3 Ways to Be Prepared For When a Golden Career Opportunity Slaps You in the Face

April 20, 2011 by · 4 Comments

One time, I was at a nonprofit event and there was a photographer there taking pictures of the speakers and the attendees. As the event was ending, several of the attendees approached the photographer to inquire about her services for their own nonprofit events. She said sheepishly, “well I don’t have any business cards on me.” Still wanting to get to know her, the people who had gathered around her further inquired about her day job. Did she work for a nonprofit as well? The photographer then proceeded to tell the people that had gathered all about her current position and how much it sucked. It wasn’t long before everyone walked away, muttering, “my, my look at the time.”

I tell you this story because it’s a prime example of missing a golden career opportunity. The photographer at the nonprofit event had a captive audience for her skills and services slapping her smack dab in the face, and she blew it. Not only did she not have business cards, but she gave the attendees a negative vibe when she started talking about her crappy nonprofit job. Allow me to share some tips for what you should do to capitalize on your golden opportunity when it’s sitting right in front of you. Because, sometimes, you only get one chance!

Always Carry Personal Business Cards

Business cards are still the numero uno way of exchanging information without having to stalk people down on Facebook. Especially if you’re in the midst of a job search, you want people to have a way to contact you (outside of your 9 to 5) if they come across any leads. If you don’t have a set of personal business cards yet, I highly recommend both Vistaprint and MOO Cards where you can get some really great-looking cards made up that won’t break the bank. Learn about what you should put on your personal business card here. After all, you never know when you’re going to be at a happy hour or conference and find yourself chatting up a potential client or a CEO that you would die to work for. In the worst case scenario that you forget your business cards? Be sure to ask for THEIR card so that you can follow-up. And, please DO follow-up within 48 hours, while the memory of your remarkably awesome presence is still fresh in their minds!

Be Ready to Answer the “What Do You Do?” Question

If you’re unemployed, looking for a job that’s different than the one you have now, or even just starting out in your own business, it’s important to be super smooth when someone asks, “so, what do you do?” You DO NOT want to say: “Well, right now, a bunch of nothing until I find a job. Know anybody that’s hiring?” You want to use this moment when you’re networking to sell yourself to that person in the hopes they might connect you to a job lead. This is where having a killer elevator speech comes in handy. Here’s a quick ’n dirty guide for how to craft an elevator speech with some specific examples. The point is that you want to tell the person you’re speaking with how you can help them or what you want to be doing in your next job.

In my own networking, I use a variation of my elevator speech depending on who I’m talking to. For instance, if I’m talking to a nonprofit professional, I might say something like, “I coach people on how to become a nonprofit rockstar.” If I’m chatting up a consultant, I might say, “I teach entrepreneurs how to build their brands, get more business and make more money using social media.” If I’m sitting on the plane next to a conference organizer, I tell them, “I provide keynote speeches and workshops for nonprofits, associations, universities and businesses.” Get the idea?

Project a Positive Attitude

Nobody likes a whiner. So it would make sense that nobody wants to refer or hire a whiner. Even if your last position was the job from hell, you don’t have to tell everyone about it. In fact, you should TELL NO ONE about any negative experiences you had on your last job. When you’re networking, you want to be remembered as “such a nice person” with a great attitude. If people like you, they are more likely to go to bat for you when you need a favor, a client referral or an introduction to a potential employer. And everyone likes a positive person. So turn your swag on: smile, give firm handshakes, and don’t be afraid to talk about your accomplishments.

How are you preparing for your golden career opportunity? Would you recognize it if it slapped you in the face?

Filed Under: Career Advice, Entrepreneurship · Tagged With:

What Makes it All Worth It

April 11, 2011 by · 6 Comments

Last week was a fantastic whirlwind. I’d barely recovered from the awesomeness of the YNPN Conference in Grand Rapids and Benchmark 3.5 in San Diego before I hit the road again, this time to my home state of Ohio. Buckeyes, baby.

I was really honored to have the opportunity to keynote the Securing the Future Conference hosted by Leadership Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce on the topic, “Cultivating the Rockstars in our Midst: How to Get the Best Out of All Four Generations in the Nonprofit Workplace.” The best part? Each of the 200 conference attendees received a copy of our book, How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar: 50 Ways to Accelerate Your Career! Much love to Sue Wilke, Laurie Brinkman and the rest of the Securing the Future conference planning committee for inviting me. I believe I was the youngest speaker they’d ever had, so I hope I did my generation proud :)

It was a pleasure meeting so many nonprofit rockstars in Cincinnati, including the awesome Nita Shaw Douglas, who works at the Cincinnati Zoo by day, and leads the charge in developing the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Greater Cincinnati by night. Can’t wait to see how their chapter will take off!

As soon as I got off the stage, though I had to hightail it from Cincinnati to Cleveland to get to the hospital where my grandmother was having a minor heart surgery. Thankfully, everything turned out OK! I was just so happy that I was able to be there with her, for once.

I got to drive her around and help her run errands. I got to hang out on the couch and watch her favorite shows: Dr. Oz, The View and Oprah. I even had the chance to cook her dinner. As I stood in front of the stove in Grama’s tiny kitchen cooking salmon and sweet potatoes, it suddenly hit me.

My life has totally changed.

It just seems like there’s more room, somehow. A year ago, when I first quit my job, I was just worried about making sure my bills were paid on time. Work/life balance was not initially at the top of my list, but now I see how much more balance I’ve been able to bring into my life. I no longer have the frenzied work schedule of grant proposal deadlines and the stress that comes along with them. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is still a TON of work to do, but it happens at my own pace. Every day, I work hard and help people. And in return, I get to spend (more) time with the people I love whenever I want. I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to take days off – I just do it. Of course, I also don’t get the benefit/security of getting a paycheck direct deposited into my account every month . . . but last week I realized that the tradeoffs are so worth it to me.

What about you?

What is it about your work that makes it all “worth it” to you? At the end of a long day/week/month/year, what reward do you receive from what you do besides a paycheck?

Filed Under: Career Advice, Entrepreneurship ·

Groupon, Philanthroper and the False Dichotomy Between Nonprofits and Business

February 8, 2011 by · 7 Comments

In the past month, a bunch of interesting conversations have been happening around the growing popularity of group-buying sites and how some of them are being used to support philanthropy. I wanted to highlight and connect just a few of these ideas to the relationship currently being played out among nonprofits and businesses, as well as some of my evolving thoughts about social entrepreneurship.

The Groupon Non-Debacle

If you haven’t heard of Groupon, you either live under a rock or you never use the internet. The deal-sharing site has become insanely popular with savvy shoppers over the last two years. Until this past Sunday, that is. I don’t watch TV, let alone the Super Bowl, but of course since I spend a lot of time on Twitter, I saw the Groupon commercial brouhaha on my timeline with people up in arms about their “insensitive” ads. After watching the commercials and taking a look at the site, it was clear to me that the company purposefully pushed the envelope to get press – and are using the buzz to donate some big money to related charities. A risky move for sure, but pretty much a non-debacle as far as advertising goes. Although Stacey Monk’s post on the Epic Change blog expresses dismay with the Groupon ads, I think it spoke more to her disappointment with the company’s founder, Andrew Mason, selling out social change for a lucrative career in business.

Why I Love Philanthroper

Logo

Since the new website Philanthroper launched last month, it’s gotten a ton of mainstream press from places like Fast Company to popular techie news sites like Ars Technica. While there’s a ton of buzz all over the ‘net, the best description of Philanthroper comes from their FAQs:

You know those daily deal sites? We’re another one of those. But instead of selling something, we’re sharing the story of a new 501(c)3 nonprofit every day. And if you’d like, you can give them $1. We’re trying to make doing good a habit.

I have to admit, in general, I’m not a fan of microphilanthropy or all these little Groupon copycat sites that keep popping up, claiming to benefit charities. But the Philanthroper model seems different, somehow. It’s run by Mark Wilson, an entrepreneur whose only “connections” seem to be in journalism, not organized philanthropy, which I think is a good thing. Mark has taken a purely for-profit model and turned it into a simple way for nonprofits to get real exposure and connect with new supporters via social media (just take a look at the Facebook comments underneath each “deal”). But what’s been most interesting to me are the comments on each article that gets posted about Philanthroper, with people wondering if Mark’s going to make any money off of the site or take overhead from the donations given. Th public’s reaction to this particular social enterprise seems to reflect the public’s view of the nonprofit sector in general – that no one should earn any money whatsoever while doing good.

Which brings me to the main point that I want to make about these conversations.

Nonprofits Are Businesses, Too

Nonprofits are Businesses

The founders of Groupon and Philanthroper are leading companies just like the next CEO, trying to give something back to the community in the process. Same as nonprofits, if you think about it. Nonprofit leaders are simultaneously running organizations as well as creating community impact. The only differences are the bottom line and the tax status. Indeed, through the V3 Campaign, DC Central Kitchen President (and one of my most inspiring mentors) Robert Egger has continually shared his great thinking about the fallacy of the dot.org vs. the dot.com. Sean Stannard-Stockton has also posted some good thoughts about this peculiar separation as well. In our rush to marginalize entrepreneurs like Mark Wilson or the folks behind Groupon as moneygrubbers, we have to remember that as organizations go, nonprofits themselves are simply another form of business. When you peek behind the curtain, especially at the aspects of finance, HR, marketing, fundraising/sales etc. there’s hardly a difference. If we look at it that way, nonprofits have way more in common with for-profits than initially meets the eye – and folks like Andrew and Mark can actually be considered social entrepreneurs.

The Growth of Social Entrepreneurship

Other bloggers write about social entrepreneurship much more eloquently than I will here, but the truth is that it’s a steadily growing field that offers new possibilities for all kinds of leaders to straddle the two sectors and effect social change. As I alluded to at the beginning of this post, my views on social entrepreneurship have changed a bit since I wrote this piece about why people should stop doing their own thing and start fixing what’s broken. While I still don’t agree with the automatic conclusion that you need to start your own organization, I can more clearly see the value and sustainability that a for-profit enterprise can bring to a social mission. Group-buying sites are just one example of how the business mindset can support philanthropy. Organizations like Hot Bread Kitchen and Shea Yeleen take that idea a huge step further and build entire businesses around helping specific communities of people. Overall, I think most of it is good for the marketplace and we should keep watching for lessons to apply in and across all sectors.

What are your thoughts on the group-buying/philanthropy trend? Do you think social entrepreneurship and blurring the lines between nonprofits and business is a good idea?

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy · Tagged With: , ,

Confessions of a Sector Switcher

February 7, 2011 by · 13 Comments

I am no longer a nonprofit professional.

There, I said it.

Over the past year, it’s been a bit difficult letting go of that identity. It’s hard not having a job title . . . or a job description, for that matter. It’s tough not having a water cooler. And, sometimes, I even miss sitting in a cubicle.

But it’s time that I face the music. I’m officially a “sector-switcher,” or one who transitions from one field to another. Where I once had both feet firmly planted in nonprofits and philanthropy, now I am steeped in the world of small business and entrepreneurship. I own my own company, and these days, more and more often I am helping others learn how to start or sustain their own businesses as well.

I suppose you could more accurately call me a “sector-straddler” since I provide speaking, training and coaching services for nonprofits as part of my work. I run the Nonprofit Roundtable’s Future Executive Directors Fellowship. I love do-gooders and I always will. I’m proud that I get to work with people who want to change the world.

But over the past year, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that nonprofits do not have the monopoly on social change. No ma’am. Business types are radical dreamers, too. Believe it or not, most of us just want to help people. In fact, some of the most successful for-profit enterprises are founded on meeting a real need.

Sound familiar?

Falling in Love With Entrepreneurship

This semester, I’m teaching Theory and Practice of Marketing in the undergrad business program at Trinity Washington University. And LOVING it. My students all want to run their own nonprofits or businesses and some of them have already launched these new enterprises. I get an incredible sense of energy and growth from working with them as they begin the process of creating new organizations that will hopefully contribute something worthwhile to the communities they do business in.

Until now, I hadn’t taught for Trinity in about a year, partly due to my travel schedule and partly due to the fact that not enough nonprofit grad students were enrolling for our courses. I had been teaching nonprofit marketing and fundraising, which grew naturally out of my role as a development director. But as I quickly realized . . . nonprofit marketing and business marketing are not really that different! And in general, nonprofits and small businesses are pretty similar.

Business As Leadership

When I was working full time as a nonprofit employee, I had mostly isolated myself within the sector when it came to my colleagues and continuing education. There was already so much to keep up with in our own little community, that I rarely ventured out to conferences, trainings or even blogs that dealt with more business-focused topics.

Boy, did I miss out on some good stuff.

Now that I’m in business for myself, there’s so many new things I’m learning about management, sales, marketing, finance, social media, etc. And leadership.

Yes, leadership. However you want to define it.

Helping people. Exerting your influence. Teaching others. Making sh*t happen. That’s what it’s all about. For me, at least.

I don’t work for anyone. But I also work for everyone. This is my new world and I’m having a blast. I’m finally embracing the “e” word and integrating my eight years of nonprofit experience with this new world of business. Just like my students, I’m working to create my own financial freedom, with the intention to help others in their journeys along the way.

In business, the good news (and the bad news) is that no one tells you what to do next. That’s YOUR job, every day. You have to be the one to create, implement and lead . . . or else you don’t eat. And, as most of you know, I LOVE to eat :)

In the meantime, you just try to learn as fast as you can, contribute as much as possible and try not to lose yourself in the process. At least, that’s been my experience in going from nonprofit employee to business entrepreneur.

Any other sector switchers out there? Sector straddlers? Consultants? What’s been your experience in navigating the shift?

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Leadership · Tagged With:

What I’ve Learned After Six Months of Consulting and the Downside of Personal Branding

June 18, 2010 by · 18 Comments

One of my mentors gave me this advice a few years back, “Never believe your own hype.” At the time, I didn’t have any hype, so I just tucked that little tidbit away for future use. Now, after achieving some level of professional reputation through my blog, I understand exactly what she was getting at and it has a lot to do with personal branding. Some people may have never met you before and have no personal knowledge of your work experience, yet hype you up online as a result of your personal branding efforts. That’s because there can be a huge difference in the work that you do versus the way that people perceive the work that you do.

I recently interviewed actor/music producer Sam Jones III for an upcoming issue of Personal Branding Magazine and he shared a good way to think about building your personal brand as a two-part process :

  1. Focus on being good at what you do.
  2. Focus on being famous for it.

For five years, I only focused on the first thing: 100% on getting really good at fundraising and capacity building as part of the work I was doing in my various nonprofit jobs. I even got a Master’s degree in nonprofit management to increase my knowledge along the way. So when I decided to move on to the second piece about getting famous for my work by starting a blog, I had no idea that it would impact my life so greatly. I think I might be in what Jonathan Fields calls “personal branding hell”:

“Building a strong personal brand—being known as the go-to person in a specific niche—has it’s ups. Everyone turns to you for information, for ideas, for thought leadership, for advice, for strategy, for connections, for presentations, for favors, for opportunities, for jobs, for partnerships, for salvation.”

But it also has its downs.

“Because, there are only so many hours you can bill for, so many planes you can get on, so many individual conversations you can have before you…and your life…implode. Especially if you’ve also got a family you actually want to see, friends you love to be around, other activities, passions and hobbies you love to engage in and a commitment to taking care of your body and your mind.”

Hundreds of people now know more about me and my life and work than I can ever possibly know about each of them. I meet people at events that come up to me as if they’ve known me forever, as if we’re long-lost friends. As an introvert (or just a weirdo?), this sometimes freaks me out. And I still get uncomfortable when people come up to me and tell me they’re a big fan of my blog. I hope that what I write in this space helps some people, inspires others to action and informs the rest. It’s just deeply humbling for me to come face to face with the reality that I’ve done that for someone.

I’m also realizing that some people have really high expectations of me just because of how visible I am and I have to constantly manage that. There is the real Rosetta and then the image that people have of Rosetta. So I try really hard to be as open and authentic as possible online so that there’s no disconnect offline.

And I try not to believe my own hype. Yes, I want you to hire me. But I’m still growing and learning in my own leadership journey. People may think I’m a “guru” or an “expert” on a lot of things, but I still make mistakes. I still fail, just like you. It’s a delicate balance.

So, yes, personal branding has a downside. I gotta keep it real with you, especially those who want to get to the same level of visibility. While personal branding is absolutely one of the most important career tools for young professionals, you have to be able to take the good with the bad. In the past six months, I’ve also learned a few other things about consulting and my experiences with personal branding.

The more popular you are, the more critics you’ll get. Recently, a commenter blasted my blog on the Chronicle of Philanthropy, pretty much saying I wasn’t qualified to write for them. And then a commenter here called me a homophobe because I used the word “queer” in a blog post. All I can say is I’m glad I have thick skin. And I’m glad that so many people are reading!

The work will come, but you have to be the one to decide what kind of consultant you want to be. People ask me to do all kinds of work – fundraising, social media, speaking, strategic planning, coaching – the work is definitely out there for nonprofit consultants. But I really wanted to practice leadership in my consulting work instead of just helping people do stuff and get paid for it. One example: after quitting my job as a development director, I was determined not to do fundraising for a while. It just wasn’t rocking my world anymore, so I declined all of those client requests. It felt weird, like what kind of consultant turns down work? But I realized that if you try to do everything and chase all the money that’s out there, you’ll just be burnt out, frustrated and not good at the work you’ve been hired to do in the first place. Which brings me to my next epiphany.

There’s a big difference between short-term and long-term clients. I had already been consulting for two years before I hung my full-time consultant shingle in January. But since I was working full-time, my consulting work was on a short-term basis – helping organizations craft leadership programs, speaking at various events around the country, and teaching workshops on leadership, diversity and social media. These engagements never lasted more than a few days. When I quit my job to consult full-time though, I did it with the security of having six-month contracts with two great organizations. Combined, I worked about 20 hours a week for them and though it provided a steady stream of income, the hands-on management work is just not for me. My favorite activities are the ones I’m best at: writing and teaching. So that’s why I’m now figuring out how to focus my business around that work instead of having long-term clients.

When you suck at time management, having administrative support is really important. It was easy to manage my time when I worked a full-time nonprofit job. The hours were defined. No one expected me to work late into the night (although sometimes I did because I wanted to). Now, there are no defined office hours and I work around the clock. And presumably I have “all the time in the world” to meet with people who want to “pick my brain” or ask me for career advice. I could spend all day meeting with people and helping people, but then I’d never get any writing or client work done. Or sleep. So hiring my assistant Chelsea was great in that in allows me to have a buffer for requests on my time as well as support for a lot of the little details that go into the work I do.

There is no way you will ever answer all of your email. Ever. I get several dozen emails every day asking me to do something – do work for a client, speak at an event, do an informational interview, give career advice, write a guest post or article, share information, blog about someone’s program, help someone find funding, help someone find a job, meet for coffee or lunch – the list is endless, especially when most of these requests are coming from people you don’t know. You have to pick and choose how responsive you can be and still do the work that you set out to do in your business. And still have some semblance of a life. I hate acting like I’m some bigshot CEO that’s too busy to respond to all of their email, but it literally would take over my life if I answered them all. Even though I’ve given myself permission to let a lot of non-urgent messages fall into cyberspace, I still sometimes find myself up at 2am responding to a reader with advice for where to look for a nonprofit job in DC.

This is my life now. It’s amazing and I’m not complaining. But I do want you to understand what’s happening behind the scenes and be a part of my journey.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Nonprofit Consulting, Personal Branding · Tagged With: ,
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