Hello, everybody, thank you so much for joining me this is Michele Heyward, on connecting, or how to virtually network rather. So what we’re going to do right now is, if you’re watching the replay, you can’t do this. But if you’re joining in live, I want you to go ahead and put like your first name in there. What is your area of expertise? What field you’re in. And so I’m a civil engineer, I worked in heavy construction building 345 kilovolt transmission lines, there’s another another sibling here, and she works in the transportation field. So even though we’re both civil, we may connect, but we do something different. Um, I have a project manager within the federal government background is organizational development, and psychology, see, working aerospace industry as a systems engineer background as mechanical engineering. Somebody else I work in it feel support for clinic support and instructional technology and support. So yeah, so you can drop in your LinkedIn, but it’s good to have an intro. So people are Oh, yeah, let me definitely go connect with you. A lot of times in here, we just connect with each other because we’re here. I’m a senior majoring civil engineer with a focus in construction looking to become a project manager. Yeah, when I left, I was a, I was a PM, billion dollar projects, where everybody uses different software is a whole other struggle. And I ended up using paper and paper and pencil to manage projects, because it was just annoying to do it any other way. All right. Um, I have a background anthropology transitioning to HR after being a police dispatcher and getting an MS in human resource management. That’s what’s up. So definitely, a lot of people in here are currently we’re in somebody says they currently work in risk management. So I’m gonna go ahead and get started. We still have many people still joining. Now, I do want to let you know, when people join, or fall, rejoin or join LinkedIn, they cannot see your previous comments. So what I highly encourage you to do every 10 or 15 minutes, every two to three people that join to reshare, your intro. And so that way the new people can see it. And it could be somebody that you would love to connect with on LinkedIn or offline. And so we will get this party started. Real quick, just not great, quick, okay. And I love to network on social, a lot of people don’t. And virtually, virtually, I mean, so social is still virtual for me. So let’s get started. So, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Michele Heyward, I have an early stage tech startup called positive hire, where we help connect experienced black, Latina, indigenous women to management roles are based on rural South Carolina. And it is so great to have you all here. This is going to be a practical hands on webinar. So if you’re thinking like, Oh, I’m just gonna take some screenshots, I’m gonna take some notes. That is great, but we’re actually going to practice in here. So what you’ll learn is who is Michele Heyward? Why network virtually how to create networking goals, what to say that net work virtually and then a follow up. All right, so we always money the goal is really in a follow up. Okay. So a bit about me, I have a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering master’s degree in Industrial management. Both are which from our both are from Clemson University, I have experienced in technology transfer, technical sales, but the bulk of my career was the construction slash project management.

I tell you, it’s not that don’t people just always want to hit you up. Here’s a bit about positive hire, we’re going to skip through this. You can always Google it. So wide network virtually. When you network, virtually a lot of people are going to be very, very quiet. They’re not go to ask questions, but it’s an opportunity for you to stand out. Meaning people, especially if you’re underrepresented, underestimated women in STEM, they do not know what you do. They don’t even know you exist, except when it comes time to lay people off or give out raises. Right. And even when they give out raises, they don’t know who you are. And if you didn’t give you a great raise, they definitely don’t know who you are. So it’s really important that it gives you an opportunity to stand out. It also gives you an opportunity to connect with other people. So when I say networking, but I truly believe in connecting people what value can you give to them, some people are laid off and right now if you’re employed and there are opportunities in your organization, it’s a great time to go out and help other people even review their resume. Certainly there. profile, and just feed it to people. Because when people in the most need, guess what they’re going to remember you when you come and you have your ass, it is the opportunity to grow your network. So prior to social media, you like, oh, everybody has six degrees of separation. Well, what social media, the Six Degrees has been ahead, it has diminished greatly. So your ability to network and do introductions to other people virtually really helps you and especially on LinkedIn, it helps people see your content better. Lastly, you can build your social currency. And what I mean by your social currency is the value you bring to your organism and the value you bring period, whether it’s to an employer to society to a community. And so what I encourage you to do is is understand,
understand that you do have value, and others may not see it, but it’s truly important that you showcase that value, especially virtually, because your employer may hide you. But it’s an opportunity to truly show the value you bring. All right. How to create networking goals. So too often we show up, how many of you put in a chat, just yes or why. If you go to internal virtual meetings and say nothing, like you don’t ask questions, you just say hey, Bob, you don’t you don’t do anything. You don’t type in. Hey, I’m calling in from the Virginia office. I’m calling in from Hawaii on vacation. How many of you Okay, all right. Yes, the fly on the wall. Okay, cool. Okay. Karen’s like, nope, cares. Like, I don’t do that I show up. And I show out. That’s what’s up. Karen, we girl, we got to talk. Let’s get them ready, baby. Not ready. But let’s do that. Okay. I forced myself to say at least one thing. Exactly. So, Angela, what’s that one thing? You say? Karen? What? What do you generally say? So share with other people because these we can really come up together with best practices. And and what does that look like? Um, so how to create networking goals. And one one of your networking goals or for virtual is just to say something, right is to introduce yourself. And you literally can say, Hey, I’m a cyber security engineer, in our Augusta, Georgia office is great to be here. Bear with the company. 12 years, two months? and seven and seven hours? I don’t know. Right? Just tell people you there. All right. Sometimes you want to network for a new job or career opportunity, speaking opportunity, right? So some of you are not even engineers, technologists, scientists, mathematicians, STEM professionals. But you’re still here, right? So you’re, you’re broadening your network, expand your personal brand. And so too often we get thought we get stuck into what we do. But you are a brand. So what you do is part of your brand, but who you truly are is your brand. And you can expand that and really share that more in virtual spaces. So maybe you you’re coming to an HR event as an engineer, and they go, Oh, my God, I’m an engineer that really understands how difficult it is for HR professionals to understand the analytical side of engineers. There’s like, Oh, my God, I need to connect with you. What is your LinkedIn profile? What is your email, right? So expand that brand of yours, maybe you’re looking to launch a new business. So you’re going to virtually events to learn about marketing, sales, social media management, things like that. And so you can still use virtual events for that. Maybe you want to gain new customers, some of you have that side hustle, whether it’s $5 jury, or it’s $500 per hour consulting, whatever that is, just know and identify what that goal is. And your goal can be simply to say one thing in that virtual event. And that could be internal meetings that could be webinars like this, it can truly be a lot of things.

So select two to three goals. I love that you’re going to start out with just say something. But maybe you want to get a new job, you’re looking for an ally, a sponsor, you want to raise your personal brand. You want to build your network, maybe you’re collecting data, right? You have like a lot of new hires don’t attend the internal meeting. Maybe you go ahead and you simply ask a question. Hey, who’s a new hire who’s been working for the company for less than a year? You get two people to respond like Yep, new hires. At least they’re not really Responding only to responded out of 238 people on that call, right? So you’re collecting some type of data to try to understand and validate something that’s going on, connect with the C suite. Oftentimes, internal meetings are facilitated by the C suite. today or yesterday, today, today is the 22nd, the CEO of Wells Fargo had an internal meeting. And he said there was not a lot of black talent available, the talent pool was small. Let’s just say he catch it hell right now. But that’s a reason to connect with your C suite, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Now, on the other side is positioning, how do you position yourself as as an expert, a thought leader, in your workplace, in your industry, in your region, right, whatever that goal is. And so you can use virtually events to help do that, whether you’re doing a webinar like this, whether you’re actually in the comments, asking questions that people have, because I asked some of you to share, what do you say, when you attend virtual events? I think of it, they are privileged to me and your presence, because you offer value, I can ask for more detail or add more detail sis Angie. Okay. See, so you really understand how to position yourself. So let’s say you are a mechanical engineering, and they are talking about ball bearings. And if I get these ball bearings didn’t perform as desired, as we desired. And so with that, we had to shut X, Y and Z facility down, we lost millions of dollars. And you’re going in, well, what kind of ball bearings? What are your specifications? I Oh, well, I did XYZ. And this is these are I findings, shoot me an email and you dropping your email link? because now you’re helping somebody figure out how to overcome something, and you have literally done it before you have or have similar experience. So you’re positioning yourself and you’re raising your personal brand. Does this make sense? Let me know if this this is what this is kind of the things you’re looking for. Maybe it’s completely different. Okay. Now going on. What to say? Cuz this is often the biggest question I get, and, and I am guilty of this, like what to say what to say, Okay. Current industry trends. One of the certain things that many of us are reading on industry trends about what’s going on whether it’s an energy is in tech is a software development. It’s an automotive, what are some industry trends you can talk about or being discussed in a webinar? And you don’t have to know it all. Maybe you’re just asking a question, right? And you’re trying to get more information. So you don’t have to be the expert. But maybe you’re asking a really, really deep question. And that there’s like, Oh, my God, you You would not believe how many wins I Oh, my God, I was afraid to ask a question. And they will connect with you Just because you asked a question they wanted to ask, but they didn’t. The topic of discussion of discussion what is being discussed? So some of you like oh, no, I don’t be quiet. So you can come in here and you can literally share your tactics and your goals for networking, virtually. Even though I’m doing a webinar, you still can share your best practices and your tips is your area of expertise. You know what to say? Like, hey, go check out my white paper. I did a YouTube video. Back at my other job. I did X, Y, and Z. I know this, I own this hit me up I got you. Maybe I did I do. The number four. The fourth bullet is commonalities and personal. And this is what I often do, when I do these particular bursts of virtual events is commonalities and and something personal. So sometimes we’re talking about being parents having pets, a region of the country like oh, I’m out in Arizona, but I’m originally from South Florida. Why from South Florida to we should connect? Where did you go to college? last last week, we did why now Wednesday, we were focused on LinkedIn. I had Texas Tech and Tuskegee alums on that webinar, and I was like,

Who would have thought so they’re connecting just from those commonalities, right. And you don’t know that unless you share certain things about yourself. So you know how I mentioned where I graduated college, sharing the chat right now, what college are colleges you receive your degrees from, you may be able to connect with another alum. And one thing I do know alumni look out for each other. Maybe you have best practices and case studies which I previously mentioned. Okay, money yeah, no money. I know Monique from way back. North Carolina Central Howard Walden. I know a mark Hill is the Mars Hill fontbonne Did I get that right university? Alabama? Oh, Arizona State. Okay. University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Penn State, St. John’s, Towson St. John’s Trinity. Yes. I saw your smith college grad. I took an executive training program at Smith weigh about eight years ago. Yes. It’s been eight that was 2012. But and then outside in western pa on Western Mass last year for an accelerator. So I didn’t I drove past. I think we wrote past Smith. So yes, it’s such a small world. Finally, someone knows. Yeah. So nobody knows Smith College. It is a very elite women’s college in western Massachusetts. A lot of high powered, mostly white women have graduated from that college. And it’s not cheap. I will put a lot of people don’t know, either like Worcester Polytechnic Institute or WPA, when they think Massachusetts, they think MIT. And WPA has a great engineering program. Um, so yeah, I know, I lived in Massachusetts for like eight or nine months, way back when, when I did tech transfer, so we want to talk about that. So best practices and case studies. So you can share resources, and things that you do as well when it comes when you’re in a virtual event. So that’s all I got. That’s all I’m telling you. So guess what we get to do? How much time do we have? We have so much time? I’m so excited. Yeah, like, Why is she excited? So we are actually going to out do exercises. And I don’t want to do number one yet. I’m doing them in a different order. So we are going to do number two, exercise two first. And I’m going to break you out into pairs of four, three or four. I have to see how many of you are in here. Oh, now people want to leave? Why do you want to leave? Why do you want to leave? We just get started.
Recovering?
All right. So we are literally going to do breakout rooms. And I’m going to do assign 18 participants to three rooms now as 18 participants. I want to do six rooms. So it’s going to be three of you in each room. I These are the questions you’re going to answer in your room? No. So what’s going to happen is I’m going to put you all in a room in each of you is 18. And it’s probably kept me maybe counting me. But there’s no it’s not counting me, there are going to be six rooms, three people in each room. So it’s going to be a Zoom Room. So you’re going to have to turn on your audio. Isn’t that wonderful? So while your audio is on, these are the two questions. You have to at least turn on the audio. Um, hopefully it’s working. Which apps are tips Do you swear by to save time? which apps or tips Do you swear by to save money? So these are going to be great ways for you to interact and engage and guess what? virtually networks? I want you to get comfortable with it. And the best way to do that is truly I don’t know, doing it. So here we go. You’re going to see a box pop up. It’s going to transition if you’re on a mobile device. I have no idea what it looks like. angelite Michelle, so you trick me. I make sure y’all get real hands on help. See, that’s how I do I take care of my people. Okay, so the rooms are created. I’m gonna open up the rooms now. And you should if you don’t automatically go in. It will literally take you there. If not click Join on your screen. I see cognito has gone Simone’s gone stars gone. Miranda is gone. sumaira Um,
okay.

So they are going to get five minutes to do this exercise. So up next, you’re going to answer these two questions. And they are what is your area of expertise? And what approaches have you taken when men get credit for your work? Yes, share this share some best practices, I can’t wait for you to come back. And let us know as a community, your answers. That’s what’s up. Love it. So I will see you back here in five to six minutes. Let’s see. Okay, so for this exercise, these are the three questions I want you to ask share with your partner, or partners, three privileges you are grateful for, share a specific moment you felt power less. And now share and then share a specific moment you felt powerful. And this is really to dig in more with your emotions and the things that you can truly share on the emotional side, and maybe not the intellectual side of who you are. So mess get to it. Yes, this should be fun. I like I like doing, you know, mixing it up. Okay. So what we’re going to do now is really close this out and talk about what are the next steps you should take. When it comes to networking, virtually it is in the follow up. So you want to connect with people online, so that it’s LinkedIn, Instagram, even email, within your organization or not outside, because if you don’t do social media, and you’re like, I don’t do social, I’m barely on LinkedIn. I saw your message from like, three months ago, Michelle? Yeah, here’s my email that is quite all right. With the world opens back up. Or maybe you’re wearing your masking up and you’re going out and hanging out in social does. You connect with people offline? So some people have met with people they’ve met online in real life, and I’m one of those people without met people on Twitter, Periscope, Facebook, I have met them in real life. Actually, I got a mentee from my live streams on Twitter. Don’t ask, but it has happened. You want to schedule a time to talk offline. So y’all can do a google meet. Maybe zoom, and you’re you are you can do a virtual and you can do it offline as well. Um, put reminders on your calendar. Yes. So maybe somebody told you they’re looking for, they won’t be looking for a new job until January. So you put a reminder on your calendar to follow up with them. December 1, say, Hey, have you worked on your resume, let me know if you need help before you start the job hunt in January. So you can literally put small things in there as well. Something I do is like birthdays. It’s gotten a whole lot easier now with birthdays, but I will add those to my calendars even to people I meet on social media. And I can just go in and say happy birthday. And I don’t need a Facebook reminder. Okay. So those are some things that you really want to try to do. And so maybe some of you have said, Hey, I see you want to get into pharma. Why don’t we set up a time shoot me, send me your message me your email, over on LinkedIn, let’s clinic on LinkedIn and schedule a time to talk. So one of the apps I use to schedule time says calendly, I’m a black man founded it is a tech startup in Atlanta, you can get a free account. And you can start using that some of you may have done a 1520 minute career ops opportunity chat with me, I used that same thing. And maybe you’re just doing 1520 minute talks with people right now during the pandemic. I know a lot of moms right now are stressed out because they’re trying to homeschool. They’re trying to work from home or go out and work. Maybe you’re just sharing strategies on that. And that’s really how you’re connecting with people. So you’re like, you know what, let’s check in once a week for like 1015 minutes, right? Just to give each other like, Oh my god, did you bring the wine? I got my bottle? Do you have your bottle and really just really make that real human connection. So I call it is we started with networking, but really you want to connect with people and that’s through the follow up. All right, so the next seven to 21 days. So go ahead and take a screenshot of this because if you’re new to me, I’m all about actionable steps. So steps one and two I want you to do in the next seven days. So by next week. Monday, I need you to find three virtual events to
add this be Facebook events, you can do searches on Twitter. LinkedIn has events. Now even Eventbrite. Maybe it’s in your local paper. Maybe you’re texting family and friends. But what are some virtual events you can attend and just be like, Oh, that looks arts and crafts. One, I hate arts and crafts, but I got nothing else to do. Let’s go get some popsicle sticks and glue, right and just find something different to really engage with, schedule each event on your calendar. So maybe you’re only going to do one virtual event a week, maybe that’s outside of your job, because less kind of zoomed out. That’s what you’re going to do the first seven days, days, eight to 14, what I want you to do is customize your, your LinkedIn URLs. Yeah, somebody had Michele Heyward dash 8439 Abracadabra. So you can truly customize it for free, it’s in the LinkedIn Help section. And it just is very easy or easier for people to remember it. And for you to remember as well. So you are always going on over to LinkedIn and pull it down, you can easily typing in very quickly. Um, and then for those events, virtually events that you decided you’re going to attend research the speaker or speakers. How many of you put in the chat? If you’re new to me, how many of you researched me or at least look at my LinkedIn profile before you like, Yeah, no, it’s not like an interesting topic. But she is not the person to to follow this up. So you want to research your speakers, or presenter? And what you really want to do is maybe they went to same university, they grew up something similar. You they talked about their Chihuahua, yeah, oh, I have one too. And you can use that small little thing about that speaker, speaker and share like, Oh, I saw you grew up in Arizona, I grew up in Arizona, too. And you immediately are connected with people. So you can do that. And then through the exercises, so days, 15 to 21, I want you to create three to five questions. One or two of those can be for every single one of those events. And then other ones should be custom to that event. And then you’re going to create your written and verbal pitch. Remember, I asked you what was your area of expertise? What did you do? So you can be like, I’m a dog lover here in South Florida, who is an electrical engineer in the power industry. That’s your pitch. That that’s all you have to do. Just keep it very simple. Add in something that is a little bit personal about you. That is industry specific about you and then adding your area of expertise. Does that sound doable? Is that doable? Put in a chat Yes or no? So it’s six steps. screenshot this? Let me know if we’re connected on LinkedIn. How’s it going? If you get stuck, what questions you have? And we can go from there? because y’all know I will do y’all know I’ll do a LinkedIn live and talk about it in a heartbeat. Great. I didn’t but I got a good vibe from you. I did not actually area whatever. Maybe she talked about her very, very first one now somebody else is joining us. I am cracking you know what she may have thought it was central time. But it is not central time that we’re starting this. So I’m just gonna say that maybe you thought it was simple. central time. A very, very first one. My very, very, very first Okay, your Bear Bear. First one. Okay. Oh, sorry. I like that, um, handle you have, okay, or URL? All right. Um, let’s see, what else will this work for me. So if you’re not connected with me on social, I make it really easy. I’m the Michelle with one l Hello, one love one l middle initial seed and it’s Heyward h, e y. So Hey, how you doing that hay for horses, W AR D and you can find me much easier on the gram and LinkedIn and email as well to connect with me. I have input positive hire code, just remember it’s a.co and not a.com. And you can just put the shell dat dot Hayward but either way I respond to both emails. Just people generally spell my name wrong. So nothing else. You can definitely email it. Email me and I’ll get it. Oh, so we just we just a little late, late. Okay. So don’t go anywhere. I have some special announcements and then we will be back