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Now I've got a guest today. She's a career coach, but I am going to introduce her very shortly. But I'm going to have her tell you a little bit about what she does and who she is and her background.
So the I'd like to introduce Randy Roberts. She's an executive and career life coach, and it sounds very ambiguous, but once you listen to her, you'll see, and you'll listen to her background. Randy, how are you today? I'm well, Michael. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. You're most welcome.
Could you tell us a little bit about your background? Yeah, I'd be happy to. So, in, let me touch quickly on my first career, which was in pharmaceutical industry. So, I spent 30 years as a pharma executive, started as a sales rep, and worked my way up to running big businesses in the U. S. market for some of the biggest companies, and absolutely loved it.
Until for a variety of reasons, it just didn't fit for me anymore. And that gave me an opportunity to, well, there were some twists and turns along the way, but about seven years ago, I landed right where I am now, which is running my own executive coaching business. And I focus on a couple different things.
I do one on one coaching of folks, either trying to get to that next level, or when they've taken on new levels of responsibility. Love to work with folks who Kind of live the world that I used to live. And then I also do speaking as well as working with corporate leadership teams. And one of the reasons that your podcast was so interesting to me, and I was eager to talk to you today, is because how, important networking is it was to my first career.
It's so much is now to the way I work and build my business. And I spend so much time talking to clients about it. I was really excited for our conversation today. I'm glad I'm glad. So since you are coming to me with that angle of networking, which I'm very enthused for because I am so passionate about it.
We have an increasingly. digital world. How would you, how would you build genuine connections with this digital world? There's obviously differences of opinions on this. I think the digital world is phenomenal in terms of finding the people and making the initial connections and, and doing it in an asynchronous way so that I can send it when you, when I send it, you can receive it when you receive it and it, and we make it work.
It's amazing that way. And it has its limitations because I think, you know, when we're talking true networking. Very often the digital world can be do you know this person? Can you connect me with this company? Can I pick your brain about these things? But to go deeper, I really think it has to get off digital and get into, you know, real life and, you know, that might mean voice to voice that might mean meeting on, you know, zoom or other platform, that kind of thing.
It may some days. even be live. But I think there's so much to be gained by going off digital because you get the nuance. You know, we all know the limitations of texting or email. You can't get the context. You can't sort of read between the lines. We can make wrong assumptions. So I absolutely love the digital as the way in.
And I think when you want to go deeper, I love the opportunity to get off digital. You know, that's funny that you say that because that one on one, you know, when you meet with somebody in person or you go to a networking event, you pick up a vibe of the person, a vibe of the room. And you really can't do that over Zoom.
I mean, you know, he can be in a suit top and gym shorts bottom, you know, so you really can't tell what he's doing. For all you know, I am right now. That's, that's right. That's right. But I care not to look at that. Okay. Okay. So how would you share with me a specific example of how strategic networking, how a strategic networking relationship, how it impacted your business?
Yeah, I mean, impacting my business was huge and it was interesting because I really had to work with it. I worked with, networking worked for me in one way in my first career and it was you know, I was in a position where people trying, were trying to connect with me, but also it was a matter of staying connected with others, both for, for personal connections, for situations that I might You know, be looking for talent, for example, but also just generating ideas, seeing what's out there in the world, looking beyond your own four walls.
So that was really important. Then when I shifted to running my own business, networking took on a different a different role. More important because I was looking to build a new business and the business was around me. It was my reputation. It was my skills. It was what I had to offer people. And so in many ways it was harder for me because I didn't have the The the structure, the, the instant credibility of the big name company that I was bringing with me.
This was all about me. And what I found was I really, it was difficult for me in the beginning to reach out to people and ask for For something, you know, in the beginning, you've got to build your network. You have to start getting your first clients. Now I'm very fortunate that a lot of it is word of mouth.
I very rarely have to go out and, and get a client. I go to my waiting list or, or it just happens. But in the beginning it was really hard for me to ask because I was going from this world of, you know, I didn't have to sell my importance. I had convinced myself already to wait a minute. I feel like I'm the product and I have to get comfortable asking.
That's good. Okay. So how can you, give me a fear of networking that you had, but how you overcame that fear. Yeah, this is an easy question to answer because what I realized was when I first went out, you know, I developed it starting my own business. I developed this beautiful business plan of how I was going to market myself and how I was going to get the word out and how I was going to communicate to people.
And you know, I come out of the business world, I'm used to that kind of planning. And then I got totally stuck because even things as simple as, you know, LinkedIn is the perfect. Perfect vehicle for me. And now I put a lot of content out on LinkedIn. When I first started, I second guessed myself, like you would not believe.
My biggest problem was me, getting in my own way. It had to be perfect. Wait a minute, what if someone misinterprets this provocative statement that I'm That I'm putting out there and it turns them off and you know, no, it has to be perfect until I got over myself in that regard. And I did that through deliberate work with my own coach until I got over myself in that regard, I was.
overthinking everything, taking way too much time and it wasn't adding value. It was just holding me up. So, you know, you, you asked too, how did I get over that? It was working with my own coach, going to people who had experienced that before, because we tend to be very good. You know, those of us that have the confidence to start our own business, we tend to be very good at.
Always acting like we know the answer. We know the path. We know what we're doing, but this is all stuff we've never done before. So of course you don't know exactly how it's gonna go exactly how to do it. So you got to get over yourself that expectation of being perfect and just get it going. And my coach helped me a lot with.
It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be in motion. And in many ways, reframing my self definition from someone in the corporate world, who usually knew what to do, knew what resources I had to work with, knew, you know, what my team could do. I went from that confidence to, all right, I got to redefine myself as someone who is very good at fixing things that don't go quite right.
And that gave me the permission to get out the door. It doesn't have to be perfect. And now if someone disagrees with a post or an article or a podcast that I put out, I engage with them over it. This is great. This is an opportunity for me to learn. Tell me what's going on. Tell me what you're thinking.
And I use that as fuel to either consider their perspective or do better next time. So it's a total mind shift and it has just absolutely reduced my stress level and fueled my success as a business owner. That's, that's great. You know, listen, every time you start something, whether a speaking career or a podcasting or something else, the whole idea is just to start, just begin.
Now when you're 20 or 30, you know, episodes in, you look back on the first few and you go, how did I do that? It's horrible, but you started and you started. So the only thing you're trying to Invoke with, with clients or customers or anything else like that. It's just a response, positive or negative.
It's a response. Make people think, give them something to help them. That's it. And if you, if you do that positive or negative, it doesn't make a difference. If you do that, then you've reached your goal and you can interact with that person. So it's very, very important. And that, you know, you asked about how I overcame it.
I think. I don't even know where my business would be had I not overcome that when I did get out of my own way and move forward, which has fueled itself. It's like, okay, if stuff doesn't work, I know how to fix it. If you know, this is going to get me here. I'm very clear about. lining up my initiatives to my goals.
But once I got out of my own way, I was able to build, I mean, at the moment I have a full client roster. I do corporate workshops as many as I want during the year. In fact, right now the problem, it's a good problem. Problem I have is I don't want to say no to things cause I like the work. So I have to watch myself.
That's what getting over that issue, solving that problem for myself allowed to happen. I don't think any of it could have happened if I had still been holding myself back. Nope. That's great. That's great. So once you've gotten the client or if you are familiar with other professionals doing what you do, how do you maintain the relationship?
How do you follow up with them? But how do you maintain those relationships? I mean, it, it, it seems. an impersonal way to continue a personal relationship, but I use some like old fashioned trackers. I have goals for myself. Like I take a very strategic approach to my networking in terms of like the inner circle are the few folks that I really trust and that, you know, I can.
Brainstorm with and not have all the answers and then there's sort of a next concentric circle of folks That may be referral sources that I may have things to offer to and then there's sort of a broader circle of folks You know, you're connected to a ton of people on linkedin that you don't personally know But you still can impact and access that level of people so I take a very strong approach to that and I think that You know, I use, I use trackers of who have I, who are the people I want to be impacting, when's the last time I contacted them, what are my notes for myself for follow up, so that I don't forget, because it frees up my mental space to think about creative things, because I know I've got this information.
And You know, one of the things that really helps is I have a practice on whenever I'm in contact with people, I try and make it a two way street. I may, I may just want to be making a contact. There's somebody that I cared about at one point in my life I want to keep up with. There may be no agenda, I'll call it, which isn't necessarily negative.
Or I may have something specific I'm asking them for. Can you connect me to this person who I think may help me find speaking engagements? That kind of thing. And then what I try and do is make it a two way street and always ask them, what can I do to help you? Is there someone I can connect you with?
Is there something, you know, do you want to spend some time talking about a certain idea or challenge you're having? What can I do to help you? And that really, that gives me permission to ask, that also, you never know what they may need, and it, it softens that that situation. Another thing I do is, I try not to overthink what I'm asking for, like, If I, if I'm asking for someone to connect me to someone else, it's really not that big a lift.
Now they may choose to say no or yes, and I respect that. You know, I'm making a request, it's their, it's their agency whether to say yes or no, but it's not that big a lift. I'm usually asking them to send an email to the two of them and I take it from there. So I have to get over thinking that I'm asking for something herculean.
I'm not. And then I sort of reflect on how do I feel when people ask me. I'm happy to help. It's a nice opportunity to help someone else and put that energy out there. So, you know, in those ways, I sort of track it and keep myself moving forward. Do you use a CRM or something like that? No, I actually am not going out that big right now because I'm not looking to scale my business.
So I use old fashioned spreadsheets. It's what works for me. There may I have my Assistant involved and she helps me with all that which a lot of what she helps me do is accountability Having a partner to talk through those things and go through the list. What am I negligent on? What are the next things I need to be doing can really help It holds us, it holds me accountable in a way that I don't do for myself.
Scheduling time on my calendar and sitting down and looking at it is great, but when I have to report it back to my assistant, my, my team partner in this it changes things. So I encourage people to do that. You hit something very important in what I speak about almost always, but whenever you Meet with somebody or go to a networking event.
Always look to give, not to receive. If you go to that networking event and you expect anything, then you're really why'd you go in the first place? Because if you do this often enough, then what goes around does come around. So, you know, in, in there, in the networking arena, there's a saying. If they know you, if they like you, if they trust you, they'll do business with you and know you.
That's everybody knows you, you're, you're a lovely person like you. Well, that kind of narrows the field down because you're not everybody's cup of tea, but the know you and like you, that's the easy part. And the trust factor is so crucial that you have 30 seconds. You have two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes.
You don't know how much time you have. And I have certain things that I do when I meet with people, but we'll get to that. Trust is crucial in networking. How would you establish and maintain relationships with fellow professionals? That is often about idea sharing. It's about, because one of the things that's interesting, and you may have found this, Michael, our businesses are not dissimilar.
I can, I took a very purposeful approach when I started my business. I could either play small and essentially be someone who set up a desk in a spare room in her home and is pretending to run a business, or I could play bigger and make connections and build that network and that community. And I, Purposefully chose the latter.
And so, you know, what that looked like for me was going to coaching program, going to different it's not, no, I do networking events, but it's ongoing. So like when I'm looking to build colleagues of other executive coaches and, and small business owners, That tends to be more a community of people that then you build that trust with over time.
And there's, you know, a long list of people that I could pick. I just, I got a text from somebody this morning who got a tough email from a client and wanted to process it with me before she responded. Like I have a lot of people that help me do better, put more value out there and help keep me from feeling alone.
And boy, did it set me up for COVID because, I didn't, I wasn't going through that culture shock in a way that others had. I was already there running a virtual business and I think in that way I was able to help my clients a lot because these people that are still in corporations went through an earthquake.
Yeah, yeah, it's true. Ever since the pandemic, I found, as I discussed with you earlier, ever since the pandemic, people lost their minds. They forgot how to network and communicate with one another. And it's like it set us back 10 years. Yeah. But 10 years ago. Everybody was out there networking. So it's a rough situation.
Well, and I'm going to age myself by saying this, but I feel as I have a daughter who's, you know, several years into building her own career, and I see in her, you know, my son in law, she and her friends, and then younger folks that I do work with, I worry that they haven't had the opportunity to be in person, to build those relationships in that way, because I see what happens, like, if you're on Zoom calls, or Teams calls, or whatever.
all day long. You're shifting from one to the other because we're always late. Things always go over. You're immediately shifting from one to the other. There is no walk together to the next meeting or run into somebody over the coffee machine or at the elevator. The ways that you get to know people a little bit, they get to know you, then you you're top of mind for them when they have opportunities, projects, that kind of thing.
I, I do worry that folks who are solely remote or mostly remote miss that connection, especially with folks at different, different levels in the organization. Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better myself. You hit the nail right on the head. And that is all, that's what I speak about when I go to different companies and things.
I require that one to one interaction, that one to many interaction again, so you can pick up the vibe of the person and the small talk, the small talk that can lead to big talk and the overhearing a conversation. Of somebody else. So it's really interesting, but that's that's a story for another time. All right Let's have one essential tip you'd give somebody looking to improve their networking or sales skills
It's definitely around don't hold yourself back. You're getting in your own way by overthinking the request that you're about to make. And, and here's kind of a mindset, I mean I'm all about the mindset, and reframing things and thinking about it differently. And one of the ways that I started getting out of my own way in terms of networking was to think about how good I feel when someone asks me for something and I'm able to help them.
You know, that's That's a lot of why I do this work is to help people. I love doing that. If I'm making a request of someone else, I'm giving them the opportunity to help me and have that good feeling. And if that's not their thing, that's great. They say, no, we wish each other. Well, we had a connection.
It's all good, but I'm giving someone the opportunity to help me and feel good about it. And, you know, maybe it's kind of a mind game, but it's really an important reframe that unlocks a lot of things. Okay, so, so with everything that we spoke about, what's your favorite marketing tactic? Your favorite one?
Yeah, my favorite one is really is referral marketing. It's going at, like, when I was first building my business to find new clients, I had a very specific program that I went through. And, And process of how to use my network and go out there and use some of the things that we've talked about to ask for, who do you need that might need this service?
And what I was offering was a free, a complimentary session to get to know each other, no obligation. And so in that way, some of the people that I reached out to said, Hey, I want that. That's great. But other people sent me others and it is what started my business. And to this day, it's what I do if a client finishes coaching and I have an opening on my roster and don't have a waiting list at that point, I go out and ask people and you know, look, what am I asking them to do?
I'm asking them. To offer help to someone else in a way that doesn't create any commitment for them. And I'll take it from there. And I'm not a hard sell person. So it really is an easy, easy request. But that referral marketing is probably the thing that has made me most successful. And you know, if there's anybody that wants to talk about my process, I'm happy to.
Absolutely. And when I sit down with somebody and before I tell them what I do, I, what I do is I asked them, I said, how can I make you more successful? How can I be a good referral source for you? And that usually blows them away. You know, like, what do you mean? I don't even know what you do yet, you know, and you're giving, giving, giving.
So that usually works very well. Let me, if I could, Michael, I want to disagree with something that you said earlier, but kindly when you said going into networking events with no goal, you know, no, nothing, you're looking to get in, in it for yourself. It's really about making the connections and whatever.
I'm a person that responds to goals and, and Deadlines and objectives. And when I left the corporate world, what I realized was in order to motivate myself, I had to set those for myself. Nobody was asking for them or asking whether I achieved them, but they were still important to me. So my approach to that kind of a networking event, like I have to set a goal.
I want to connect with three people that I can follow up with. later. Like I, I still need that, that metric. That's true. Well, let me, all right, let me jump back a little bit because a hundred years ago I was in the mortgage business and I would go to a networking event, come home with a shoe box filled with business cards saying, look how successful I was when I really wasn't successful at all.
Now what I do in a three or four hour networking event, you come away with 15 or 20. Business cards and my follow up my secret sauce. I saw sort of speak my follow up That's when I go after and I try to make contacts and everything else Yeah, so that's after I built a relationship With them. Yeah, and then I go so that's my goal to get to 15 20 business cards Oh that makes a lot of sense.
And after I meet anybody I send him a LinkedIn connection Well, you know, that's your soft, you should follow them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, you know, just for that soft touch. But I have a secret sauce that I have a follow up system where I undoubtedly get a response now positive or negative. Yeah.
Make a difference. Oh, it. But. I elicit a response and if you just do that, that little connection, like one email or something that usually doesn't work, you have to follow it up and I have certain things. I'll give you my main follow up is a handwritten. Thank you. No. Wow, that's, that's like something you don't see all the time anymore.
No, you don't. It really stands out. That's what makes me stand out above everybody else. After I speak with after I go to a conference or, or I just did a workshop in a company, I sent a thank you note to the owner of the company. Great. And he immediately emailed me back and said, Oh my God, nobody does that.
So it's really good. Nice. All right. So, so give me one takeaway that my listeners can use today. In terms of networking? I would say In terms of whatever you want. I
would say to get clear on your goals and get creative with how you're going to achieve them and then set those if you're like me, like many of my clients, set those goals for yourself so that you can measure against, you know, when is it time to celebrate? When am I done? And when do I need to reevaluate what the next goal should be?
Very good. Very good. Randy. Okay. If somebody wanted to get hold of you, either for your advice to become a client or to find out about you, where would they go? Or how would they do it? Yeah. The two best ways to reach me are either to connect with me on LinkedIn and that's under my name, Randy R A N D I Roberts, or through my website, you can send me a message or see, you know, about my business and what I do.
That's Randy Roberts coaching. So it's R A N D I. R O B E R T S coaching. Com. Very good. Randy, I can't begin to tell you how, how, how excellent this podcast was. I learned all about your business. I learned something about some coaching too. So if anybody would like some coaching from Randy, please contact her.
Thanks, Michael. I really enjoyed our conversation. I want to have you on my podcast. We'll talk about that after the show. Absolutely. All right. Bye bye now.
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Michael is a business networking expert specializing in enhancing professionals' networking and communication skills to drive profitability. As a leading authority in this field, he is highly sought after for his dynamic presentations and workshops. His extensive experience has consistently led to significant improvements in corporate profitability by empowering individuals and organizations to connect more effectively and efficiently.
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