Network to Professionalize Your Passion

Networking is such a huge topic. In fact it felt so big that it’s taken me five months to finally write this second tip in my Professional Your Passion series. I have decided to share some general reflections on the topic and provide some examples of how it has helped me develop my business.

For a little background, check out the first in the series:

• How I Retired Before I Retired
• Professionalize Your Passion: Build a Budget

Network to Professionalize Your Passion

Many of us have good ideas. Great ideas. I run into a lot of people who tell me about their fantastic idea and I ask them how it’s going and I hear, “it’s not taking off” or “no one seems to get it” or “I don’t know why it’s not working.”  I ask, “What are you doing to make it happen? Who have you told about it?”

I started my own business in 2012. My business model is not exactly what you may presume. You’re reading a vegan blog right now and you know me for my “vegan work.”  When I started my business, I started with a vision: ten years from now my full-time work will be focused on veganism – ideally, I will be consulting, teaching, coaching and writing. A realist, however, I knew that to get there I would need to invest time to build my experience, my brand, and my services. Therefore my current business model focuses on 50% consulting in the profession for which I worked over 25 years – education and nonprofit management – and 50% on my longer-term goal to change the world for animals and to help people live healthy and happy vegan lives.

How did I make the leap? It all started when I reached out to an old college buddy. He and I had been friends on Facebook for years –though we had not seen each other in over twenty years, back when we were resident advisors together. He is an executive at a higher education company – I worked in higher education and my master’s degree is in the field – so I reached out to him, with my resume, asking if would consider introducing me to someone in his company who worked in philanthropy. He replied immediately to say no, because after reviewing my resume he wanted me to work for him. A few meetings and a proposed scope of work later, I began consulting for his company. JL Fields Consulting launched.

With this anchor client on board I was emboldened to find a couple of other, smaller clients to round out this half of my business plan. How did I find them? I connected with former peers and colleagues and announced my new business. I had coffee with peers, drinks with old friends, and, through people-who-knew-people-who-needed my services, I had a stable of education and nonprofit clients (I am happy to say that one of the nonprofit groups was an animal rights organization!).

The real challenge, it turned out, was focusing on the other 50% of my business – the vision side, where I wanted to be in ten years. That required networking. Big time.

• I enrolled in the Main Street Vegan Academy to help me grow as a speaker and educator on veganism. I received quality continuing education to become a vegan lifestyle coach and educator and I am now in a network of over 70 fellow VLCE’s.
• I responded to my local paper when they put out a call for food bloggers. Ultimately that led to me writing an online vegan food column for the paper and my first print byline.
• I began working on Vegan for Her, my first book as a co-author. How did that happen? I met Ginny Messina at a vegan blogging conference (well that, and I created recipes on my blog that were of interest to Ginny and once she met me in person it went from there).
• As I prepared to move to Colorado I reached out to the food and art editor of the local independent paper. I pitched a column idea – there wasn’t an interest. But we struck up an email friendship and stayed in touch. Six months later I wrote a cover story for the paper on being a new vegan in town. I also pitched the food editor of the local daily print newspaper. Also a no-go; however, she now writes about my vegan cooking services and coaching regularly and I have been a guest on her radio talk show twice. This local media exposure is why my cooking classes are well-attended and I have a growing list of individual clients.
• I attend workshops and training like BlogHer conferences, writers conferences, Vida Vegan Con, and more, as often as I am able. I meet bloggers who I only know online in person whenever I can. Those two things can merge. I recently attended a vegan blogging conference and a company in attendance was looking to fill a newly created position in their marketing department – plant-based team leader. A blogger I met at a conference in San Diego and then socially in NYC a few years later made an introduction to the company rep. I went through a series of interviews and I am now working with them.
• I volunteer in my community – my local community and the broader vegan community. I am on the board of directors of Our Her House. I am a volunteer vegan pledge mentor for The Vegan Society. I am on the board of an outdoor recreation group in the Springs and I am the lead organizer for the Colorado Springs Vegan and Vegetarian Meetup Group. I can link professional opportunities to nearly all of these connections. Jasmin from Our Hen House recommended me to speak at the Niagara Veg Fest and as a result I have now presented at several festivals. My involvement with my Meetup connected me to a new client, specializing in leadership development and executive training, where I do plant-based cooking education.
• I blog. I write about my experiences as a vegan and in the kitchen. It’s how I “meet” people that I might not ever meet otherwise. Readers hire me for vegan lifestyle coaching. Coaches hire me to help them develop their coaching practice. Television stations book me for cooking segments. Convention organizers hire me to do cooking demos. A publisher reached out to me and contracted me to write my second book. Because they all found me  – and what I do and what I love – on my blog.

Someone recently said to me “you’re so lucky” when I shared some of the successes outlined above. I appreciated her support but I disagreed with the notion that it was luck. Every activity I just described is networking or leads to deeper networking and none of these things happened to me; they happened because of me. Because of my actions.

Networking is about where you are. And where you are not.

True story: I was sitting in my living room with a friend and colleague. We were talking about the successful launch of a social media campaign we pulled together. Her husband said, “I have a client that could use your skills.” He made an email introduction. I developed a proposed scope of work, I traveled to meet with the potential client twice and I was hired. It all started while sitting on my living room floor.

As much as some of the most important networking is, at the risk of sounding obvious, the very network of people around you – namely family, friends and colleagues – that network must expand. Especially if you are breaking into a new geographic area or area of professional service. Want to provide services to vegans in your community? Then join the vegans in your community –socially, as a volunteer etc.

And don’t join just to get.

SOURCE

Join to give.

SOURCE

Listen as much as you talk. Give as much as you take. People remember generosity.

Get a mentor. Be a mentor.

Throughout my professional life I have had generous supervisors and community leaders who took me under their wings. And I always made a point to do that myself, to pay it back and pay it forward. In my “new” professional world I have wonderful mentors, including Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Ginny Messina, Jasmin Singer and Victoria Moran. They have each shared parts of themselves with me – given away much of what they know – and are there for me when I am celebrating or struggling or questioning what I am doing. And I am there for them.

In return, I try to do the same. Through emails with blog readers and fellow bloggers, phone calls with strangers who are now no longer strangers, and coffee dates with new acquaintances in Colorado Springs, I share what I know and hope that one day I can ask the same in return. Because mentorship isn’t hierarchical. It’s circular and sometimes we give and sometimes we get. You do not need to be of a certain age or have acquired a certain number of years in experience to be a mentor. You simply need an open mind, a generous spirit and deep desire to see others do well. Share what you know and you build a movement. And seek out others and ask for them to share what they know. It really works. Mentors expand your network exponentially.

Why network? Because an idea – a vision –  becomes a reality when you make it happen and, usually, you cannot do it alone. When you have a network you are never alone.

Tags: network to professionalize your passionprofessionalize your passion

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