How Not to Get Left Behind in the Old Normal.

I read an e mail today from LinkedIn telling me that it was their 10^th anniversary. I watched their video.   Time does fly.  LinkedIn was launched in May 2003.  Five years before the world melted and the New Normal was created.  That occurred in September 2008 and the world was at the brink of financial disaster.  Scary times.  Companies still remember those days because most hire slowly. Unless you are Google or are a Java Developer.

I think the New Normal made LinkedIn a success because the millions of people that got launched into transition captured its power and helped it to grow. No recession?  Maybe just more Facebook.

I had my weekly sushi lunch with my son today at Gen Kai in Dana Point. He is reading the Four Hour Work Week.

We always have a Happy Meal. You would like it.

Here’s a picture.

He told me that his friend’s sister just got a job at LinkedIn. She probably got a nice package.  I e mailed her when I got home.  I met her when she was ten in the Old Normal.  I shared that I have almost 10,000 connections on LinkedIn. You can’t act your age in the New Normal.   It is easier to do if you got to the New Normal years ago.  Even before the world melted although I did share its pain.

I connect with people who are applying for six figure jobs.  Their Linkedin photo looks like they are on a camping trip.  They don’t realize that they might not get that job because of their photo.  They think their resume is more important than their Linkedin profile. I found them on Linkedin.  They are obvious to the New Normal.

I still get resumes from people not remotely qualified for the people I am looking for.  They think that “let’s just see what happens” still works today.  They are wasting their time.  Since they are I won’t respond because I don’t want to waste mine. To get a job in the New Normal you have to pass through the eye of the needle not be the horseshoe closest to the stake.

I get an e mail from a printer the other day.  I didn’t know him.  He mentioned that I used to work at JWT in the past. He sent his corporate brochure along.  He wanted me to pass it along to anyone who may be looking for a reliable printer.  I did work for JWT for ten years in Toronto and Chicago.  The Chicago office was opened in 1891.  It closed in 2009 when the world melted so I don’t have time to send his corporate brochure along to anybody who may need printing.  I did call my daughter that day that works in Chicago at an agency on the corner of State and Wacker.  She found the job online.

Unfortunately many people are still stuck in the Old Normal and they act as if things didn’t change. They are blind.  I talk to their e mails and say “You don’t get it you have to change”.  But change is hard and I don’t have the time because you see in the New Normal your quickness of response is today’s currency. I heard that on Q on my CBC app on my iPhone while I was having a run around the soccer field in Laguna Niguel. He was on air in Toronto my home town.  He is Persian. There are 650,00O Persians in Southern CA.  I wonder if he knows that?

I want the people stuck in the Old Normal to come to the New World but many can’t.  I want to rescue them but I don’t have the capacity in an over capacitated New Normal world. It is best for them to find their own way as I did. I wish they would come over soon.  They have nothing to lose.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn.

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Like Blank and Associates on Facebook

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Listen to this audio recording on Networking Tips For Those Who Hate to Network.  It features my friend Tina Wilson who lives in the New Normal but is legally blind.  I love her new dog.

Life in the New Normal is Just Like Playing Hopscotch.

This is a recent blog that I wrote for Marketing Executives Network Group or MENG.

Remember playing hopscotch? It was easy to play.  All you needed was some chalk. Maybe you stole it from school.

Life in the New Normal is very much the same game.

Just like hopscotch it all depends when tile you land on.

Just like in hopscotch in the New Normal many people have one foot tied behind their backs. A balancing act of intention and resolve but precariousness.

Some companies are hiring and some companies are still firing.

It all depends on what tile you step on.

Stepping on the getting hired tile can be very difficult especially if you are over 50.  Some are younger than Baby Boomers yet many people think they are out of the game.  I am glad that I stopped looking for work in the Old Normal way a decade ago.  I learned new games.

I always thought that getting through the eye of the needle was a tough parable.

Getting hired if you are a long term person in transition is even harder.

The irony is that the companies that fire people hire people slowly but they want you to like them on Facebook instantly. Please like me they say.  Here is a contest.  Here is a game you can play to win a gift certificate. Here is how you connect with us.

Many companies are sitting on piles of cash because you buy their products.

Companies don’t look too often into the firing mirror.  Some wouldn’t see a reflection.

In the New Normal I hear from people that are killer on social media.  They teach on how to harness its power.

However they send out emails saying they need work.  They aren’t landing on the right tiles.

In the depth of the melting of the world in the fall of 2008 as the financial markets crumbled I would be travelling to speak on Networking Your Way to New Business.  I could have been in Des Moines, Duluth, or Oklahoma City.  The world melted on the coasts first and not in those parts of the world. Business was tough. I came home and told my personal witch I felt like a fraud. “We teach what we need to know,” she said.  That is why she is my personal witch. I have lent her from time to time to other people who need a little brain alignment.

I spoke recently at a local college about how on why people shouldn’t find a job.  I had a follow up coffee in my hood with a young chap who was born on the other side of the globe.  My sister was born in Beirut.  He had some friends in Dubai and was heading there. He was younger than my kids.  He asked me to connect him with somebody in my LinkedIn network from that part of the world.  I never met her but she reads my blogs from time to time.  She connected him with another contact  in her LinkedIn  game and he got a job with a Multinational Agency in her part of the world.   He is probably 23.That is how Hopscotch is played today in the New Normal. Some people have one hand tied behind their backs and some people are free and growing.

It’s your turn to hop in the New Normal.

You can connect with Hank Blank on Linkedin.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Like Blank and Associates on Facebook

You might enjoy these articles.

Don’t Let Your Business Cards Weaken Your Personal Brand

Why Reinvention is a Virtual Necessity

Watch Surviving the Great Recession.

It’s Graduation Time. Lesson One.

It will be graduation time soon.

So what kind of world will you be graduating into?

There will be at least two worlds.

The first is one you can’t control and that world is called the New Normal.

The New Normal Started in September 2008 when the world almost melted when Lehman Brothers went away. You may have never heard of Lehman Brothers.  They were a 156 year old company when you were in your teens.  Those effects are still being felt today.

It probably didn’t mean as much to you then as it did to your parents.  But then again you may be graduating from a school neither you nor your parents wanted you to attend because of it.

It may have happened before you even entered college but it has defined the world you are graduating into.  Things are getting better but things are different and you will live in that difference unless it changes.

The New Normal affected your college experience.  Few courses and more competition for them. Larger class sizes. Longer graduation times.  I read an article in the New York Times that only half of first time college students graduate in 6 years.

What’s up with that?  I went to the University of Western Ontario which you have never heard of and I got two degrees by staying for 6 years.  That’s how I got to California.

In fall 2012, a record 21.6 million students are expected to attend American colleges and universities, constituting an increase of about 6.2 million since fall 2000. More people for fewer jobs.  I graduated into the kind of past.

The average student college debt will be $27,000. Yea.

The current unemployment rate in the U.S. is 7.7%  Better.

The unemployment rate among people under 25 is 16%. Ouch

The unemployment rate among people under 25 in Spain is 55%. That gets people into the streets. As the Rolling Stones sang in the 60’s the time is right for fighting in the street boys.

That world didn’t impact graduates much in the Old Normal but it is does in the New Normal.  As Marshall McLuhan said when I was going to school “It’s a Global Village”. You may have never heard of him and you may not have been to Spain but you are living his prediction.

You need a new lens to see in the New Normal.  In the Old Normal your parent’s friends were more old people.  In the New Normal they are data bases. Mine them.

The second world is the one that you can control and that is the world you personally create around you. How well resourced are you?  How well LinkedIn are you?  How resilient are you?  How well rounded are you?  What would make you interesting to a company? How wide is your network?

More on that in Lesson Two.  Soon to come.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Like Blank and Associates on Facebook

You might enjoy these articles.

Don’t Let Your Business Cards Weaken Your Personal Brand

The Slash Generation.

Watch this Video on Why Young People Shouldn’t try to Get a Job.

 

Surviving the Great Recession

I was at Starbucks the other day. Starbucks is the official office of the New Normal. It is filled by people who are working all day long without paying rent. There’s free Wi-Fi as well. I walked by a fellow who was talking to some colleagues. The words that came out of his mouth amplified for me in the air. “We survived,” he said. You could see his journey in the crevices of his brow.

I could imagine his conversation: “We survived, but we came out different. We had to make some major changes. Many of our competitors didn’t come out of it.” All true. I have heard it many times. I am often at Starbucks. The great recession changed everybody, everything and most values.

Do you trust your bank? Your mortgage company? Your employer? Your boss? Politicians? Oil companies? Your athletic heroes? Where do you shop now? Do people who drive $150,000 cars look successful to you? Do you buy your kids hoodies at a surf shop or Target? What companies do your children admire? Do you worry less or more? Has what’s important to you changed during the great recession?

Many companies didn’t survive the great recession. Where is New Century? Where is Mervyns? Many logos on office towers have changed many times where I live. I worked at JWT Chicago for 4 years, on the 27^th floor of the John Hancock building. It was the show.  JWT Chicago opened in 1891, and closed during the great recession. “The times they are a changing,” a prophet sang.

A whole class of people has been marginalized. They reach out to me. They lost good jobs during the great recession that they can’t replace. Generally, they are 50 plus years of age. They are not in a position to retire. There are probably millions of them out there who have tried everything to get picked, but are continually overlooked. Feeling like the last kid picked in the game of Red Rover - The New Normal’s Lost Generation.

Some can create a job by starting a consulting career, but others don’t know how to productize their knowledge and turn it into a business. One of the jobs that I had in the past with an agency probably doesn’t exist anymore, or there are much fewer of them.

Look into the future. Do you think that they position that you are in will be around in 5 years? If not, then today is the first day of your life. You can become marginalized because of your cost which often increases with age.  You can become marginalized because of your skills. If you let that happen, that is your choice. You have to change as fast as technology. That’s today’s bench mark.

When kids were young, we sometimes told them to act their age. When you are older you have to reflect the age of relevance. Doesn’t make you bullet proof, but it does provide a vest.

You see in the New Normal many things don’t align with the Old Normal. Companies are cash rich, the stock market sings, but hiring lags. Some months the news is all happy and the next month not so much.

In the New Normal you have to be ready for the next change and it will happen.  Hopefully not for a long time but I still remember the dotcom bust of a decade ago.  Some don’t because they weren’t alive in the workforce or maybe because the pain was short lived.

So, where are you today?

Are you ready to be fired?

When is the late time you reinvented yourself?

How have you made yourself smarter today?

How large is your network?

How have you made yourself more marketable today?

There is a train coming down the track. It hasn’t hit us yet, but sometime in the distant future it will. It always has in the past.

 

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on Twitter: @hankblank

Like Blank and Associates on Facebook

 

You might enjoy these articles:

Don’t Let Your Business Cards Weaken Your Personal Brand

Why Reinvention is a Virtual Necessity

Watch She’s Not a Great Networker

Creating an Agency Culture in the New Normal.

I grew up in the Old Normal working at agencies like JWT. When I was transferred from JWT Toronto to Chicago 700 people worked there.  It was hard to find me when I first arrived.  JWT Chicago was founded in 1891 and went away in the New Normal.  Lehman Brothers was founded in 1850 and they melted in 2008 creating the New Normal.

Although the advertising business has changed dramatically since I entered the game there is no doubt that the best people want to work at the best places.  Definitely creative people do.  But in the New Normal creative people can come from the big idea space and also the big technology idea space. The latter could be in charge in the next New Normal.

So how do you create an agency culture in the New Normal? How do you achieve it in an environment where employees can sit right next to each other with their ear buds providing their invisible cubes?  Their separation and privacy while working in close physical intimacy.

First you have to understand Millenials.  They like your money but they don’t belong to you. They want stability with agility.  They want direction and at the same time they want participation.

Many agencies try to create a culture with free food, allowing pets in the office experience, free massages etc. etc. etc. The stuff that gets them articles on being the best places to work when many often aren’t close to that.

Sure free food is nice but it is about capturing your employee’s personal passions and using that fuel to create a unique agency dynamic and experience.

Youth hasn’t changed in the Old and the New Leader. They want to be led by a Leader.  Being a leader is hard.  You have to inspire and inspiration is a true gift.

Agency principals don’t go out much. Few are the face of their agency’s brand.  Attend industry events.  Attend Ad2 events where the entry level people can talk to you.  Agency principals you need to set the example.  Dynamic agencies that attract good people are easy to find because they are out there.

The key with youth is to harness their /talents. They are the slash generation.  You know what their job description is.  You know where they went to school.  Now capture the / that follows that.  Their slash talents are their passions.

Create a culture by filling your agency with those voices.  They may have been interested in heavy metal, mountain biking, music, animation, blogging, photography, Pintrest, Tumbler, Q, speak three languages, cooking or whatever.  In the agency world passion can lead to New Business.

Nurture them. Agency principals often rule by two different philosophies.  Carrot or the stick.  Incentive or fear.  Although we live in the New Normal with lots of fear after the Great Recession the stick strategy neuters culture.  The carrot strategy is the only one that will succeed.

Be a rewarder. Surprise your chosen ones.  These are the few that truly get it.  They are intuitive.  They were born to be in the game.  They know they are good but they are like thoroughbreds.  They need to be nurtured and supported. They respond to little perks.  Praise for sure and an occasion serendipity acknowledgement.  A weekend at a hotel or a gift card or a gift for the significant other if you have kept their partner on the road too long.  Valuable employees love when you invest in them. It affirms their sense of self-worth.

Teach your employees well.   Create a monthly agency forum where you invite unique and different talent to speak to them at a company meeting.  Create your own TED. Have a monthly networking mixer with significant others some months and internally on alternate months.

Be an innovator. Ideate.  How do you create an environment where everyone will be encouraged to generate ideas? Involve them in your New Business brainstorming.

Be Honest. Make them marketable.  Teach your employees well.  Advertising is an industry with ups and downs. Client wins and losses.  In advertising to cut costs you can’t close a plant, you have to fire people.  It is as simple as that.  That is the nature of the business today and in the past.  So make them marketable if things change. Train them on LinkedIn and how to network.  One day you may have to launch them on a new path but they may want them back.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Like Blank and Associates on Facebook

Watch a video on How Agencies Can Get More New Business.

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How’s The Year Going So Far?

So how are things going so far as we enter year five of the New Normal? Having a jolly old time?   The New Normal was created when the world melted in the fall of 2008.  Lehman Brothers went away.   Remember those days? I am sure that the 2.8 million people that lost their jobs that year do. Some may still be looking for the job that they lost. They may be working but they don’t have the job that went away never to return.

Are things getting better? Are your loving things at work?  Doing less with more?  Looking over your shoulder from time to time? Get a little nervous if your boss calls you into their office?  How do you like your recent yearly salary increases? Did you get one?

How’s the job search going?  Is it easier or harder? Do you often feel it’s all in vein? Do you think that everyone thinks that you are too old?  Don’t have enough experience?  Have been on the beach too long? Do you think that the people interviewing you are smarter than you?

How are your New Business efforts going?  Is New Business even harder or are leads coming in and your task is to separate fact from fiction?  Do you feel you even need more leads today? Does New Business take more time and are the budgets smaller?  Do you have to provide more for less?

How’s your networking going or is it the same? Do you view networking as an intention or a mission?  Do you connect with people that energize and are totally aligned with you? Are you just networking with people just like you?

Are you living large?  I network with a lot of people. I talk to 2O year old people and have drinks with the people who run multinational agencies. They all share their stories.  I shake the hand of my UPS driver at Starbucks while he sits with Fed Ex Driver and a couple of other guys talking music.  I talk to sales people at the same time that feel they are out of touch for today’s game.

I have lunch with marketing people who wouldn’t have met me in the past but now that their company is changing I appear more valuable because I am a networker with a large network. I am happy to help. Will they?

I text with the President of a prominent local company while I am going for a run.  Presidents are optimistic enough to relax a bit these days.  But bit is a short word.

I meet with marketing people that are looking for their next gig.

I meet with people who are waiting for checks. Are your clients slower to pay?  I can relate to that being a solopreneur in the New Normal.  Balancing the regular pattern of bills versus the irregular flow of checks.

I hear from people who have been downsized seven times. They called themselves a survivor and I certainly do agree.  There are many worst alternatives.

I hear from people who tell me how tough things remain.

I hear from people who tell me how things are good.

2013 is the 5^th year of the New Normal.  This is the future and Leonard Cohen wrote a song about it in the Old Normal. The lyric said “I have seen the future and it is murder”.  But then again this is the New Normal after all.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch a video by Hank on Don’t Let Your Business Cards Weaken Your Personal Brand.

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Are You a Finder or a Grinder?

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Are You A Finder or A Grinder?

Are you a finder or a grinder?  An inside person or an outside person?   I recently spoke to the Albuquerque AMA Chapter about How to Rise Above the Crowd.  I talked at one point about Finders and Grinders.

A couple of people followed up and said those descriptions resonated with them.  One person came up to me after the presentation and shared that she was definitely an inside person but knew she had to get outside more.

During my presentation I shared something I have learned during the New Normal. We have survived a melting of the financial world and have emerged but in a very tentative place. The fear of what we saw in the fall of 2008 and afterward has created a lot of caution in the business world and a change I think in how people are perceived within organizations.

There is nothing wrong with being either a finder or a grinder. There are definitely a lot of different types of people in the world and I am a big proponent of networking with diversity in mind or else you will live in a homogenous world.

But finders and grinders can be valued differently when it comes to firing time. The decision of who goes and who stays is often a game of musical chair.  There is only one chair and two very qualified people to sit in that chair but only one person can sit down when the music stops.  It will be a short song.

These two people don’t even know this is happening. They are not at the dance. They don’t hear the music.  Their future is being decided by the perception they have created at their companies.  Some employees are very good grinders.  They work hard. They never miss a deadline.  They do all the right things but in the end it may not be enough.

Then there are people that are outside people.  They connect with people at work and they like to go to networking events and be connected in lots of ways. They are connected. Their networks makes them well resourced.  They understand the value of social media to build their brand.  They are not superficial.  They are current with the new ways to engage. They have seen the changes that have come and have jumped on the train and often lead the way.

In this day and age the decision who stays and who goes is very difficult because the easy decisions have been made in the five years since the world melted in the fall of 2008.   One thing that had remained the same in the Old and New Normal is that that a person that offers the greatest chance for incremental revenue gets to sit in the chair when the music stops.  And that person is the outside person.

You see there are fewer outside people than inside people.  There are many more grinders than finders.  All are equally valuable but in challenging times the outside person will get the chair all the time.  It may be right.  It may be wrong. But it is reality.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch a video by Hank on Networking Tips for Young People.

You may also enjoy these articles:

Are Solopreneurs the Future in the New Normal?

Networking in My Hood.

She’s Not a Great Networker.

Why College Students Need to Get Into Linkedin.

I live surrounded by young people.  I have hired paid interns for ten years and often speak on campus colleges on networking and why young people shouldn’t try to get a job.

That’s how I got this nice poster designed by Kyle Ready when I spoke at CBU in Riverside.

I am amazed by how many college students in their senior year that are looking to enter the workforce aren’t on LinkedIn.  Young people are natives in the world of technology.  I was an immigrant to their world of technology.

I embraced LinkedIn as an early adopter.  My largest client last year found me on LinkedIn.

College students who aren’t using LinkedIn lose their native status and become LinkedIn immigrants. They look like they aren’t ready for business. They don’t speak my language. And guess what?  I don’t want to hire them because I don’t want them to train them on Linkedin.  I want to teach them other things.

As a solopreneur I want an intern to help me from the get go.  That’s my world today.  And the world that today’s college students will live in when they are 50.  There are numerous articles documenting that in the near future a large proportion of the workforce will be consultants, freelancers, or temp workers.

When I speak to students I advise them to go where you want to be.  If you want to be in business then use the social media channel that business uses and that is LinkedIn. The best way to get a job in the field you aspire to is to engage with the people living in that world. Linkedin provides you with that opportunity.  If you want to work in the future communicate with people that may hire you in the future while you are in the past.  You should start your job hunting a year before you graduate or sooner.

I recently met a young man with 500 LinkedIn connections.  He was twenty years old and was soon to graduate from UCI.  I wasn’t surprised. Did the 500 plus connections help him graduate early?  Probably not.  I am sure that his attitude of preparing for the future did.

I have always said some of the worst career advice for students comes from people in the Old Normal.  They focus on resume building.  That’s all good but resumes don’t appear on the internet but your LinkedIn profile does.

Today resumes should be infographics or simple websites.

Young people today will have many jobs in the New Normal or create many companies.

The foundation of their success will be their network.  LinkedIn is a simple platform to build it and amplify your voice.

In the Old Normal there used to be simple insights shared that ran like this.  If you saved a dollar a day starting at 21 you would be a multi-millionaire by the age of 65 based on the principle of compounded interest.

In the New Normal if you connect with one person a day starting in college you can be sure of having lots of social currency and an improved chance of financial currency as well.

LinkedIn can help you get there.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Like Blank and Associates on Facebook

You might enjoy these articles.

Don’t Let Your Business Cards Weaken Your Personal Brand

The Slash Generation.

Watch this Video on Why Young People Shouldn’t try to Get a Job.

Don’t Let Your Business Cards Weaken Your Personal Brand

Your business cards are the foundation of your brand.  Make sure they project the image you want to convey.

Check out this video on called Don’t Let Your Business Cards Weaken Your Personal Brand.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Like Blank and Associates on Facebook

Watch a video on When Is It Time to Fire Your Agency

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I’m Just Trying to Figure It Out.

“I’m just trying to figure it out.”

People often tell me that they are trying to figure it out. After all the books, blogs, free and paid webinars and seminars on how to get to the next place – yet the majority of people don’t have a roadmap on where to go next.

Just the other day, I heard a young person say they were trying to figure it out. They were rooms away from where I sat, but their lament traveled through the air to me. They were looking for a magic way, but life isn’t as organized as Disneyland. Young people are the slash generation that many elders don’t see, and also the untrained generation. Institutions don’t invest as much in our youth as they have done in the past. The obligation of mentoring and nurturing youth may have been lost or abandoned.

There was a story on NPR recently which reported the number one psychological issue in campus health clinics today is anxiety. Young people are anxious that if that they graduate today in the New Normal, they aren’t guaranteed a job, even with a college degree – maybe even with an MBA. They have no clue on how to provide the basics for themselves once they graduate with huge student loans. That’s a big worry that can become a heavy yoke.

I can see that. Many millennials have by now spent a quarter of their lives living in the great recession. Their parents may have been downsized; their homes may have been in foreclosure.  They may have lost trust in the safety net of their parents helping them out financially. Some, in fact, may be helping their parents.

I often have a Starbucks and listen to business owners that want to take it to the next level. They tell me they are trying to figure it out. I have some clarity for them on days that can even be blind for me. Such a paradox – or could it be an irony? A metaphor? Do we teach what we need to know?

I have met too many people over the years who have been launched into the world of transition they didn’t anticipate before. Some come to me with the weight of living in the New Normal, saying they are just trying to figure it out. They weren’t trained on what to do when one is jettisoned into transition. When they worked for somebody, they often did all the figuring it out, but nothing further.

Here are some ways to try to figure it out:

1. Stop worrying, because worry won’t make the road clearer. Instead, it creates a fog. The best worry buster is an intense workout, or whatever else may work for you. Anything that disengages you from your brain for just the right time can bring you back to it focused and ready to take on the task at hand.

2. Figuring it out can be simplified if you surround yourself with other perspectives; you’ll never figure it out if you surround yourself with yourself. The best way to train for a marathon is to talk to someone who has run one before. They will tell you that running tight to the curves will save you a lot of steps over the 26.2 miles or 42Km. The best way to figure it out is by talking to people who have walked the same struggle.

What do I know? I have lived in the New Normal all my life. I’m just trying to figure it out.

 

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch a video by Hank on Networking Tips for Young People.

You may also enjoy these articles:

Are Solopreneurs the Future in the New Normal?

Networking in My Hood.

She’s Not a Great Networker.