Stop Planning, Start Meeting: How Action Builds Opportunity

External Networking - Blog 4 of 6

83% of professionals believe social capital will be the most valuable asset in an AI-dominated future. In a  world where AI can do the work, who you know — and who trusts you — becomes the ultimate differentiator.

Source:   State of Human Connection

Set a goal

It was very important to set a goal and truly work to achieve that goal. This ensured that I made progress on my job search and avoided procrastination – which can be easy to do with a full time job and a child to raise.

I set a goal for three face to face meetings a week.  I believe that connections formed in face to face meetings are much stronger than audio or video calls.  However, they require significantly more time commitment and can be more intimidating. 

I started with meeting requests to close contacts.  I needed to practice with contacts who would be supportive and forgiving if my message was not yet crisp, clear or refined. These meetings also built up my confidence.

Tip:  Practice your elevator speech in these meetings.  Check out my blog on drafting your elevator speech.

After three months, I increased my goal to five meetings per week.

During my 7 month job search, I met with 85 contacts.

Having the Meeting

Prior to every meeting, I researched the contact via LinkedIn, personal websites, press releases, etc. I devoted 30 minutes to an hour on this research. I set my objective for the meeting based on one or two of the following. Your objective will drive the questions that you will prepare for the meeting.

• Understand the CFO role at a startup tech company – I focused the conversation on their current role (e.g. what they like, what they don’t like, what was unexpected), and career path (e.g. how they became a CFO, where do they want to go next).  Based on this feedback, I developed my understanding of the role, and made a more informed decision on my career move.

• Identify startup tech companies that fit my objectives – I learned to consider the number of employees and funding stage in defining my ‘ideal’ companies. I also learned that there are very few of those ‘ideal’ companies. This helped me set expectations and consider alternatives.

• Learn about their company – There is very little published information about startup tech companies. I used this opportunity to learn more about the company, get feedback on my list of companies, and add companies that I had not considered.

• Obtain feedback on my ‘CFO readiness’ – I sent my resume and bio prior to the meeting for context. I received brutally honest (and much appreciated) feedback on my skills and experience gaps. I used this feedback to update my resume, prepare myself to address concerns in interviews, and create a mental inventory of capabilities that I want to develop in my next role.

At the end of these meetings, I was more informed about the CFO position and startup tech environment, as well as how to position my current skills and experience.

Most importantly, there is one more person familiar with my objectives, experience and capabilities to support me in identifying opportunities.

Tip:  Ask for introductions to three people at the end of every meeting.  If you can view their connections on LinkedIn, identify specific contacts you want to meet.  Make it easy for them to help you.

Finally, I added their name and company to my my personal CRM tool (aka Google Sheet). The importance of this will become more apparent in this blog to nurture your network.