202 | Redefining Networking as You Know It with Nathan Perez
Image of Nathan Perez, guest for episode 202 of the Awarepreneurs podcast
Our guest on the pod this week is Nathan Perez. Nathan is an award-winning author, national speaker and executive career and job-search coach at Career Innovation. He brings to his clients a rare viewpoint on networking, job-search and career development.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Nathan Perez Awarepreneurs Interview on Tips for Business Networking
SPEAKERS
Nathan Perez, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer. Welcome to the Awarepreneurs Podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce today's guests in our topic, and I'm really excited about it, we've never done it in almost 200 episodes, I want to ask a quick favor. If you could go to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on a do a rating and a review, it helps tremendously. Thanks for considering. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Nathan Paris. And our topic today is redefining networking as you know it. And as I just mentioned, in almost 200 episodes, we have never done a show on networking. And Nathan is just the person to help us fix that. Nathan is an award winning author, a national speaker, and executive career and job search coach at career innovation. He brings to his clients a rare viewpoint on networking, job search and career development. Nathan, welcome to the show.
Nathan Perez 01:14
Thank you, Paul, very much for having me on the show.
Paul Zelizer 01:17
Hopefully you won't like think down on a group of really committed social entrepreneurs who've never had a conversation about networking. Hopefully you won't tease us too bad about that.
Nathan Perez 01:26
No, I promise I won't.
Paul Zelizer 01:27
You could tease us a little bit. Come on.
Nathan Perez 01:29
Yeah. So I'll make sure to get some stuff.
Paul Zelizer 01:32
Oh, please. Definitely, definitely kind of, you know, nudge me a little bit. Yeah. So before we get into networking, and why it's important and how social entrepreneurs can do it without feeling terrible and still be effective. We're called Awarepreneurs, Nathan. And one of the ways we get to like to know somebody, is to ask you about a wellness or resiliency practice that you personally use to help resource yourself for this really important, but not always super easy work.
Nathan Perez 02:00
Right, um, I would say I think it's two things. It's its nature and its naps. naps. You know, for me, they're really recharging. I think for most of us, they're really recharging. So I tried to get in like at least a 10 minute power nap. But there are other times where I tried to just let myself sleep if it feels like I need it. I find that sometimes while it interferes with nighttime sleep, usually it doesn't it actually complimented and it makes it better. And nature. I think we all kind of recharge for nature. I think just being human beings. It's something that we connect with. And for me personally taking my dog out for a walk or going for a hike going fishing it. It's almost like a reset for me and in a different way than a nap is a reset. It just feels like that connection.
Paul Zelizer 02:45
Beautiful. And there's a great resource. Have you ever heard of the nap ministry? Is that mean anything to you? No, I
Nathan Perez 02:52
haven't. But it's so
Paul Zelizer 02:53
cool. It's it's really cool black thought leader I'm spacing the name of the founder. But it's a fabulous movement about napping and wellness and undoing sort of that mainstream business idea that we always have to be doing something quote productive and we can't just be humans resting and living and it's called the nap industry. I will put a link in the show notes but I highly highly recommend checking it out.
Nathan Perez 03:23
Yeah, the nap minister you know, I have to I should ask you to have you ever heard so nature in the connection with people? Have you ever heard that the color of love is green?
Paul Zelizer 03:35
I have not. How cool is that?
Nathan Perez 03:37
It is pretty cool. We I think we associate love with the color red. But also with the color red is anger and passion you know and stop signs that kind of thing. And it just it was I thought it was worth mentioning because again, when we go out there in the nation nature surrounded by trees and grass, and when we go into the mountains or wherever we go into nature where we're kind of surrounded by love how beautiful I I said this before we hit record, but I'll
Paul Zelizer 04:02
say it now, listeners, you know I'm a little bit passionate about trail running. I just did one of the most epic adventures in my life I was telling Nathan about it's called the rim to rim to rim. I'll put a link to it. But basically you start on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, you go down into the canyon, run over the Colorado River, go up to the North Rim turn around and come back, go back down to the river and come back. It was exquisit 46 miles is some of the literally it's one of the seven wonders of the world. I was just saying I should be tired after an adventure like that. And I did sleep a lot yesterday. But today I feel so incredibly like full of love and life and energy and vitality. And it just doesn't seem right for somebody 53 years old to just to one of the most epic Adventures of his life to be so engaged but I can say for sure that whatever happened down there, I came back feeling incredibly restored. So yeah, just tyria totally So this work that you do need then with networking and helping people, you know, move the needle on their personal goals, whether they're their business goals, their income goals, their impact, something we're really passionate. Before we get into, you know, your system and how you help people with networking. Just walk us back a little bit and give us the short version of the origin story. If somebody wanted to understand why Nathan Perez was so excited about networking, and help people build networks, what would you say? And how did you get into that work?
Nathan Perez 05:38
Right? That's a really good question. So the short version of this is that my first career so I've had three, almost four completely new and different careers. And my first one was in the arts, in the entertainment industry as a professional actor, and writer and I did that for 20 years. But along the way, I concurrently developed my other my bigger career, which is around business, which eventually led to the books. And through a networking opportunity that happened in 2012, I was introduced, who is my co author of the 20 minute networking meeting. And when we developed the material together, I realized that all of my 20 years experience in the entertainment industry, applied directly to what we are doing at the moment. And she was coming to she was coming to the same topic from a different angle, which was executive recruitment, and the two things just mash and it turns out that all of networking actually is kind of the same doesn't matter what business or industry you're in. And that when we wrote the first book, then I went and wrote three more and that drove my professional speaking around this topic and other career topics and then coaching coaching executives.
Paul Zelizer 06:54
So a 20 year acting career - I'm doing a little math in my head Seems that you started in the entertainment world when you were like three or something.
Nathan Perez 07:04
I'll work for less you as young as I am. That's right.
Paul Zelizer 07:08
I thought so.
Nathan Perez 07:09
Yeah. Yep. The the silver in my in my goatee gives it away,
Paul Zelizer 07:13
I suppose. I like to joke I earned every one of these gray hairs in my beard.
Nathan Perez 07:19
Exactly. Me too. In fact, each hair might be might might be representative of an experience that took me to gray haired on
Paul Zelizer 07:26
exactly the date that we have listeners who are, you know, just world class in terms of social entrepreneurs and emerging social entrepreneurs really looking to move the needle on both their impact and their income, build really strong businesses as well as make really significant difference in the communities they care about. If you were gonna, let's say there were 3000 social entrepreneurs and room and they say, here's the stage, Nathan, and all eyes are on you. And they say, Okay, why should we even do this now that we're busy? I mean, yeah, I guess we're supposed to network but like, why really, like, explain this to me as a busy person with lots of things on my radar? Why should I prioritize networking? Before you even give me tips for business networking.
Nathan Perez 08:13
Right? It's because we need help from other people in order to achieve the things that we want to achieve, especially when it comes to business, and especially entrepreneur ism. If we were in a big group, a big room of 3000 people and said, What is the first thing I got to do, I would say, go meet people, and meet as many people as you can. And when you meet people who are like minded, whether it's the industry or the business, or just even mission and goals, it opens up the door to information exchange. And that that is what networking is all about is information exchange. But the more information that we have, the more we can do with it, the more that we do with it, that tends to really move the needle. In fact, it actually lays out the path before you on the path, you know, your journey that you're on. So I would say meeting people, and meeting people and getting to know them in a different way, then like in the business context, business tends to be you know, about business, it's kind of transactional, we each have something that we want, sometimes that's about money, but really, it's still because it takes people to run businesses. It takes relationship building to to, you know, become friends with and actually connect with people not making contacts connecting. I'm thinking of the thing in the conscious business world is where I first heard that people, you know, all things being equal. People want to do business with those they know like and trust, right, those three phrases know, like, and trust know, like, and trust. I
Paul Zelizer 09:44
can't think of how many mentors and colleagues have like, kind of drilled that into my head and eventually, it started to make sense, like, Who would I hire right? And, you know,
09:53
right now,
Paul Zelizer 09:54
I'm thinking of plumbing because I've got a thing going on my kitchens.. Do you know like and trust, right? It makes sense. And yeah. Sometimes when we're busy entrepreneurs are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but but but I just got to work on this thing that I'm building or like, I have this client right now that's really, you know, needing some time and attention. But then at the same time, people are like, Paul, I want to grow my business. And, you know, to nudge somebody to pay quality attention here, just kind of, you've heard me listeners talk about a spiritual highlighter, when Nathan was saying about relationships and information. And that information can be everything from how do you build a world class product or service to? How do I get this in front of the people that I'm really excited about? Oftentimes, the technical term is influencer marketing, if you know somebody who's important in the space, and they know like and trust you, they're going to help you get more clients. Is that fair to say, Nathan?
Nathan Perez 10:53
That is yes, it's very fair to say in fact, I would say so if relationship building is a cornerstone to networking, right? And what and if there's a cornerstone to the relationship building, that would be trust, and familiarity. And I think the easiest way to look at this is, is just imagine that we, you and I or you and someone else, whoever it may be, you sit down from each other for like 20 minutes at a time, right, and you have a discussion about whatever it may be, it could be about work experiences, or goals or board affiliation, sports, whatever it may be. But the point is, is that we've gotten to know a little bit about one another, maybe it's not a lot, but it is enough to put a name and a face to again, should we should we come across one another. And let's just say that that happens? Well, we see each other and we either pick up where we left off, or we have a whole new discussion. But the whole point is that now we further the information between us. And the more that there is between us, the more that increases the familiarity, right. And the for the more familiarity there is between two people, the more that seeds trust, and that intersection where trust and familiarity meet, that that Crossroads is where all the magic really happens between networking contacts, because the more I get to know about you, and the more you get to know about me, the further and further away we get from being complete strangers. And I think if you really think about that, and I'm going to take this one idea further, in terms of the relationship building, when you really think about it from that perspective, isn't that a little bit like how a friendship develops? We get to know one another, a little bit out of touch a little bit at a time. So for example, if I already say, Can you point to the exact moment that you became best friends with your best friend, I would imagine that'd be a difficult thing to do. Because there isn't like a real single agreed moment where we go, okay, we best friends now, from here going forward rest of life,
Paul Zelizer 12:53
you don't change your Facebook status, right?
Nathan Perez 12:58
Change your Facebook status. It just happens a little bit at a time. And when you think about that overall, and you consider your your professional reputation, right, and there's too, wouldn't you hope for a degree of trust and familiarity between the two people? Sure, you would and, and so with the other person. So it's it is it's very important, it is that Cornerstone to relationship building. It's It's It's about trust and familiarity. Beautiful.
Paul Zelizer 13:25
So we've talked about why listeners if you kind of aren't getting the fact that I'm on board that this is really important. I mean, a lot of time people that Paul, how do you know so many people, I'll tell two quick stories or give you two examples. In the next month, there's two different people I happen to live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, people love coming to New Mexico. So a former client that I work with is coming next month, and somebody I've never met in person, but we have some very close mutual colleague slash friends is coming to New Mexico. And both of them it's real priority to go spend some quality time whether we're going to have a meal, or go to the Botanical Gardens or take a hike together. I do a lot of that. And as a result, having done that and been in business for 14 years now people are like, how do you know so many people? And how do you get so many referrals from people in your network? It's because I do things like that when somebody is coming to town and like, please reach out, let's go out for a meal. What do you know? Do you have a place to stay? Do you like need some suggestions on what to do and what to visit. And that's all part of just in 14 years that's become part of my DNA as an entrepreneur to value people and connect and be interested in what they're doing. And it just naturally leads to referrals in a way that I'm really happy with. And I just can't say enough like I'm on board with what Nathan's saying we're going to move on listeners to what you actually do to do this effectively. If you're still kind of scratching your head saying I don't understand what this has to do with my goals. please reach out. So Nathan talked As networking can sometimes feel like this big kind of amorphous blob of a thing that you just do relationship building, and then somehow my impact, you know, my business goals and my APAC goals, making the world a better place are just supposed to happen. And one of the things I love about your word is you're more intentional than that. And specifically to start it off, you talk about this thing called the 20 minute networking meeting. What is it? And what are the basic steps of the 20 minute networking meeting?
Nathan Perez 15:31
Right? Okay, so the 20 minute networking meeting is a very simple, some people call it a system a process, it just is what it is. And there basically are five steps. And each one of them in this is a meeting five steps to the meeting. And each one of them have time limits. And even before I get into the steps, maybe I should actually set this up and talk about just really quick what networking really, is that okay, oh, yeah, absolutely, I think to do that will allow these steps to make a lot more sense and have and have some context to it. In fact, maybe I should actually start with what networking is not what networking is not is like being all slick and smooth and salesy and you know, dropping names and working rooms and that sort of thing. That's what gave the word networking a negative connotation in the first place. In the first place, we've kind of pinned these these these behaviors to the word, and consequently, people end up and those negative, you know, those those behaviors are everything I mentioned, being slick and smooth or salesy, and whatever. And so people, because they've associated with those behaviors, they just avoid networking, which really impacts us, right? Not the people that we don't end up meeting in the first place. And there are many different purposes, and many different outcomes for for networking, but everything that happens in a meeting or in a discussion is really just information is what we do with that information. And so what networking really is, is just the obtainment of information, or the exchange of information. And when it comes to a meeting, especially the way that we're talking about it today, it's a structured meeting, this is going to be a little bit more formal, rather than something you'd have, you know, like out on the street or something spontaneously. And the steps are really straightforward. And I'll say it right now when as I go through them, you're going to realize you've been doing this stuff all along, maybe just without this process or without the practice. And the first step is pretty simple, straightforward. It's a great first impression of you. So if it's in person, it's eye contact, and a warm smile and a firm handshake. If you're on video, it's the same thing, except you don't have the handshake. And then it's a little bit of chitchat, you know, you just kind of warm into the conversation. And it can be in anything, it can be about the weather, although, you know, everybody talks about the weather, but maybe there's something unique that day or that week, or whatever it may be right now we've got some crazy weather. So maybe that's a good topic, it's happening all over the place. And that takes us into the second step. And the second step is the great overview. And that's about a 30 to 62nd overview of your background of your professional background. Now, if you are networking for entrepreneur reasons, or for sales or business development, maybe it's not all about you, it's got to be some about you, people do need to know who they're talking to. And then maybe part of it is also about your product, or maybe your business, maybe it's a mix of all of those things. But the purpose of that of doing this at this point in the meeting is that you're not just giving this background, you're actually giving context for the great discussion, which is the next step. And the great discussion is actually comprised of five key questions. The first three, I'll talk about the first three, and then the fourth and the fifth. The first three are specially formulated for your contact, you're hoping to learn things from the unique wisdom or perhaps knowledge from this particular person. And what I mean by that is that, you know, we can go out there, there's, you know, there's a lot of entrepreneurism that I do on my own. And that means I could be reading blogs and listening to the radio, and then TV and magazines and go to the library. And that's wonderful. I will inform myself, but really, what I'm doing is I'm kind of piecemealing a bigger meaning together for myself. But when you network with somebody, it's the shortcut, because you're talking with very specific people who might be in very specific roles or positions that that allow them to give you very specific answers in return. And then you're not piecemealing it, you're just getting straight to the point. So that would be you develop those three questions for your contact. The fourth fourth question is about asking for more people to meet with. Okay, asking for more names. And people tend to get a little bit weird about having to ask that question. You know, people don't want to give names, it's gonna make people uncomfortable and so forth and so on. And look, these things that we're worried about. It's true. Those things that I said and the reasons that we avoid asking the question, but we got to remember, too, that if someone said yes to your networking meeting, it's because they wanted to help you. Plus, it's a networking meeting. This is a question that's very common in this kind of meeting. Plus, people are doing this asking this question every single day, and every kind of business and industry that is out there. So if that's something that worries you about asking to meet more people through people, don't worry about it, it makes a lot of sense to ask this particular question during a networking meeting. Okay, so that's questions one through four. And then question five. And this is probably the biggest and most important question, in my opinion that you could ask that question is, how can I help you? How can I help you for the help that you've just given me or the time that you've just given me the expertise or the knowledge, whatever it may be? This is a, I'm pleased to say this. I get emails about this question all the time, the power of this question, and what a game changing question it really is. And I have to tell you, for those of you that are listening, this isn't just reserved, don't reserve this just for a networking meeting, this is something that you can ask anybody. And if you do, you will see a visible change. And you therefore may even see a complete change in your relationship with that person, no matter how new that relationship may be. So that's, that's steps one through three. And then the fourth step is just wrapping up the meeting. And you just wrap up the meeting by reviewing what it is that you've agreed upon between the two of you, thanks for for being willing to introduce me to her. And I'll send you an invitation to the next round table meeting. And then the fifth step is just following up afterward. And there are two kinds of follow up to keep in mind, you have immediate follow up, which is immediately after the meeting, you know, up to about 24 hours or so, if you go beyond that to like 48 hours, you sort of risk your contact feeling a little bit like an afterthought. And we have to always stay present and aware and remember that when people give us time, they're giving us the gift of time, it's valuable to all of us. So you want to you want to follow up, you know, pretty quickly afterwards to make sure that you don't risk that afterthought. risk. Yeah, that's what I want to say. And then and then the fifth step is, or I'm sorry that the other part of the follow up is the ongoing follow up. And this is keeping your network alive over the course of time, you can do this maybe about once a quarter. And all you have to do to stay in touch is stay relevant to what you guys talked about the first time or the second time around that you met, you'll always be able to hark back to a prior discussion with things that are already familiar between the two of you, and be able to pick up from there and continue the discussion as you go along. So that's it, those are the five steps, each one of them have a time limit. And as I said, before I started that whole thing. A lot of this is probably going to sound familiar, right? Because we actually are doing this stuff all the time, just maybe without that process or the practice. And
Paul Zelizer 23:11
I love that you've given people such a it's just a very robust kind of infrastructure to their networking meetings, because sometimes people I've been asked to be, you know, we have a conversation with me, Paul, I'm working on blah, blah, blah, I'm starting this new social enterprise. And you know, can we sit down and have a networking conversation great. And, and I can feel sometimes being on the receiving end of somebody really wanting and I can remember when I started my business people told me I'm supposed to network. And so I did, but I didn't really, for years, I mean years, every Friday afternoon, I had a spot in my calendar, which was to encourage me to either have a networking time or be setting things up at least once a week. And if it wasn't on Friday afternoon, because somebody could be done Tuesday, I was still tending to my network with that hour in my calendar to be either doing a networking meeting or working towards additional align networking. So this is something I've put into practice very early on my visit, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So it's kind of like chatting with people and I'm sure early on people felt well like this guy's kind of nice, he seems sweet but you know, like it didn't quite intersect in a time effective way and surface their desires and what they're working on and how I might be I love that question. How can I help you in 20 minutes to get to all that it just is such a gift listeners that Nathan just gave you so I hope you're paying attention and writing down those steps. I want to back up just a little bit Nathan and ask is there any lessons when you're approaching somebody for networking conversations there's in in any part of business there's more and less skillful ways to approach something any encouragement or any nuances? That can help our listeners approach somebody for a networking conversation in a more skillful way.
Nathan Perez 25:06
Yes, you need to research, you have to do your research ahead of meeting with anyone, you need to know who you're talking to. And you need to know what you're talking about. So I would say research and an agenda. And your agenda is going to be informed by your research, there would be no reason to reach out and ask someone to spend their time with you. And whatever information they can give you without knowing anything about them, and or their organization. So you've got to have you got to have to, you got to do the research, you learn about them, you'll learn about their background, and you'll learn enough about them that you can start to formulate questions for them according to what you've learned about them. So I would say research and then the agenda. Once you have your questions pulled together, you have a plan of conversation, that's what an agenda is. It keeps things on track, right. And it allows that other person to understand where you're going to go with the discussion, these two things are the best way to prep and to go into the meeting, because it allows another person to get the impression from you that you know how to run such a meeting, and that you're informed with what you want to talk about.
Paul Zelizer 26:15
Beautiful and I'll just be transparent. You know, I've been in business 14 years, the enterpreneurs community is on 294 members or something now and individual clients and I'm a trail runner, and I'm active in my community, I say no to every single networking meeting where somebody hasn't done their homework, won't take one of them. And I say yes to every single one that somebody has clearly gone through the time and energy to kind of get a sense who is this guy, Paul, and why they might be interested in having this conversation and especially that they're not just interested in pitching me their thing. Sorry, I love LinkedIn. But LinkedIn is notorious for not stranger, uh, Hi, can we meet so I can tell you about my services. And by? Nope, not interested, please don't ever send me a message like that again. So anyway, I just want to highlight again, what you're saying, Nathan, most of the busy people I know, who are really not just talking about moving the needle in their space, but really are moving the needle in their space. When somebody reaches out, we try to be generous. I just met with somebody last week who just graduated from MBA school and wants to do something very specific in a social impact. You know, as a social impact entrepreneur just getting started in his career, it was an honor to meet with this individual. And when somebody sends me a vague, can we disconnect it? Nope. Sorry, I'm busy. Is that pretty fair to say, Nathan in terms of more experienced business leaders saying yes, when they can and know when somebody approaches them in a pretty fuzzy, let me just have your time kind of
Nathan Perez 27:55
away? You bet. Absolutely. Because you have the expectation that if someone comes to you and and even if you get a sense in the email, that there really isn't a plan of conversation, lots of times, you'll get no time tends to be the deciding factor when it comes to accepting networking requests. And sometimes we get burned. You know, I said, I need 20 minutes of your time, but then I end up taking an hour. I mean, you know, you wanted to help. So you met with me, but I didn't use the time well, you have a couple of those experiences. And by the time you get to around the third request, you're much more likely to say no, but let's just take for instance, that you're very experienced business person and you and someone reaches out to you fresh out of college. But they're very specific in their message and says I would love to ask you three questions about entrepreneurism or marketing operations. It'll only take 20 minutes, and I'm happy to come over to you or do it by phone. Well, that's a short message, and you know exactly what to expect out of it. And if you know that this is a young person, they're already standing out. That's not usually what it would sound like coming from a young person. So now, you have an exception, a very experienced business person who's willing to take a meeting with someone who clearly is just out of school, but seems to have their act together. And that's how that's how it Yes, happens.
Paul Zelizer 29:12
Beautiful. So let's do this. When we come back, I want to ask you, Nate, then about who you work with in your business, what kind of things you're up to career innovation, how you've used networking, and building your business and what some of your revenue streams are. Before we do that, just want to hear a quick word from our sponsor. Do you have a business that's about making the world a better place and you want it to grow both in terms of your impact and your income? If so, I'd like to talk to you about podcasting for a minute. podcast listeners are pretty exceptional and three research back ways that listeners are different, really stood out for me when I started learning about podcasting. Number one, podcast listeners are what are called early adopters. We like new ideas, we're seeking them. And when we hear one that makes sense, we put it into practice like almost as fast as possible much earlier than the general public. So if you've got a new and innovative business, and you can connect with people who love new and innovative ideas, you see where I'm going with this. Secondly, podcast listeners are what are called natural leaders. In other words, people in both our business and our personal lives in our community, they turn to us for new ideas and accessing networks and things like that. And number three podcast listeners make more money, not just a little bit more money, but quite a bit more money. When you put those three things together, it's a pretty exceptional group. And if you have something that has nuances, and it's important to understand the intersections and their complex topics, to be able to use this medium to connect with people like that, well, maybe you start to get a sense why I'm so excited about it. If you'd like to learn how to use podcasting, either as a host, or as a guest, or you'd like to do both aware printers has a podcast success team, or we'll walk you through each and every step of learning how to find great podcasts to be a guest on like Nathan did a fabulous job of pitching me and providing value right there in the pitch, right? How do you find somebody like that? And how do you pitch them in a time effective way that's going to get you on the kinds of podcasts that are really going to move the needle, where you want to start a podcast and all the decisions that go into that. If you'd like some support, go to a where printers comm forward slash podcast dash success, and check out the podcast success team. And thank you to everybody in our podcast success team who sponsors this podcast. So Nathan, in the second part of the show, we like to joke about putting on our entrepreneur glasses. So put on our entrepreneur glasses and tell us a little bit about your work from the vantage point of somebody who is building something that wants to both have good income that you and your team members can live well, but also have positive impact. Tell us a little bit about those two lenses. What do you see when you look at career innovation?
Nathan Perez 32:20
Wow, that's a that's a really good question. Okay. glasses are on seeing clearly now. You know, there's I think maybe I should just clarify the question a little bit. You mean the elements of career innovation? And what I do?
Paul Zelizer 32:38
Yeah. Like, like, how do you want career innovation to make a dent in the world? Like from an impact perspective? What? Yeah, how is how's the world gonna be a better place when your time on this planet is done? And then how does it work as a business?
Nathan Perez 32:52
Alright, alright, so firstly, how does it work as a business, it works a few different ways. And I have in this kind of, you mentioned this before the break, that there are different revenue streams. So I'm an executive career and job search coach. But I also have this other business of professional speaking, but all put together. I'm so I'm a coach. I'm a professional speaker. I also hold workshops that are in person, I even do them over video. I also, besides the books, I work with other authors that are in the career space, and I also coach people around public speaking executives in particular, but other people who want to be professional speakers themselves, and I'm also developing a podcast. So there's a few different areas to what I'm doing. But all of them filter into one real message, which is the relationship building, and reaching out and getting the assistance and the help of other people, all kinds of other people through my own journey. Through the years. I've been in multiple industries. And I've worked I've worked at various levels, in terms of, you know, seniority, so I was an executive assistant at one point actually did that work for 14 years. And my last job title was actually called Vice President of Research. But all of this work in that I do with individuals and when I in the public speaking is sort of redefining what, what networking is sure, but also just what relationship building in and kind of reframing it to something that we already do. everyday. We have discussions with people. Every day, we talk about many different topics, we shift gears and then we go into mom or dad mode. And and sometimes these worlds collide. But the way that I approach everything, is that everything really is just the same. A conversation is a conversation. Sometimes it's professional, sometimes it's personal. Sometimes both of those things happen in the same discussion. But if you realize that it's not really different from person to person to person, then all we are is talking to people. And the idea is so I work with executives and senior executives primary Because I was in the retained executive search industry, but the thing is, is I because of my career in the arts 20 years in the arts as a professional actor, and writer and all the jobs I've had, I've met a lot like you, I've met a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds, and pulling that all together. All those people in all those different backgrounds allows the people who I work with to meet with people who are not like them by understanding that they are exactly like them. So I work with the whole spectrum of career developers and and job seekers from bartenders and waitstaff to designers, because of Hollywood, I work with celebrities and producers and directors, lighting designers, and the stage world, it can be stage hands and lighting and design set design, all the way up to corporate and senior corporate up to the the C suite level. So career innovation kind of it's it's that entire realm, it kind of sounds like a now that I'm really talking about out loud how they can be sort of diverse and different from one another. But like I said, and here's the overall message is really all the same. We're just people with different experiences. That makes sense,
Paul Zelizer 36:14
it totally makes sense. And if somebody was trying to get a sense, like how much of your revenue might come from your coaching work, how much of your revenue might come from being an author and selling books, Speaker workshops, etc, just like rough percentages, as somebody is trying to get a sense of their single biggest appreciation of the shows that we asked granular questions like that. So Alright, somebody's trying to understand Nathan's business, like, yeah, give us like, what's the, what's the pie of accounts look like in terms of your different revenue streams?
Nathan Perez 36:46
I would say it would be the speaking in the works, it's probably like in thirds with a 10%. in there. It would be the the speaking, the coaching, the books, and the other 10% are the other couple of things that are mentioned out there. So working with other authors. And while I haven't gotten there with the podcast, I'll kind of include that in there. So I would say yeah, broken, broken into thirds that way with that 10%.
Paul Zelizer 37:13
Beautiful. And when you look at the impact you're having, like you reflect back on the people you've worked with in this role, Nathan, you know, you started when you were three, we've already established that you've been working for a long time. But in this role, we think of the talk to us a little bit about the impact, like when you reflect on why you do this work, and how this work makes the world a better place. What would you say about that? Oh, gosh,
Nathan Perez 37:41
it's amazing. And I feel really, really blessed because I get immediate feedback from folks. So if I'm working as a coach, and someone says, You know, I have this diverse background, nobody seems to understand it. I feel like I'm this kind of person in the professional world, but they see me as this completely other different thing. And then we work together to kind of align the message and make sure that it's being articulated properly, and they end up getting a dream job. And they come back to me and say, Oh, my gosh, you wouldn't believe it. They saw my value, they saw who I really was. And I got this completely different title or job that they didn't see me as before. And that's a huge deal. Because you know, any of us that have a job and rely on a job to pay the bills, to have an influence or impact on a single person is a really big deal. And I get to do this with dozens of people per year, on a one to one basis. And then the professional speaking, especially around networking, this, you know, this mysterious thing of networking, I get to talk to huge groups, and the groups can you know, they can go from anywhere from 30 people to 1000. I did 1000 there were 1000 attendees on a webinar not very long ago. And to get notes from them through LinkedIn or an email from them saying, Wow, I never looked at networking in this way. And it's changed a lot for me, or I'll hear that someone read the book and they send me an email saying this has completely changed how I look at relationship building and it was responsible for me getting my job I get I get this regular feedback all the time and, and and it feels just so good to know that I am helping people with something that they believe to be really important to them.
Paul Zelizer 39:25
Love that Nathan, one of the things I'm thinking about if I'm a listener and I'm trying to wrap my head My sense is Nathan is your people person you care about people you invest a lot of time you're telling other people go invest in your network and let me show you how to do it right. When you've been out this a while suddenly then you've said this earlier, you know a lot of humans, right? Yeah. How do you as somebody who cares about relationship building and building networks and you know, maintaining them through time any suggestions or advice about like, how do you keep that manageable especially as the start accumulating some years in the saddle of trying to be a relationship oriented business owner? I've seen your LinkedIn there. There's, there's a few zeros there and the number of humans that you're connected to, right? How do you how do you balance? I care deeply about relationship. But I also like have a business to run not just here to chat in random ways with complete strangers. Yeah. Quality of life and have time to like, take care of yourself and exercise and go into nature. Any suggestions for listeners about balancing all that and doing network building skillfully over the long haul?
Nathan Perez 40:47
Yeah, you know, the way that I keep in touch with people, so you mentioned LinkedIn and on LinkedIn, I have 30,000 connections. A few years back, it was cited by the Huffington Post as one of the most connected in the world. But I have to say upfront, though, right, that I don't send 30,000 holiday cards every year.
Paul Zelizer 41:05
But you're a networker
Nathan Perez 41:06
right now. And I try. So I don't literally know, everybody that's actually within my network, that network is large, because of the work that I used to do in in recruitment. But what I do is everybody that I network with and that I've gotten to spend some time with, I actually view it a little more as like a friendship. And what I mean by that is, if you ever spend a little time when you're talking maybe business or this topic or that topic, usually what bleeds in there somewhere is stuff that's happening in our personal lives. And you get to know people a little bit because lots of times when we talk about career sales or business development, we're also talking about that stuff from like a personal standpoint, and you begin to learn more about individuals as you go. And when that happens, and this can happen for anybody I in particular, I really like people, I think they're interesting. I'm an introvert, and we can talk about that if we like, but I like to engage enough that I remember a lot of these things. And by the way, I do also take notes. And so because I remember these things, when something pops up as time rolls along, and it reminds me of one any individual, I'll send a note or reach out. And I'll say, Hey, I was just thinking of you, I just had a conversation about podcasting or about career. And you and I talked about x, y, and z, it reminded me of you, I just wanted to see how you're doing, how things are going. And that's it. But because there is that familiarity that's already between us, because of the pre existing meeting, or meetings that we had, more often than not people are right there with me, because I'm back referencing something that was already familiar to us. And then it's just sort of rinse and repeat. And I do this with people from all different backgrounds in all different industries, that just doesn't matter anymore. Because like I said, it's more about the relationship and the relationship that we've built. So just as you roll along, what I would say is be present as you make the relationships, and then reach out to them just to say hi, and mention this thing that is relevant. And then that's it, you're following up, you're also keeping in touch, it's over the course of time, and you're not forgotten, and neither and neither are they.
Paul Zelizer 43:18
And you talked about taking notes, Nathan, Is there like a specific app? Or do you use a CRM or like how do you how does somebody who has 30,000 connections on LinkedIn, take notes,
Nathan Perez 43:28
or write well see, so I speak as a writer, and I carry a notebook with me, I love my notebook, there's something about writing, that feels really good. Also, I find that when I go to write, whether it's typing or handwritten, my thoughts develop very quickly, or I should say my writing can keep up, keep up with my thoughts. They kind of work in tandem with one another. But if I don't have a notebook, and this is what I would encourage everyone to do, use the Notes app that's on your device, whatever device that might be, because then you'll always have a note pad. And you'll always be able to just pull and reference those notes whenever you would need to. So that's generally how I track it. I also have a database. I have a Mac though. And this is a plug for the database. It's called daylite da y Li T. And what I love so much about this database is that it actually it's integrated into my mail my email system. So when I get emails and they roll in, they automatically append themselves to that person's record. So I always have a running discussion. I can always just go back and look at the most recent things to remember what we were discussing before before I reached back out
Paul Zelizer 44:35
beautiful and I'll put a link to daylight in the show notes. So you mentioned being an introvert like I love but that you brought that up. I like to joke I'm an introvert who loves people, but it's true. I am definitely an introvert. And I love humans and I you know, get a little overwhelmed. I think I might be at like 6800 connections on LinkedIn, so not 30 1000 but that's a lot of humans. And any tips, I mean, I remember, I, when you mentioned that I made a note to myself, you know, talk about Susan Kane's book, you know, quiet the power of introverts and and she specifically talks about the cultural bias towards extroverts, and especially around something like networking. And you talked about the, you know, sort of old school themes of like, go work the room and right be the person that everybody in the room noticed that monster talk to you. And that's not what you're talking about. But if there are introverts, and we have a lot of them on our show, who are listening, how can introverts find their way of networking? That doesn't look like that Tony Robbins, go command the room version of it?
Nathan Perez 45:48
Right? Well, I think it's my understanding, first, that being an introvert, I mean, it's not it's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing. You're just one kind of person, right? Well, let me let me start this way. So what defines an extrovert is someone recharges, and they get their energy when you know when you're around people when you're in groups. And by contrast, what defines an introvert is someone who recharges and, and get their energy when they've had a sufficient amount of time to self reflect. And the only difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that extroverts are a little more willing to talk out loud. But those of us introverts, you know, we're doing a lot of discussion inside, all you really got to do is put it out there in the world. But another way to look at it is if you are at an event, any event that's social, and you're supposed to, you know, be doing the networking thing, but you feel like a wallflower, you feel like i'm not i'm on social, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say? Who am I supposed to go up and talk to you and so forth. And as you're standing there with your with your cocktail, and your napkin, and someone comes up to you, and starts the conversation? Well, anybody who's hearing this, and you've had that moment, you know, the moment of relief that comes with it, right? Wow, someone came and talk to me. But then you now you're in discussion, and you realize now you're just talking just like any other discussion you ever have, just like the beginning of any other discussion that you ever have. And if you flip the tables for a second and you take yourself from being the wallflower to actually observing and all the other wallflowers there in the room, you're gonna find that there are a lot of people just like you. And they look nervous like you and they feel like you. And it's a really wonderful moment for you to go and actually start the conversation because you will see that look of relief on their face, and then you'll actually end up in the discussion. So what I would say is, if you're an introvert, remember your whole world, and I'm just speaking like this kind of figuratively, to make the point your whole world is internal. And extroverted, some whole world is a little more external, all you have to do is take your internal world and just put it out there, you're talking about the same topics, about the same things, maybe with different people, but it's still talking and discussing. And when it comes to networking, it's still the exchange of information, you're getting it, and you're also giving it, so be okay with it. It's all it really takes is a few different experiences to do this. And you'll see it for yourself. It happened, it happened for me over a whole bunch of different industries, right and a good 30 years now, how old am I? I'm 23. Three. Yeah, so if you're an introvert, don't let it get to you Don't, don't be put into a box, take yourself out of that box. And all you got to do is talk like you're talking to a friend.
Paul Zelizer 48:32
So look ahead and kind of help our listeners like sitting Nathan's world for a little bit. If you look ahead, five years, let's say Nathan, and you're like, telling us what's happened in career innovation for the you know, over the past five years, where do you see your work being five years from now? Who are you impacting? How's it different? Or is it different at all than what we see on the ground when we go to your website? Now?
Nathan Perez 48:59
That's a great question, I would say that it would not be different, it would be a lot wider and a lot bigger. I think using this this pandemic experience that we've all had, it has really impacted the relationship building, not necessarily in a negative way, actually, in a very, very positive way. First of all, we're becoming more social, because we're having we're having to use the technology a lot more. But also because of all the craziness this this going on, right where there's governmental upset, and then there's fake news, whatever that turns out to be. And then it affects our personal lives and our professional lives and so forth and so on. we've, we've gotten to this point where and this isn't just us like in this country, it's the whole world. timelines have merged. We're on the same page and what's really becoming important his people, the way we listen to each other, the way that we engage with one another, the way that we are present with one another and these books and the work What I do is very much centered around the relationship building and connecting with one another. So the idea is that it wouldn't necessarily change, it would just amplify, more people will become more aware of the fact that we're just people having conversations, and also being able to give, being able to give without expecting anything in return. If that message gets around to all of us, it's my opinion changes. It'll change the entire fundamentals of business and just relationship building as we know it, because we're just people talking to people, we just might have different jobs.
Paul Zelizer 50:35
Well, Nathan, I can hang out and talk to you all day. But I won't do that to you. And I won't do that to our listeners, if there was something you were hoping we were going to get to you on this really important term of this, this frame of networking, and we haven't touched on it yet. Or there's something you were hoping to leave our listeners with us, we start to wind down, what would that be?
Nathan Perez 50:58
I think I would say, if there's ever been a time to go out and network and start doing this thing, it would be now as I mentioned, you know, this pandemic thing, a couple of things have happened. We've gotten familiar with the tech, because we had no choice, right? Those of us that were in the office place, we couldn't be there before we started using the video, but also, on a personal level, we couldn't visit with family in the same way. So we started using video. So there's a familiarity of the tech Plus, there's just been pandemic boredom. And what I mean by that is that we haven't been able to go out and socialize in the same way not in the workplace, the restaurant, the bars, the park, any of those things. And because of those two things, and we're human, meaning that we really want and need social interaction, this is the best time we don't have commutes like we did. And we have the convenience of working at home and being able to have a meeting at any time during the day. And people are more open to networking with complete strangers now than ever. So I would say, get out there, start having these meetings, and learn for yourself. See for yourself what you can get out from get from people who are just willing to help you without expectation.
Paul Zelizer 52:08
Nathan, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Nathan Perez 52:11
Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Paul has a great discussion.
Paul Zelizer 52:15
For listeners. We'll put a link to the books and all Nathan's work incredible stuff, go check it out. Especially go get that book, please just do yourself a fever. Obviously this guy knows what he's talking about. before we say goodbye today, just want to remind you we love listeners, suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea, go to the aware printers website, go to our contact page, you'll see our three very brief criteria gives you know we try to be transparent. Who do we have on the show? Well, it's right there. You can go take a look and get a sense. Does your idea seem like it fits with who we're looking for? And if so, please send us your idea. We love your suggestions. For now I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care. These are intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.