009: Masterful Mingling with Susan RoAne

Pete Mockaitis
Susan, thanks so much for appearing on the ‘How to Be Awesome at Your Job’ podcast.

Susan RoAne
It is my pleasure because being awesome is what we try to do every day.

Pete Mockaitis
Seems like you got a great track record of that looking over your bio. Could you also share something awesome in your personal life or outside the world of work?

Susan RoAne
Outside of the world of work, here’swhat’s awesome. I used to go to Zumba all the time and I have been wearing a pedometer for years but I switch to a Fitbit and now I get minimally, eleven thousand steps a day. I mean I really make it something that’s part of my day and it’s so fun because Fitbit send you all these badges which was like “No, send chocolate candy. I don’t need a badge”. That’s the thing about, because I really pay attention to my fitness and my health, and I am really nuts about doing a minimum 10 but, 11 or 12 thousand steps a day. By the way, this is so good because when you’re taking a walk you get to think and plan in a wonderful setting and you cannot imagine how many ideas coming to your head while the birds are twittering and the herons are flapping their wings.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. I’d love to hear maybe a little bit about some of your original ideas that sort of started you down the path way to becoming the mingling maven.What’s your origin story, if you will, if mingling maven were a superhero?

Susan RoAne
Well, the mingling maven is a superhero…

Pete Mockaitis
There you go, yes.

Susan RoAne
First of all, we found this out in common,that’s how we met. I went to the University Of Illinois, grew up in Chicago, went back to Chicago and teach. Moved to San Francisco, thought in San Francisco and then something happened that really hadn’t happened in the annals of education. San FranciscoUnified, laid-off and sent lay-off notices to twelve hundred teachers back in the days because of Proposition 13 overage. My colleagues and I received these lay-off notices and what I did is I designed a wonderful career change workshop for teachers.

That was the start of my career, it is helping teachers change their careers and what I found is it attracted so many people from other professions thatI truly… it was able to help people. How about this attorney signed-up? Engineer signed-up?  It wasn’t just San Francisco teachers because of my… should we say political connections and the article was featured in the San Francisco examiner at the time so we had people from all over. Nurses, even a doctor, people who were interested in changing careers or what could they do… not just careers but change their jobs so that’s my basis and it all came out of “Oh my gosh, my friends and I were being laid-off, what will we do next?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s kind of exciting howa piece of bad news turned into a great opportunity for you and so that I’d imagine once you’re figuring out the job and career change pieces it zeroed in “Uh-huh!”… Networking, mingling is absolutely critical to that end.

Susan RoAne
Well you know, here’s what I did. I looked in the newspaper, all these teachers are being laid off and I was getting phone calls from friends “Idon’t know what I’m going to do. What am I going to do?” Suzie sunshine here said “Well, you’re good at this, you’re good at this. You could do this,” and the third time one of my friends said “I know I really can’t do that”. I got a little shall we say ChicagoHonorand I said “Really? You have two gifted sons; you should be able to do something”.

Then, I realized it wasn’t the best way to motivate anyone but I knew from being an educator when you take people through a process so that they know their skills, know what their good at, know what they want to do, know what they don’t want to do, know what’s out there, that helps them move along the journey. That’s why I design the workshop but here’s the thing, you give me too much credit Pete. I thought after the workshops, I then would get a job and I didn’t know where but I had someone I heard speak on networking.

I literally left my house one evening, drove downtown to San Francisco, signed up, heard a woman speak on networking and said to myself “A), that’s how I live my life, didn’t know it had a word and B), I need my former colleagues to know how to do this”. I invited her to be part… and be a presenter in that one day seminar. After it was off the non-profit status, I said to her a late Sally Livingston, “Idon’t know what do. I have a hundred people on the waiting list,” and she looked at me and said “Oh my dear girl, a hundred people on the waiting list? You have your own business!” she said “You must come with me Monday night to hear this fabulous speaker Patricia Fripp speak at ‘Women Entrepreneurs'”.

I did, so here’s what I would I said to our listeners “When someone who you adore, who you know adores, respect and wants you to see, be happy and fulfilled and successful has an idea, do it!”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, I’m convinced. Now to dig a little bit into the… Just even the word “networking.” You said you didn’trealized there was a word for it but that word is networking and so I think some people even hear the word networking and they go “Ugh!” their skin crawls a little bit. They think “This is awful. I don’t like that. That feels like its shallow, greasy or we’re using people,” what’s your take on that?

Susan RoAne
I have heard all of the above and I think I sent a tweet a month ago that said “If you think of say this, stop it immediately,” the reason is, when we say “networking” and we think of it being sleazy or greasy, its maybe because how some people under the guise of networking had misbehaved.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh.

Susan RoAne
But really, networking is a life process. This is what I would say to you and to our listeners, we gave it this name but I had a client who told me what they used to call this process networking when he grew up on the farm in Michigan. This is a term that I think you’ll like better and it will help you reframe everything you do within this context. I said to him “PJ, what’s the agricultural word for networking?” and he just smiled and said “Oh, we called it ‘helping’,”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, alright.

Susan RoAne
So, really if someone comes up to you and says “Oh could you help me? I was looking for…,” how many people actually look at people and say “Actually, no. I’m a selfish narcissist and I won’t help you”. Nobody does that, so helping people… Everybody feels good when they help someone.

Pete Mockaitis
“I am a selfish narcissist that don’t want to help you,” we can tweet that, that’s fun.

Susan RoAne
Yeah, so it really reframed the networking. If you think of it in those terms and there are a lot of people that do, you will really miss out on the essence of life. In the essence of life –and this is just been proven for the 18 thousandth time – what makes people happy isn’t money, it isn’t celebrity, good health helps but that isn’t necessarily it. One thing only and that is relationships. It’s out of the Harvard study of 75 years, relationships. If you are working a room, if you are networking, if you’re showing up at your profession, if you’re showing up at work, if you’re meeting people, if you are building relationships, staying in-touch, showing up you have a better change of thinking of yourself as happy than the person that’s all about the money, all about the celebrity.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s lovely, so was that the Vallant study with the Harvard men and probably over the decades?

Susan RoAne
It was a 75-year study and I think the guy’s name – and I actually wrote it down – was Robert Waldinger out of Harvard. He did a TEDTalk but that’s not how I heard him. I was listening to the classical radio station and they quoted it. Now you must understand, I called myself and left this message so that I could pick it up and check them out. I would’ve written it down but I drive stick shift and non of our audience wants to be on the road when someone driving stick shift is writing notes to herself.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, safety first absolutely. Well that’sfun; I look forward to digging into that one. So networking, we got a nice little reframed there we called ‘helping’, it’s what they do on the farm. That seems like something that’s just natural to human experience and brings about joy and such. Then, in practice though, lets imagine a scene like we’re at a cocktail party, a mixer, a kickoff events for something so it’s happening, I’m there, I’m in the scene. There is a person that I don’t know who looks a little bored;they’re looking around like they could be open to having some conversation. What do I say there? I think maybe I’m a little self conscious about small talk or mentioning the weather like part of me is just imagining they’re going to mentally respond like “Really? The weather? Is that all you have to contribute right now?” So,set me straight, how should I approach this individual and how should I be thinking about it?

Susan RoAne
First of all, I am going to set you straight and I been doing this to… for like a number of years. What you just described is not networking. Networking and knowing how to work a room, mingles, socialize, circulate, that’s one skill; networking is a separate skill. That’s why I think people walk around and hate networking because they really feel walking into a room full of people that they don’t know is very uncomfortable. Most people don’t feel uncomfortable following up and sending you the article that promised or introducing you, but walking into a room full of people, that’s uncomfortable.

Networking is the follow-up skill. You can be great at working a room, but if you have no follow-up, you have no network. I can prove this because there are people that are great at networking. Honestly Pete, they follow-up, they send you the material, they introduced you to people, theysend you a lead but the thought of walking into a room full of strangers still makes them uncomfortable. What we need is both skills, does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I hear you. You call networking the follow-up, the relationship building piece. Then would you call that mingling or what the term that used for the skill?

Susan RoAne
I call it mingling because I wrote the bestselling book. On the day whatI’ll call it no either work or room, you can call it mingling, we also call it socializing. We call itcirculating, you can call that but it is that piece isn’t really networking. Networking is the follow-up because there are some people by the way great in room, oh my goodness they tell great stories, their fun to talk to, they’re wonderful. They, not only do not follow-up, they have no interest in following-up. We call them the one-night-stands. They are great in event, at a party, at a conference, but if they don’t follow-up they don’t have a network and there are a lot of people who really do not want to get involved. I got a couple people at different programs that I’ve done say “Well, I really don’t like to invade people’s space because I don’t like mine invaded”. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to say “Why are you here? You should’ve stayed home”. If you’re not going to welcome conversation, if you’re not going to go over and talk to people… that if you don’t want people to come over and talk to you, why leave your home?

Pete Mockaitis
That makes total sense so…

Susan RoAne
Let’s give you some tips.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s do it.

Susan RoAne
Here’s what I’m going to do, you know you’re invited… now I want to get into the old teacher mood.

Pete Mockaitis
Take it away.

Susan RoAne
You see the… It could be an e-vite, it could be and email, it could bea mailed invite. You’ve been invited to a professional association meeting, a wedding, a conference, a meet up. First thing you do, RSVP. People really don’t like when people show up unannounced especially if there’s food involved and they didn’t order enough so be well mannered, pay attention to etiquette, RSVP and then show up. Now, sometimes something happened and we RSVP and we can’t show up, then what we do is we send the email we send the response says “So sorry, can’t make it,” because there’s no point in managing your online reputation if you’re not managing your in-person and your total reputation.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, make sense so we’d follow some good etiquette, some good respectful practices associated with alerting people as to whether you will be there and being appropriately prepared. This seems to be the first phase.

Susan RoAne
First phase but before you go anywhere, what you do is you prepare and what you prepare is first a self-introduction. You make sure that you know how to introduce yourself because you can’t rely on someone going “Oh there’sSusan RoAne, author of ‘How to Work a Room’.come on in Susan, everyone wants to meet you,” well wouldn’t it be great if that were true. You are responsible for your own self-introduction, but I want to give everyone the three traits, the RoaneTraits of the self-introduction. They are not an elevator pitch. Elevator pitches should be pitched and never even given in an elevator, it irritates most people.

What you do is “YeahI got into this elevator to listen to you go on about yourself for fifteen seconds. I don’t think so,” but you’re… At an event, it’s a pleasantry,, its seven to nine seconds and you tone “Hey it great to meet you!” “Oh you… Looks like you’re bla bla bla,” you have to sound enthusiastic, interested, energetic, seven to nine seconds. Second trait of your self-introduction, you key it  to the event. You’re not going to introduce yourself at a local rotary the same way you’re going to introduce yourself to the association of, I don’tknow millennial architects.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay

Susan RoAne
You will have to help people in that room give context for why you’re there, so you give them an introduction that has something that lets them know why they’re there… Why you’re there so they know what to talk to you about. Then, the third trait is that instead of giving your title, according to my friend Patricia Fripp- a fabulous author, speaker and executive speech coach – you give the benefit of what you do.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright.

Susan RoAne
“Oh, I am Susan RoAne, nice to meet you. I help peoplemingle,” “Okay what does that mean?” “I’m the mingling maven,” give people something so they can ask you the first question and then you’re invited to explain a little bit. “Oh yes, I go all over the world and talk about how to work a room as a keynote or a seminar because I wrote that book,” then you stop and you turn to the other person and say these four words, “And how about you?”

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. That sounds pretty step-by-step. You’ve RSVP-ed, you’ve prepared your self-introduction and then when you encounter someone you sort of… do you extend your hand to shake or its just say “Hello, my name is name, followed by the…”

Susan RoAne
How about this? It’s a case, if you’re standing next to someone at the dessert table, you will probably not say “Hello, my name is Susan RoAne,” you’ll probably say something more impromptu like “Doesn’tthat look delicious? I wonder how many calories that miniéclairs has”. It sounds like small talk but it’s what you have in common at the moment and that’s a good place to start. It’s rather than introducing yourself, say something about where you are and what you’re both doing which is trying to pick out desserts. In some situations, leaning in offering your hand for a handshake and say “Oh hello, I’m Joe Jones and I see you’re with whatever,” because you could read name tags. Lean in, offer your hand for a… Now write this down everyone.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay

Susan RoAne
Web-to-web handshake. It’s not a… and please guys don’t do this to use, it’s not squeeze our fingers. We don’t like that and women, men don’t know to do so we must offer our hand literally out for a handshake. If you think someone – this is from the chapter of ‘Let’s Not Be Misinterpreted’ – if you think someone will come in too close, lock your elbow.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Susan RoAne
Then say your name, and make an observation. Say something about what you have in common or even the old, “I have looked forward to meeting you… look forward to getting to talk to you. Oh, I see you’re with so and so company, is this the your first time you’re here?” there are so many little ice breakers we can say and for the people that say, “Idon’t do small talk,” what they’re usually saying isn’t I don’t do small talk, they sound like “I am above small talk,” but what they’re really saying is “I’m a crappy conversationalist.”

Pete Mockaitis
Alright, understood.

Susan RoAne
I’mgoing to have you switch you thinking not to “Idon’t do small talk,” to “Small talk is the best talk we can do to get to know people,” Where they went to school? Who their favorite teams are? What they’re interest are? It happens in small talk.

Pete Mockaitis
It makes sense that you start with what you have because it would be extremely off-putting if someone launched right into their heavy life or business personal issues like “We’re in a lot of debt and I’m worried that we’re going to go bankrupt,” “What? Woah!”

Susan RoAne
Okay and see this is… A lot of people have been schooled by people that don’t know what they’re talking about,and I won’t mention names, that all you should do is ask questions because if you ask questions you get people to talk about their favorite subject which is themselves. I’m here to tell you that is terrible advice. If all you do is ask questions, two things happen: you look like you’re nosy or an interrogator, and you have given the floor over to other people and taking it back is difficult.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood.

Susan RoAne
Conversation is not asking questions, it’s a trifecta I call it ‘bring your OAR and you could paddle through any conversation’. The OAR stands for observations, asking questions, and revealing. But what your example of “We’re wallowing in debt,” don’t reveal anything that you would not want to be said back to or appear in a tweet or in a news article.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. I want to dig into a bit more detail. You said there are many kind of opening, sort of ice breakers associated, I suppose, with doing some of that observation there. Could you share a couple other go-toes that are helpful for folks?

Susan RoAne
Well if you’re going to an event sponsored by someone, what brought you here? Are you a member? Have you found this to be useful? How long did it take you to find a parking space? I mean, just the little things people have in common. One of the wonderful ways when you meet someone who just…you know, sometimes people told me they’ve actually say “Well this is kind of uncomfortable but you look friendly, I’m glad to meet you,” put out your hand, say your name, because that way you express it’s a little nerve-wrecking; most likely the person standing alone finds it equally as nerve-wrecking so right there you have something in common. I think this is a great opening question and it certainly works here in the San Francisco bay area, “Where are you from originally?”

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely.

Susan RoAne
Because, in San Francisco most of us are from other places and the time that you get someone who says “I’m from San Francisco,” “oh my goodness, a native San Franciscan,” then you have a different conversation. Before the show, Pete and I remembered… You remembered me and reminded me of where we met the townies from in Illinois, living in Chicago, and then you find that there are these points of familiarity. We both went to the same university. I’m from Chicago, he lived in Chicago. You never know if you don’t ask the questions, if you don’t look at their name tags when there arename tags… If you aren’t interested, you’ll never find those common bonds and once you hit those common bonds, conversation flows.

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed and there’s like a real sense of connection that starting to grow there. I want to follow up on that as well as the point you brought about, the name tags. I think the active remembering names is amongst the most kind of anxiety provoking to the folks when…

Susan RoAne
Oh, yes, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
They’re in their sort of environment of working a room. Do you have any best practices on retaining names?

Susan RoAne
First of all nobody does that’s number one, unless they’re one of those mentalists. Be kind to yourself;don’t think you’re going to remember everyone’s name that you met because we’re meeting like a hundred times more people than our grandparents met. What you do – and this was taught to me by a gentleman who was one of my… In one of my presentations in ElPaso – he said “Susan, let everyone know that the best way to remember someone’s name is to realize no body remembered yours.”

Every time you bump into someone if you haven’t seen them in two months, six months or if you go to a professional event maybe even a year, put out your hand and reintroduce yourself. He said “With your first and last name,” “Why would I do that?” “he said “Really 90% of the people are going to mirror what you do. So, if you don’t remember their name and you say your first and last name, most likely they will say their first and last name. Then, you don’t have to struggle”.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, that’s good. It’s rather unlikely I imagine a small percentage of the time will they ever say “um yeah I know and we met at this event, jerk”.

Susan RoAne
Okay, right. Now I want to say something that we should never say because I’ve heard people do this. Never ever, ever, ever, say to someone “Do you remember me?” that put people on a spot that embarrasses people and all of us have moments where we don’t retrieve everything right away. You are not scoring points by catching someone on the fact that they didn’t remember you. The kinder, more savvy wise thing to do, and more thoughtful thing to do is to say your name so they’re not struggling.

Never call people on that, I had someone do that to me. I was with Patricia Fripp at an event in the city and here’s our tip, we introduce each other and say the things that we might not say about ourselves. “Oh Patricia Fripp, have you met this fantastic speaker, excellent… Executive speech coach, author,” Fripp says “Susan RoAne, have you met her? Bestselling author”. One moment was introduced to me by Patricia and literally Pete, she looked at me and said… after I said to her “Oh so nice to meet you!” she said with this tone, “We’ve already met”.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh.

Susan RoAne
You know it kills me as I really still don’t remember her name because now we have the internet, Yelp and Twitter. I would really do a couple of things but I don’t remember her name. That’s my Chicago coming out of me,never ever do that to anybody. Never, because it’s been done and what you do in the day and age that you’re trying to manage career, be awesome at your job, meet people, you want to make people feel positive about having met you. Not put them in an awkward position.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it, thank you. I also want to quickly touch base on, talk a little bit about some of the mingling and networking that occurs in the online world. You make the point in your expanded 2015 edition – of the book ‘How To Work A Room’ – that different social media platforms have kind of a different vibe or feel to it, kind of like going to a different event or a party. Could you speak about a little bit in terms of saying what’s the vibe like in Facebook versus Instagram versus LinkedIn versus Snapchat or whatever you could comment on there?

Susan RoAne
I’mnottoo adeptSnapchatthough; I have had the application since it came out. I have a little lesson from a thirteen-year-old who turned to me and said “Why don’t you just follow the directions?” so I thought okay. Twitter;Twitter if you don’t write anything in all capitals, Twitter is of being a part of the conversation. Being a lurker isn’t enough, follow people whom you respect. Let them know what you like, you can participate in Twitter. Twitter, the best people on Twitter offer sage advice, interesting information or links to articles that you may not have seen. I do that all the time, I just put out a link to an article about something I didn’t write but someone else did and I thought it was a worthwhile article. If you are doing something to expand other people’s knowledge base,help them expand their interests, Twitter is a wonderful conversation. You’re not going to put pictures of your food.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Susan RoAne
You’re not going to do that on LinkedIn either. LinkedIn is about business. I have a little beef with LinkedIn, I accepted an invitation from someone I didn’t know because of how nicely they wrote it bla bla bla. Literally, a week later I get… This morning, a sales pitch. I did this, I wrote the person back an email and saying “I accepted your invitation even though my policy is never to accept invitations from people I don’t know or haven’t met,” and here I am, a week later reading your pitch. I said “I am going to post this on LinkedIn and go back to my old policy”.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay

Susan RoAne
LinkedIn, you can do some business on LinkedIn but truthfully, if it’s all pitching your sales and I know a lot of  people social selling. That’s not the way to do it. So, I don’t know what the answer is but go to LinkedIn, you’ll find a lot of interesting information. You can post a blog post, you can share and introduce people but using it to just sell, sell, sell, ends up getting very tedious. Instagram is all about the photo. I’m not even sure, I mean I put a photo if I want people to see it.

People often put their photos, same photos on Facebook and LinkedIn. My Facebook personal page is different than my Facebook business page but by the way, if you want to you can go to SusanRoane…it’s facebook/susanroaneBiz with a capital B. You can see what I put on my business page that I always like to think would be helpful to someone that needs to know how to work a room, communicate, build conversation, build a repertoire and build relationships.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you, that’s helpful distinctions there. There are some applications that seems that will just sort of shoot the same thing every place but that seems to be the direction that a lot of marketing gurus are speaking to is native content, specialize content and distinctive content because they’re different vibes associated with each of this places.

Susan RoAne
Yeah, and that’s where people… I know one guy said “Oh, I save a lot of time, here’s the application”, I would never use it. What I say on Twitter, does not belong on my personal Facebook page which by the way, I’ve had my page so long. I was one of the group or the first people that went to Facebook after Facebook expanded outside of the universities so my Facebook pages has a lot of business people too. I’ll make a little more personal and not as much business, but I still do a combination of both like I just went to a great dinner and thanked the people, mentioned the restaurant, recommended it. I also pictures of all the food they served; would never do that on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, thanks for this tip-bits. I’m just about ready to shift gears into the rapid fire. Kind of one minute responses to the fast favorite questions unless, there’s anything else you want to make sure we put out there before shifting gears?

Susan RoAne
Okay, this is it. Before you go anywhere, read the paper whether its online, offline or on your watch. I used to say, if you’re Dick Tracy, but that means application.read for information,go everywhere. If you’re not sure what conversation you can make, come with three items you could talk about. I mean, no matter what time of the year there’s some sporting event, there’s some new movies, there’s some new book, there’s some trial. Unfortunately, half of the world is turning, there’s usually some thing that’s happened in a part of the world that is unspeakable and people do need to talk about it. People make conversation, they talk about food. “I’mfrom Chicago, I’ll talk about deep dish pizza for an hour”.

Pete Mockaitis
Lou Malnati’s or what’syour preference?

Susan RoAne
See, no listen what you did Lou Malnati’s . No, I don’t like Lou Malnati’s , I am a Geno’s east-girl. It’s not just that I grew up there, went there last summer. Off of MichiganAvenue they moved and it was better than I remembered it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, glad to hear we’re still representing.

Susan RoAne
Yes, we… And you see, people are listening go “Idon’t care about pizza”. Well, that was a whole item when Jon Stewart was on the daily show, ‘New York Pizza Versus Fork And Knife Pizza’… deep dish pizza. People talk about food, I mean come on now. We have how many channels that talk about food?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yeah, plenty, plenty. I was just watching Chopped with my mom recently.

Susan RoAne
Oh,there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
They just keep going. So, alright, let’s kick it off then with the fast favorite. Can you share with afavorite quote, something that inspires you again and again.

Susan RoAne
Yes and I have it right up here in my office in its calligraphy framed, ‘what’s let go off provides space for what’s to become’.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, beautiful.

Susan RoAne
When you think something hasn’t gone well and in our careers things often don’t go well. I mean, I was a laid-off teacher who knew that I would have this career, seminar leader, key-notes speaker, bestselling author and I was good at teaching. What I had to do is let go and how you find out sometimes what the next step is, pay attention to what people are saying to you. “Hey, you’re really go at this. You’re really good at this,” say thank you and make a mental note then go home and… Or take out your smart phone and write down compliments.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. How about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours that’s been very effective?

Susan RoAne
Besides my walking,my favorite habit is I get up early, I get my three print newspaper – yes those were just the print ones I read – and I multitask by watching the night before, the Daily Show, Larry Wilmore andStephen Colbert while I read the paper and do social media. I do my social media the first thing in the morning because to me… because the east coast is three hours ahead. That sets the tone for the day, and I think of what am I reading, what am I hearing, what have I written that might be helpful to other people. That’s an old teacher part “What can I do, say, write, tweet or post that might be helpful to someone else?”That’s what I do, start off the morning with social media, my papers and my boys: Seth, Steven, Trevor and Larry.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. It’s a close relationship there.

Susan RoAne
They don’t know it yet but they will love me later.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you tell us abouta favorite nugget or truth-bomb, something that when you share it, it gets folks nodding their heads, taking notes, re-tweeting. What are some of those gems for you?

Susan RoAne
This is a favoriteSusan RoAne-ism, ‘bring who you are to what you do’. People will not relate to your title, but they will relate to you as a person so bring who you are to what you do. There are always a school of thought “I have to keep my business and my personal life separate”. That is so last century.

Pete Mockaitis
Noted. How about a favorite way to find you? Is it best for folks to visit your website, Twitter or email?

Susan RoAne
Ithink the website is great, which is susanroane.com. Has a lots, we just put in drop down menus and there’s a photo gallery link on the front page where you can see what I do. Some of the speaking, you can see what I’ve done when I go to the famous Sears  restaurant here in San Francisco and play with the pinball machine, one arm bandit. You can see what I do when I’m not speaking as well as where I’ve spoken… Just put up a photo gallery.

Go to my website, but also go to the blog because that has a lot of articles including the ‘10 Commandments Of Connecting’and a recent one that I wrote for SHERM,Society Of Human Resource Management based on ‘How To Work A Room’and my book ‘Secrets Of Savvy Networking’ so go to my website. If you’re listening to this and you have a burning question, you email me and we’ll brain storm a solution whether it’s about working a room, whether it’s about communicating, whether it’s about changing your career, getting a new job, it’s susan@susanroane.com but if you want to hire me to speak for your company or your organization and have a budget. By all means, 4154613915, call me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you, immediate access. How aboutin terms of a parting words, a favorite challenge or call-to-action you’d leave folks who are seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Susan RoAne
A), be more awesome means the obvious that you work hard, you ask question about what you don’t understand. If you see someone that you think is good at it,you can have them become your mentor but you don’t have to say “Will you be my mentor?” because it’s not Valentine’s Day. You can inspire people to want to mentor you.

The second thing is, no matter how good you are at your job, the ability to work a room, communicate with people, approach people, make a connections, is what’s going to take you to the next level. By the way, if someone comes to my website and signs up on my mail list, which is right there, you get a free copy of my e-book, which is ‘The Nuances of Business Networking’.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you for that. Also, thank you, Susan so much for taking the time here today. This is been a real treat and I thank you for the wisdom you share with me when I first read your book in high school and continue to share here now, today. It’s been a real treat.

Susan RoAne
Thank you so much Pete and I hope everyone is awesome at their job.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.