People are opportunities. If you want to know how to grow your business, there’s a simple answer. The answer is – make friends. Make friends with the right people!
I didn’t always have what it takes to grow a business
I was never any good at building relationships. I grew up in a family that values qualifications and achievements, impact and status, not relationships. We didn’t engage much in social activities, nor were we encouraged to.
As a young adult, I had managed to acquire a qualification as a Chartered Accountant, a Masters Degree in Accounting, an Academic Career in Accounting, a husband that didn’t encourage us to engage in social activities as a couple, and that was it. I didn’t have a good support system, or friends to do fun things with, and I naturally kept to myself and spent my life on my work.
When life took a turn with me, I ended up an entrepreneur. I embraced the entrepreneurial hustle. I used my strength in learning new skills to quickly learn how to generate leads, market my services and build my client base. I deliver a good, professional service to my clients. My natural ability to solve problems, coupled with an advanced technical skillset made me good at almost everything in entrepreneurship, except for the parts that required a support system and people skills.
I quickly built my business to the point where it was comfortably supporting me, my husband, and two staff members. And then I hit a ceiling. I couldn’t scale.
A ceiling I just couldn’t grow past
I couldn’t scale because I wasn’t surrounded by the right people. I had managed to build good relationships with my customers, but I failed to recognize the need for building relationships with everyone else. I didn’t spend time building relationships with suppliers, collaboration partners, referral partners, business partners, staff members, or independent contractors.
I didn’t know how and I didn’t understand why. I wasn’t spending time surrounding myself with the right, good people that had my best interests at heart. Just like in my personal life, I failed to build a support system.
The results of not having friends in business
The result was that I often got taken advantage of. I got stabbed in the back. Things would turn ugly. I almost bankrupted my business – twice. I was burning the candle at both ends, getting somewhere and then losing everything, over and over again. I got frustrated that I couldn’t increase turnover past a certain point.
The hero that changed everything
Then Peter came into my life and he taught me how to banter. He started looking for the right people – good people. He surrounded me with people that shared my values of fun, authenticity, and care. All of a sudden I was surrounded by people who enjoyed spending time with me, learning from and with me, who started caring for me, who I could talk to, reach out to and do business with.
And that has changed everything. These days I refuse to do business with people that aren’t a part of my network. It is a scary thought for me to hire a supplier that I haven’t gotten to know through shared experience in our community! I can’t actually imagine ever having to enter into any business deal cold – not again.
Finding friends in business
The people that make up our community, spend time with us. We get to know them through attending networking, training, and relationship-building events together. We even have networking after-parties. That’s where you really get to know people in the best way possible!
Some of the people in our network I’ve gotten so close with that they now form part of my personal support network.
The results of prioritizing friendship in business
The result of all of this relationship building is that I have people I can trust that can help me build my business. When I need an attorney – I have a friend that is one. When I need a copywriter – I have a friend that does that. When I need a TedX speaker for one of our events – I have a friend that does that too. I have, because of Peter, become one of the most connected individuals in the world, and it’s a feeling that I value.
I cannot tell you, as an entrepreneur, how much it means to know that I’ll never be alone again – not in business and not in life.
How to grow your business
So if you want to grow your business, this is what you need to do:
Step 1: Date the tribe
If you’re a fun, authentic, caring entrepreneur that loves to teach or learn and you’re looking for a safe space to build relationships with the best people in the world, you’ll be welcomed with open arms.
Step 2: Join the tribe
Step 3: Attend the group sessions you get access to as a tribe member religiously and with the intention to further your relationships with the people in the room at each event.
Step 4: Reach out to people for a one on one coffee, get to know them, learn to care about them, add them on Whatsapp and talk to them.
Step 5: Be open to the opportunities that present themselves through this process and take full advantage of them.
People are opportunities. If you can build relationships with people on our platform to the point where you can be vulnerable with them about the things that you need and are working on, they will befriend you and do everything in their power to help you.
Not just another networking group
We’re building a business family, after all. We are not building just another networking group where you might or might not get some referrals through delivering pitches to each other till you’re all blue in the face. We’re building something way more special and way more powerful. We’re building something to stand the test of time. Something that will allow all of us to make a real tangible difference in the world. We’re building a business family.
I hope that this blog post gave you some hope and some insight into what you really need to do in order to grow your business.
Marketing tricks and strategies are great, but without a business family, even the best Linkedin lead generation expert will struggle to grow past a certain point in business. And we all want to grow our businesses all the way to the top. We’re not okay with just getting by, or living comfortably. We want to be able to give away jets and cars and save business owners that deserve to be saved. That means we need the ultimate scaling solution for entrepreneurs. That is what we’re building.
Key Takeaways on How to grow your business
So if you’re not a tribe member and you’re looking to get started with this process, the first step is to book a meeting with Nestene & Peter.
If you’re already a tribe member, but you’ve been slacking with attending events, or you couldn’t remember why it’s so important to have those one-on-one coffees… I hope this post has reminded you of what we’re building and why we’re doing what we’re doing!
If you’re a tribe member and you’ve been attending all our meetups and having your one-on-one coffees, welcoming in new tribe members as they join, and spending time on building relationships… I hope this post reminded you that you are SOOOO on the right track! Keep building, we’re getting there! We’re getting there together and we’re getting there soon!
Can’t wait to see you at our next get-together!
Until then, take care, and may this blog post bring you that one step closer to making all your wildest entrepreneurial dreams come true!
Lots of love,
PS: If you enjoyed this blog post on “How to grow your business” chances are you’ll enjoy this panel discussion on Youtube where we chat about “How to grow your small business through joint ventures.”
