The Story Of How Networking With Others Led Directly To My Success

You're going to have to do things that make you uncomfortable if you want to succeed at pretty much anything.

There are a lot of things about working online that naturally work well for me. I like being able to type articles, send emails, and work from home...but there are a lot of things that make me uncomfortable too.

Over the last few years, I've got pretty good at outreach and networking with other influencers online. It's pretty easy for me now because a lot of them have heard of me, but when I first started, I did anything I could to avoid the dreaded networking.

I'm pretty shy when meeting people for the first time. I hate calling companies or speaking to someone on the phone if there's a potential awkwardness that could happen.

Paypal don't reply to their contact forms, so I *have* to phone them, but if there's a contact form option, I'll take it every time.

When a potential customer asks me to jump on Skype because they want to ask me some questions before buying, I often decline. I'd rather lose the sale than have to jump on Skype with a stranger.

I'm British, it comes with the passport.

Note to self: Hire someone that isn't a 'fraidy cat.

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So let me just say right now, that I totally get where you're coming from, if you get anxiety about cold emailing.

I know that when you read about the techniques I teach below, and you think "Sounds nice but I'm not doing that, no way" - I can safely say I've been where you are.

People told me I should do guest posting if I wanted to get a name for myself. No thanks, don't want to email someone and ask for a guest post gig.

They said I could connect with influencers on Twitter and get some sharing going on.

No thanks, that sounds scary.

I'm a nobody, who would be interested?

Turns out, people are quite nice.

This post is going to address some of those fears you may have, and teach you what to do to get networking properly.

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Why Outreach?

Remember my post about how I went from $0 to $10k per month in 3 years?

I can safely say that if I'd got over my fear of outreach sooner, I would have been earning $10k per month as many as six months earlier. That's six extra months I could have been earning $10k.

Fear cost me $60,000..how much might it be costing you?

I also mentioned in that post that I would one day tell the story of how I got there, what it was that lead me from A to B, or 0 to 10.

This is that post.

I just wanted to preface it by addressing fear first. This really is an area that a lot of people need to work on (outreach) but I know that a lot of us are paralysed by either fear of doing it, or a lack of knowledge on how to do it.

Now that I've covered the fear, I'll talk about the more positive side of things, the actual tactics, but first, let's look at the broader strategy.

If I can teach you just one thing, let it be that outreach isn't something to be afraid of. It's awesome!

The Strategy: Outreach

I'm aware that the term 'outreach' might be confusing to you, so here's a quick overview of the strategy and what it means:

Outreach in this sense is the act of connecting with other website owners or influencers online. I'm talking about other people in your niche, or with sites related to your niche.

You're "reaching out" to them and becoming their friend, getting yourself on their radar, and basically becoming their "e-friend". You don't necessarily have to go as far as befriending them, but it will happen from time to time.

I've crossed paths with many other people in the Internet Marketing space is the last few years. Some of them have become my friends, some of them we've merely exchanged the occasional email with. Some are pretty well known entrepreneurs, others are up and comers. It doesn't really matter at this point, I'm just helping create the picture.

What's the purpose of outreach? I'll tell you.

When you have other people in your niche that you're friends with, the following things can, and usually will, happen..depending on the people you connect with:

• You'll guest post for each other and get new followers and traffic to your site
• You'll also start to rank better because you'll be getting mentions and links from other sites in your niche. This builds authority.
• You'll get more natural comments, more shares, and more subscribers.
• You'll appear on their podcasts, get mentioned in their Facebook groups, and forums.
• You'll have someone to bounce ideas off and generally learn more from.
• You won't feel alone in your space.
• Your competitors will become your allies.
• You'll have social proof as well.
• You'll find your way into the clique
• Eventually, you'll become one of those influencers and people will be outreaching to YOU

So..more authority, more traffic, better rankings, more social proof, and eventually people coming to you and linking to you and sending you traffic without you even putting any effort in. Sounds good right?

It takes time and some hustle on your part, but I can tell you it's worth it. I haven't actively done any outreach since early 2015, but no more than a few days pass by without me having someone email me asking if I want to be in their expert roundup post, if they can affiliate with me, or if I want to be on their podcast (this only happens occasionally, I guess I'm boring).

People are actively discussing my site and services pretty much every day though, and this is all a direct result of getting my name out there through outreach.

So THAT's cleared that up I hope. The strategy is outreach, but what are the actual tactics?

The Tactics

Since outreach deals with real people, you're not going to find exact rules or an applicable science to this process....but you do find that common sense works pretty well as a rule of thumb.

First, a few rules:

Rule 1: You Need A 'Give' Mentality

Look, at the end of the day you are doing outreach and befriending these people because you want to get something out of it. I get that. They probably get that too. However, you can't just be outreaching with a "I need something" mentality.

Compare these two emails I have received:

Hey Dom,

I just wanted to let you know that I've published a post about how I made $32,000 last year, thanks to some of your training. You were a big part of my learning curve, so I included a mention of you in the post. Check it out here if you're interested. [Link]

Cheers.

Example 2:

Hey Dom,

I wrote this article that I think might interest your audience. It would be great if you could comment, share, and tweet it.

Cheers.

The first person who emailed me got a tweet, a comment, and various links from my website over the past year. The second person didn't get a reply (only because I read his article and it was rubbish).

Do you see the difference? The first person went ahead and touted me as a big influence to his success, and didn't ask for anything back. Of COURSE I wanted to give him something though, so I did. R-E-C

Rule 2: Don't Try To Jump In Bed On The First Date

This rule has applications outside of networking too, but I'll let you figure that out yourself. I'm a married man after all.

The point I'm making here is that you need to build a relationship with someone over time. Some of my best relationships online have just started with exchanging a few emails. Over time, these people have become my "e-friends" and have even sent me referrals.

If I had just gone up to them straight away and said "Hey Bro, wanna promote my stuffz?" I probably wouldn't have got a reply.

My stuffz iz cool, but asking people like that is not.

Remember, treat it like you want to become their friend. Everything else is a bonus.

Rule 3: Make Your Enemies Your Frenemies

This one is more of a personal tactic than a rule, but it's about changing your mindset.

The internet is a big place, but there's no need to have people as your enemy. I spent an hour on skype yesterday with someone who is partly a competitor with me, but we both say positive things about one another if asked, and even share some intel on the industry.

Why? Because you don't need to be starting wars with people online. You never know how low the other person might stoop, and with social networks being so prolific, you don't want everyone gossiping about how bitter you can be.

Besides, if you have more than one competitor like I do, you can always mutually connect with 1 or 2 of them and essentially freeze out the others.

Really though, it's just better to be cool with everyone. You're not going to 100% dominate a niche, so you might as well enjoy having others in there with you.

Rule 4: Get A Thicker Skin

You're going to get some rejection. Some people aren't going to reply. Some might even be a bit hostile (hey it's a big world out there and there are plenty of weirdos).

But for the most part, people online are really cool. They appreciate having people reach out to them and they want more friends just like you do.

Here's a story of how I turned a "no" into a good friend.

In 2014 I reached out to Tung Tran, owner of Cloudliving.com to see if he would be interested in promoting me (we'd already been exchanging tweets and chatting for a while). He said no, because it wasn't a good fit for his audience.

I showed him my sites, and he said they weren't really the kind of thing he was looking to promote back then. Rather than sulking about it, I asked him for feedback and got some really good tips and suggestions. Over time, we exchanged emails and I learned a lot from him.

In October 2015 we met for the first time in person at a conference and developed our friendship a bit more. He was running an Amazon theme at the time and wanted to offer site building services with the theme. He'd seen how much I'd grown over the previous year and decided to outsource the work to us.

In January 2016 I bought the whole company from him.

A few months ago someone in his Facebook group messaged him saying they were doing the same kind of thing as what I was doing, and would he be willing to promote them in the group. He said no. Is that because he was loyal to me, or because he just didn't like that person's stuffz? I don't know. But he liked me enough to tell me about it.

Making friends in your niche is great because they will defend you online, but also, the point of this story is to imagine what had happened if I'd taken that original 'no' and left it there?

Tung has since generated thousands of dollars for me. I'll take that 'no' anytime.

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I'm getting ahead of myself. I apologize. I get so carried away when I think about all the small things that have made a huge difference to my business.

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The Tactics..For Real This Time

Right, yes, where was I? Are you guys still with me?

...Hello?

Sorry, thought I lost you there.

I feel I have gone on long enough and I just want to leave you with a few tactics for outreach. Something actionable you can take away from this epic post other than "Dom likes to write about his success".

So let's go.

1.) Follow Them.

It's simple really. The more you follow someone, the more you'll learn. Read their posts, comment on them from time to time. Reply to their "Ask me anything" emails if they have them.

Don't expect them to be your best friend immediately. If they're like me, they just want to get through their inbox as fast as possible.

But when you follow someone else in your niche, the worst case scenario is you get better at talking to your own audience and learn more about your niche. What a bad scenario.

2.) Link To Them.

Let's say you're writing an article about something, and you think "Oh, Dom's article about XYZ subject would be good to reference here. I'll link to it".

(Another reason to follow people, so you know what stuff they are putting out).

Once you link to it, send them a tweet or an email saying "Hey, I was writing this article and linked to yours in it. Thanks for giving me something awesome to link to. Been a fan a while. Cheers"

Use your own voice, but that's the basic idea.

Once you've done this once or twice, they might return the favor.

3.) Feature Them

There are a few ways to do this.

a.) Do an expert roundup post where you interview 10+ "experts" in your niche about a certain question, and feature all of their answers in a post. I made a training about that here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/outreach-how-to-get-others-in-your-niche-linking-to-you-and-tweeting-about-you-to-their-fans

b.) Ask them if they'd be willing to do an interview for your site and then send them some interview questions. It really depends what your niche is about.

c.) Write a post where you list all the cool websites/articles in your niche and feature them in it, then reach out to them to tell them.

It's not that tricky to do part c.

4.) Remember the rule about giving before asking.

Once you start to get good at outreach, you'll be able to just jump into an opportunity quite easily.

Recently I offered to let the content manager of an inc 5000 company guest post for me. When he mentioned the article was nearly done, I jumped on it:

Because I dropped it in naturally, and did it AFTER discussing a favor I'd done for him, it was pretty easy for him to say this:

But that should just act as further proof of why outreach is something you should start today.

5.) Know Your Place

This one is a tip to save embarrassment more than anything. When I first started, I reached out to some of the biggest names in the industry expecting to be their best friend a week later. I either got rejection, empty silence, or one word answers.

Not surprising really.

So really what you want to do is figure out who the top dogs are, then figure out who is lower than them, until you figure out people who might be nearer to you, within reach. These are the people you want to target.

Why?

Well first, they're more likely to be reachable. Second, they're more likely to be agreeable, and thirdly, the more exposure you get, the more the bigger dogs take note of you. If they are seeing you on lots of smaller blogs, they might think "wow, this guy is up and coming, I should associate with him before another big dog does".

I'm still waiting for that call from some of the bigger players, but I've had some big people reach out to me, and it's all a result of working my way up the ladder, and being around long enough to not appear like a newbie.

6.) Practice, Practice, Practice

My final tip is just to practice. You're not going to be great at this from the get go. The more you practice though, the better you'll get.

Remember at the start of this post when I talked about my own fears? (You probably read it like two weeks ago). Yeah. If I can get over that and become "an influencer" and be the target of other up and coming people, then you can do it too.

Let me know your thoughts and questions below. If I need to, I might have to blog more specific tactics in future too.