TIL: communities, Da Vinci & depth

I’ve recently had my 4th meeting with a businessman who runs a 180-person agency.

I met him at an event.

I found him on LinkedIn.

We had our first call together and got to know each other.

Being in contact with people who are so many steps ahead of you offers you insights that money can’t easily buy.

Insights that are the solution to the problems you are currently facing.

I shared with him how I grew my clothing brand from a broken brand to a 5-person scaling company.

We talked about content creation and Meta ads but nothing marketing-related seemed to interest him.

Towards the end of our meeting, I asked him what’s currently working well in marketing for big businesses like his.

He made a long pause, and told me that “the only thing I’ve seen that works is genuine connections and friendships.”

It didn’t make much sense to me.

I was so used to running ads and helping my influencer create content that attracts opportunities that I couldn’t really grasp how a friendship could help your business grow to a 180-person enterprise.

I decided to follow his advice and double down on the genuine connections that I had in my circle.

Two weeks after that I landed the biggest agreement I had landed to this day.

Turns out that friendship and trust may be great foundations for a wonderful business partnership (and a big fat check of course)

THINGS I’VE LEARNED

1.
Depth is more important than width

In a world where everyone knows each other on a surface level, getting to know someone in depth can make all the difference.

Marketing is creating relationships at scale.

When everyone focuses on widening their network (getting as many relationships as possible),

you can achieve significant success by deepening your connections (improving the quality of relationships).

2.
Da Vinci can also paint.

“At one point he’s writing a job application letter, right, when he’s reaching that very scary milestone of turning 30.

He writes a job application letter to the Duke of Milan, it’s 11 paragraphs.

The first 10 are all he can do in engineering, in invention.

Says, ‘I can invent portable bridges, I can make great public buildings, I can divert water, I can make military weapons.’

Only in the very last paragraph he says, ‘I can also paint.’”

– Walter Isaacson

GROW YOUR INFLUENCE

During quarantine, I was on a search for a community of people who are running businesses or are as athletic as I am.

I found one or two but I thought that it would be cool if there was a marketplace of communities.

A place where all the digital communities would be gathered and I could choose the one that best suits my interests.

Even though I couldn’t find it when I needed it, turns out that there is one!

Something that has been on my radar for some time now is a platform called Skool.

Skool is exactly what I described.

I have already joined a couple of interesting communities of people and I am seriously considering moving the whole Influencer Growth Program to this platform.

If you are considering starting your community, I’d suggest you check in Skool. It might help you build a decent community.