#90: Practical & Effective Networking Tips with Paula Skoviera

PaulaSkoviera

Network like a Queen.๐Ÿ‘‘


As brick and mortar business owners we have this awesome opportunity to connect with so many people. Locally, nationally, online and offline.

We've all heard the phrase, "it's not what you know, but who you know." Relationships are HUGE in business and in life.

So I wanted to share with you a fabulous guest who does this networking thing like a queen! Grab your notebook and get ready because you're going to have some huge takeaways to apply now. And make sure you stay until the end because they're some nuggets that weren't shared in the interview.

Connect with Paula Skoviera
https://www.facebook.com/AdvantaCleanOfSaintPaul

Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauladawn22/


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulaskoviera/


Webpage: https://www.advantaclean.com/st-paul-mn/



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A Little bit about Melissa Roseย  ย 

ย In 2008, three weeks postpartum, Melissa started her business in her basement while her babies were in the pack and play.ย  With her passion, resilience and nose down, she created a business that has become "The Highlight of you Week" for her tribe, her team and her community.ย 

Now a visibility coach for brick and mortar businesses, Melissa guides other boss ladies to a flourishing brick and mortar that provides for their own tribe - creating a legacy for themselves, their family and their community. ย 

Melissa is a super mama of five kiddos, enjoys long hikes or playing in her garden.ย  At the end of the day you can find her snuggling up with a self development book with an ice cold beer.ย ย 

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MelissaDressComputerA Little bit about Melissa Roseย  ย 

ย In 2009, three weeks postpartum, Melissa started her business in her basement while her babies were in the pack and play.ย  With her passion, resilience and nose down, she created a business that has become "The Highlight of you Week" for her tribe, her team and her community.ย 

Now a visibility coach for brick and mortar businesses, Melissa guides other boss babes to a flourishing brick and mortar that provides for their own tribe - creating a legacy in their community.ย ย 

Melissa is a super mama of five kiddos, enjoys long hikes or playing in her garden.ย  At the end of the day you can find her snuggling up with a self development book with an ice cold beer.ย ย 


[00:00:00] Melissa: Hey there, ladies. Welcome back to another episode of brick and mortar visibility podcast. You are in for a super duper treat today. So before we dive in, before we even launch into the intro, I want you to grab a paper, pencil pen, and get ready to write some notes. Cause you are going to take away a lot of action today with this amazing guest. So let's get real.
So good to have you back, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in putting me in your ears. Because today we have a really special guest. I'm a brick and mortar visibility coach, and I'm here to help serve you so that your business becomes the only option in town as brick and mortar business owners we have this awesome, awesome opportunity to connect with people locally in our community and online, right? And today we have a stellar guest who's going to teach us all about the ins and outs and the savviness of networking. Before we dive into the interview though. I do want to share with you a new workshop that I am launching coming up here October 21st.
This is the only three visibility strategies you need to launch yourself into the next five years. You guys. I get it. I'm a brick and mortar business owner as well. We are always wanting more people in our doors, more raving and loyal clients, right. That is always a given. So how can we do it better? How can we do it more effectively?
I am going to share with you three visibility strategies that you need only three. And I'm going to share with you what to do and I'm going to help you figure it out because every business is a little different. Every business owner is different and how we attract our clients is a little different for everybody. So come get this workshop. Now here's the deal. It's a free workshop. Guess what? It's going to be recorded as well, so you can sign up for it and get the recording. But I am going to challenge you to please show up live. When people get the recording, they don't watch it. Okay. So you're wasting my time. You're wasting your time by saying you're going to do it. Get in the room. Okay. This workshop is October 21st at 1:30. It's going to be about an hour. It's going to be live. You're going to be able to ask questions and I'm going to share with you the three visibility strategies you need to launch your business to the next five years. So come grab this free workshop, msmelissarose.com/freeworkshop.
We have a stellar guest. Paula Skoviera is our guest today. She goes by princess Paula. And after you hear her, you're going to just call her princess Paula because she is a diva at what she does. She is amazing at networking.
I have had the opportunity to see her speak and you guys, she lights up the room. She leaves you empowered. She just brings it. But the thing is, she's really good at what she does. She's really good and she gives strategy. She gives tactical tips. She gives you ideas. She gives you all the things here in this interview, and I'm so excited to share her with you. And I invite you to connect with her. She is a giving soul and wants to connect because she's a networker. She is a person you want to connect with. If you want to grow your network. And I did ask her permission here, she totally said yes, please pick my brain, connect with her and do that. So if you love today's episode, Please screenshot it, share it on your stories. Tag, Paula tag me so that we know that you loved it and write down your takeaways or DM us. We would love to hear from you. So without further ado, I introduce you to Paula Skoviera who's going to share with you some amazing tips on networking. Grab your paper, pencil. You are going to be blown away enjoy.
All right, everybody. We have an awesome guest on the podcast today. We have Paula Skoviera popularly known as princess Paula. She is very well known in our community and in the surrounding area because she is a fabulous networker. And I wanted you all to learn from her because she is going to share some legit, good nuggets that we can all take and run with. So thank you, princess Paula for joining us on the brick and mortar visibility podcast.
[00:04:12] Paula: Totally my pleasure. Doing good. Doing good.
[00:04:15] Melissa: Good, good. It's always so good to be around your energy. I just love it. Love it. Okay. I start everybody with this question. Why do you want to be when you grew up.
[00:04:22] Paula: Oh, I love this because I knew, so when I was young, I wanted to be a detective first and foremost. That's what I always wanted to be. But then when I was young, yeah, always wanted to be a detective who knows why it was the magnifying glass. And then when I was really young, around six or seven, my mom told me that I would make a really good teacher. So then I just latched onto that and decided that I would be a teacher.
And that's actually what my degrees are in. So I'm a, I'm a middle school and high school teacher by degree
[00:04:48] Melissa: interesting. The detective would never work because you're too loud.
[00:04:54] Paula: I do often walk around and pretend that I'm Sherlock. And I go, according to my mind, palace,
[00:05:00] Melissa: I love it. I love it. So tell us who you are, what you do and who.
[00:05:05] Paula: Okay. So I am the business development manager at fancy title. I created this position for Advana Clean . So Steve falls, the owner Advanta clean. We do remediation again, not really sexy, but oh, so necessary because if you have a fire or you have water damage, or you have mold, we are the people that you want to call. And so I came to work for Steve and I said, let me come to work for you. And I will promote advana clean everywhere and let them know, but we needed to give me a title. So I do all things. Social media, marketing, branding, networking, business partnerships. So kind of everything under the sun,
[00:05:39] Melissa: the important part, the very important part of running a business is getting the word out there. If you don't know who you are, you don't have sales to have. So you do a great job of that. And you're coming on the podcast to share about networking because as brick and mortar business owners, we need to be out in the community. Connecting with other business owners and getting referrals, but also giving and learning about each other so that we can best support each other.
What is one thing that you see business owners doing badly?
[00:06:07] Paula: Okay. So when it comes to networking, there are things that you definitely wanted to do and make sure you are doing. And then there's a whole big pile of stuff that you want to make sure you're not on that side. So as a business owner, you need to be networking out in the community and that's going to look different depending on who your target audiences, your target market is and where you want to be connected.
So when it comes to networking, It runs the gamut. It could be a chambers. You could be part of a local chamber. You could be part of a BNI group, something that's very structured, like a BNI or a master networks. There's other networking groups that are a little more, a loose. There's not so many rules to them. And you can do that. Networking could even be part of a Facebook group and joining a Facebook group for your town, or like in the St. Croix valley. We have the St Croix valley girls. There's over 700 of us. So there's a lot of different places that constitute networking, but you're going to want to find a group you can join. Depending on your business. There are some networking groups that only allow one per industry. So if there's someone that's in the insurance industry, usually even a finance or a realtor, it's going to be a little bit harder because those spots are, are highly valued and they can be hard to get, but you need to kind of start to find some places. And I always tell people, if you don't know where to start, talk to me, talk to you. You also have a running list of groups, so there's always someplace to connect and you just, you've gotta do it There's going to be people who, when they hear that the idea of networking, I mean, I'm going to be full disclosure. I'm an extrovert. I love people. But even for myself, sometimes I show up to a group and I'm like, who am I going to talk to? Where am I going to go? I don't know anybody here. Do I know anyone? So I totally get that the thought of networking can be really terrifying for people going to the group going by yourself. Do you know anyone, but that's why I can give people a couple little hints and tips for that to maybe take some of the fear out of that and know that you're just, you got to do it.
[00:07:57] Melissa: So let's dive in right into that logistically. You're newer at this. What do you do when you go in?
[00:08:03] Paula: So first of all, if you know where you're going, have an idea of who you want to meet. So if you know what networking group you're going to, and who's going to be there already come prepared, going, there's a specific person that I want to talk to you tonight, or it could be, I want to talk to a banker tonight or a mom or whatever. So already have in mind who you're going to be looking for when you get there and find them in the crowd. What's going to happen is when you show up to these networking events. Just like school cafeteria is when your middle school is, people are already in their little bunches and it's so terrifying to approach people. But if there's someone you want to talk to you, you're going to do the thing where you just kind of come and stand up near them and at least make eye contact with the person you want to connect with. And then you just wait because they are going to either break off their conversation or include you in. It's so hard. And I get that. It's going to take an act of bravery to walk up to people that you don't know. But it's good to do. The second thing, I always tell people and I use this in our personal life, even when we're going to parties for fun, where we don't know everyone.
Have a question or a compliment ready. So when you see somebody in the room and you like what they're wearing, or you think their hair is cool or whatever, let that be your springboard so that you can walk up to him and be like, I love your dress. Where did you get that from? Or your shoes are so cool.
It just breaks that. And it opens things up for you. I had a conversation this week with another networker and they said they did this study and networking group or some kind of fancy smart people organization did a study where they went to England and they stuck someone in the street.
It was a woman, a woman there by herself . She had to try and sell candles. So she talked to a hundred women who were also by themselves. And when they approached, she said, will you buy my candle. Okay. So the first time she just did that out of a hundred women, four people bought candles. Then the second time they did the same experiment, she said, hi, how are you doing today?
How are things going? And then she said, well, you buy my candle. Second time she did that. She sold 11. So I say that because there has to be that connect. You have to connect with people first, before they even dive into the conversation. So, find ways to do that.
It's always great. If you can bring someone with you, but we know that's not the case. So the other thing you can do is kind of start your own party. So if there's a place there where you could be standing and holding your, drink and standing there and making eye contact with people and you can invite them over. So as they walk past you, same thing with the questions. Hey, how are you doing today? Hey, that looks really great. And be the magnet.
[00:10:29] Melissa: Okay. You have some tips on how to best talk about yourself. You know, when you go to networking groups or you have that elevator speech, you'll say, or a commercial, you gave us three great ways to make sure you're giving your best self forward. So can you talk about that?
[00:10:47] Paula: This works really well, whether you're networking or really, if you're out and about anywhere, you got to really know who you are so that you can present yourself well. And so when we talk about the elevator pitch or the elevator speech where the vernacular comes from is, and I always tell people, imagine you're in a really tall building, you know, 47 story building and you're jumping into the elevator and you're right beside a person, famous person, really wealthy, influential, whatever the case may be is like your, your person. You're like, oh my gosh. I now have, from the time the elevator doors close to when I get off at my floor, To convince this person that they should meet with me or talk to me or whatever the case may be. So that's where you come up with your elevator pitch. If you have 30 seconds, maybe a minute with this person, what are you going to say? So it's really developing your nuggets. Know your audience. Know who you're talking to and please practice, practice, practice. So before I go to a networking meeting, like for this week, I knew what my commercial was going to be for this week and I kind of practiced it and especially if you're not comfortable talking in front of people which so many people fall into that category, just practice it in front of mirror, talk to your dog, whatever the case may be. So always know your audience. So the example I often give is if you're a chiropractor, don't say I'm looking for anyone with a spine. Do not do that because that is way too general. No one thinks of that. But instead, if you say, Hey, I'm looking for any pregnant moms right now who might want to have an adjustment while they're pregnant, suddenly people go, I know a pregnant mom and they'll have someone come to mind. So when you're making your ask during your commercial and your introduction, be really specific about who you're looking for practice it.
It's really good to have an ask. You can use a little piece of education this week, my commercial and all my networking groups was I was giving a little piece of education. That's really great too. So you can have education or you can make an ask, but let people know who you are. Keep it fun. I mean, there's so many people who aren't don't have fun when they do these things, you know,
[00:12:51] Melissa: and it's hard because they're thinking about so many other things trying to do it right. I mean, so many networks working things, there's guidelines, there's parameters. And thank goodness because otherwise people get nervous and talk for 10 minutes and then it it's just babble. The other one you talked about, you educate or a referral partner. You also mentioned having that'd be part of your introduction. Like I'm looking for somebody I'm looking for a bookkeeper that I can collaborate with or something very specific. I like how you got very specific, because that is what a lot of people struggle with is being specific and being very, very specific, not just a mom, but a pregnant mom who is maybe experiencing back pain or she's complaining to you about that. That's very specific. So when we can get there, that just makes it so much easier for us to refer each other.
[00:13:37] Paula: And, you know, honestly, for business owners, when you own a business, you know who your customers are, you're either starting to gather data from a company that you're working with, or you're just looking at who your customers are, or if you're using any kind of like Google analytics or Facebook analytics, you're able to really find out who are your customers.
Once, you know who your customers are, then you can figure out where do they hang out. And that's how you can zero in your ask. So if you're someone like a chiropractor, again, I I'm using them because it's an easy one, but you can really start to then pick all your different customers and kind of find out where they are and make that specific ask.
Right. Or you find out who were the people that send the chiropractor, their patients. So again, if im a chirporactor, I know that I'm a massage therapist and I can work together really well. So maybe one week your ask is I'm looking for an introduction to a massage therapist. I was just making introductions yesterday, email introductions.
Cause in my networking group yesterday, a nonprofit was saying, I'm looking for principals from these schools or teachers from this school. Great. Two people come to mind and by the end of the day, I made the email introduction.
[00:14:44] Melissa: Can you talk a little bit about how you do that? Like what's your system for email introductions.
[00:14:48] Paula: I'm really glad you asked that because follow through is so important. So if you're going to go to a networking meeting and someone says, I'd like to be introduced to this person and, you know, someone part of building that networking relationship is following through. So I will always do an email introduction and I'll include both of the people.
So in the case of yesterday, I had the person from the nonprofit and I had the teacher from the private school. So I had them both included in the email and then I literally introduced them in the email. So I'm like nonprofit person. Let me introduce you to teacher. Teacher is really awesome and has been teaching for this long, and this is how I know them and they're really great. And I usually throw in any other kind of fun, personal information I might know. And then I'm like, teacher, let me introduce you to nonprofit person. This is what the nonprofit is about. We're in a networking group together. They were asking for an introduction. I'm really hoping the two of you are able to connect and if you have any questions, please let me know. Boom. And I let it go and what I see what's really, really good. Again, we're talking some networking etiquette here, so what's really good is the person who asked for the referral. So the nonprofit who asked for the referral, it would be customary and a really good thing for them to do, to respond to everyone in the email.
Thanks, Paula so much for the introduction. I really appreciate it. Hey teacher, I'd like to get together. What's your contact info where can I reach out and then they continue it forward. And those always work the best because when there is a personal introduction, when I am introducing two people that both know me and trust me, then they trust that introduction and it might not be by email.
It might be through, you know, Facebook messenger. It could be on LinkedIn, whatever works for your business. There'll be a natural place that you kind of do your communication. It could even be in person. I was at a networking event this week and I did that. I. Got grabbed some people went over to a table. I'm like, Hey, let me introduce you guys to each other. And then they can swap cards and all the things, but that piece is really important.
[00:16:43] Melissa: Absolutely. And I love it. I love it when somebody is right on the ball. It just happened with me this week where somebody was referring me to somebody and they just did it right away after that meeting, it just says a lot about them and their integrity right away. It's just says something about you versus yeah, we should connect. And then you fizzle through. I love it when people are right on it. Now, I like how you went into the etiquette of the email. Now you actually are in front of that referral and you're sitting and connecting with them. Can you talk about some etiquette and how to make this so you're not like feeling sleazy about, oh my gosh, should I sell? How do you make it so great ?
[00:17:16] Paula: There is this balance, right? Because at the end of the day, we have to sell, we have to build our businesses and make our cash registers ring.
But we're looking for long-term. We don't want to just make a one sale one time and be done. We're looking for a relationship that's going to keep producing and we want to create raving fans that will go tell other people about our business to help build our business. So I always tell people, think of when you go on a date, because if you were to go on a date with someone and it's like the first time, you would not sit down to dinner and look at them and go like, so my ring size, I'm a size seven and I really liked to get married in the fall and how many kids would you like to have? I mean, no one would ever do that but we do that in business. We think we need to sit down and start saying so would you like to buy this from me? And would you like this many, would you like longstanding order? Like we just, we dive into it and it's like, just slow your roll, just stop.
You are building a relationship. You're building a relationship and trying to determine can work together. Can you be referral partners? What it's going to look like? And I always say this. Even if you don't end up buying from each other, that person then becomes somebody that's in your network that you can either refer or will still refer you so always be building the relationship. Okay. So you're gonna sit down. One thing again, I have a lot of other professional networkers in my life that I hang out with. So this week we had a conversation. If in that first half hour that you're meeting with someone, they don't ask you any questions about yourself.
If the whole time you are asking them questions get up and go to the bathroom. In that first half hour, if they don't ask you about yourself, you get up and go to the bathroom to try to create like a natural break and come back. And it's like, they don't ask you anything. You wrap that up. You're kind of done because that's going to tell you a lot about the person. So my buddy, Rob Thomas, he uses something called a form, F O R M. Each letter is an acronym and it's for family, occupation, recreation, and money. And it just gives you some launching points to talk about, right. Family. Tell me about your family, your occupation, a little more of what you do. Recreation. What do you do for fun? Money. Where do you see your business growing? I'm going to throw this in as well. I like to stalk people in the most appropriate way before, so I looked them up on LinkedIn, maybe check them out on Facebook. I try to find out things about them so that when I sit down with them, it's like, oh, so I see you're from here.
You used to live here or you used to work for this place. You really like jelly beans, and you go to the zoo for fun, whatever it is. So I see you really liked to attend concerts at the zoo. What was the last concert you attended? There are so many ways to kind of break the ice and we really need to do that when we sit down with people. Think of it as a date, ask them some questions about themselves. Use form. If you're, if you're sitting there and you're like, I'm panicking. I don't even know what to say right now. Go to that FORM , family, occupation, recreation money. Just start talking to people, find out about them.
We all want to do business with people that we like. And we understand that we know a little bit about them. We want to refer people that we trust and we understand. There have been a couple of people that sit down are just like, okay, let me give you my spiel and why you should buy from us. I'm just like go away,
[00:20:31] Melissa: yeah, I've had that happen too. And try to give them grace because sometimes it's, you know, I know I've probably done that to somebody, when I was starting out too. So what do you say to the person that is like networking groups or going to networking? I never get any referrals. It doesn't work for me.
[00:20:47] Paula: So if you're not getting referrals, it's you, I'm sorry, but it's you and there's a couple of things.
So number one, when you're doing your commercial, you aren't being clear about what you need and what you want. So people don't know how to refer you because they don't know what you're doing. Now that does go both ways. Because if you're in a networking group, you should be setting up some one-to-one meetings or some connect meetings so that you can get to know people.
I will say this, I am in roughly about eight different networking groups right now. I remember when I showed up to one of them about a year and a half ago, and I had recently joined them and I told a specific person, well, yeah, I'm in this many networking groups. And they said, Well, how can you be in that many networking groups and still refer people?
And I said, because I do a one-to-one meeting with every single person, so I know who they are, what they do and exactly who their customer is. So when I see someone making an ask, I know exactly who to refer to them because I get to know the people in my networking group and who would be the best customer for them to serve, even in the case of real estate. Obviously I know handfuls of them. So whenever somebody asks for a referral to real estate agent, I will say, here are three or four, the three, four people that I liked the most go grab coffee with them, get to know them because buying a house is a really big deal and you want it to be somebody that you know, and trust.
So I won't just automatically say, oh, I'm in a networking group with you. I'm sending you all my business. Uh, I'm going to make sure your a good fit for the person I'm referring because it's about relationships, future business. So you're in the networking group . You're like I never get any business. I'm quitting and I'm leaving this networking group is awful.
No, you're awful. Sorry. Truth hurts sometimes because you don't go to a networking group and say, give me, gimme, gimme, gimme what can I get from you? Who's going to buy all my stuff because you'll hate it. And you're missing the whole point. Right?
So givers and takers andyou always want to be a giver. You always want to be giving to a networking group. And then I have so many people saying. Well, I don't have enough money. I can't afford to buy all of the things you're not supposed to. You are not supposed to Barbara. You're not supposed to buy all the things, false narrative, a false thing that people think that to the networking group to sell your stuff to the people in that room.
No, the people in the room are your network and you're getting into their networks. And so what you want to do, you want all the people in your networking group, whether it's a chamber of BNI moms' group, whatever it is, you want all the people in that room to open up their network, their contacts, their Rolodex, whatever term you want to use.
And so you want to be giving back to people. And I talk about this. About giving and taking when people say, well, I can't afford to buy the things. So a you're not supposed to buy all the things. B If you think that you're there to sell everyone in the room, once you sell to all of them while you're done, right.
You kind of use it up. So you want to get into their networks. That's why you have to have your ask what you're asking for. So let's talk about real quick, a few ways that you can give back to a group, even if you have no money and you're not even paying yourself because you're a new business owner and you try to pay your one employee or pay your bills. You're not even taking a paycheck right now. You can make a Facebook post for somebody. So when someone in your group puts up a Facebook post, I just saw that you recently did some cool Facebook posts for like your podcast and some of your events that are coming up. I can take your posts and I can repost it on my personal page or my business page.
Boom. I just showed your stuff to my whole network of followers. So valuable, so important. I can also go in like your Facebook posts and just liking it will help your algorithm. I can make a comment again, it doesn't cost me anything, but a few minutes, my time I can make a referral for you. Again, it just takes me a few minutes to write out that email, but it's going to be super helpful.
It could be a potential customer, could be a potential referral partner. That's going to give you ongoing business. Awesome. I can do a Google review. Now people will say, but Paula, I haven't used your services because I haven't had a flood or a fire and I haven't need your services. That's okay. You can actually go and still leave me a Google review that says I heard Paula speak. I met Paula at networking. She's absolutely amazing. I know that if you ever need her, you'll love her. I could do a review for you that says I've hung up my dancing shoes. But if anybody has children at all and they want to be dancing, this is a studio that you want to be at. That didn't cost me any money.
It just cost me some of my time. But having that five star review for me is going to be huge. It can help your Google, my business algorithm. Again, cost me nothing . You can invite people to your group that doesn't cost you anything, but a polite phone call or a text saying, do you want to come join my networking group?
Huge. You could also share jobs for people. If you have jobs, if you're hiring, we'd all everyone's hiring right now. So go ahead and share the job, put it on your social media, tell it to people in your group, whatever the case may be. So that's just a small handful of things that someone can do that would be so helpful to somebody.
And it didnt cost you anything.
[00:26:02] Melissa: Those are huge. Those are so huge. Everybody. I really hope you take some of this because so much of business is giving. You can't receive unless your hands are open to give. Okay. So if you take one of those tips that she gave you and do that today, she gave you probably five or six.
You could do one. And then rinse, repeat every day, one thing for some other person, and then watch your business blossom even more. And that's all free without even getting out of your house, however, we want you to get out of your house and going to meet people and connecting with them.
And it's so easy right now with the zoom. I mean, I do a lot of my one-on-ones through zoom. They're 30 minute meetings they're efficient, everybody shows up, you connect, you talk and you get to know a little bit more. And again, it's about the relationship. I want to just touch on what you said about the relationship and being in the room and the long-term relationship.
Because I have heard the whining, I don't get any referrals. They don't refer me, blah, blah, blah. And I know that person they know what they do, but it's not about that. It really is about that connection and getting that referral, like you talked about Paula. Cause this is long-term strategy, this is long-term connection. Every month and year that you stay in business, it's just magnifying that level of relationship. So. Keep at it, be intentional. I literally track every month. You all who I connected with each month and I want to have a minimum of four minimum. So once a week, I'm connecting with somebody new and learning about them. And you guys, by the end of the year, that's 52, at least connections new that I made. So track it and be intentional about it. Do you have any tips on that? Like, do you have a goal.
[00:27:45] Paula: Um, so I was just thinking as I'm sitting here, so I'll even do this for someone who listens to this podcast and reaches out to me to set up a one-to-one with them. I will give them a copy of this book because I'm always networking. Right. And so this week I met, Frank, Frank, he's written tons of books on networking, great guys out of Illinois. Amazing. But he wrote this book called the giving journal and it's all about your point. Because he started keeping track of every time he gave to someone else. And again, we're not talking like physically gave, but made a referral that a thing would not. And he started tracking it. He had a journal that he would track it in. So then he would realize if I hadn't given something today, or this week, he had a record of it that he could look at to keep him, keep it front of mind. Am I giving to people? Am I doing this? Am I setting something up for someone. So I love that. And I asked him for several copies so that I could give some away to people. And so I will,
[00:28:45] Melissa: oh my gosh, I love that. I just love that stuff so much because it's the energy. It's the energy. And for me as an online business owner, too, you can go leave podcast reviews, goodness graciously podcast reviews, because this is a labor of love y'all or a book. If they've wrote a book leave a review on Amazon or wherever it makes sense for them to get that book review, or give them away by a few, give them away, especially if you love the book or whatever. That is such a great thing. Thank you so much, Paula. You guys, she is a powerhouse when it comes to networking. If you get the opportunity to see Princess Paula speak, you have to watch her. She's amazing. She's genuinely amazing and lights up the room . Your gift. And I just appreciate you sharing your gifts with us and, and the people in our community. I know they're going to take away some nuggets here and feel empowered to get out of their office and go meet some people. So thank you.
[00:29:32] Paula: Thanks Melissa its been fun.
[00:29:34] Melissa: Awesome. So where can people best get a hold of you.
[00:29:37] Paula: Go ahead and find me on LinkedIn. Paula Skoviera from Atvanta Clean, go follow me on Instagram, either personal or my work.
And I'm also doing Tik Toks now. So you can follow Advanta Clean of the twin cities on Tik TOK. Cause you never know what I'm going to do.
[00:29:51] Melissa: She's amazing. We'll have that all linked up in the show notes. You guys go check her out, go say hi. Tell her your takeaway that you got from the podcast today and if you loved this podcast, screenshot it and share it on your stories, tagging Princess Paula and brick and mortar visibility podcast so we can shout you out. We would love that.
Hey there ladies, before I sign off, I want to share with you this little nugget that happened after we pressed stop recording. Paula and I were talking a little bit more about being in the room and sometimes you guys, I get it. Sometimes you're in the room and you feel like is anybody referring me? Or sometimes you're in the room and. Maybe there's one person that you're like, gosh, I know they have people, but why am I not getting referrals from them?
It's about giving. So make sure you're giving, make sure your message is clear. Make sure your product is good. But if all those things are in place, then you can do this. And Paula has done this and she has gone to that person privately and just said, Hey, what can I do to earn your business? And sometimes you guys it's just being that blunt in a kind way. And honestly, this person didn't think like, oh my gosh, I haven't had your pain point come up in conversation as I'm out and about. Sometimes that's just it. But she asked this person and within 24 hours, sure enough, they had a referral for her because the pain point came up within conversation. It's okay to ask for it as well. So I wanted to share that another, because sometimes you just feel like you're giving and you're doing all the things. What can you do more? You can just ask for it. Again, I hope you enjoy this podcast. I took pages of notes when I was interviewing Paula. So I hope you enjoyed it as well as always appreciate you all for listening and go make it a great week.
We'll see you here. Same time, same place next week. Peace. Bye-bye.

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