Expanding Your Network

Tomorrow, I am meeting with my Career Coach (part of the all-expense paid trip to Club Queen's*).  We are going to be talking about how I am going to realize my career goals.  As many of you know, one of my goals is to be a Canadian Tire Dealer.  I know the Dealer "deal" so to speak and appreciate that it will be hard work.  I am not afraid of hard work.

There are a few gaps between who I am/what I have today and who I need to be/what I need to have to be a Dealer.  Some of it will be simple:

• re-write the resume to get the appropriate language in there
• go volunteer at a store and get some operational experience
• make some connections in the Dealer world

Then there is the money side of things.  I learned quickly in the Managing the New Venture class that while angel investors are out there, it is not necessarily a venue for me to pursue.  They expect returns.  I can't guarantee returns because I'll be spending the first few years (or more, but really...  I am going to be the best female dealer ever and then the best dealer ever, so "few" is just fine) establishing my store equity.

I need to find a way to make money and fast.  (And I decided to audit an elective, so my tuition bill is going up.)

My Career Coach, at the end of our brief phone call, said that my homework was to expand my network.  That is how I will find the opportunity that will bridge me until I have the funds I need to complete my Dealer application.  How do you go about expanding your network?  Well...  there wasn't clear direction on that.  I forgot to say that she wanted me to double it in two weeks.  Yikes!  Clearly she doesn't know how shy I am!

I have been working on LinkedIn, establishing contacts with people that I haven't chatted with in ages.  In some cases, it was over 10 years.  I didn't want to indiscriminately add people to my network, though.  I wanted them to be people that I liked or respected.  I had to keep reminding myself of Malcolm Gladwell's reference of a study from 1974 in his book "The Tipping Point" that indicated you needed to expand your network to your acquaintances because they would circulate in different circles than you and your friends...  It's the value of the weak link.  You can understand that, but it is still hard work expanding your network.  I'll be working at it on and off for, what looks like, ever. 

I also volunteered to help out at a local women's lunch event, thinking that it would give me the opportunity to meet some people and start working on those weak links.  I met the two representatives from the organization that hosts the event and a videographer.  I got the videographer's card.  You never know.


*Credit to Barry Cross for this saying