Mind-set shift helps 'solopreneurs' find success

Linette George walks into a room of strangers and sees the people gathered there as different countries. She's at a networking event - and ready to go.

George, "passionate about travel and learning about different cultures," and "not scared about meeting strangers" in a foreign land, has learned to equate a networking event where she initially knows no one to travel where she initially knows no one.

Strange? A little. But the shift in George's approach, a mind-set change, has made meeting new business people easier.

Kris Fay disliked networking because "I thought I was there to sell myself." Fay, however, "likes finding out about others. Everyone has a story." For her, an "I'm Kris Fay. Tell me about yourself" tactic gets networking conversations going and provides a way for her to connect.

Fay and George, says Gail Sussman Miller, are examples of how a shift in thinking can make I-really-don't-want-to-do-this tasks doable - and even enjoyable. Fay, manager of marketing and operations at College of DuPage's Business and Professional Institute in Lisle, and George, president of Get Organized by George Inc. of Lombard, are part of a cadre of women whose experiences give credence to Miller's approach to networking - and other tasks. Both are graduates of Miller's "How to Love Networking" workshop.

Miller, self-titled chief obstacle buster at Chicago-based Inspired Choice, changes mind-sets. She works mostly, but not exclusively, with women business owners; "women solopreneurs" is the term Miller prefers.

What Miller does actually is pretty traditional: She helps clients build confidence by helping them adapt behaviors and, in the process, become comfortable in settings that range from networking to speech-giving.

"I help them leverage their strengths," Miller explains. "We transfer skills. We take something they love to do, something they like, get clear on the skills and attitudes (required), and transfer those skills" to networking and other tasks.

In other words: Take something you already do well and transfer the skills to a chore you don't do well. "It's fairly abstract thinking," Miller says, but 80 percent "get the shift at the cellular level."

Christie Ruffino is executive director of the DuPage Professional Women's Network, which has eight chapters in DuPage, Kane and Cook counties. Miller, she says, makes networking "less intimidating. (Miller works on) who we are and what we like to do - and how we can use those strengths to find common ground" with others.

"Gail grounds you in what you're committed to," says Maria Malayter. Director of the Center for Positive Aging at National-Louis University in Lisle, Malayter is a gardener. "I love gardening," she says. More to the point, Malayter has discovered that she "can grow people" as well as plants.

Growing people relates directly to Malayter's role at the Center, where she helps mid-lifers "discover what they want to do in the second half" of their lives.

Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@121Marketing Resources.com.

ˆÂ© 2008 121 Marketing Resources, Inc.