Friends of Dave #200: mr. money pants
Celebrating 200 issues and talking a little about self promotion.
Crazy to see that we've hit the 200 issue mark here this week, Friends.
It's been almost 4 years of Saturday AMs that you have been hearing my thoughts, opinions, rants and my pontifications.....when I started doing this, I had no clue how it would go, how long I would do it and whether I could even put something mildly interesting together every week.
Along the way, we've covered topics like why people hate their marketing departments, the importance of staying in your lane, exploring mindfulness, the perils of being in a mosh pit when you are over 40, my dream of one day operating a food truck, how time kills all deals, and the early introduction to truly honest meditation.
I've also shared about 1200 different curated stories to entertain you, make you think, make your smarter or hopefully a combination of all three.
For those that have been along for the ride since the early days, thanks for sticking with me. For the newly minted FoDs, we are just getting started....
WARNING: This next part is a little long...so if you feel confident that you are a strong networker and manager of your personal brand, you may want to go ahead and skip down to the articles....as David Lee Roth once famously declared, "Class dismissed"...as for the rest of you....
Over the past week I have had several conversations with a number of FoDs on the topic of effective networking, how to manage your personal brand and self promotion.
If you are one of those who think "I'm just not good at the networking thing" I'll give you the same blunt advice I gave them:
PLEASE STOP....JUST STOP.
Straight talk: in 2020 (and ESPECIALLY if you are over 35 years old), this half assed cop out is likely creating a much bigger problem for your career than you realize.
In a short span of time, LinkedIn has transformed how business relationships are formed, cultivated and managed. It has also become the most targeted and effective platform for professional selling, marketing and procuring talent AND is very easy to use. So knowing how to effectively leverage LinkedIn as a tool is now as critical a professional skill as using a spreadsheet.
The mistake most people make is they look at LinkedIn as a transactional platform that they can just "flip on" when they need it and then "flip off" when they don't and expect it to work for them. It is actually a platform for continuous business conversations that requires regular attention, strategic involvement and an investment of time to get the most out of it.
How can you do this? I don't want to make this too long or overly complicated, so I'm going to try to give you just a few basic tips here.
First, devote an afternoon this weekend or next to making sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date. This is your personal website and your living resume -- it is the first place people will go to check you out professionally (and they do). It is also incredibly flexible and easy to manage.
Make sure you have a professional looking profile picture that is recent (not from 10 years ago). Have a "Headline" that describes who you are and your skills, NOT your current job title. Also, write a "Summary" that accurately describes your skills and interests and broadly highlights your accomplishments. Be sure to include industry terms that are optimized for search -- this makes it easier for you to be found.
There are also options for you to add links to your profile with content about you, that you created or put a spotlight on a professional accomplishment by a company or team where you were a key contributor. Don't be afraid to promote yourself -- like any brand, it is expected you will do some marketing.
Next, look at how many connections you have. If that number is less than 500, you have some work to do.
On LinkedIn, the larger your immediate network is, the greater potential reach for you and your personal brand. You are also a more valuable asset to the networks of others if they know you are well connected.
To make it simple, consider yourself as concurrently belonging to three primary networks: personal, professional and educational. It might be helpful to visualize them as separate big circles comprised of a bunch of smaller circles.
The strength of each individual circle is based on the experiences you have in common with most other people in them -- these shared experiences facilitates making connections.
The first big circle is your personal network, made up of friends, friends of friends, family, people you know socially from your town or from other related activities (kids' sports teams, religious groups, clubs, volunteering, etc.). These can be acquaintances as well as people close to you.
The next big circle is your professional network -- every person with whom you have ever interacted in a professional setting throughout your career (peers, direct reports, people from other departments at the same company, bosses, partners, people you met at a conference, vendors, customers, head hunters, etc.).
Last but not least, your educational circle is made up of all of the people that attended the same high school, college, grad school, law school, etc. as you (not just the people you KNEW there).
The great thing about alumni circles are, depending upon where you attended, they can be very large, very active, and there are members of this circle that likely overlap with your other circles.
The aggregate of these circles is your potential network. For most (including you), I would bet that the estimated total number of potential connections would easily be in the tens of thousands.
So now you just need to make it a point to start finding and sending connection requests to people from your circles on LinkedIn to get to over 500 connections as soon as you can. Do not wait until you are looking for a job or need to create a strategic business relationship. This may take a little time, but the search capabilities on the platform make the process easy.
Unlike other social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, people understand that LinkedIn is for professional networking, so you will be surprised how many will accept your requests, even if you do not know them very well. That said, don't take it personally if someone does not accept your request. As you get closer to 500 connections, the process gets easier.
Finally, getting the most from LinkedIn requires a commitment from you to regularly interact on the platform. You are not rewarded for being a passive observer on LinkedIn. You also cannot expect to go from dormant to active and expect meaningful results overnight.
That means you need to play the long game and make LinkedIn use a regular component to your daily workflow. As I said, look at the platform as a series of ongoing conversations. Pay particular attention to people who are knowledgeable and regularly contribute thoughtful, compelling content.
The easiest way to be active on LinkedIn is to "Like" AND thoughtfully comment on content posted by your connections (or content from others that your connections like and/or comment on themselves). Thoughtful comments shouldn't be blatantly self promoting. Again, you will get more traction if you do this frequently (at least a few times a week).
By doing so, you get noticed by your connection that posted the content, but more importantly, you expand your reach by being exposed to your connection's network as well. And the more often you contribute valuable comments to discussion, the more likely others will want to connect with you -- which will increase the size of your network.
Perhaps the most meaningful way to boost your personal brand is regularly posting original content yourself to the platform. You can share interesting content you have read (HELLO -- like the curated links you receive from me every week) or share your own personal insights on current business topics in the form of a short post, a longer article, or even directly posting video (stay away from politics on LinkedIn).
I'll probably dedicate an entire future preamble to this aspect of LinkedIn, as there are many nuances that can help increase effective engagement with your posts. But in the meantime, just start by making it a habit to BE CONSISTENTLY ACTIVE.
I'm going to stop there for now. I hope this friendly kick in the pants is helpful to you if you are feeling stuck on the networking front or don't see the value in dedicating time to it. As I have been saying, good networking is essential these days and takes time and effort, but you will be rewarded with a great ROI if you do it right.
Enjoy the links below -- some good stuff there too I think you will like. Have a fantastic weekend.
XOXO
Dave
Think on This...
Why Your Brain Loves Conspiracy Theories
“One person’s conspiracy theory is another person’s conspiracy fact. Any attempt to draw a neat line between true and false conspiracies is doomed to endless debate about what evidence is compelling, who the real experts are, and whether they can be trusted.”
Wild and seemingly crazy conspiracy theories can spring from any stressful or disruptive event or phenomenon, as people seek tangible explanations for the invisible or the inexplicable. Comprehensive look at how we take in information that confirms our existing beliefs and tend to reject information that does not.
A Few For Your Day Job...
Transitions. Stepping down as CEO of CircleUp.
LONG READ ALERT -- this sort of blew up toward the end of the week on social media. Anyone who has worked at a startup (particularly on an executive team) will be able to relate to this detailed, gut wrenching, incredibly personal account from entrepreneur Ryan Caldbeck. Cautionary tale for you self described "over achievers" as well as those Friends thinking about life at a startup as well. Worth checking out the links included -- especially the feedback email to the board member.....
Personal Networks Will Power The Next Gig Economy Revolution The entrepreneurial companies creating new gig economy platforms will see huge success if they remember that your marketplace is only as good as the people who power it.
Without Data, We're Just Salespeople with an Opinion
QUICK READ: data teaches us the most important lessons: what went right or wrong, what can be improved, and what path forward we should take. Good reminder that data can be a crucial sales tool as well as a business intelligence tool.
Your Weekly Dose of Randomness...
Police catch senator hiding cash between his buttcheeks
Considering the manner in which the money was hidden by Senator Chico Rodrigues - quite deeply in his underwear - I will not reproduce these images in this report so as not to cause greater embarrassment.
Yes, this was a story from Reuters, ladies and gentlemen....don't hate the player, hate the game....
Finnair satisfies pandemic ′wanderlust′ by selling plane food in supermarkets
I'm okay with this, just as long as Trans-American doesn't get into the act....
The company that has a monopoly on ice cream truck music
FACT: a small, family-owned electronics company controls 97% of the ice cream truck music market.
And The Last Word....
Mapping the United Swears of America — stronglang.wordpress.com
Pretty much everyone’s swearing. We just don’t all prefer the same words.
Swearing varies a lot from place to place, even within the same country, in the same language. But how do we know who swears what, where, in the big picture? Turn to the data of course – and apparently there is a lot of data on this topic.
With great computing power comes great cartography.
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