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Networking: A lane to success

“Networking is not collecting contacts; it is about planting relations”                                                                                                                       - MiSha

 How I was introduced to Networking

Being an international student, I always wondered why people in Canada always talk about networking. I was not even sure about the Canadian industry but with the Marketing seminar series at George Brown College, I was privileged to hear about sales and marketing from the very best and experienced speakers. Thanks to Professor Stephanie, who used her connections to invite all the speakers. We had around 11 speakers, from various companies like Rogers, Roots, LCBO, Trever Peter, Shopify Plus, Canadian Tire and Cossette. Guess the one common thing they all talked about; yes, that’s right none other than “Networking”. James Mirynech, who is an account manager at Shopify plus said, “Network like crazy”. He suggested preparing an elevator pitch as networking never ends and you might meet your potential employer anywhere so be ready to pitch yourself. The more we practice, the more it is beneficial down the road. I was usually afraid of connecting with new people but after all the motivational sessions I decided to overcome my fear.

My first step towards Networking:

I started connecting with people from my workplace at the Home Depot. I added my colleagues and managers on LinkedIn, further I added all the speakers;

James Bishop, Katherine Alyea, Shafiul Fuad, Matt Wilkie, Andrea Johnson, and Mark Welch. Being a marketing student, I started sharing my ideas with all these industry experts. The day I started adding all the connections and shared the posts on LinkedIn, people started viewing my profile. I felt motivated and took a step ahead and added Matt Wikowskyi, the marketer at the Home Depot and Jeff Kinnaird, the president of Home Depot. Seeing my mutual connections, they accepted my requests. One thing I learned from my professors and speakers, that having contact and leveraging them is different. We should start building the relationship by having a healthy conversation related to the industry we are interested in.

My search for Internship:

Last year, as a part of my course, I started searching for an internship. Like everyone, I applied on different job portals such as Indeed, Monster and not to forget, LinkedIn. With too much competition, I started connecting with more marketers and HR’s and shared my promotional ideas with the application. One day, I got a message on LinkedIn from Stephen Morgan, who is a Marketing Director of Penguin Basements, for an interview. To my surprise, he saw my profile as I was working at the Home Improvement company (Home Depot) and had mutual connections.

The connections helped me in standing out from the crowd. I nailed the interview and got my first Internship.

 Maintain the Relationships:

Its been a year to the completion of my internship and I am still connected with Stephen. Even after leaving the Home Depot, I am still in contact with my managers, Xaviour and Aaron. Because I maintained the relationship, I have these people on my reference list. This is what I meant by leveraging the contacts and maintain the relationship instead of just adding people and leaving them as mere contacts.

This year, I got my internship at Avenza Systems through George Brown job portal, but all my references and connections helped me in gaining confidence to talk to new people. When I came here, I didn’t have any references and contacts and I didn’t even update my connections. Because of insights gained from all the speakers, professors, and my connections, I have definitely overcome my fear. Moreover, informational interviews were quite helpful in connecting with people from different industries. The only thing I lack and want to work on is participating in networking events. In the end, I would say that do not afraid of connecting with people, once you start doing it, you will enjoy it. If you are unable to attend the networking events, try LinkedIn for a start.

 Here are some overall key learnings in the perspective of marketing and networking:

# Convert complexity into simplicity

# Leverage your connections

# If you are new to a job, focus more on understanding the business instead of executing the plan

# Maintaining a relationship is more important than having thousands of contacts

# If you are really afraid of connecting, start with a coffee chat.

# Relationship with data is important, but more significantly try to understand the concepts

# Be a strategic player instead of an order taker

# No one can take the strategic part from your mind

There is no age standard to achieve your dream profession

# Every post teaches you something whether it is an internship or a permanent job

I am looking forward to connecting with you all and I hope we will meet and discuss our experiences someday.

 Connect with me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/manpreetsingh123/