Networking Success Path
At CIBN Connect and The Edmonton Business Network we don't make the assumption that everyone who comes along knows how to network profitably. We got started right here in Alberta and after 15 years of experience and interviewing thousands of our Members locally and from around the world we have discovered that networking is more of a journey than a destination. There are many things that can be learned along the way and those who fully engage in the process will often add more than six figures to their bottom line through networking, learning to sell, and by becoming influencers. By interviewing and surveying our most successful Members over many years we have developed The Networking Success Path. We lead our Members through each stage and help them grow their businesses adding bottom line revenue each step of the way. You are going to love the journey!
Jean-Luc Allaire
"I began networking with CIBN Connect back in 2020 and really enjoyed the online networking. Over the years I built a relationship with Kerry George and other members of the network. Today I am a proud member of The Edmonton Business Network and I am really excited to see what we will do next as a team."
Chris Breen
"I have done a lot of networking and all networking is good but the Edmonton Business Network is different. This is local and it is driven by local people working to help each other. There is a huge emphasis on education and this makes a radical difference in the lives of entrepreneurs."
The Journey To Your Success
Have you ever gone into a big shopping mall and found a large sign that says "YOU ARE HERE?" There are many entrances to a shopping mall and people come into them from different directions. They all experienced unique paths to get to the mall, and once they are inside they don't go through every store. Instead they pick their shopping experiences based off of their needs and desires.
In the same way business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals come to CIBN Connect from many paths. Some join us in person at the Edmonton Business Network and others join us online from around the world. People are also in different places in their business careers. They have shopped heavily from some stores and ignored others not even looking inside to see if there was something in there to benefit from.
Some entrepreneurs find us early in their career. Others find us after years of struggling. Many come in already enjoying various levels of success and they add to our wisdom with their own experiences. A few are beaten up and weary from their travels. No matter how they enter into our gates, our Members rejoice upon discovering a new and simpler way to build their businesses and grow bottom line revenue.
CIBN Connect takes our Members down a clear pathway to business transformation. In some cases we help them to go back to basics and pick up the things they missed, or that they did not realize were important. In other cases we show them how to take the pieces that they already have and to put them into the correct order leading to faster profits and a steadier growth cycle.
Some people decide that certain steps are not what they want right now and that is fine. They can come back for it later, or perhaps they will hire someone else to do it for them such as a virtual assistant. The good news is, your partner, staff member, or spouse can attend whether you are attending or not, and learn the skills that they need to learn without additional charge.
Some Members neatly enter the Building Stage and start from the beginning , checking off every box. Others go directly to the Presenting Stage. Others are more interested in tracking the results in the Producing Stage, but then realize that without the 10,000 connections they won't reach the Influencer Stage. So they need to go back to the Add Social Stage and get the pieces in place before moving on.
There are no cutting corners on The Networking Success Path if we want to become an influencer and get business coming in more easily, but if we know where we are going and what we are trying to accomplish we can get their faster if we work together.
Build
Building a business is hard when we are by ourselves. Entrepreneurs often struggle to find community and answers to everyday problems. Everyone is trying to sell us solutions and often without even asking us enough questions. What will work for me? Who can I trust? How do I represent myself to the world? How do I build a USP or Unique Service Proposition? Who is my avatar?
We started a business because we had an idea, or we were good at something. Perhaps we took training and now we just want to get started. But here we are wearing too many hats doing our own bookkeeping, creating our online marketing, and selling as well. We are so busy, and revenue is tight, so where do we start?
Our Building A Network solution takes 30 to 60 days on average:
Begin building relationships with other business owners for support
Build real friendships that go beyond "liking" into "knowing" and "trusting"
Identify those who could become collaborators who have the same target market. These people have clients who buy, and those clients can be shared
Create 25 new strategic connections
Find your first 3 real Collaborating Partners and start working on the steps to success in chapter 9 of SMART NETWORKING - The $150,000 Method
Watch the 7 short networking training videos
Add Social
Social media is now decades old, yet business owners are still struggling to add online features to their businesses. They wonder if they should be using Facebook, Tik Tok or YouTube? Should they be on LinkedIn? What are the best practices? How do I make sales happen from this? What can I automate? So many questions. Social media monopolizes our time and attention. We spend hours on it every day and we are distracted by every new shiny thing that hits the internet. We buy tools that are a waste of money and we spend too much time trying to figure i it all out.
This is where CIBN Connect shines. Our Founder Kerry George has been a social media expert long before there were social media experts. Her first business was social media marketing back in 2010 and way back then she realized that "Social Networking" was really "networking," in an online format. She mastered platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and X and trained other entrepreneurs to master these social channels.
We begin working on these things at The Speaker Level of membership. This is the level where these courses can be found. We can move through the courses quickly, or we can take our time. One step at a time. You can do it!
Our Social solution:
Record your social media numbers so future growth can be tracked
Pick one channel to grow
Complete Social Media Boot Camp
Complete the 7 Day Challenge To Create 700 Pieces Of Reusable Content
Build your own simple 3 step strategy and implement it
Understand the 4 C's of online marketing
Learn how to fill a room for your own event
Present
Are your knees shaky when you stand up to talk? We can help with that.
We all aspire to stand before our ideal audience—a room full of potential buyers eager to hear our pitch. Or perhaps our dream is to deliver a compelling sales presentation to a board of directors at a major company. But let’s face it: if our presentation skills aren’t sharp and polished, the outcome is predictable—nothing happens. The deal doesn’t close, the opportunity slips away, and we’re left wondering what went wrong.
Mastering the art of selling from the stage takes more than just ambition; it takes practice—countless hours of it. The more we practice, the more confident, engaging, and persuasive we become. But here’s the challenge: where do we find the opportunities to refine these skills?
Sure, we can invest in paid speaking slots at summits and conferences. But many of these events come with a major hurdle—your social following. Event organizers, publishers, and gatekeepers often vet authors and speakers based on their audience size, not just their expertise. Without impressive numbers, even skilled presenters may find themselves turned away.
It’s a frustrating reality for many aspiring speakers, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the story. At Edmonton Business Network we offer our stage for our Networking Level Members to practice their offers and refine their talks. We also have a Sales Pro level of membership to assist those who struggle in their ability to sell. After all, what is the point of getting leads if we can't close any of them. Business starts getting better when we start getting better at presenting our business to others.
Many want to start with the courses in the Networking Level training and get some practice talking in front of others. It doesn't matter where you start, just start. Remember we are learning on the journey.
Presenting Our Solution:
Gain the confidence that you need to move your business forward
Eliminate the fear of public speaking and the emotions that sabotage
Master presentation skills in front of small groups first
Get valuable feedback from other members who have been where you are
Learn to do 15 minute and 25 minute presentations in small groups
Speak at a CIBN Connect online summit
Learn to do 90 minute webinars (If you want to)
Do Facebook Lives in the CIBN FB groups (If you want to)
Do an interview on the CIBN TV channel and showcase your business
Write an article for one of the CIBN Magazines
Produce
At this stage, we focus on creating and implementing mechanisms to track production effectively. For many Members, attending the Quarter Launch event within their first 90 days with CIBN Connect is a pivotal step. However, real traction often doesn’t occur until they’ve attended at least three times. Why is that?
Small business owners are typically unaccustomed to planning in quarterly increments. The first time they set long-term goals—spanning up to 10 years—they’re often just guessing at potential outcomes. But as they refine their goal-setting process and start applying proven techniques, their ability to drive production becomes significantly more effective.
This stage also involves a comprehensive examination of business systems. While the Social Stage introduced the integration of social media and automation, the Producing Stage is where outcomes are tracked and strategies are fine-tuned.
Sales metrics become a central focus at this level. If a Member has not yet completed the Sales Pro training, now is the perfect time to do so. Improving sales ratios directly impacts the bottom line, and it’s an essential part of scaling and tracking production. After all, we can’t train a team of salespeople to grow our business if we haven’t yet created a replicable and effective sales process ourselves.
This is also the level where a business owner may want to consider the Excalibur MasterMind Program for more strategy focus.
Presenting our Production Solution:
Attend Quarter Launch for the third time and complete goal setting process
Add automations to your social media and customer communications
Record increase on social media channels
Make a plan for social media growth working towards the 10,000 goal
Make sure that the 4 C's of online marketing are being implemented
Measure sales results and tweak for improvement
Complete a Systems Analysis
Influence
It takes 10,000 online connections to reach the level of influence where your voice truly carries weight. Leadership begins when you have followers, and followers don’t appear by chance. Building an audience requires consistent effort, using simple, repeatable steps that transform the process from a shot in the dark into a clear path to success.
This is the stage where your message stops echoing in an empty room. It’s where you could write a book and know there’s a built-in audience eager to buy it. It’s where you can announce an event or a weekly meeting and people will line up to attend, even without running ads. Or you could launch a new product or service and easily find clients.
At this level, you’re putting the finishing touches on your personal network and reaping the benefits of your hard work. Your message isn’t just being heard—it’s being amplified by raving fans who help spread your influence even further.
This is an appropriate time to add the multiplication strategies found in the Excalibur MasterMind Program.
These are the tasks for the Influencer:
Track the connections and followers on every social channel and continue in the strategies to increase those numbers
Add three new methods of increasing our online followers
Create and automate at least 1 communication strategy such as a blog, a magazine, a YouTube channel or a podcast.
Create at least two evergreen methods of making sales where advertising runs on it's own and makes more than what is being spent.
Set up at least two sources of ongoing repeatable income that supplement your business or your lifestyle
Multiply the strategies that work
Move into scaling your business
SMART NETWORKING - The $150,000 Method
Comes with every level of membership!
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Chrome Extension
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Video Training Portal
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Referral Tracking
Darlene Petrie
"CIBN helped me to figure out my business journey. I had to restart and build something people wanted to buy. I learned the tools to market myself and I learned how to be appealing to my customer base. I was a basic member at first, and then went into the Sales Pro level. After mastering sales, I have been an active participant in the Excalibur MasterMind Program for three years. This has completely revolutionized my business!"
Keith Uthe
"I started networking in the early days with CIBN when I was just starting my mortgage business. This was a great place to start out and today it continues to offer me viable tools services and relationships that no other network has. I have been a basic member and then I participated in the mastermind program for about four years. I highly recommend this organization to you."
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