work, anyway. So don't forget that. You don't want to cut your conversation short just because you're running out of time and you got too many business cards left, unless they're time wasters, in which case, you know, try and get out of there, because if there's somebody that you can't work with, then you're going to have the caveat or the argument that says well, it's not always about who you're working with, it's about who they know. Okay, yeah, but what they're saying is that they might refer you to somebody that they know that needs your services.

Speaker 1: 6:13

I think that is a far shot. I think that unless you got on really well with them or they really believe in your product and they just can't buy, they, they're just a non-buyer then they're like oh, you know what? I can't use this, but I know somebody who can. Yep, I think that might come up earlier in the conversation than what people are believing, because very rarely do I get that on kind of like a cold call. And by a cold call I mean hi, I'm Stu, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is what I do, and whether that's on the phone door, knocking on the streets or at a after hours wind down chamber mixer, it's a cold call, right, you're talking to somebody. They don't know you and you don't know them. So very rarely have I ever I don't know if I've ever gotten like I can't use this, but I know somebody who can and then that deal turns into a close. Depending on what's going on how many people are there, I might just, like you know, kind of saunter away or dismiss myself from the conversation.

Speaker 1: 7:32

Okay, I want to also talk about the psychology behind handing out the cards and the symbolism of the empty pocket at the end of the event. So you've got to have the clear set goal, like I was saying, instead of lingering out on the side of the walls. You've got to say to yourself it's almost like when it's too easy to hang by the bar and put out the vibe. You're like oh crap, you know what? I've still got all these business cards in my pocket. I came here with the goal to get rid of them and I'd like to upgrade and get different business cards anyway. So I might as well hand them out or whatever. Insert a reason here to get rid of business cards for me. I gotta have a reason. I can't just want I have a stack of a thousand business cards in my desk drawer. I can't just be like, oh, I better get rid of these 40. No, it's like why, why don't I get rid of 40.? Oh, I want to change something on the back side of my card or like that. So I want an excuse to go through them, you know whatever.

Speaker 1: 8:20

The other cool thing is you have to measure your ROI, as in the title, return on investment, on the time invested. So if you're making 40 calls at the office, right, so oh, let's see, I'm trying to figure out. Remember, 40 calls would take me A couple hours, I would say maybe three hours, to go through them, depending on how many no answers, how many long conversations. But it would take almost half a day to go through 40. And I don't know. Yeah, it just depends.

Speaker 1: 8:56

So you also got to figure out your ROI and the time invested for the event you're going to. So is it a quick hit, like a chamber thing that you're already a member of and you're just going to show up after work for 30 minutes or an hour and then leave? Or is it an event that you've got to set up yourself? Or is it something you've got to prepare for, like, is it a what do you call those things? Like they always have at the showcase places, like a trade show, where you got to set up your flyers, your brochures, set up your table before the event. You know your back drops, your tablecloths, your display. Then you have the breakdown. Well, now you're looking at an all day thing, or maybe a day and a half, right. So you got to figure that out too.

Speaker 1: 9:45

And the reason why you want to do the whole keep track of things is to see what you're paying yourself per hour. And then also don't forget follow up time, right? So you're going to go to these events, you're going to follow up after the event, the next day or that night or whatever, and send out your emails or phone calls. So that also plays into it too, and I know it's like kind of like exhausting to think about all this time you got to keep track of. But you don't got to be exact. You've got to be right on if you, if you handed out 10 business cards and you know you got 10 hours into it. Now you know that it took you 10 hours to hand out 10 business cards. You closed one deal or whatever and then that took you 10 hours to close the deal. You know we'll get into that again a little bit later.

Speaker 1: 10:33

The other thing you've got to keep track of is that you're keeping track of how many connections that you make. So I know for me, I was at a mixer the other day and it was the uh, miss Southeast Michigan chamber mixer and I met this one guy there a couple of times before other events and he was like dude, let's go shooting sometime. Man, like you got you, do you like shooting guns? I was like, yeah, dude, he's like perfect, I teach, I'm an instructor for you know guns If you want. You know you can get your CPL through me and uh, or not, it would just go hit the range, but you know, so I could have potentially made a friend there. You just don't know what you're going to do. I haven't took him up on it yet Cause I got a toddler. And you know I'm doing other things with the kids and if I was back in the day before kids and I was single, I would probably already been to the range a few times with a guy.

Speaker 1: 11:23

But right now I'm setting up a play structure, for example, and every moment of my spare time I'm setting up this play structure for the kids. That says it takes 20 hours to set up for two people, so that means it's 40 hours for me. Now I like the kind of stuff. It's kind of like a fun project. I'm going to start with nothing and end with the play structure that will last the rest of my children's lives. So, or children's child's life, my kid's child life that's a weird thing to say, but whatever, until they're teenagers but yeah, you know, you never know so and then also calculate how many follow-up meetings or calls are resulted and did you close any deals and what's their value.

Speaker 1: 12:06

So sometimes you might do a giveaway at the event, or you're going to make $10,000 or $1,000 or $500 or $200. You just don't know. So it depends on whatever you're selling, I guess. So you make maybe a chart, an Excel spreadsheet. Your card's handed out. Let's say it's 40.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Then you got your 40 cards received. Hopefully you're reciprocating. Right, you're getting a card for a card. Now, this can be harder in the digital day and age. I myself have one of my digital cards, the NFC card. So you're not getting a tangible card, but hopefully you can kind of keep track of those as well. Or I also hand those out too. Right? I have them on my phone as a QR code. Or I have a wooden you know NFC card. You tap it at their phone and it takes them to my podcast, my LinkedIn, my lineable. You know Metro trading. It shows all my sponsors. Michigan Renaissance Festival has the link for them to get tickets. It's all on my link tree, right? Traders do for a link.

Speaker 1: 13:05

And then you got your follow-up conversations. Maybe you only got 15 out of the 40. You're not going to bat 100 or 300 or whatever you want to call it. I guess I'm not a sports guy, but follow-up conversations maybe you got 15 out of the 40. Not too bad, actually Not bad at all. And then qualified leads maybe you got five, I don't know, because most of those people are insurance or, like I said, people you can't work with, and then so a qualified lead out of 40 of five. That's not so bad, right? So you got five people to keep in your pipeline and not 40. You can focus on that and maybe you closed one deal. Maybe your revenue generated out of that is five grand. So we're just using even numbers here. Your uh total hours invested in that, like I said earlier, maybe it's 10 hours, we don't know. Uh, you got a couple hours before. You got a couple hours. Maybe at the event you got some follow-up time phone calls, emails, etc. So we're gonna round it to 10, just for math. So your ROI per hour on that event is $500. So, right, five thousand. And you got the ten, you know hours invested. So divided that that's 500500 an hour.

Speaker 1: 15:20

So preparation tips on this one Research attendees and set targets, if you can. A lot of places will set the who's going to be there. We call it RSVP list. I know a lot of chamber events will do that. They'll say whatever from landscaping is here and whoever from the cupcake place is going to be here, like, all right, perfect. So now I can set a goal to go only go talk to those people, because I sell sugar and I need to up my sugar volume and the cupcake person is going to be here.

Speaker 1: 15:56

You know, whatever right, one thing you're going to have to do is prepare a memorable elevator pitch so important, otherwise you're going to ramble and bumble and go off on tangents and people are going to get lost and you're going to see the curtains close. So keep it quick, keep it simple, you know, maybe put in a little punchline at the end. There it's funny. Like one guy I know at a chamber event and see this is, this is a memorable guy. I don't work with the guy. I've only heard his pitch twice, maybe three times, and that was at the chamber coffee mixers and he would say whatever plumbing company I forgot their plumbing company and suck, sorry, dude, but we'll put the seat down. And that's his tagline. Everyone laughs.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Another one was undertaker, or like a cremation, a crematory, and she said we'll have you leaving hot or smoking hot. Something about smoking hot and ashes and cremation. You'll be smoking hot on your last day on earth, or something like that. Hilarious, everyone laughs. No one can believe she said it because she's like 70 years old, so it makes it even funnier. This is like older, small little, like frail lady and talking about smoking, hot bodies that are, you know about death Anyway, and focus on your genuine conversations, not just card exchanges.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Don't go in there. That's kind of annoying too. I've seen that. I was at a mixer once. It was an alignable event and this guy shows up late and he's got a lot of business cards and we're all done with our business card exchange by this point in time. We're doing this like circle conversation thing. Here's what you are, what you do, what you need, what you like to see, what you, what your ask is. And this, this cat shows up and just walks around the room and hands out his business cards and kind of steals the show for a few minutes. I don't know if he ever got business from anybody there, but I definitely never called him for Metro Trading Association because that was so inconsiderate. So be considerate. People are on judgment high alert zone, right, so just be aware of that.

Speaker 1: 18:17

Also, one thing I used to do is carry a little a permanent marker in my pocket and then take notes on the back of the cards for personalized follow-up. So what you're going to do is say you talk to somebody and you're like oh man, they have my, my dog, this, my cat, that, or hey, can you believe that? I don't know, tigers won, won. Whatever topic came up, so whatever we would talk about. And then when we were done part ways, real quick I jot down what we talked about in like a bullet point or whatever. Just a key word Tigers, games, or the guy I was into, whatever right, or the girls talking about their kids or dance or whatever. So jot that down the next day when you follow up or whatever. When you do follow up, put down hey, it was great talking with you last night, or whatever. Go, tigers, I don't know, you know. And then all of a sudden you develop rapport and now they're like wow, that guy talked to a lot of people last night. He remembered me, he remembered what we talked about. That was cool. Like all of a sudden you're not just in the deleted files. I would put that maybe in the subject line, if you can like a little tagline, and whatever you want to do. But like some people have gotten thank you cards like written thank you cards. Never been that extreme before. That's a lot of time and uh, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 19:45

I don't know if I've ever done a sale with somebody who's done that, though, other than like the car guy. The car dealership I bought a forty thousand dollar vehicle from wrote me a handwritten note. I guess the deal's already done, but I'm not gonna be like, hey, you should talk to Jason over at so-and-so dealership. You know, I don't know it's not me, but anyway, because I don't think he sold me anything, I went in there. All he did was facilitate a transaction for me. That's all car dealers ever are for me is just do the paperwork, dude, I already know what I'm going to pay. I already know what I want. I don't need to test drive it, but you know you're not going to. I've never been sold on a car, I guess. But either way, that's just me.

Speaker 1: 20:34

So, following up, I said that the deals on a Friday, you know, show up on a Monday, or like follow up on a Monday, or. I always keep saying the next day. That's because you definitely want to follow up within 24 to 48 hours. Don't forget. They're talking to people too. They're also business owners and if they're in retail or high volume, they might not remember you, unless you were super memorable and you guys had a great conversation. But always follow up within a couple of days. And that way your go Tigers thing or whatever is you know more memorable Reference your conversation to stand out and offer value in your follow up.

Speaker 1: 21:07

So if you can follow up with a introduction to somebody or a resource or maybe even some insight, like hey man, I was thinking about what you said about this and I know somebody who does that, here's their number. I already let them know you were calling or whatever, right? So if you can enter value first for somebody, you're more likely to get a deal, a sale, or that's obvious. People buy from people they know like and trust. That's like the golden rule, whatever. So just keep that in mind.

Speaker 1: 21:45

And then you have to learn and evolve your approach. So the satisfaction of emptying your card pocket and filling it out with the prospects, that worked. And then you've got to figure out well, okay, can we repeat that? And what can it be improved? Not every card is a qualified lead and how to pre-qualify faster. So, like I said earlier, you got to make sure that whoever you're going to talk to might be a buyer. So if you're selling sugar, talk to cupcakes, not to the I don't know the bitter, the bitter person.

Speaker 1: 22:16

So then you got the digital business cards. You got your LinkedIn connections. Don't know the bitter, the bitter person. So then you got the digital business cards. You got your LinkedIn connections. Don't forget, and CRM tracking that's been popular with me lately is a LinkedIn connections. So I won't keep wanting to delete this thing.

Speaker 1: 22:30

I've never gotten a deal on it, but I guess I think for the podcast it's working. I don't know, because I always upload on both. I always connect both linkedin and alignable when I upload a file, so I don't know which one is where I'm getting my traffic from for all my downloads. But whatever, I keep doing it. I even do next door app sometimes, so, but I'll be on a cold call or a guy will cold call me and I'll say what's your LinkedIn. So there's that.

Speaker 1: 23:01

And then the next time you want to maybe go to an event, try the 40 card challenge, see what happens, and then even maybe, let me know, bring 40 cards and hand them all out and collect forwarding tracker results Maybe. Another thing to do too is if you email me them, I'll keep you as anonymous, if you'd like, and I'll talk about the best ones that come in or the most memorable in a future episode, and maybe it'd be a nice tip for somebody. Maybe you got a better idea, maybe you do something different. I don't know if it's a better idea, it you got a better idea. Maybe you do something different. I don't know if it's a better idea, it's just a different idea.

Speaker 1: 23:39

Every idea is good, right, something else is always better Coughlin's Law. Don't forget, though networking is an investment, and when you track your inputs and outcomes, you can improve your strategy, maximize your ROI and turn every event into a real business opportunity. Maximize your ROI and turn every event into a real business opportunity. Thanks for tuning into the Trading Post Podcast, where business networking and ROI meet. Whatever you do out there, be good or be good at it Till next time.