A Catalyst for Growth

Last year I embarked on a mission to share the wealth of experiences that led me to view networking differently. Through my stories I hope to help others find a new approach to networking and amazing results. Previously, I covered moving to a new city as a recent graduate, without friends, contacts, or relatives, minimal savings, and no job prospects in the middle of a recession. Against all odds, one decisive action changed my life's trajectory, serving as a catalyst for lifelong experiences. I hope my stories will inspire others to approach networking differently. You can find the old post here:?

I’m an introvert, which might surprise you if we’ve met. However, a series of events that have helped me change. In Serendipity, my journey took me to volunteering on a not-for-profit committee and the beginning of a lifelong learning journey. Soon after that first committee I found myself joining the board of directors of a membership organization focused on international business, a topic I was passionate about. I had attended so many of their events that several board members knew me and I was invited to join. As the youngest member, by at least a decade, I was terrified.

I've learned a valuable lesson: Find something no one else wants to do, something you don't do in your regular life and focus on that. That became writing articles for the first group. Someday, I'll continue the story of my journalistic exploits, but let's just say that first article led to many great things. This new organization had a neglected Public Relations committee and I decided that would be my new challenge. Until then, PR had been interpreted as getting the events listed on various newspaper calendars. I had a different idea.

One rainy weekend, I holed up in the University of Washington Library and pulled out the last year of every newspaper from the region. Pre-internet, there were dozens of newspapers, business journals and specialty publications covering varying business topics. I scanned each, cover-to-cover, noting every reporter that covered an international business topic and captured the authors’ secondary topics. Without PR training, what can you do but do PR like a data guy?

Each time we had an event, I'd target the reporter most likely to be interested in the content with a customized letter inviting them to our event. (Ya, we used to send letters!) The following week, I’d follow up by phone until I made contact. For an introvert, this usually involved visiting the bathroom several times, splashing my face with cold water, calming myself down, returning to my office, and then postponing the call to the following day. Eventually, I'd build up the nerve and made the call. I reached the point where about 90% of our events drew members of the press, and about 75% of the time, we received coverage in a newspaper. Back then, I worked as a CPA buried in financial statement and tax returns, but now, I was learning how to do PR and It was thrilling!

The results caught the attention of my next Inflector, Christine Gaunt. (Inflectors are connectors that go one step further and change the course of your life) Unfortunately, Chris is no longer with us, and while I know I thanked her along the way, I wish she knew how much she did for me. My story with Chris: back then, as a rookie CPA, and in the middle of tax season, your entire life was tax season. You didn't take vacations, get sick, go to weddings, die, date, sleep; for three months of the year, you put your life on hold. It wasn’t exactly a place for work life balance.

Chris noticed my results in Public Relations and decided I needed to be involved in planning the annual dinner, cause you know introverted CPAs are also great at planning large social events. Unbeknownst to me, she scheduled a meeting with the publisher of the Puget Sound Business Journal, the most influential business paper in the region, to pitch a sponsorship for the dinner. One random day, she called me, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hello."

Chris: "Hey, it's Christine."

Me: "Oh, hey, how are you?"

Chris: "Can you meet me downtown in 30 minutes?" (She always kind of skipped over the small talk.)

Me: In my mind… are you crazy? I sneak out in the middle of the day during tax season, and these guys are going to fire me if they catch me… "Uh, ya, sure, what’s going on?"

Chris: "We've got a meeting with the publisher..."

Against my better judgment, I snuck out the back door, jumped in the car, and 30 minutes later, we were ushered into the publisher’s office. I assumed when I got fired for disappearing in the middle of the day during tax season, Chris would at least have some good job referrals.

That wasn't the last uncomfortable position Chris put me in, but one big lesson of my career and life: your comfort zone is like a rubber band; you can stretch it a lot without breaking it, and the more you stretch it, the more it expands, and it doesn’t just spring all the way back. Months later, I was back to meditating with cold water in the bathroom before picking up the phone and calling the publisher to deal with some annual dinner detail. We had sold him on the sponsorship. It would turn out to be the organization’s most successful dinner to date.

Going back to that meeting though, I learned another valuable lesson. We were in effect negotiating with the CEO of the newspaper to get the sponsorship. As we spoke, I had an idea. The publisher wanted our member list so his salespeople could sell the advertising, so, I asked him if we could see the pricing on the ads. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of all of that, just give us your member list”.

I explained, I wanted to bundle the advertising with our sponsorships, then have the members of the board directly contact the people they knew at companies that might be interested. After we took a pass at it, we’d hand the list over to his team. I watched him shift in his chair and smile as we went from an adversarial to collaborative relationship. Future years went much easier as we worked together to the benefit of both parties. Later I discovered the book Getting to Yes which covers similar approaches and if you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it. In your exploits, seek solutions to benefit both parties, it works even in a volunteering context.???

Chris was a connector; she knew everyone and was constantly introducing people to each other. Of course, until that day, she didn't know the publisher. She just picked up the phone and talked her way into his office. Chris was also an Inflector because she had the guts to do that and drag me along. Thankfully, I didn't get fired; the partners didn't even care that I was gone for a few hours. I told them I was networking, which, in retrospect, was less of a lie than it seemed at the time. It was just a different kind of networking. That event also got me closer to on of my great mentors, but that, of course, will have to wait for another story. Chris, if you're somewhere looking down, thanks for all you taught me. I’m also sure I’m not the only one whose life Chris had Inflected.

Times are tough now for job seekers. If you're out there, my advice is to take a break from shoving resumes into the abyss, find a not-for-profit or membership organization in an area you’re passionate about and become a volunteer. Find something that sounds interesting to work on and jump in with both feet. You’ll meet some terrific people, learn some new things and just maybe, but more like probably, you’ll meet a few Inflectors and decades later have great memories of the people you met and the crazy things you did. By the way, consider this a long-term investment, don’t expect immediate returns, in fact don’t expect returns at all, seek to give and trust me, you’ll reap the benefits