The other day I spent some time volunteering to teach the kids down at Wheeler High School’s Magnet program. What fun! Of course, as I walked down the hallway toward the office to sign in, I couldn’t help but feel like my life had come full circle. 20+ years later, and there I was, back in the principal’s office. Ha! Thankfully, schools have done away with paddling, otherwise, I’d have had to resort to my old trick about wearing sweat pants under my jeans. Yes, I was a mischievous kid – big surprise – But I digress.

The focus of the class was on “business networking”, and I taught it twice that day, one for each of the Magnet groups. Business networking is a topic that I have become increasingly passionate about over the years, in no small part to my good friends Ricky Steele and Mike Blake. Trying to relate a dry topic such as “business networking” to a group of high school seniors was challenging, but I think I pulled it off.

It was especially rewarding for me, given my recent post about Sam Eisen. It brought some sense of closure for me, as I walked the halls and talked to the kids.

Good kids, great teacher, and a good program down there. Some observations:

• I covered the basic tenets of business networking, how to do it right, how NOT to do it, and tossed in a ton of real-life anecdotes and stories.
• We took an informal survey of the kids in the room, and what their desired post-college careers were. The biggest concentration was in the educational field – a lot of these super bright kids wanted to be teachers or counselors. That brought a smile to my face.
• One kid in each group said they wanted to be an “entrepreneur” – very cool. I invited them to attend our next StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event as an observer – nothing like mingling with other entrepreneurs and investors to get the juices flowing. It would be a great experience for them – seeing the process in action.
• One girl had the best, and probably the most honest answer of them all – “I simply want to be rich.” Getting rich takes hard work, and a plan to succeed, but hey, at least she knows what drives her. Hopefully, she will become an entrepreneur and create the next Home Depot or ISS.
• One girl was an aspiring artist – a very talented one at that – I gave her my card and told her to drop me a line – we use outside artists all the time at PlayMotion. Business networking at its core!
• I don’t have many regrets in life, but boy, it sure would be great if I could go back then, knowing what I know now!

At any rate – it was good fun. Thanks to Dr. Adams and the folks at Wheeler for having me down. I encourage other entrepreneurs and business leaders in the community to give their time to schools as well. Helping to shape these kids for tomorrow’s workforce can be a rewarding affair.

Cheers.

I like to view the end product of networking as something I can quantify in some way. After all, what good is going to the candy store if you don’t walk out with something sweet? For me, the end result of successful networking is the generation of social capital.

You business majors out there are already familiar with physical capital, which refers to the tangible assets of a company (cash, equipment, real estate, buildings, etc.). Likewise, you human resources majors should be familiar with the concept of human capital, which refers to your employees. Social capital can essentially be viewed as the positive relationships formed between stakeholders.

Social capital is grounded in trust and respect between all involved parties. The late French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, wrote of social capital in his 1986 book, The Forms of Capital. Bourdieu categorized social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.”

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam categorized social capital as essentially being of two types: bonding social capital and bridging social capital. “Bonding” social capital describes the type of social capital that is generated among members of homogeneous (similar) groups of people, and “bridging” social capital as being the product of relationship building among more heterogeneous (dissimilar) groups of people.

For example, people who have significant shared experiences, such as military veterans, athletes in team sports, or members of college fraternities and sororities will generate “bonding” social capital among themselves. This type of social capital contains incredible, often lifelong properties, which each experience serving to further strengthen the personal relationships of the people involved.

Likewise, members of a chess club, a business networking group, or a civic group such as the Rotary Club will generate “bridging” social capital among themselves. This type of social capital does not have the strength and permanence of its sibling, bonding capital. However, it does allow members of one group or subgroup to “bridge” over into other, unrelated groups, thus affording them opportunities to gain exposure to people outside of their immediate circle. This type of capital is a critical aspect of online social networking, which we will see soon.

While Bourdieu and Putnam offer very apt definitions, I tend to subscribe to Duke University professor Nan Lin’s view of social capital being something a little more tangible. In his 2001 book entitled Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action, Lin treats social relations as an investment, with expected returns in the marketplace. I hold the view that social capital, in the narrower business context, is a byproduct of your networking investment – effectively the ROI on the investment of your time and energy.

I like to use financial metaphors when speaking about social capital and its effects. This is not out of simple convenience. As you will soon see, there are a number of parallels that can be drawn between social capital and financial capital – especially if we view social capital as an investment platform for your business or career.

Social capital is not something you buy on QVC or Amazon.com, and you can’t get it through your investment broker – it is something you earn. As with all things abstract, an example is the best way to describe it.

If I provide a professional job reference for Martha, or help Sam with the business plan for his new venture, then I am generating social capital for myself. If Gloria stays late one night and provides assistance to Chuck as he works through his presentation for the board of directors, she is generating social capital for herself. Even if Chuck is three standard deviations away from being considered a normal human being by his colleagues, he will undoubtedly feel a sense of gratitude to Gloria, and this will affect their professional relationship in a very positive light moving forward.

Social capital has the potential to be redeemable, although we don’t necessarily have precise control over when, where, and how it can be redeemed, nor for what it can be redeemed. However, if and when it does get redeemed, then it will no doubt be to my professional benefit. As such, social capital must be viewed as the return on an investment of your time and energy. If you are networking your tail off, and feel as if you are gaining a zero ROI for your time and energy, then something is most likely amiss with your approach.

I should stop for a moment and clarify something, before we go too much further. When I speak of social capital, and expecting an ROI from your efforts, I don’t mean to trivialize relationships, and I certainly don’t mean to imply that you should enter into any professional relationship out of purely selfish reasons. And for the love of Pete, I would never recommend that you should attempt to “track” your social capital in a ledger. But the financial metaphor does illustrate the dynamics of business networking fairly adequately.

Great networkers enter into professional relationships out of a host of other senses, including fellowship, compassion, empathy, duty, responsibility, and citizenship. Give first, receive second – learn it, live it, love it.

Let’s build on the banking metaphor for a moment. If Cindy provides Robert with a fantastic business development lead, she is in essence depositing some arbitrary amount of social capital into her “account” with Robert. Her social capital sits in this fictitious account, and over time has the potential to depreciate in value (erode), appreciate in value (strengthen), or remain relatively the same (stagnant) – in much the same manner as a typical financial investment.

If Cindy does nothing else to strengthen her relationship with Robert, then over time, her “account balance” could slowly erode. Think of that scenario as a checking account that has a monthly inactivity fee associated with it!

On the other hand, if the social capital that she generated were of such a magnitude that Robert feels it to be of invaluable worth to him, then the balance in her account could slowly appreciate over time, irrespective of how much interaction they have together in the future. Think of that scenario as being similar to an interest bearing account.

I am reminded of this great fellow by the name of Jim Campbell. Jim found me years ago, back in Columbus, Georgia, working away as a young computer programmer. I was satisfied with my work, but really had no direction in my career. Seeing the potential for me to do bigger things, Jim convinced me to take a role in a bigger city, with a fast-growing boutique consulting firm. In looking back over my career, that seemingly insignificant discussion we had over lunch at Evelyn’s Café made a tremendous difference in my life. It would be another 12 years before I would finally reconnect with Jim, and I made an effort to express the fullness of my gratitude to him. We did nothing to strengthen our relationship over those 12 years, but his act was of such personal importance to me, that the social capital at play grew quite substantially.

Let’s get back to our fictitious example with Cindy and Robert again. If Cindy continues to help Robert whenever possible, then her account balance would most likely increase in value, which would represent a strengthening of their professional relationship. If Robert does something detrimental to their relationship, such as spread a rumor about Cindy, then the account balance would probably quickly erode.

As with financial investments, social capital also has the ability to compound. When a person redeems social capital in exchange for a favor or request, the amount of social capital that the recipient has in an account with the requestor actually grows substantially. For example, consider John and David. John and David have known each other for quite some time, and they have quite a bit of social capital invested in one another. John calls David up one day and asks for David’s help on an important project, which ends up being a windfall for John’s company. While John has effectively redeemed some of his social capital, the amount of social capital that David had invested in John has just appreciated quite a bit.

Given the financial analogies here, you can easily see why relationships should be treated in much the same manner as long-term financial investments – they grow in value over time, provided you invest wisely – if you add additional principal to the original investment (by continuing to serve that person), it no longer grows in a linear fashion, but instead grows exponentially, in much the same way as compound interest.

The more social capital one has, the more projected or perceived power one wields. The more social capital that a person has, the wider their sphere of influence, and thus the higher the likelihood that hey can get the people around them to rally around their cause, no matter how arduous that challenge may be.

While it won’t appear on a company’s balance sheet, I view social capital as an asset, much like human capital, cash, working capital, and other physical investments. I have an associate here in Atlanta who is known around town as a “power networker.” The guy basically knows everyone in town – more importantly, everyone in town knows that he is seriously connected. He was recently hired by a firm here in town for the sole purpose of leveraging his relationships to grow business. The company essentially bought a nice happy bundle of social capital for itself by hiring him – not a bad strategy, and this is something that is not uncommon. My friend will bring his new employer into business relationships that they have only dreamed about in the past.

In a “buy-versus-build” scenario, “buying” social capital (acquiring social capital from someone else by employing them) will almost always be faster and more efficient than trying to accumulate it from scratch. How many times have we seen the job posting for senior sales leaders where one of the hiring criteria is “must bring a book of business” or “must already have industry relationships?”

Ask any venture capitalist and they will tell you that the relationships belonging to the management team of a company will go a long way toward making or breaking the company. The investor knows that the firm’s management can leverage those relationships to earn favor within the marketplace. This “relationship portfolio” is one of key investment criteria that every venture capitalist will consider as they are evaluating potential investments.

From the entrepreneur’s standpoint, he or she should go out of their way not just to find a “money” person to back their new venture, but to find a “smart money” person – an investor who has social capital to bring to the table as well. Why get a run-of-the-mill investor, when you can get the same amount of money from another investor who is in possession of some key industry relationships that would help get your venture off the ground faster? This is the social capital concept hard at work.

Cheers.

Now I am not about to sit here and try to convince you that I am the authoritative figure on business networking – the swami of the handshake – the sultan of cocktail hour. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nevertheless, I would like to offer you some of my views of traditional (offline) business networking.

For the definitive text (IMHO) on the core concepts of business networking, I will simply refer you to the book written by my friend Ricky Steele, formerly with PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Korn Ferry, and now the Chief Development Officer of Thompson Technologies. His book entitled The Heart of Networking is all you’ll need to get ramped up on the basic functional tenets. If I were stranded on a deserted island, and could have only one thing, it would be Ricky’s book. Okay, it would be food and water, but his book would be a close second. Plus, if you buy a copy of Ricky’s book, he’ll be able to afford to keep buying groceries, which is a good thing for his wife and kids.

Networking is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, and institutions.

John Hoppe, the President of the Independence Capital Company, defines networking as:

the systematic process of meeting people, learning about them, and establishing relationships so that all parties establish and expand a base of resources to support their endeavors.

I should point out that professional networkers do not view the networking process as necessarily being one of a linear nature. Networking is a fluid, dynamic thing – always changing and shifting to fit the landscape around it. But Hoppe’s description is a good generalization of what is involved.

My what a long strange trip it’s been

In ancient times, business networking was essentially all about what you knew. If you were the village blacksmith, people knew that they had to come to you for their smithy needs. If you were the local witch doctor, people knew that they had to come to you to get their health needs taken care of. This is very analogous to the way it is when a person starts their career. In the early phases of a person’s professional career, it becomes all about what they know. Everyone knows that Johnny is a fantastic database analyst, or that Carol is a very efficient tax accountant, so they use their services as needed.

As societies evolved, and civilization spread, business networking evolved along with it, and it became all about who you knew. If you wanted to start a business, or buy a home, you called on someone who could help you. This person would call their friend who was a banker, or investor.

Again, this is very similar to the natural progression of a person’s career. Once Johnny or Carol had established themselves as being “go-to” people, they began to branch out and meet people (colleagues, clients, and other such people).

Pretty soon, it becomes all about who knows you, and the cycle repeats itself, only now, Johnny and Carol are integral parts of a larger, distributed network of people. It is here that we began to realize that technology can play a critical role in introducing efficiencies to such networks.

In this day and age of instant gratification (not to mention instant messaging), the acceptable timeframe between decision points has greatly diminished. Once we identify a need, we expect a fairly rapid resolution. If you realize that you are thirsty, and need something to drink, then you recognize that you have a need. You stick a dollar into a vending machine and that need is instantly taken care of. If no vending machine is around, you go through a fast food drive-through – again, instant satisfaction. If you want to watch a certain music video, or a particular movie, they are but a click away. Convenience has permeated many aspects of our society. If your business has a need for certain software applications, you can even buy them online from the vendor, and immediately download them.

Until now, this instantaneous resolution did not often apply to business networking. The concept of instant satisfaction runs somewhat counter to many age old business networking paradigms. Experienced executives will tell you that it took them years, decades even, to build up their network of contacts. Networking your way into a specific company, say, for a business development or sales opportunity, could take weeks, months, even a year. Some of the biggest business deals that we’ve seen in this country were due to the long-term, deliberate, calculated efforts of some incredibly serious business networkers – the grand chess game.

Unfortunately, the expectations we have now as a society force us to focus on the “here and now”, not the “tomorrows” or “next years”. At the pace of today’s business environment, we are not often afforded the luxury of time. When we see an opportunity, we must seize it, lest we watch it fall quickly through our fingers.

So how can we increase the efficiency of business networking? How can we move to leverage technology to find a competitive advantage to business networking in an increasingly interconnected society? As I’ll write about soon, technology can indeed be used to facilitate business networking, although it isn’t necessarily a panacea for finding the shortest path to success.

Cheers.

Columbus, Georgia, the place of my birth and upbringing, is a small town on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, nestled quietly along the border with Alabama. It was a sleepy sort of place – a town full of textile mills, pickup trucks, country fairs, and RC Cola; certainly not the kind of place where you would expect to find a wealth of opportunities for a budding young computer programmer. Nevertheless, this is where I found myself, and I was bound and determined to make a run of it.

Even though I was born and raised in Columbus, I had no personal network to speak of there, at least as it pertained to the professional level. I had no Rolodex of business contacts which I could leverage to find such a career opportunity. This was due in large part to my age (I was in my early 20s at the time, and had no professional work experience). No sir, this was going to be an exercise in finding a job the old-fashioned way – low tech and high drag.

Each day I scoured that great bastion of international news and fine arts, the Columbus Ledger Enquirer; my eyes anxiously seeking a glance of a good entry-level opportunity. The kitchen in my little garage apartment became a veritable command center. The counters were covered with marked-up newspapers and legal pads, all funneling critical information into my latest “plan of attack.”

I was up at the crack of dawn each Monday morning, ready to take on the world, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and donning the only suit I owned. That’s the way it was in those days. Monday was the big day for job seekers, because it was the first business day after the big classified run on Sunday. If you weren’t out there bright and early, you might very well miss the boat. As I poured myself into my brown 1974 Chevrolet Vega (they told me it was a hot color back then), I quickly reviewed my hit list for the day. As my dad would say, there was a really fantastic opportunity for me out there somewhere. I simply had to go out and find it.

My resume was a scant single page affair, offering little more than my name and address. It was also of the hand-typed, Smith-Corona variety. Some of you probably remember those days all too well. “Xerox’ing”, as it was exclusively called back then, was nearly prohibitively expensive. I can remember making changes to that resume using white-out on every single copy!

I would spend the day driving all over town, stopping at various businesses, handing out copies of my resume, hoping to entice someone into taking a chance on me. This was during a time where probably only 1% of businesses actually had any computers at all, so you can imagine the looks that I got from some of these folks. This was a small southern town, and computers were still widely regarded as “fandangled wizmah’bangs” that didn’t do “much o’ diddly-squat”. It was also a time when many computer manufacturers would give the best software available away for free, provided you bought their hardware. My how the times have changed. Nonetheless, you can imagine that my approach was something akin to trying to find a needle in a haystack. If I had been connected with even a bare-bones network of colleagues, I would have at least had a small path through that haystack.

It took a while, but eventually I found the opportunity that I so desperately sought, buried within the recesses of the classified section of the aforementioned newspaper. Yes, that’s right, Virginia, I said the newspaper. I landed a job as an entry-level programmer with a young but growing firm with a focus on providing banking and credit transaction services. That company was Total System Services, Inc., or “TSYS”. That company has since grown to become one of the most well respected companies in the world, handling billions of dollars in transactions each year, employing thousands of great folks, and providing good corporate citizenship to the Columbus community. Not a bad find. Who says the classified section is only for free puppies and yard sale announcements?

But that was then, and this is now. The other day I tried to imagine being in the same situation today – what would be like today, in 2006, to find a job as a young, entry-level computer programmer, without having a personal network of contacts to leverage?

I am simply unable to imagine a young twenty-something getting in their car and driving door-to-door poking around for a professional job. I’m not saying this to knock their work ethic, or to downplay any contribution that they might make to the workforce. They simply were brought up in a different world; a better world, at least as far as technology enablement goes. They are exponentially more “plugged in” than we ever were. The concept of “plugging in” to my generation generally referred to sticking something into an electrical outlet (and I’m really not THAT old).

The “world” as they know it, is a much smaller, more crowded place. That 1% of businesses that actually had computers in the 1980s are now in the majority. If you don’t have an army of computers on your side in today’s business environment, then you’ve been under a rock for the better part of two decades. Tele-working or tele-commuting has grown rapidly in acceptance. It is not uncommon now to have entire teams of people located in disparate physical locations working together in unison, utilizing technology to facilitate communication. All of this equates to a lot more doors on which this person would have to knock if they did it the old fashioned way.

Instead, I imagine that this modern young employee-to-be would use a laptop computer and a word processing program to manage her electronic credentials, and would publish digital versions of her résumé on one or more of the thousands of available job-related web sites. She would check her email inbox each morning, responding to any recruiters who stumbled across her credentials in cyberspace.

She could login to fellow Atlanta entrepreneur Warren Bare’s latest twist in online job-matching, JobKabob (jobkabob.com). There, she could publish her professional “DNA”, allowing companies to better match up with her skills and interests. She might also take advantage of the “killer app” of the 1990s, electronic mail, to send her resume directly to thousands of industry recruiters and hiring managers.

But the fun doesn’t stop there, kids. She would be able to respond in real-time to instant messages and notifications on her PDA, and take a job interview call on her cell phone while sitting on the beach. Assuming the hiring company had significant interest, she would use NetMeeting or Web-Ex on her CDMA or Wi-Fi connected mobile computer to remotely walk them through a digital portfolio of her capabilities, credentials, and accomplishments, all while driving across country in her hybrid car, which gets 60 miles to the gallon. Oh, and did I mention that she’s listening to a 6 hour jazz marathon, because she has every album that Miles Davis ever recorded stored on her portable MP3 player?

If she’s really hip, she’s out there blogging on the issues her profession faces – getting her mindshare out there for hiring managers and recruiters to digest.

Once she negotiated and accepted the position, she would use online social networks to form virtual “connections” with her friends, colleagues, and schoolmates, and use sophisticated search tools to mine those contacts for business opportunities. She would manage her email, calendar, and warehouse inventories all from her next-generation cell phone/PDA. In other words, technology will enable her to be more agile, less constrained, and better connected than previous generations.

Over the years, I have been blessed by a variety of professional opportunities that have taken me all over the country. I went on to explore the business side of the IT equation, consult for some of the biggest companies in the world, and work with the hottest technologies. Along the way, I have had the privilege to meet some truly amazing individuals. I take great pride in my professional network of contacts and associates, and I know that the good will and trust that I have established with them over the years serves me in good stead. But that network was not built overnight – it took a lot of hard work, a lot of learning from my mistakes, and a lot of unrewarded favors.

However, because of the meteoric rise in the adoption rate of online social networking platforms, business networks of the future may indeed begin to flourish in a fraction of the time it took to build them the old fashioned way. But what will these networks look like? How strong will they be? How reliable will they become? How much more efficient will they allow us to be? Or will they?

Clearly, the successful networker of the future will be the person who can both harness technology to introduce efficiencies and use person-to-person networking skills to nurture their relationships – online or offline. The journey to discover effective strategies and tools for accomplishing this is what we’re hoping to make easier for everyone with our new venture. Details coming soon!

Cheers.

I got a call recently from a recruiter here in Atlanta. I won’t mention her name, or the firm she was with. Even though I’ve had my doubts about this firm for some time now, it really isn’t important who they are. As this is already starting to sound like YARS (Yet-Another Recruiting Story), you may be wondering why I’m filing this in the “Business Networking” category here at The Pothole. Read on – I promise this has to do with networking!

This gal called me in a bit of a panic. She went on and on about a wonderful CIO-level opportunity that she had with one of their clients, and how she was convinced that I was absolutely, unequivocally the right person for the job. Listening to her describing it, the role certainly sounded interesting, so I told her to move forward with presenting me to the client. I routinely get calls from recruiters, and while most of the time I decline to move forward for one reason or another (relocation, too much travel required, not a good fit, etc.), she did a fairly convincing job of selling the role to me. She called me a half hour later and told me she would be FAXing over some important candidate paperwork, and that I should complete this as soon as possible (i.e. now) and FAX it back to her so that we could move forward.

I dropped everything I was doing (which happened to be quite a lot that day – I was negotiating the terms of a major asset sale to an international company). I filled out the paperwork, which was no casual affair – it must have been 15-20 pages long, and really got down into the nitty gritty. Nevertheless, I clamped down on my bit and hacked my way through it. I FAX’d it back to her, anxious to go to the next level, as this role really sounded like something worth exploring. At the time, I felt that the distraction was probably worth the expenditure of time and effort. She phoned back and confirmed receipt of the FAX and promised to keep me posted.

I then proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. One day became two, which became a week, which became two weeks. All along the way I kept telling myself that she was probably busy, or trying to lock the client down for an interview time. By the end of the 2nd week, I decided to call her back and see what the holdup was.

After finally tracking her down, and asking her very directly, she responded with “Oh, I’m sorry, I should have told you this, but the client decided to put the position on hold for the foreseeable future.”

Ya think?

I dropped everything I was doing that day, and made time for her urgency, and she didn’t have the common courtesy to at least phone or email me when the situation took a turn in a different direction. As business professionals, we are all taught, and indeed expected, to follow common etiquette when dealing with one another. When I expressed my frustration to her, she essentially blew it off and dismissed me. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but when she blew me off, all bets were off.

Note: Before you post a comment or send me a flame email exclaiming how recruiters are inundated with resumes and candidates, you should know that I agree with you! I fully realize that recruiters cannot possibly respond to each and every candidate with the same level of attention (I should know, I personally hired over 200 people one year). But when you are well into the pipeline for an opportunity, things change – or at least, they should. Busy is no excuse.

I have several good friends that are retained executive recruiters. They will be the first to tell you that recruiters these days get inundated with resumes and emails, and will rarely respond to bulk job applications, unsolicited resumes, and even normal responses to job openings. They simply don’t have the bandwidth. I understand this completely. However, they called me. They made me their customer.

As a third-party recruiter (nice way of saying “headhunter”), she has two customers in every deal – the hiring manager and the candidate she is presenting. SOme would argue that she only had one customer, and that was the hiring company (who is paying the bill), however, I disagree. I feel that as a broker, recruiters have to work both sides of the equation. Sell the candidate on the company, sell the company on the candidate.

Apparently, one of her customers (me, in this case) didn’t matter to her in the end. Candidates, executive-level or otherwise, should not be treated as “commodities”, yet many recruiters seem to fall into this trap these days. If you are right for the deal in front of them at that particular moment, you are the best thing since sliced bread. Otherwise, you are merely a number to them. A simple email or phone call would have changed the entire complexion of the situation.

Since that time, (and due partially to some lesser, previous offenses by this firm), I have made it a point to not recommend their services to my colleagues (many of whom are active hiring managers within Atlanta firms). I know of several instances where this firm more than likely lost out on business because of the way they treated their customer. I would never recommend them to an associate of mine, only to run the risk of having them be treated in a similar fashion. I value my contacts (and their time) more than that.

There is a lesson here – probably more than one. By not mentioning their name in this article, I’ve already shown them more professional courtesy than they showed me.

I want to reiterate that not all executive recruiters conduct themselves in such a manner. Most recruiters realize the importance of working both sides of a deal. The good ones realize that clients become candidates and candidates become clients. As Jerry Recht said in his recent guest blog spot here at The Pothole:

You should have several good quality recruiters in your tool belt and leverage them often. There is no substitute for quality!

It takes both sides of the equation to reach a successful conclusion for each deal. Irrespective of which side of the equation you are on, remember to be courteous. Whatever your actions are, they will come back to you – and they will either help you, or haunt you.

Cheers.

Greetings Pothole readers and listeners! I have a fantastic treat for you today. No, I am not going to sing to you! Nor am I going to do my one man reenactment of Brokeback Mountain. Instead, we have a very special podcast today – how about $25,000 worth of free career coaching, courtesy of Ricky Steele, one of Atlanta’s premier business networkers?

This past Friday, I invited my good friend Ricky Steele to come out and speak to the Kettering Executive Network (KEN), a professional networking group here in Atlanta to which I belong. Ricky was kind enough to allow me to pin a lapel mic onto him and record his speech for preservation here at The Pothole. Those of us in attendance received a lot of inspiration and motivation from Ricky’s material, and I’m sure you will too.

In this presentation, Ricky shares his view of what a good networker looks like. While doing so, he offers his “seven habits of highly effective networkers”, and shares many of his business networking strategies along the way.

I know a lot of you readers/listeners are not from the Atlanta area, and you may not be familiar with Ricky Steele, so please allow me to introduce him to you.

Ricky Steele is the Chief Development Officer for Thompson Technologies, where he focuses on sales and corporate relationships. Ricky is the consummate networker, having been a client partner with Korn/Ferry International, a director for PricewaterhouseCoopers, Chairman and CEO of QuadBase Software, President and CEO of Innovative Media, Founder and President of SunBelt Transportation Group, and Publisher of Georgia Travel Publications, Inc.

He is the author of the acclaimed book, The Heart of Networking. According to Ricky, it was a best seller last year — he sold 15 copies in his neighborhood in a 2 week period, and that was a standing record until the Girl Scouts muscled him out with their magazine subscriptions! All kidding aside – it is a fantastic read – and it is a book that personally changed my life for the better. You can order a copy through his web site at rickysteele.net.

Ricky was honored as the Georgia Small Business Person of the Year and also one of the Georgia Jaycees “5 Outstanding Young Georgians.” He is intensely active in community service – for him, the bedrock foundation of networking, of leadership, and of life. Steele is the founding chairman of both Atlanta’s Table and Hospitality Helping Hands, a former board director for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, Hands On Atlanta, Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau and most recently a Trustee for Leadership Atlanta.

So, without further adieu, click the play button above, or download the MP3 to your iPod or a CD and ramp up your networking efforts by listening to one of the best. If you know of someone in your network who could benefit from Ricky’s message, do them a favor and forward them a link to this page. You’ll have done a good service to them, and they will hopefully thank you for it later.

And oh, by the way, if you need some IT staffing love, look no further than Thompson Technologies. Ricky, David Thompson, and the rest of the gang there stand by their word, their promises, and their people – traits that are seemingly hard to find these days. They’ve been a tremendous asset to the folks within my own personal business network, and I implore you to give them a chance to help you and your associates as well.

Cheers.

- Scott Burkett

I’m not a marketing guru by any stretch of the imagination. However, I do consider myself to be somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to “personal” branding at the executive level. Why is it that senior executives accustomed to $200K+ salaries resort to using free, do-it-yourself business cards when they find themselves in a transitional state (executive-lingo for “out of work”)?

Call me crazy, but the last time I checked, you could run off some nice double-sided glossy cards for $50-100 per 1000.

Your business card is your transient brand when meeting new people. When you hand it out, you are making that crucial first impression.

It gets even worse when I look down at the business card and see a Microsoft Word clipart being used for the logo, with the words “John Smith Consulting Company” underneath it. Where is it written that every executive that finds themselves in transition should form their own “consulting” company? While it may soothe the ego a bit, it doesn’t fool anyone.

The other day I attended the 2006 TAG Technology Summit, and like so many events, ran into a lot of old friends, and made a few new connections. One of those new connections was a fellow looking for work as a senior-level IT executive. He handed me what was arguably the worst business card I have ever laid eyes on. Not only was the card stock barely thicker than a piece of paper, but the edges were all jagged, a sure sign of being ripped from the perforated business card template. Even worse was the fact that the card was cut off at the top, a sign of his business card template not being aligned with his printer. This from a guy pushing himself as a senior business leader.

Now there are myriad schools of thought on what the actual “content” of the business card should contain, and I am not about to sit here and try to convince you that one approach is better than the others. Frankly, I could care less if you have a “resume”-like business card, a minimalistic one, or a fold-over business card. But for crying out loud, whatever approach you take, make sure the presentation is first class.

If you’re an exec, and you’re serious about your career (and you should be at that level), do yourself a favor and plop down the $50-100 it takes to get some nice business cards printed. At worst, plop down $25-50 and get the non-glossy, but still professionally printed variety. You’ll save yourself from embarrasment, and more importantly, your cards can work for you, rather than against you.

Cheers.

Over 90% of job seekers use job boards as a tactic to seek a new position; however, surveys indicate that less than 4% of hires for management-level jobs currently occur through any Internet site. Most jobs, approximately 70%, are secured through networking with their personal or business network and about 20% of management-level jobs are obtained through recruiters.

Recruiters can become an integral part of your professional or even personal network and can provide you a competitive advantage in your career advancement. Recruiters are well educated and trained professionals. You should value their counsel and advice, and listen to their guidance. Unfortunately, the industry is not viewed this way. The typical attitude is “you call the recruiter up; if he is interested in me, he will talk to me; if not, he won’t even bother to call me back!” If you look at the relationship, that is not surprising. You are an unknown person calling someone up saying “I need your help, I need you to find me a job, I need you to do this or that for me,” but you have not taken the time to develop any relationship! In essence you are asking help from a stranger. It is not uncommon to receive little response. Recruiters tend to place people they know first.

On the other hand, if you take the time to develop a relationship with a network of recruiters, your results will be much better. Many successful professionals have learned the value of the art of networking, as expressed by such authors such as Thomas Stanley in his Networking With the Affluent and Bob Littell with his philosophy of NetWeaving. Bob Litell summarizes this strategy/philosophy as “good things happen to those people who make good things happen.” When you perform acts of kindness and generosity for others without immediate expectation of reward, you build lasting and valuable relationships that ultimately reward you. You may consider this the professional implementation of “The Golden Rule”, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

So, how do you develop a relationship with a recruiter?

The first step is to meet the recruiter. It is always better when someone can place a face and a personality with a resume, but few people go beyond this basic first step to develop a relationship. When a new job-seeker calls a recruiter, most recruiters will go through the process of trying to match the skills of that candidate to available positions, but the reality is that recruiters get thousands of resumes, so a new candidate is just a pool of skills. What is much more effective is to build a relationship with a recruiter or network of recruiters over time. Doing so will allow you to be treated much better and provide more opportunities, since people will likely try to first place and give priority to those they know.

You can make a lasting impression by working to help recruiters before you need them. As an executive, take calls from recruiters even when you are not seeking a job and use that as a starting point to build a relationship. Simply ask the question “what can I do for you?” Help source talent for your recruiter contacts. Notify them of placement opportunities within your firm or associated firms. Keep in touch with your network of recruiters over time via phone, email or even greeting cards. In addition to applying this strategy to recruiters, you may also nurture a relationship with personnel in an HR department of companies in which you have interests.

Networking has been proven to be the most effective means of building a successful professional career. Recruiters should be an integral part of your networking strategy.

Tactics in Summary

• Meet your network of recruiters.
• Keep in touch with recruiters even when you do not need one.
• Assist your network of recruiters with locating talent.
• Assist your network of recruiters with notifying them of open positions in your company or others.
• Take calls from recruiters and discuss their needs, not just yours.

Biography

Jerold Recht is Vice President of National Personnel Services and Chapter Leader for the United Professional Sales Association. National Personnel Services has over 30 years experience in executive search, outplacement, and career coaching.

A special thanks to my old friend Jerry Recht of NPS for serving as our guest blogger this week. Great job, Jerry! Maintaining strong relationships with executive recruiters should be a key focus of all management professionals. I never tire of hearing him groan when I call him up and shout “have you found me a job yet?” ;)

Have an opinion on a topic relating to technology, leadership, venture capital, entrepreneurship, business networking, or the Atlanta business scene? If you or someone from your organization would like to participate as a guest blogger here on The Pothole, by all means let me know! This is a great way to get your message out into the blogosphere without necessarily having to create and maintain your own daily blog.

Cheers.

I will provide an overview of business blogging, and share you some solid strategies for taking advantage of blogging to further build your executive brand.

I will be presenting on Friday, February 17th, 2006, at 10:00am. The meeting will be held in Suite 700 of the Seibel Systems building at 1 Glenlake Parkway.

If you are not a member of Kettering, but would like to have the presentation delivered for your organization, by all means, let me know.

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Cheers.

There are many other such dedicated “networking” organizations here in Atlanta, and as with most major cities, there are even more informal, ad hoc groups that have popped up all over town. Members attend regular weekly or monthly meetings, and exchange networking leads, job leads, and network among themselves (e.g. Atlanta’s Parkway Business Network).

If you are in transition, these groups are probably not going to directly lead to a new opportunity for you. Even though it has been known to happen, I doubt that you will attend a dedicated networking event and meet a hiring manager who will offer you a new job as their head of operations. If this is your motivation for attending, you may as well stay at home. Nevertheless, there still exists tremendous value in attending these meetings.

First and foremost, it is a fantastic place to expand your offline network. You get to meet other executives, often from other industries or functional areas, who are in transition. You have their dedicated attention, and they have yours. When you expand your network by adding people who are in transition, you are in a very advantageous position in the sense that you can openly share networking leads, job leads, etc. People who are in transition are often keenly aware of who is hiring, who isn’t, and what shifts in the landscape are under way. Use this to your advantage!

Second, while there are rarely any direct opportunities, there are many more indirect ones. John, a sales executive, goes to a networking function and is introduced to Jane. Jane tells John about a firm she knows is looking for a head of sales. John follows up and eventually gets the job. While not overly common, this does happen. A more common scenario is one where John doesn’t get the job, but shares that lead with someone else who eventually does.

By now, you should begin seeing a pattern here. Networking is not all about “you.” It is about helping others. By maintaining a servant mentality, and always seeking to help others, you are creating an environment conducive to your own success (see Ricky Steele).

Finally, it is an expectation thing. Just as you wouldn’t go to the grocery store to buy a “sure” lottery ticket, you wouldn’t go to these meetings “sure” to find a job through another attendee. If you attend such networking events, you should do so with three goals in mind:

1) I want to meet some really great new people; and turn some of those into valued contacts; even friends!

Hi John, pleased to meet you! Tell me about yourself. Wow, you’re in the online marketing business, that’s great!

2) I want to help as many of those people as I can!

Now how can I help you? You’re in transition, I see. I know Bill over there is looking for someone to head his marketing department, would you like an intro?

3) I want to leverage these new acquaintances to help as many of my existing contacts as possible!

By the way, I have a friend of mine who is interested in getting into marketing. She is an experienced sales rep, but could really benefit from speaking with someone who is well-versed in the marketing business. Would you mind spending a few minutes with her next week?

This is the social capital concept hard at work!

Cheers.