Episode 39 : 5 Tips to Engage with Executives

Her Career Ladder

Welcome, welcome everybody. This is Michele Heyward with the oh my gosh, fifth day of the women of color in STEM virtual summit, where we're redefining fail. We're filming its foundation to advance impact in LEED. Today, our presenter is me. So I'm going to be sharing with you tips and ways to engage with executives. And I know this was a huge struggle for me early in my career. And I had a different outlook in a very short period of time. So I'm going to show you some tools that were available to available to me back in early 2000. Some of you like some of my girl yeah, remember before then, if somebody like I was very, you know, I wasn't in college yet, but it is still very, very useful. Welcome. So first up, this is the fourth summit. I started the summit. Coincidentally, the same year that Hidden Figures came out so it was a great hit. And ever since then I've done it at least once a year 2017 was the only year I've done it twice. We will have a roundtable again tomorrow night at 10pm East Coast time. We did it an hour later than on Sunday to allow for more West Coast ladies to join us. So we look forward to having you hopefully you'll be home you can you know rest at dinner, maybe you're just walking in the door. But we wanted to get an opportunity for you to be able to join us we will do it on the webinar portion. Where in I can still bring all of you on. I can bring you on when you have questions when you want to provide feedback, solutions, suggestions, connections, so we will do it here. It was a lot of confusion on Sunday. You live in learn I just have to figure out going for how to do it. Um, the replays will be available usually I'm just gonna say 11pm they're usually up at it by 11 I'm just working with slow net sometimes and slow people because I want to go have dinner okay? If you are a stem cell professional meaning your scientists engineer a tech work in technology medicine, you are welcome to join our Facebook group. I am very very particular about who joins the group. You must answer all three questions. Some of y'all like Michelle i didn't i that's because I knew who you were I'm not the only one who admits people to the group. So be sure you're answering those questions if you know you don't qualify you like what she said I'ma see a you know you have nothing to do. The community is built and created for those women while the issues we discuss are paramount across different industries. I specifically We're in serve that community in a niche. So the whole world has this issue I can only help this this man is still it's hundreds of thousands millions. So just keep that in mind. Um we have two giveaways and I will be letting y'all know probably on Monday, there was an issue and so I'm happy to go through and put everybody who registered and attended or probably just attended in for Courtney Courtney's sellers, she's given away gift certificates three, and land hurdle price is given away three of her books. So if you if I contact you, I already have Lin's book just and you still want it. Let me know you still receive it. But I will need you to turn over or provide like mailing or email address. So just be conscientious of that that I will need some personal information and you will have I'm going to ask you forward So we'll go ahead and sit in that now I need you to type it in, so that I have proof that you typed it in, and they can just copy and paste and that Michele Heyward said, Oh, we use this, because that's, that's part of your privacy. Um, then one last thing. So we part of the questions that I asked in the summit, and I will tell y'all real short story, my sister is the giveaway for positive higher attendees or the base is for summit attendees. It's for it's only for summit attendees, not for the Facebook group.
I'm sorry, I mixed that up. But then giveaways are only for people who have attended not just registered because then that that about 250 may register for a session and then 25 show up and that way it has increased your chances of winning okay. So what will we ask the questions in registration? They are Truly for a reason and a purpose number one, I asked what your wins are. And I'm going to read some shortly because we do not have the ability to do that. And every place I will be going to a couple places next month, one for International Women's Day, another I'm a vendor, and I literally will be sharing your wins. I won't be saying your names. So if you were very, very detail in your win and you said more than I graduated or I got a promotion, it helps show what are women who are Latina, black and indigenous in STEM are doing in their wins and I can do that for you. And that's really why I asked it. Number two and you're going to see it on social too on Instagram and we're going to share those out continuously through 2020. But also what those questions help us do is create programming so bring on speakers provide information to trainings that I don't do in areas I'm not proficient in or comfortable in doing. Plus, I believe there is enough room in this world for other people to help other people. So I'm not the only career coach, I'm not the only social media, LinkedIn person, right? There are other people and I will gladly see you and help you find the person that's the best fit for you. So I love sharing my platform with other people. So with that we want to get started. And that is tomorrow, we will have crystal Eva she will be going over harassment in the workplace. I know it is a Friday. I know you're probably coming home from work, but try to join that because it's all about the tactics you need when you encounter those issues in the workplace. So let me go to the screen share and lonely shell and count my tabs. I will talk about you How about that. All right, and my tabs aren't my workflow.
Alright, so here we go. We're gonna get this started. I got a question. I thought I was bad without my tabs we have maybe, um, you know what? You know, nevermind, I'm illegal alone. Okay, so um, and get started with this and I will answer questions. Okay, see, see people got me. Hey, all right.
So, here we go. five tips engage with executives, some of what I'm going to share with you at the end. Actually for interviewing process, gotten a job offer using this tactic back in the early 2000s. I still use I use some of this as well in corporate, and some of it I also use in my startup today. Okay, well come on in. Okay, so a little about me. I'm sitting in the great state of South Carolina, actually in Columbia, South Carolina, where I was born and raised. I'm actually the college here at Clemson, where I joined my first National Society of Black Engineers chapter. And while it clumps in national engineer's week is a big deal. And we did something every single day through identity chapter for national engineers week, which is why I generally hold this February summit on engineer sweet. I love social media. And this is when I was all over Snapchat, you won't find me on snapchat these days. But this is back probably 2016 2017 and I was just having fun. With filters, so I do love social. So if you messaged me, DM me, tweet me read. I, it really is me responding back on LinkedIn, if you send me a message, I'm the one responding back not my assistant, I still do a lot of high touch. Um, I work in construction, my degree in civil engineering, I ended up bulk of my career in construction building habits or transmission lines out in a lot of places you would not want to go. But I found my true passion. And I also built a skill set that I use in my startup. So we got to talk about really focusing on your skill set as well. And then while I was there, I came up with a business idea, but it transition into what is now positive hire and this is this is where I am and I want to find kids. So which is unusual in this day and age, but quite normal when I was growing up. So the agenda tonight, what I'm going to talk about when it comes to engaging with executives is remember, it's their human to human. I want you to use your stopper skills. Yes ladies and you get the stock somebody and it's okay, do your homework. And then we're going to talk about jab, jab, and then in with right hook, and what does that mean? So any of you that know anything about social media marketing, you may be familiar with Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook from Gary Vaynerchuk. And it's very, very similar to what he teaches. So what I mean human to human, when we often think about people in high ranking places, we see them as Oh my god, I can't make a mistake. Oh, I want to get this right. Oftentimes, people are asking these people in high level places For help, or they want them to invest in something, but they, they see them as an opportunity, not as a person, not as somebody who gets up and goes to the bathroom when they work wake up first thing in the morning, not somebody who has a good day or a bad day, not somebody who has a family or pets. So when you truly look at that white man who's an executive, first, no, they're human, and it's going to be a human to human interaction. And learning more about them really, really can help you. Okay, so what is that soccer skills are? So one thing I didn't have in early 2000s and I used use something then that was called Ask the typer. So Clemson Tigers and we had a network, we'd go look up on
alumni who worked at certain employers, you're looking at getting a job. So I would use that was kind of like the only type of stalker skills I could use. I'll ask like, what's the management like? And what are the benefits, but I couldn't dig in as deep as we can today with social media. So when you're looking at people on social, you can go and look at what are their community activities. You may be able to find out like what their goals are, maybe they run marathons, they can try at the lines. Maybe they do the walk for cancer, because of a loved one. You may find out that they come from very humble beginnings and maybe they don't, maybe they were military for 20 years before going corporate. You also want to look internally as to which initiatives they run, right? What business division, they're over a business unit. What part of the budget, they are responsible for a lot of times you can get this internal if you have like Yammer, you have other internal or intranet, similar to Facebook, sometimes you can pull this data from their profile, even family information. Sometimes they share it and maybe a Hey, my son graduated from Michigan State. My daughter is majoring in chemical engineering at Alabama has anybody you know, graduated from May I know we have a few graduates and you're just trying to tie into the community. So use what you have internal to your organization that can be newsletters that go out about organization and if they've been with the organization for a while, there's usually an archive, and you can probably find out something about them even some time that they announced new hires. So definitely definitely delve into what they do business wise internally, what their family and their background is and sometimes the furthest you can go with their back If they're if you can't dig deep in the net, it's really what college they graduated from, and what their major was. And sometimes that's all you need to know. And I'm going to show you somebody that I pulled up. All right, so I'm gonna pause here, because we're going to actually go look at someone on LinkedIn, a LinkedIn profile. So I picked Salesforce just to pick Salesforce is no strategy or anything. Actually, I just search for annual reports. And somehow Salesforce. I got led to Salesforce looks like that that'll work. So I went to pick Salesforce at the company's annual report we're going to look at and I tell you why we're gonna look at this annual report. So let's pretend that you work for sales. scores. Your BP for your business unit is this guy named Todd lessor. Todd is actually a second level connection to me. And he's in Falls Church, Virginia. Maybe I'm not in the same office as he is. But he's the solution engineering at Salesforce public sector. And let me tell you, I picked this dude by random and his profile is gold. Like, Tamra Thank you. Tamra. You're gonna love his profile girl. I don't know if he paid somebody but I'm thinking he did but he is pro his. Check this out. Okay. So you see what he says he does. He's VP solution engineering at Salesforce public sector. I noticed VP solution engineer I'm not sure what that is he sells for and he deals something with the public sector. Okay, cool. We're gonna go to this about section. So if you were in Tamra Macklemore, Sunday session,
Java was in his about, he says experienced, proven and passionate pre sales executive, highly recognized for developing, communicating and executed on highly effective and compelling solution presentations, demonstrations, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay. This is why I want to get to is the public sector market that he serves? Why? Because when you go to the annual report, you're going to look to see what is in the sales force annual report, when it comes to US and Canadian government. Got me and you're going to, you're going to search for Canada or right. You're going to search for US federal government contracts, you want to search for different terms, you may just search for public sector because of that. What he says as keywords in his in his profile? Are y'all with me put up a one if you're with me. And what this helps you do when you're pulling these keywords out of his profile because his profile was dope, I'm not gonna lie to you I really lucked up. I don't think many of you are going to get us lucky is this. His profile is dope. So if y'all are looking like for a profile to kind of figure out how to build yours, look at this man's and you can tell he does sales or pre sales, um, areas of expertise. I need y'all to own your areas of expertise. Don't put software, just say I'm an engineer. You can do project management you can do how we design for interstates, whatever it is, own it shit, for real and if you're trying to figure out What Oh, go look and see what your boss has and just copy and paste and stuff. Yes. And it will reformat it to that. I'm director of solutions engineer, we design and sell third party warehouse designs. See. Now, I'm only using a public set up a publicly traded company. If you have when you work for a private entity, it the smaller it is, the harder it is sometimes to find this information, but sometimes when it's smaller, you can build those relationships a little bit better. When you're looking at a company like Salesforce, I came from a company about 90,000 employees globally. It originally was one company with 25,000. Globally, we got bought, we went to 50,000. We got bought again, and then went to 90,000. So let's just say the larger it gets, the more difficult it can be to engage with VPS I was fortunate because The I was a, I was in a cost, I was in a revenue generating position, meaning I was in the field. They were the client had paid extra because I was on site. And so the VPS in the directors flew out, because we made money on top of money for the company. And when you notice, let me tell you how they invite you to dinner like okay, so how's it going? Michelle? So it was a different ballgame. And this is how that comfortable really talking to VPS because they showed up at my desk in a in a in a in a shed next to the Allegheny River outside of Pittsburgh. So I didn't have a choice really. But I had to research them to understand who, who they were, what they're responsible for, and how my role as a cost analyst to tied into this $350 million construction project for this utility company. And I'll get into that a little bit. Okay. So we look we're looking at this so let's just copy and paste public sector. You can just google annual report for the company you work for. You probably can find it internally. This is all I did. This is what Salesforce is. Looks like. This is the actual report PDF. I didn't download it. I don't need it. For right now. They're not one of my target customers yet, but um Oh, come on,
man. Okay, there we go. So I want to do the public sector. So this is page 16. I'm trying to see which section we're in. So first thing I should have done, which is taking you out to the table of contents. And I'm a backup actually let me not take out the table of contents. Let me take out to two resources that pull it up. First one is Learning how to read or what to read in an annual report. So because they can be this 140 pages, it's not that bad. I bought this one resource. This is that standard calm if if anybody else has a better resource to break out, I can't find my old notes. This gives you 10 important things to analyze in the annual report. And it really depends on what's important to you. Everybody wants to know if you're profitable or not, if you're generating revenue, and profit if you're profitable. So this report gives you the sections to check out it says whether or not it thinks value of information is media. It really depends on what you're looking for. In the report. Directors report, management discussion and analysis. One thing you do want to look at is the SWOT analysis for the competition. strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We're seeing technology take over a lot of different industries. And it's very, very important that you look and see what the threats are. And then what the opportunities are. And what I mean by threats. Is it us is the market shrinking for a product or a business unit you're in is now there is an opportunity where you can take your skillset to a different business unit, a different team, and how to position yourself on LinkedIn, even in your office and start communicating and connecting with people in that that business unit has the best opportunity if you want to stay with that employer or if it's a new employer. So This to me is one of the key areas you always want to look for us that the SWOT analysis of the company, all right. So this will give you some ideas. Also, of course, it should have with the PDF here you also go to Wikipedia. And it it'll break out as well. I didn't look for any YouTube videos. A couple people generally do great breakdowns but on other stuff I had didn't find one that did it on financial on annual reports, but there probably is my I don't know Courtney see if Courtney, if you have any recommendations. Financial statements, I highly agree that you do need to learn those Courtney stoner gave a recommendation for a book. And I can't remember the name of it, but I'll definitely share it out. We sent out the follow up email next week with different resources that are mentioned, to pick up that book and understand your financial statements. Because as you grow your career you will be responsible for not only teams but also budgets. And it's important to understand what the corporate budget is. Your profit and loss statements, your income statement. So balance sheets, so you understand So let's cash flow. So that is, this will give you the breakdown for that now include the link for that. So we're going to go back to the actual annual report from Salesforce. And this is assess the index, my call it I call the table of contents, but it tells you to break down everything won't be worded exactly as what's in the resource I gave you, which is why I did a keyword search. Um, and so I'm gonna go ahead and it does public sector comes in once industry, specific regulation and other requirements, incentives problems. So you have to play around in here to look in see where you where certain things come. So I'm going to go to revenue, revenue comes out 372 times. So revenue is not a good word. To search for, but what they do in this report is they do highlight and they share with you what the revenue it was for 2019. Um, they talked about the cash flow when they tell you whether it's up or down, so it's 20% 26% year over year growth and you're seeing is up 24% for the cash flow. Cash Flow is truly important without cash.
Unless you're leveraging credit, you want as much cash as possible. And Salesforce after a 20 year old company is 36,000 employees. That's huge. That's a lot of growth in 20 years. So just take into account that you're seeing a growth in your your cash flow has increase, but also your revenues increase. The other thing is you want to see what your debts are. In your financials, but we won't look at that tonight. Okay, so we know dude was in government. So that's government comes up 32 times and our growth strategy. So this is your growth strategy. If you know he think government and we're in a growth strategy. He is probably tasked with some of the things that come up under growth strategy when it comes to government and targeting verticals targeting vertical industries to meet our needs of our customers in certain industries. We provide solutions specifically built for certain vertical industries such as financial services, healthcare and government. These three industries specifically are highly regulated. You have to All and I know Tamra gnosis, eyes and eyes dotted T's cross, having expertise or experience in government would help you. And if most of your team and employee, co workers in your division are not familiar with government documentation, processes procedures, let's just say that something you can leverage. And that's one way you can go in and address it. Okay. So you can go through and kind of play around with the keywords to figure this out. Is this somewhat helpful? Or is this more confusing than it needs to be? Just let me know what questions you have. Because we do have some time we'll go through q&a, but go ahead and get submit your questions. I can come back to this. I don't want us to get too bogged down. One other thing you can use industry resources such as engineer news or records, what were they right your employer, and this helps you understand how best how to look at it. Were you one, were you at the top, maybe you write one into for six years and then y'all drop completely off the board for rankings. So this is engineering news record, this is what we use in civil. And it really if we weren't in a top 10 in certain areas, I was concerned because if we weren't taught in, in power, if or energy if we weren't top 10 in like mining, if we weren't top 10 in in certain divisions of the company, I was worried because it indicated to me either we lost staff or we lost contracts and we lost contracts there were definitely going to be a reduction in staff. This is very helpful because you can see Where a company is going to how your skill? Yes, exactly. And as engineers, we don't look at this and we aren't taught how to read this. I'm the guy who actually taught did this nasty thing. His name is Carrie. I actually pull him up. And he was actually military. And he came in he did his workshop and Nancy like how to read an annual report and what to read. I literally remember up until like, three, probably three, four years ago, what he taught and I went and sent him a message. They literally said, Hey, I mentioned as he taught me how to do this, I love to connect with you. And, and he was at the time he was at UBS. He was a he became a Senior Vice President at UBS. Financial, he was there for 10 years and he just left a couple years ago to go out on his own. So there are people like us, they come to organizations like that once or twice to really teach us something that's There's nothing new.
Okay, so that is, so you can do your annual report, you can use industry. So if you're trying to figure out what what your industry thing is, again, utilize LinkedIn groups on Google, if you're also you're, you're engineering organizations. So if you're in manufacturing, they may have a standard. He literally, if your company rakes in anything they are going to send an email out isn't going to be on the website. We are number two in XYZ, right? And it'll just say number two listed but they won't say they may not even say what industry it is, or what this issue, but use that information to go find and see where they were three years ago, and just check this stuff at least once a year. I used to be really, really good about it. And In 2014, my former employer was purchase and when the keywords so yes, you got a keyword search an annual report and, and everybody's keyword is going to be different. So you want to have to test it to really figure out what that keyword is. Um, but once you figure out your keywords and once you figure it out, it'll be good. When we were purchased. One of the guys and I had been following the annual report because it was good for me. I had a job it was the great recession. And one of the guys like, we got bought, like, yeah, that other CFO, he quit, because he bought this oil and gas company, it was a tanker, and it it almost bankrupt the company. And I'm like, Oh shit. So I literally go Google the article to find out about the company. I bought it. The company that bought my former employer paid $6 billion for definitely that's a lot of money. 4 billion was in debt. And I said, Oh shit, I need to be making exit strategy. And that was 2014 because I knew it was coming, I knew was gonna be a lot of changes for them to recoup $4 billion as soon as possible, because the CEO of the new company had an accounting background, you should care how we did engineer, he knew how to count, he knew how to make money. So, um, okay, we got a question. If I can get it open, okay. And I cannot even share it open for me. So I'll come back to it to your question. Okay. So let's get back to the deck. So that is how does Transformers activate like you literally take that into action? Now, do your homework, the homework part of this you may think well Michelle, that was the homework that was in the homework. Now that you know what your bps are Or that director, whoever that executive you're trying to connect with that VP, executive VP, maybe it's a CTO, the CIO. You know what their initiatives are now once they go back know your roles impact, how does your role impact or influence the company? What is its significance to the company? How does it impact your employer by Team department division and globally? Oftentimes, we think what we do is small and insignificant. It can be if that's what we believe. But if you like mediocre man, and you say, Oh, I'm gonna shit and what I do this company I live and die by, you have a different viewpoint. So let's say you are a software engineering manager and the software that you create is to take transactions at point of sale at airport. You like what we do Make sure there are no fraudulent transactions but what if your software also identifies when there could be an another attack via airlines? What if it can identify and red flag when there are people that have been kidnapped or transporting children or women?
So you may think on a very granular level the impact of what your role does, but it could be much larger now know your MS your roles and impact but know your impact outside of your education, your jobs, how what is your skill set? This different differentiate differentiates you from others in your industry, organization and team? Now I know she's on here so Karen Yeah, no, no Karen Karen down the street. She just died 26 and she literally share it with us and I forgot to read these again. She shared about how she tore apart with a database and rebuilt it and nobody on her team was willing to take that risk. And the ability to do that the ability to take that risk and be like, Oh my god, how did you do that? Look at what that skill set takes. What is the is that skill set pre planning? Is it organization? Is it identify the tools? Is it identifying the team and build out when it comes to intricate steps and processes? Right. So what is that skill set? You also half maybe it's how to plan out a new product line from beginning to end meeting supply chain sourcing, designing, laying out the equipment, testing the equipment to manufacturing and you can do it in six to eight months as opposed to 16 to 18 months. What is that skill set that you have Want you to focus on that and if you can't figure that out, this is the one of the books that showed I can't think of the name of it right now. But this is one of the exercises in it. Email people and ask them what you do well, people that you know will be honest with you, they make you don't have to like them. They don't have to like you. But you know, they will honest, provide honest feedback on what you do well, because too often times our gifts are wrapped up in our innate to us and we don't understand what we're really good at. Alright. Then thirdly, know how to talk the language. So if you join Courtney, Courtney, Courtney stoner was using some language and I was like, What is that ebp is all executive vice presidents. Okay? And she that m&a is Oh, mergers and acquisition. So what's the language that they talk at that level but You also have a language that you talk internal to your, your company. And I remember working for a company way back when they actually had a booklet like the little mini Bibles, right? That you stick in your pocket. Of all the vernacular that you use in that, in that, in that organization. My first career coach had me do the pier exercise go, yeah. When people when you ask people what you do well, like really document do like, no, that's why we always come to you. If you're really afraid to do that exercise, go back through emails, and see what people are consistently asking you to do. Now, like order the lunch, really asking you to do, hey, we want to be in this meeting with such and such Can you come they want you to accomplish stuff after and you're going to sit there and you can figure out how to wrap it up. And you know who's to to pull it together. Other people don't know how to do that. Maybe it's actually convincing people to do the work. It is a skill set that you have so you can negotiate well with people that truly, truly ask people, okay, so speaking the language is truly important as well. Alright, so what is Jab, Jab, Jab, it is not hitting somebody. It's about giving before you ask. How many of you get asked, Hey, can you get me a job? Can you give me a hook up where you work? Hey, can you can you do X, Y and Z for me? If you're getting hit of extra level, what do you think Executive Vice President and higher up are getting asked to do, right? Is this they don't know who you are, except for maybe the Latina. I didn't know you as an engineer over there. Right? What you literally can do is taking that information where you understand the value of your role, you understand your skill set, and you're literally just sending them a monthly or weekly update that says
it could be an article on how a company in Europe is dealing with GDPR. And for those of you who take the time to collect data GDPR that privacy new privacy policy in Europe, maybe you're talking about the new financial, FinTech startups, and how do we as a 50 year old company, compared to them, and how do we keep on market share and still gain young new customers, right? So you could literally just be sharing content but pulling out one or two items, because these particular executives get hundreds of emails. They don't have time to read a lot of stuff. They want the high points. Right. And so if you can provide that value in a very short email, that they will find value Because it is part of their initiatives, their goals and tied to their bonus for the year, they don't listen to you. So, you also, by doing this, you also have proved that you are smart, and you can execute. So if something that you've done similar that you can show and prove like, Hey, this is what we did on this team. This is the data before we did it, this is the outcome after we did it. And this is how long it took us now is it five bullet points and keep it moving four numbers. Um, and you can put an app you'd like to discuss, let's schedule the time. I'm a 15 1015 minute meeting and put together three four slides and keep it moving on how to execute and do a small test in your organization on it. Right. Um, so you want to be sure you're providing data Phil reports and I say it reports is not a report. It's gonna be a very succinct and short email. Like, it should be a short, it should have no more onwards been on than what's on this slide. That is it. And I mean on the white part of the slide, so I'm given can mean sweat equity as well. So you're willing to do the testing for something you're willing to do to research, you're willing to do the work. I do want to put in one caveat, you may not get a reward yet, so they may take the ideas there's, but I want you to position it as though you're a thought leader and you can execute on this they may pull out one of their friends to leave this okay. Just let them do the work like no no nothing and try to figure out how to work that culture. So it really comes back to understanding your culture and your organization. Okay. Now, what is the right hook? That is your ask? Jab Jab, Jab is the gift The right hook is to ask, ask them to sponsor you. Ask them for promotion. You can ask them to help you get transferred to address workplace issues and connect you with someone in their net work. So the right hook is always asked. And it may jab is three jabs. But it may take something more than you sending them three emails, it may take 13 emails, but you want to be consistent in adding value. And there are different ways to do that. But this is one way to connect with them. And by having this information ahead of time, where you meet them in meetings, you know a bit about their background, you know a bit about their family, you know about their goals and you know about their initiatives for the company and you're able to find you oftentimes are able to find something to connect with with them on. And so it makes it a little bit easier because you're seeing them as a human. And that's, and that's important. Okay. So let me stop the share because I can't get to the questions. Okay. So I'm a federal employee currently with the Department of State as a passport educator. I just graduated from web development who can wonder what titles in tech I can easily transition into. So are you looking for federal jobs? Or are you looking for? Are you looking for federal jobs? Are you looking to go to public sector Are you looking to go and start up or even education? So it really depends on what your background is where you're trying to go? also.
So you're looking into private if you Looking into private, what skill set you have from the passport? So I don't know what that passport educator does. So, what does that job entail? Are you do you have a clearance of government clearance to do that? So then there are some certain companies that look for people with government security levels. Um, if so, what what level are you that may be attracted to them? Or I have plans we have to be accurate and fast. Okay. You could in in Do you want to code? Do you want to do product development? product product management, I'm sorry. Which part? I know you say web development, you could still do some other things. So it really depends on what you want to do. So do you go to his profile to get So so for job titles is going to it could be just to get your foot in the door, you could look for hiring manager roles that could be senior software. Okay, you like front end. So you you're looking for a UX. So you probably and Karen's on here, Karen, what are your thoughts? This is some of her her area of expertise. I'm Brian and you're still going to be looking at a software engineering manager. To me more than because they're they're going to be the hiring manager. listed first level connections
So maybe a project manager. Can you repeat? Yes. So she is looking to get into web development. And once the front in and with the creative background, she just finished web development boot camp and has experience working at the Department of State as a passport educator. So she's trying to figure out on LinkedIn, what job titles to search for, to find the right hiring manager. I would say trouble quantifying my impact. I built a data warehouse and ended up providing horses. Oh, yeah, I love that question. Okay. So Karen, I'm thinking software engineering. Manager. Um, it could depending if it's a larger company, sometimes CTO lead developer. Yeah, cio Chief Information Officer. Chief CIO, meaning Chief Information Officer, CTO, Chief Technology Officer, lead developer, software engineering manager. I tell you, I tell you the trick, start at the top. Because you know what happens at the top, they don't send it down. If you start at the bottom, it don't go anyplace. The hardest part with LinkedIn, though, if you're trying to connect with people at CIO, CTO, and any of the C suites, they are very, very difficult to reach on LinkedIn. They usually aren't on social, they just have somebody managing their profile. So sometimes I go Personally, I go for the VP level. Any still will filter down or they'll be the right person for you to work for. So just looking at a set, I can tell you on a sales perspective, we generally will go for the CIO CTO. And but because they filter it down, but they often are not on LinkedIn, so I generally target the VP level and that that's been more beneficial for me. Okay. I hope that helps. Yes, you can find a recruiter at that company too, as well, and they'll love you. They'll love it, actually. So just position yourself so that you don't come in as entry level because you already have experience. It may be experienced in in front end development, but to bring in other skills to bet you need to highlight on your resume to So that you get paid appropriately. Okay. Next question. So do you go on his profile to get keywords? Yes. So I went let me just make let me just make an exception. Like I pulled this dude up yesterday and I really got lucky like he was a tall I just go ahead and it says VP, you can go to his profile on LinkedIn and pull keywords. You also want to look him up in your global outlook. If you have global outlook or however you do communications, you want to use your internal languages as well. So your internal your intranet, internal and internal documents or reports that you share, to figure out what they're responsible for to get those keywords so you probably won't find it. We got lucky with this guy. You probably won't find it on LinkedIn, you're gonna have to use internal resources. and utilize those to find your keywords to search by. So be patient is going to take some time, pull out like 10 keywords that you think won't pull up more than 30 bit probably 50 results. Mom it once you get something like 2025, you know you're in there, you're probably going to find that a little bit quicker. All right, next question. I have, I have always had trouble quantify my impact. I built a data warehouse that ended up providing reports to the CEO that could not get consolidated before any tips looked, any tips to look to where to get the answer? Okay. What was the previous process? And how many people were involved in that previous process? What were their titles, job titles, and how long did it take them to create the report that could get to the CEO.
So then what you're going to do once you know the amount of time they can, so it took me like four hours, okay, four hours a week or four hours every time you had to do, is it a weekly report or monthly report. And some people work slower than others. So maybe it took them 40 hours in a month, they make $20 an hour or 40 hours, maybe took them four hours a week, whatever that number is, look at what the hourly rate is, you may or may not have access to that. So you can use like salary comm to get an S get an on average rate for that area they work in for their annual salary rate, multiply it out and just look at what's the annual cost savings, then go back and look at the productivity. It improved their productivity by a certain amount as well and calculate that. Then on top of that was The benefit to the CEO is the CEO able to make better financial decisions is more productive is less stress. And that can be harder to get and harder to quantify. Let me know let me know if you have questions still have questions on how to go about doing it. It's not going to be an exact science, but it'll get you started thinking about that. You mentioned sending an email to the higher level execs, tips, books, etc, or emails and presentation for people at C suite level. You know what? I do not, um, I really format it mine by what other people were doing. Like somebody asked me, Hey, I'm gonna be out on vacation. I need you to send this out for me. So I literally did nothing want more than five bullet points? I'm having a number and key internal words were important. So I knew our key internal wars were safety. Um, cash flow.
man hours burned? Where were the three major ones I reported on especially where we are all in its schedule. Yes. Um, so think about what language and keywords they focus on. One other way to kind of find out this information is how good a relationship do you have with the people other people don't see in office, and that's going to be your administrative staff. That is also going to be your janitors. That's also going to be your maintenance people. And people think I'm crazy for this Have you ever had a pet or a toddler go through your trash and pull out stuff my Oh shoot, I don't mean to throw that away when you have people that nobody pays attention to not necessarily disrespect them, but they don't pay attention to them directly disrespect them, they see things and they will share things with you if you have a relationship with them any respect you
Tamra got all sorts of stories. Um, so it's really, really important that how you cultivate relationships, in organizations, especially with other people who are not Because they are privy to information that other people don't think they know what the hell to do with. And I'm not saying use people, but I have I learned very early when I made this comment to my mother. I said, Well, you're just a janitor. Y'all. I almost didn't make it. Y'all would have never have met me. She said, nobody's a just a nothing. Nobody has to clean up after you. Girl is not a place I have not worked. I didn't know the janitors name. I had a co worker who wanted to know why I do the janitors name and I didn't I didn't work in our facilities. This is when a client's facility Her name is Maria. She saw she saw a my the two main reasons Got one nickname nickname is Snoop kid he had the ponytails like some I can't remember the other guy's name. It's gonna come to me in the clients facility in downtown Tulsa Oklahoma. I was like I'm cold so we'll get you a heater. I came in he was at my desk at Yeah, they also see it here. Exactly so be cacci inches because let me tell you that the first ones to know when a layoff comment we think I'm lying. Usually first of all I know it's coming because the enemy report only come out once a year. I agree in my purse, roll senior staff but let me hit banks to people to get he was. So build those relationships literally from the bottom to the top of the pyramid, and it was organizations to leverage some of this data to get the information. Okay. Another question. When you're doing your own projects to impress higher ups, do you have to inform your manager supervisor about how you're using your time?
Okay, let me do. Let me I meant to make this caveat a little bit earlier. Michele Heyward, a little bit different. I was the one that had a manager talk trash to me in my 20s. And I said, Look, I keep boxes at my desk, and I get tired of this face, I'll pack up and leave. And he was like, No, no, I'm just playing. I'm just playing and he was the one that got me to Raiders in one year. So let me let me make a caveat. I also worked in what I called the gray and my friends and so many people that know that went to college for me know this. So what's in the gray visa written rules? So you do this is the correct way you do this system wrong. Right? This is the white display. I work right yeah, mash them together. We call it don't ask for permission ask for forgiveness. I call it working in the gray and figure out how to do those projects that align number one to your performance plan. So if you are doing projects oh well we were going to do this like Okay, that sounds great. is part of your performance plan. So some things that you want to do right now in January go ahead and plan it out piece by piece. Because october november whenever September when you have to put together your performance plan and you want to go through your performance review. Put that in there because you already got plans. You already Is your research on this executive may not take the day? It literally could take three, four months, because life happens stuff stuff goes on. And so I make it seem like it's simple like you can pull the trigger point. You're like, Oh my god, I'm so frustrated, I got a headache. Why did I listen to her, and then you looking at other people getting promotional like you know, I'm going to hell in this because this June, and come January next year, I cannot be in the same place. So it's going to take you a little while. So write it up in your performance plan. If you can't get it into your performance plan. Go to other teams and departments, some organizations actually like for their employees to do projects. If you're working on something, let's say it's for a volunteer organization that your company partners with, and they actually cover your work hours to go work on stuff. I use it if you get accepted The interns like y'all treat the interns he'll have interns work on. Just look over the work just God mentor is is so many different ways to leverage this. Um, I love eager engineers. And I tell you why I will teach. I would I would teach a couple of my engineers so well, big job before I did, I was trying to leave and he was like, I thought she was gonna be mad like, Nah, I'm jealous. Like, literally I would be looking at their LinkedIn like, yo, Thomas. You know, this, this change to this, we're at this, this this dollar amount because you know, $1.3 billion construction project, he said, but it's an asset they don't know. It just put $1.3 billion transmission distribution distribution project. Bam when you go in, if you didn't tell you, you managed help manage $250 million of it. They all need to know it today. And if you don't notice structural engineer work your transmission distribution for a year and a half, two years, he would not stay with the company. He was commute like an hour from Philly to New Jersey City, New Jersey. He asked to get trained on Transmission distribution. He's a structural engineer, he, that's what he did. They were bringing in training into the New Jersey office, or one transmission distribution. He asked to be included in a training his boss told him now. He was the only structural engineer on his team in that group that was on a transmission and distribution project. And they refuse to train him. So needless to say, when he got off he told he said he told us about a unique sound to make when I asked you for training you said now deuces.
And then the young lady I trade after him who was a geotechnical engineer, she got a job to like, what am I doing wrong? Maybe I would do it right I was transform out. So just just keep, just share. So just keep working it and get other people to help you with it. And it'll, it'll get done. So it's meant to be a process. This is not a one day thing unless you've been with the organization for a long time and it's not government. Um, let's see the custodian step. Also know all the office staff already know who cheating and I don't mean within the Office outside office, who had the extra company cell phone that they belong to the whoever the extra company vehicle that espouses driving, they do an expense report, like they don't know how to read an expense report. Anyway. I was the shadow by working through college at night as a janitor. That's how I learned about several of my past jobs because they were posted by and also from the generation But my grandparents were the janitors and we were taught to respect your own people from the jet Yes, I might be from that I if I wasn't I am now. Tell you tell my 72 year old mom or dad. Okay, so What other questions do you have about being able to figure out what that gift is and who you're trying to connect with? When you are looking for this particular executive to work with? Look at their personal brand, meaning what are people saying about them behind their back? Or this like oh my god, I really love working with such law shit. your FICO Oh, hi, how are you? If they're doing it, that's probably not you want to go work with. So understand what this executives brand is, um, on a smaller scale, you may find out personal things about them I had an executive outline. He was on it. He's an introvert. And what this man like how he met his wife, he has a twin sister, y'all. This is the stuff. twin sister went to school for nursing, he went to school for engineering, she will bring a different one of her classmates home for him to meet one on one and si met his wife. So then you know not to have 20 people around him at one time unless we're in a meeting setting, right? So it's the little bit and I found out not to buy him a birthday cake because he was a chubby kid and he never wants to be chubby again. So do not buy him a cake. I almost ordered that cake. Um, but I also found that he was a Yankees fan. So there are certain things that you find out about people that you can then leverage in into as far as a birthday card. A trinket just small stuff and you personally drop it off to the When you see them in a hallway, getting coffee, water, whatever the parking garage, you can say, if you're not a sports person, don't fake it. But you know, they're a pet person because you see them covered in cat hair, right? Make those genuine connections. And it's like here. Here's a wet brush. I see you probably going to me You're like, thank you, man. I keep forgetting to get my admin ordered me one, right? Those things add up over time because you are making a personal connection. And you are not asking them for anything. And guess what happens? They hope so what do you do here? literally minutes that? Oh, I'm an engineer that does whatever. Really? So how long have you been here? Eight years. Anyway, gosh, I haven't shaved you But you knew that this for right? No. Okay. But you're usually busy and in conversation when you pass me. And so doing little stuff and having those small conversations, especially if you're an introvert really goes a long way. So that's really how to start leveraging being the only one or one of you, women of color in your workplace. start having those small conversations. Um, and you don't have to necessarily do gifts like if you think this is too much is those small conversations where you build rapport after you've stopped them to find out what their pets and kids are? They may even have a daughter and sell Girl Scout cookies this time of year go order cookies. And be like, Hey, I bought vanilla ice cream. Do you do you do to vanilla ice cream, the Thin Mint cookies.
I know I haven't tried to like hey, it's in the freezer. I might have some at lunch at 12 minutes, some other people so if you want to be sure you get your scoop. Be there. Whatever time If you can make it so those are the little ways to really like that's that's how I'm if you smoke when one of my former co workers that's how he met when an executive VP is the only one that was black in the building, do smoke, they both smoke and that's how they met each other and he's like, Oh no, he really cool. Like, he's executive VP. There's like smokey out there hanging out with us all the time. He does the literally those small connections, okay? So don't go into overwhelm. Remember the are human. Remember, you can doodle small connections with them, if you're looking for them to stop so you make sure they understand what your role is in the company, what value you bring to the company and the impact you have to the company. And you have to be able to convey that in the company language that they understand. Okay, any last questions? If not, I hope this was helpful. Um, oh, one last thing I want. I want to tell you. I know some of you are looking for jobs seems like private, it's more extroverted. I don't know. I thought it probably was more introverted, because I just talked to him anywhere. Um, but if you're looking for a job like literally this I got a job offer like 15 more than 15 years ago, I knew this company's mission and vision statement. And when I say the look for real, they went and reached over by the door on a table like, Oh my god, this is this. I had a job offer the next week. I didn't take it on with my former employer cuz that seller was not getting it it really really by knowing the vision and the mission statement of the company and how I aligned to It was huge. Where do you Want us to send our accomplishments? You can just email it to info at positive tire Co. How do you find out hourly rates for consultants? So it's going to vary by industry. I'm going to tell you, probably the industry, the industry you're in or the industry, you want to go and be a consultant. Do you have any friends that do work with consultants, they're not a consultant that will disclose their rates. I would start there, and I wouldn't price lower our price at or above. If that isn't helpful I was thinking There isn't. Isn't there a government site? Didn't somebody share with me a website? I think it was crystal. Um, send me an email about the hourly rates for consultants because I need to know industry and some other stuff. I think there's a website or government site and that's the bare minimum. Okay, two more. A couple more questions. Okay, I'm at a crossroads. I want to find someone to be a mentor. I've been the mentor to others like you who have moved on before me. I think I'm asking the wrong questions to executives, that I think will be a mentor for me what types of questions do you ask to know if this is the right person? Um, I don't generally ask them questions when I unless until I'm sure I want him to be a mentor. Generally what I do with them, I'm having a lot of discussions or talks with them and you're not long They can be three minutes, five minutes. And I'm really getting a sense of whether or not they're an asshole. Whether they're giving a lot to the company, I'm trying to get less. I'm trying to figure out their boundaries, like what? What is your goal? What is your personality? And what type of person would you learn and grow from? Because it's truly important that you understand what type of person you can work with. And then look at is this person, a good mentor in the mentor your selector has been? Is or has been, where you're trying to go?
Maybe they have the connections to get you to where you want to be, what is it about that person, so that you know how to how to navigate the conversation. Does that make sense? So I don't have a set of questions that I asked them or you get some things you can ask is issues that you may have maybe on a project managing multiple personalities or generations any tools or resources they have, right? Um, and just get a sense of number one do they work to get to the where, where the hell they are? Because sometimes you look for somebody to mentor you who was given something and so he can't even show you how to get there because it was given to them. And at the local you, are you I would probably say, Are you looking for a sponsor or mentor? I'm getting a feeling you need a sponsor. I like mentors. I've been a mentor. I'm being mentor met my local mentor here. roomful of black people, three, the three that had a million dollar generating revenue businesses or 300. Like what? What's the difference between a smart sort of mentor, a mentor can will hear you out will provide advice to you can connect you to resources, a sponsor or whatnot, the fuck out of barriers to get you to where you say you want to be and where they believe you should be. So, your sponsor may talk to you briefly in the hallway and ask you things go into meetings that your mentor can't get in and said, Oh, no, such and such is want to be on this project. This is who is going to lead this initiative. And so you can you can, there's definitely a need for both. But if you're trying if you have barriers and you're trying to get to places, that sponsors the one that generally can get you there, more than a mentor, and I follow this mentor rhetoric, probably till about 25 In 2011, when I got a sponsor, and I had that I knew up, I had sponsors before. So it was a great recession. And they were laying off left and right. I didn't get laid off. For seven years, it was 2017. And I got laid off. That was because the sponsor made sure I stayed the sponsors may thought I would be better. I was stepping out of position. He was like, hey, I want you to take this role. The manager that I reported to for the role, they want me to have it the spot and said she got it. The smoke let me let me explain to you what this Matsu did. The sponsors literally came to me and said, Hey, write the job description so that it fits you and nobody else can apply. This is what happened. I apply for the job right? I wrote it up. I applied for the job. If HR calls me This is doing a great recession said nobody else apply for this job except you. Now I'm already working on The project right? But nobody internal to a 45 50,000 employee company apply for this job. I want you to think about that. You want a mentor that has told you that has happened to them or you want a sponsor that can do that. So it depends on what you're looking for whether you need a sponsor, or if you need a mentor, and you may need both. But know what what you're looking to achieve. Is it risky to move eight to make a lateral move to start up? Whoo, how do I put this? How many of y'all felt secure in your job? In 2008, nine and 10 and got laid off
You're very well. You're very, very welcome. So, what, when it comes to startups? How early Are you so like, I don't have but one employee right now. I'm looking at bringing on a marketing person at least part time. So it depends on you the first five or 10 hires, what if you are adverse to risk and you know, your finances cannot sustain itself? Yes, startup as a culture is always risky. But I worked in construction, it was a risk every damn day. So you really kind of need to know yourself what I would say if you're looking at startup. See if you can do a part time for them, whatever they're asking you for. There are several startups that were part of Time does founders work they don't part time for six to eight years. They are not billion dollar companies. One of them is called MailChimp. If you received an email from me yesterday, with the right login to get on here to zoom, that email marketing system that email came from is called MailChimp, one of the co founders from that way. He's from Augusta, Georgia. It's a 20 year old tech company, they did not work full time in it for six, eight years. His co founders, it is a billion dollar company now. Only 10% of startups succeed. And as passed the five year mark, is the start if you're looking at going to pass that mark, um, are they still? Are they generating revenue and profitable? Are they even if they're funded, even if they have funding from venture capital, the meaning of succeed, that just means that they got runway, maybe They have enough money to go this way to last so many months. Do they have? Um, do you like the founders? Like literally do you like the founders, the culture is a culture meaning you will work you can literally work 80 to 100 hours. Um, then you have others that are funded and they have unlimited PTO, and they make you take a week, every single quarter you have you are forced to take a week off. So you really have to know what that startup offers as far as benefits and how risk averse you are. So I can't tell you yes or no, it really depends on you. I bootstrap my thus far I've been approached by investors I've been approached by friends who want to and I haven't taken any yet and I'm trying to see if if and when I will So yeah, you in because you're not publicly traded, which you do is go to crunchbase.com and search specifically for that startups name. Is it a tech startup? It'll be on crunchbase I don't know if it's tech or not. Um, if even if it's not today it may be on there. But um, and see if they've gotten funding When was the last round of funding they went through, um, some people get funded to build out their tech other people get funded to scale their company. I believe in scaling part. It a five year mark about 100 employees clinic.
Healthcare can be difficult. Um, I would say just keep your connections. If you decide to do this, keep your connections and your LinkedIn open for new opportunities. My dream is to create companies in African countries to help develop countries. There's a ton of Yeah, there's a ton of opportunity. There are a lot of Americans, black Americans going over to Africa. Yeah, it's not a one and done thing if Melissa, just just shoot me an email at info at positive hire.co. I'm not gonna tell you know, the opportunity if they're giving you equity. I would say go in and also ask for equity. If you want to do it. That's another thing. You may have a lower salary you may not, but definitely still go in and ask for equity, negotiate equity, if you do do it. Okay. What was the bps name you search on LinkedIn? Let's go see
Good, Todd lessor here I copy his profile and put it in messenger for you
All right. Okay, sounds like I need a sponsor an accountability partner. Okay. I think that is all the questions for tonight. Can Melissa and I connect? Hey, you sit back to Hill you sent me just at a panelist. Share that to panelists and attendees so she can see it. If Melissa is here, you You have a message coming from Phil. So one last thing before y'all get off of here. I should have had y'all do it early. I'm in a wrap up with this. Be sure to drop in your LinkedIn profiles, links, and I am going to celebrate and go out with your accomplishments for tonight. So, being publicly, one lady has written in being publicly recognized for a win on a project that came in under budget and resulted in a big bonus for me MIT. Let's write I'm talking about that money, honey. Make that money, honey. Okay. Another one advancement to current position based on past successes. Yes. Hello. Okay. I've been very successful with bringing on our employees. brand to new level since joining. Yes. Don't keep killing it. I'm becoming a senior engineer. That's what y'all y'all are doing this. I interned at Google last summer after my first year in college. What? Again, I'll tell people this. I'm like, What? Okay, but I'm gonna let the world know. I'm becoming a published author on a paper. We're going to be talking about white papers and y'all publishing white papers for your industry. Yes, I'm loving this. Yeah. I don't know how much fun I'm having right now. A year ago. I didn't think I'd apply to security. Privacy roles not interviewing for them. Yes. Yeah. Well, oh, energy savings of over 2 million dollars at Boone County School District over three years. saving taxpayers some money. We appreciate you my sister. Yes. Save us some dollars. Hello. Okay. received a proclamation from the mayor of Columbia, South Carolina as well as the governor, Governor of the state of South Carolina. Yes, my people that's hometown. See later who that is. Because I'm not looking at email addresses. I'm only looking at the accomplishments because we all went in doing a workshop at the Grace Hopper conference. Okay, I'm really okay. I'm know I'm extra excited, but those are some of the winds. I'm gonna give y'all a couple more minutes to copy and paste or click on all the links so you have as many tabs as I do in your browser, to start connecting with other ladies. As Tamra said, be sure to include that message when you go to connect with them. So they know we're working on revamping, they just asked to teach a workshop for proposal writing. Yes. That's what I'm thomassie snaps are all you guess they do rock. Right? And so this is why I asked you and let me tell you, my sister would not even register for my summit, y'all. She'd like us asking too many questions. I said I only asked three questions she said you asked for, but it's time I'm gonna answer all of them. The webinar was going to be over I look at her Yeah. So it's another reason to ask was quite a barrier to entry. People who really want to be here, at least putting in a if not now. You'll put in NA. But we do ask those questions for a reason because we really, really want to be able to help you. And there are a lot of people supporting this. And let me tell y'all if y'all don't customized your LinkedIn profile I am going to talk about y'all.
So everybody, thank you so much for joining. I hope these tips hurt helped or will help you to engage with executives in your organization. Tomorrow we will have crystal Ada who will be talking about workplace harassment so definitely come get the tactics and tools you can use in the workplace when it comes to harassment. See you then