Meet Matthew Clark
Matthew Clark is the founder of The Virtual Edge and co-creator of The Rainmaker System – an online marketing system that helps entrepreneurs get 2-5 high value leads per day from LinkedIn without paying for ads. With their flagship programme Matthew and his business partner Wesley Longueira have helped thousands of businesses in seventeen countries grow exponentially. They are now on a mission to reach 10k businesses worldwide and build a vibrant community of Rainmakers along the way!
Tell us a little bit about the Rainmaker system?
What we do is that we help entrepreneurs get two to five high value leads per day from LinkedIn without paying for ads. we’ve got a three stage process that we take people through, and how it works is the three main stages are position connect and scale. So first stages is all about positioning yourself for success. You want to go from being in visible and just being you know, another person on LinkedIn to someone that’s completely irresistible to your ideal client. Now, the key on there is that you have to know who your ideal client is. And the more focused you get, the more targeted you get the better at this works. Once you’ve got that, instead of trying to target everyone, we use the power of one solve one big problem for one ideal client, we then create what’s called the pickup line, okay, which is all about the message that you’re going to put out there so people know how to work with you, before they even talk to you. Once you get that right, then we do the LinkedIn makeover which turns your profile from an egocentric profile focusing all on you to a client centric sales page that focuses everything on your ideal client. And that’s how you go from being invisible to irresistible.
How did you get started in business?
I started out doing door to door sales. I started off in the UK, selling gas and electric, getting people to switch over to our provider. Then when I came back to South Africa, I had an opportunity to work with someone I worked with in the UK, and we started selling telephone systems switchboards, copiers, and CCTV. A couple of years later I started my own business with two friends. And it really took off. I mean we got up to doing seven high seven figures. Within four years, we had 60, staff members, and it was just like a lot of fun. My experience doesn’t come from the online digital world. It comes from door to door sales and connecting with people. So sure, everything I’ve done has been built on that. And that’s obviously why I like LinkedIn so much is because I can literally, I can virtually knock doors, and I can build great relationships.
Can you share with our listeners whenever favorite networking experiences that you’ve had?
One of the funniest ones for me was, I was working with a guy who is based in Ireland. And he was helping us with some stuff. We were running a big event in South Africa and I met this other speaker who came along, it was a social media event. And I mean, this guy was amazing. I’ve never seen someone saw like this where people are literally rushing the back table and stampeding to get there. And him and I got talking. He’s got the social media course. And he’s like, well, I’m looking for someone that could do LinkedIn, and boom, here you are, and we’re going to do it. And we’re setting up a webinar on Thursday, this week. It was a Sunday. We have 400 people on and I want you on the presenting on LinkedIn. So I was like, well, that’s amazing. That just kind of came out of nowhere, out of the blue. And so we set that up, and we did that.
How do you stay in front of and invest and nurture your network?
Content, very simple content. I post out content not as often as what I should. But also just have conversations with people. I like to talk with people. I love building relationships with people. I genuinely I love it. And so very often that I’ll just reach out to people to ask how’s it going, just checking in, you know what’s going on, or comment on their post. So I do a lot of Zoom. I pretty much live on Zoom.
So what advice would you offer to the business professional who’s looking to grow their network?
So number one is be laser focused with who you want to target write your list of your top 100 that you want to go after the people that you really want to connect with, that you want to network with, that can help you grow personally or in your business. And focus on building those networks either directly with them and also around them. Have a plan, write down what you want, who you want, and take action on it. And the second thing is engage with people. There’s nothing better than going out there and spend the time and energy posting, and then you’ve got writing content and then posting and then people actually engage with you. So the advice is go and engage with people. Go and start conversations, go read people’s posts, and instead of just scrolling past and not actually doing anything, like it, comment and share it.
We’ve definitely talked a lot about digital and you started your business and sales experience more on the traditional side of networking. But at the end of the day, which one do you find more value in?
I like to use a combination. Here’s the thing, when you are doing face to face, and let’s say you go to a networking event, or whatever it is, most people don’t know how to communicate what it is that they do and what they want. More importantly they’re scared to share that. But also, it may take you a bunch of conversations before you actually find somebody that you can help or that you want to work with, or take a conversation further.
With what would you say your response rate is typically on LinkedIn?
So it depends on your goals and what you want to achieve. I work on an average with my students, and I say, these are kind of the numbers that you want to look for, if you’re going in for lead generation. So you want to you’ll typically experience about a 20% connection rate. So people that you connect with, and you always want to send a message when you connect with people always, never just say, connect, send a message. If we look at those numbers, so if you send out 1000 connections in a month, it sounds like a lot, it’s like 40 a day. And 20% of those connect with you. That’s 200 connections. Let’s say 25% of them start a conversation. So that’s 50 conversations that you’re having. And then let’s say even if 20% of those actually want to talk to you further and get on a call, that’s an extra, you know, 10 people. That’s 10 leads that you’re talking to right there.
If you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more of less of or differently with regards to your professional career?
I would definitely say invest more. I made a lot of money when I was younger, and like a lot and I had zero expenses, zero overhead, zero anything, and I didn’t invest it properly. I would also say to myself use the opportunity that I’ve got and go all in on it. And sometimes the things that I’m doing even though I don’t necessarily like them, I could be using it as a stepping stone to get to the next level. So definitely think more about what do I want out of life versus just living it.
We’ve all heard the six degrees of separation who would be the one person that you’d love to connect with? And do you think you could do it within the sixth degree?
Well I did manage to do that. So Bob Berg was one of the people that I really wanted to connect with. And I did it within the second degree and he was on my list of people that I really want to connect with and really get to know more. Like that book was unreal for me. And it’s happened.
Do you have any final word of advice to offer our listeners with regards to growing and supporting your network?
So in terms of growing into putting your network I would say, some of the things that I wish I would have done better is to go in with a plan. You know, think about who do you really want? Where do you really want to be. So have that vision, have that goal in mind of where you want to take your life where you want to take your business, work your way back and figure out who can help you get there faster. Always look to network up. Network with people better than you, higher than you, better than where you’re at right now. So that you always learn stuff, and be valuable to people. You know, think of ways that you can be valuable to them in a way that you know, they care about you that you care about them. And just make it all about them and not about you.
How to connect with Matthew:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattclarksa/
Get Matt’s FREE resource by visiting:
Website: https://thevirtualedge.com/