9 A THREE-WAY WITH A ROBOT
Networking is everything when it comes to personal branding. Whom you know and how they feel about you is not only important, it is the most valuable part of your brand. Your network is only as vast as you make it and only as valuable as the time you make for it. Everything you want to achieve is in the hands of someone else, and your goals can be informed, accelerated, and guided by your social media networking.
Before we get to the actionables, it is important to understand the type of thinking that allows us to use the available online tools for effective networking. The specific action items change as the algorithms and social media companies change, but the thinking behind them is still relevant. Remember to think outside the box and look for what no one else sees. This is where the real leverage and big wins will always be found.
NETWORKING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
A common misconception about social media is that the conversations you have with other people or brands is between you and them. The truth is that any conversation you have online is a three-way conversation among you, the person you are communicating with, and a machine. In the world of game theory, anyone who can impact your personal outcome is in the game and must be accounted for. If you send an email that goes into a spam folder, this will impact your relationship with the person you assume received your email but never responded. If you tag someone on Facebook and that person never sees the message because they were bombarded that day with tons of messages or alerts and missed your message, it will impact your relationship with them. You can also flip the situation to imagine that you missed a message in your feed, and that changed the way someone thought of you. It was out of your control: you didn’t mean to miss the message, you will never know either way, yet your communication with that person may be tarnished forever.
When you are networking online, by phone, or in any other situation that requires a machine or person to move your message along, you must also factor in how the presence of that third party may impact your relationship. That machine or person can be the determining factor in the success of your relationship.
Networking is about communicating the right message, the right recommendation, the right place, and the right time, combined with how we can help each other. It is no secret that the world has become more connected, and the people in it have become busier than ever as a result. The busier we get, the more we need to justify how our time is spent. Some of you have never lived in a less-busy world, and others will remember a time when you wouldn’t contact anyone outside of your preplanned day until you got home. The perfect understanding of networking in the modern world is a combination of these perspectives.
However, there are positives to being in a three-way relationship when you are networking. The machines (algorithms) can be very useful for climbing the networking ladder. They tell us things about people that we would not have known without their involvement. They connect us by interest, and they connect us by mutual friends or acquaintances. If you think of the social media platforms as a third person in a conversation, you can network more effectively.
To do this, you have to consider what everyone in the situation has to gain or lose, including the social media and communication platform itself. Let’s start with the robot, the machine, the algorithm—the social media tool that stands between you and the person you want to connect with. What do social media sites have to gain? In order to use these tools as effectively as possible, it is important to understand what they need from your relationship.
HOW TO GAUGE THE NEEDS OF THE ALGORITHM
If you want to understand the needs of the social media websites and their algorithms, you have to start by following the money. In other words, follow the news around corporate partnerships, new product launches, and investments. This information makes it extremely easy to figure out what is of value for the company at a given time.
First of all, money is the most important thing for these companies. They spend their time trying to find new ways to make money. Second, social media companies want users, and they want these users to feel safe. Third, they want to prevent spam of any kind. Last, they want to outdo the competition and take away their competitors’ audiences.
How does this apply to networking? There are many ways to connect with people online. Look at the most popular social media platforms and search engines used for communication today, and you can see how many ways each one provides for connecting with other people. Let’s review the various ways to connect with someone on these social media platforms so that you can utilize them in your networking strategy. To start, take a look at some of the ways you can communicate with another person on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
≫ Sending a friend request
≫ Unfriending a person
≫ Muting someone’s profile
≫ Following someone
≫ Commenting on a post
≫ Sharing a post
≫ Posting on someone’s Facebook page
≫ Liking a post
≫ Tagging someone in a post or image
≫ Inviting people to an event
≫ Inviting people to a group
≫ Creating a group messenger
≫ Sending a private message
≫ Calling someone on Facebook Messenger
≫ Poking someone
≫ Suggesting a friend to someone
≫ Fund-raising
≫ Checking in to a location
≫ Inviting someone to a game you are playing
≫ Buying or selling something
≫ Connecting with a person
≫ Following an account
≫ Following a company
≫ Tagging a person in a post
≫ Tagging a company in a post
≫ Adding and tagging a company or organization on your profile
≫ Joining a group
≫ Posting to a group
≫ Creating a group
≫ Inviting someone to a group
≫ Sending a private message
≫ Applying for a job
≫ Posting a job
≫ Accessing someone’s email
≫ Viewing someone’s profile so they can see you viewed it
≫ Blogging
≫ Using the Profinder search to find freelancers
≫ Sharing the content of an individual or company
≫ Creating a SlideShare
≫ Following someone on SlideShare
≫ Favoriting a tweet
≫ Retweeting a tweet
≫ Posting a tweet
≫ Commenting on a tweet
≫ Following a Twitter account
≫ Unfollowing a Twitter account
≫ Blocking a Twitter account
≫ Adding someone to a Twitter list
≫ Following a list that someone else created
≫ Mentioning a Twitter account in a tweet
≫ Tagging people in a tweet
≫ Sending a private message
≫ Adding a tweet to a moment
≫ Reporting a tweet to Twitter
≫ Reporting an account to Twitter
≫ Linking to a tweet
≫ Linking to a Twitter profile
≫ Embedding a tweet
≫ Muting a Twitter account
≫ Following an account
≫ Unfollowing an account
≫ Blocking an account
≫ Tagging a profile in a post
≫ Mentioning a profile in a post
≫ Commenting on a post
≫ Mentioning someone in the comment on a post
≫ Sharing an Instagram post privately to another account
≫ Sharing a post to Instagram
≫ Creating an Instagram collection
≫ Creating an Instagram story
As you can see from the many ways of connecting on social media platforms, creating a networking strategy is a must. The best place to start is to determine what you need from the desired relationship. Are you looking for a job? A recommendation? A mentor or someone who can help you with your new venture? Whatever you need, make sure your objectives are clear. Once you have done that, you’re ready to devise your strategy.
There are steps to keep in mind when you are devising a networking plan. Ideally, you want to make sure the other person sees you before you reach out to them. This is a longer networking play. Spend a few days making them aware that you exist, that you are interested in connecting with them, and that you will eventually reach out. This step requires breaking out your communication according to day and account type. You can also use the lists of ways to communicate on each of the social media platforms to write your own playbook. Use what you know about each platform, and identify which platforms the person you want to network with is using. Here, I have outlined an example of how a long-term play can work.
Day One: Look at the person’s LinkedIn profile. Make sure that your privacy settings allow people to see that you looked at their profiles. (This only works if they actually see you viewing their profile.) Before taking the next step, check to see whether the person has reciprocated and looked at your account. If they have, add them on LinkedIn as a connection, with a message like this: “I found your account while looking for [insert whatever you were looking for] and noticed that we also have [insert something from their profile] in common. It’s great to meet like-minded people in the area of [insert whatever your common ground is].”
Day Two: If they haven’t looked at your profile, find them on Twitter and follow them there.
Day Three: Retweet something they have posted on Twitter, and then add them to a Twitter list.
Day Four: Add them on LinkedIn, with a note that says something like this: “I found you on LinkedIn while looking for [insert what you were looking for], and your background is incredible. I also saw on Twitter that we have [insert whatever you have in common or a mutual connection] in common. LinkedIn is a great place to connect, but if you have the time, I would also like to connect by phone or email about [insert what you are asking of them]. If you’re like me, you probably have a busy schedule and your time is limited. I figure if we start now we can get something on the calendar in the coming weeks.”
Day Five: If they still have not accepted your connection, you want to connect with three people who are in their network, closely associated with them, and active in LinkedIn groups. (People who have time to post in LinkedIn groups have time to connect and are looking for more connections.)
The goal for Day One is to find a way for them to know that you viewed their account. This is the first step in putting yourself in front of the person. Look through the list of possible ways to communicate with people on social media to see if there are any other options that can help you achieve this goal. Day Two’s goal is to let the person know you are viewing them on a different profile, so they can see that you were looking specifically for them and that it was not mere chance or the algorithms that brought you together. Day Three’s goal is to show the person that not only are you looking at their profiles and searching specifically for them but you are also engaged in their content. Day Four’s goal is to make your first attempt to connect (if the person hasn’t reached out to you yet). Day Five’s goal is to revisit the strategy if you haven’t yet connected. If you have already connected, the goal is always to take the conversation to a face-to-face coffee meeting or phone call. You want to remove the third-party (algorithm, machine, or robot) from your relationship. One-on-one communication is not only more effective but it is also more meaningful. Not many people want to share their personal relationships. Since we consider social media tools and algorithms as players in this game, we understand that they are the third “person” that needs to be removed for a short time so that a meaningful relationship can blossom.
In most cases, people are not ignoring you when you reach out; the real issue is inbox fatigue. It takes me days to see a LinkedIn message because I get so many of them. I never see Twitter messages because my Twitter inbox is full of spam. If I get a cold call, I won’t answer it. If you send me a cold email, it will take me more than a week to get to it, and I will be reading it after my work hours, so my focus won’t be entirely sharp. But if you send me an Instagram message, I will see it right away and get back to you. Why? You have to target people where they are not overwhelmed with messages or requests. The preceeding plan is just one example of how to connect with someone online. What you should be thinking about are your goals for each step of this process, not the steps themselves.
Once you schedule that coffee or phone meeting, you want to prepare a meeting strategy. One of your goals should always be to figure out how you can be of help to the other person. Sometimes this can be very straightforward: some people may simply tell you what they need. Other times it will be a bit more difficult, and you’ll have to figure it out. In this situation, think of your network. Whom do you know that this person would want to know, and vice versa? If you don’t have the ability to help a person directly, you may be able to help them indirectly by introducing them to someone you know. After all, we are less than five degrees away from everyone else, so an introductory chain could lead anywhere.
The other thing you want to get from your meeting is a clear next step, even if that is to never speak again (but hopefully it won’t be). Your next step could be to send an introduction between them and someone else, or to follow through on an action. I like to follow up with an email after my calls, to provide links to things I mentioned in the call or just to recap our conversation and let people know they can reach out again.
NETWORKING ADVICE FOR YOUR PROFILES
Consider these four things to enhance your social media profiles and optimize them for networking.
Always Include Your Email and What You Can Be Reached For
Put your email in your social media profiles, along with a note that lets people know you want them to connect with you and what you wish to connect over. You can follow and connect with people all day long, but unless they know how and why to reach out to you, the ball will remain in your court. It is also important that you make the right kinds of information available.
There are a few ways to do this. I have a separate email account for my social media profiles, which is connected to my blog and personal website. I keep it separate from my personal and work email accounts. I check my social media emails once a week, allowing myself time to respond to them. When I want people to email me, I use the message “I’ve got five minutes; let’s connect!” on all of my social media profiles. You can either use mine (I borrowed it from someone else) or create your own. Don’t skip adding it, though. The opportunities that will come your way if you create a path for them can be astonishing. Take the time to set up a communication flow that works for you.
Don’t Post All the Time
This may seem counterintuitive when it comes to personal branding and social media. The assumption is that the more content you post, the more people will see it, and the more notice you will get. While this may be true, quality is what really matters, not quantity. For most people who are using personal branding for their businesses and careers, the more they post, the worse the content. When executives and professionals who are not internet celebrities post all day long, it decreases their audiences’ perception of their power. People begin to question how they could be excellent at their jobs when they spend so much of their time uploading links that few people will actually read.
Instead, here are the acceptable reasons to post: to share content you have written, to respond to content about you, to share an opinion, to communicate something or ask a question, to celebrate and congratulate others. These are all appropriate social media actions for professionals. Do not post multiple times a day, because when someone lands on your profile (if you use a growth hacker, this happens often), they will see a lot of garbage content that has pushed down the relevant content. Don’t clutter your feed with content that doesn’t genuinely add something of value.
Avoid Overusing Hashtags
When hashtags are misused or overused, they can become the digital version of “Look at me! Look at me! I am trying to grow my followers!” You don’t want that. Hashtags were originally intended for creating chat groups, following events or sports games, or starting a movement on Twitter. They were great when Twitter’s search algorithm was young and still learning. The hashtags helped feed the algorithm information, which helped with targeting in advertising (hence the need for the robot). It was never meant for tagging random words in your posts. The main purpose of the hashtag on all social media channels is to create live public groups around topics or interests.
Yet we see professionals posting on social media with multiple hashtags. For example, “Just spoke at #RandomConference so #blessed to be here as a #speaker talking about #leadership and #Sales! #hustle #travel,” sends the message that they are building their brands. Announcing that you are branding is the opposite of being helpful with your branding, and it shows that you are just now learning social media. If this is you, don’t worry; it happens to the best of us. Just stop doing it and think before you #. You want to use hashtags to start a group, to follow an event, or to be funny, like #hashtag or #IAmSoBasic. I’ve created a manual to show you how, which you can find at cynthialive.com/platform.
The most important people don’t have a lot of followers on social media. This fact has been a game changer in my networking strategy. The most accomplished people to know do not have a huge Twitter following, but many of them are on Twitter. You can easily do a Twitter search for “executives at NASA” or “female executives at Facebook” or “editor” (my favorite). These people are extremely busy, and while they want to understand Twitter or other social media platforms, they don’t have the time to learn how to use them as effectively as they could. This is where the robot in the relationship can be helpful. Once you find these people on Twitter, instead of emailing them like everyone else does, send them a Twitter message. They will respond. If you get a lot of Twitter messages and are afraid of missing the response, you can check back or leave your email address in the message and ask them to email you.
When I attended the World Government Summit in Dubai, I heard Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand and then administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), speak. I was attending the pre-event event as media and was not granted a face-to-face interview with her. So I went to her Twitter feed and saw her Snapchat handle in her Twitter bio, which said “Follow me on Snapchat.” I immediately added her on Snapchat and sent her a video message of me live from the event, saying, “I heard that you left early, but I really wanted to connect. If there is another option to meet, please let me know!”
Within minutes, Helen Clark responded to my snap (mind you, this is a United Nations leader and former world leader) and said, “Please email this person, and we can start the conversation.” The email she gave me was for one of her assistants at the United Nations, and—boom!—just like that, I was in touch with Helen Clark. This worked because she had told me (and everyone else) on Twitter how and where to communicate with her. She was also just learning how to use Snapchat, so she was responding to messages there more than anywhere else. On Snapchat there was no competition for her time. In fact, I’ll bet she was even excited that someone sent her a message there. I was not only letting her know that I wanted to interview her but also confirming that her Snapchat messaging was getting through to people.
The takeaway here is to find people in the places where you have the most leverage and the least competition for their time and attention—regardless of whether they are world leaders, executives, or celebrities. In a three-way, there is always one person who feels neglected or like the weakest link in the relationship. This can cause the person who feels neglected to overcompensate by doing too much, working too hard for the relationship, and that will ultimately cause the relationship dynamic to shift.
Treat Everyone as if They Matter, Because They Do
Don’t be the person who ignores the little guy, because in a connected digital world, you never know how people will grow from one day to the next. I have been snubbed many times by “experts” at conferences, events, and online, who now love to tell people that they work with me. I also remember people who attended my Twitter chats and wanted to learn from me, who have now far surpassed me in the same industry. Even if the message is that you are busy, try your best to respond to their questions. I hate nothing more than to see a person shamed by an “expert” for asking a question at a conference, when the entire point of attending is for them to learn. Being a figurehead comes with responsibility.
Still, to truly embrace the idea of treating everyone equally, most people need to know what’s in it for them. Around 2009 or 2010, I went to an event called Blog World. I happened to meet someone at the event, we connected on LinkedIn, but I later forgot about him. Then one day when I was on LinkedIn, I realized that my network had suddenly opened up a lot. I was receiving many requests from people I didn’t know, who had all started following a specific person. When I looked him up, I recognized the face but not the name, and I saw that he had recently updated his job title to CEO at Buzzfeed. Just like that, my network went wild. Someone I had randomly met at a conference years earlier just got a promotion and was sharing the benefit indirectly with his network. From that moment on, all of his connections became second connections to me on LinkedIn, which meant that it was one hundred times easier for me to grab the attention of all his friends. (When you are the CEO at Buzzfeed, you make a lot of friends.) So go ahead and connect with people; it doesn’t hurt, and you never know how much it could eventually help.
INTERNET LAWS TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO COMMUNICATE ONLINE
The 1 Percent Rule: Only 1 percent of the people online create content; the other 99 percent are lurkers. As an example from Wikipedia, 90 percent of the participants of a community only view content, 9 percent of the participants edit content, and 1 percent of the participants actively create new content. This means that if you don’t participate, you are essentially facilitating a monopoly on information control and digestion.
Wiio’s Laws
Communication usually fails—except when it unexpectedly succeeds. To put it more specifically:
If communication can fail, it will.
If communication cannot fail, it will probably still fail.
If your communication style seems to be succeeding as you intended, there is some sort of misunderstanding.
If you become content with your communication style, it will fail you.
If your message leaves anything open to interpretation, it will be interpreted in the most negative way possible.
When dealing with mass communication, what things appear to be is more important than what they are.
Overcommunication, clear communication, and requesting confirmation of communication are a must. When dealing with anyone who reaches out to you, or when reaching out to them, make sure there is no room for interpretation. Anything you say that can be read, can be interpreted incorrectly. (Remember Poe’s Law, this page?)
The Streisand Effect
If you try to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information on the internet, that piece of information becomes more interesting. It will likely have the unintended consequence of ending up in a public forum or media outlet. This law was created after Barbra Streisand tried to keep images of her home off the internet, and the internet responded by adding her public information to file-sharing websites. If you are trying to keep something off the internet and out of the media, don’t be obvious about it. The more they find what you don’t want to be found, the more value people attach to finding and exposing it.
Segal’s Law
A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. If you are going to state an opinion publicly, make sure that you have only one opinion on the topic. If you have two opinions or are unsure, avoid the topic publicly until you are sure.
Cunningham’s Law
The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer. “The pen is mightier than the sword”: you can accomplish a lot with your words, so choose them wisely. “Many a true word is spoken in jest”: according to Poe’s Law, many words written in jest will be perceived as true.
Skitt’s Law
Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error. The likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster. Don’t take yourself too seriously; everyone makes mistakes. The more you let them affect you, the more you will make.
The Law of Exclamation
The more exclamation points used in an email or post, the more likely it is that the message is untrue. The same holds true for the excessive use of capital letters. If you write in a passive-aggressive manner, your audience may come to dislike you.
Umhoefer’s Rule
Articles on writing are all too frequently poorly written.
CASE IN POINT: FIND A MENTOR ON LINKEDIN
When I first took on a leadership role at a company, I began to question whether I actually had as much empathy as I had always thought. Being a manager and a boss required a skill set that was outside of mine. I was great at delegating tasks, getting things done, and organizing a team, but handling the personal aspects of the job was not one of my strengths.
When employees came to me with personal issues, I wouldn’t know what to say or how to help. I had little patience for deliverables not getting done on time or projects going in unintended directions. I also struggled with leading effective meetings, because information was getting lost in the translation. My reports would just nod silently in agreement with me, even if I was wrong. These issues needed to be fixed, and I knew that the fix had to begin with me.
I decided that I would find a mentor. My criteria were that the person be local, have available time for me, and be an expert in communication, leadership, and team building. I needed someone outside of my work situation, who didn’t know me and could look objectively at the obstacles I was facing.
I went on LinkedIn and started to do searches for people who fit this criteria. It was easy to find locals, experts, and people outside my network, but it was fairly difficult to determine whether someone had enough time to spend with me. I wanted a career person who had lived through a similar situation, but many of these people were busy doing their own work. At that time, I was subscribed to the Harvard Business Review, so I went on LinkedIn and joined the Harvard Business Review group to begin my search for a mentor. That’s when I found Dr. Mark Goulston.
Mark Goulston is the ideal leadership coach. He is patient, accomplished, caring, and passionate about his work. He has written several books, including Just Listen, which were even suggested to me by people who were unaware of our relationship. Mark is the lead mentor at the China Foundation, and he works with the Los Angeles Police Department to train students on how to behave when they get pulled over (what they call the POP Protocol). He also writes for the Harvard Business Review, has lectured at UCLA and USC, and is a neuroscientist and psychologist. These days, he is also a consultant, speaker, trainer, and coach for organizations such as IBM, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch.
If you think he sounds like the ideal mentor and that he must be insanely busy, you’re right. But what struck me about Mark was his behavior in the Harvard Business Review group on LinkedIn. The group had more than one million members, and they were not allowed to accept more members at the time. (LinkedIn now allows more than one million members per group.) Out of all the members in the group, Mark was the most active. He posted frequently, he always responded, and he put remarkable time and effort into his responses.
When I saw all this, I realized that Mark either cared enormously about his work or had a lot of time on his hands—or both. He seemed like just the person I was looking for. So I sent him a request to connect on LinkedIn, but I neglected to leave a message. I was extremely nervous about connecting with him, because he is a really well-known expert in his field. Reaching out to a person with his background, credentials, and experience can trigger fear of rejection but I pushed through it and messaged him anyway.
To my great surprise, Mark accepted my request with the following message:
I can assure you that in 2014 my background showed nothing particularly interesting or impressive. I spent the next two hours crafting a response, but all I could come up with was
As you can see from my email, I was hinting that I needed help with managing a team. The business I reference here is my online social media and thought-leader brand. I was not a business owner, but I did have a team. Today I cringe at my use of exclamation points in this message. You know—that feeling you get when you talk about the old version of yourself that no longer reflects who you are?
Despite my exclamation overuse, Mark responded:
“Hello back at you. I’m doing lots. Writing my next book, creating a course with the American Management Association around my book Just Listen (which became the top book on listening in the world), working with a company in China to help American ex-pat managers at Fortune 500 companies to better cooperate with Chinese workers outside the big cities in China.
Something you might find interesting is this presentation which is wowing CEO audiences: What Steve Jobs Knew—How to Create Insanely Excited Customers at: http://markgoulston.com/beingstevejobs. I have figured out how to teach people to look at the world through Steve Jobs’ eyes, and it is getting amazing ratings. Say more about your building a team and a business.”
He had responded in minutes, requesting more information, and I was back at square one. So what did I do? Like a dummy, I tried to speak to him as though I were at his level, took hours to craft a response, and then—like the newbie that I was—sent him a response at 12:59 a.m. No one sends emails at 12:59 a.m. after sending a message with so many exclamations. All I could think was, He probably thinks I am neurotic, and maybe I am neurotic? But my response was:
“I would love to know more about your company in China. I studied Mandarin for a couple of years and have traveled throughout China. I have many ex-pat friends that work for Chinese companies. After speaking with them throughout the years, the thing that I always found to be a huge barrier in the communication between ex-pats and Chinese workers is the initial hiring of an ex-pat. The Chinese companies often pay them more (I speak for Chinese companies, not American companies in China) and at that same time treat them as a higher-valued asset even if they’re not. I think from an ex-pat’s perspective, this is great in the beginning, but after some time the desire to actually be held responsible for something becomes frustrating.
“My business is digital marketing and leadership. I am the Director of Social Media Marketing at RankLab, a digital marketing agency in Santa Monica, CA. I am also the new editorial director and global board member for Social Media Club, and I speak at marketing conferences sometimes.
“I am currently building two teams, and it is much easier said than done. I have my team at the agency and the international editorial team for Social Media Club, which is global and remote.
“Finding yourself in a leadership position is the strangest thing in the world. The great conundrum. I will definitely take a look at your work on the Steve Jobs method. Sounds like it will be more than worth the read.”
In responding to Mark, I tried to sound cool by discussing what I knew about expats in China, which wasn’t a lot. When I said, “I speak at marketing conferences sometimes,” at that time I had spoken at one—literally the week prior to sending this email. I referred to my leadership problems but never actually addressed them or asked for help. And what is the great conundrum? Then I referenced his work with the Steve Jobs method and said I would read it. He sent me the link to a video.
In reality, this email exchange should have been a failure and a learning experience, but instead, it became an opportunity and a learning experience. It turned out that Mark was also a night owl. He messaged me again at 1:19 a.m. saying:
What? He was willing to meet me, and I didn’t even have to ask? I was so shocked that I responded with more exclamation marks, of course.
I met Mark for coffee in Santa Monica the following week. He brought me a copy of his book, and he asked a lot of questions about what I was dealing with, my goals, and so on. After hearing my responses, he said, “I think I should mentor you.” I was trying to play it cool, but after the meeting I freaked out. Later I introduced Mark to some of my digital marketing friends who could help him promote his new book, and he introduced me to, well, literally everyone.
I now meet with Mark every couple of months over dinner, and he helps guide me through my latest work and life issues. He shows up to all of my events and is my biggest cheerleader without letting me get away with anything. When I was applying to schools to get an MBA, Mark wrote me a letter of recommendation. He noted that I was still working on my emotional intelligence, but that he detected no personality issues (and as the expert, he would know).
Years later, Mark is still my ideal mentor. To give you an idea of how much work we have done to help each other (though we only meet a few times a year), take a look at our mutual connections on LinkedIn. When I first met Mark, we had zero mutual connections; we now have 158 and counting. But we still have only one mutual group on LinkedIn: the Harvard Business Review.
Be clear about what you want and what you need. Get creative with your solution, and don’t be afraid of failure. If Mark had not responded to my email, we would have forgotten each other, and that would have been the end of the story. Instead, I now have a mentor, friend, and advocate who supports me both in my career and in my life.