Transcript
Women historically and culturally, they’re more used to being very independent. They know how to do everything by themselves. Women can multi-task. They’re curious. They are creative so they have this feeling of maybe I don’t need help. But it’s very important to go outside and kind of expose yourself, expose your idea.
It’s important to network because the world is gigantic and at the same time, it’s a small village. So everybody knows somebody who has a cousin, a neighbor, a cat who can help you with your development or that can help you spread the word about your business, your process. And it doesn’t matter what you do, if it’s a service, if it’s a product, it doesn’t matter. You also need the marketing. You also need this word to mouth and people talking about it.
So network is not important only for your personal development, for your professional development, for your business development. But it’s also a good marketing search for you because you can know that if people are talking about it, it’s interesting. If you start talking about your business and people are like, Hmm, maybe you know, there is something that is not aligned.
You can use your network for so many things.You can choose what you want to use it for, you can choose what you don’t want to use it for or how you want to expose yourself also as a person, as a brand, as a business, but you should use it and you should use wisely also.
Honestly, I’m very shy. I’m extremely shy. I’m not the best in public speaking, so you won’t see me talking to like 300 people at the same time. I’m not the one that would knock around asking for help. But, it’s been two years that I’m in this startup path and you’ll learn one thing that is super basic and you learn it in the beginning. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. And if you ask, you might get a yes. And that is the idea that pushes me, because even if I don’t approach the person I have the ‘no’.
So it doesn’t matter what I do, I have the ‘no’ with me anyway. So I have to run after the ‘maybe’ and the ‘yes’. And that kind of makes it easy because it’s not that the person is going to give you a negative. If you start thinking that you already have the negative, you kind of feel less scared. So it feels less social awkward when you think like, Oh, can you help? When a person says no, you think, okay, if I didn’t ask, I would have to know anyway. So it’s just a plus. I tried to use this silly idea of I already have the negative even if I don’t ask, so that makes me less shy.
Create a supportive work environment for women
Let’s look at some female leaders who have actually done this:
Cheryl Eisen is the Founder and CEO of Interior Marketing Group (IMG), a multi-million-dollar interior design company. She is a strong believer that empowering women to be managers is very important. At her company, women make up 75 percent of the employee population and 76 percent of the entire leadership team across the organization.
Valeria Ignatieva is the CEO of WORK180, a job network in Australia targeted towards women. She believes in incorporating diversity-inclusive workplaces, which promote gender-neutral policies and culture.
Tina Hsiao is the Chief Operating Officer at WePay, a Silicon Valley-based fintech company. She is a strong believer in creating an organization that is attractive to women so that they can reach their full potential.
Tip: Online Course in Networking
With all of that said, we have one final note! It is so important that you regularly branch out and look for new connections. Want to know more about this? Check out our course entitled Network Like a Pro, Even If You Don’t Feel Like It.
