A single message can open the door to new clients, referrals, and speaking gigs.
Renee Hribar shares a powerful story of a busy estate attorney named Joanne who swapped traditional local networking for a low-lift connection strategy—reaching out to her warm network with a simple ask. By focusing on relationships and asking for an opinion on her signature talk title, Joanne landed new business opportunities without a single public post.
This episode proves you don’t need a massive audience or daily content calendar to make sales—you just need the right words and the right people. Take the pressure off and reconnect with someone in your existing network today.
Transcript
You're in the right place. This is for you. So this week's focus is simple. Use a connection strategy to spark conversations and create content. At the same time, the best way for me to share with you what this looks like is to tell you a story. Now, you know, I'll never call my clients out on the carpet, but their stories are like so many of you listening right now.
'll call her Joanne. She's a [:Who was going through cancer treatment and it was very emotional obviously, and a lot of doctor appointments back and forth. And she was also managing her twins sports schedule. So if any of you have children that are listening, and you know what it's like when they are at two different sports, two different fields, two different sides of town, or two different sides of the county, or two different states.
ded to find another way. Her [:How she spent her time was changing. And as an estate attorney, she understood what was coming up for her. Um, she understood all the pieces of the puzzle that she needed to focus on. So when Joanna and I started working together, she kept asking, what should I post? What should I send? And I gave her the plan that I shared with so many women over the years.
Connect first, create content second. Joanne had been in a program for about three months, with a group of 16 other professionals learning how to create their signature talk. So that's not my program. It was some other program. There's lots of programs out there that are very worthwhile and fabulous.
avily in my own professional [:So chances are if you're considering a program or course I've taken it, but this one that Joanne was in, I really loved it. It was about, again, like I said, creating her signature talk, which when you have a signature talk, it means you are naming your expertise, sort of like the, you know, keto, okay. No, it's not called that.
It's called Bulletproof Coffee. it's keto okay, but bulletproof sounds way cooler than keto. And even though it has a lot of the same. Effects and a lot of the same ingredients. It is not keto, it's bulletproof. So her bulletproof coffee signature talk. Right? So what was her version of that and what's your version of that?
That's a fantastic question to ask yourself. 'cause it goes into helping you with your unique selling proposition, helping you stand out. So aside from that. What the point was is that she had been in this program for three months with 16 other professionals that she had gotten to know very well around one particular context.
Right. [:A, signature talk it's just like a post. It's a way to get out in front of people, but. Way more targeted. So long story short, we mapped out a plan for her to reach out to the people she had gotten to know through that program and a few others that she missed from her local in person networking that she had been meaning to reach out to, but just hadn't, she didn't have the reason, she didn't have the time, but this gave her the focus.
d dms or cold emails or cold [:I am asking her to dive into the people and the relationships that she's already started, but they didn't necessarily have direction. So now she's got the direction. So here's what Joanne and I did. We drafted a question to ask them based on the talk that she was planning to share publicly in a few weeks time.
She knew these people and she had chatted with all of them Before we started doing this direct outreach, she had already established some sort of proven communication channel, and that's. Part of what I wanted to make sure you've got as well. So if you don't have a proven way to communicate with them, and so if you've only ever seen them in the Zoom room or if you've only ever seen them at the networking event, then this is a gap in your sales process.
my. A lot of my students do [:Even I remember being at Inbound and the CEO of HubSpot. I was like, I'm gonna take a selfie. And she jumped right in, like she understood the assignment. Never. Feel like you can't do that, or if you just don't wanna do that, that's fine. You can get people together. Hey, let's get a group picture of everyone you know, when you're at these events, even on virtual events, Hey, get everybody together.
I wanna take a picture. Is that okay? All right, here's a picture that actually gives you a reason to reach out to them. Hey, don't you want that picture? I figured I'd send it to you. That helps you establish a communication channel. Where you've spoken to them before about something, in this case, in my example, a picture that you took and then you know where to reach back out to them again the next time you wanna talk to them about something.
e people that she had texted [:If you don't have them, start them, that's what you wanna do now, is figure out how to connect with them. beyond just the, I saw you in a Zoom room, or I saw you at the event. And that will be in another episode. And if you have questions, again, make sure you're on my email list. Hit reply to any email I ever send you.
So honored and upward. Here's what she sent them. She said, I just need your opinion on something real quick. I'm trying to decide on the best title for an upcoming talk. Can I send you what I have so far and you can tell me which one catches your eye at first glance. That's what we drafted. I literally went back in my notes.
e two talk titles. Which one [:So all she was asking them to do is give their opinion that she wasn't asking them to do some sort of deep analysis. She was asking them for their opinion. But here, here's where this gets really awesome. Here's what she said. She goes, talk title one, beyond the will, the three legal documents that actually protect your family, or from chaos to clarity estate planning for real life, not just the rich and famous.
So do you see why this. Direct question. This connection strategy worked so well for Joanne because this one connection snowballed into not only one new client and two referrals, but an invitation to give her talk at a local lunch and learn virtually. One tiny action. Seriously good ripple effect. So if you're seeing it, I want you to say it out loud.
you see the underlying layer [:Via a broadcast email and a post on social media that she was about to share it and then she shared it. And that also brought in some new attention to her business. But just before that even happened, just this direct outreach created some serious action. So, and all that was without a post? Yes. She eventually created content.
you about Joanna, she had a [:I'm doing some research on, I don't know. What would your research. Different project boards, different tech. It's usually a pretty easy one. Um, different this different that I'm about to, you know, just give an example. What are you doing research on? And I need an unbiased opinion. Can I send you the two things I'm going back and forth on real quick?
So you fill in the blanks on that one and that's it. And it'll start, or that reconnection, or at least get their opinion. It should be something you're actively working on. This is not a made up job. This is, you are doing this stuff, but you're probably doing it on your laptop, you know? In your office, which might be in your house, and that's okay.
e space for years, years and [:Right. Or in the break room because you're not just accidentally passing them in the hallway or in the office, and this is that. But in virtual form, you get to casually reach out and quote, unquote pass them at the water cooler. So you don't, I just wanna reinforce this. You don't need a thousand email subscribers on your email list.
It hits different every time [:That was dang good. And you could say that about your own stuff, you know, it's pretty good, right? It's lasted the test of time and it certainly has gotten so much positive feedback from you, the listeners, as well as my audience at large. And I'm so grateful that it's been a piece of content that has had that kind of breath and depth.
So having said that, get on my email list for goodness sake, what are you waiting for? And then hit reply to any mail, email I ever send you and ask me anything. Have a great Monday. I'll see you on Friday.
