Prioritize Relationships for Predictable Outcomes:
Connect, Serve, and Ask™ Methodology

Clay Hicks ia an innovator and entrepreneur who teaches how to prioritize relationships. With a magnetic passion for developing professional Trusted-Relationships, he has developed the first ever Word of Mouth Marketing Platform in the “formal business networking organization world”. As the mastermind behind the transformative H7 Network, founded in 2008, Clay stands as a cornerstone for empowering the underrepresented—the dreamers, the doers, the relentless entrepreneurs, and sales mavens striving to rewrite their destinies while working along side other professionals that support their word of mouth marketing efforts. Imagine a world where your business relationships transcend borders, where support and community are not just words but actions. This is the world Clay envisioned and brought to life through the H7 Network. It is more than a platform; it’s a movement—a global phenomenon where business ties are forged in the most profound ways, fostering not just growth but strong connections.

In the fast-paced world of business, non-profits, and networking, it’s easy to get caught up in the relentless pursuit of outcomes—sales targets, partnership deals, community engagement or community growth. Yet, amidst this hustle, a profound principle stands out: “When you focus on the relationship and not the outcome; the outcomes become more predictable.” Clay Hicks’ quote embodies the core of the Connect, Serve, and Ask™ methodology, a powerful approach to networking that emphasizes the significance of authentic, Trusted-Relationships over mere transactional interactions.

More at – https://www.h7network.com/ 

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou. I’m the founder and president of a nonprofit called SynerVision Leadership Foundation. It’s where we create synergy with a common vision. And I’ve got an old friend I’ve known years ago, we’ve crossed paths again, and I discovered a new brilliance that he has, and it’s just a great pathway. So, I’m going to introduce Clay Hicks today, but Clay, our topic for the day is just a fascinating topic, which you’ve trademarked. It’s connect. Let me pull it up here. Connect, serve and ask. Before we get there, tell people a little bit about your background and your passion for the work you do. Then we’ll get into the topic.

Clay Hicks:
Yes, sir. All right. Thanks, everybody, for having me. Hi, audience. Those are listening. So like you said, my name is Clay Hicks. I actually have been an entrepreneur for 23 years. I’ve owned a number of different companies. I’ve had my current company that you see on the screen called H7. I’ve had that for 17 years. I will tell you, for example, Connect, Serve, and Ask methodology has been around since 2018. And as an entrepreneur, I’m really kind of a kingdom driven entrepreneur. That’s really where I kind of live. And I love leadership. And I’ve been studying leadership so much, so much over the last, I guess, 17 years, since somebody gave me my first leadership Bible in 2009. And so love leadership. I love like being a leader of leaders. I love working with other leaders. I love living in that space. And so I actually live in Dayton, Ohio with my family, but I do business internationally. So thank you for having me on, Hugh.

Hugh Ballou:
Well, let’s dive into this behind you, that motto you have. Tell us what that’s about. It’s in sequence, I guess. It’s connect, serve, and ask. So let’s unpack that.

Clay Hicks:
Yeah. Connect, serve, and ask runs deep in my veins, more or less, at this point. So connect, serve, and ask was technically born in August of 2018. But the adventure, the journey to get to where Connect, Serve, and Ask was born began in August of 2014. What it was, was I was sent on an adventure, a new journey in my life, where I would meet with anybody for a one-to-one that would meet with me. And as I go, as I was going through that process, I really didn’t have much of a clue on what I was exactly doing when I started, but I set the tone by saying, you know what, I don’t know what I have to offer them, but I’m going to do everything I can to be helpful to them. That was the goal because I didn’t have it all, all the stuff right in front of me. So as I began the journey, yeah, one hour, one-to-ones, I was driving everywhere, I was scheduling appointments, I was doing this stuff. And then in 2016, after I’d been doing it a couple of years, I was doing it in Cincinnati and Dayton, things started to come alive inside of my experiences and my reflections. And so connect used to be called fine commonality. That was what I coined it in 2015. 2016 originated as add value became serve. And that was on a very big moment in my life and my career where I learned something from somebody else so deeply that I still remember his name all the way back in December of 2016. His name was John Altieri. I was in Columbus doing a one to one. The guy did something very miraculous to me. He served me such a high level in that one moment. And so That became serve, which originated as add value. Then in January of 2018, I found out I wasn’t even asking for help. So I was doing the fine commonality. I was doing the add value to the people I was meeting with. And about 2,500 one-to-ones in, I’m like, holy crap. I don’t get a lot of referrals. Maybe I should start asking. And then it began to tumble at that point. And by August of 18, Connect, Serve and Ask was born. And so after careful thought, reflection, where did it come from? How did it work? What is it going to be called? All these things came before my eyes. And Connect, Serve and Ask is simply just a methodology for earning trust with other people and building mutually beneficial relationships. So Connect, Serve, and Ask, the methodology works with your team. It works in networking with other professionals. It works with vendors you might be trying to build a relationship with, your prospects you can build a relationship with. But most of all, most important, you’re just simply building a relationship with another human being. That’s what Connect, Serve, and Ask helps you to do.

Hugh Ballou:
relationship is at the foundation of everything that we do. So we’re in this really, everybody I talked to is busy, got all this stuff going on in networking. You talked about business in your bio, you’re a business consultant of, you know, all of this, the whole big body of stuff, LinkedIn, is one of your areas of expertise. But we’re focused on outcomes, our fundraising, our events, et cetera. And so here’s a quote that stands out for me from you. When you focus on the relationship and not the outcome, the outcomes become more predictable. Would you unpack that a little bit?

Clay Hicks:
Oh, man, that’s my favorite. That’s my favorite. It really puts it all into perspective. for me anyway, and for many others that understand what it means. So here’s what it means. We all have goals. We all have metrics to follow if we own our own business, we all have these things that exist. But we all know we are not going anywhere without relationships. And so if you focus your time on ensuring that you’re building good, solid, mutually beneficial relationships, the outcomes will take care of themselves. So if you were to meet with Hugh for the first time, if you were focused on building a relationship with Hugh and not try to sell him something, then mutually beneficial relationship can be born, can be worked through. Any one-to-one, if you meet with somebody for the first time, if you focus on that relationship the first time, no matter what, focus on earning trust, making sure the relationship is sound before you have any level of expectation of them sending you a ton of referrals and changing your life. Don’t skip this. If they’re your relationship, it already happened. It’s just a matter of time now. It’s a matter of communicating with this relationship. It’s a matter of asking for help from this relationship. And so that’s where it originates. And for a networker focusing on the relationship, that’s very important. As a leader, as a leader, I must focus on the relationship I have with my staff, not on only the outcome. That’s what it means. To have a good solid team foundation, I cannot be focused on the outcome of that foundation. I have to be focused on making sure I’m paying attention to my staff and all of my relationships that I serve as a leader. Because the outcomes will take care of themselves, because they’ll help you more. Less politics, less bureaucracy, less name the thing that most people want to get rid of in companies, and just focus on the relationship. The rest take care of itself.

Hugh Ballou:
Yes, when you show people that you care, they’re going to care about what you’re passionate about. So you have the H7 network. It’s more than just a business. It’s more than just a website. You help people create these relationships and these trusted relationships. There’s a whole body of stuff that we don’t understand. Non-private leaders want to help people. We’ve got really good tools and systems, but how do we connect with others? This is a recurring problem. So talk about H7. I know you work with business leaders, but we educate non-profit leaders to realize that we’re in a for-purpose business, not a for-profit business. Even though we have to make a profit, our purpose is impacting people’s lives. So talk a little bit about your enterprise there, H7.

Clay Hicks:
Yeah, so H7, we have a tendency. So what it is, is Connect, Serve and Ask is its tenant. So everything that H7 does, its culture, everything begins with Connect, Serve and Ask, because we value people. And so the objective of H7 is to provide this platform for any professional, because we are in-person and virtual, so any professional, to be able to meet other people that are also trying to grow their business, provide them with a solid culture, training that supports them in their mission of being able to create those trusted relationships, and then the training also supports them in creating predictable results from it when applied. And so we have members in 22 countries. We have groups in 22 states. Wow, that’s weird. I didn’t even know that until I just said that. Anyway, and we have groups in four total countries. And so every day when we wake up, the objective is to provide that platform for leaders, entrepreneurs, since 99% of our community is entrepreneur. It means they own their own business. They are for leaders to develop relationships with other leaders to create new opportunities for themselves in a more predictable way.

Hugh Ballou:
So you have a network that’s all over the world, as do I. And so let’s come to the topic of virtual. The old days, we met in person and everything was in person. But that’s changed. And it’s really for the better, as long as we don’t depend only on virtual. But we don’t understand. One of your areas of expertise is LinkedIn. And I know a lot of nonprofits know about LinkedIn, but they don’t use it much. And that’s more of a B2B network, isn’t it? That’s where your corporate sponsors would be and your donors, wouldn’t it be?

Clay Hicks:
Yeah. So LinkedIn, I mean, we use LinkedIn in H7. in the meetings, like that’s how much we use LinkedIn and the power of it. Problem is it’s a huge platform. Not everybody knows how to use it. And so that, that one, once that big gargantuan gets in front of you, you’re like, okay, well, how do I use this thing? You know, that’s kind of what most people look at it like. But for me, it’s very strategic. You can find any company you’re trying to get in with. There’s people that work at that company. I mean, I don’t know how many people’s on there, a billion people on LinkedIn or something. That’s a lot of businesses. and a lot of employees of businesses. And so using LinkedIn to find the connections you’re looking for, I mean, it’s so valuable that there are companies out there that provide that kind of service for you and use AI to do it. That’s how powerful it is. I’m not saying that that’s correct or that’s the right thing to do, but I am saying that’s how powerful that system really is. And so for nonprofits and leaders, If you want to connect with other leaders, well, it’s a great place to start.

Hugh Ballou:
So just to clarify for people that aren’t clear with what I’m saying B2B network, it’s a B, a business to business. Now, if you’re in a nonprofit, you’re running a nonprofit, you’re in business, like I said before. So we forget that there’s the entity of the business. Also, there’s the entity of the associations. And, you know, and there’s just a lot of connections there. So what are some of the big mistakes people make generally with social media, but specifically with LinkedIn?

Clay Hicks:
Yeah, yeah. Automation emails. That’s huge. It’s horrible. It’s, it’s, it You know, they have these campaigns where they’re just basically pitching everybody through emails and they connect with you and you’re like, okay, cool. I’ll connect with you. Right. So let’s connect you. And then all of a sudden, five minutes later, you get this email like, oh my gosh, this is what we do. And it looks to me like after looking at your website, it needs fixed. It’s like you’re ruining your own reputation. Stop. Stop the AI. Stop trying to cheat your way to the front of the line. If you want to do something really good, I don’t know, ask somebody for coffee. Start there. That’ll be different. So the bad, bad is when people are constantly pitching you on LinkedIn through your LinkedIn messaging. They act like it’s okay, but it’s really not. It affects so many people, it’ll slow down your relationship from everyone to talk to you. I mean, you hurt your, you’re, you’re, you, you basically hurt your reputation right out of the gate. I mean, I had a, I had a financial advisors. I I’m sorry guys, but a lot of financial advisors use it for prospecting. And one of my members was using it and we were having a meeting about it. We were talking about it. And I said, let me see that. And I look at, I’m like, no, you’re just pitch slaving. That’s it. Stop. Nobody’s going to open your, your message. Like you’re just a waste of time and a waste of money. Now, for some people, it might work because they have a mindset around the game of numbers. I highly recommend you to stay away from it and build actual relationships. Anybody you connect with on LinkedIn in a positive way, saying messaging, sending notes, looking to do one-to-ones, you’re going to do just fine on there. Another bad thing is when you don’t really post anything of value. Like you just post like just events, but there’s no, but there’s no, like, what are you giving everybody else? What, like give something to somebody else. That’s a form of serving inside of Connect, Serve, and Ask, right? So I’m going to add value to other people’s lives by posting something to add value to other people’s lives. And people that you align with are, well, they’re going to pay attention, you know? I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I would make sure I’m concentrating on building the relationships.

Hugh Ballou:
It’s called social media. It’s not called posting media. It’s not call abuse people by soliciting them. And it’s pretty rampant on LinkedIn. I get all these, hey, let me find out what you do. And I feel like saying, why don’t you read my profile? Or, hey, I just stumbled across your profile. Yeah, right. You’re just sitting around wasting time. So there’s something that’s not authentic about those. And hey, you need a website. Well, no, I don’t need a website. And so for us and nonprofit, we’re looking for volunteers, we’re looking for board members, and we’re looking for donors, and we’re looking for corporate sponsors. So let’s take one of those, for instance. So there is a hiring platform you can recruit. And there’s a tab, you pull down tab for volunteers. Have you used that function? Does it work?

Clay Hicks:
Oh, I haven’t, I haven’t used that. I haven’t used that. I use LinkedIn as a, I use LinkedIn as a tool, but I don’t know everything about LinkedIn. Okay. I have 10,500 connections. I know and have met 9,900 of them. That’s how I use LinkedIn. Wow. Wow. I’ve met all but about 600 of the people I’m connected with. I have, in fact, met with, done a one-to-one with, come across, met an event, met face-to-face.

Hugh Ballou:
I have about 15,000, and I don’t know as many as you do, so I have a smaller percentage, but I do have regular, ongoing conversations with people. It’s hard to cut through the people that are just coming to sell to me. I try not to be snarky or mean. I just say, no, thank you, and then let it go, because I don’t want to burn any bridges, as we might say. But in finding people that would share the passion for the work we do, give us an example of kinds of conversations we can start with those people we’re getting acquainted with.

Clay Hicks:
Okay. Well, if we were to utilize the connect, serve, and ask methodology, might be a good time to share a little bit about that. So, Hopefully this will make sense. I’m going to give you five questions or topics that you can help you connect with somebody else better with. Let’s just start there. With the connect, you want to talk about things such as family, where you’re from, where did you go to college, what’s your story, how’d you come to do what you’re doing now, Those are great questions that you can use inside that allow you to really understand them better. They’re hobbies. Hobbies, that works too. Whatever is comfortable for you. I do have specific questions like I shared with you. But if you need more, of course, comment. I’ll put exactly what the questions are for those of you who are listening. But those are the questions that really help you overcome this connect. On top of that, you also need to be able to tell your, You need to be able to share what you do in a very succinct way. I highly recommend that you share what you do in a succinct way so that you’re not taking up most of the conversation just on connecting. You know, there’s only so much time, and you only learn about so much in a small period of time, so you might as well use the serve technique as a way to also get to know somebody else. So when it comes to serving, A question you can ask is simply, how can I help you? Wow, that’s nothing big, right? Funny story though, when I started my journey way back, 14, in 18 months, not one person, not one person had asked me how they could help me in 18 months, okay? Until the end, until the end, Hugh, until the end, we’re about to be done. Like, I need all kinds of help. What do you mean? And so it took 18 months for somebody to ask me that, and that changed my life. That’s where that serve piece come in. And you serve just so everybody knows, because that helps you earn their trust. Ask. Be sure that you ask them for some help yourself. So if we’ve connected, It’s my turn, I’m like, hey, Hugh, how can I help you? I’m now trying to earn Hugh’s trust. And then I have to have an ask. That’s what I mean by, in this method, connect, serve, and ask. That’s what I’m saying. The ask, you have to have something to ask. And why would you do that? To give them a chance to earn yours. And that’s how you build a trusted, that is the beginning of building a trusted, mutually beneficial relationship.

Hugh Ballou:
That is huge. That is huge. So if you’re watching this and you didn’t have a chance to write these things down, don’t worry. There’ll be a full transcript on the website. You can go to thenonprofitexchange.org, T-H-E, nonprofitexchange.org, O-R-G, and you can find the transcript and there’ll be some really good sound bites there. So, Faiye, we’ve got a lot of stuff out in this little short interview, but before we stop here, people can find you online. They can find your website. It’s H7, number seven, letter H7network.com. And that link is on the page for the podcast as well. So what will they find when they go to H7network.com?

Clay Hicks:
Yeah, when they go to H7, there’s a little chat box in there, See the two little, right above that, you’ll see the little square. That’s our little chat. Go to that chat and ask to, you can ask for Welcome to H7, or you can go to find a meeting. I would highly recommend if you’re interested in H7, that you would come to a meeting held every Thursday and Friday at 1 p.m. Eastern time called Welcome to H7. You’ll get to practice networking with us. You’ll actually see how we do what we do, how we make the donuts, how it all works. And when you have a company that’s designed so uniquely that it’s not in 20, there’s no competition, really, in 22 countries, it’s probably something you want to see. Come and experience it that way. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with you there. Happy to schedule a one-to-one with you. Happy to serve.

Hugh Ballou:
Wow. That’s very generous. That’s very generous. So, uh, you’ve given us a lot of things to think about today. What do you want to leave people with?

Clay Hicks:
You know, I just want to, uh, cause who we’re talking to, okay. Our audience. I just want to bring out that quote. When you focus on the relationship and not the outcome, the outcomes become more predictable. So if you’re in a place right now where you’re looking to grow as a leader, okay. grow your organization. In order to grow your organization, you got to grow as a leader first, right? And so as you’re growing your organization, I’m just going to say it like this. You’re going to need people in your corner. And so when you focus on the relationships and not the outcome, the outcomes can become more predictable. Because you value the relationships and relationships is what takes you very far. You can go far alone. Like the African proverb says, you can go alone and you can go faster. Or you can, uh, take somebody with you and go further. And that’s really what we’re saying here, aren’t we? Relationships is what matters.

Hugh Ballou:
That’s exactly what we’re saying. Um, Clay, thank you for being our guest today on the nonprofit exchange.

Clay Hicks:
My pleasure.