What’s up Rule Breaker. Courtney here from rulebreakersclub.com again with this week’s brand new video. I’ve been watching and observing and hearing a lot of entrepreneurs who have big, big dreams constantly asking about how to get in touch with influencers. How to get influencers to be in their summit, or on their podcast or in their videos or just to do some kind of thing with them. Or just to get their support on something. And, I’ve been thinking about this and I wanted to write down my advice on this topic because I see people going about this all wrong and actually not creating great relationships with people when it is something you can absolutely do.

The first thing you need to know is that genuine relationship building takes time. So if you’re looking for some quick magic pill fix for you to get to know Oprah next week, that’s not the advice I’m going to have for you. Okay, so the reason I decided to do this video is because a friend of mine a couple of months ago made the off-hand comment that I’m well connected. Then I found that a really weird thing to hear from someone because I’ve never considered myself to be connector or someone who is well connected. I’m kind of like a hermit outlaw who’s kind of on the periphery and I kind of always feel like I’m on the outside looking in. But as she was naming all the people who I have had relationships with in on-line business, I realized, “Oh yeah, I have met all these people.”

The trick is, as I create a genuine relationship with these people, I haven’t been collecting them in my little like pouch as tokens of really successful people that I know. I just have genuinely enjoyed getting to know people. So what I want to talk about today is how I built my network from being an unknown experience-less 22 year old to be where I am today, where I do have a lot of great connections in my industry.

Tip #1: Stop Fangirling

Tip number one for you is stop Fangirling. Now look we all fangirl about a few people and there are some people on this planet that I would just have a really hard time keeping my cool around. But it is always weird for somebody to be approached by a fan it immediately puts you on a different playing field and what I’ve noticed is that when people sometimes do that to me, and I’m not like I’m some famous person and it happens all the time, but it has happened a few times. It totally makes me feel weird and let me be honest, I love that person but I’m less likely to ever do a collaboration with them because they’ve approached me in this way of like, “You’re up here, and I’m down here,” and it just doesn’t create that genuine or authentic relationship.

So that tip for you is to just treat the people you view as successful on-line as any other person because that’s exactly what they are and who they are.

Tip #2: Be Generous

Tip number two, this is the golden ticket, is to be generous. What I want to tell you about is a gal I know on line, a great YouTuber named Trena Little who used generosity to get my attention and what she did was, she for months probably, was interacting with my content. So she would Tweet out my content, she would share it on Instagram, she was constantly engaging, leaving genuine, thoughtful comments on my stuff to a point where I started to remember and recognize her name. And then she reached out to me one day and said, “Courtney, I love what you’ve been doing, you have been so generous. I’d like to give back to you, would it be okay if I did a YouTube channel audit for you, to say thank you for everything you’ve given to me. I was like, “Of course you can do a YouTube channel audit for me.

The YouTube channel audit was so wonderful, and so eye opening and so helpful, it is one of the reasons I am focusing on YouTube today making this video that I invited Trena to do a Facebook live with me. I’ve recommended her to a lot of my colleagues and she’s definitely gotten a benefit out of being generous. I’m not saying I’m some famous person that Trena was coming after, not the deal at all. What I’m saying is this is how you should approach building any relationship with somebody who you don’t know yet. It’s just start with generosity, genuine generosity, not fake see through transparent, I’m trying to get something out of you generosity.

Tip #3: Pay to Play

Tip number three might be controversial but it’s absolutely a fact is you need to pay to be in the room. People who are successful are investing things that are at a higher level than people who don’t have that same level of success. I know a woman who run events and she noticed that when she raised the prices on her events that she got a completely different caliber of people showing up to the event. And the same people who were complaining about the price every single time just stopped showing up. I notice the same thing when I double my prices, is we get people who are taking things more seriously and attract new business.

I’ll tell you from my own experience I have invested thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to be in the room with people who I want to know. I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage that even just paying to ride on an airplane in first class, it’s amazing who you can meet. Now it’s amazing you can meet anywhere, I’m not saying that these people are better than other people. But people who are paying to be in the room are the people of that caliber. It just helps to kind of filter anyone who’s not quite at that level yet.

Tip #4: Build Up

Tip number four for you is to build up from where you are. If you’re trying to build a relationship with somebody up here, what I want you to do is start with who you know and start asking them for people that they know. Or to put you in touch with people. You’ve got to go out there and ask for those connections. This is what business owners do and I will tell you, the more I grow in my business and the more I meet people who are woo, oh my God, seven figure business owners, the more I notice they’re constantly connecting with other people and asking for connections. So what you’re going to do is use the network you already have start paying to be in the room, right go to conferences and events and join programs and masterminds. As you get to know those people you’ll get to know who’s in their network and you can ask for connection with those people.

So there you have it. Those are my four best tips on how to make friends with successful people. I hope this will get at least a few people to stop sending spamming Instagram messages and emails cold pitching me on things though I know that wasn’t you. The best rule is always the authentic, genuine, human relationship rule.

So I would like to know in a comment below, are you ready to step up and start building your network mindfully to get to know more people in your industry? If so please let me know in a comment below what was the specific tip from this video that you know you’re going to be able to put into action ASAP. I want to know so that we can hold you accountable.