What is the Tenth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

The tenth step is to ask for referrals.

Friendships and trusted relationships are the foundation but if you don’t ask for help most people are too busy and focusing on their issues to consider that you may need or want help. So, you need to let them know what you are passionate about, what your vision is, what you want to do, where you are looking to do it, what your value is, and how they might be able to help you.

Rather than ask like a beggar, the best format is to ask them how you can help them – and then help them. Either during the conversation or later, they will ask how they can help you. If you have done your Jobpreneurship™ homework, you are ready for that discussion.

When you ask for help, it may be in a networking meeting or it may be in a private meeting. Generally, I try to introduce people and be helpful in a networking meeting but where I sense that I can really help someone, feel like this is someone whom I want to get to know better, or believe that they may be able to help me, I recommend that we meet for coffee, breakfast, or lunch to get to know each other better. If they have heard of me, are interested in me, or others suggest that they meet with me, I usually get their cooperation to later set a time and place to meet.

One of the best ways of helping others is to refer them into your network. But I almost never do so unless, at a minimum, I know them and have met at least one time with them. The best referrals that I give are if I have known them in different settings and seen them in action over a period of time.

Still, many of us are shy about asking for referrals. If you are a trusted and accomplished individual, they are usually honored to be asked by you. You would be foolish not to ask. If they cannot help you, at least now you know. Perhaps something will come up two weeks later and they can help you. A situation could develop the next day or the next year, but if they don’t know you need help you will not come to mind.

Ask for help and referrals.

 

What is the Goal of Networking?

The goal of networking is to develop relationships, friendships, and alliances. These result in your growing brand, reputation, and value in helping others. As you help others, people see that you are not self-focused but other focused. If you are self-focused, I cannot be sure that I can trust you. You can fool me and burn me. Most of us have been burnt before and are very reluctant to be burnt again. Insiders are not the glad-handers passing out their business cards to everyone. But they are watching to see who “gets it” and who “actually is helping others, can add value, and has strong potential worthy of being mentored or sponsored into others.”

That is why developing relationships is critical.

At this point let me blow up the paradigm that hard work and results are all that you need.

Masses of people have little to no measurable results. They have position titles and tenure. To a businessman, these people are commodities. That is, they are a group of people whom we assume have no value to helping us accomplish results in our organization. They become a drag on movers and shakers. We don’t need them and don’t want them in our high performance teams.

Those who are hard workers and have measurable results will get our attention but will often stay at the lower end of our organizations. Why? Because entry level positions require tactical results but the higher you move up in an organization the more you need to master leadership, teamwork, influencing other functions, and developing relationships that result in success. Those relationships include internal people, internal organizations, suppliers, clients, and industry influencers. In some cases, political and governmental figures, neighbors, and personal friends will also become critical factors to harm you or to help you.

Those who know how to develop relationships gain the emotional ties to people that will often save them from being fired when workers only are let go. That is also why the Peter Principle is frequently seen in organizations. The Peter Principle is when a person is promoted beyond their level of competency. That often is due to relationships. If you think about your past employers, I am sure you often saw this reality. Just think of Nepotism, which is a family relationship resulting in promotions often not based on any results. Relationships matter. Business is built upon relationships. You must learn to develop relationships if you want to get ahead.

Senior executives I know estimate that 50% or more of their working time is on building relationships, not work performance.

Networking gives you a chance to learn how to develop relationships, friendships, and alliances. These groups also give you a common point of interest that can become the foundation of those relationships. As you meet and greet one another you can begin identifying other areas of common interest. The more areas of common interest or respected achievement, the more likely their level of trust in you will grow.

For a simple example, I am an Eagle Scout and member of the Order of Arrow. If I meet someone with either background, that says something to me. It says that I will likely be willing to listen to them and trust them far more than someone coming up to me who I don’t know.

Developing relationships is critical to getting a job, keeping a job, and developing your career. If this is a weak area for you, Jobpreneurship™ is how you can begin to see why it is so important now and for the rest of your career.

 

Doing Research for Jobpreneurship™ 101

 

 

At this time you may feel like you are ready to go, but you don’t know where to start. That is why I teamed up with our technology platform partner, CareerShift. They have a wonderful platform but I only use two modules. But those two modules are awesome! The first module is the ability to find the types of companies in your area where you want to work. They data mine from the internet and allow you to sort by zip code, size, industry, or other filters. Then they provide websites and sources that talk about them on the internet. You can research them to see if they should be on your targeted list.

The second module is the ability to chose a company and find out who works there. If they are on the internet as working at that company, they will come up with their contact information, articles, news, and a host of helpful information for networking, finding out what their interests are, and to begin finding out where they might network. From my experience their results are far more expansive than other sites, including LinkedIn.

That is why we include CareerShift in our solutions. This resource is in 120 universities but most don’t understand how we use the data and the platform.

Next we search on LinkedIn for people from CareerShift whom we suspect might be influencers, advisors, and groups where the decision makers have in their interest and network. At this point, we can decide to either try to get an introduction to them but only if we are already close to someone they trust. Otherwise, I recommend finding out where they network or their trusted relationships network. Social media, such as Facebook, can add more insight. Then I would go to those venues to begin getting noticed and trusted.

The worst step to take is to get a casual introduction on a non-trusted basis because I think I am so wonderful that they will take time to meet me and then be wowed by me. If they take that meeting, they probably are not really decision makers anyway. I want to be sure one or more of their trusted relationships refers me into them. That way, the decision maker will take my call, will meet with me, and will start the meeting by trusting me because their friends trust me. Then my responsibility is to honor that trust by earning the trust of the decision maker and her team. That is why most introductions being done today are actually harmful unless that trusted relationship process is in place.

This is why doing research on the company and individuals is critical in you being sure you are genuinely interested in them and strongly feel you can be a trusted value to them.

 

What is the Ninth Step of Jobpreneurship™ 101?

Now you are ready to introduce yourself to the world!

You know what you want to do, where you want to do it, what companies fit your model, what they want, how to communicate your message, how to be sure there are no red lights, how to measure your progress, and now you need to being networking.

Why network? The first question a hiring manager asks in her mind is, “Can I trust him?” Those merely submitting resumes only have the resume words and interviews to base a hiring decision upon. That is one reason why assessment testing and internet background checks are increasingly popular. Those trends won’t change. But how much more can the decision maker trust these results and her judgment when her trusted influencers, advisors, and friends are vouching for you and referring you into her?

That is also one reason why many hiring interview sessions include a wide number of interviewers. When the hiring decision is agreed to by the internal team, the risk of making a mistake and paying a political penalty for it is shared by the entire team. But starting with the decision maker trusting you because you are known as a trusted brand though the networking community will often place you at the head of the line.

So where do you network and how do you network?

If you know where you want to work, you find out where the influencers, advisors, and friends are of the decision makers in those companies network. That may include formal groups, such as service organizations, professional organizations, and associations or informal groups such as non-profits, community groups, charities, churches, or even your children’s sports and clubs. If you go to beg for a job, your brand will come across as a loser. If you go to help others and participate, people will start to know you and begin to trust you. Eventually they will ask about you, want to help you, and be glad to introduce you to others. That is why this is a life practice. You are building up your brand in areas where people are who can help you and in organizations where you attend anyway.

So, if you are striking out meeting people who can help you (either too low, too high, or not even in the same industry), you need to consider dropping some venues and look for more fruitful groups.

What are your goals in networking? First, my goal is not to pass out business cards. My personal practice is to not even offer my card unless someone is interested enough to ask for it. The goal is to develop lifelong relationships, some of which may turn out to be lifelong friendships where you value each other, want to stay in each other’s networks, and eventually may be helped by them or may be able to help them. True networking is a long term investment. That is what it takes to develop a reputation of being trustworthy. Insiders may even want to watch you for a year to be sure that you are genuine. Remember, their brand, reputation, and trustworthiness is on the line if they recommend you to someone else and you embarrass them. That is also why you should be very careful when you offer to make referral to someone else. You cannot afford to introduce a unqualified person either.

If this sounds like developing a close knit group of people that you trust and who trust you, you are right. You become increasingly part of the insider groups who only deal with people whom they trust. That takes time, being tested, and has the risk of being rejected if you make mistakes. That is why they call these groups insiders. That is why they are also usually the movers and shakers, influencers, advisors, and friends of the people who can open doors for you that you could never open by yourself.

You may not ever earn a position at the elite level but you can learn the rules and still be richly rewarded for your entire career.  This is why networking results in 80-90% of jobs.