Stewart Hirsch, a seasoned expert in the world of coaching and professional development, joins Mosah Fernandez Goodman on this episode of Hiring Insights to share insights into unlocking your career potential through the power of referrals, networking with confidence, developing the right leadership skills, and career advancement. Stewart practiced law for 21 years, in law firms and in-house, including TJX, Staples, Welch’s and others, developing extensive experience advising senior executives and leading business initiatives. As an executive and leadership coach, Stewart serves as a sounding board and strategic thought partner for C-Suite and other executives, assisting with communication and relationship-building. Having coached hundreds of lawyers and other professionals to increase business, Stewart brings a wealth of knowledge and insight. Topics discussed in this episode:
How do coaching services for executives and lawyers address the professional gaps they may be experiencing? What specific coaching areas can they benefit from, and what services can help them become more well-rounded individuals?
Beyond coaching and independent learning, people can use various other methods to grow and expand. Continually work to not only enhance skills and knowledge but also foster personal and professional development through diverse experiences and connections.
Leadership is often about inspiring. Some people think it's about managing and that can be part of it, there has to be some management work in there, but it's really about inspiring others and influencing others to do what is needed and creating a collaborative environment.
What does it look like to be a successful outside or in-house counsel?
We all are referral sources for each other, whether you call it that is in question, but you do it all the time. Referral sources are resources.
Networking: we must have the mindset of both caring and curiosity about other people, it’s a way of thinking.
Overcome fear or reluctance to network by taking the focus off of you. Focus on the other person. People like to talk about themselves.
How and why to use LinkedIn as a tool to connect or reconnect with people in your network.
For anyone wanting to learn more about coaching or business development planning, I highly encourage you to reach out to Stewart. I know many of readers already have a connection to him, but I know Stewart to be accessible and generous with his time. You can reach Stewart here: S.Hirsch@StrategicRelationships.com.
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Welcome to Hiring Insights, the podcast that provides insight into the executive hiring process and experience. Whether you are a job seeker, a people leader, a recruiter, an executive coach, or simply interested in talent, there is something here for you on Hiring Insights. Today's episode is presented by Top Talent Advocates, where we advocate for executive and legal talent.
To learn more about Top Talent Advocates, listen to other podcasts and hire great talent by visiting toptalentadvocates.com and clicking on the podcast link. Now here's your host for Hiring Insights, Mosah Fernandez Goodman.
00:47 Thanks so much for joining us today, Stewart, really thrilled to have you on the show.
00:54 My pleasure to be here. Thank you.
00:56 We're going to be spending some time talking about coaching and networking and career advancement.
You fill a nice gap in people's professional experiences through your coaching services. I'm wondering for those who might not already know you, particularly, you do a lot of work with attorneys and other executives. Because you might just give us a brief overview of your background and kind of the type of work that you do.
1:20 So I started as a lawyer in a firm in Boston, a big firm.
What was then called a big firm is a litigator. The firm and I both agreed I wasn't meant to be a litigator, but they agreed before I did. I had a little time and I looked. Back in those days, you had time to look. And I moved to a small firm, and I picked up corporate and real estate in a boutique firm, interesting work, and then when we had kids and things started to change in my life, I found a nice job in -house. I thought it was going to be a very cushy in -house position where I could spend the rest of my life there, legal or at least business life there, and it was very close to my home. It was perfect except for a couple of things.
One was it wasn't cushy at all, and it was not something I could spend the rest of my time. I was there for about two years, 11 months and a few days. I know that because I was just shy of three years because when I was laid off in 1990 because of the big recession we were having then, in the retail world, it was called the Hills Department Stores, when I was laid off, I only got two weeks severance instead of three. So there I was out of work with nothing. And I had to be very creative and come up with something quickly.
And there were no jobs in 1990. I don't know how many people will remember that, but it was a pretty bad recession and I had most of my experience in retail at that point in the in -house. I only wanted to be in -house at that point.
I loved in-house life. And so I made up a business. I called it In-House Attorney Services. The company still needed me. I just could not be on payroll. So I went back in as a contractor, and I worked there and I found other jobs. I worked at, I networked, and this is where I really learned to network.
I was always networking, but this was like, you know, needed work. So I networked and found my way into companies like the TJX companies, Boston University, Staples, Welches, Dunn & Bradstreet, a couple of subsidiaries, Cabot Creamery, Damon Corp, which doesn't exist anymore as a lab testing company, and a bunch of others. I had 15 companies, several of them I was filling in for women on maternity leave and I ended up doing their jobs and kept their jobs alive for them so they could come back and absolutely loved it.
Until a few years into it, I realized that I like getting business where I like doing work. And other people were discovering this marketplace that nobody knew existed before, which was working as a contractor for in -house legal departments.
And so it was starting to get a little bit crowded. And my friends were all asking me how I'm getting all this business. And I started to tell them, and I realized that they didn't know and I gave away my secrets.
So usually when I'm saying this publicly, I'll say, write this down, you know, ready? Be nice to people. Treat people with respect. Actually care about them from your heart. Like really care about people and let them know you care. It wasn't that hard, but I got glazed eyes a little bit and so I said, I bet there's a business helping lawyers at that time, helping lawyers get business and then I'll never have to work as a lawyer again and I'll have a whole new career.
So it took me seven years because it was a new thing. No one ever heard of it before. My first real client came out of a litigation I was handling for one of the companies and the head lawyer of a firm told me that asked me what else I was doing with my time, and I told him about this business which was becoming something I was calling coaching.
And he asked me if I would work with one of his people in his firm and I said, "I can't. We have litigation against each other." So ethical about that. So we ended up working out that we could talk again after the litigation was over.
And the day after we settled it, he called me and said, "Okay, can we talk about it now?" So ended up working for that person, helping that person build business. And that was really interesting because this particular individual, he was really uncomfortable with business development.
And that was one of the big things I've learned over the years that many many people are uncomfortable with business development, they're uncomfortable with networking. And so I worked out a plan with him to go out and network and I made him go to, I asked him to go, to various events and he was not allowed to ask for business or look for business. All he's allowed to do is listen and learn about other people. That was kind of the secret to it.
And he did that for three meetings and then he said, "Can I start looking and seeing what I can do to get work." I said, "Now you can." Because he recognized how to listen to people because that's really one of the biggest things one needs to do when doing business development.
So he began networking more and meeting people and eventually, I've learned several years later that he became a rainmaker, became a partner in his firm and he's a very happy camper. We've talked about not long ago. He's still doing great.
5:47 That's tremendous and there are a lot of folks who have these sort of career transitions or pivots, either born out of necessity or born out of curiosity. And so to hear about yours and then understand how you sort of created this new opportunity is really interesting. It's also really interesting, we work at Top Talent, we work with probably 60 to 70 % of our clients or a lawyer in some form or fashion, the balance or other executives, but there are a lot of very important and significant support systems that are out there for people who are growing their business, for people who are looking to dive deeper into a practice area. So, I'm wondering if you might just share a little bit about how you actually work with individuals because when you say you're a coach, what does that actually mean and who are the types of people because I know you work with attorneys but you also work with just executives generally.
Can you share a little bit about your work with individuals?
6:48 So the next part of my journey is I met the individual who wrote the book or co -authored the book The Trusted Advisor and he hired me to be his coach.
That was my first both business development and executive coaching client and I worked with him, and I continued to do work for the company that he founded and through him I met a woman who was on her way up in a company and she wanted a coach.
She ended up working with me and I helped her both career and in -house as she became general counsel and then CLO of a couple of Fortune 500 companies.
And through the introductions from her, I got into an organization which became the WIPL Conference and really learned a tremendous amount about helping executives, legal executives on both career and on being a legal executive. So that's like the rest of it.
And then as part of that program, I met a woman named Caroline Turner who wrote a great book called Difference Works and that's about implicit gender bias and she and I did a program together and also wrote a couple of articles on that.
So all those things together, there's a lot of pieces that helped me with doing this. But the way I work with individuals it's really both coaching and consulting. Pure coaching, there's a concept that people know all their answers. When someone is working with a coach for business development or for leadership, they usually don't expect that they have all the answers and be asked a lot of questions to be able to come up with those answers.
A lot of times there's a discomfort, there's things they need to learn, there's things they need to and so, when I'm working with lawyers and other professionals, I do work with other professionals on business development, what we do is, first of all, for everybody, I have to figure out what their goals are.
Once we know, assuming they know what their goals are, why do they want to talk to a coach? What is it that could be helpful to them? Then we help them prioritize those goals and then we work together to either create a plan or just get into the list of who it is they're trying to reach and talk with and find ways that will work for them to do that. So the consulting part is helping them figure out what to do and the coaching part is helping them figure out how to do it, whatever it is in a way that works for them, in a way that's authentic and comfortable and real for the person I'm working with.
So individually, that's how I work with people and there's a bunch of different things that we do, a lot of learning goes on and that happens in real situations like they bring a situation and then we work it through creating accountability, creating a plan and then a bunch of other things, whatever it is that they need. And for in -house lawyers, the same basically the same or professionals, the same thing, why do they want to talk to somebody?
What are their goals? What do they want to accomplish? What are the issues they're facing? And how do they want to do it? Everything that I do is collaborative.
9:38 Sure. And we often get asked about the other side of the hiring equation.
So what are employers looking for? What are firms looking for? And because of the work that we do with individuals, we think we have a really good perspective on how employers are viewing a particular candidate or a particular process.
But I'm wondering, you also do some work with firms and businesses, right? And I mean, you'll support a corporation or a law firm in certain ways as well, so would you maybe just give us a few seconds on that type of work?
10:08 Well, for companies, I have worked with, for example, CEO of a company who needed some guidance and some help in terms of dealing with people. This particular person was a shiny new object person, like he saw something different and something he liked and he went down that path but the people had difficulty with it. So I helped him figure out a way to share what the new thing was and why it was important because they didn't always know why it was important.
He was usually right. A lot of his ideas were good, but they only saw it as moving from one thing to the other. So what we had to do is find the right words to use the right way to share that kind of information as to what it was about.
In law firms, I work with managing partners on management issues and things that relate to running an organization or running a firm and it just depends on what they're dealing with.
Sometimes it's people that aren't working out so well. Sometimes it's should we be growing, should we be not growing? For that, it's with the smaller firms. I work with a lot of people in larger firms there.
I might work with practice groups and help them create a strategic plan for the group and help the leader to get the people that work in that group to do the things they need to do, which is often about getting business and working with clients.
11:35 So let's take a second and maybe not so much about your personal experience because the background that you just shared with our listeners is really helpful, you know, and maybe for some of the folks listening to this, they were unaware of, you know, I think every attorney and certainly any professional has to develop a book of business is aware of the significance, but they might not be aware of the type of function that's out there to support them, such as people like yourself.
What are some of the other areas of coaching that you see either for lawyers or non -lawyers that kind of work to round out the experience of a practitioner, of an executive that you think people should avail themselves of? What does that universe look like? Obviously, business development and executive coaching. You and I have talked a little bit about writing.
There are other support areas. What's been your experience and what do you see out there as services that can help round out a professional?
12:27 Well, there's a lot of them. First, there's career coaching and resume drafting and interview skills and I send everybody to you for that or almost everybody because I know you're wonderful at helping them with that.
Thank you, Stewart.
Networking skills are really important. Leadership skills, sometimes I do a lot of leadership coaching and then there's some people that just do that. Executive presence is another skill that people need, writing coaches. Several of the clients that I'm working with now came from a writing coach who was working with them but then they had to do something with that writing. So there's a lot of very good coaches out there that help with writing.
There's a bunch of other ones that I think could be valuable. Sometimes people that can teach certain things could be helpful. There are people that help with financial acumen for in -house lawyers and businesspeople that need to develop that.
I'm not sure what I'm missing but I know, I know there's more. There's so many different approaches that people can use. There's also ADD coaches who help people who have some ADD issues that for executive functioning and things like that.
So it depends on what it is that's going on for the person. Typically, for me, it's business development, executive leadership, presence, those are the areas that I spend most of my time on and some career.
13:45 That's really interesting. And as I think about, you know, I've been doing this now only seven or eight years, I think we're on the cutting edge or we're on the maybe the precipice of seeing some new fields emerging as well.
I know, you know, the enhanced focus on legal tech, the integration of AI into all things professional. These are new and burgeoning fields that are going to require the same type of support that we've seen most of the areas that you just mentioned, and I can easily see value being had from people wanting to get ahead of some of those trends regardless of whether they're in the legal industry or outside of it.
Those are things that if people have expertise, why not go to them and figure out how to benefit from it?
14:30 Yeah. One of the things that's important is if they come to me or you or other people, and I know a bunch of the people that do the right things and I'm not right for everybody. I know you're not right for everybody, none of us are right for everybody, but they're depending on what the need is.
So what is important is that individual be able to talk to the coach and be very comfortable and share what's going on so that they're getting the right kind of help. And there's many people that I have referred to others and there's others that do the similar thing that you do and there's some things very special that you do that's different than what other people do.
You really help people when they're looking for something, helping them figure out what they're looking for, then advocate for them. I haven't seen many people that do that.
15:15 Yeah, that's right. Everyone has their own area, and everyone hopefully is doing the best they can to focus on adding value in those unique areas.
The folks that I have sent to you really like is that when you talk to Stewart, you're getting Stewart, right? You're getting someone who's done this for several decades and is licensed and has practiced so and has grown in their own business.
So it's those types of things and those types of experiences and levels of trust that really add tremendous value and credibility.
15:46 And trust is extraordinarily important because I worked with a person, one of the co -authors of The Trusted Advisor who really learned how to dissect trust and how to build trust and trust relationships. In my part of the world of business development and leadership, it's all about trust and it's all about relationships.
16:05 So Stewart, there's obviously coaching, there's a lot of reading and independent learning that can happen, but there's also other types of learning that can happen at conferences, that can and the industry events. I think that's actually how we met. I think my wife met you at a conference and things have gone from there in a very positive direction and, you know, conferences and other forms of learning can be really beneficial. So I'm wondering if over your experience you can't sort of share with our listeners your thoughts on how people can grow and expand and benefit from other resources beyond coaching and independent learning.
16:40 Well, conferences is the big one, you know, the Association of Corporate Council where I've spoken a number of times, the Women Influence and Power Law, which is the WIPL Conference that I mentioned earlier is still ongoing.
I was there for the first two or three years of that conference. I think that's where I met your wife and many others. There's also podcasts like this one, there's head talks, there's LinkedIn, tremendous amount of information available on LinkedIn. Both people posting things and posting articles, writing articles and posting them on LinkedIn. The Association of Corporate Counsel for in-house lawyers has some wonderful tools. The Harvard Business Review is a fabulous - I turn to it time and again, it's a fabulous magazine. It's worth its weight in gold sometimes because when someone asks me a leadership question and I'm not sure, I want to get some other opinions, I'll look there because I have it online, I get it in the print.
I get to look at a lot of the different things. There's many, many good articles. And there's books. There's fabulous books. The Trusted Advisor, The Charisma Myth, Difference Works, Executive Presence by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. She wrote another book, Forget a Mentor, Get a Sponsor, which is also an excellent book. There's just tons of very, very good material out there, starting around 2010, so a lot of very good new books that I think are extraordinarily helpful.
18:16 I'm hoping we can shift gears a little bit and move away from the coaching concepts and the value that that can provide. Let's talk a little bit about what it takes to advance in one's career. The folks who listen to this show are either those who are contemplating a new professional role or opportunity or those quite honestly who are looking to attract and retain that type of talent.
Let's talk a little bit about leadership skills. What in your experience have you found either as an attorney or for an attorney or for a business leader? What are some of those you can't get ahead without having their type skills?
What are those leadership skills that today's market demands and commands for success?
19:04 So leadership is often about inspiring. Some people think it's about managing and that can be part of it, there has to be some management work in there, but it's really about inspiring others and influencing others to do what is needed and creating a collaborative environment.
I've worked with a general council who ended up having to take over the human resources department in her company. The leader before her was okay, everybody loved this person, the person left, and when she took over as a leader, there was resistance. So she had to now take on leadership of a department that was resisting her because they liked the person that had the job before, plus she had her own job.
And so what we discussed and what she did was build relationships with each of the people, which again, I mentioned earlier, it's all about relationship building. She had to build relationships, learn about their jobs, and figure out how she could support them. And that helped her become a great leader of that group.
Other leaders that I've seen, and I'm no expert on leadership, I haven't read the articles or the books on it, but I've seen great leaders. And the best leaders that I know are very human, they're very down to earth, they actually care about the people that work for them, and they listen to people. One of the things that I found to be the best leaders are people that make you feel in the moment that you're with them, that you are truly present, part of executive presence, truly being present in the moment with the people that you're with. So those are just a few.
I did do, it's very interesting, ChatGPT is fascinating. So I did a little exercise with ChatGPT, all right, what does it take to be successful? And I said for a general council, but I think it's, you know, for many leaders. And I got a list of 15 things each one explained.
So I'm trying to learn to use that a bit more. I haven't gone to the next level, the chat GPT -4, I think it's called the next gen. Business acumen, strategic thinking, very important for a leader to be thinking strategically. For the in-house council would be like risk management. Communication is extraordinarily important for a leader.
Having a broad perspective was very valuable, being able to solve problems, adapt. There was one very interesting thing we did when I was involved with the WIPL Conference, Women's Influence and Power and Law, created a role play exercise where we had people role playing general counsel talking to board members and dealing in crises. And so, what's leadership in a crisis? Being whole and calm, having the bravitas being on the spot, but also recognizing the emotions of what's going on with other people in a moment.
So this self -awareness is extraordinarily helpful.
21:56 You know, it's interesting, you talked a lot about the ability for people to connect with those that they're leading or co -leading. Our first guest on this podcast was a leader named Bill George. He's been very successful both in business and academia and now as an author on some of the biggest boards in the corporate boards in the country.
And he said that he's got a great quote. He says, we used to train people to lead by their hands, lead with manual labor and lead by being strong and the ability to deliver. Then we trained as society people to lead with their heads because we started using machinery, we started using computers and mental acuity was the dominant driver in one’s success and now having sort of evolved in those two phases, we're now training leaders to lead with their hearts and the ability to connect and motivate and inspire is really important. So that's a quote that I'll take with me forever.
I love that quote.
He said it more eloquently than me, but that's the Cliff Notes version of it, which ties perfectly to what you had just said, so.
23:07 And it's changed over time because when I was, many years ago, told I wasn't going to make partner in my firm because I wasn't going to be a litigator. The reason, the main reason that I wore my heart on my sleeve, it was clear what I was thinking and feeling and I wasn't hiding myself like I would even say being a whole person and being the same person inside and out or that's leading with the heart.
A better way to live. It's a better way to live. Why not? Why shouldn't we not live in joy?
23:42 Well, I don't know if this will lead to joy, but let's talk a little bit about success means because you and I have the legal community in common at minimum. What does it look like to be successful? Let's start with outside counsel. To be a successful outside counsel practitioner, what does it take to do that today? And then, you know, just sort of broadly, right? There are obviously a lot of boutiques and there are a lot of different size firms with different focuses. But generally, what's driving success in outside counsel and then same question for in -house.
24:15 Ultimately, it's about having and developing the business for outside counsel. That's ultimately what is going to drive their success. However, to do that you have to build the relationships internally so people will actually do the work.
If you sit a smaller firm you may have to be a leader or if you have a practice group, you may have to be a leader of that practice group that also leads to success. You have to be smart. I'm just going to start with, you know, you have to know your stuff.
There's no – I remember a lawyer once told me there's no substitute when I worked with. There's no substitute for knowing the law. There's no substitute for knowing the law.
There's no substitute for knowing the facts or understanding the business. In this case, understanding the business of your clients. If you can't understand their business, it's really hard to help them because they're looking for more. They're looking for more than just somebody who will tell them the law and tell them what they can and can't do. They need advice. What makes someone successful is the ability to give advice.
Within the firm, it's about getting business, but to get that business, you have to be able to have empathy, have actually care about your clients and what they think and what their needs are.
Understand them. Listening. Listening is a tremendous thing that people need as a skill. But these things apply to, these are like human skills. All the skills it takes to be successful are human skills.
Everything I needed to know about being an attorney I learned at kindergarten or something like that.
I think that's true actually, Mosah. I think it's really true, these are the basic skills for living and the basic skills caring about people.
I had one person I worked with, the client was a woman and he was spending most of his time trying to show how smart he was and sometimes by showing how smart he was to her boss.
That didn't bode very well. So, this kind of self -awareness and empathy and understanding of other people and their needs and actually helping other people look good is part of being successful.
And when you have an in -house lawyer as a client, if you spend your time trying to show how smart you are, it's a turnoff. Really want to – if you want to help them be successful, helping other people succeed is what your job is.
26:41 And so let's transition to the in -house. Listening, knowing your business, a lot of those same skills are certainly valuable in -house. Anything unique about being successful in -house?
26:54 Yeah, there is. I think one has to give clear - I wrote this - I think clear and actionable advice I think is really important.
I remember when I first went in -house many years ago, I would be giving advice like, "If you do this, this could happen. If you do that, that could happen." You can do that on the outside because they are the decision makers and its many companies and many companies, the business people are the decision makers, but they often expect you to give an opinion and your reasons as to why they should go a certain route.
And the other piece is to be successful, to really be successful, one would have to have a seat at the table. A seat at the table means you're somebody they turn to for the hard, difficult decisions that they have to make. Seat at the table could be with a business leader, it could be with the CEO. Sometimes general counsel do not have or in -house counsel do not have that position, right, and so they're just expected to just be doing the work, but if they want to be really successful, they have to build the relationship, build the trust and help the other person see how they can be helpful.
Again, how can they make other people look good? How can they help have the business at the top of their mind to do what the right thing is for the business? When people spend their time, whether it's outside or inside, as a lawyer or in any other business, if one is focused on one's own success, that often means it's about you and not about the company or the other people. So, being successful is helping other people succeed and helping the organization succeed.
28:45 So, Stewart, thanks for some of those insights on career advancement and the ability to grow and maintain a well -received leadership presence and position. I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about networking and that's something that you're masterful at and something that you sort of train others to not only be cognizant of, but how to activate and implement in an authentic way. Let's talk about referral sources and referral sources could be for business, it could be for job opportunities.
It can be for simply referring others to connect with people who people believe should be in one another's network. Share a little bit about the importance of them and how does someone get started?
When you say referral sources to them, they go, "I don't have any of those."
29:34 We all are referral sources for each other all the time. Whether or not we call it that is questionable, but we all do that all the time. If I were to ask you or if I were to think about what movie would I want to see this weekend and you're one of my close friends, I might say anything out there that you liked, you become a resource to me.
Referral source is a resource. If I need to get a ride to the airport and I don't know which service to use,
I might call and say, "Who do you use?" You become a referral source for that ride service.
I might think you're trying to get me to give you a ride.
Well, that might be true if we lived anywhere near each other, but we all are resources for each other and we all need each other as resources. A referral source, as it's used in the context that I think you're using it, is a little more focused, which is someone who can refer us to business or connections that will help us in a way that we need, whether it's for business or a job or something else that's important to us, usually in the business sense.
That's how referral sources are often used and I think that's where you're going with this. But I think it's much broader than that because I was once in a conference and there was a woman complaining that she could not find a babysitter.
And I know what town she lived in and the former general counsel of Hill's Department Stores where I worked, this was like 10, 15 years later, he had a daughter who was babysitting age and either she or her friends might have been able to go and babysit.
I also had a client who I was working with doing business development work with him and I'm sure he would have given his right arm to give up his babysitter. This person happened to be the general counsel of a very large company that was complaining by the way. I forgot to mention that.
And there were, speaking of networking, there were about six women in that group talking and I was outside the group and I was listening and I heard that, her complaining, I knew where she lived and I said, "You know, I think I might be able to help you with that." Of course, the circle opened up, I was let in, I told her who I knew and then I made those connections and she found a babysitter.
The result of that is my client was very happy. The former general counsel was happy because I helped him with his daughter even though she didn't become the babysitter or her friends because there were several people involved there.
The general counsel was really happy and everyone else was like, "Wow, where'd he come up with a babysitter? No one can find a babysitter for anywhere." So I became a referral source for a babysitter but I became a referral source for my client who found it very valuable to meet this general counsel, over and above giving over his babysitter.
The thing is, we have to have the mindset for networking of both caring and curiosity about other people. It's a mindset. It's a way of thinking. So every time we meet somebody, that person could be valuable to us or somebody else in our lives. Then I repeat someone in my life to be valuable to the person that I meet or someone in that person's life.
So we can become referral sources and become kind of helpers to each other. Now you were asking one point before we met here like how do you plan when you're actually having a real referral source meeting, a networking meeting with somebody, but that's where referral sources are.
Does that make sense to you?
32:55 I think it does. I think it gets back to a topic that you addressed earlier in the conversation around trust.
When I have sent, say, someone to you and vice versa or someone to another person who wants to avail themselves of a service or bounce an idea off someone, there's a lot of trust that's circulating there.
There's trust that the communication will go smoothly. There's trust that responsiveness will happen, there's trust that people will be open to meeting new people and be respectful in that process.
And I think at the core of it, it really comes down to time and repetition of success and meaningful interactions and the willingness to help. Because I think, as you said throughout our conversation this evening, Stewart, the ability to connect in a human way in an authentic way is really what drives all of us or should drive all of us and that helps build the type of trust that makes for great referral sources or great movie recommendations or great point of connection, whatever it might be, as you said.
34:04 When people are looking for jobs, if they only call you when they're looking for a job, the question might be, what's going to give your attention to them?
One is they could be fabulous and wonderfully perfect for a particular job. But if they build a relationship with you, it's much more likely you're human. It's much more likely that you'll give them a different, a little bit of a different kind of attention because of the way that they are as somebody that you will feel more comfortable referring them or bringing them to somebody.
And I've heard this from other recruiters. That's, you know, people are people. And we're people whether we're in business relationship, social relationship, love relationship, that people are people.
34:45 So, let's talk about, if you had to advise a client who may be coming out of their shell or as I sometimes do with people who are looking to find a way to network, how do you structure or recommend people structure, networking meetings. Obviously, it needs to be authentic, so structure might sound a little too formal.
35:08 Structure really goes that route, but yeah, it's very easy. Research the person first, understand what their needs are, figure out where you might be helpful to them, who you might know, then you have a conversation like, "What is it that would be helpful to you? What are you looking for?" That's a really simplest question. What are you looking for?
What kind of, whether it's if it's business, what kind of business are you looking for? Who are the kinds of other people that would refer business to you?
Who are the kinds of people that would come to you for business? How would I know one if I saw one? What kinds of things do they say that would be valuable and be ready to share the same information to the other person.
You do never know how it works and then think of all the other people that you have in your life that might be valuable when you go and see that person. I know I had one that was really interesting and this was mine where I met a person here in the Boston area who was a CEO of a company and needed a temporary CFO.
One of my clients in Texas was connected to somebody that was involved in a temporary CFO service that was all over the country. I called my client in Texas, asked him if he can get me an introduction to somebody in the Boston area that does temporary CFO work.
I got the introduction, made the introduction, they got some work, and then the person who was a temporary or fractional, now they call fractional CFO, up here in the Boston area said, "Why don't you come and meet my group because we want to help you." Right? Because I did something for them, they wanted to do something for me.
So I met with them, And while I'm meeting with them, one of the guys said, "You sound exactly like my study groupmate from Harvard Business School. His name is Charlie Green. He just wrote a book. It's called The Trusted Advisor. You should meet him.” That's how I met Charlie Green, because I was helping somebody else. I wasn't looking for it, but when you help people, it comes back to you.
37:02 Yep. Totally agree. And I like your approach of due research because this is true for networking, for job seeking purposes, as much as it is I would suspect for business development, finding points of affinity and the ability to connect. You know, I wrote this article which I remind clients to look at as we work with them, but when people get asked the question, "Tell me about yourself during an interview," which I think is actually probably the hardest interview question you can be asked because It's pretty broad and there are a lot of sub -questions, you know, questions in the subtext there. But I always encourage people to start with talking about themselves as people and then transition to the work experience.
I think particularly the higher up you go as a professional, your instinct is to say, "Here are my accolades, here are my bona fides, here are my bona fides, and this is why you should hire me," as opposed to saying, “here's who I am as a person” and then let finding that point of connection because as you work your way up into an organization and the more years you put behind your graduation date, the more credentialed you become anyway.
And it's really the ability to connect and develop that rapport with people. It's the same skills that fundraisers or sales folks use, but it's building that connection that will differentiate you from the pack, right? And doing that more authentically leads to higher levels of success and happiness.
38:30 You know, it's interesting that you said they asked that question. There was a book called, I think it's called 60 Seconds and You're Hired and I learned about that book while doing a career development program for the Association of Corporate Council and one of the lawyers who participated in the program with me suggested it and very helpful to actually have an answer for that question.
But in terms of research, before LinkedIn, it was much harder to research people. LinkedIn makes it so easy and I can't tell you how many people I talked to when we're talking about trying to gather information or learn about or what to say to a client. Like all people write their emails and script conversations, what do I say? I ask the first question is, have you looked them up on LinkedIn? And too many times, the answer is, "Oh, not yet." So, the first thing to do is go to LinkedIn.
You could see all kinds of things that you have in common with people, whether it's where you went to school or what organizations they're part of or what's important to them or look at their posts, look at what they like.
39:31 But for building that common point of connection or actually even just networking. For some folks, it's quite intimidating. Whether you're introverted or extroverted doesn't really matter.
That fear and being vulnerable and looking to begin networking with folks, I think is a point of frustration and fear for a lot of folks. So how do you help coach those people through what might start out as being awkwardness for them?
39:57 So the reason people tell me they have the fear is what are they afraid of, that they're going to look dumb, that they have nothing to say, that they're either bored or boring and that it might be a waste of their time and so on.
The way I come overcome the reluctance is suggest to them, first of all, take the focus off of you. You should be focused on the other person. People like to talk about themselves.
Most people do. There are some that don't, but many people do like to talk about themselves and help them focus on themselves, ask them questions about themselves. Not like if you're a lawyer, not like a deposition, like a conversation, and get to know them and then look for points of commonality. And there's so many different settings that that could be in. It could be in an airport, it could be in a networking portion of a meeting, of a conference or a meeting where the whole goal is to network.
Meeting people about them, not about you, and get to know them a little bit as much as you can in the short time that you have as people. If you see a point of connection, raise it. That takes the focus off of you. That's the easiest, simplest way to do it. I have a program. I used to do all the time, I called it network in a crowd and still feel good about yourself because people are so uncomfortable.
It's like, "What do you do when you walk into the room?" So the most important thing is to think of yourself as a host. So I ask the question, "So what's important when you're hosting a party?" And the answer is, oh yeah, of course. What's the most important thing to you when you're hosting a party?
To invite people to connect and get to know each other.
Yeah. So when a party is going well, its noisy people are talking to each other. That's how you know it's going well. How do you do that? You introduce people to each other. So if you walk into a room and you get to know people, find out what they're looking for and who they want to meet and make introductions. I once went into a networking meeting and I didn't know anybody and I found one guy standing by himself and I said, "What do you do?" And he says, "I'm a roving CFO." I said, "Where do you do it?" He said, "North of New England." I said, "What kind of companies?" He said, "I'm in manufacturing companies and house business." He said, "It's not so good." I said, "Oh, well, do you mind if I network for you?"
So I went around the room. He looked at me like, this is incredulous look, do whatever you want, don't do it to me. And so I went around the the room and I asked people questions, the same questions, what do you do, where do you do it, do you like what you do, how do you get to do it?
I think you were going to say, "I can't help you with that, but I have a babysitter for you."
No, not for that one. But I did come up with somebody and I said, "What do you do?" He said, "I'm a roving COO." I said, "Where do you do that?" He said, "New England." I said, "What kind of companies?" He said, "manufactured companies." I said, "How’s business." He said, "It's great." I said, "Okay. So, you ever get in a situation where there's nobody in the CFO slot or the CFO can't get the work done fast enough and it's affecting you in some way?”
He said, "Yeah, all the time. Why do you ask?" So, I walked over to the corner. I brought him over to the corner where the other guy was. So, if I can take two people that I have no idea who they are, meet them, introduce them to each other in an extraordinarily short time, none of that focus was on me. It was not about me. It was not about me getting work or anything else. It was about them. And if I could do that, imagine if you have other people in your mind that you want to help when you walk into a room and you meet somebody and you ask them questions and get to know them. It makes it so easy, the focus is not on you.
43:35 The best thing about that, Stewart, I think is how selfless it is, but also the fact that you're likely to run into other people who want to do the same thing, right? So it's just that willingness to sort of take a little bit of a leap of faith and jump in and do it.
43:49 Absolutely.
43:51 So you mentioned LinkedIn earlier. Social media seems like there's a new platform every other day and ways to connect. But LinkedIn is certainly the gold standard for professional networking. As though we were in the Budweiser hot seat and just giving really quick advice, what are some of your absolute essentials when it comes to social media and networking utilizing it?
44:17 So first is don't hesitate to use it. LinkedIn is fabulous. Make sure you have a good profile and clear what you do and connect with people that you want to be connected to.
Don't connect with people you don't want to connect to. I wrote a blog called to link or not to link and in fact I met you because of the concepts in that blog, which is when if someone reaches out to you and you don't know who they are, but they sound interesting, you write to them and you say something like, I'm intrigued that by your background. I know you didn't put a message on it because a lot of people don't put messages on LinkedIn if they do it from their phones. If you like to have a conversation, they're happy to do that. I'll only connect with people after I've either met them or had a conversation or something. So I met somebody that actually is the person that ultimately introduced me to you because he sent something without a message or with a message that wasn't exactly something that may be totally clear and comfortable.
But the most important thing about using LinkedIn is to use it as a tool to connect with people. I don't mean like connect on LinkedIn just by connecting, but if someone posts something that's interesting, direct message them, post a comment on it. Use it as a way to stay connected with people. The other thing that's really important is if there's somebody you haven't talked to in years, but you want to reconnect with them, you can use LinkedIn as a tool to do that.
You may already be connected on LinkedIn, or you may not, but you could just look at it and say, I haven't looked at their profile and say, I haven't seen you in years, I found you on LinkedIn. Love to reconnect.
So you can use it as a connection tool, as a reconnection tool, and there's a way to stay connected with people. That's like the short version of what you can do with LinkedIn.
I think that's the most valuable piece of it.
45:58 It's amazing, particularly in the legal community, how small it becomes on LinkedIn, right? I mean, I’m sure you and I see each other. If we compared feeds, we would look at it and say, "Yours looks like mine and mine looks like yours." And we're constantly operating in this small orbit, even though there may be tens of thousands of people out there.
46:22 And there are people that don't like to post. You don't have to post. If you have something to post, do it, but if you don't, use it as a connection tool.
46:36 One final word from your standpoint, if you were a job seeker out there today, what would be your piece of advice for people looking for a new role or contemplating beginning to look for a new role?
46:48 Figure out what you want, what's important to you. A lot of the people that I think that I deal with and probably that you deal with, they're looking for a job and then see if they fit in.
I think it's important to figure out what you want and then either create it or look for something that fits your needs and what's valuable to you.
Now, it depends on where you are and what level you're at in growth and age and experience, but for those who are experienced, all too often people say, "Well, I can't find anything that fits what I am." And usually it doesn't because we all bring so many things to the table.
47:33 Stewart, thanks so much for spending the time with us today. If folks want to connect with you, obviously, if they're reaching out to you on LinkedIn, they should send you a note and let you know why they're connecting with you, but how else can they get in touch with you and what's the right way to contact you if folks want to connect?
So, I have a website, strategicrelationships.com, and LinkedIn, my name is S -T -E -W -A -R -T and last name Hirsch. But I'm one of the few people I'm linked in with my name, maybe the only one. So that's the best way to reach me is linked in or on my website where I have my email address.
Thanks so much, Stewart. Really appreciate it.
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