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Just because we’re not in grade school anymore, doesn’t mean we can’t get excited (and prepared) for Back To School vibes, right?
Starting this week we are going to be focusing ourselves on themes and ideas for getting ourselves and our businesses ready for fall.
When I was a kid, I always wanted to return to school in September ready to make new friends, tell great stories about my summer, join (or start!) new clubs, get organized and do better in class, and of course have some exciting new lewks to show off for my classmates. The first thing on my mind is of course, making friends.
As a freelancer, sometimes I have awkward confusion when meeting people like, are we networking or are we friending? Personally, I very much believe that the realm of the pure friend and pure business connection is very small, and that it’s perfectly fine for many relationships to dabble a bit on both sides of the fence.
But the key to successful friendly business relationships lies in intention setting, transparent communication, and having healthy boundaries and expectations.
When I meet someone I want to befriend, I am very informal: I use text, messenger, GIFs, and send casual invites to keep the conversation going. If I want to know you professionally, I might invite you to do the same activity, but I’ll send you an email and a calendar invite instead of a cat GIF telling you this event will be purrrfect. And, if I notice that our communication seems not to sync up, I’ll work to clarify their expectations, so no one gets hurt or disrespected, and I don’t inadvertently leave money on the table.
Funny enough, while I was contemplating friend-making, my friend Kevin Huynh (who is part of a mastermind group with me) sent an email reminding his network that the book he co-wrote with Bailey Richardson and Kai Elmer Sotto was launching this week! The three of them have an agency, People & Company, entirely devoted to building community, which is what their book, Get Together, is all about. I’d been wanting to connect (professionally) with Bailey for quite a while, so I knew the perfect opportunity would be to ask her some questions about community building and friend-making for the blog!
xx LAMARKS, Editor & the FF Team
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