This short YouTube video (Make Your Conversations Go Smoothly) is a personal anecdote by Dominic Imwalle about using informational interviews to build a professional network. He describes initial fears of reaching out on LinkedIn, experiencing rejections, handling pre-call anxiety, and the practical tactic that helped: preparing strong questions and adopting a learning mindset. The interviews became productive after brief awkward starts, leading to a trusted network and ongoing professional support; the video also promotes an upcoming guide for young professionals and asks viewers to comment or preorder.
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Hey, guys. Happy Friday. I hope your week is going well and thanks for checking this video out and just all the support for this past year. It's been awesome. You guys keep me pushing these Friday videos out, and I'm gonna keep doing it the rest of the year. So thank you for all the support along the way with this video. In anticipation for David and I's upcoming guide for young professionals that were that we are releasing here soon, I wanted to talk about a personal experience, because that's what we did in this guide. We gave people personal experiences that we battled through and we. And that we found success with at the end. We saw that light at the end of the tunnel, and then we're using that hey to give people so they don't have the same struggles that we did. And they can, you know, their path can be a little bit easier, but that's what we did in this upcoming guide. And so I want to give you kind of a little of a bit of a sneak peek, because my voice is in the guide. You'll see my face. And so this is kind of what it went like. And today I'm going to describe informational interviews and the feelings I had and how I really combated those. And I'm going to talk specifically about wanting to talk to more career coaches. That's what I did. It was probably the start of the pandemic, and I really realized, hey, this is the route I want to go. I want to talk to more people, just do some research, see what made them successful, what they wish they had done when they were younger. And so first, that initial crippling fear of reaching out to people I had never met on LinkedIn crept in. Like, I'm like, I probably put it off for a week. Like, hey, these people don't really want to talk to me. They're super established in their career. They don't want anything to do with some young kid trying to figure it out. So then, you know, I kind of got over that battle with that. And then I started sending these messages on LinkedIn, and sure enough, people were like, no, circle back. I'm busy. Not right now. And it sucked. Like, it really. I was like, damn, no one wants to talk to this young kid. And so. But with that, I got a couple yeses, right? Some people were like, hey, I'm free in the next couple weeks. Three, throw some time on my calendar. Schedule time here. And then it was like, okay, well, someone wants to talk to me. And that fear kind of went away a little bit. Then we get closer to the conversation. Maybe it's an hour, 30 minutes away and my palms start sweating and I become so nervous. I'm like, why am I even getting on the phone with this person? What is going to happen? Just all these feelings come in and I'm super nervous and the first couple sentences and the first conversation is always going to be awkward. I'm getting on the phone with someone I don't know, right? How do I get through this? And I, and I get on those calls and I establish common ground if I can. Hey, hi, how are you doing? But the one thing that really helped me kill that like fear, that anxiety and nervousness right at the start, before those calls was having great questions and having the mindset of just being ready to learn. Like I was just interested in the work they were doing as a career coach and I just wanted to, you know, find out what could make me successful as one. And that's kind of what, you know, the feelings and stuff I experienced as I moved through an informational interview. And now after, after I had those phone calls that were awkward for five minutes and then awesome, the next 25. Now I have a huge network. I have people that I can rely on, trusted professionals that I can reach out and message when I'm having a problem with my business and they're able to, hey, support me. And then we just continue to bounce back and support each other at all times. So that's kind of the personal experience I went through with informational interviews. If you have any more questions, comments, add them in below. If something there, if there's something you want to see on Next Friday video, feel free to message me that or add it in below. And as always, thanks for checking these out. Visit the featured section to catch the release dates and pre order dates for David and I's upcoming guide and subscribe there and we'll send out emails this coming week. Thanks for tuning in and as always, have a great rest of your weekend.
