You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 89.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove podcast. The all inclusive podcast that teaches mindset and business tools. We'll help you rise as your authentic self. Be unshakable with your emotional freedom and unstoppable in achieving any goal and living your purpose. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. If you want to put your mental health first in life, relationships and business, you've come to the right place.

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Hey, my strong friends. I'm recording this a week early because I'm headed off to a wonderful conference in Texas. I can't wait. There's going to be so many other coaches there that I have a feeling I'm going to find some business partners.

 

So today's episode, I want to share with you the idea of business circles.

 

A business circle can be something that will help you in your business, too. Whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur, knowing that you don't have to do everything is really important. Oh my gosh. If you try to do everything for the business sector that you help out with, you're going to burn yourself out.

 

If you think into corporations, there are individual departments that handle different things. Within a department, there may be individual employees that have different tasks. If one person tries to do everything there, one can burn themselves out or two not do a very good job.

 

Trying to understand what business circle are you in? Now, businesses can refer to anything, right? So those of us that are business coaches, there's so many things within a business that you can coach on that it might be easier to parse things out. But even if you're a healer, there are different parts of the body, mind, and spirit that can be healed. And as one individual person, you might not be able to help a person with everything that they have.

 

So even understanding what business circle are you in when it comes to healing is going to be important. Are you someone that heals people with their skin? Are you someone that heals people with their hair? Are you a person that heals someone with their mind with different things that have happened to them? Even if you're doing performance coaching. So you're trying to help people to improve their performance. There's different aspects of that performance. People that are in your business circle. These are all individuals that can help with a different aspect that clients need.

 

It Takes A Village

 

Back in the nineties, when Clinton was president, Hillary Clinton started a whole campaign of "It takes a village to raise a child." Well, there are clients out there where it's going to take a village of support to help them with whatever it is that they're trying to achieve. That village is the business circle. What business circle pertains to the thing that you do, the part that you offer, who are all of the other people that show up in that business circle?

 

Why would you want to know these things? I'm going to give you three very clear reasons on why you would want to do this.

 

1. Avoid Burnout: You don't want to burn yourself out. You're going to have so many people that come your way, we'll want your help.

 

And you're going to want to say yes to everybody, because I know that you have a really big heart, but you can't burn yourself out. So knowing who else is in the business circle, you can refer other people out.

 

2. Referral Network: Other people in the business circle, they can refer people to you. So they may not want to burn themselves out. Or maybe they realize that you have a different specialty than what they have. By knowing each other, those referrals can happen both ways.

 

3. Collaboration Opportunities: Clients get served really well when they don't have to work really hard to find all of the different providers that can help them with all of their different needs. This can be good, not only for the client, but also for you, because as you collaborate with more people, they have different audiences of clients that know about them.

 

When you collaborate, you're now sharing each other's audience so that you can extend your reach and meet more people that need your help.

 

Beginning To Build Business Circles

 

So let's get into some of the ways that you can start to build up your business circles.

 

1. Identify Existing Business Circles and Their Value Alignment

 

And you want to try to find who are all of the other people that are contributing something in that business circle. So this is going to take a little bit of research on your part. One is even figuring out what business circle are you in. Now, some of you may have a foot in more than one business circle.

 

At the beginning of 2021, I had decided that I wanted to be part of three different business circles. I wasn't sure which ones they were going to be yet. I wanted to test the waters with a couple of different ones, but what would it be? Because I wanted this to be something where we have the same type of clients that have the same types of values that needed different services that we all provide. And that I also liked these other people and that it was possible for me to integrate myself in some way with these business circles.

 

Look at what it is that you do. Is this a medical thing that you participate in? Is it taking care of someone's well-being? If that's the case, then what are all of the different business circles that exist? And there might be more than one. So if you're thinking about like healthcare professionals, there's medical doctors that are out there. There's chiropractors, there's massage therapists, there are yoga instructors. There are gyms. There's pharmacies.

 

There are coaches that coach on specific parts of health, also. There are also natural paths, people that practice homeopathy. So just go and do some Google searches.

 

What are all of the different types of businesses that someone would turn to if they're thinking about their wellness, I've had several clients come to me that are in the LGBT space. So even that is its own business circle. There are people that do education on LGBT. There are people that support individuals directly, or people that support the family members of individuals. They're even people that create and sell merchandise because that's an important component of this business circle.

 

Some of our business circles start to overlap. If you think about someone that knows how to edit movies or videos or audio that plays a component in each of these business circles also. So in LGBT, there's a lot of video components that can happen where people are sharing their stories or ads that are running.

 

There may be people that are very specific in their video editing that they only do stuff for the LGBT community because it is a specialized skillset. There may be photographers that also play an important part in this. Photographers may also find a different business circle with the wellness field.

 

Photographers develop their skillset, to be able to take pictures of the exact images, but also with the correct lighting and the feeling. It evokes feelings.

 

If you're thinking about your business circles, are there photographers in your business circles that specialize in that business circle? I know when I hired a photographer to help take pictures of me for my own business, she's actually a wedding photographer, but she had previous experience in the marketing field. So she knew how to take photos that were specifically made for marketing purposes.

 

There are certain things with leaving enough space so that you could put words on a photo. So someone who's trained in that business circle would that they need to take a shot like that so that they leave that space.

 

Writers may be another type of person in the business circles. There are people that have developed their writing skills. If you're again in a wellness profession, that type of a business circle, there are people that know specifically how to write to people to talk to them about their wellness or about their health. Some of them are very scientific and technical. They use a lot of statistics.

 

Others might know how to tap more into emotions. Other people know how to tell a story in order to engage their audience and bring them along.

 

If your business circle has anything to do with relationships, a writer might be someone in that business circle also because they know how to write in a way that's going to create benefits within relationships.

 

If you think about hallmark cards, cards play an important part in relationships, having someone that knows how to write things that go into cards or poetry, or even songs. You may have someone that is a songwriter or knows how to create music. And that becomes something important in your business circle.

 

Let's look at that relationship, business circle. What are all of the different things that could be used to help someone with their relationships? I mean, we automatically think about like marriage and family therapist, but what if it was someone that could create a sound experience for a couple or for a family? When you're thinking about celebrating, say an anniversary or something, there might be a videographer who is really great at putting together all of the memories from someone's relationship into a really great emotion-packed video that can be displayed privately, or even at a party.

 

There may be someone who can help with communication. There's communication coaches out there. There's even coaches that can help with learning how to give a speech. If you could imagine you have someone in a relationship who is bit of an introvert has a hard time expressing their feelings, their emotions for someone, but they need to finally get it off of their chest.

 

Having a two-way conversation might be something that's difficult for them. So instead they may want someone to help them to craft a speech. I know it might be a little out of the box thinking, but what if that person just had an audience of their loved one that they wanted to talk to, but they needed to craft one thing just to get it all out there so that they could finally express to the person, everything that they needed to say. There may be a coach out there that does that specific thing.

 

As coaches or service providers, educators, healers, there's many results that we can help our clients to get and self-expression or expressing one's feelings. That's one that we might not have thought about. That is a tangible result that someone needs.

 

Now I host men's feelings matter support group on Wednesday nights. And that is one of the benefits that these guys have told me that they got from being part of this program. Like some of them almost feel like they have graduated or they hit a milestone because they can actually talk about their feelings to other people now.

 

Support group person, someone who facilitates a support group that might be someone in your business circle. Because as you're thinking about what it is that your client needs, there are different aspects that they need. And so having someone that has a laser focus on helping people to do that one thing that might be someone that you need to have in your business circle.

 

2. Using Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook to Connect to Service Providers

 

So what would you research if you were to go out and try to Google, what are all of the different service providers that could help your client with that one thing that you also help with?

 

What are all of those different things? The different modalities, the different services that could be provided, try to go and find all of these people. And so once you find these people and you start making a list, you want to make sure that these are people that share your values. If you're going to be referring your clients to them, to go and get this specialized help, and then your clients can come back to you.

 

You want to make sure that you're not sending them to someone that is completely not aligned with what you do. So, one of the things that I like to do is to have connection calls. So I've identified people that I think are in the business circles that I want to be in, or that I'm creating my own business circle and collecting different people to have in there so that I can refer people out.

 

Have connection calls, get to know them, see if you have those right set of values. If you want to help people in that way, are they even open to receiving referrals? And would they be willing to also refer your services out?

 

One of the places where I've met these people and been able to create these connection calls is on LinkedIn. So on LinkedIn, it's all about what your profession is. So it's really easy to find people. And then you can just reach out, explain what it is that you're looking for and ask if they would be willing to meet with you. And sometimes people say yes, and sometimes people say no.

 

Now the important thing with these connection calls is you're not trying to sell them on your services, you're really just trying to see, are you in the same business circle? Does this make sense to refer people to each other? And is it a good fit?

 

There's a few that I've found through Google searches that I just call them directly. Or I go to their website, I learn a lot of stuff about them and then I'll reach out to them. And then of course I do a lot of my business on Facebook and a lot of my clients would also need other people that do their business on Facebook. So I've also had connection calls there too.

 

As you've seen, I've had a lot of people that I've interviewed on my podcast. These are some people that I've met through these connection calls. And I think, Hey, this would be really great. My clients could probably use their services, too. So then I use my podcast as a way of presenting these people out to the world so that my clients can find out, Hey, here's someone. It's going a little bit above and beyond of just a regular recommendation. I've actually now given them an opportunity also.

 

3. Keeping Track of Your Business Circles with a Database

 

So what record-keeping system would you keep so that you know, what are your distinct business circles? Who are the people that you would have in there? What's their contact information? And then are you going to have any mindset obstacles around referring people out? Cause I know you have a big heart. You want to help people.

 

If you're an entrepreneur, you might also be concerned with revenue also. So the more stuff that you can help people with, there's bigger opportunity that people would hire you, but you want to make sure you're not burning yourself out and you're giving good quality service to people.

 

If you do have any of those mindset obstacles, we should talk because we want to make sure that you are giving high-quality service to everybody.

 

Referrals Within Your Business Circle

 

All right, now let's talk about getting referrals back to you. So you have done step one of finding out the other people that are in your business circle, but now how can you get them to start referring you to people that they've encountered?

 

Reciprocity is a really good thing. Like you're helping them, they can help you back. So one thing to know is, are you actually referring people to them? Because if you've made all of these connections and you're not actually referring anyone out to them, they're not going to remember that you were there helping them. So make sure that you're doing that.

 

Also, sometimes you have to just come straight out and ask them, Hey, can you refer me? Like, here's the services that I do. Do you know anyone that might need my services? Now that can get a little uncomfortable. I have to admit I'm one of those, too. It's like, I kind of feel like I need to go out and just advertise on my own, but it's okay because it's okay to actually go and ask other people to refer your services to their clients because you're partners in helping people.

 

The other people in the business circle that you're asking, they're not your direct competition. You're offering something different and complimentary that that one client could really appreciate. So I'll give an example.

 

One of the things that I'm more than happy to help coach people on is their tech stuff. So I've quite a really good tech background. I've built my own website. So I know a lot of the ins and outs on that. Sometimes when my clients come to me, I'm helping them with their business processes. But then they'll ask, Hey, could you help me with my website also?

 

So I'm in a coach role. As a coach role, I have them share their screen and I'll help them go through a bunch of their website stuff and then ask them questions or teach them how different pieces go together. Now, sometimes clients don't want to have to learn on their own. They don't want to be coached through it.

 

They really just want to hire someone to build a website for them. So I already anticipated this. I have made connections with people that know how to build websites. We've had those conversations. We know about each other. We're like, Hey, I can coach people if they want coaching on how to do it. And you're someone who can actually do it for them. So now we have each other's names, so that when clients come to us with these types of questions, we're top of mind knowing, oh, Hey, okay, this person is asking specifically for someone to build a website for them, okay, I'm going to refer them out to this person.

 

And then that person who's building the website. If a person comes to them and they realized that that client is asking to be developed in how to build websites. And that's not something that that service provider does, they now know they can refer that person out to me.

 

Since I also do mindset coaching, sometimes mindset coaching goes really well being paired together with someone who does therapy, I don't do therapy. So if someone comes to me and we're talking and I can assess it, okay? Yep. They have some mindset blocks and I can help them with those mindset blocks then yeah, I could be the person for them.

 

But if I can tell that they actually need a therapist or maybe medication is a better choice for them, I'm going to refer them out to a business partner who does that. Therapists can also benefit by knowing mindset coaches. So going out and talking to different hospitals that have mental health providers and saying, Hey, I offer mindset coaching. It's a little bit different. And you can share how it's different if they don't already know and ask if they would be willing to refer people out.

 

Because oftentimes they have clients that come that they might recognize, oh no, they don't necessarily need therapy, they might just need a little bit of coaching. Maybe they need confidence coaching. Maybe they need innovation coaching on creating something brand new. They would know that there's other people that provide that service.

 

If you're someone that practices homeopathy therapy or medicine, that might also be another good business circle opportunity where you could go talk with the people that do regular Western medicine that are just, you know, doing pills and stuff. You can go and talk to them, share what it is that you do because a lot of times people are going to go to the doctor because they're not feeling good. They go to the doctor and the doctor says, okay, I can prescribe this pill for you. Because that's what the standard procedure is in that facility.

 

But the client might decide, no, I want to try something different. I don't want to take a pill. I want to try something that's more nature-based. So if that doctor or that therapist, or somebody knows about these other options, they can say, oh, Hey, I know someone that does homeopathic medicine, here's their card or their brochure. And they can refer out for you.

 

Business Circle Directories & Events

 

There are also directories that you can get on. Some business circles will have a directory of service providers. One of the things that I noticed when I first moved out to the coast, there was a flyer at a local coffee shop that was listing all of the different healers in the area. They had massage therapists on there. They had people that were doing some of the sound therapy. There was art therapy. There were some essential oils. This was a really basic directory.

 

It was just here's everybody's name. Here's the thing that they do. Here's the phone number, because out on the coast, there wasn't a whole lot of people that had websites yet. Things have changed a lot because of COVID. But sometimes directories are just phone numbers. It's not websites, but there are some website-based directories where you can go and search for something. And it can be a whole list of people that provide different services.

 

So again, it could be different modalities. It might also be done for you services versus coaching services versus education services. So many of my educator friends that listen to this, there is definitely a market for people that just want to learn about stuff. They may not want to actually get into action and do the thing just yet. They may not want to purchase services for someone to do something for them. They just want to start learning about things.

 

So getting yourself as an educator into these directories can also be very beneficial for you. Each business circle has some type of a repository, somewhere. A directory of how you can get in contact with people.

 

There's also in-person events that brings everybody together. That's part of why I want to do these retreats at some point. I want to bring together different service providers for wellness. I want to bring together different service providers for business. So then as clients come in, they get to see everybody there in person.

 

I've mentioned before going to the Professional Business Women of California Conference. And this happens in April every year. This brings together a whole bunch of service providers, and there's like six to 8,000 women and couple hundred men that come to this. Now it's usually geared towards corporate employees, but there's a section that is specifically for entrepreneurs.

 

People that are interested in possibly becoming an entrepreneur and those that are entrepreneurs and are looking for service providers. It's quite possible that one service provider can help both corporate employees and entrepreneurs. By finding these different events and going and participating, you have exposure to these large audiences.

 

So you become ingrained in that business circle. And in that instance, two business circles have come together in one location. You have personal development for corporate employees, you have personal and business development for entrepreneurs. Everybody's got a seat at these places. There's educators that are there, there's healers that are there. There's coaches, there's service providers that can do the done for you services. There's even bookstores.

 

If you happen to be someone who writes books, these large conferences typically will have a bookstore option. So your books can be there. When you're there, you get to meet who the other service providers are because that business circle has formulated in front of you.

 

Now you have the opportunity to make those permanent connections. Again, figure out some record-keeping system for yourself of writing down. What are the different business circles? Can you make that distinction for yourself? So corporate employees that are looking for personal development, or are you looking at entrepreneurs that are looking for personal development or service providers? And then list out all of the different service providers that you've met?

 

What kind of relationships can you form with those people? Because again, there can be the referrals back and forth, and don't be afraid to ask each other, Hey, can you refer people if you encounter them that might need the service that I provide? Maybe you take extra business cards with you or you take extra brochures with you that you can share with that person so that it makes it really easy for them to make a referral for you. And they can provide your information.

 

Make sure that you're offering the same thing back to them. I love collecting metrics because data helps you to move the needle forward on where you want to go. So if referrals is something that you're looking for, you might want to keep track of where all of these different places, where you've met people, what type of material did you give to them to provide referrals? Then when you do start getting all those referrals, because you will, because you get what you measure. So create targets for yourself.

 

When the referrals start coming in, keep track of where are they coming in from? What was the source? Because you know that those are the ones that if you continue to develop those relationships, that you're going to get even more and more referrals.

 

And then those business partners also can help to alert you to more opportunities. So if there's another directory that pops up, you can help each other say, oh, Hey, this directory popped up too. Then you can both go and get in that directory. Or if another conference is coming up, one person alerts the other person let's go together. You can develop some business besties through these different opportunities.

 

Collaboration Opportunities

 

The third section we're going to get back into is collaboration. Now that you know what these different business circles are, you've discovered the different people. You've made those connections. You're now referring people back and forth.

 

Now are there collaborations? New things that you can create together. Because both of you are going about and building up your audience, your clientele, and they can definitely benefit from each other services.

 

Sometimes you can create something wonderful together that people from both sets of clientele are going to want to come to.

 

If you remember back in school, there were these Venn diagrams. So Venn diagram is basically like two circles and then they overlap and there's like that sweet spot in the middle. When you do a collaboration, you have that opportunity to create that sweet spot. You're creating something that has a little bit of your stuff. And a little bit of the other person's stuff.

 

These collaboration opportunities could be a workshop that you both put on together. Or it could be a panel discussion where one person has created a panel and then they've invited several people to come onto that panel. It could be a whole nother conference that you've created. Or a retreat that you've created where different people come and they're each contributing their special stuff.

 

I've seen collaboration books happen where each person contributes a different chapter into that book. What is that book called? I think it's chicken soup for the soul. That's a great example of a collaboration book, where people have contributed different parts to a chapter or a whole chapter. And then you get the audience of that one particular writer who now gets to experience some of the good stuff that comes from the other people.

 

Once you're introduced to this new audience, they can come and check out the rest of the stuff that you have to offer. Online summits is another thing that you can consider. You need someone to step up to be the coordinator of these online summits. This allows everybody to shine.

 

I had the great fortune to participate in an online summit last December. There were 40 of us that participated in this online summit. It was a healing summit. So each of us brought something different to the table to share. And each of us also brought our own audience.

 

So you have one central person who coordinates the whole thing, but then every person that participates is advertising out to their audience. Then the collective audience of everybody that participates, it's a lot larger. It's great for the audience because now they get to sample from all of these different people.

 

They may discover people that they never knew existed. And these are like diamonds that are out there in the world. And you just don't know until you get that opportunity that you've come in because here's someone else that you know, and you like, and you want to participate and learn their stuff. And oh, Hey, maybe I'll go and I'll try out this other person, too. All of a sudden, it's like, whoa, where have you been all my life?

 

Collaborations are another great way of using your business circle. And this is helping you. It's helping your clients. It's helping the other people in your business circle. This is the way that we rise together.

 

So this time of year, so we're in November. Now, this is a great time to start planning out your activities for 2022. Are there some collaborations that you can consider doing next year? Who would be those people?

 

If you haven't figured out your business circles yet, or you haven't figured out the people or established those relationships, that might be the thing that you do at the beginning of 2022. Is you make a concerted effort to start developing those. And then the later part of 2022, then you start doing a collaboration activity.

 

The opportunities are endless for you. If you're someone that has not been exposed to all of the different collaborations that are out there in the world, the different combinations, the different unique things, reach out to me.

 

Talk to me because I'm someone that has been out studying this industry for many years now, I've seen a lot of the different collaboration opportunities and I love innovation. Let's create some things that don't exist yet.

 

So if you want some help in that reach out to me, I always offer a free consultation. You can go out to my website MyFreedomGrove.com/contact. If you're someone that recognizes that I might be someone you'd like to have in your business circle, feel free to use that same thing. Just let me know that you'd prefer to use this to learn about business circles. And if you and I could be part of a business circle.

 

I always love to collaborate with people. I love forming relationships. This is how we rise together in business, life, and relationships. So let's start planning a fantastic 2022. The sky's the limit. We can help so many people together. This is going to be great.

 

All right, my friends, I hope you have a wonderful week. I can't wait to share with you what I get out of the Fearless Business Workshop. I'm going to be meeting all sorts of new people that are definitely in my business circle. So can't wait to share the possibilities that I come up with. All right. Have a wonderful week. I'll talk with you soon. Bye-bye.

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Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. I can't wait to work with you directly. I'll help you to be your authentic self, to have amazing relationships, and to live your purpose. I invite you to check out Unshakable Men and Unshakable Women. The unshakable programs will give you all of the tools, coaching, and the community to help you rise in life, relationships, and business. To learn more, go to my MyFreedomGrove.com/workwithme. I can't wait to see you there.