About two years ago I made a career pivot from Consulting to Business Development.

Almost overnight I went from an individual contributor to being tasked with building and leveraging important relationships.

I was in WAY over my head.

In an effort to disguise my imposter syndrome I:

• Over prepared for every meeting

• Spent an unhealthy amount of time on LinkedIn researching, and

• Talked way to much in meetings

The result?

I came off inauthentic, overbearing, and rehearsed. Not a good look for Biz Dev work.

Not a good look for any career to be quite honest.

Building and leveraging relationships is critical for any career, yet it isn’t taught in school or even on the job.

Yet, most of us are expected to be relationship gurus.

In reality, very few career’s look like this:

Instead, most careers look like this:

With all this volatility, one of the main things we can control is our relationships with people (strangers, friends, family, peers, bosses, etc.) and ideally it is these relationships that turn into opportunities, more responsibility, and job offers.

Most people struggle to build these relationships for a few reasons.

• Imposter Syndrome - they believe that they are not as good/talented/experienced to be where they are at

• Complacency - put simply, they get comfortable

• Transactional - they network not to build relationships, but to “get ahead”

The key to networking and building relationships lies 100% in coming to terms with your authentic self and becoming comfortable displaying it for the world.

People pickup on your bullshit so don’t even try.

All told, the keys to building and leveraging relationships are 4 fold:

1. Be authentically you.
   

2. Listen more than you talk.
   

3. Embrace the awkwardness and be human.
   

4. Offer something in return

Be Authentically You

Being yourself can go a long way. Stop pretending to be what others think you should be and come to the table as yourself. Above all, do so with curiosity and humility.

People are shocked when they get a taste of authenticity in an otherwise generic world.

Lean into yourself.

Listen More Than You Talk

Not only is this a great key for leadership, but listening is the first step towards empathy and ALL relationships are built through an empathetic lens.

Relationship building is often about connecting the dots (across people, opportunities, and risk) and you can’t do that when you are constantly talking.

Shut up and think.

Be Human.

For a while, the Pandemic made us all a bit more human. We entered each others living rooms via Zoom and were privy to the occasional crying baby or dog bark.

At the end of the day, you can’t truly connect with someone who you don’t view as an equal. Take people down from their pedestal or up from the floor and meet them where they are.

Everybody poops.

Offer Something in Return

As much as we can pretend that the world is a perfect place, there truly is no “free lunch”. Let’s call a spade a spade and understand that we all have our motives in life (determining those is another conversation).

Surrounding yourself with people who have symbiotic motives can allow you to offer up your skillset and network to help them achieve their goals while you also achieve yours.

Give and take. Then give again.

Following the above tips helped me shorten the learning curve from individual contributor to business development master.

Does it take time? Yes.

Will you mess up? Yes.

Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Put in the legwork now to watch your relationships flourish later.

Well, that’s it for today. Hope you enjoyed the first edition of The Career Kickstarter. If so, send it to a friend, colleague, grandma, etc. I’ll see you back here next Wednesday.

Talk soon,

Ben

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