The Power of Networking with Maggie Olson

Jeremy · 0:00

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Speaker 2 · 0:48

The Leader Assistant podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, gain-changing, Leader Assistant.

Jeremy · 1:06

Howdy, friends. Thanks for tuning in to The Leader Assistant Podcast. It's episode 262, and I'm your host, Jeremy Burrows. And today I'm going to be talking about The Power of Networking with my friend Maggie Olson. And Maggie has been on a few episodes lately. If you're a regular listener, you probably recognize the name. If not, definitely check out our prior episodes. The first one was a little bit more of an intro. And that was episode 231, leaderassistant.com/231. Then Maggie talked through her Nova Chief of Staff course, episode 255. And then we also talked about navigating the EA and Chief of Staff relationship in episode 260. And then we also talked about, I skipped one, but from EA to Chief of Staff, how to level up. And that was episode 257. So lots of great topics, lots of great conversations, and definitely recommend checking out those prior conversations if you haven't yet. So with that said, The Power of Networking, I've got a lot to say about networking today. And Maggie, welcome back to the show.

Maggie · 2:31

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Jeremy · 2:33

So why don't you just kind of jump right in then? And, you know, I'll just say to kind of kick us off, though, the, you know, we met through The Power of Networking. And so just just being on LinkedIn, being active, putting ourselves out there, not being afraid to, you know, reach out and say hi and connect and engage with each other on LinkedIn posts or sending a DM and saying, hey, what can I do to help you? Things like that. And so it's fun to talk about this topic since that's how we how we met. And so, yeah, The Power of Networking. What tips and tricks and wisdom and advice do you have for assistants of the world?

Maggie · 3:16

Yeah, you know, that just brought me back. I when I was creating Nova Chief of Staff and talking to my friend, Travis Rodrik, who I actually just interviewed within the course, the Nova Chief of Staff course, he said, oh, my gosh, you know who you need to get in touch with? Jeremy Burrows and Maggie Jacobs. They're both authors. They're both in the Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant space. Like you would just you've got to check them out. I go to LinkedIn and look at both of your profiles. And I was like, oh, my gosh, no way they are never ever going to write me back. But of course, I did it anyway, because I've been trained to just keep trying and keep going and overcome that like a little bit of confidence lack in me. And lo and behold, Jeremy and Maggie are both wonderful people and so kind and generous. And Jeremy and I have now partnered on many things and we're good friends. And Maggie Jacobs, incredible too, close friend also. So it is wild to think about how and we're going to get into this, but how networking helps professionally and personally and how a lot of times they're like very intertwined.

Jeremy · 4:23

Yeah, that's great. And you know, you can never have too many Maggie's in your life.

Speaker 4 · 4:28

So, you know, hey, I'll take it.

Maggie · 4:32

So, you know, I think that as I was thinking about how do we how do we really talk about networking, sometimes it can feel big and daunting and kind of a lot to digest. So we're going to break it into small smaller pieces and hopefully a little bit more digestible, kind of practical steps that we can each take with some examples. So, you know, the kind of the first thing that I'll talk about is networking can seem really hard when it is super general and broad. Jeremy and I were both business owners. I am new in the city I'm in. I'm in Lincoln, Nebraska. I've been here for about a year and a half now. And thinking about going to business owner networking events and startup weeks and very broad general networking things just doesn't do it for me. I don't enjoy it. It's daunting. It feels like a lot of effort. And I honestly don't walk away with a lot from the time I put in, maybe a connection or two, but not really a lot. So when I think about the kind of networking that we're going to talk about today and we're going to give examples around, it's really focused on networking for the passion and the connection and the interests that you have versus just general showing up like that's a lot harder and it's a lot scarier. Jeremy, what are your thoughts on kind of how to approach networking as a whole in that way?

Jeremy · 6:02

Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is a little bit about your personality and, you know, I'm an introvert and I get drained by networking too much and so it's really about, okay, what can you handle personally and what suits your strengths and your weaknesses and how to balance that. But then yeah, my big thing is just in general with networking is to be a generous networker and so whether it's personal or professional, I always like to think of, you know, hey, I'm listening to this person as I'm networking with them, as I'm connecting with them and I'm trying to figure out, okay, what's something I can do for them? What's something I can give to them? What's something I can help them with? And it comes naturally to me as an assistant who loves helping people. But being a generous networker versus those kind of high ego vampire networkers that are just like trying to get something from everyone they talk to.

Maggie · 7:03

Yeah, yeah. And you are a generous networker. I can vouch for that. Servant leadership also comes to mind. We use that term a lot during my time at Nordstrom. It's really like, how are you serving the people that you're working with? If you're a leader and people are reporting to you, are you always available? Are you there for them generously in your time and consistency? So I think they really go hand in hand and we will talk about how to be a generous networker, how to be that connector towards the end of this chat. So we touched on a little bit around networking for the things that drive you and the passion and the connection that you're looking for. Like I said, I wasn't into going to the startup weeks and all the things. What did drive me as a consultant was meeting with a restaurant owner. Gosh, what would the term be? Like a general manager essentially of a whole restaurant group. There's many in Omaha, there's many across the country and they're a local business just down the street from Lincoln. I grew up in the restaurant industry and I would love to understand and learn more about what they do in these beautiful restaurants they're opening and maybe someday work for them as a Fractional Chief of Staff. That is the kind of networking that I want to do that drives me. So thinking about what is the thing that you're passionate about and how do you connect with that versus just approaching like super broadly and generally. So I think the other component here, the next step would be networking doesn't have to be for either business or personal. Like there really is that nice symbiotic relationship between the two or there can be. An example for this is, I just mentioned I moved to Lincoln about a year and a half ago, and I've only made one other move in my life outside of my hometown of Seattle. I was moved to Salt Lake City for my kind of this executive development program I was in with T-Mobile. And I knew very quickly that I had to build a network of friendships and things to do and ways to stay busy because I didn't know anybody where I was going. So moving here to Lincoln, I've kind of done that once already. And very, very quickly, I knew that I needed some support of like-minded female business owners here to build a network and build a group here in Lincoln that I felt connected to. So I met with, I basically through my existing network, I reached out to a friend, Libby. She connected me with Alicia, a business owner here, and Alicia runs this huge society, this group of female business owners in the space. And I've met some of my closest friends today through this networking. So it doesn't have to be super cumbersome, super hard. It doesn't have to be just for business or just for personal. I think there's a really nice relationship between the two when you're thinking about what you truly need and what you're looking to match up with.

Jeremy · 10:07

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think that, you know, that a lot of people are like, well, they're intimidated by it. And you know, I do this thing when I travel where if I've got an evening free, for example, while I'm traveling, I will just send out a note to assistants in the area and just say, hey, do you want to meet up and network and have a quick, casual happy hour? And I could like overthink it and be like, oh, well, you know, like, I've got to have the certain type of venue or, you know, I've got to make sure it's in a certain area or whatever. But I try to just be like, you know, let's just find something quick, make a decision and then just put the invite out. And if people want to come, they can't. And you know, so it's as an introvert in the past, I definitely was more intimidated by networking than I am now as I've practiced my extrovertedness a little bit more. But yeah, it doesn't have to be that complicated. It can literally be, hey, like, like I just I sent one out today because I'm going to be in St. Louis for a board meeting. And I said, hey, if you're going to be in around this afternoon, I went ahead and just put a calendar invite up, picked a location and invited everyone. And I just said, we'd love to see you if you if you can make it and, you know, just see what happens.

Maggie · 11:27

I love that. Have you had some friendships and relationships that have developed outside of those meetings afterwards?

Jeremy · 11:34

Yeah, definitely. And, you know, it's funny, because sometimes there's, you know, two people show up, you know, and you invite 30 people and you end up having good conversations and you end up being able to help each other out or stay connected or then the next time those two people invite two other people and but yeah, it's been, you know, some of my closest connections in the world are people that, you know, I met through these just random meetups like, hey, I'm going to be in Denver, I'm going to host a breakfast, just casual meetup. And now I, you know, I'm connected with several people from that meetup from four years ago that we've done been on my podcast, they we've done events together, you know, all those kinds of things.

Maggie · 12:21

It's very, very, very cool. I love that you do that. So the next thing that we should talk about here is actually networking for your job. Obviously it's helpful, it's important. We've all heard that it's a lot easier to get a job through networking. We can chat about that a little bit. But I think there's two components here when you think about networking at work. First, you're networking for your current role. So are there other people in a similar role to you at your company or at a adjacent company? Are there people in roles that are similar to yours or in your atmosphere that you should be connected to and networking with? If you work on an executive's team, are you networking with all of their leaders, all the people that report to them? Are you in the know about their biggest pain points and what drives them and what they're working on? So that's networking for your current job. And then there's the component at work around networking for the job you want. And this can be in your company, it can be outside of your company, but people in the C-suite, executive assistants, chiefs of staff, we have the gift of seeing a huge, a big picture of your company. We can see our companies from the top down. So ask yourself, like, what are you drawn to? Who are you drawn to? What kind of work that you're seeing being done is interesting to you? Or what are you just naturally curious about? Reach out to those people. People love talking about themselves. They love talking about their jobs. And a lot of people really love kind of teaching and showing. Buy them a coffee. Just have a casual Zoom. I think most of the time people will say yes to those invites and you will not only gain a person in your network, but you're going to learn a lot about what they do and potentially ways that this information can help you at work.

Jeremy · 14:09

Well said.

Maggie · 14:11

And most of the jobs that I've gotten have probably been through networking. I can think of two just off the top of my head while I was at Nordstrom. A couple leaders I'd worked in the same kind of atmosphere environment in or I'd interviewed with for a different job and didn't get and kept in touch with them. And both of those relationships ended up in great promotions, great jobs for me. I also networked into the Chief of Staff role that I was in at T-Mobile through keeping a relationship with the C-suite team members that I knew.

Jeremy · 14:45

Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure all my jobs I've ever gotten, even my first real job at Walmart, someone we knew put in a word, put my name down or put their name down on my reference or whatever. And then my first job outside of Walmart, I knew someone and then my current job, I was in between jobs, didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I wanted to help assistants and help executives with assistants. And so I reached out to this guy that I knew and was like, Hey, I'm thinking about starting this coaching business. You have assistance, I'd love to get your ideas. And that ended up being the guy that hired me like six months later as hire number one at capacity and, you know, seven years later, I'm still supporting him. And so yeah, it's networking is definitely powerful.

Maggie · 15:43

I love that. Okay, well, we're going to chat briefly about, you know, not only like what is a networker, but what's a connector kind of that next step. And then I have an exercise that I'll share with the folks listening that you can do it straight out of our Nova Chief of Staff course that you can do at home that I'll walk you through. So when we think about being a connector, what does that mean? I found a little bit of information that I'm going to share from vault.com about Malcolm Gladwell. So that name is probably not too new to everybody. But essentially, author Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term connector in his book, The Tipping Quaint, and defined the word as someone who knows many people. But Wikipedia describes connectors as people in the community who know large numbers of people and who are in the habit of making introductions. A connector is essentially the social equivalent of a computer network hub. Connectors usually know people across an array of social, cultural, professional, and economic circles and make a habit of introducing people who work or live in different circles. So in any case, you haven't seen a good networker until you've met a connector. And this person is somebody who everyone seems to know and never stands with two people without introducing them to each other. I'm sure we can think of those people in our lives. And a connector is always thinking about how to help other people in their network. When you are a connector, your network builds. When you're a connector, you are a better networker and vice versa if you're doing both activities.

Jeremy · 17:16

Activities. Peace.

Maggie · 17:22

Are you ready to elevate your career in 2024? I'm Maggie Olson, founder of Nova Chief of Staff Certification, the first of its kind online course for aspiring and existing Chiefs of Staff. With curriculum taken directly from on-the-job responsibilities, Nova's self-paced learning modules provides you with hands-on experience so you can feel competent and confident moving into a Chief of Staff style role. It's the perfect next step for executive assistants. Head to leaderassistant.com/nova to learn more, grab the syllabus and enroll today.

Jeremy · 17:54

Yeah, and it's kind of the cheesy cliché saying everybody always says is, your net worth is your network or your network is your net worth, but it's so true.

Maggie · 18:10

I love that. Yeah, it's like, do you have a person to call for this question or that or this need or that? Are you a person someone reaches out to? And if not, how can you put yourself in a situation to be a resource for others?

Jeremy · 18:23

Yeah. And one other thing I thought of was, I've talked about this before, but John Acuff, author, speaker, John Acuff, he talks about this idea called the career savings account. And not just, oh, you got to financially save up and invest and whatever so that you have money later, whatever. But there's actually a career savings account. And part of investing into your career savings account is being a generous networker, building relationships, maintaining relationships. And these things that you're that you do with networking is you're actually making deposits into your career savings account. So I always thought that was a cool way to think about it.

Maggie · 19:05

Yeah, that is a cool way to think about it. All right. So great. We think networking is important. Now, how do we figure out who is in our network or where to start? I know there's a lot of people out there, especially post-COVID, who were thinking, gosh, I used to be really good at networking, but I don't even know, do I even have a network anymore? So this exercise is straight from our Nova Chief of Staff certification course. You can do this right now. You can pause and grab a piece of paper or just save this episode and come back to it. But what I want you to do is take 20 or 30 minutes and really reflect on your professional network. I'll walk you through some steps here. What you're going to do is create a diagram that's essentially your network bubble. This can be done just with pen and paper. If you love to design on computer, you can totally do that too, but by hand also is fine. First thing you're going to do is, bigger paper, the better, draw a circle in the middle of your page and put your name in it. Now, this is where the reflection comes in and don't rush yourself here, but start to imagine your network of people that could potentially be professional resources to you. Here are some prompts to think through. School contacts, professors, et cetera, maybe back when you were in school or if you are in school currently or you're in courses or classes, who are those people? You're going to start to put bubbles around your first circle with your name in it for every person that you're thinking of. And the closest people to your name bubble are the people that you think of first, those kind of early and strong connections in your life. And then you'll create a map that goes outward. So starting to think about your school contacts, professors, et cetera. The next prompt would be neighbors, community contacts, organization affiliations like volunteering, church, outreach, sports. If you start to reflect and you spend some time doing this, your network is getting bigger and bigger. Think about where you work right now. Think about your previous work contacts. Pull up LinkedIn if you need to. Start adding bubbles and grow that network map wider and wider. Think through parents, family members, family friends. Keep that thought around professional resources for you since this is a bit of a professional networking exercise. Then think about your mentors, your friends, and anybody else that you could possibly turn to from a professional resource standpoint. Again, put your closest contacts in the bubble that's closest to your name in the center, but create bubbles for everyone that you can think of. Now, once you've created this, and it's probably going to be a bit of a working process, you might go cook some dinner, go to bed, and think of a few more people. That's fine. Totally add to it. But when you come back to it and look at it again, do a little bit more reflecting. Did you think that your network was this size? What areas of your network map do you think that you want to grow your network in? Are there specific people in your network that you want to be more proactive about keeping in touch with? Some ah-hahs that came up like, oh my gosh, that's such a good one. I can't believe I didn't realize this right away, but I actually really want to be in touch with this person. And then finally, are there certain people in your network that you could reach out to for professional opportunities? So that's kind of the reflection piece. You could write these down. And in our course, I asked for a couple of paragraph reflection answering these questions. You can just kind of think about it, write it down if it's helpful to you. And then I think the final step, Jeremy, is take some action. Just like Jeremy said, I'm probably not quite as introverted as Jeremy, but I'm a little bit, you know, probably a little more extroverted, but slightly introverted. It can be difficult to take the action, but through action comes confidence. I think Adam Grant posted about this recently. We're in early February right now, and that's actually why I built my Chief of Staff Certification course this way is because through practice and action, we build confidence, make the first phone call, send the first email, ask someone to coffee or a virtual Zoom. It will start feeling easier, but check out your network map, take some action, reflect and just continue that activity and you will turn into a great networker and you can focus on being an awesome connector as well.

Jeremy · 23:41

That's a great exercise and I think that a lot of people are going to be surprised by how many people they're connected with and how big their network is. But then I do think there might be some people who are a little underwhelmed and maybe thinking maybe that's a challenge to get themselves out into the world a little bit more. And you know, the simple, there's a simple tactic you can use even on LinkedIn where you just search if you're an executive assistant listening and you want to connect with other executive assistants. You type in the search executive assistants and then you can filter by city and title and all that. And so you could have a list of hundreds of assistants within 30 minutes of you pop up on LinkedIn and you can just reach out to them and say, hey, I'm an assistant in the area. I would love to connect. It's that simple.

Maggie · 24:35

Yeah, I love that. And I know I'm speaking for Jeremy, too. But if you are in Kansas City or Lincoln and you want to connect with us, please feel free to send us a note. I'm working on building my local network here, too.

Jeremy · 24:47

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Maggie, do you have any stories or networking fails? Do you have any networking fails that you want to share or I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot, but I was just thinking about like, you know, there's always those awkward moments or those times when maybe you weren't as generous as you should have been or you tried to introduce someone to someone and it just totally bombed and it was a terrible introduction. Anyway, so I'm putting you on the spot right there.

Maggie · 25:22

Oh, my gosh. You know, it is hard to think of an example like a beautiful example, but I will say the thing that came to mind is not getting any response when you do reach out to someone and how hard that can be and how it can be like, okay, I'm never doing this again. That was awful. And kind of like a little bit of a confidence bruise. And that absolutely happens. That happens to me all the time. It also happens where I'm really excited about networking with someone and here I am like ready to tell them everything about myself or listen to them and they just clearly could care less. They're on the call, but like they maybe they shouldn't have been. They really don't want to learn anything about you. And they're just not that generous person. I've had a few interactions like that. That can also hurt and kind of suck. But I don't know. We just got to keep going is my lesson there because you meet people like Jeremy Burrows and Maggie Jacobs and it's all worth it from there.

Jeremy · 26:20

Yeah, I always try to remind myself, listen, you know, and I talk about this a lot with regards to our job as assistants. But, you know, when you're networking, if you go into a networking situation, trying to get affirmation and validation and approval from that other person, then it's just not going to go well. And so reminding yourself that, hey, you know what, I'm a valuable human being no matter how this interaction goes. That really helps ground me and helps me, you know, just move on and not take things personally when an interaction is go sour.

Maggie · 27:00

Yeah, I love that. That's great advice.

Jeremy · 27:04

Awesome. Well, Maggie, this is a great conversation. I could talk about networking forever. But let's yeah, let's wrap it up. We'll talk more about other topics soon. We'll probably talk about networking in one of our other conversations coming soon as well. But definitely, if you're listening, check out Maggie on LinkedIn and Nova Chief of Staff and you can go to leaderassistant.com/nova to check out her course. And yeah, we're excited about more conversations and more chats. And for those of you listening, good luck networking. Good luck with that exercise.

Maggie · 27:46

Send us your success stories.

Jeremy · 27:50

Ping us on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you. And if you're wanting to check out the show notes, you can go to leaderassistant.com/262. So thanks again, Maggie, and we'll talk soon.

Maggie · 28:01

Thank you.

Speaker 2 · 28:12

Please review on Apple Podcasts. goburrows.com.