Effective Thing #2
EFFECTIVE THING #2
Creating Genuine Connections
I have a confession to make. I am consistently blown away by people who get in touch when they don’t need anything.
I have a former employee that every so often reaches out and asks to meet. I love this guy so I always jump at the chance to meet. He’s actually helped me so much in my career and I’m eager to return the favour.
Our get-togethers always go the same, I engage in small talk, trying to suss out what he needs, and as he asks more and more about my life, my family, it dawns on me that, holy shit, he doesn’t need anything from me. He’s just here.
Invariably the conversations end up deeply fulfilling and maybe the whole reason he showed up is he knew how much I needed it.
My dead capitalist heart has feelings.
But this is an important follow-up to the previous point because, as mentioned with Linkedin, it’s very easy to get stuck in the routine of one-way communication and robotic, heartless likes and platform-prompted congratulations.
Eventually you’re going to have to speak with someone and there’s real financial gain to being real.
Your potential clients will sense that you are looking for work. That’s not terrible in itself (in fact being clear about intentions is also a virtue) but no one wants to sit through half an hour about you. How can someone reasonably expect to hire someone who doesn’t take the time to get to know their business, their challenges, their needs. Look at this way:
Approach 1: A half-hour, one way Ted Talk on why you should be hired on the spot. No bueno.
Approach 2: The weird opposite where you only ask questions like you’re taking a drive-thru order. Also no bueno. It’s also creepy and presumptive.
Approach 3: An actual conversation, filled with questions, some laughs, and maybe we don’t need to get to a project today, thank you for your time, I appreciate this, maybe a follow-up sometime? Bingo.
Like what you’re reading? Join our newsletter for more insights like these.
I can help
How to Be Seen as Helpful
This next confession is the realest of all. I’m awful at asking questions. What’s probably obvious at this point is that I lean more on telling stories than asking questions. But if you can do it without seeming weird, questions are pure gold.
The most callous way of looking at is simple: questions make you sound interested and by extension make people feel interesting.
So how do you make it not weird? Try this simple trick.
When you meet someone for the first time, the blaring megaphone in your head will be telling you to try and figure out how to get work out of them. Instead, make the goal to try and figure out how you can help this person.
I had the incredible good fortune of becoming friends with the president of a major software company and he would book 15 minute meetings with me whenever I needed help. We would never use the full fifteen minutes because he was so determined from the outset to figure out how to help me that the meeting would inevitably end early with a referral, an intro, or just pointed advice to action right away.
This is a hugely inspiring and effective approach to take with your interactions (maybe just longer than 7 minutes but thanks).
Here’s the real takeaway: Don’t only consider yourself as the solution to this person's problems.
You should absolutely:
Recommend other people that you know and love
Tell this person some pointers on how they could resolve the issue themselves
Tell them to Google it (just kidding, sort of)
And only then, “Maybe I could take a look at that for you”
When you start an interaction honestly seeking to identify and truly resolve an issue for someone, you will be seen as a resource. Not a capital-H “human resource” but a genuine resource for solutions because you care about the success of people you interact with.
I guarantee if you can pull this off, well, you’ll definitely be fed more problems to solve, but ultimately they’ll get to the ones you could maybe charge a dollar or two to fix.
The Takeaway
Everyone knows you’re looking for work. That’s not necessarily a put-off. But monopolizing conversation on it is. Be cool. Be funny. And if you can’t do that, seek out people’s blocks and challenges and try to help.
At the very least, your reputation as a helper will make you a popular referral. At the very best you will become a trusted, gainfully paid resource to many.
Ok - But How Do I Get Work I Love?
You’re going to notice that the answer to this heading is typically a targeted approach of the tactics that preceded it, and that’s especially true of this one.
When I wanted to build out my agency on a foundation of work that I loved (music industry work), I had to build my contact list. In order to do that, I had to learn who were the people actively trying to solve challenges. For many artists it was a band manager, and for many band managers, the challenges were all the same.
Once I had an idea of how I could help, it became a game of how to track down someone who I could talk to about their challenges. Sometimes an assistant manager or otherwise directly related role, but sometimes it was someone who knew someone who booked someone one time.
This approach is universal for any industry.
Try finding the folks in your target group that handle the least glamorous end of their industry and try to find out how you can help them.
Sure you can help a CEO, you’re amazing at that thing you do, but someone on the other end of the ladder is more likely to show you what they’re working on.
Offer to help out of love for what they do. Maybe you’ll end up reminding them why their industry is so exciting.
Even if this is the person at the very front door of where you’re trying to get, they know at least a couple of people inside, and when it comes time for an intro, you’ll be top of their list.
Kindness, helpfulness, spreads on its own. You may not even need to ask for that intro.
KEEP READING
KEEP READING
Hey, look at you! Everybody loves you. It’s time to coax someone to take the gamble on paying you by:
EFFECTIVE THING #3
Making Every Interaction a Preview