Denise Brosseau - Building Well-Connected Leaders
You can't wait until you need it, to build your network
I got a call from an acquaintance of mine today. I haven’t heard from her in several years. When I ran the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (now FWE&E) she was a longtime member, but since then she has only turned up in my email or voicemail a few times, and I’ve seen her even less. But she called me now because she is looking for work.
Now, I’m not one to be stingy with my connections – it is easy to be helpful for people and I recommended that she try places like Business Talent Group, M Squared, Heidrick & Struggles' new Capitol Advisory Network (run by another former FWE member, Lauren Doliva) and Venture Loop. I asked if she was checking Craigslist and LinkedIn job postings (she was) and even suggested, since she is a top notch consultant in her field, that she connect with Jennifer Vessels at Next Step Growth to see if there might be some partnering she could do there.
I also asked if she was out speaking and if she’d been writing in her area of expertise (she wasn’t) and we discussed a few networking arenas she might want to reconnect with. And as we brought the call to a close with a few shared sad stories about the present situation in the Valley, I had to put in one last comment about the importance of networking. I tried to be as diplomatic as possible, but really, you don’t want to call someone every 5 years and then only when you need a job, right? I commiserated with her about how difficult it is to keep up your network while you are busy on projects, particularly when you are self-employed. But building and maintaining your network is actually the MOST important thing you can be doing…all the time – particularly if you’re self-employed.
Last night I had dinner with one of my favorite people, Jennifer Gill Roberts, co-founder with me of FWE, back in the day. She is now co-founder of a start-up called Vive Coach, not yet launched but a pretty cool company. At the end of dinner we ended up talking about networking and how some people just get it and some don’t. She mentioned someone she knew (no names here!) who just put his head down and focused on what was right in front of him, but then when he was in transition had a lot of difficulty rebuilding his network.
She, like me, believes that there is always time for a quick coffee or call or email or networking event multiple times a week. Thus, when she was looking to put together investors in her company or focus groups for her product, she had no trouble identifying the right people to help make things happen. After all what goes around, comes around, right? It may never be a direct connection between the help you provide someone today and the help they give you someday in return, but pay it forward is definitely the model we both believe in…and we encourage everyone we know to do the same.
So what are you doing this week to build your network and help someone who needs your help? Start now, you never know when you’re going to need it!
Posted by Denise Brosseau on 27th May, 2009 | Comments
Tags: network, Business Talent Group, M Squared, Venture Loop, FWE&E, Heidrick & Struggles Capitol Advisory Network There are no comments for this post Post a CommentHTML is not allowed in comments, http://... will be automatically linked.
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