A networking expert shares how he uses a distinctive T-shirt and a $30 workstation setup at conventions to start conversations, then amplifies connections through his 1990s record "Wump There It Is." He argues that visibility, a memorable story, and authentic character beat hard-selling for building real professional networks.
Chapters
With those odds, that's how you get a job. But with those odds, that's how I get people to help me, right? Because I call and I open my mouth and I say, can you please help me? And they'd be like, what can I do for you, right? And the fact that you calling sincere, you're not trying to finagle them or you're not trying to finesse them, you're just being straight up and saying please. They gonna help. So when I go to these conventions, I wear a Big Moon Therapist t-shirt and I, I park. I find it— I usually either get a little, uh, you know, eating trays. I'll buy one of them eating trays from Walmart because it only cost $30. I could just throw them away. But I got a place to always set up in a convention hall or in a hotel, right? And I get on my computer and start working and people stop by and they're like that, you know, getting their stuff together before they go to the next, you know, class or whatever. And I just started talking. So what do you do? And we start talking and everything. And they'd be like, what do you do? I was like, well, I do SEO and marketing and digital marketing. And we talking and we exchange cards. And I got a big Wump There It Is t-shirt on and they still don't know who I am. And then I double-dutch my way into them because I might be like, yeah, I just got here on been traveling. I'm just tired. We just got back from, you know, I just got back from a show. They're like, show? What kind of show do you do? I was like, well, back in the day I made a record in the '90s called Wump There It Is, and we still touring after all this time, so I stay busy.
Oh, okay, that's cool. All right, yeah, wait a minute, there it is?
Yeah, Wump There It Is. Nah, man, really? Like, yep. Like, I know you're gonna go look. I know you're gonna go look on your phone. You're gonna see this face with long black pretty hair. That's me, right? Favorite tag team. Nice to meet you. Next thing you know, now I have a bullhorn to the whole convention because that person is going to go back and tell 100 people. And now everybody's looking for me. By the end of that conference, everybody knows who I am. So now I can call people and say, yeah, I seen you at the thing. I can get a chance to meet you, but I'm glad you called me. Right? So that's the only time I use it. I don't, you know, I, I work— me working in the club, I used to always see dudes. And this is the beauty of being in the DJ booth. The worst thing you could do to a girl is, you know who I am? And they'd be like, no, and don't care. Never do that, right? And I learned that early. You just don't do that. You you, if you ain't got— but there's other ways to win a woman's heart besides money, you know what I'm saying? Character, right? In the beginning. And then they see you got character and you got all this stuff, all the stuff that they really, really want, but they'll take money if they really, really want the stuff you got. And you can show them you got it and you got some money. Oh, you got, you got, you got— man, I got— you got draws for life.
