As a new business owner, I remember taking the time to think of all the services our little company could do and who we could do them for. Mapping, GIS stuff, explain GIS stuff….were all on the list amongst other things. Who would we do that for? Well…I would list the big companies (some who I worked for) and others that were a little smaller. Then we started making a list of professional contacts. Basically, I made a personal LinkedIn account without the formality of actually reaching out to them on LinkedIn. Why wouldn’t I just jump in and connect with them? Well…maybe I needed to feel like I had some work to do before I reached out. Maybe I had to convince myself that I actually knew them or could say I knew them without feeling like I was randomly name dropping someone I randomly ran next to on a treadmill at the Y or read about in the paper even though I REALLY knew them. Four years have gone by since my business partner and dear friend Angie and I started our own consulting company and the biggest challenge isn’t figuring out who we know, but rather whether we really know them enough to reach out to be some part of our business.
I assure you that I can hear any business manager reading this screaming out: WHAT IS THIS??! What kind of business owners are you? Of course, you reach out to everyone you know and make a connection!!
Honestly, I don’t know if it is that easy and if we really should do that. My questioning of this brought up an interesting discussion in a recent contract interview I was in. I could sense the interviewer preparing to ask me why I wouldn’t connect with everyone I knew or kind of knew, and then my mind instantly raced to Mr. Rogers and his people in the neighborhood segments. Do we even have people in our neighborhood that we know? I asked the interviewer if she could name 5 people in her neighborhood that she actually knew. That led to a lot of predictable questions. What is considered a neighborhood? What do you mean by “knowing” someone in the neighborhood? Could it be family? Nope. Could it be a next-door neighbor? Maybe, but not more than one. Can they work for you? Nope. It was crazy…she didn’t know anyone who would make the cut on Mr. Rogers and I really didn’t know anyone either. This led to my point that it isn’t easy to just reach out to people when we don’t really practice even acknowledging people who are around us all the time.
Who are the people in your neighborhood? After that interview, I tried to really acknowledge people that are a part of my life that I didn’t really think about, but really make things better. I thought about the fitness instructor, Jen, who makes getting to a 5:30am class tolerable. Okay…she is also my friend but gloves come off at 5:30am on determining whether she makes my life better as a fitness instructor. I like my insurance lady Jodi, and my accountant Tonya is cool. Jon is a good mechanic and I really like my dentist Heidi; along with my hairstylist Samantha. The UPS guy with a mustache who always smiles at my crazy dogs is nice. I have no clue what his name is. I only know two of my five neighbors. The two are great so I should assume the other 3 would be too. This really isn’t a substantial list of people who live and work in my “neighborhood”.
This is just an intro to a very complex discussion that will into contacts, relationships, soft skills, and leadership. All the stuff in LinkedIn…but not really. For now, think about your neighborhood. Who is your favorite checkout lady at the grocery store? Do you know the name of your postal delivery person? What does your neighbor do for a living? Who are the people in your neighborhood? It matters.
Commentaires