3 Tips for Brand Collaborations with Ed Dudley
Branding with Friends | Episode 11
Featuring Expert Guest: Chief Connections Officer at We Are Connect-ED, Ed Dudley
Watch or listen to the video interview below or scroll down to read the transcription.
Meet Ed Dudley, Chief Connections Officer at We Are Connect-ED
Annie: My guest today is the very dynamic and very well-connected Ed Dudley. Ed is the Chief Connections Officer at We Are Connect-Ed. One of his greatest gifts is his ability to network connect with people and then, in turn, connect individuals to other people, resources, and opportunities, including a very long-standing collaboration he has with Microsoft, yes. Ed spends a considerable amount of his time connecting with other people in order to find ways to serve them. It's his desire to see everyone connected, because, at the end of the day, we are Connect-Ed, of course with the -ed. Aren't you so grateful that your parents named you Ed?
Ed: I love it!
Annie: Ed you're here to talk to us today about what you're really known for, which is connecting people. Ed has an amazing networking series that he does with Microsoft that has now gone virtual. In those days, he was doing them in Microsoft stores, he's doing lots of collaborations with nonprofit organizations to connect other people.
So, we have lots of coaches, consultants, service business owners today. I know you've got three powerful tips for them. If you've never watched Branding with Friends before you are in for a treat. We're going to go through three big tips today. Ed's going to share the first two, then he's got something special to direct us to. Listen to the end of the episode because you'll get that third tip right at the end. So, lots of great things here.
Ed, you have been the natural-born connector. How did you get started becoming a chief connections officer?
Ed: Well, I would love to say that I've been doing it all my life intentionally, but I haven't. I moved to North Carolina area about three years ago with my family. When I got here, the only people that I knew were my parents and my siblings. I needed to build a business but I didn’t know anyone.
I started going out and networking, but I met one individual, and I call them my spark and I'll give him a shout out. His name is David Baum. I met him and we had a cup of coffee, and I told him what I was interested in. Then on a Saturday, I get an email from him, introduced me to five people. So that sparked me. I thought, wait a minute. I need to be more intentional about my networking, and that led me on a journey. My purpose really in life is really connecting people to other people, opportunities, and resources. It's been amazing since I've been here.
Annie: Well, so glad you're here to share your wisdom today with us. What would be the first thing you would tell another business owner if they're really interested in creating strategic collaborations for their business? What's the first thing they should do?
#1 Action TIP
Connect Intentionally and Authentically with Others
Ed: Learn how to connect authentically. One of the biggest issues that we have, we see people trying to connect with other people, but they're trying to really figure out what's in it for them. I ask a ton of questions of people and I'm there to serve first. I tell everyone at this stage in my life, I live by this one phrase “give and this shall be given unto you” because I'm here to serve people.
People see that I'm genuine because I never ask for anything. I'm there to serve you. How can I serve you? What kind of resource are you looking for? What kind of people are you're looking to connect with? So that's how I started building my network. Just serving people. It just started growing, growing, growing.
Annie: Awesome. So would you say it's sort of like a karma boomerang? The more that you've connected to other people, and provided value that you've seen that value come back?
Ed: I always tell people, Annie, I might introduce you to five people. You may not ever introduce me to anyone. But those five people think I love Annie. I think you need to meet this person and this person. It's literally become a domino effect of connection. But you need to be intentional. I literally set out a game plan. When I went out networking, I would push my week and think about at these events, I'm going to. These are the number of people that I'm trying to meet on a group level, and these are people that I want to sit down one on one with and take a deeper dive to figure out how I can serve them.
Annie: How do you balance your time though? I know that you are transitioning from being a financial advisor. We were just joking that Ed was saying he's spending 80% of his time at We Are Connect-ED. Yeah, 80% of 1,000% of your time, because every time I see Ed I say is that a hologram? Are you real? Because he's prolific. It sounds like a lot of making connections for people. Obviously, you have to bring home money and you have to do work and you have to build up all the work you're doing, not just networking. So how have you balanced your time or what have you found to be effective?
If you’re not time-blocking you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Ed: I was bad at first, I was all over the place. I was taking a shotgun approach, and I was up late at night. But if you are not time blocking, you're doing yourself a disservice. As Annie said, I am in financial services. At the beginning of the year, I said Monday, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are just dedicated to revenue-producing things. If it does not produce revenue, you're not going to meet with me. Thursdays and Fridays, were all about networking, going to events, one on ones, meetings, and interviews. But as things started changing over the course of the year, and I started to change what I really want to focus on, I kind of flipped that where Mondays and Tuesdays are just about revenue-producing activity. If it is not putting money in my pocket, food on the table, I'm not doing it. Then Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays are all about making intentional connections and interviewing people and doing some of these other events and things that I'm doing.
Annie: I love it. I think that you just hit on two really powerful success tips that I try to teach that are really undersold. The first one probably is more familiar, which is to watch your money. Where your money goes is where your life goes, right? Watch your debt, all of that sort of thing. I'm a big Dave Ramsey person if you ever want to ask me about that. But a bigger thing that I talk about a lot that people don't realize is where your time goes, is where your money is going. Even if you create products. Because if you aren't tracking your time, if you aren't blocking your time, as Ed's talking about, you're missing huge opportunities to know where you're profitable, to be strategic. Ed is giving his time away generously, but he had to put a container around it, that's what you heard. He can't do that all the time. I think some of what we do as business owners and why we burn out is because we're not blocking our time and we're not tracking our time. You wouldn't expect to hear that on a branding episode. But it's totally critical to being a successful business.
Ed: One of the things I would also add, is to make sure you're finding time to block for rest and relaxation and to recharge. If you don't do that you will burn out so quickly. I felt myself burning out at times because I was doing so much across the board. I literally have a time block that is just whatever I want to do, read a book, go for a walk, try to get some this quarantine weight off.
Annie: That's right, fighting the tidal wave of that. Ed and I are both based in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area here in the United States. One of the things I think you're really well known for is your partnership with Microsoft. Could you talk a little bit about that and how that came to pass like kind of what it is and how you were able to make that happen?
Ed: One of the things is, the local Microsoft Store used to hold some events themselves. I was always trying to figure out ways to get better on LinkedIn. They were having a training on LinkedIn. I walked in there, and I sat down to see the training. To be honest, the training was garbage. I was like, I already know all this. I met someone. We were asking questions, and I started taking a deep dive into how I could serve the person at Microsoft. I said in the back of my mind, I need to collaborate with them. I didn't know how right then. I started diving and asking questions, what are you doing? How are you doing this? How are you trying to get more people into the store? We sat down Memorial Day 2018 for a cup of coffee, at Panera, and we literally mapped out how we could collaborate together. At the end of the day, it was about me being an advocate for them to help them grow first and then me grow second. But if I help them reach their goals, in turn, they will turn around and help me. What went from one location to 10 locations in seven states in less than two years.
Annie: You're amazing. I have been very lucky that I can say now that I've spoken for Microsoft. Once upon a time one of my dear friends and clients, Melissa Ternes, she connected me to you. We met at We are Connect-Ed headquarters, which is the Panera at Durham. We met there, I believe, and you were amazing. I think you're exactly the brand that you're presenting and what I want you guys to hear in Ed's story is, they didn't put out an ad at Microsoft saying, hey we're looking for someone to host a business workshop series. You went and took an interest and you spent a lot of time trying to understand what their needs were and came to the table with something that you could offer value with. It’s not just that you have created something, you created something of value for them that really fit what you were trying to do as well as you shared mutual goals and you did the work. I'm sure you didn't expect the team at Microsoft to do all this work for you, you created a brand. You brought in the speakers, I have been lucky enough to speak twice for Microsoft thanks to you over time. That's been an incredible gift for me and has helped me grow my business. I'm eternally grateful for this sort of this amazing ripple effect. Could you talk a little bit about how branding has impacted that? How you've built this, how much has branding played a part in being successful with collaborating with brands like Microsoft and some of the other things you're doing?
Ed: The branding has just been incredible. I took some tips from experts. I was going to Annie’s classes, learning branding tips that I didn't know because I came from corporate America where we had marketing and branding and all I did is go out and do my thing. I had to learn a lot of it. A lot of it was through some social media, but being very specific with the brand and intentional where I put my brand and who I collaborated with was more important than anything else.
When I said We Are Connect-Ed to Microsoft, it opened some doors. But the beauty of my name, we Are Connect-Ed, I can put anything on the back of it, and partner with them. I've connected with We Are Connect-Ed with ReCity, which is a local, nonprofit co-working space in Durham. I think in the next month or two, we're going to do We Are Connect-ED with A Place at the Table in Raleigh, which is a pay what you can afford cafe. But it all started because I was branding the right way and being intentional with who I partnered with.
Annie: Being really thoughtful about those connections. Speaking of connections, that was your first tip, to really focus on making real connections, not surface-level connections, serving the person in front of you. I sort of tipped off your second tip. What would be the next thing someone should do if they want to build these collaborations?
#2 ACTION TIP
Learn How To Serve First
Ed: Learn how to serve. Learn how to serve first. One of the things when I sit down with everyone, I use the acronym AIR, asking for advice, insights, and recommendations. As I'm asking for AIR at the same time, they're showing me how I can best serve them. I literally ask everyone, it's a part of my tagline and it is on my emails, please let me know how I can serve you and your network. I may not be able to serve them right now. But I guarantee I can serve someone in their network. They'll think of me first, oh, you need to meet Ed.
Annie, you've introduced me to people. I've connected Annie to other people and places, learn how to serve people where they needed to be served.
I love nonprofits, I have a passion for nonprofit work. I'm always trying to figure out ways to serve them. You know, though my time is limited. My resources are not necessarily limited. I can serve them just by connecting them to the right person. That might be a new donor, someone that might be their next director of development or something like that. That part right there, the whole serving part has been more critical to my success than anything else.
Annie: I think that makes a lot of sense, and it's something that I think we take for granted - all the good you're putting back into the world. I think you said it really lovely, which is, you don't have a bunch of time. But your resources aren't limited in the same way your time is. If it takes two minutes for you to make a quick introduction via LinkedIn, or via email. Many of my clients know I usually tell him like, you're going to have to tell me not to, because I say, you have to meet this person, you have to get connected to many of my clients. That's how I met you is through one of my clients referring back to me and because I see this overlap, and I think when you take action on that people really appreciate it.
I just got a text yesterday asking, who's that graphic recorder you know, and I said oh, it's Caryn, she's amazing. I connected them. She's told me, I just hired her. I met her once at your party, and I couldn't remember. I gave away her phone number and I thought, I shouldn’t have done that. Then she got hired. It all worked out. But I think that that comes back to what I love about today's episode of Branding with Friends is that it's not about a logo or a color palette or anything like that. It's a different aspect of branding, which is what you're known for. You have very clearly associated yourself with being a connector and being Connect-Ed. Brilliant again, so grateful your parents for naming you. You're going to tell me, you're going to break my heart today and tell me your name is Steve, and you just changed your name to make the brand.
Ed: It was Ralph.
Annie: I think that it's something that you're known for and that's what branding can do is bring about associations. People come to me and say oh your Brand Annie. I do things like Branding with Friends and Branding with Annie and it brings out association. So not only that, but you have built up a reputation for being consistent and being of service and service-minded, people respect you for that and that helps you thrive in the work that you want to do. Because you're really living that brand day in day out.
Ed: You have to be authentic. You’ve got to be true to yourself and who you are, and it will show across to people and they trust you, that's the key. Once they trust you, there's nothing that they won't do for you to support you. I've been fortunate enough to have a bunch of people that surround me. I'm not an expert at everything. I got a bunch of experts around me that support me.
Annie: I like to think you're a pretty good expert on lots of things. But I love humility too. I'm trying to embrace that as well. I don't have all the answers, and neither do you. We're all on this journey together. Nothing like what we're going through in the world right now in 2020. Whenever you're listening to this, you know that 2020 was a heck of a year. Are you in the future? Have things gotten better? Please let us know in the comments. But we hope that it has.
But I'm so glad that you're here with me. I think all of these tips are so wonderful. We have one more tip today. But I know that folks are going to want to connect with you and experience Ed Dudley for themselves so that they know exactly all these great opportunities for business workshops, the work you're doing with nonprofit. What is the best way that folks can connect with you after today's episode?
Don’t miss this special opportunity for “Branding with Friends” fans…
Connect with Ed Dudley and We Are Connect-ED on LinkedIn. Find him on Eventbrite for all the latest events.
Ed: The best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. If you're on LinkedIn, go to Edward Dudley, on LinkedIn. You can follow us on LinkedIn and We are Connect- Ed. If you sign up on Eventbrite and follow us, you'll automatically be notified when our events and things that we have going on.
Annie: That's really cool. We're going to make sure that wherever you are watching or listening to this episode, you're going to have those links as well. But that is the way to connect. I would challenge you today if you do one thing it is connect with Ed because it will be powerful for you. I know Ed is going to update me on how that goes. We've had great success with other Branding with Friends, guests helping you guys so if Ed can be of help, let him know.
Obviously, I'm here for you too. If you've never listened to Branding with Friends, you're in for a special treat. If you are thinking about how your message is unclear. I'm inconsistent with how I'm branding myself. I'm here to help you and you can actually hop on my calendar for a 20-minute complimentary consultation. So if you're curious, if you need help, maybe you need some mentoring. Let's talk about it. Let's take a closer look at what's going on in your business. Just go to greateststorycreative.com and grab that little red button up at the top. But that's everything for today except for our last tip.
So, you told us, Ed, we need to connect, we need to have a service mindset. We need to serve others. But what's that last thing that we should keep in mind for collaborating?
#3 Action Tip
Support People in What They are Doing
Ed: Support. So, one of the things that I'll use you as an example for, I found out Annie was doing a speaking engagement at a local library that was literally five minutes away from my house. I popped up and she was shocked to see me. It's little things like that, supporting people what they're doing, supporting their brands, supporting them, and their mission. Support is easy as a like, comment, and share, on social media, especially since we're all virtual. That type of support goes a long way and helping people get where they want to go. Once you support someone to help them get where they're going to get, most people will reach back to support you as well. Support is vitally important.
Annie: I think he made an excellent point earlier in our conversation about even if they don't, even if people don't, I tend to sometimes struggle. I'm a giver mindset, but I can sometimes become a matcher. Have you ever read Adam Grant’s Give and Take?
So they basically say that people in their work is either going to be givers, takers, or matchers. I would say I tend to be a giver. But then when I feel like someone isn't reciprocating, I get into that matcher mindset of, well, I did this, you should do this. I think Ed illustrates a great point, which is even if the boomerang doesn't come directly back, it's coming back in other ways. Like you said you referred someone else to another solution, or maybe that person got a client and then that made that person's life better. It's all sort of one big harmony ecosystem. You're helping one another we are, it's like, we're all connected.
Ed: We are all connected in one way or another.
Annie: Either you're going to love this episode for that pun, or you're going to be like I'm so done. But in any case, I also wanted to comment on the genius tip. Which is, in his email signature he says, please let me know how I could serve you or your network. The first time I got an email from Ed, I didn't realize that was in his email signature, I thought it was in the email. Just in the body of the email, and I thought, that's very direct and very helpful. I felt very much cared about. That was as simple as having that at the top of your email signature. That maybe there's something I'm going to say to Ed. I think there was. I think I replied, we actually, here's what I'm looking for. Imagine tomorrow you try this out, just ask somebody, what could I do to serve you or your network. You might be really surprised by their response, they might need you, you might need to connect them to something, who knows. But the genius of that, that you put it in your email signature once and I mean, tell me probably hundreds of opportunities have come from just having that line right?
Ed: A ton. That's, that's one of the things that keeps me so busy.
Annie: It took me three emails to realize it was in your email signature. I kind of felt stupid. I was like, Oh, it's in the email. But I got it, I got the strategy of it. I thought that that was a great way that if you struggle with remembering all sorts of these great business tips if you do anything coming out of it, you’ve got to connect with Ed. Then you’ve got to go add that email signature or something like that. If you want to practice these tips, so be sure to let Ed or I know how that goes. But, Ed, thank you so much for joining me today.
Ed: I appreciate you.
Annie: I appreciate you too. I'm sure there's many more collaborations ahead. We hope that you guys enjoyed yet another episode of Branding with Friends. So many thanks to the amazing Ed Dudley of We are Connect-Ed. You will never forget that name after today. Tune in next time when we're going to tackle another topic we're branding needs business and until then, I'm Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative. You can find all of our episodes branding resources and so much more on our website at greateststorycreative.com or even BrandingwithFriends.com.
“Branding with Friends” Episode 11
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips for Brand Collaborations to grow your service business:
Connect intentionally and authentically with others
Learn how to serve first
Support people in what they are doing
Dive deeper into branding and growing your greatest business with Annie Franceschi:
• Subscribe to the Greatest Story Creative newsletter to have new episodes of “Branding with Friends” sent right to your inbox the day they premiere!
• Find past episodes at BrandingwithFriends.com
• Connect with Annie for consultations, resources, and more here on greateststorycreative.com
• Follow Annie & Greatest Story Creative online:
--- Facebook - facebook.com/greateststorycreative
--- LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/anniefranceschi
--- Instagram - @annie.franceschi
To learn more about Brand Collaboration or to seek Ed’s help:
• Visit the We are Connect-Ed website: weareconnect-ed.com
• Follow them on Eventbrite for upcoming events: weareconnect-ed.eventbrite.com/
• Follow We Are Connect-Ed on LinkedIn
