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Networking is the life blood of many businesses. It’s how business gets done and referrals get made. Recently I spoke with Justin Breen about networking. He’s the founder of BrEpic, a PR firm that writes compelling, newsworthy stories for its clients and pitches those stories to media across the world. Breen also has his first book, Epic Business, launched in May of 2020. He was a journalist for 20 years before starting his business on April 16, 2017.
As you get started or when you’re rebranding yourself Justin had this to share: Do what you love to do and do what you’re really good at. Partner with other people that will do the rest. Once you have those people in place you can focus on networking.
Get Focused With Your Networking
When you get the opportunity to have a mentoring experience: Learn from and listen to people and then implement the things that you learn from them. Taking action is important, you need to do more than just listen. Turn their advice into focused networking.
Don’t wait for people to come to you, proactively reach out to them. On the day of our podcast recording Justin had 13 or 14 calls. He shares that it’s important to constantly and consistently be reaching out to people. You need to foster the relationships you have while creating new ones. Justin says this will lead to you building your “tribe”, or the people that you want to hang out with. To get his first five clients he reached out to 5,000 people. He shares that you might have to reach out to 300 or 400 people to find 20 that you want to be part of your tribe.
Build Your Network the RIGHT Way
How can you build your network? Give as much, if not more, than you get. Justin makes 10-20 high quality introductions a day for other people and gets 5-6 high quality introductions a day.
Be intentional about who you want to work with AND who you DON’T want to work with. Find people with an abundance mindset, that’s important. You become a product of the people that you hang out with. Justin says that if he speaks to 20 entrepreneurs about an abundance mindset 17 or 18 of them will look at him like he’s crazy and that’s ok. The two or three that “get it” are the people he wants to associate with.
Justin’s introductions via email are short and to the point and get a great response. Sometimes it’s as simple as cc’ing people and saying “You two should know each other.
LinkedIn Advice and More
Use LinkedIn like a commercial for other people. Tag people on LinkedIn and interact with them. Make the post about what other people are doing and they’ll appreciate you more and will be more likely to reciprocate.
Justin goes on to talk about:
- More about the abundance mindset
- How to find and join high quality professional organizations
- How to have pivotal conversations that will lead to landing more clients
- How to get more valuable introductions
- And more great nuggets of wisdom!
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About the Guest!
Justin Breen is CEO of the PR firm BrEpic Communications. Justin is hard-wired to seek out and create viral, thought-provoking stories that the media craves. And he finds the best stories when he networks with visionary entrepreneurs and executives who understand the value of investing in themselves and their businesses. Justin believes strongly in the power of introductions and creates important relationships through those introductions.
