JayPosey.com

Jay Posey

The One Mistake That Ruins Your Networking

by

I know networking is important. Knowing it actually makes things worse for a hardcore introvert like me though, because even when it’s not “important”, I’m already nervous about striking up a conversation with a stranger because I am terrible at small talk and APPARENTLY IT’S POOR FORM TO GO DEEP RIGHT FROM THE GET GO.

Me: Hi, I’m Jay Posey, I just wanted to introduce myself and ask if you have ever thought about how what you’re doing with your life might actually be completely irrelevant and meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Generous Celebrity: Hi, Jay, that’s a great question, and I think every artist struggles with that question from time to time.

Me: Here’s my card.

Generous Celebrity: Great, thanks.

Me: NETWORKING!!!!

(And then I snort/laugh awkwardly and a little bit of spit flips out of my mouth, catches my upper lip, and somersaults acrobatically onto my glasses.  We each pretend this didn’t happen.)

That never actually happened of course (OF COURSE, I SAY), but that is literally the best case I can imagine.

For a while I kind of gave up on “networking” because I recognized I was really bad at it and all of the advice people gave me didn’t really help because it was too many things to remember when it came time to Network.

Be polite, but act important!  Speak confidently!  But don’t be confrontational!  Eye contact!  But don’t stare!  Firm handshake!  Now, quick, make small talk!  No, not like that!  Oh no, no, no, quick make a joke!  No a funny one!  Just laugh so they know you were joking!  Aarrgh not the spit again!  The card, give the card! EJECT EJECT!

And then (probably as most socially adept people naturally recognize) I learned a great lesson.  I was actually more successful at “networking” the less I tried to do it!

IF YOU’RE ONLY HERE BECAUSE OF THE HEADLINE, SKIP TO HERE:

The crucial mistake I was making?  I was networking as if I expected something from everybody.  

I tended to gravitate to the people I thought had the most power to help me get where I was going (the same five people everyone else wanted to talk to), and I ignored the people I didn’t recognize (many of whom were awesome pros who didn’t feel it necessary to draw attention to themselves).

Getting That Movie Exec’s card, or meeting That Screenwriter, or talking to That Actor, or sitting next to That Creative Director, any one of those things could be my ticket!  My ticket that would pay off instantly!!  AND THEN GLORY AND RICHES AND THEN I AT LAST WILL COVER THE WORLD IN DARKNESS MUHAHAHAHAHA etc. etc.

Even Generous Celebrities get tired of people thinking of them as a stepping stone.

When you’re setting out to Network, just being kind, friendly, and generous and not expecting anything in return is a really great place to start.

It’s even better when you can be the person who connects two people who need each other to Make Things Happen, even when there’s literally nothing in it for you.

Maybe especially when there’s nothing in it for you.

Recovering a Broken Promise

by

A few days ago I was on my way to a conference and it was about lunch time so I thought to myself, “Self, you should stop at [PARTICULAR FAST FOOD RESTAURANT], because you are in a hurry and they are fast!”, to which I replied “SHUT UP I DO WHAT I WANT!” because I’m a conflicted artist type.

But it seemed like a good idea, so I went to [PARTICULAR FAST FOOD RESTAURANT] and I ordered quite possibly the most generic, stereotypical kind of thing you might get at such a place, thinking this would help keep the old industrial-grade wheels greased with delicious cheeseburger juice and ensure a speedy exchange.

(I’m not going to name [PARTICULAR FAST FOOD RESTAURANT] because it’s unimportant, but I will refer to the event in shorthand as a McFail.)

Long story short: DID NOT GO AS PLANNED.

Somehow I ended up having to pull forward into the little Parking Space of Shame usually reserved for people who have ordered something so complex and unusual that the manager has to call up HQ to get permission just to prepare it.  And after waiting a little over 10 minutes, I finally got my order (which included an upgrade to medium fries since I had waited so long), and based on appearances, my theory is that the Emergency Burger Assembly Protocol goes something like:

  1. Pin hamburger buns to regulation safety wall, insides facing Burger Assembly Technician.
  2. Apply meat patties and cheese with Emergency Burger Assembly 12-Gauge.
  3. Hose with ketchup.
  4. With two hands, grasp and fling pickles and onion bits.
  5. Using [PARTICULAR FAST FOOD RESTAURANT]-branded paper, scoop and roll ingredients together.
  6. Present to customer with all haste.
  7. Smile!

Also, the fries were cold.

None of us anticipate a McFail, of course.  I specifically chose [PFFR] because I believed they’d keep their promise to get me my food fast.  But for whatever reason, they couldn’t deliver on that promise in this particular instance.  Somewhere a mistake was made, or an accident occurred.  A miscommunication, or a technical glitch, or maybe the ketchup hose was clogged.  No big deal, really.  These things happen.

But when a McFail occurs (and they will), if you want to Make It Right, you can’t do so by attempting to deliver on the same promise you just broke.

You didn’t get me my food quickly.  The time for hurrying with my order has now passed.  If you want to Make Things Right, you’re going to have to deliver something extra special that I wasn’t expecting.

(The fry upgrade was a fine attempt, but they weren’t fresh out of the fryer hot hot hot and I’d ordered the SMALL on purpose because I didn’t want to eat FIVE POUNDS OF POTATOES, so they just gave me a lot of something I didn’t want and made me feel even less important.)

Whether you’re a small business, a MULTIBAZILLION DOLLAR corporation, or an individual artist, your marketing sells a promise to The Masses.  “Our carpets feel great on your feet!”, “Our cheeseburgers are the greasiest!”, “My artwork makes you feel bad about yourself!”

But when you fail to deliver on that promise and you want to recover, you have to switch focus from What Works For The Masses to How I Can Cater To This Individual.

You can’t make up for not being fast by trying to be faster.  After a McFail, you have to slow down and do something remarkable.

 

 

Attention vs. Affection

by

Supposedly there’s no such thing as bad publicity.  But I’m pretty sure if someone were to reveal that the secret ingredient to your hugely popular savory cupcakes is retired racing horse meat, that’s not going to launch your bakery business in a positive direction.  (Unless you consider it from the retired racing horse perspective, I suppose.)

Sadly, as hard as it is to do these days, it’s not enough just to get people’s Attention anyway.  Attention isn’t really worth anything if there’s no lasting impression.  And if you leave someone with the wrong kind of impression, you’ve just about guaranteed that you’ve blown it with that someone forever.  (About your only chance for recovery in that case is for one of your Fans to win them back on your behalf.)

Promise someone a FREE IPAD* if they Buy Your Book, and include *$2200 processing fee to receive Free iPad in the fine print, and you will probably get a lot of word-of-mouth.  It just probably won’t be the kinds of words you were hoping for.

Affection, on the other hand, short-circuits all of the other nonsense and wins Fans.  And Affection doesn’t just win you one Fan.  It tends to spread.  Your newly Affectionate Fans go out and tell everyone else how great you are.  They cheer you on when you need encouragement.  And even if you screw up down the road, they’ll usually give you another chance.

How you win the Affection of your audience depends a great deal on what you’re offering.  But whether you’re a baker, or a teacher, or a CEO, or a banker, or a pastor, or a Senator, or a writer (yuck) the starting point tends to be the same: serve your people, deliver more than expected, and be grateful for each person that chooses to spend some of their limited time, money, or attention on anything you do.

Speaking of which, if you’ve read this far, I really appreciate you!  Can I interest you in a savory cupcake*?

 (*No savory cupcakes are actually available at this time.)

Inferior Products for Superior Causes!

by

Sometimes it’s tempting to believe that The Cause is Good Enough to make up for less than your best.

Consider the Illustrious Public Restroom Hand Dryer, for example.  A brilliant device by any measure, it’s like a hair dryer for your skin.  Dries hands AND with a simple twist, FACES, if you so desire!  It saves trees!  And energy!  And reduces waste!  And your hands get just as dry as with the lowly, tree-gobbling, landfill-clogging, energy-sucking paper towel!

Except that it’s really noisy, and it takes a while, and doesn’t actually get your hands as dry as you’d like, and only one person can use it at a time, so when there’s a line you feel awkward standing there wringing your hands under a vent while a crowd of drippy-handed onlookers sighs heavily and vigorously mouths words at you that no one can hear because of the jet-engine-like howl coming out of the machine that somehow manages to do nothing but shepherd all the little drops of water around your flapping folds of hand-skin and maybe, if you’re lucky, scald you a little.

Not that I’m bitter, mind you.

Given the choice I should always use the hand dryer.  I should want to use the hand dryer.  I should long for hand dryers, nay, I should demand them, knowing the heavy price that I pay today makes the world an incrementally better place for all of the many generations of damp-handed skin-scalded children that will come after me.

Unfortunately the paper towel does a better job in less time, and I’m eco-insensitive and selfish.

Sadly, the same phenomenon affects any number of well-meaning individuals and organizations; charities, lemonade stands, churches.

Surely people will overlook the cheapness of the t-shirt, or the weakness of the lemonade, or the horrific lack of musicality from the worship team, because, by golly, it’s for Such a Good Cause.  We allow ourselves to cut corners and make excuses because the Cause will mean so much, you see.

Except that at the end of the day people can only maintain altruism for so long, and every time you take any amount of someone’s energy, or time, or money, or attention and in exchange provide them with something that leaves their hands raw and humid, they soon learn to associate Your Cause with something unpleasant.  Something to be borne, at best, and at worst, to be actively avoided.

Better to let someone’s altruism be its own reward than to give them a cheap token that makes them question whether you can even be trusted with the investment they just made.

Best to amaze someone with a truly incredible product or experience that gains you a Fan, amplifies The Message, and actually furthers The Cause.

Renting vs. Owning

by

So there’s this thing about things.  Some things you can choose to rent or you can choose to own.  Things like cars, or apartments or houses, or tuxedos.  But usually not so much the toothbrushes or underpants.

Not so much.

Usually.

<shudder>

Renters typically put what they consider to be “reasonable” effort into maintaining the thing they’re renting.  They keep the car kind of full of gas or at least half or at least close to half, and they don’t grind the gears all that much.  They thoughtfully cover their wine spills with furniture.  They rarely do full splits on the dance floor and even if they did one or two they are quite certain the seams were already ripped like that anyway.

Owners, on the other hand, typically go above and beyond to take care of their stuff.  They park three-quarters of a mile away from the mall to avoid door dings.  They put a sheet over great-grandmother Thedalia’s settee and never let anyone sit on it or even look at it or go in the same room as it because IT’S OLDER THAN YOU AND WORTH MORE.  They reinforce the stitching on all the vest buttons because one looks a little wobbly and if you’re reinforcing one button, you might as well do them all.

“Reasonable effort” looks a lot different based on your level of personal investment.

Renters look at things in broad strokes, are content with the 80% (or 72% or 66.67%) result, and have very clear boundaries of what’s their responsibility and what is clearly someone else’s job.  CLEARLY SOMEONE ELSE’S JOB, he says, watching the drip-drip-drip through the ceiling.  He’s a tenant, not a plumber, after all.

Owners sweat the details.  Even with a 100%, they look for ways to get extra credit or to preemptively shore up potential weaknesses.  Everyone’s job is their job, if there’s something that needs to be done.  And while it’s nice for someone to notice and pat an owner on the back, owners will crawl on their bellies through mud and spiderwebs and the most horrifying of specimens (the camel cricket blech) to retrieve the frisbee from under the house not for thanks or credit but because by golly that frisbee is under their jurisdiction and as long as they are in charge NO FRISBEE GETS LEFT BEHIND.

Reasonable?  Depends on who you’re talking to.

So how about you … are you renting your Work, or are you owning it?

 

Magic Tricks and Impostor Syndrome

by

Magic isn’t magic to the magician, because he knows the trick.

More than that, he knows how many times he had to practice the trick to make it convincing.  And he knows all the other tricks he had to master before he could even attempt the one he’s performing now, to the amazement of his audience.

You don’t see many magicians wowing his audience, and then saying “It’s really not a big deal, because, you see, it’s just this mirror here, and the fishing line goes through here and over that pulley.  I know, it’s kind of stupid, I’m sorry, I’m ashamed I even showed it to you.”

But lots of very talented people do this to themselves all the time.  They aw-shucks themselves out of recognizing that they did something really great, or really meaningful, or really noteworthy … just because THEY were the ones that did it.

Sometimes when we achieve long-term goals, we look around and wonder why we ever thought this mountain peak was impressive when that one over there is so much taller.  Often, we reach the summit and then wonder if anyone noticed we’re not very good mountain climbers after all.  Or, you know, that we’re not very good at sticking with only one metaphor, since we started by talking about magicians, which as we all know make terrible mountain climbers, what with all the disappearing mountains and self-untying knots and unnecessary showmanship.

THERE I FIXED IT.

Anyway, the trick is to remember that the magician performs not for himself, but for his audience; and as long as they don’t know the trick, it really is magic.