In the conduct of my face-to-face E-Commerce Boot Camp and Digital Influencer Boot Camp, one of the things I asked participants to work on is their business model canvas and personal business model canvas. However, the more I use it, I realized until a person focus on the things they are most passionate with, their efforts can get scattered.
Earlier this week, I was reviewing my notes and spotted Porter Gale’s “Your Network is your Net Worth“. It can definitely help anyone aspiring to become a successful entrepreneur and influencer. Made me reflect too on the people and what is stopping them from reaching their potential.
Here is my interpretation of Porter Gale’s 13 steps to transformational networking that includes: (added my thoughts)
I. Develop a transformational attitude
1. What is holding you back?
If you are not doing what you love to do now, discover what is holding you back and
what you want to become. This is easier said than done.
I think the moment you know what you want to become, it is easier to move forward as there is a goal you can focus on.
2. What is your purpose?
I enjoy Porter Gale’s Funnel Test as it challenges you to narrow down on passions that are most important to you. Came up with a draft and showed in the boot camp yesterday. Will be improving this further as time goes by.
To create your funnel, identity your three passions, tone, and your purpose.
My funnel represents my 3 passions. They are:
a.
E-Commerce –
Electronic Commerce in the Philippines is a huge topic. In the Philippines context, it covers both commercial and non-commercial form. There are various facets under it that includes developing your business model, entrepreneurial development, content creation, online payment, marketing, security, website development, search engine optimization, among others.
b.
Education –
I am a lovecat and enjoy sharing knowledge. This I do as an advocacy and a business. For instance, this blog post allows me to share what I learned and experience. But at the same time, I also discuss this in my boot camps and help people go through their transformation experience.
c. People – In the book “Everyone Communicates but Few Connect”, John Maxwell says that in order to connect to people, you have to put their interest ahead first and be of service.
My tone is change. That when I communicate to people, my intention is to give them wisdom that will help them change for the better.
From identifying the 3 passions and tone, I came up with a purpose statement. This affirms the focus I have with the end goal of empowering 100 start-ups.
“Empower individuals with e-commerce wisdom and skills they can use in sustaining business, advocacy, and achieve better quality of life.”
3. Be positive
There are many ups and downs in life,
love, and business. One thing I learned is that in order to move forward, you had to disrupt your pattern and
embrace positive change. Although it will not shield you from another heartache or
project failure, you will definitely keep learning and move forward.
4. Focus on giving
Porter Gale reminds readers the importance of giving and helping others as the centerpiece of building quality relationships. If done well, it can also pave the way for having a sustainable business presence (by
giving valuable free stuff).
5. Don’t stay too long in your comfort zone
Keeping your eyes open on opportunities that will allow you to grow is very important. That includes creation of new services that will allow you to serve a wider audience and needs.
II. Build a Values-Based Team
6. Accelerate connections with technology
Compared to how I started, entrepreneurs are lucky today because of social media that allows them to
reach out to as many people as possible. But making a genuine connection is another challenge as it means allotting time to make that happen.
7. Cultivate relationships aligned with your passion and purpose
8. Visit Power Pockets to accelerate networking
This is a limitation I have at the moment as I don’t get to attend meet-ups and the likes that often. However, whenever the time and opportunity arises to meet people, through events, club consultation and gatherings, ideas surely fly.
9. Connect with Hub Players
I think I have been fortunate enough to meet folks whom I have encourage to become hub players in their area, especially among blogger organizations today. However, connecting to bigger and more expansive groups require meeting more people of like-minded interest. This is not achieved by just meeting them once, it requires follow through to establish higher-quality of relationship.
III. Cultivate fields of creativity
10. Create content, products, and services to share your purpose
We currently have website, blogs, webinar series, e-learning, boot camp programs, among others all aligned to promote the growth of e-commerce in the country.
11. Develop partnerships to extend your reach
Currently partnering with various individuals and groups to bring our content to as my many people as possible in different parts of the country.
12. Learn to make successful asks
This is tougher than I expected as the least I want is to take advantage of my connections by asking favors that I know they wouldn’t be able to say no to. However, if a win-win can be achieved, I guess there is no harm in collaborating.
13. What brings you happiness and success: head, heart, wallet?
It depends on the situation I guess. Whichever leads, the other two will follow.
When the head leads (want to be the most successful start-up this 2014), the heart (meet with partners, collaborators, ambassadors who can help) and wallet (get buy-in from stakeholders to make this vision possible) will follow.
When the wallet leads (be the most profitable start-up this 2014), the head (identify ways to generate profit and keep cost expenditures reasonable) and heart (sell the idea to people who can benefit from it patiently and persistently) will follow.
When the heart leads (get a million entrepreneurs embrace e-commerce), the head (develop education and technical resources to empower) and wallet (invest in infrastructure taken from earnings in other projects to make it happen) will follow.
(Blog post updated: May 25, 2014)
