Croissants Vs. Bagels: Building Meaningful Relationships with Robbie Samuels
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary
Interacting with others in different situations is not as easy as it seems because people vary. Robbie Samuels, a relationship-based business strategist, introduces us to the different ways people interact at events through his bestselling book called Croissants Vs. Bagels. Recognized as a “networking expert” by Inc., Harvard Business Review Ascend, and Lifehacker, Robbie redefines networking and encourages people to stop wasting their time networking and start building meaningful relationships instead. He discusses the three common complaints people have about networking, the downside of being a unicorn, and how to handle bagels versus croissants.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Croissants Vs. Bagels: Building Meaningful Relationships with Robbie Samuels
Our guest is Robbie Samuels, who’s a keynote speaker and relationship-based business strategist. He’s been recognized as a networking expert by no less than Harvard Business Review and Lifehacker. He’s the author of the bestselling book, Croissants vs. Bagels: Strategic, Effective and Inclusive Networking at Conferences, and has been profiled in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Fast Company. His clients include associations in Corporate America like Marriott and General Assembly. He’s been featured in several books, one including Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It by our mutual friend and former guest, Dorie Clark. He has guest lectured at many educational institutions including Harvard. He is the host of his own podcast called On the Schmooze, which features his network strategies. I’ve been lucky enough to be a guest on that. I couldn’t wait to have him on the show. Welcome, Robbie.
Thank you so much for having me, John.
I always like to ask my guest to take us back to their own story of origins and yours is going to be interesting. Were you an outgoing kid or were you shy? How did you get into being this expert in helping people connect and become networking?
I have never been accused of being a wallflower. I am very much an outgoing extrovert. I get energy from being around people. The way I got into this is that I was running a meetup group that grew to thousands of members and hosted hundreds of events. About a year in, I brought the regulars out for coffee and said, “What do you love about this space?” They told me how welcoming we were. They love coming back. They love the people they were meeting. I said, “I need you to be a clique that’s not cliquey.” They were like, “What does that mean?” I said, “Come fifteen minutes early. Greet people who arrive, help hand out name tags. We’ll do all those things. Wander the room and make sure people are comfortable.” That’s when I got a lot of deer in headlights because the people I was talking to, 70% to 80% of them were shy and/or introverted. It did not come naturally to them to do the thing that I was asking of them. Even though they loved the idea, it made them feel nervous. That’s where I did some one-on-one coaching. It led to me doing a workshop and that’s several years ago. That’s where this all grew out of, this idea of how do you create leadership qualities from folks that didn’t think they had it in them to have a host of mindset.
We want to be a clique but not be cliquey. I instantly thought of clicking on something. I bet you’re talking about cliques that used to form in high school, for example. You were either a jock or you were this or you’re that. What’s the inspiration for writing the book? Where did you get that great title?
[bctt tweet=”Think of yourself as being resource rich.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Croissants vs. Bagels is a concept of what I’ve been speaking on since almost the beginning. I had tested the idea through that group and Dorie Clark wrote about it in Stand Out. That was the piece that stood out for her. People started to ask her. When she would present on her books, she would have a slide about me, which she still does this. People would come up to her and say, “Does Robbie have a book?” I didn’t have a book. I’m also a speaker. It’s like a necessary requirement to have a book. I knew I had content, but I being an extrovert, didn’t find it easy to have the discipline to write down everything, sit quietly and do all of that.
Finally, I set a deadline. I had it done in July 2017. I was struggling with the title because that’s an important piece of this. I talked to Dorie and she said, “You have to call it Croissants vs. Bagels.” I was excited about the idea because it’s a concept that’s sticky. In case people reading are now curious, the bagels are those tight networking circles that are impossible to break into, those shoulder-to-shoulder huddle that we hate seeing at conferences and events. If you open up your body language, if you’re in that circle and you make space for others to join, you’re creating a croissant and it’s the croissants that we want to look for.
They’re a little softer, buttery, French, sophisticated and all that good stuff. A lot of people have a negative connotation around the word networking because they perceive it to be either a waste of time or a bunch of people pushing business cards on each other. How do you redefine it?
It’s interesting that you say that because there was a study by Northwestern and Harvard that determined that people do find it icky. It makes them feel dirty. The networking that study was testing was people who were thinking about it as a transactional piece like, “What can I get?” They were going in with a need. They were trying to get things. The people in that study who did not experience it in an icky factor where the senior executives because when they show up, they do not need things. They’re showing up to offer. They have all kinds of resources, referrals, connections, introductions, mentorship and budgets. They’re showing up resource-rich. I believe all of us can think of ourselves as resource-rich. We all have connections and opportunities to support each other. Even if you’re looking for a job, which is one of those moments when you do have a distinct need.
Croissants Vs. Bagels: Strategic, Effective, and Inclusive Networking at Conferences
It’s about finding the right job and the right fit. For the right hiring manager, you’re a dream. It’s about having that in you and thinking, “What’s my experience, passion and how do I present myself?” That is about having a solid pitch, like saying, “I need a job in nonprofit, rings no bells.” My database comes back to null. If you were clear with me about who you were, what your passions were, I could think of people to introduce you to. It’s a win-win for everyone. For me, it’s about relationship building. I want people to stop wasting their time networking and start building great relationships. Most of the time, people aren’t thinking about the real value of being present in a room with others.
Your book, Croissants vs. Bagels, you talk about three common complaints and nobody loves three problems and three solutions more than I do. Let’s attack that from that. The first complaint is meeting strangers is scary. Your solution to that is?
First, you should remember that your best friends started out as strangers. It’s a good reminder. If you think about it, you’ve already had some practice doing this. I’m also doing some research ahead of time so you know who to keep an eye out for what you might have in common with people, conversation starters, things that you can congratulate people on, compliment people on because you know a little bit what’s going on in their life. It makes them less scary, less of a stranger and more of someone that you haven’t met yet.
The second one, which is a big one for most people, is networking is exhausting. How do you help people not feel exhausted or even anticipate the exhaustion so that they avoid it?
This is definitely true for introverts. I could go for days meeting people. It doesn’t mean I’m effective. I might be hugging and air-kissing the whole room and not necessarily making the right connections. For introverts who need to think about how to manage their time and their energy in particular, it’s about knowing what you need to do in the time that you have. If I could tell an introvert, “If you dedicated an hour at the event, had all of your needs met, you did everything you need to do and you can go home after an hour, head held high, not feel like you’re slinking away, would you want to do that?” They’re like, “Yes.” I’m like, “There are a few hours with a prep that you’re going to do before you even get to the event. In that time that you do have the energy that you have, you’re super present. You know exactly who you want to talk to. You know what you’re going to talk about. That you’re not going to show up and hide in the corner. That hour is wasted and you could have stayed home and messaged the people on Facebook. If you don’t talk to people and you write them a message afterward, it’s not a follow-up message, it’s an email.
I love that you give people an exit strategy and that requires some preparation. People, especially if you’re introverted, would rather spend three hours preparing for who they want to talk to and meet and what they’re going to say. That one hour is limited and you can go, “I can survive anything for an hour.” The other big one is people think it’s a waste of time. You have a whole thing about let’s be strategic, which allows us to be effective. You also put in the word inclusive. How does that work so that we don’t waste time?
[bctt tweet=”There is a difference between collecting business cards vs. building relationships.” username=”John_Livesay”]
A lot of times when we head to a conference, which is one of the reasons I talked about that in the book is that we have the experience of going to conferences and organizing all the logistics to get there, travel, hotel, booking the ticket for the actual event. We’re not necessarily clear on the intentions we have around the event. In some way we’re going for the content, that’s what’s driving us to go. You can get content from the comfort and safety of your home. You don’t have to venture across the country to go meet people. If you’re going to do that, leave your house and go across the country, you should be there for connections, not content.
The wasting of our time is when we get to the end of a long weekend, if we’re a shy person, we may not have talked to many people and thought, “This was wasting my time. I’m exhausted.” If we’re outgoing, maybe we’d collect a stack of business cards, but we didn’t prioritize one over the other. They’re all like in a stack, which means they’re not going to be easy to follow-up with, which means we’re probably not going to follow-up, which means we’re thinking, “Whatever. This has wasted my time.” A lot of this is clear. Before you even get to the event, write your follow-up email draft. You’re not sending this to anyone. You are getting clear on why this event, in particular, out of all the events you could’ve gone to, who you’re trying to meet? What inspiration you’re looking for? What information you’re looking for? What can you offer this space?
What is the value that you’re bringing to the space? Write yourself a little draft now you’re going to personalize it when you get home. The other thing I suggest doing is on your calendar putting an hour after the event when you’re going to do the follow-up messages. If you have the draft and you’ve scheduled an hour, within two days of coming back from your event. During the event, you track the cards that were a higher priority conversation, maybe a little more in-depth, a little more engaged. Sometimes we’re standing in those tight bagels circles and someone starts handing out their card and everyone starts handing them out. It feels like you’re in a poker game.
Those shouldn’t have equal weight to the conversation you had for twenty minutes over lunch. I like to because we’re in Western culture, turn the corner of the cards that I want to keep track of. I always carry a pen. I like to jot a little note about the conversation. When I get home, I drop all the cards on the table, the ones that turn corners stand out to me. I have my draft. I have my time set aside. I’m likely to send the messages I need to. Everybody gets a LinkedIn invitation. Those small number of people will get a personalized email message as well. It won’t feel like a waste of time if we have some strategy, thoughtfulness and an intention before we even get there.
I love how you’re pre-loading and post-loading the whole concept. Creating a draft is so much easier to edit than starting from scratch that helps the momentum. If it doesn’t get scheduled, it doesn’t get done. The need to put that hour in a day or two after the event is crucial. One of your quotes in here that’s one of my favorites is “There’s a difference between collecting business cards and building relationships.” Can you give us a story of someone that you met at a convention that turned into a relationship and that paid off for both of you?
Building Meaningful Relationships: Being inclusive and being strategic are tied together.
I was at a big event in the Boston area where I live. It invited a lot of different sectors. It wasn’t nonprofit, business, government or education, it was all of them, which is one of the most difficult spaces to navigate. You’re trying to find your people. We were all there because we love the city. We were a part of this big campaign they were doing. I first told people, at the time I was working in nonprofit so people would turn and point, “No, you should meet so and so.” I’d say, “I do advocacy work.” They would point me to someone who does advocacy work. I’d say, “I do this kind of work.”
Someone said, “You should meet, she’s not here, let me tweet at her.” This guy tweets an introduction to this other woman, who I run into at an event months later, and me. That’s several years ago. We have done events together. She’s hired me. I’ve supported her work. She supported my work. What’s amazing is she wasn’t even in the room. All of that transpired because I was super clear on the people I was trying to meet and use part of that big picture, who I was looking for and assumed that everybody I was talking to was a connector. In some ways that’s true, some people are, but I knew that they knew at least one other person. I wanted an introduction to another person. I hope that I would leapfrog through the event to meet the people I truly needed to. That connection has absolutely paid off.
You talk about being effective once you already have your strategy in mind, but that strategy will only get us so far. What do you mean by that?
I also realized that I might not have talked about inclusion when you asked that question. I want to dovetail into that as well because being inclusive and being strategic are tied together. If you show up at the event and you do walk up to people, but the first thing out of your mouth is something off-putting, makes them feel like in other. Here’s an example that we’ve probably all heard at least if not said, “You’re tall. How tall are you?” If you’re over twelve years old, you should probably stop saying that. It could be about hair texture, skin color, heights, accents, names, things that people get commented on all day, every day. You’re not unique for having pointed out the obvious. That calling out differences is the thing that makes people feel like, “Do I belong here? I don’t feel like I fit. Am I welcome here?” It’s not doing you any good because they may have been a great connection, but you now have fallen into the trap of what everyone always says to them. They’re not going to think highly of you or want to stay engaged.
Inclusion is a strategy, which is why make the effort of going and talking to people and saying the thing that is off-putting? Calm that inner voice and as you get to know each other, I always think at some point maybe I’ll be like trading grandma recipes. I’ll talk to them about the thing that I had noticed or they’ll also be willing to ask me as well. We don’t want to lead with the obvious difference, but instead focusing on ways to engage people and welcome them into the space. That’s the part of the strategy and also the strategy of having your email draft ahead of time, talking to hosts and organizers, and asking for introductions. These are all things, getting there early so that you’re one of the people that everyone meets as they come.
[bctt tweet=”There is a difference between collecting business cards versus building relationships.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It can be a strategy taking on a host mindset so that as you greet people, I always think at a conference in the morning when they have coffee out. Everyone doesn’t know each other yet. They’re registered. There’s a cocktail table where you can lean with your coffee. I always stand at an empty table with my coffee. I look around and anybody who comes by, I wave them over. When I see someone trying to juggle their muffin and their coffee, I say, “Come here. You set it down right here.” Having that host’s mentality gives me an opportunity to talk to people that maybe I wouldn’t have otherwise. I do that at lunchtime. I’ll start a table and waving people over from the buffet. They don’t seem like they have a place to go. For me, it means that I’m going to have interesting conversations that I may not have had the opportunity to do so.
I love what you said about to generate the host table. I would have to say, even for myself, when I’m at those events, I tend to look for a seat that’s open at a table that already has people versus I’m going to sit by myself and try to get people to join me. If nobody does, I feel like a loser. You have a different mindset. You’re like, “No, start your own table, be a host and start inviting people over.”
If you are nervous and wondering where to be in, there are people who are even more nervous is my thought. To me, I also keep an eye out for the demographic outliers as well as the physical outliers. The physical outliers are the wallflowers. If it’s your first time attending the event, I don’t recommend going and talking to wallflowers because even though it may be a great conversation, it’s going to be a super awkward ending because they don’t know anyone and you don’t know anyone. You might be like, “John, it was nice talking to you. I’m going to go to the restroom.” You’re like, “Great talking to you too. That’s a good idea. I’ll join you.” You’re like, “I was trying to get out of this conversation.” If you’re new, go and find the openings in the large groups. For someone who’s been going a few times, it’s a nice thing to go over to the people on the sides of the room and bring them in. Similarly demographic outliers, someone who’s much older or much younger, people of color in mostly white space like going and engage the person who is visibly a little different and helping them feel engaged, not othered is a nice way to continue that host mindset.
Do you have any other graceful exit strategies besides, “Excuse me, I have to go get a drink or go to the bathroom?”
My favorite way to end a conversation is dependent on whether I’m new there or I know a lot of people. If I’m new I’ll say, “I don’t know that many people here. Is there anyone you think I should meet?” Usually, there’s a little bit of brainstorming because they know a little bit about me from the conversation we’ve had. I’ll be like, “That sounds great. Would you make an introduction? Would you introduce me?” Generally, that’s like, “I see them over there.” They walk me over and I get the introduction. I thank them. They can either stay with the conversation or they mostly wander off to do their own thing. Now I had been holding my hand over to that space. I am not left to stand by myself.
Building Meaningful Relationships: It’s exhausting to be a unicorn because you get all these pestering curious questions that make you feel like you’re under a magnifying glass.
The other thing I will tell you, John, is to make a note of how many people are in the circle with you. If there’s a three or four or more and you want to step away, you murmur something. You’re like, “I’m going to go,” you’re going to tap out. You’re like, “Let the person next to you know.” If there are three and one person leaves and it’s not you, now there’s two. When there’s two, you have to think are you inviting someone over? Are you coming up with some elaborate thing? Are you introducing them? Are they introducing you? Part of this is you leave before it’s time. You leave a conversation while it’s still got a lot of energy and makes them want to come and talk to you again. That’s another piece of this.
I have that philosophy with parties too, do not be the last person there when the host is saying, “We’re out of booze.” You talk about being inclusive and that there’s a downside to being a unicorn. Can you first define what a unicorn is? What is the downside?
You’ve heard probably the phrase “Always be yourself unless you can be a unicorn and always be a unicorn.” If you’re picturing what would a day as a unicorn be like? Is it rainbows and sunny skies? It’s probably more like, “A unicorn, I’ve never met a unicorn. Can I touch your?” All these intrusive, curious questions. A unicorn in this example are people who have that difference. It’s visible. They’re in a room that others are coming up to them and be like, “Can I touch your, can I ask you about this? I like your accent.” It can be exciting to be a unicorn, but sometimes it’s exhausting to be a unicorn because you get all these pestering curious questions that make you feel like you’re under a magnifying glass. In some ways, people are like, “I want to examine you.” That’s the downside. We’ve all experienced this to some degree or another. Some of us look like the people in the room more often than not. We also have had moments of being like, “I’m definitely the only blank here. How am I going to find people like me?”
We should call upon that to remind ourselves what it’s like to be in that space. That energy can be used to create a space where people can show up and bring more of their full selves. To clarify this for your audience, it’s not about the difference. A compliment is about something that they have chosen versus who they are. If someone has sunglasses on, a scarf, a piece of jewelry or an awesome jacket, those are compliments saying something nice. A guy has a tie that matches his shirt like a subtle connection. I love that. My dad taught me if you pick up a subtle color and a tie to match this color. I’m like, “You’ve got the style. Where do you shop?” That’s a compliment. If I said to the same guy, “You’re tall. How tall are you?” It’s not a compliment. It’s an observation and one they’ve heard before.
When you’re talking about fashion, I used to sell advertising for W Magazine, a fashion magazine. There was a phrase we had about the readers. It was, “Everyone puts on clothes, but not everyone gets dressed.” The people who read this magazine get dressed. That’s a fun way to compliment somebody who’s looking dapper, whether they’re male or female and say, “You got dressed, didn’t you?” I know you referenced that line and that’s a fun, unique way to connect with someone. Since you’re talking about your dad and you are a dad, do you have any tips for parents who might find that their child is a little introverted in school or in social situations?
[bctt tweet=”We don’t have to be extraordinarily outgoing or an extrovert to succeed.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s about finding those strength and working towards that. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, our children and on each other to be something that we may not. Maybe they’re not the most outgoing kid, but what do they enjoy? If they enjoy it, they’ll put energy into it. They may find leadership doing that thing which they enjoy. Leadership is something that they will take the rest of their life. They don’t have to be extraordinarily outgoing or an extrovert to succeed. There are a ton of examples of people who are quite introverted that have been enormously huge impacts on our lives and our culture. Rather than trying to make them into something that they’re not, that they feel bad about, you can perform being more outgoing. A lot of people have adapted and learn how to do that, but it’s exhausting and not very fulfilling. Instead, guide them towards the things in which they feel good about, they can excel at and help them find leadership opportunities within that space, which will give them the confidence they need to make great decisions going on in life. That’s what I hope to do for my kids is hear them and listen to what they say as opposed to trying to make them the image in which I have for them. That’s difficult as a parent, but I think it’s a good idea to have that goal.
What I find interesting is when you try to force yourself or a child to be something you’re not is exhausting. If you do the old way of networking, that’s exhausting. If you are your authentic self, you’re energized, whether you’re in a networking situation or interacting with anybody. That’s a nice little barometer to see if you’re in the zone or not. You give these great keynotes about the art of the schmooze. Who’s your favorite audience to give this to?
My favorite audience is women at a Women’s Leadership Summit. I’ve gotten invited. I feel privileged to have been invited into that space a few times, maybe a half dozen times. It’s such a pleasure. The work that I do and how I speak about it resonates. My ideal coaching clients are entrepreneurial women in their 50s and 60s. It resonates with the corporate audience as well. Even using the word exhausted, that’s definitely a word women would use more than men for how the experience is. I’ll also make jokes and one of my earliest podcast episodes and blog posts was titled When Will Women Win the Right to Pockets?. You haven’t ever had to think about pockets then that’s a privilege in itself because women struggle with this all the time when they’re trying to get dressed in a nice way, they often have to sacrifice practical things like pockets.
The fact that I comment on that, have strategies for that, and I say things like, “It’s important to wear layers because the room is going to be freezing. The men are wearing suit coats.” The temperature is set for them. You’re in a sleeveless dress. You might want to bring something. They’re so appreciative that I’m naming that reality. I’m giving them tangible things that they can take action on. It’s not asking them to be anything other than who they are that I’m not asking them to reach outside of that. Now it’s outside their comfort zone to some degree to do some of this, but I’m not asking them to be someone else.
How do you develop such empathy for women in their 50s and 60s?
Building Meaningful Relationships: We need to be leveraging, reviewing, and rekindling connections with people that we’ve met.
I am 45 so I am closer to that than I look perhaps. I’m also an out trans guy so I would socialize as a girl and into being a woman. I have a better understanding of that space. It also comes with the empathy I have around introverts and shy people. I’ve never been those things and yet I can still put myself in that place and appreciate where they’re coming from. I learned a lot about being a leader is often about taking a step back. I learned that by having great people around me that I wanted to listen to. If I didn’t make space for them, they wouldn’t be heard. For me, it’s been a real practice.
The reason I love working with these women is that they’re motivated. They’re at a time in their life where they want more. They’re ready to take their business to the next level, but they also have a lot of trepidation about how to do it and feel like they’re starting over. They’re a novice when they’ve got 30 plus years of experience in the world. They forget about that. They, in particular, forget that they have a professional network that will support them in whatever the next level or transition of their business is. That’s my goal is relationship-based business strategies. They do not have to start from scratch. This is not scientific but 80% of who you need to know to be successful, I believe you’ve already met.
That’s such an a-ha moment for people. First of all, it keeps it from being so overwhelming. You think, “How is it that I’ve already met this person? I haven’t thought of asking him the right question or who else they might know?” All those things take it from this overwhelming, exhausting mindset into, “I have to think about who I’ve already met.” That’s a very different proposition.
It changes what networking is because we usually think of networking as having to meet new people. That’s only about 20% of what we needed to be doing. We need to be leveraging, reviewing and rekindling connections with people that we’ve met. It could be someone from five and ten years ago that you used to work with. If you would be happy to hear from them, you should be reaching out to them. If you’d be like, “It’d be so cool to hear from them again.” I do exercises where I have my clients brainstorm twenty names of those kinds of people without any connection to the work they’re doing or how it might benefit them.
Get in the habit of reconnecting because when you do make a great connection, you’ll already have the systems in place to schedule it. You’ll know how to do a Zoom call. You might have scheduling software to make it super easy. You’ll have the mindset to say, “Let’s follow up and make this happen.” When you go to a conference, it’s more likely you’ll follow up when you’re at a meeting when you meet someone at a restaurant. It doesn’t matter where you are. You have some of the habits around that set in place. It is habit forming. We have to get into the practice of our lives.
If you have one last tip you want to leave us with about how to handle bagels versus croissants, what would it be?
When you come into the room, look for the croissants. If you haven’t done the prep, if you haven’t prewritten your email follow up message and you haven’t thought about this space, take that as the moment to do it. If you remember to look for the croissants that will have a networking moment happen a little bit of strategy session with yourself, “Why am I here? Who do I want to meet?” Even that momentary pause before you go into the room can absolutely set some intentions that will create great outcomes. I look for the croissants.
What a great takeaway message. It’s visual, it’s sticky and it reminds you to be one yourself the next time you’re at an event and help other people. Robbie, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. The book is Croissants vs. Bagels. If you want to learn more about Robbie, go to his website, RobbieSamuels.com. Thanks again, Robbie.
Thank you.
Links Mentioned:
- Croissants vs. Bagels: Strategic, Effective and Inclusive Networking at Conferences
- Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It
- Dorie Clark – Past episode
- On the Schmooze
- When Will Women Win the Right to Pockets? – Past episode of On the Schmooze
- RobbieSamuels.com
- www.RobbieSamuels.com/TSP
- https://www.Amazon.com/Croissants-vs-Bagels-Networking-Conferences-ebook/dp/B0746TDZRY/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=croissants+vs+bagels&qid=1558121830&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull
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LGFG – Look Good Feel Good Fashion House With Dimitry Toukhcher
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
A good outfit is one to start a great day. In this episode, we take on fashion that makes us look good and feel good with CEO of LGFG Fashion House, Dimitry Toukhcher. Dimitry’s company is one of the world’s fastest-growing suit + shirt brands and is a forefront player in the international fashion and tailoring scene. As he shares great insights about what makes a good suit, fabric, fit, and construction, he reveals his secret weapon to success in this competitive world which is being responsive to your clients.
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Listen to the podcast here
LGFG – Look Good Feel Good Fashion House With Dimitry Toukhcher
Dimitry’s mission is to grow the value of his company, both externally to his clients, but also continuously improving his value proposition by creating an ideal culture and becoming the biggest luxury clothier. His passion is also mentoring young people to help them reach their potential. The LGFG Fashion House is the fastest growing bespoke suit and shirt brand in the world. Bespoke is when you have a custom suit made just for you. Believe me, when you wear something bespoke, you will never want to go back. He caters tailoring services to clients all over the world. He’s dressed tens of thousands of high-profile clients and also been in some movies.
The movie, Skyscraper, had twelve of his suits that costarred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He also supports a lot of different charities. They’ve given over $500,000 worth of clothing to nonprofits. It’s impressive to see that luxury market and then the connection to giving back on top of mentoring. He has also a TV show. He’s the star with his clients where he travels the world to meet them talking about fashion and business. It’s called The Suit Maker. It’s fascinating to look at the inside life that we rarely get to see the kinds of people that are changing the world and how their appearance impacts all of that. Dimitry, welcome to the show. I wanted to ask you to take us back if you would to your own story of origin. We can go back as far as you want, whether it’s before high school or college or something in those days. Were you always the child that wanted to dress a certain way? How did you become you?
It wasn’t like a clothing thing, to begin with. I was born in Ukraine. I immigrated to Canada when the Soviet Union fell apart in ‘92. I grew up mostly in Canada and then moved to Estonia in Northern Europe. I married an Estonian lady. I live in Estonia with my family, but our company was global. We have offices in Hong Kong, Canada and all over Europe. My background is not so much fashion. My background is more entrepreneurship and sales. I got into the fashion thing accidentally. When I started in sales, I progressed up into luxury goods. I loved selling luxury. I couldn’t afford it, but I loved it. Most of all, I loved the people I got to meet. I was selling to very interesting high-profile people that have all these cool careers like attorneys and surgeons. They’re so fascinating to me. I’m loving those people. Suits gave me access to the kind of people I wanted to associate with because I wanted to be like them and I wanted to have them in my network. That’s how it came to that. The fashion was secondary. It’s the most important thing for us, how our clients look and how they present themselves. The reason I got into it wasn’t the fashion, it was the people.
I want to ask you about the similarities. You create your own company and culture is a very big part of LGFG, is that correct?
[bctt tweet=”You need to be hyper responsive to your clients to stay competitive.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Yes, any company.
Some people go, “It’s not that important. We talk about it. We rarely look at our mission statement. We don’t really know. If someone asks us what our culture is, we couldn’t define it.” If people like you start a company and say, “This is a big part of our brand. It determines who we hire. This determines who our ideal clients are.” There is something there that’s an interesting look. You’re the perfect person to explore this topic with. In my experience, what makes a good suit are two things. There are probably many more, but fabric and fit are certainly two of them. I would say that also as a company growing globally like yours, you have to see if the people that you’re bringing on are also a fit and the fabric of their character comes into play. I thought that might be an interesting place to see what you think about using fashion as an analogy for building a company?
That’s a perfect metaphor. There are three things that would impact the quality of a suit and likewise with people. It’s the fabric, it’s what you see. The fit, it’s how it fits in and then what it’s made out of, the construction. The culture goes in with that as well, but the thing about that is we can control fabric, we can control construction, but you can’t control culture, you can influence it. You can’t control people, you can influence them. How much you influenced a person has a lot to do with what they’re made out of. It has a lot to do with their construction if you will. I wish that building a person or putting a person in the right place and watching them succeed was as easy as constructing a $10,000 suit. When you look at the complexity of it, the construction of a $10,000 suit while requiring multitudes of equipment and expertise and eons of knowledge, it still does not compare anywhere in magnitude to the challenges, the experience, the expertise and the nuances required to influence and build a person.
You start with what you start with. You try to find great people like you find great fabric. You try to find great people that will be a fit. Like with a suit, retailers know how to make something cheap look good. You never find out about it until later, you know that. People have a tendency to be the same way. They tend to put their best foot forward early. Building a suit, at least with enough experience, you know what you get. With people, there is a lot more to it and it’s a bigger challenge. That’s the challenge all companies face. It comes back to the people.
I love how you took that metaphor and ran with it. First I want to ask you, what does LGFG stand for?
Building The Perfect Suit: It’s way too competitive to be unreliable in today’s environment.
It was a quote by Neon Deion Sanders. He famously once said that, “When you look good, you feel good. When you feel good, you play good. When you play good, they pay you good.”
You knew even though you were starting on humbly that you wanted to be a world leader and the way you have done that has been something that everyone can implement no matter what their business is, which is responsiveness and client care. Let’s talk about each of those. Let’s start with what’s the value of responsiveness? Why do you think that’s important and then how you implement it?
I’ll tell you a story. We had a situation where one of our executive assistants, what they do is they’ll check in on clients from time to time after delivery of the product to see that they like it. One of our executive assistants called the client at about 7:30 in the morning. The fellow is an investment banker. We know he got up very early and he’s like, “I got my product, there’s an issue. I tore my pants very early wearing them. I was very frustrated. I’m never buying from you guys again.” He hung up the phone and that was the call. The executive assistant forwards me the message immediately. She’s like, “Here’s what happened.” I picked up the phone and I called him, “It’s Dimitry. I’m the CEO of the company.” He goes, “I just talked to your girl ten minutes ago.” I go, “That’s what she’s there for. She’s there to find out if there are issues. We’ll replace your pants. If they tore, they tore. These things happen. It’s clothing, it’s not armor.”
What we ended up doing is we ended up saving a very high-value client for us probably for a very long time. This environment is way too competitive to be unreliable. I take a lot of people who say, “I don’t check my emails. I only respond 72 hours later.” I have a policy with me. I have an assistant that manages my LinkedIn and my assistant connects with every single client in our company when they first become a client. Whether they accept the invite or not, I don’t know. It even says in my LinkedIn profile, “I connect with LGFG clients who have direct access to me.” From time to time, not very often, I get a message from a client and I respond right away because like they say “A fish rots from the head, but so does it grow from the head.” If I expect people in our company to respond to clients, which I do. I have to be there with them in the trenches and respond to clients quickly. Who is more important to me and who’s more important to our people than our clients? They’re the ones that give us the privilege of living the life that we live.
That’s a great line there that it’s too competitive out there to be unreliable and expect you’re going to be successful. I know myself when I got a request from my speaking agent saying, “This client is interested in having a conversation to book you as a speaker for their upcoming sales summit. Are you available these dates?” You can be sure that I’m getting back to them within minutes as you did. “Yes, I’m available for the call.” Being easy to work with and being responsive in a time when people get put on hold and, “Press one for this and two for that,” helps separate you. People want to continue to do work. Dimitry, I’m guessing this is the case, but I’d love to get confirmation. From my experience of dealing with you and your team, because of this responsiveness, not only does it give you a competitive edge, but it also creates brand ambassadors.
[bctt tweet=”Fabric, fit, and construction are key to looking your best.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Celebrities or noncelebrities or people that are world leaders wearing your clothes because of not a topic that comes up a lot. People might say to me, “I like your suit.” I can explain where I got it, but if you’re a leader of a big company and you’re telling your own team or you’re being interviewed on television about keys to success and you said, “Let me give you a story.” They tell a story of you showing that to them and how now they have a client for life. Is that part of the outcome? Have you seen these brand ambassadors, not only are they loyal, but they then start telling other people? Did you get leads that way?
Yes, massively. We had a competition at our company. We call it the CEO Cup. What we do quite a lot of is we’ll call our clients referrals to get me business. The contest was me against every other person in the company, about 80 of us to see who can book the most meetings. I have some of our company’s clients on my LinkedIn that I’ve never met, but we’ve communicated over LinkedIn from time to time. They send me a happy birthday note. They got promoted to partner in their firm and I sent them a note like, “Congratulations. I’d love to get you acknowledged. You’ve done well.” I messaged a few clients. I’m like, “We’re having this thing. It’s called the CEO Cup.” I’m going to be on the phone calling these people. I want to show my team this old dog still has some tricks up his sleeve. What is cool is they replied and they gave me a list of referrals to call. They never met me and some of them even messaged their friends right there on LinkedIn like, “This is Dimitry. He runs LGFG,” and have people taken awesome care of me. It’s not only something we can talk about like an essence that it happens. There are measurable KPIs that reflect that.
There we are back to that analogy between a suit and business, measurable. Let’s dive into the other thing that you’re known for, which is client care. Responsiveness is one thing. Client care, replacing the pants is also a good example of that. Do you have another story of exceptional client care that people can think about, “Maybe I could do something like that?”
There have been a lot of examples of our teams stepping up and taking good care of clients. We had a situation where a client was going to meet the Queen of England and he needed a tuxedo. It was a last-minute thing where he found out he was meeting her through one of his clients. This fellow connects to some very high-up people. I was in Toronto when that happened. We had his measurements and had the tuxedo made, but we needed to get it fitted. We didn’t have anybody in London, UK. We got on the phone and this fellow from my office called a bunch of local tailors, explained the situations and said, “You don’t work with us. We don’t work with you. We’re not competitors because we’re not in the same markets. Even if we were, we need you to deliver this suit for a client and do a professional look over so that he looks presentable when he meets the Queen.”
That’s going out of our way and that’s what people in our company do. At least, when the situation presents itself to do that, that’s what they do because they do care about the clients. We take a lot of pride in representing our firm. A lot of us were here from the beginning. We’re a nine-year-old company. A lot of us grew up here. People that started with me at LGFG started when they were twenty-years-old. That’s who you hire when you’re starting up. You hire twenty-year-olds. They’re getting into their 30s and starting to have families. They grew up here. It’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle. It’s part of what we do and in a lot of ways, it’s a part of who we are.
Building The Perfect Suit: At the end of the day, people don’t stay for the money and they don’t usually leave for the money either.
You bring up another interesting point because a lot of people, when I am speaking to them or doing workshops with C-level executives. One of the challenges for big companies and small is how do I attract top talent but more importantly, how do I keep it? Especially “Millennials,” they tend to not be loyal, job-hopping and have to retrain. Clearly, you have figured out something and I think there’s something else you haven’t shared yet. My observation with what you did with the CEO Cup, you are in the trenches with your people. You’re responsive. You’re not asking them to be responsive and you’re not. I think that’s part of what creates employee loyalty, but I’m guessing you might have some other insights you could share.
To be frank, we’re not perfect. We don’t keep 100% of the people.
Still, if you could be above the norm, that says it.
It is what you said. A lot of them I found overtime and my perception changed and evolved as I’ve gotten a little bit older too. A lot of it is not so much my influence on making people good. It’s finding people who are already good and share those values to bring on board. I’ve learned that you can do a lot of things to try and build people and you can do a lot of things to lead by example, but you can never out culture lazy recruiting.
It’s like trying to outrun your diet. You can’t exercise enough to compensate for eating too badly all the time.
[bctt tweet=”You can’t control people, but you can influence them. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
I try exercising my terrible carb intake and I’ve also tried to out-culture our recruiting and that doesn’t work either way. You do need both. I don’t want to take the credit for having good people that stuck around for a long time. A lot of that has been at times lucky to find good people and at times more intentionally knowing specifically who to look for, but there’s the back end of it too. As much as people like to get paid, and that’s important for us especially in our firm because we’re salespeople, but at the end of the day, people don’t stay for the money and they don’t usually leave for the money either. There’s a deeper thing.
That’s one of the myths that you’re busting. Most people go, “They got a better offer.” No, they didn’t like the people they were working with or for is the reason people leave.
I heard and I’ve observed that there has to be both a push and a pull. It can’t just be a pull. There has to be a push as well.
For those who may not know all of the things that go into making up a bespoke suit, and I know that you source your things from multiple countries. What’s interesting here that could apply to a lot of businesses is the quality control standards you have in place. I imagine if that was being used for building airplanes or cars. How did you develop such a thorough and complete quality control funnel to make sure that when that suit is delivered, it is perfect as can be?
To be fair, I didn’t. I found people, suppliers and iterated through manufacturers that were incredibly passionate about their products. This is something that’s maybe unique to tailoring, but probably in every business. You have guys like me that are out there shouting from the rooftops, “Try us out.” On the back end, we want to provide a high level of service and quality. The reality is that guys like me, I’m not an artisan. To design and to create a suit that is not just the science, but an art, you have to have the heart of an artisan. I come from a family of software developers. I see that when they’re passionate about software, it’s not just the fact that it works. It has to work smoothly, it runs well and it’s technically at a high aptitude, but also easy for other people to redesign.
QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life
There are a lot of things that people who are passionate about what they do. They see the nuance in those things. For us, it wasn’t so much about me going out and doing it because I’m not an artisan bespoke tailor by trade myself. My great grandfather was, but we found people that were not maybe so business-oriented as we are because what they care about is the product and those people deliver incredible products. We recruited them to come to work for us because we said, “If you’d give us this level of product with your knowledge and passion about this product, we can sell it because we know it’s that good.” I don’t want to take their credit but that might also be internal to a lot of other companies. With the CEO of a software firm who wants to write all his own code, probably he’d want to find people that truly are passionate about coding, architecture and testing.
My takeaway here is not only do you have to have great criteria for the people you hire but great criteria for the suppliers you decided to work with.
Our chest pieces come from Italy. This is a four-layer horse-hair and canvas. When you hear our head of manufacturing talk about our chest piece, it’s like he’s describing his childhood love. He’s in a completely different universe talking about how the interlinings are the softest and how the micro pixels were the stabilizers applied are the most preposterously precise measurements and the stitch, how it goes not through the cloth, but horizontally splitting the cloth. Just tiny precise level and he gets so passionate about it.
Is that something you can feel or see or both? The outcome of having the stitching be that precise, is that something that the average person can see or is it something that a suit wearer feels?
The way that our head of manufacturing, Edward, would say, “It’s so good and the client may never even appreciate how good it is, but we know.” That’s next level because of course, the client knows it’s better because it lasts longer, it feels better, it performs better, it breathes better. He appreciates this at such a high level. He says, “They won’t ever know how good it is, but we know.” That’s pretty powerful.
[bctt tweet=”Try to find great people like you find great fabric. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
It reminds me when they were making the movie, Gone with the Wind. They wanted authentic underwear for the women wearing those hoop skirts from the civil war. They say, “No one’s ever going to know that those are silk.” It’s like, “Yes, but the actors will and we will. That will affect their performance to be more authentic.” I think that’s a big part of what you’re saying. Who is your ideal client? Does it have to be somebody that can afford a $10,000 suit?
We’re a brand that caters to partners in law firms, but we also do great made-to-measure products if you’re talking US dollars. We can offer a wonderful made-to-measure suit with Sherman shoulder pads and Italian chest pieces at $500. That’s unbelievable value, but as we step up into the more nuanced and handmade manufacturing processes where you’re getting our master tailors to do it by hand like when you’re buying a watch. When you buy a Jacob & Co. watch or a Hublot, when you get to that level, there’s this precision where you know the person is there behind the scenes making it. They get twenty years of experience to feel how that dial needs to fit into place.
There is a beauty to that. Our ideal client is not flying a private jet, even though we have clients like that too. Our ideal client is upper middle-level and higher executives. Somebody that enjoys a good suit, but also typically has to wear a suit because it is part of their identity and their day-to-day routine. Usually, it’s a lady or a fellow that’s married with one, two or three kids. They work hard and once in a while they can afford themselves the luxury of rewarding themselves for their hard work. Whether it’s driving their Lexus that they wanted for a long time or picking up a couple of bespoke suits a year that are made just for them.
Men are traditionally known for not enjoying the shopping process. What do you do to help them make that less painful?
That’s what we do. We come to their office, we measure them in their office, our tailor’s hand delivers all products to the office. That not only provides the service of keeping them out of stores on a Saturday, which I hate, but also it gives them a trusted advisor so their wife doesn’t have to be there because over time the wives learned to trust us because they realized what we do. This is important. In the modern world, the economy is becoming more personal. Everything is becoming Alexa and shipped to your door. That’s great for commodities but a bespoke suit is not a commodity. A bespoke suit is special. We don’t ship stuff like that. We deliver it by hand. The person that measures you comes and delivers, it does the fitting. It’s a very personal experience for our clients because they’re dealing with a real human being that they trust every time.
[bctt tweet=”Clients are the ones who give us the privilege of living the life that we love. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
Are there any last thoughts you want to leave us with? Either a favorite book or a quote that you find has inspired or helped you.
QBQ! The Question Behind The Question is a great book.
What’s your takeaway from that book?
It’s by John G. Miller. I’d read the book too many times. It’s a book about personal responsibility. When you say things, you watch for the implication of who is responsible, when you are making a complaint. I try my best to communicate that, not always extremely well. I try my best to tell guys, “Don’t come to me with a problem. Come to me with a solution.”
Dimitry, thank you so much for sharing your expertise, your insights into a good suit and a good person working for you have in common from the lens of fabric, fit and construction. I found that particularly fascinating and the responsiveness that sets you apart and keeps you at the forefront. I can’t wait to watch your suits show up in more and more movies.
Thank you so much.
Important Links
- LGFG Fashion House
- QBQ! The Question Behind The Question
- Quantmre.com
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Hiring The Best Leaders with Jeanne Branthover
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary
A company of effective leaders is an effective company. Jeanne Branthover, one of the most influential people in the world when it comes to executive search, talks about hiring the best leaders to run your organization or company. Shes opens up about her unique background of how she was taught the importance of relationships and how women can do anything, including making a difference in the world. As she reveals the four secrets to winning a new job, she also highlights the importance of patience and having genuine empathy and transparency to success.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Hiring The Best Leaders with Jeanne Branthover
I’m honored to have Jeanne Branthover with me. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her in person when I was speaking to her company, DHR International. She is a cohead and managing partner for the New York office. She works closely with the partners and her global clients on senior-level searches, personally managing assignments. She is known for her hands-on approach where she consults with clients on succession planning, organizational change, precision hiring and talent management. She’s recruited across industries and functions, identifying boards and C-Suites and senior-level decision-makers. She is a leader in the firm’s CEO and Board Advanced Technology and Financial Services Practices. She specializes in placing women on boards and in senior leadership positions, as well as ensuring representation of diversity on every assignment and in all industries. She frequently appears on television to offer her expertise on current trends and human capital. She’s regularly quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Forbes. You can see why I’m so honored to have her with us. She’s been named one of the world’s Top 50 Most Influential Headhunters by Business Week. Jeanne, welcome.
Thank you so much. That is one entry into the program. Thank you.
It’s all true. I’ve seen you in action. I’ve seen your energy and your dynamo force. One of the things I like to ask my guests is can you tell us your own story of origin? You can go back to childhood, high school, college or whatever it was when you started to get a sense of, “This is what I want to do with my life,” or “This is what matters to me.”
My story is unique because there are a couple of things that are important. First of all, did I grow up knowing I was going to be an executive search? The answer is absolutely not. I didn’t even know what executive search was. Growing up, I had a very unique and special childhood having parents that were pretty awesome. My father was the first person in his family to graduate from law school, even get a college education. He was at the right time, right place. He met Morita, who started Sony. They became close friends. That’s where I learned for the first time about relationships. Morita asked my father to open up his own law firm and my father was Sony’s lawyer for my entire life. My mom was a fiercely prominent woman of her time. She was the first woman on the Board of Ed in the town that I grew up in Manhasset, Long Island. She was the person that made sure that segregation ended. I had a bodyguard somewhat during school because things were changing so rapidly and my mother was the person making it happen.
I had the woman leadership from my mom’s, looking at her and watching her, and then my dad was this big lawyer who believed that a woman could do anything. I was taught from a very young age that, “Whatever you want to do, Jeanne, you’re going to be able to do, just put your mind to it and you’ll be able to do it.” That combined with I’m very lucky that I’m naturally athletic. I played every sport. I was the captain of different things. I always wanted to be in charge. That combination became who I am. I was going to be a teacher. I love kids. I love teaching. I love educating. I love making people the best that they can be. I went to school for elementary ed, which seems odd with what I’ve become. If you can believe it, elementary ed probably taught me more than many things. It taught me how to hold hands. It taught me how to build relationships. It taught me patience. It taught me lesson planning down to the second and it made me the most organized person in the entire world.
I love what you’ve already said. It reminds me of that book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. This concept of your dad teaching you the value of relationships, which I know is a key success to your career. Your mom teaching you the impact of making a difference in the world, social impact, combined with your athletic background, teaching you teamwork. That is a recipe for success. For everyone who’s reading, even if you weren’t fortunate enough to have a background like that, you can still take a look at those three elements, relationships, social impact and teamwork. You can say to yourself, “What do I need to parent myself in? What do I need to teach my coworkers about one of these three areas?” I may not have had this great foundation in, but I need to study it or become friends with somebody or model that behavior. There’s been this concept of patience. I want to double click on that as you continue your story. I don’t know about you, Jeanne, but as a person with a sales background and a career, we are so challenged on being patient with, “Why isn’t this happening? Why isn’t the sales closed? Why hasn’t this person made a decision yet?” I’m fascinated that you learned patience with elementary children, please continue. What did you end up doing after getting your focus with elementary education?
I graduated in elementary ed and had every intention of teaching for the rest of my life. I graduated from the University of Maryland, which I loved Maryland. I loved my experience. I was a sorority girl, which was fabulous. I graduated and started teaching right away. I taught third and fourth grade. I taught back then in something called a POD System, which was all the classes together. It was chaotic but fun. I actually loved it. I was probably the only teacher that still had braces on, so kids loved me and it was an incredible experience. My husband wanted to move to New York and felt strongly that he wanted to live in the city. He thought that teaching was not utilizing the best of my skills other than that I loved it.
I was very lucky where my sister, who had been a headhunter, had fallen into executive search and said, “Jeanne, this is perfect for us.” Growing up with a dad who exposed us to high-level clients from a very young age. My mother would have Sony men to our house and I had to serve them. I learned that the word maybe means no. It was an incredible experience and it did teach us that we’re fearless as far as level of people, cultures and trying something new from a very young age. I then fell into head-hunting, which now people go to school for this and it’s much more of a focus of HR. Back then, I fell into it and loved it. This is a job that you know in a very short period of time if you’re going to be able to do it and also that it’s your passion.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t give up a long term relationship for a short term profit.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I found out in three months that this was my thing. Building relationships, meeting new people and working hard to make them happy. It was just me. I am the luckiest person in the world that I found at 22 something that I love. After doing it for six months, the company that I was working for was a very large company and the head of the office sat me down and said, “Jeanne, you’re so good at this. We’re going to give your clients over to these other people and you get more clients.” I may be blonde, but I am not dumb. I sat down with my dad and I said, “Dad, I think that this is not a good thing for me. I think I should open up my own company.” I was 22 years old. I’ve been doing this for six months.
That’s the definition of fearless, Jeanne.
I borrowed $6,000. My mother was my secretary. My first space was at 49th in Madison in New York City. It had a card table, two phones, my mother and myself. My mother had her jewelry on. She was in the office. She didn’t know how to type. It was hysterical. She answered the phone and she was awesome. That’s how I started at the time Branthover Associates. I have to tell you a funny story that tells you as the years go by. During the ‘80s, partly the ‘80s and the ‘90s, it was very cool to have big parties for your clients. As I became more successful, my mother was my secretary for the first year. She’s happy that I replaced her with a real secretary and then she became my mother again. Years later, I was having one of these parties. I would have a holiday party at the King Cole Bar in New York City. My mom was at the party. The party was about 250 people and it was my clients and my candidates and it was a wonderful way to celebrate our relationship.
One of my clients from way back then said to my mother, “Weren’t you Jeanne’s first secretary? It’s amazing you stayed in touch.” My mother said, “I’m her mother.” That always brings a smile to my face because my mother was good at helping me. The client, the fact he remembered her was awesome. That’s where I began and started the roots of my company. With clients and things, I learned very quickly that I was good at what I do and I’m very blessed that it is me. I formed my own process. I had never worked for someone else truly doing the search from beginning to end as if it was retained search.
Hiring Leaders: Screening is necessary when you meet and talk to someone about being leaders in their field.
One of my first clients was GE and I became very close to the head of human resources. He resonated with me. He saw that I loved what I did. He taught me the GE culture, what GE looked for and we worked very well together. One of my first incredible opportunities as a businesswoman and as an entrepreneur is I was called in to meet with Jack Welch at a very young age. I was asked to meet with him because Jack was starting a division called CIG, which was Corporate Initiatives Group. That group he wanted to form where I was to recruit from Booz, Bain, McKinsey, the top consulting firms to find exceptional young leaders, dynamic leaders who would be forming this group. They would be shadowing the presidents of the divisions and then eventually moving into that division to be the successor to the president.
I met with Jack Welch and this is what I learned from him. Whether you liked him or not, he was an incredible man in person, charismatic, a leader and a force. The people that I put into GE totally looked him up too as an incredible leader, driving the business and driving the company. One of the things he was exceptional at was finding incredible talent and leadership and recognizing what a leader was. What he taught me with this. He said, “Jeanne, you’re going to find me exceptional leaders. How you do it is this. When you meet with someone and you talk to someone, I want you to screen them that they are from the right firm and they do the right things. More importantly, I need you to recognize that they’re leaders and this is how you do that. I want you to find out from the person, from a very young age, what did they do that was them leading? What did they do? Did they start a lemonade stand? Did they do something that was for charity? Were they an Eagle Scout? Were they captain of their cheerleading squad? What was it that made them what I call a natural leader?”
He taught me and this is what I do to this day. I go back to the person’s very young time and I say to them, “Tell me about yourself. Tell me what did you lead? What did you head? What did you start that made you maybe a little bit different than someone else?” It’s incredible. When you do that, you can differentiate someone who is trying to lead and learn how to lead and someone who is a natural leader. Management is different. You can learn how to manage, but you can’t learn how to lead unless it’s natural. That to me was a gift.
That’s a huge gift. Let’s explore that a little bit. I want to take a pause and let that sink in because first of all, you got it from someone who clearly has a lot of success. I love the way you described him as charismatic. That alone is a quality in a leader and valuing the importance of attracting good talent. One of the things we mentioned in your introduction is the importance of creating a succession plan. He’s looking for young people to take over and the values of things like that. You and I are very similar in our appreciation and love of these stories. That’s why I asked you to tell me your personal story of origin. We now have such a much better sense of who you are and what your values are, your chutzpah if you will, to start your own company at such a young age because of the background that you had that allowed you to be fearless and not be afraid of failure.
[bctt tweet=”Be fearless when you try something new.” username=”John_Livesay”]
This concept of anyone who’s reading this who maybe has an interview coming up. Be prepared to tell your story of something you did in your childhood that made you unique or showed some natural leadership or some entrepreneurialship. That kind of thing resonates because as we talked about at your event, when you’re going up to compete against other people, whether it’s for a job, to get hired, to find people for the company’s talent pool, those stories are what make you memorable, not what order you happen to be interviewed in or presenting. The better storytelling you can become and clearly that’s one of the reasons I’m so honored to have you on is you’re such a great storyteller.
This concept of tell me something from your childhood. I talk about in my own little childhood of being a paperboy and how I had to knock on doors and convince people to subscribe. I had to get up early, deliver it, and then I had to go at the end of the month and collect the money. That’s a great lesson as an entrepreneur. Being on a swim team and the lessons learned there about teamwork and the discipline that’s required. All those skills are what you’re talking about is a natural leader. The willingness to do what other people aren’t thinking of doing. I also hear you saying the discipline that you learned as an athlete, applying that to your career and being so organized and focused. Let’s talk about a story in your own successful career and I’m sure you have so many to choose from. What did you do that got Business Week’s attention that said, “She’s one of the most 50 influential headhunters in the world, not just in New York.”
That’s fully something I don’t even know. I do know as a young entrepreneur back then, remember women didn’t have a lot of opportunities to open their own businesses. I was very lucky and fortunate that my dad gave me the seed money to do it. I was also lucky that it was executive search. If you were good at that job, you were accepted whether you were a man or a woman. For me, it’s about my life and what my success has been built upon is having relationships. It’s not hard to build a relationship and keep a relationship. That can be a very natural thing. When I look at people and I judged them on how good they are with relationships, I look at, “Did you stay in touch with your friends from high school? Did you keep in touch with your friends from college?”
This is very corny and it’s something that people laugh at. My team that I built a long time ago, my core team, one of the women has worked for me for 29 years and one of the women’s father was my first boyfriend in life. My father mentored him and now his daughter has worked for me for thirteen years and I mentor her. Another person was my son’s best friend and he’s known me since he was very young and he’s worked for me for twelve years. Relationships are, in my opinion, what makes your life successful.
Hiring Leaders: The most important thing is that the candidate researches where they’re interviewing.
If you can form relationships in personal and in business and you’re the same person whether you’re doing work or whether you are dealing with friends, it means that you’re genuine. It means that you’re transparent. It means that you care. It means that you have empathy. It means that you have the ability to have trusting, loyal, deep relationships that lasts for a very long time. That truly is what a relationship is to me. I believe that clients understand me seeing this team. People will say to me, “You still have Lisa with you?” Without Lisa, I don’t even know if I’d have my right hand. I always say the Lisa lasted longer than my marriage or my mom or anybody. The reality of it is if you can have relationships, you can have much more in life than other people have and you have trusting relationships and then people want to help you because you’re helping them.
People want to help you when you’re helping them and the best way to build a relationship is through empathy, being authentic and being transparent. That consistency of who you are, whether you are talking career or personal stuff. When you’re talking to someone at the level of the executives that you’re placing at the C-Suite, these people need to know you have their best interests in heart. “Will my family like this if I move to another city to take this job?” You care about them being happy in the job, that their whole family is involved as opposed to, “I don’t care. You are qualified for this job and it’s more money, take it.” That’s a very different relationship than, “Let me express some of my fears and concerns about this.” You’re the great person, a trusted friend, the empathy. I’m sure that would be scary for everybody in your family. Your kids have to change school, whatever. That’s what I see is your secret sauce.
Not only are you right, but it’s funny because when you’re doing it and you’re someone like myself, you don’t even think that you’re doing it. I look at myself not as a headhunter or someone moving somebody into a job. I look at myself as a career consultant. When I am talking to someone about uprooting their family, I’ll give you an example. I had a candidate that moved from Seattle to New York City. That is a huge move for the family emotionally. A big difference between hiking on the weekends. Even the grocery store, they freaked out. At the end of the day, I have to understand that I’m not just moving this person. I’m not just changing this person’s career. I’m changing this person’s entire family and what the future is going to be for them. It’s critically important to me that they’re happy because my client is not going to be happy if my candidate and the family is not happy.
I know this sounds very strange, but I have told clients even if they love someone that it’s not going to work because I know for a fact that the spouse cannot move from their mother living next door. There are things that I find out that I cannot make the person move because it’s not right for them. It’s so important in my role and in the role that I do that I know we have empathy, but I’m also realistic to what can be done and what can’t be done and what’s better for everybody. At the end of the day, it’s going to haunt us all if it’s not the right thing. That candidate comes back to me eventually when they’re hiring and they use me. My client is thankful because we always find the right person, but the wrong person would be a nightmare.
[bctt tweet=”Confident people are good listeners.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It seems like you put long-term relationship value ahead of short-term profit.
Short-term profit is never going to help you in the long run if you stay in a business that you need your relationships to work.
Let me ask you two questions about what advice do you give a candidate so that they have a successful interview or a successful pitch if you will? Is there anything you tell people who might get nervous or they don’t interview that often, it’s a different experience for them? Because you’re such a career expert, is there a tip that people can listen to whether they’re looking for a job now or their next interview that you would say, “When you’re interviewing, you need to do,” what would you say?
First of all, you know my list is long.
Give us your top two or three.
First of all, the most important thing is that the candidate researches where they’re interviewing. I once had a candidate, the client said to the candidate, “Why are you here?” This was a very senior level person and the person said, “Because Jeanne told me it’s a good job.” That is not the reason to go into an interview. It’s critical that the candidate does their research. What is the company? What are their earnings? Know what you’re walking into and who you’re interviewing. The candidate should also find out as best to their ability who are they interviewing with, the background and the experience of that person.
Research the company and the person you’re talking to.
That means that you’re prepared. I’ll give you an example. I’m going to meet a CEO. When I researched that CEO, that CEO had gone to the University of Maryland. That CEO was in a fraternity that I hung out with all the time. This was a long time ago. It still gave us a common denominator of something that I could bring up and also he then knew I understood his background and where he came from. Researching and having a common denominator or at least educating yourself so that you know what you’re dealing with when you walk in is critically important. It also gives the candidate a comfort level that they’re going to be more ready than not ready. Number one is doing the research on the person or the people you’re meeting with as well as the company. The next thing is what are you there for? Understand what are you interviewing for and what makes you qualified to interview for that.
[bctt tweet=”If you can have relationships, you can have much more in life than other people have.” username=”John_Livesay”]
In advance understanding, what you are exactly teaching. What’s your story? What’s the story that brings you here? It’s not just, “I’m good at this and this.” Tell stories of why I got into this field. I’ll give you an example of even my own son. Unfortunately, one of my sons became very sick and he’s fine now, knock on wood, but he went to a major operation. His brother at a young age saw all this. It impacted him greatly. He decided that he wanted to do something that was going to help the world and was going to help people physically. When he was interviewed at Vanderbilt with the dean, the dean said to him, “Why do you want to go into mechanical engineering?” My son told the story of his brother and that he then walked through the hospital talking to all the other kids and he came back to me and said, “Mom, who invents all this equipment?” I said, “Engineers.” My son said, “I want to be one.” That story so resonated with the dean that he said to my son, “I don’t care if you qualify grade-wise. You’re going to be in this school.”
There is a great example of the power of storytelling. The emotional connection that explains your why and your passion for something brings you to life in an interview and separates you from all the other candidates who may have more experience. I’m guessing, Jeanne, that you take your own advice. You walk your own talk. In other words, you’re competing against another firm or maybe two other firms for, “Why should we hire Jeanne in DHR to find our next CEO and your specialty?” You do the research on the company. You do the research on the person you’re interviewing. You have a story of what makes you memorable and unique. You paint a picture so that those people can get experience through your storytelling of what it’s like to work for you.
What you said is critical for every person that’s making any interview or pitch. What differentiates me from the next person that’s walking in or the last person that just left? What is it that when I leave, they’re going to remember me? That’s critical for everybody to think about. Whether it’s an anecdote, whether it’s a leadership story, whatever it is, there has to be something that you leave them with that somebody else doesn’t have. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a skillset. It can be a personal thing. You have to find it for yourself so that you can utilize it. There are two other things that are incredibly important when you are presenting in an interview or in a presentation. One is don’t talk too much. People get nervous and when people are nervous they chatter and they go off into tangents. You have to make sure that you’re answering the question, you’re staying on track, you are succinct, you are concise, you are answering the question and having a personality but you are not going on and on. My clients will say to me, “They are great person, Jeanne. They’re perfect for the job, but they will drive us crazy here if they talk that much.”
I have a statement that I would love your input on if you agree with this or not, “Confident people are comfortable with silence.”
Hiring Leaders: It’s imperative to have a diverse pool of employees of leaders.
Talking a lot is a nervous person who’s not confident and people know that. People that listen and are able to explain themselves in a way that is clear and done and then you move onto the next thing are much more highly regarded and come across as confident but not arrogant.
You’ve got to research, know why you’re uniquely qualified, and don’t talk too much. What’s the fourth insight, that wisdom of nugget?
This is going to sound corny, but what do you wear, how do you look and what is your personal presentation? One of the things that you know and I know and I’ve done and you’ve done, but many people don’t understand, you want to have your own personal brand. Part of that personal brand is who walks into the room that this person that you’re meeting with, whether it be a presentation, whether it be an interview, and what are they seeing? The minute they see you, they form an opinion of you before your mouth opens. Are you put together? Are you fitting into their culture and their environment? Are you wearing something you feel good at?
That is so important. If we feel something is too tight or we haven’t put the suit on in a while and it’s a little out of style, just that confidence and how you fit. Here’s a little analogy because you inspired me to think of it. If you’re interviewing a company and they’re interviewing you and you’re also interviewing them, what you’re looking for is to see if there’s a fit here. If your clothes don’t fit properly and you’re not comfortable in your own skin, that comes across too. I love what you said there.
[bctt tweet=”Diversity brings on brainstorming and creativity.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I’ll give you a story. One of my clients is a very big Fintech firm. It’s very well known and it’s a techie company. One of my candidates who was a techie guy from California said to me, “Jeanne, what am I supposed to wear? I don’t wear suits anymore, but I had got out my best suit, I got out my tie.” I said, “Before you go crazy, let me talk to the CTO who’s going to be interviewing you.” I called up my client and I said, “Candidates are asking me what they should wear, give me advice.” This is what he said and this is the advice that I give every single candidate now. My client said, “Jeanne, tell the candidate to wear what they are comfortable in, what they wear regularly to work and where they feel they’re going to be at their best.”
What that means is if somebody is in a techie company and they were t-shirts or golf shirts to work, the chances are they’re going to be interviewing at a similar company. If they walk in with the suit and tie on and nobody else in the company wears a suit and tie, they’re going to stand out and look weird and culturally make a huge mistake. That also shows that the client is saying to me and to the candidate, “You have to feel good about you.” That’s what we’re saying. At the end of the day, it’s imperative that you take the time well before the presentation, well before the interview, what am I going to wear? What is my hair going to look like? Do I need a haircut? Do I feel better when my hair is pulled back than when my hair is down?
All those things are being prepared no different than when I did my research on the company or that I reviewed my resume in advance. Making sure that you look the way you want and are calm when you walk out that door, that you do not rush, that you gave yourself enough time to get ready in the morning, that you ate your breakfast. Whatever your mood is, make sure of it. The sad thing is I’m the one that gets the feedback from the client on how the candidate was interviewed. There are candidates that I believe are so right for the job. I have gotten to know this candidate so well and they bomb.
The reason they bomb is they had a bad morning. They didn’t get themselves to the train on time. Their spouse didn’t make sure that the kids were ready. There are many reasons in our lives that things fall apart on an important morning, but it’s imperative to try your best to prepare for it so that if your daughter has to go to daycare, that’s planned in advance and it’s not dropped on you five minutes before. There are so many things that you’ve got to think about to make sure that it all goes as well as it can go. These are the things that a lot of people think maybe five minutes before or think, “No problem, I can do it tomorrow.” Take presentations and interviews as seriously as possible and be sure that you do it the best you can.
How can you be calm and confident if you’re frenetically running out the door and you were going to wear something and you realize it’s at the cleaners because you haven’t planned?
That’s a perfect example. It happens all the time.
I want to talk about one final topic, which is diversity and inclusion in the workplace because I know that’s near and dear to your heart. You told us your story at the beginning of this interview about your mom’s impact on segregation ending, it’s no surprise to me that you’re continuing the legacy of that. Tell us what do you think needs to happen and what people can do besides awareness? Is it setting certain goals like, “By this year, this percent of people will be hired?” What’s your philosophy on this?
First of all, especially with the #MeToo Movement, companies are waking up to how backward we are when it comes to diversity. Personally for me, I opened up my own company a long time ago, but where some women are now, it’s not anywhere near as far as it should. The things that I am excited about, the laws that are changing, that we can ask anyone anymore what they’re making and that it’s coming much more equal. If you’re at a certain level, you should be making a certain amount of money. These are things that are all, in my opinion, going in the right direction. What I do believe and I work at the board level and at the C-Suite level, one of the things that I’m trying to get across, but I’m seeing happily that the CEOs and the boards are starting to understand. It’s imperative to have a diverse pool of employees and leaders because diversity brings on brainstorming. It brings on creativity.
[bctt tweet=”It’s our responsibility to make sure we do what’s in our power to get diversity and inclusion across when we can.” username=”John_Livesay”]
People think differently, so when they speak to each other, when they bring their ideas together, differences are coming up that are good. Therefore, when the end solution comes up, it’s from a lot of ideas and a lot of different viewpoints. Everybody is the same, they grew up the same, they went to the same college, they did the same things. You need diversity to be the best that you can be. I think we’re getting there. I know this sounds crazy, but one of my clients, he is an incredible person. He’s the CTO of Bloomberg. He gave the commencement speech at Columbia where he went to school and he addressed the technology, the engineering school.
In that speech, it gave me chills and you should all watch it. He addressed the audience and he said to the audience, “Look around you and all the women that are graduating as engineers. Look at how many of them there are, but there should be many more. Every man here should make it their goal to make sure that when they’re in a position of hiring, they made sure that there was an equal number of women surrounding them as men.” Our leaders are recognizing the imperative message that they need to give out and to give to the world. All of us should believe it. The good news about, in my opinion, diversity and inclusion, many companies now have a human resource person that this is their focus. Every search that I do, we make sure that it’s a diverse slate of candidates.
I get asked when there are no women on boards that they now want women on boards. The most important thing is it’s hard to educate everyone, but I do believe that if you believe in diversity, if you believe in inclusion, then it’s our responsibility to make sure we do what’s in our power to get it across when we can. For instance, I’m part of the University of Maryland’s advisory board. I make sure that women are spoken to. I talk at colleges. I make sure that there are entry-level positions that we’re looking at equally men and women. I look at the pay that I’m getting for the candidates. It’s up to each one of us and make sure we move the needle, but the needle has to move more than it did from when I was 22 to where I am now. That is a personal goal of mine, but it can become a personal goal of many more people.
You’ve certainly inspired us with a reason to do it about creativity and innovation. Listening to you, as busy as you are, doing other things outside of your work and your personal life to make your own personal passion of wanting this to happen, from speaking and even being here as a form of doing that as well. I can’t thank you enough. Is there one final thought you want to leave us with or a book you like or a quote you like?
This is what I’ve told my children all their life. Be the best you can be. No one else can do it for you. You have to do it for yourself. That to me makes you better. It pushes you daily to be your best and it also helps you to want to learn to improve. That to me is what makes us different, makes us better and makes us always looking to be the best we can be in life. That’s what I’ll leave you with.
Be a lifetime learner so you continually grow and be your own best because nobody else can do you. Thanks again, Jeanne.
Thank you for having me. You’re awesome.
Links Mentioned:
- Jeanne Branthover
- DHR International
- All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
- #MeToo Movement
- https://www.DHRInternational.com/consultants/about-global-executive-search-consultants/jeanne-branthover/
- Quantmre.com
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