There is an old adage that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, but not everyone has the right recipe for turning adversity into opportunity. Unless you have been living on a desert island for the past few months, you know that we are currently facing times of economic adversity. The stock market sell-off, gloomy economic forecasts, and hand-wringing of the financial pundits are creating a sense of panic that has everyone in an uproar.
The first thing you have to do is take a deep breath and calm down. Things are not as bad as the media pundits would make them seem.
The second thing you have to do is look around you for new opportunities. Where is the silver lining among the clouds?
I hear so many NETSHARE members complain about how hard it is to network and when they do connect, they start asking for a bailout. Government policy notwithstanding, there are no bailouts! That’s why I want to share some insights from Chad Boughton, a NETSHARE member who has an uncanny talent for turning adversity to his advantage.
Chad has an innate intelligence that lets him see opportunity where others see insolvable problems. Chad told me that he started his career in college when he started his own business building decks. While his fraternity brothers were dreaming of graduating to earn $30,000 or $40,000 a year, he was already making well over six figures while attending school. Chad’s first “real” job was in the brokerage business working for a Chicago trading firm. When he started, the manager assigned to train him had to take an unexpected leave of absence. His bosses told Chad he would have to cope, and they wanted him to make 400 cold calls a day to build his business. Chad was not interested in cold-calling, so instead he bought Chicago Metra passes and spent his days looking for executives in suits with bulky briefcases. By making personal connections on the morning and evening commutes, Chad became a top producer for the firm in his first year.
Until recently, Chad was operating his own Chicago-based stock brokerage firm and be became caught in the recent economic downturn. He decided to change gears and help market his father’s gutter installation company. His father has owned the business for 15 years, and gutter installation is not a hot ticket item. Chad identified a new market opportunity with the real estate crisis. Homeowners aren’t selling their homes, but they are remodeling and investing to stay in their present homes. Chad started expanding his network, identifying contractors who were focused on remodeling, and he has managed to expand his father’s business 29 percent in six months, and expect to triple the business next year.
Chad’s story is one that would make Horatio Alger jealous. “The key to success is talk to everyone you can get in front of,” said Chad. “People get stuck. Through NETSHARE I have been able to contact people all over Chicago and meet a number of them. Networking works.”
And Chad says you can never tell who is in a position to help you. He remembers a lesson he learned from his father-in-law. They were at a contractor’s auction where Chad was introduced to an unassuming man with a beat-up pickup who knew his father-in-law. Chad said the man’s name was familiar but he couldn’t place it. After their conversation his father-in-law told him that Chad had just met the largest pig farmer in the country; a man worth millions of dollars who had given his father-in-law a lot of work over the years. The lesson is, never judge a book by its cover, or a contact by their appearance.
While you may not have Chad’s gift of turning lemons into lemonade, you can find a way to use your contacts to your advantage. Keep talking to people, and open yourself to the opportunities that present themselves. That doesn’t mean you are cruising the Internet, with your virtual hat in your hand, asking for work. It means talking to people about what they are doing, what they are interested in, and how you might be able to help one another. If you open your eyes to the possibilities, you might make out as well as Chad.
