Tell me about your vision.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, my vision is to make one million connections,
either facilitate it, be a part of it, or impact it in some way, shape, or form.
Wow, that's awesome. Tell me more about that.
What does that look like to you in your head?
And what does it feel like doing that?
Yeah, so I've been on this mission to be open to meeting anyone
and truly believing that there's value in every conversation and relationship that you form.
And with that mission in mind, I love one-to-one, very specific, very edified and affirmed connections.
And so when I say a million connections, we're talking a million people being connected with a million other people
so that they can grow their vision, whatever that looks like.
So whether that's business or finding an internship, landing a job, maybe new friendships,
insider circle, mastermind events, speaking podcasts, it doesn't matter what the results of the connection are.
What matters is we get back to this core human philosophy of just meeting people
without a real agenda other than adding value and impacting the world.
Wow, that's awesome. I'm a firm believer in the statement, your network is your net worth.
But the connection you mentioned is a little different than what I thought.
You have a million people connected to a million people.
That could be one-on-one, it could be one to a million.
How did you come up to this statement and how did you come about this vision?
Yeah, so in my book, I talk about how we actively build a network in a strategic, predictable, duplicatable way.
And I think there's a lot of things that are backwards in how we should do it versus how people currently do it.
But I do totally love that quote. I reference it in the book as well, because I think over time,
you build a network that will respond to your ask, that will provide value to you, that will be something that is valuable.
But you have to put the time into it and you have to do it in a way where you're adding value to others
and you're building real, deep, meaningful relationships.
And that takes work, takes a system, and takes a process.
And so if we do that correctly, again, then you get back to the quote you referenced
because now your network is actually producing, right?
So if I were to do that for a million people, I would just die trying to do it.
How would I accomplish that part? Then how would you get to a million people
if you try to create meaningful connections with strategy where my network actually becomes my net worth?
So what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, so the reason the goal is so big is I personally make thousands of connections per year outbound myself.
And so I'm purposely and intentionally moving towards it.
I also host a connection group where every week we are trading dozens of connections.
So that's adding to the thousand that I'm already doing.
And then the thought is if I positively make one connection between two people,
or we'll use the exponential theory, right?
So if I meet with one person, I always will make two to three connections.
So that's now four people impacted.
If one of those people leans into the idea of making connections,
that one person is now impacting two or three more people.
Plus, they're connecting me to two or three more people.
And if you start to look at this web of connections,
when I can be the first person that shows how we make positive connections,
how to add value, and how to do it strategically,
and one of the people I'm connecting goes, you know what? I like that.
And I'm going to either make some connections back to Devin,
or I'm going to make connections to some of the other people he's connected me to or other people,
it starts to create this ripple effect where one person impacts three, one person impacts three.
And I think that that's where we'll never know when the million happens.
All we can do is each player our part in participating and adding and being part of those connections.
Wow. Thank you for sharing that.
I'm going to kick you with a very, very hard question here.
How do you measure impact?
Yeah, so you can statistically measure it.
This is a question that I get asked a lot.
And when we talk about a system for doing connections,
you know, part of the thing is like, oh, it's going to be a lot of work.
And what do I do with it? So I answer this question in two ways.
One, there's a metric like you can put dollar signs and activity to it.
And then the other is outcome.
And so if we look at metrics, we'll share that first.
These are real metrics from January. I just pulled my report up on the other screen.
So for myself, I had 52 first meetings in January with people that I didn't know.
Those all came from connections and referrals.
I made 98 connections in January.
I received 27 in seven of the 27 I received were perfectly ideal clients for my core product and service.
Three of those people signed up.
I booked six events, 14 podcasts and two JV partnerships all from the network.
So there's real statistics that are trackable.
If we then look in the book, I've got a bullet point list in there of getting your ideal internship,
finding a spouse, landing a six figure job with no competition,
getting free housing or hotel in a market you're at because of someone you know,
saving money on events or travel,
getting food experiences with places you can't get invited.
All of these are the other outcomes of just having meaningful relationships in a real network.
And there's a list in the book. And so it doesn't matter if you're a college student or a billionaire.
Good connections can unlock so much for you in your life.
I completely agree with that.
But let me give you a little bit of my side of the story.
I see you as an expert in that field. Maybe you can help me through this.
So I meet about six to eight people a week on podcasts that I'm talking to and that I'm hosting.
And almost every one of them is a client for us who would be that we can help.
And are they ideal clients? Most likely not.
Because most likely there's a lot of criteria they don't miss.
But in order for me to get through that and not just extract value out of it, but also give them value,
there's a lot of energy, effort, and things that need to be done.
There needs to be a relation that needs to be mature to a point where people are more vulnerable sharing things with me.
And I cannot for the life of me do that with everyone I meet. It's impossible for me to do.
So how will I do that? How will I get through that part with your analogy of a million connections and value added to it?
Yes, it really depends on what part of that equation you're trying to solve.
So by being a podcast host, you're already adding value by giving a platform for people to co-create content.
So that's great. So we can check the add value part of the equation off the list.
The next part where people tend to get stuck is there's an ask.
And the ask is usually around your product, service, or offering.
But with the ask, we have to hope it's right time, right person, right message, and that everything is perfect.
And it creates this really small percent of chance of success.
And so we end up with this imbalanced ratio of like, yes, I'm doing a lot of activity. I'm meeting a lot of people.
So whether that's a podcast host or just meetings in general, but because your ask is so hyper specific around an ideal client prospect or service,
only a small percent of people can participate.
Plus, the chance of them referring you people for that product or service are so small because of a quote that I like to reference, which is everybody wants to buy.
Nobody wants to be sold. And so in the world of asking for referrals, if you're only teaching me how to send you perfect prospects,
I have to find people who are have a need and I'm willing to position them to you so that they can be sold.
Like there's so many barriers to that problem. Instead, if we unlock and I call this the connection expansion exercise in the book,
if we really think through who has access to lots of our ideal clients, that's where we start to shift our ask.
And so if we're looking at a world and I say, hey, I want to know business CPAs because I can work well with business CPAs,
you can instantly go through and be like, yeah, I know a few CPAs or accountants I could connect you with.
And then it's not a hey, go talk to Devin because he's going to sell you.
It's like, hey, go talk to Devin because there's amazing collaboration because you're probably working with similar clients.
Maybe there's an opportunity to impact people in the same way.
So now what's happening is it's easier to get connections and referrals,
which means everyone you're meeting has a better chance of actually introducing you to more impactful people.
And then the quality of the people you're meeting with starts to hone in on these really specific areas where they have access to a lot of your clients.
And that's where we can co-create. Right. We can sponsor events, do JV partnerships.
They become really good referral partners. You become good referral partners for them.
But so often none of that's available because we're only focused on selling the product or service on the front end,
which takes all of this amazing network you're building and pushes it into this really small success rate.
Even in the client referral game, the best client referral systems have a 5% success rate.
And I don't know about you, but 5% is horrible.
So we have to shift the ask and we have to think about building our network different.
And then we have to educate our network on who's a perfect introduction for us that has the biggest impact.
Wow. You know, everything you said in that, I agree with.
And the reason I say that is because that's what we follow.
And it kind of confirms the thing that we have been working towards and establishing.
So thank you for sharing that. That was very impactful.
For people who didn't understand that, if all you try to do in a relationship and in a connection is extract value out of it,
you're not going to get farther. But if you give value,
and there's so many times that we just send people referrals just to see what they do with the referrals and how they treat the referrals.
If they do a good job with the referral and if the follow up is good, we send them more referrals.
And then maybe they realize, oh, my gosh, there's a great network here that they want to be connected and part of.
So they join forces and a lot of times they don't realize the value and they go away.
So I agree with what you just said, and thank you for sharing that.
Thank you. It's great to hear your feedback.
I know you're active in this world, so it's nice to hear that. Yeah.
So, Devin, the next part of let's go behind and find the where did your vision come from?
Like how did you come up on this idea of a million connections? Why a million connections?
Why not a billion connections? Why not 100,000?
And why did you choose that part? And how what's the story behind that?
I love to hear it. Yeah.
So I'm a serial entrepreneur and one of my first big businesses was a marketing agency.
And as I was scaling that agency, I realized that it's a crowded space.
There's a lot of noise and you have to compete, right?
Like you've got to stand out and you can go about that all the traditional marketing sales ways.
But what I realized is most of the people I was competing against,
I don't like using that word because I think there's more than enough potential clients in the world.
But let's just use that. So the people I was competing against, we're all doing similar things.
And so I started to look at what can I control?
Like how can I network? How can I follow up? How can I add value?
How can I control everything in the process? What metrics can I control?
How can I use language different? And how can I do things that my competition won't do?
So I am willing to meet more people where there may not be a perception of value in the first meeting.
I am willing to add value to them and follow up in a systematic way to nurture the relationship forever.
I am willing to go on this mission to generate the long term metrics that I know will show up.
And my competition is not because in every industry I've ever worked with and all the clients I've ever consulted with,
everyone else around them is so focused on changing prospects and the quick dollar
that they're not focusing on actually building a network of nurtured relationships.
So that started 15 years ago, the process to how does this become a system? How do we optimize it?
How do we duplicate it? And then as you go every year and I'm making a thousand, two thousand outbound connections
and receiving three to four hundred inbound connections, you start to go, man, what is possible if we reach further?
And so that's where the million is great, because I was thinking about, you know, if 10 people meet 10 people,
meet 10 people, meet 10 people, and we start scaling that, it becomes this kind of vision where like it is attainable,
but it's going to force me to optimize and perfect how we're doing it.
And I'm going to have to attract a lot of the right people who also want to build these meaningful, impactful networks.
And again, want to play the long game, not the short game.
And if you play that game, you'll be willing to take more meetings.
You'll be willing to meet people where you see no perceived value.
You'll be willing to have the conversations that your competitors aren't.
And because you're willing to do that, you will get access to value and opportunities your competitors will never see.
And so one of the biggest outcomes of this approach and kind of why I'm on this mission is I want everyone I talk to to become the authority in a room where no one else is competing.
And if we can push you as the authority in a room where no one else is competing,
whether that's a college student looking for the perfect internship and they find that internship without having to compete for it,
whether it's you shifting careers and finding the perfect position again with not having to compete for it or whether we're talking to billionaires who are finding the next business they're going to acquire again
without competing, that's where we know we're building the right relationships in the right way because we are the authority and the people we're talking to see value in our relationship because we are giving value to them first.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
I want to invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
I hope you have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.