Yesterday I wrote 10% of a blog post (Where To Find Network Contacts) and asked YOU to fill in the rest. I did the easy part and I got some excellent responses from Shane Smith (who I met in the Twin Cities – and outstanding marketing professional), Peter Osborne (who I only know online but am thoroughly enjoying his executive blog), Juli Monroe (who teaches people how to network), Ken Won (who has a cool blog sharing job search success stories), Debra Feldman (who helps professionals and executives in their job search and career management) and Scott Percival (who blogs about project management stuff).
You can read the the post and excellent comments at yesterday’s Where to Find Network Contacts post.
In Scott’s comment he says:
Lastly, a network needs to be nurtured. Learn more about those in your network then just what their career aspiration are. Find a way to stay in front of your network, Send them a note, leave a message, Let them know you are thinking of them periodically.
Can I just say, this is what JibberJobber is ALL ABOUT! JibberJobber is personal relationship management… it is about nurturing your network.
– As a JibberJobber user I get birthday reminders EMAILED to me – if I have your birthday in the system then I can act on that. That is a nurturing activity.
– When I put your record into JibberJobber, which is something no one else can read but me, I can then make notes about you – including “what [your] career aspirations are.” As I “learn more about” you, I keep notes on that, so if we end up on the phone in 3 or 30 years I can refer back to who YOU are and what I know about you. This is a nurturing activity.
– I can set up Action Items to “stay in front of” you … something like “call Don next quarter and as him how his new job is going,” or “email Pat and congratulate her on her daughter graduating from school,” or something like that. I want to stay in front of you, and I have to … HAVE TO have a system to help me. Salespeople use Customer Relationship Management – I use Personal Relationship Management, which is JibberJobber. Staying in front of you is a nurturing activity.
– When I “send [you] a note, leave a message,” and “let [you] know I am thinking of you, I record that as a Log Entry… this helps me remember the communciations I have had with you – do I communicate frequently, or has it been a year? Have I had significant communication, or is it superficial? Keeping track of these nurturing activities is critical!
Look folks, I don’t blog about this stuff, career management, networking, etc. for my health, or because I’m a nice guy. I’m passionate about not ever being in the horrible place I was when I got let go – it sucked. And I’ve learned that we can do certain things to keep us out of that place… but it takes work.
Is JibberJobber hard to use? For some it is – others have logged into it hundreds of times (daily) because they know they have to nurture relationships, and they have to keep track of intelligence (communications in and out) in order to really, truly, manage their careers and nurture relationships.
Get your free-for-life account. Consider upgrading (I have people who have logged in over 500 times without upgrading – the free account is quite powerful), and tell your friends, family and peers about it. Get on the webinars (we do it every other week – the next one is in 14 minutes) to learn how to use it.
Gone are the days of a company taking care of us through retirement – now it’s time for us to manage our own careers. Use JibberJobber to take care of a significant amount of that career management!