214: How to Massively Expand Your Network in 10 Minutes a Day with Molly Beck

Pete Mockaitis
Molly, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Molly Beck
Thank you so much for having me, Pete. I’m very excited about this.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited, too. And so one fun thing I learned about you, as I was getting for this, is you were, in fact, an intern at Goldman Sachs during the 2008 hullabaloo. What was all that like?

Molly Beck
Oh, man, Pete, that was a really crazy experience. Okay. So let me take you back to the junior college. I’m a finance major. This Goldman internship is like the thing to get. Everybody’s talking about it. I get the on-campus interview, I’m prepping like a maniac. It was right around the time that song Apple Bottom Jeans was really popular.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, the boots with the fur.

Molly Beck
Yes, exactly. So whenever I’m hearing this song I’m like taken back to this moment, I’m like reading the Wall Street Journal because I had heard this rumor that at the interview, they asked what is the headline of the Journal today. Like I’m just prepping like a maniac for this whole thing. I get the call that I got the internship. I moved to New York. I just feel like my dad is so proud. I’m feeling like my life is really coming together.

Now I’m on a special sort of internship that was six months long, so it goes from like, I think it was July of my junior year up until December of my senior year. So I’m there over the summer with those other interns. The other interns, they’d go back to school, just really me and probably one other guy as the interns on our team. We’re on the fixed team, so fixed income, currency, commodities and like September of that year is where everything just starts like really sort of going down. The markets are sort of obliterated.

And I felt like I was just such a fly on the wall to this experience where I’m working at Goldman but I’m just an intern so I know I’m going back to school but yet everybody around me like this is their life and they’re worried about layoffs and, you know, it was just one of those things that I felt like I will never be in touch so close to history again.

And my two memories, would be the first is that my parents were on this fishing trip off the coast of Alaska or something ridiculous, with every night, I guess, they would get some sort of cell service and call me and I would give them the updates on like, “Lehman’s gone under,” or like, “The markets are down this much,” and I felt like I over-reported to my parents.

And then the other thing is that the Goldman building that I was working at is like Lipstick Building in New York, and right next to us is a bunch of other financial institutions, and I remember they were doing sort of immediate layoffs in like September-October of that year, and I remember taking the subway home one night and I must’ve gotten on at the same time as other people, and they all had those like classic cardboard boxes with the plants in them.

Pete Mockaitis
That box, yeah.

Molly Beck
Yeah, exactly. And it was such a weird time. But, yes, it’s like my little piece of history. So that was my Goldman thing. And long story short, I don’t think finance is really the right place for me and so while I was there, I started this blogs, I was like, “Hey, I don’t think finance is going to be the long-term goal for me.” And then starting that blog really changed my whole life. So even though that Goldman internship with the highlight really sort of led to the blog, which ended up being a better thing long term. As everything in life goes, you think you hit the highest peak and then it’s like nope, something else.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is wild so thank you for sharing that. And you’re right, it is uniquely interesting that you get to very low stakes just sort of watched the world burn around you. Well, I guess I’m just sort of curious like did that experience sparked any just like sense of convictions for you in anything? Like you said, “Oh, finance isn’t for me.” But was it like, “I will never do this,” or, “Make sure to always do that”? I think that sort of intense experience could give rise to those sorts of internal vows or convictions. Did that surface any of that for you?

Molly Beck
You know, it really did actually. What it made me feel like was that I never wanted to be dependent on a company as my only source of income and it really made me start thinking about ways that I could always, even if I was working for someone else, have a way to earn income outside of that because, especially some of the people I was working with had worked in these financial institutions for a very long time and their jobs were super specialized and all-consuming, and Goldman did not have layoffs so I was there not in any sort of big meaningful way but that was a big worry and concern.

And I remember thinking, “If 20 years from now, this is my only way that I earn money and I have kids and a family, and I can only do this one very specific thing, and then the markets get rid of that, I’m really in trouble.” So it always made wanted to be a little bit of a hustler and sort of a side hustle, before side hustle was a term.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, now it’s the cool thing to say.

Molly Beck
Yeah, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
If you don’t have a side hustle you feel like you’re not one of the cool kids.

Molly Beck
I know. I said the word side hustle to someone, my in-laws, a couple of months ago and they had never heard that before and they thought I had invented the term side hustle and I had to be like, “No, I’m sorry. Actually, other people say it too.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess it’s better that they give you credit for it as opposed to “Oh, my, or is this prostitution? You know, Molly, I don’t know if this is wise.”

Molly Beck
I think that they were concerned with it and I explained myself. I said it was really just a blog, nothing too scandalous.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s legal and safe. It is totally allowed by law.

Molly Beck
Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so speaking of, I don’t know if you count this your side hustle or your main hustle right now, but you got a book and I’m digging it, it’s called Reach Out. What’s the skinny on this?

Molly Beck
So Reach Out is sort of around the idea if you want to be an influencer in your space there’s two components at that – you got to do great work and you have to have people know about that great work. And Reach Out is hyper-focused on that second part of that statement, “How do you have people know about the great work you’re doing?”

The book is written for people that really want to get out there more and meet more people but maybe are hesitant to sort of do the networking circuit or they don’t want to have these business cards handed out to random people down the street. So the book walks you through in a very measured, very tangible way how to create a plan to meet more people. And I call that plan sort of the reach out strategy, and that’s what the book expands on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so can you share with us, you know, you offered those two pillars – you got to do great work and people need to know you’re doing great work – can you expand a little bit on the why of the second pillar? Like why is that so essential that the world know? Won’t the world find out in due time whether you need them to know?

Molly Beck
That’s a good question. I think that there’s a lot, is that opportunities can come to you through other people. Other people are the ones sort of holding these keys to your career dreams. One of my dreams is that someday I want to be in a morning talk show. That opportunity is not just going to show up one day on my front stoop with like a suitcase, “Hey, I’m here. You can be on a morning talk show.” It’s going to be a person that says, “Hey, who should we have on the show? Oh, I know, Molly Beck.” And that’s a person that either I need to be directly connected to or I need to be a secondary connection to.

If opportunities are islands or people in your network are those bridges that help you get to those islands faster, which is something I think a lot. Do you want to be in the waters sort of drowning by yourself? Or do you want to be walking on a bridge to get to these islands?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like these metaphors. When you say morning talk show I’m thinking, “Well, hey, this podcast releases really early in the morning.” And so maybe we just need to…

Molly Beck
Oh, my God. It’s totally true.

Pete Mockaitis
We just got to perk it up a little bit, Molly. So you’re going to let us know.

Molly Beck
I feel like they have sort of a good dynamic, I mean, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, like, “What’s happening here?”

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll take either role and be pleased with it. Well, cool. So we got the islands, we got the connections, the keys, that’s what makes it happen. So, then, let’s talk a little bit about some of the how there. I think a lot of folks they say, “You know, just doing my own job takes maybe about all the time, the effort, the energy, attention I can muster on top of just trying to stay fit and tend to my family and friends.” So help us out. How do we get a good return on that effort?

Molly Beck
Great question. So sort of the core tenet of reach out strategy is sending one message, whether that’s an email or a social media message, to one person sort of on the edge of your network every single work day. So let’s sort of unpack that. What does that mean? So thinking about the edge of your network, there is a lot of power in thinking about people that you have met loosely in real life, that are acquaintances who you knew really well in the past, that are friends and friends. Those connections are the edge of your network.

I think a lot of times when people hear about reach out strategy they think that you are sort of spamming famous people hoping to get a response. Is it cool if you email the CEO of J.Crew and he writes back? Yes. Is it likely they’ll have sort of the time or the interest in helping you beyond just saying, “Hey, thanks for the email”? Probably not. So you want to think about people that are really on that edge that would recognize your name or recognize a mutual friend’s name and then feel some sort of interest or obligation or have the time to maybe engage with you. So that’s the edge of your network.

You also want to think about reaching out to someone sending one message every single work day. No exceptions. You want to make it a habit. Just to look at the math on this, if you reach out to one new person every week day, one year from today, the day that you are listening to this podcast, you will have made contact with 260 people. And even if only like, let’s say you have a 40% response rate, by the end of the year you’ll have started real conversations with a 104 people who you have handpicked in being very important or valuable towards your goals.

So if you’re worried that you don’t have the time or you don’t have the space for networking or going to these parties after work or missing your kids’ bedtime because you’re at this cocktail hour, reach out strategy is made for you. It’s about eight to ten minutes every day or you can write all five emails for the week on Sunday night, you know, spend 40-45 minutes doing that, and your networking is done and you have started these conversations with these people that can really be impactful. Think about knowing 104 more people in a year, think of the opportunities, the projects, just the enjoyable conversations you will have that you wouldn’t have if you don’t do this type of strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So intriguing. Now 40% that sounded kind of precise. Do you have some benchmark data here?

Molly Beck
I do have some benchmark data here. So there’s four different kinds of reach out that you can do and each of those reach outs have a different type of response rate in terms of what you can sort of expect. So let’s start with the Re-RO. The Re-RO, and RO in these instances stands for reach out. So the Re-RO is reaching out to someone you already know from the past or someone who you know currently but not terribly well, so this could be an old professor, this could be your neighbor who lives down the street that you sort of loosely say hello to when you’re walking your dog at 5:00 a.m. These are people that are sort of close to you. So this is going to have probably around 80% response rate on average.

Then as we go down the next rung to the Follow-Up RO. This is going to be someone that you’ve met recently in passing in real life. Classic example, you’re at conference, you exchanged business cards, you have a five-minute conversation. You’re going to get a 60% response rate when you’re talking to someone like this. They are probably going to recognize your name, you’re going to call out the conference you met at or whatever event it was in the subject line, and you met recently enough that you’re probably top of mind.

And you go down one more rung to the Borrowed Connection RO. This is the friend of a friend or someone that’s says, “Hey, you should really know this person. They’re in a similar space. They’re looking for this. You can help each other with this.” This is going to get around… this is the one that really sort of varies actually on the strength of the connector and how interested the person that you’re reaching out to is in sort of meeting you.

So this can vary sort of widely from almost a zero response. If, you know, my grandfather says, “Oh, hey, my CEO kind of want to meet you at the company I work at.” Maybe the CEO has less of an interest. Where if someone that is connecting you to someone on your level or there’s a little bit more of a strong connection there, you’re going to have a higher response rate.

And then the lowest one, like the very edge, this is sort of left field of your network, not even in your network anymore, is the Cold RO. This is like a classic cold email. It’s going to mean no direct connection and that’s going to be around the 20% response rate. And these numbers are sort of over time looking at sort of like a statistical analysis, because I’ve been reaching out for seven or eight years now, and thinking about, “How would I divide that mine?” And that’s where these numbers are culled from.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, I had a chat with someone who similarly kept great stats on his reach out efforts to total strangers, like, “Hey, we’re both in a LinkedIn group.” Not much of a connection, “In a huge LinkedIn group,” not the one that he has close intimacy and fostered community there. And sure enough, he took tremendous records and he was also seeing even better than 20% of response rate on total strangers, and I thought that was just striking.

Molly Beck
Yeah, okay. So often that is someone that I would love to meet, so if you introduce me to this person via email, and if this person thinks highly of you, Pete, they’re like, “Hey, I love Pete. I love his recommendations,” they’re more likely to respond because they know that you’re vouching for him, so that Borrowed Connection RO has a higher likelihood of succeeding because hopefully they enjoy you and trust your recommendations. If they think less of you, less they’re going to care about meeting someone you’ve recommended.

Pete Mockaitis
You did them wrong.

Molly Beck
Yeah, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
“We met for coffee and gave advice that stunk.” Whatever.

Molly Beck
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
It won’t work out again. Okay. So very intriguing. So, now, that’s really cool to have that benchmark data, and I think that’s really reassuring for folks whom I think, “Oh, my gosh, no one really wants to do this. This is a waste of their time. I don’t want to irritate or aggravate them.” These are pretty healthy rates. And so, then, I’m curious, what does a message sound like when you’re reaching out?

Molly Beck
That’s a good question. And I wanted to just elaborate on one thing. These are healthy rates but they’re not a 100%. Not every email, even someone super successful, I have people in this book that are CEOs, even they are not getting 100% response rate. So if you send one email three years ago to someone that you thought you might like want to be your mentor in LinkedIn and they never responded, this is not a reason to write off networking altogether. Like that is just a normal thing that people don’t respond to your emails and you move on. So I wanted to get that out there.

But what do you actually say in the message? Great question. So you’re going to want to start with the classic, like making your subject line awesome. This is an email, your subject line needs to grab their attention. Ideally it’s going to be something that’s not generic. So you’re going to want to stay away from, “Quick question,” or, “Hello.” And then the biggest one that you’re going to want to stay away from, this is such a pet peeve of mine, when you use the word urgent in the subject line, “This is an urgent situation.” You don’t work with them closely, they’re not directly related to your life. Using the word urgent just shows such a lack of respect for their time and their inbox.

So you’re going to make that subject line, call out your connection, call out where you met them. If you have something in common, “Oh, hey, we both went to Hamilton High.” Or something that’s sort of unique that will grab their eye. You could use a really simple greeting, use the most formal version of the person’s name. So is that Dr. Beck? Is that something that is like sort of formal? You’re not going to say, “Hey, Mollballs,” the first time you email me. Maybe like the seventh but not the first.

And then you’re going to introduce yourself and give a really short bio. This bio is going to be not necessarily what you’re doing now but what is related to the reason you’re reaching out for them. So you currently work at YouTube doing business development but you want to move into coding, you’re not going to have your bio say, “Hey, I work at YouTube, I do business development, and also can you give me some advice on coding camps to go to?” That doesn’t really make sense. You’re going to want to focus on, “Hey, I’ve been interested in coding for a long time. I’ve started doing it.” Like make that bio more specific and show them why you’re reaching out to them specifically.

Then we get into the gift and the favor. So the gift is the most important thing in your entire email. Your gift is going to be something that is really unique to the person that you’re sending it to and shows them that that is not just a form email. You’re not blanket emailing the entirety of the school, like this is very specific to them. So you’re going to first have a compliment, and this is a must. The compliment is going to be not just like if you’re reaching out to an author, “Hey, I really like your book.” It’s going to be, “Hey, I really like your book because of this, and it impacted my life because of this.” It’s going to be a genuine compliment on their work whether that work is what they do in finance or marketing or writing a book or whatever it is.

Then you’re also going to include one of four more additional gifts. So let’s go through them. The first one is going to be an article or book recommendation they might enjoy. The second is going to be a knowledge that you have access to that they don’t or something special only you can create. So that’s going to be if you have like a plus to an event that they would like to attend. If you have an opportunity for them that you have a sort of a special like you’re an author and you have a book and you want to give them an advanced copy of the book. Something special that only you or you and a very small group of people have access to, that’s a nice thing to offer to someone.

The third is going to be a press opportunity. So do you have a blog, a podcast? Do you have a column that you want to interview them for or feature them on? And then the fifth is going to be free advice on a skill you have or something that would benefit them. So, again, that’s going to start with a compliment, a very unique compliment, and then one additional gift that is something special and shows them that they’re important to you. The easiest one in those list is going to be an article or book recommendation but the other ones can also be some really a way to open up sort of a line of communication.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m a bit curious about the free advice. I mean, I think that sounds like potentially the riskiest one. Like, “Who are you and why do you think I care about your point of view just yet?” So could you give us an example of some pieces of advice that are appropriate and appreciated at this stage of the relationship?

Molly Beck
Yeah, absolutely. So free advice would work well if you talk to them in real life and they mentions, “You know, we’re really trying to figure out how to crack ad words,” or, “I’m really looking for a new job and I’m stressed about doing my resume,” or if you follow them online and they put out a tweet that says, “Hey, I’m looking for recommendations of restaurants in Cleveland,” and you live in Cleveland and know restaurants. Something that you assume from what they’ve told you that would benefit them that you can offer them.

It’s a little presumptuous if you are, let’s say, I don’t know, an expert in Facebook ads and you see that they run Facebook ads but their Facebook ads are crappy, being like, “Hey, I would love to give you advice on your Facebook ads, you know, they sort of suck.” That’s not probably the right way to go about doing it. But keeping it, being very transparent that the advice is for free and that you specialize in it and you’re a little bit of an expert in the area, and you would love to offer for them is a way to do it without being super pushy.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so now I’m wondering, then, so you got the gift, that’s established then, and so then we’re moving into the favor.

Molly Beck
Favor, yeah, the favor. So every email you send does not actually have to have a request in it. Reach out email can just be a way to open up a line of communication with someone that you think down the road you might have a question for them or that you just really want to compliment them and offer your help. However if you do have a favor, you want to make sure that your question that you’re asking them is something really specific to their expertise, is not something that you can Google, and is sort of a contained question.

You should be able to ask the favor within a sentence. If you have multiple parts to it or you have like way too many, I don’t know, I guess moving parts to the question, it’s not a good favor. Instead of saying, “Hey, how do I start a business?” You’re going to want to say, “Hey, what’s one tip for building an audience online? You’re really killing online. What would be your one main tip?” Sort of keep it contained, having a number is a way to keep it contained.

After that you’re just going to do your closing, ad your email signature. Email signature is super underutilized. People click links in email signatures way more than you think they would. So tailor that email signature to what you want them to highlight. If you run a blogpost that you think is very impressive, add that to your email signature. If you have a huge following on Instagram, add your Instagram handle. You want to sort of tailor that email signature as a way to add additional value without necessarily throwing it in their face.

Finally, you’re going to double check, make sure your links work, make sure everything is spelled correctly. Add their email address, you’re going to add their email address at the very end because if you add it at the beginning you can accidentally send the email too early and then you just, I don’t know, everyone has done that. I’ve done that, too. And then you’re just going to press send and you’re done.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s good. That’s good. Now, I’m intrigued then, it sounds like these conversations, the eight to ten minutes is just the reaching out part. And so then the back and forth conversations that could get really, really fun. What’s tricky for me, as I imagine myself doing this, is like I would have so much fun talking to so many interesting people about so many interesting things, I think it might just sort of eat my calendar alive. So how do you recommend sort of balancing and managing your time and your inbox as this unfolds?

Molly Beck
Well, you know, if you’re only doing one a day, most people do not email you back that quickly especially if your question is more evergreen, not urgent. I think it’s relatively likely that if you send five, like you, Pete, send five in a week, I think maybe three of them would get a response that same day. You definitely have time in your calendar to have a little back and forth with them. And remember that it’s not necessarily that you’re asking a favor every single time.

You could just be sending over a compliment. You read a great book, the book really impacted how you’re running your business and you want to tell the author that. Not necessarily worthy of a huge back and forth, and if it is I think you’re going to be excited and going to want to create space for that in your calendar instead of thinking of it as a chore. This is someone that you have handpicked to be part of your network. These are not random people. This is someone that you admire, or you want to work with more, or that you just think is doing cool things.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Got it. And so, I know you have some perspective in your book when it comes to the management of inbox. What are your thoughts there?

Molly Beck
I’ve interviewed a lot of people for the book on how they manage their inbox. I got so many different answers. I mean, some people were just very diligent. I interviewed one person that says, that she tries to respond to every email she gets within 10 seconds. I know, 10 seconds. So it’s almost reading like a text message.

I interviewed some people who said that they star emails, and anything that’s not directly urgent they wait to answer till Friday. Sort of the best practices that I’m sort of aggregating all these different conversations would be something that I did that works well for me also, is that sort of treating your inbox like a business and having it be hours that you’re on top of emails and you’re answering them very quickly, and then the rest of the time, unless something is truly on fire, waiting till the next day.

So I always think of my inbox as sort of like the business hours that it’s open, it’s going to be 9:00 to 6:00 East Coast hours. So if an email comes in at 9:00 p.m. West Coast time, or 9:00 p.m. East Coast time, I’m going to wait till the next day to respond to it. Similarly, if I’m answering emails on a Saturday afternoon or at 2:00 a.m. or at sort of a non-business hour, I always schedule them in Boomerang to go out on the sort of the next business day at a normal hour.

I feel like it’s sort of rude to be emailing someone with something that’s not urgent on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon. Like let people have their off time and give them some sort of space to respond when it’s a business hour. You don’t need to be sending these crazy emails at 4:00 a.m. and waking someone up because you have like a tiny question that you want them to help you with.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s an intriguing perspective there, and I guess you’re right, everyone has their own perspective and philosophy.

Molly Beck
What’s your philosophy? Yeah, I’d be really interested. How do you manage your inbox? I imagine you get a ton of email.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I do, and I don’t know if I’ve got the answer right now. What’s intriguing is I feel obligations to some emails and not at all to others, and I guess that’s normal for everybody. Like I’d say every listener of the podcast I feel beholden to and grateful for, so, hey, thank you, listeners. And so I do have it sort of as a standard to reply to all those messages.

Now, I’m behind at the moment that we’re conversing, and I feel it in my conscience, in my psyche, it’s just there. But I know that I will be replying to them and that it will happen. I think a lot of other times I’d say with maybe it’s a publicist pitching which is happening more and more which is really cool problem to have I suppose. Generally, I don’t feel obligated to respond to an email from anybody I don’t know like in under 36 hours.

So I guess it’s intriguing how the standards we set for ourselves and what’s appropriate, what’s inappropriate. And some of it is sort of like absolutely necessary. Like I think about lawyers and their law partners, it’s like you need to give them what they want promptly, you can’t say: “I do emails between 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. and that is all, partner.” I don’t think that’s really going to fly there.

But in other times, if you’re doing a lot of Cal Newport deep work and writing or coding and creating, it’s like you will be at a disadvantage if you are frequently kind of interrupting your flow to hit the inbox. And so I’m still not perfectly resolved on the matter but I’m generally all about replying to people who have important/urgent things to say in a prompt fashion, and it seems like I’m always ever so slightly behind on the treadmill.

Molly Beck
I think all of us always feel like we’re slightly behind the treadmill. You know, something that you said that I want to touch on was that when publicist email you, you feel less of a sort of obligation to respond. I occasionally get the publicists emails too and I would reckon that both you and I feel less of an obligation to respond because they’re probably not super tailored to us, they’re more of a form email.

They don’t say, “Hey, I really loved the podcast episode with X, Y, Z. It really made me think about blah, blah, blah.” I am guessing if you’ve got a publicist email that was super tailored to you and what you speak and write and talk about that you would respond faster than these form emails that probably go out to 27 million people.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s true. And it’s so intriguing how one of them says, “Call for coverage. Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics marks completion of 1.3 million expansion of Youngstown Campus.” Well, nice job. Hey, I guess they’d gotten…

Molly Beck
Is that a real email that you got?

Pete Mockaitis
It is.

Molly Beck
Wait, I got an email today about Pittsburgh too from a publicist. I am laughing so hard I wonder if it’s the same email in some way.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s so funny. I guess she got her coverage because we’re covering, hey, Wednesday, September 20th at 10:30 a.m. is the ribbon-cutting, everybody.

Molly Beck
This is so hilarious. That’s the email I got. And I remember thinking I got it at least four hours ago. I remember thinking, “Why would she be pitching me this? that is hilarious. Okay.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, this is funny. Well, hey, coverage accomplished, I suppose. Although this will air, I think, later at September 20th which is my birthday. Fun fact.

Molly Beck
Is it really?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Molly Beck
Happy birthday.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. It’s a ribbon-cutting for Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics and it’s my birthday and it’s sometime in the past from when this airs.

Molly Beck
That’s so funny.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, here’s the thing, what I’ve learned is that they’re using the Cision database and then sometimes people really customize and then sometimes they don’t. So, yeah, that’s the email game, another point I’d love your input on is I think for different kind of people and professions, the importance of their network, I would say, varies, if you agree or disagree with that.

I think for some people their networking is absolutely life or death, money or impoverishment, and for other people their network is sort of a healthy sort of ongoing asset that they really just need to cultivate over the long term just as you cultivate, say, your health or your financial well-being.

Molly Beck
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. I think that there are some fields – media, marketing, writing, podcasting – and so there are some types of working arrangements, if you work for yourself, if you’re a freelancer that we sort of more frequently associate with building a network or reaching out or if that really matters. I would encourage you, though, to sort of think about networking as not just for people in those sort of very specific fields.

An example that I think about a lot is if you’re a doctor and, yes, it makes sense to be sort of, you know, having a good relationship with your co-workers to be sort of building a network inside the medical community, but if you want to be labeled an expert doctor, not only do you have to be sort of exposing yourself to new techniques or studies by going to conferences, you also need to be making an effort to meet with members of other practices, other sort of hospital administrations.

And then also thinking about other arenas – publishing, politics – that might be looking for their prospective of a medical professional, and sort of doing those things will not only increase your network but it will really raise your profile, it labels you an expert doctor not only within sort of your specific hospital or your specific department but also sort of the world at large. Thinking about your network beyond just sort of the constraints even if you’re not in one of those sort of more fluent fields.

Pete Mockaitis
And that really will open up opportunities whether that’s for speaking at events or consulting on certain projects.

Molly Beck
Or just more patients.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly.

Molly Beck
I mean, if you’re a doctor probably your ROI, I would imagine, is how many patients are you getting. If you’re out there speaking at conferences and meeting new people and you have a very specific sort of vertical that you specialize in, that’s how you’re going to get new patients, that’s how you’re going to write those journal articles. I don’t know a ton about being a doctor but I would imagine all of these things would be important to them.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Molly, tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Molly Beck
Well, I don’t think so.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, then, let’s do it. Can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Molly Beck
You know what’s a quote that I’ve always really loved, it’s by Cheryl Strayed, and it’s, “Your book has a birthday, you don’t know what it is yet.” And I’m obviously sort of uniquely thinking about it right now because I have a book coming out, but I have thought about this quote for so long. Lots of things in my life have birthdays and I don’t know what they are yet. I don’t know what will be the day that I get that call from The Morning Show. I don’t know what the day will be that I figure out that my book has done really great.

I don’t know so many things that are yet to come and I like the idea that, right now, the day that we’re recording this podcast, is just sort of a normal day in 2017, but next year this could be the birthday of something that’s so amazing that I can’t even think about it yet. So I sort of like that idea.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Molly Beck
I really love The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. I’m not in my twenties anymore but it was very impactful for me in my twenties. And when people ask for book recommendations I always think of that book. It was a really nice summation of how to really rock your twenties.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite tool?

Molly Beck
LinkedIn Premium. I think the ability to message other people that you’re not connected to on LinkedIn is pretty important.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, it’s so powerful as well as all sort of the deep information and the advanced possibilities. I’m so spoiled. When I see other people’s LinkedIn, I was like, “Oh, oh, you can’t do all the things that I love to do.”

Molly Beck
Yes, I totally agree. I tend to sound like an ad for LinkedIn Premium because I talk about it all the time, but I really do love that service.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite habit?

Molly Beck
You got to make your bed. Your whole day is just better if you’re making your bed.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a particular nugget you share that tends to really get re-tweeted, shared, connecting and resonating with folks?

Molly Beck
Well, I guess the whole reason I have this book deal Reach Out is that I wrote an article about how I put RO on my calendar every single day and how RO, which is short for reach out, sort of changed my life. So at this exact moment I would say Reach Out is something that really has resonated with people. I would also say that something that someone told me once that I think about all the time is that you meet the same people on your way up as you do going down so you don’t want to be a jerk because you might think that your star is rising right now but all stars have to come down, so don’t be a jerk.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s true. Just for your own sake and just for the sake of those around you and just the happiness of humanity as a whole. It’s just no good for anybody.

Molly Beck
Yeah, I totally agree.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, Molly, where would you point them?

Molly Beck
I’m MsMollyBeck on all social platforms, that’s M-S M-O-L-L-Y B-E-C-K on all social – Instagram, Facebook, everywhere.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Molly Beck
Yes. If there is someone that you’ve always thought would be so helpful for you to meet as you sort of get and move towards those professional goals, but you’ve always been too nervous to contact them, there is no time like the present. I would encourage you right now to open up an email and reach out to them. You never know what could come of it

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Molly, this has been so fun. I am pretty sure I will be referring back to the skeletal script or outline that you have shared here when it comes to doing more reaching out and with less sort of stress or anxiety or consternation, like, “Hey, I could do this in eight to ten minutes, and it’s all good.”

Molly Beck
Well, thank you, Pete. You know, I love your show so much and this has been so wonderful to be on it. So thank you.