Networking That Lasts: Strategies for Building a Stronger Career Network with Summa Simmons, Nicole Meyer, and Mike Richards

Foreign.

To this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week, I talk to treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show. Good afternoon, Nashville. Oh, we're awake now. Thank goodness for that. Now, very. Thank you for the great. Thank you for the intro, but we actually came up with a different title to this. Our title as a group was what not to do at AFP 2024. Few reasons for that. Anyone in the audience? Maybe your first or second afp. Fantastic. Keep those hands up, please. Hands up. Right. Anyone that's been coming at least eight, maybe ten years. Fantastic. Keep those hands up. The eight, ten. I want you to look round now. Look round at them. Those are the people you need to talk to. This is a marathon, not a sprint. If you guys go crazy later when it's a free bar, you would pay with your souls. You. We have all seen treasury analysts, treasury managers enjoying Nashville. Other locations. And you will find that tomorrow morning you'll be broken on the floor going, why did I have one more margarita? Because it was free. Guys, just pace yourselves. That's the first networking tip for today. So I'm going to hand across to Nicole. She's going to explain a bit more of the structure. We'll explain a bit more about who we are. Nicole.

So listen. Oh, sorry. Welcome, everybody. I always forget that I actually even need this. So I'm really happy to see all of you here today, especially those of you who are here for the first time and those of you who are here for your 10th. I might be 20, I'm not sure. Time. There's always something more to learn. Look, this is a fantastic venue for each of you to network, to learn. We're going to be talking about networking tools here, what to do, what not to do. Look, you're all sitting here for a reason. Your boss told you to come. You need a credit. You got to keep up your ctp. I am hoping that there's perhaps a little bit more that you came here for. Listen, it could be a new job, it could be to learn something new. You want to meet somebody, there's something here that you want to take away. We are going to talk about what all of that means, how we can help you with all of that, how we can make this easier for you, even if you are an introvert and all of this terrifies you. So that's what we're going to talk about today, please, super interactive. If anybody has a question, please just get up and go to the mic. If you are uncomfortable going to the mic, please raise your hand and we will hopefully see you or just yell out. Okay. Anyway, so that is what we're going to talk about today. And now I'm going to turn it over.

Thank you.

Or I think maybe it goes back to Mike.

Hello Carrie, I know you're going to.

Oh, sorry, I have to introduce myself. Who the hell am I? Don't swear in public. So I am Nicole Meyer. I am a long time banker. I spent 20 plus years in cash sales. I may have called on some of you in the room at some point. Point worked for Citibank in New York. And then some time ago I decided there was another career for me in recruitment. So Mike and I are wonderfully complementary of each other. I do recruitment for banks and banks only. Mike does recruitment for treasury and I hope treasury only. Yeah, just kidding. And that is what I do. So I'm still in this business decades later, which is why this truly might be in the 20s coming to AFPs. And that is who I am.

And so for me, I run the treasury recruitment company. What do I do? I find you guys new jobs when you need it, I give you advice. If you're a Treasury analyst, want to be Treasury Manager, Treasury Director, Group Treasurer. As well as doing recruitment, I also host a podcast, treasurycareercorner.com Very good, very popular. I thought we'd do 10 episodes. Started six years ago. We've done 350. This week's guest, global treasurer of PayPal. So we have some little known people on there as well. And one of my amazing previous guests was the lovely Summer Simmons. So we will put a link to that later on so you can have a listen to Summer's background. But over to you, Summer.

All right, so 15 years ago, if you told me that my journey would take me across industries, continents and managing cash for Fortune 500 companies, I would probably call you a liar. But here I am. I'm summa. I lead treasury for Victoria's Secretary, where not only am I responsible for ensuring that our cash is managed, but I'm ensuring that it is strategically working to support our business as well as grow our business. What really drives me, however, is supporting the next generation of leaders. So I spend a lot of time mentoring early career professionals, helping them navigate their career choices and challenges. And there's nothing more rewarding to me than seeing them reach their full potential. I have traveled to over 20 countries. And that experience has really taught me the importance of embracing new perspectives as well as adapting quickly, which I take to my leadership style as well as my mentoring. I am stoked to be here with all of you today. Look forward to exchanging and sharing ideas, and most importantly, wanna make sure we all connect and that we push the envelope and the boundaries around navigating AFP 2024.

Cool. So, defining your purpose. Who's going with this? I think that's the new subject. Yeah, go for it.

Defining purpose. So I'd love each of you to just take some time to think about why you're here. So for example, your boss said you better go or you're fired or you won't get promoted. You are thinking that you need CPE credits, they're going to expire, your certification up for expiration, or there are things that you want to take back to your team and this is a fantastic place to get those insights. So there's that piece defining your purpose. You want to identify your goals so we know why we're here. What are the goals once we are now here? I want to meet five new people. I want to meet peers. Specifically, I want to meet with all of my bankers this week so I don't have to meet with them over the next quarter. Whatever. No judgment. And then last of all, you want to plan backwards. So as you're sitting here with us for the next hour, you're thinking about these goals and your purpose and you've got the rest of the night to sort out what the next 48 hours looks like. How do I do that? Am I going to welcome receptions? Am I attending keynotes? Am I squeezing in some more sessions that I hadn't really thought about previously? And so you really want to take this time to be thoughtful about what all of that looks like and how does it meet. Whatever you decided between the airport and arriving to Broadway, the next big thing is understanding your energy. I guess I should be advancing slides. Oh, yes, all good. So energy management, I think we've all learned just in our day job and all this talk about burnout. And if we think about the next few days, there's going to be a lot of peopling. So for our introverts in the room, like, if this is not your vibe, this is not your thing. You spend specifically want to be really intentional and thoughtful about when am I most alert, when is my energy highest and what do I want to accomplish during those windows? So as you are thinking through that, you want to ask Yourself. When do you learn best? If you decide that you're attending sessions? When do I learn best? How much coffee do I need before I'm really warmed up and ready to talk to people? And when is my energy dropping and dipping and what do I need to do to manage that? You want to plan accordingly, right? Schedule your most important tasks, meetings, events, when your energy is at peak. All of this is not rocket science by any stretch of the imagination. But being in this environment of a conference, 6,000 people that are our tribe, can be overwhelming and take you off of your standard approach to how you would navigate your day. So be thoughtful about it and make sure that you're planning accordingly. Last but not least, think about your recovery methods. So Mike talked about maybe having one too many tonight and one too many might be one too many conversations.

Right.

You're out of your comfort zone in terms of peopling. And so what I would encourage everyone to do is think about how do you recover on energy really quickly? Is it a splash of water on your face? Is it a quick coffee? Is it a walk outside of the building walk, whatever that looks like. Really be thoughtful about what your recovery methods are. So I will hand over to Nicole.

So.

Right.

Actually, that is a perfect term. I'm going to imagine that each of you here has a people goal. You want to meet someone, you want to hear from somebody, you want to learn from somebody. And especially those of you who are here for the first time, this has to be unbelievably overwhelming. Lots of people, they're all strangers. You don't know them, they don't know you. If you're here for the first time, you're either new in this business, you've come into this business from somewhere else, or maybe you've just made a conscious decision. Actually, it's time for me to go to the conference. Being here, in my opinion, I think in our collective opinion, is about networking. It's about making connections. It is about meeting people for lots of different reasons. And I am here to tell you that networking and meeting people and connections, there's a level of authenticity that you're going to have to display, whether that's comfortable for you or not. You're going to have to figure out how to find a way forward to engage in conversation. If not one, I think you're missing out on a huge opportunity to network. And by the way, networking, regardless of what the two of us do for careers, we are recruiters. We're not going to find. Chances are we're not Going to find you your job. You're going to find you your job by networking, by meeting people, by having people in your network who can help you. Look, when I think about authenticity, it's about building trust. But authenticity is also a leadership trait, right? You think about the managers that you like best. What did you like about them? They were probably pretty authentic. They were probably pretty honest. They probably were great at interacting with you and listening to you. That is really all you're doing. When you are networking with somebody, you are making a connection for mutual benefit. You may want something like, I want to work for Victoria's Secret. I want to meet her. I want to talk to Nicole. I might want a job in banking. I. I might want to talk to Mike. I might want a new job in Treasury. Whatever it is, great. Have a goal, but offer something when you're having a conversation. When you introduce. I have a question. Who here in the room, if you're comfortable raising your hand, who's comfortable introducing themselves to a stranger? Oh, my work's done. All right. Most of you are capable of doing that. For those of you who didn't raise your hand because you didn't want to or you really don't want to do that, then what we're going to talk about is really for you as well. But let me just talk about. We're going to talk about introducing yourself and being memorable, but really what you want to do here with purpose, with intention. You said the words is mingle, interact with people here, have a conversation with people, introduce yourself, be memorable. And Mike will talk a bit about what we mean by be memorable. People remember people who are memorable versus the other 300 people they're going to meet at the conference. But when you network, be intentional, offer something up to somebody when you're having a conversation, I'm going to be the one talking about how to come in and out of conversations. And I've got some good tips on how to do that. But look, be yourself. Yourself is enough. Don't try to be someone you're not. Don't push yourself too far out of your comfort zone. If this is new for you and you're meeting people. But look, this week is about networking. It is about meeting people who could have a significant impact on your career, whether it's learning something, moving somewhere else, somebody offering you advice, somebody sharing something that you think, actually, I can take that back to my office. That's a great learning for the rest of my colleagues with that, I believe it's yours.

Mastering networking. It's Networking, isn't it? And work is central to that word. And that's one of the key things I would say to you guys that actually bumped into him earlier. Joel Campbell, now CFO of trevipay, was the treasury director H and R Block. Great guy on the podcast before and he related a story to me when he was working in London number of years ago, he went to his boss. He said, boss, I'm finding this tough, this task. It's really challenging. It's all that. They said, oh, Joel, I've got the answer. So right. What is it? He said, joel, that's something called work. He was like, oh, okay. He said, it's not always easy. Sometimes it is a struggle and sometimes not the funnest stuff to do. He said, it's actually putting in the work that's exactly the same as these next couple of days. Some have talked about energy, pacing yourself and everything else. I think what you also need to do is have a distinction going around the conference center, meeting a lot of people now and after this session, but also then meeting them at the bar later. That's not really networking. That's having a good time and that's great with your colleagues and things. Now Nicole will talk about some of the conversation starters and next thing that. But also another couple of practical examples. I said, do the podcast. I also do live events with the podcast. When I was talking in New York a couple of times, Dana laid hold from nasdaq, had Chris Cochan from Treasure of Endeavour. They both in front of a room full of people. I nearly had to throw them off the panel because they both said about how they were getting all their jobs and they had got the jobs. Dana, the global treasurer for nasdaq, she'd worked it hard. She was getting approached about opportunities, not through me. I was very upset. It's okay, I'm over it. I'm not over it. But anyway, the fact is they leverage their networks and this is what it will do. It will come hunting for you jobs, will you won't need us in the nicest way. And it also wants to come back to one of the points Somerset said about making that investment in yourselves. So I've come a couple of miles, 4,000 miles to make an investment in my business, in meeting you guys and everything else. So anyone in finance in here? Quick show of hands. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, all of your hands should have gone there. But yeah, I know you're waking up. If you meet one person over the next couple of days, that's going to help you. But you might have heard this term, compound interest. Yeah. Anyone? Yeah. Okay, great. If you meet one person, it's one Xing. What about five people? What about 10? You meet 10 people, form a proper relationship and we're going to talk about that a little bit later. You've got the opportunity to 10x your investment in this conference and it's not just a sales pitch for afp, but you've made the effort to come here. So this is the key thing you have to do. So elevator pitch, when you're going up and meeting someone, one of the key things I don't want you to do the first thing. What is an elevator pitch? It's about the time it takes to ride an average elevator. 30, 50 seconds, something like that. You come in, you say, oh hi, I'm Mike, I'm treasury recruiter. There's a weekly podcast, live events, interesting facts, maybe you might have that you're chatting away, just having your back pocket a little bit. And I did this in Chicago a couple years. I hate public speaking. He goes, oh really? No, I hate, I don't enjoy it. I didn't get up this morning, go oh yeah. Said to Nicole earlier that I get nervous about it, but I practice, practice and get better. Just as you're putting in all the hours, you'll hear from Malcolm Gladwell later. That's what I've done. Practice, skill. But elevator pitch is not. And you'll hear this as well. You may be around the room later and if someone walks up to. Hi, I'm Mike Cash manager, XYZ plc. I'm here to get my CTP credits. What about you? Yeah, not fun, is it? What about. Hi, I'm Mike, I'm the cash manager for XYZ plc. We the biggest manufacturer of dodgeballs in the world. I'm here to talk trap cash, Middle East, Africa. What about you? What are you here for? The conference. Which one was more interesting? Basically because it was more interesting and have some curiosity driven questions. This is one of the key things that Nicole's going to talk about. But the other thing, when you're meeting people, talk to them but don't over talk. Two ears, one mouth. So ask them a question, shut up and listen. So Nicole, I think it's you next, is it?

Yes. Can I just. I want to tell a story about making introduction. I have a very good friend, he is the former head FBI hostage negotiator in New York, Chris Voss. He actually came here for a few years and spoke. We spoke Together. So Chris is a very good friend. I've known him forever. He's actually now gone on to write a phenomenal book about negotiation. But when he was running the FBI hostage negotiation team in New York City, we used to go out and I would say, Chris, what if I'm kidnapped? As if. But what if I'm kidnapped? How do I survive? How do I survive? His answer to me, I'm like, be memorable. Hi, I'm Nicole. Don't kill me. Is that being memorable? I don't think so. His point is, and also with the elevator pitch and I do hope that all of you will thank you about how you're introducing yourselves here. Yeah, it's got to be a little bit more than, hi, my name's Nicole Meyer. I run my own recruitment firm. That's I would admit, very boring. And it also gives people nothing to grab onto. Oh, interesting. So when you think about making an introduction, when I'm going to talk about conversation starters, think about being memorable. Think about, think about how you introduce yourself, think about what you say about yourself and don't, please don't go on forever because after about 20 seconds people do unfortunately start to check out unless you're telling them a really good hostage negotiation story or something like that. So think about how you're introducing yourself, what it is that you do, what brought you here and even look at, you can walk up to where a group today or tonight or tomorrow or the next day and introduce yourself, hi, I'm Nicole. That could be enough for the moment, but have some other segue and other questions to ask people when you meet them. I am very much of the opinion that you come to conferences like this with five questions and you ask pretty much everybody the same five questions. Unless you're suddenly in a group and you think, darn, those are the three people that were in the group yesterday. I better have a few more questions here or they're going to hear the same questions. Be prepared, be prepared to ask. Look, networking is not a one sided street. It is about duality, it is about mutual benefit, it is about offering something to somebody. It is about creating a long term relationship that's going to go somewhere, you're going to learn something, you're to going, they're going to learn from you. So be ready with questions, show that you're curious. Curiosity is a remarkable tool when you are trying to get to know people, when you are meeting people for the first time. So I am a big fan of being ready with questions. So look, first of all Conversation starters. I would challenge all of you, encourage all of you to. To meet five new people this week. I would say five a day, but that's a lot for most people. Five new people this week that you think look interesting, that you want to meet. For those of you who are really new to this, choose any five. Choose any five. You go out into the hall after this session and you're thinking, where am I going now? I think I have nothing else to do. Do I stand here? Do I go back to my hotel? What do I do? Walk up to somebody. Walk up to somebody. I would encourage you not to walk up to two people that are huddled very close. They might be having a private conversation and they may not take well. To you stepping in, it could feel awkward. But unless people really look like they're huddled and telling a secret, walk up to them. If you see people talking and laughing, walk up to them. Walk up to them and break the ice and say, you're all having a lot of fun. Can I join? I promise you, nobody is going to say no. Nobody's going to walk away and turn away from you. They're going to say, sure, come on in. That's your moment to use your elevator speech and then start asking questions.

And I want to add there as well. Just. And Nicole's exactly right. But. But you are sharing an experience now, exactly as Nicole said. You walk outside of this room, you go to another session. Great conversation starter. You walk out the room. What did you think of that session? What did you and you guys. Oh, hang on. Completely. Oh, no. Actually didn't really hit it for me because we do this. Blah, blah, blah. That's one of your new friends. You're all going to go to at least five sessions, so try and. It's not natural. I see a few people on their phones. I'm not going to name them, but I might start pointing to them. But the fact is, make this investment in yourselves by when you walk out of the room, talk to somebody else. Just say, what do you think of that session? And as long as we hear it was brilliant, then I won't set Nicole on you. Yeah, watch out.

That's right.

She's vicious.

No, I still have conversation starters. We have time. We have time. Look, Mike is absolutely right. When you walk out of here, what did you think of that session? That's an easy one. Or, hey, have you ever been to Nashville before? Do you know where I can go? Listen to the best music? Have you. Did you do anything yesterday? Think about common themes here of where we are. You could even. Did you understand that announcement? Or did you understand what they were saying? Or you were just in that session with me. I didn't quite understand this, did you? Could you explain it to me? These are just ways to open up a conversation. Are you going to see the keynote speaker? Are you going to the opening party here to learn whatever, or, hey, this is my first time. Any tips for me? Why don't you offer that? Or go up to somebody and say, hey, I was in a session earlier, I heard about this tip. What do you think about this tip for networking? Do you think that actually works here at afp? These are the kinds of things that you can ask people. Look, as you walk up to people, I promise you, people are going to be very happy with your approach. We're all here alone. We all came. You may have colleagues here, but we are all here. People are going to be really happy that you walked up to them. So look, even for you introverts who really don't like this, there's nothing wrong with walking up to somebody and saying, hey, this is my first afp. It's a little overwhelming for me. Any tips for me? Any advice? People are going to be extreme. First of all, that's super authentic. People are going to be very grateful that you approach them. And they may also offer you some great information. Walk up to somebody and say, you're the first person that I am approaching here at the conference. Hi, my name's Nicole, and here's my elevator pitch. That is what you can do. Look, think of. And I really do encourage you to think of five questions that you can ask if this is uncomfortable. Now, if you're looking to meet someone, walk up to people and. And say, hey, have you met Nicole Meyer? I hear she's here at the conference. Do you know her? Have you seen her? Anything like that? Right. These are not difficult questions, but this is just how you're going to make a connection. Once you make that connection, start asking questions about who they are, what they do, what brought you here, what are you hoping to learn? Now, at some point, you're going to want to leave the conversation, and most people find this extremely difficult to walk away. Look, I am. How many people here brought business cards versus a virtual business card? Right. Do people still have business cards? Right. So it's probably 50. 50. I have a virtual business card. I find pulling your business card out is a great starter for exiting the conversation. When I see people pull their card out to me, I'm like, oh, I see they want to exit and that's all fine, Absolutely fine. You take your card out, thank people for their time, thank them for the opportunity to connect, thank them for the tip that they offered you and say, I'd like to offer my card. Here's my business card. I would love to stay in touch, but I'm going to a session. I see someone across the room that I came here to see. That is not rude. That is actually pretty authentic, pretty honest and telling people. I've really enjoyed the conversation, but I'm going to excuse myself. There's somebody over there that I'd like to chat to. Don't tell people you're going back to your hotel room or you're tired unless you're really going back to your hotel room and you're tired. Because when you see them at the bar later, it's awkward and trust me, they're looking at you like, nice. Thanks a lot. And nobody wants to. You don't want to feel that way, right? So just be authentic when you tell people. Now, look, hope to see you later. Maybe I'll see you at the party tonight. Here's my details. Let's connect. Look, I'm here to meet five people. Like that is my goal. This is not comfortable for me. You're the third. I'm going to go off to numbers four and five. It was great to meet you. These things actually work and they make people feel good. Now you can as well take someone over and introduce them to another group and then excuse yourself. If you're worried about leaving somebody alone, go ahead and do that for somebody. I mean, does anybody else in the audience have any other suggestions for how to exit a conversation? You don't actually necessarily have to go to the mic. If you can speak up.

Anyone say, your business card is really great. That's probably one of my favorite ones I've tried that. People usually want to exit conversations with me, so I need to listen you also.

So he, he said, actually taking out the business, business card offering, it is a great tool to exit. And look, it does work. And people get. Trust me, people get the hint, okay? And nobody takes it personally unless you're really awkward and you just walk away from people. And don't do that. Don't offer to get somebody a drink and get sidetracked and not go back. That's not nice.

Another way to do it as well, I did this a few times at Euro Finance, but luckily they won't hear this, so it's okay. Just said, oh, yes, great. To meet you. Can I just get. I'll take a photo of your lanyard. Take a quick photo. Been brilliant. Thanks very much. And I'll connect to you later on LinkedIn. We'll talk about this and I'll talk about that in a minute. But that's also another good way to exit as well.

Yeah. Yes, please.

Sorry for going to talk about this, but for me, when I tell people is it used to be easier to look at the ribbons, but looking at someone's badge is a great way to find something about them. Maybe they're a ctp, maybe they have something on their badge. So I found that it's a good way for people to feel comfortable or if they're a speaker. Hey, what are you talking about? The badges are good.

Yeah, that's right. You can see a lot of information on the badges that people have. And look, my last point about some of this is that your last impression is just important, just as important as your first impression. So you're meeting a lot of new people here, beginning and end. Make it a good impression. Make it a good impression. So anyone want to come up with any other good questions to ask at the conference? Anyone?

We'll do the Q and A in a minute. Let's get started.

We'll do it at Q and A.

All right. So at this point, you've gotten some really grateful, some really helpful insights, and you reach the end of the night, you are still sober. You have an opportunity to look back on the day, reflect and think, wow, I get to do this two more times before I go home. So I would start by encouraging you to reflect on your achievements. What went well today? What are you incredibly proud of? If the goal was to meet five people and you met seven, fantastic. Let's celebrate it. Another great way to reflect and celebrate the accomplishments and the wins. Pop into LinkedIn, see if some of the connections that you requested have responded. Use that as an opportunity to engage and start reaching out to folks. If you didn't do it in the moment using your trusty QR code, and if you don't know how to use your or find your QR code on LinkedIn, let me know. I'm happy to walk you through it. The next thing is identify areas of improvement. So today went relatively well. Maybe you started out with, I want to go to four sessions, meet six people, stop by and talk to four bankers at a booth. And you only accomplished meeting two people, one bank booth, and no sessions. Because maybe your calendar is still on. Whatever your local time is no big deal. You identify that as something that didn't go fantastic and you get the opportunity to pivot. So start thinking about what do I want to do differently tomorrow? But the very next question for you is, were my goals realistic? Was it realistic to attend five sessions and meet three people and hit up all seven parties that are happening on Monday night so you have the chance to really think back on am I setting myself up for disaster or has what I set myself up for a good track because I do have another few days to step through this and I get to practice again. So I think as far as this is concerned, in this session you've had a chance to think about why am I here, what I want to do, blah, blah, blah. And tonight, after the last drink, the last margarita, that's not the one over, but the one that's going to put you in a good place to reflect, really do celebrate. Especially if this is your first time. I survived today. I get to do this all again tomorrow. How can I make it look different if different means better?

You've finished the conference or you're approaching the end of it. The art of follow up. Now, if you don't do any follow up, why bother to come? It's about the investment. You've come all this distance, you've met all these different people, you've done all the follow ups. Here, let me give you a couple of don'ts. Some do's and don'ts. We'll start with some don'ts. In real life. Would you walk up to someone just like this?

Hi.

Hello, it's me. Hi. Hi, I'm Mike. I met you at the conference. Yeah, I'm treasury recruiter. Lovely. Can you be in my network? Can we connect on LinkedIn? Oh great. Can we have a meeting?

Can I give you my business card? I'm exiting.

No, don't do that, please. Why? Instead I've got Summer here. Hi, Summer. Hi, I'm Mike.

Nice to meet you.

I met you at a conference. We were at afp. We talked about this, talked about that amazing session about networking you saw. It was amazing. Yeah. Yes, thank you. Great. Whoa. Going for the self love here. It's not very nice, is it? But yeah, it was great talking to you. I noticed. We could talk about salary advice. Great to have you in my network. What do you think about that? Would be great. But nice little personalized invite. Just drop that if they. And the thing is you might be a bit worried. What if they don't want to love me? What if they don't want to be in my network. Don't worry, you don't. They don't get a ping of rejection. It's not like those apps. Ernie will tell you, basically, you don't have. They don't have to be in your network. I only network with a lot of people and I get lots of approaches. If I can add value, if I can't add value. So sometimes banking guys might come to me and things like that, and I go, do you know what? I can't actually help you, but this person can. We talked earlier about authenticity, paying it forward. That's one of the key things, making a relationship. Now, if I think they're too far out, maybe they're the wrong country or somewhere, I definitely. And I know that they're going to come to me with lots of advice and questions. They're not going to be right for me, but there's no reason I can't help them. So we've still got a couple more bits. Here we go. Next year's investment. I think that's you, Summer, isn't it?

So this is my strength. This is my favorite part. Yeah. If you work in treasury, specifically in retail, there's not a ton of budget for conferences and seminars. So as you're wrapping up your time, let's fast forward to Wednesday evening. Wednesday morning, whenever you're heading home, really start thinking about what was great about this week. What did I get out of it personally, other than a lot of great meals and drinks? What level of engagement did I walk away with? How have I increased my network, my treasury network, Companies that I didn't think I wanted to work at, but now I do. Just reflect on what was positive about the experience and then start thinking about sharing your learning. So for those who don't live in Nashville and have a flight or drive home, really start thinking about what you want to put together to share with your team. Get a schedule, meeting, 30 minutes, a one pager. If you can get all your thoughts on one page and talk about where the benefits were, leave out the parties. Nobody wants to hear about the party they missed. You can share that with all of us. But really talk about what you're contributing to your treasury roadmap or your transformation journey. So make sure that you're starting to think from sessions that you've had or conversations that you've had, what you've heard that sounds doable, manageable and feasible for your team. And bring that excitement with you so you can go back to your last staff meeting and say, hey, guys, Remember we talked about virtual bank accounts. It seems good, but we don't really trust the bank. I found five people that actually do it. Let me give you the rundown. So there's that component. And then try to tie what you took away from this session to specific accomplishments. We're in goal setting season or about to end our fiscal year and start looking back at this is what I said that I'd accomplished. Maybe you didn't even touch the surface. Maybe priorities pulled you away, but you're able to at least say, hey, I sat in on some AI sessions and we're not going to meet this deliverable by the end of the year. But I'd love to make it a next year goal. And here's what I learned about it. The big piece of this about the investment is you need to get your leader to buy in. You need to get your leader to say, man, I'm bummed that I missed it. Whoever the person is that has the budget, you need to sell it to them that it's worth you going next year. I think the other piece of this that we didn't really talk about, and maybe it's not necessarily for this session, but a lot of advice that you're going to get if you come as a group is let's divide and conquer. There are five of us here. Let's split up the sessions. I'm going to challenge your thinking on that and have you to think about what sessions are important to you and things that you want to invest in, things that you want the company to spend money on. Get your leader to join you in those sessions so that you have support. They heard the same thing, you're gaining buy in. When they see this on your one pager, they're going to be like, wow, you're really serious about that. So I think it's important for you to gain some consensus. And consensus could mean I'm here by myself, so my team is not with me, my leader's not with me. So I gotta work really hard to get money for next year to come back. So I would offer them. I met five people from five different companies that are doing these two things that we've been toying with. They're happy to jump on a call with us in a few months and talk about the progress that they've made, et cetera. So this investment in returning really is all about how you've experienced the last few days, but your storytelling around it. I strongly recommend you do not lead with the fun stuff. Don't talk about the parties because what that translates into is you drank and ate for three days and the bank accounts are overdrawn. What is happening? The keynote speeches will have no nuggets around leadership development and more importantly, our day jobs, I think. Attach those nuggets, figure out how to bring them into your conversation, but don't wait until 10 minutes before the next AFP conference to pull out this report and say here are all the really cool things I learned 11 months ago. Don't you want to hear about them now? Start with it as soon as you get back and build it into your regular touch bases and make it a part of your conversation and highlight who you stayed connected with from afp. I think that is a fantastic way to secure investment. Two things. One, there's a CPE piece of it that's really difficult to get your credits outside of this if you don't have a regional AFP that you can engage in. Two, there's the relevance around being present and spending time with 6600 of your favorite treasury professionals and FP&A. And then there's the piece about remaining relevant. Right? Wanting to know what's on the horizon. Maybe it applies to your industry, maybe it doesn't. But if you're thinking about changing industries or you're just curious, you're in an excellent space to understand what that looks like. So the investment, it's just not in the budget dollars for next year. It's in your own professional development. So I strongly encourage everyone here to start thinking about what that pitch looks like. Like to be able to come back.

I'd like to give a special thanks to flywire, our fantastic sponsors. If ever you've wondered whether there's a way to ease your international transaction hassles, they're the guys to talk to. If you follow the link in our show notes, you can see me talking to my mate Greg Levin, their Senior VP of Sales. I get Greg to explain who Flywire are, how they can help you and your treasury team with your cross border payment headaches. Follow the link in today's show notes. Let's get back on with the show. So in a moment we're going to go to questions. When was the last time? Just have a quick think of your questions as well. When was the last time you guys got the opportunity to ask two treasury professionals and me or two professionals rather you don't so actually take the chance in a moment to do it. Just one of the things I was reflecting there from what someone was saying. Sometimes a lot of the time when I'm interviewing candidates in particular, that the work you do isn't identifiable, you don't attach a value to it. Actual physical financial value. What you could do just taking Summer to the next level as well, is you get your three takeaways and you've done, say you go to 10 sessions, but what are your top three takeaways when you get back to the office? Attach a value. So when you're going to your boss and saying, do you know what? This is what I got out of this year's conference, could we implement this new system? Or we're going to do this. And actually, this is how much I'm going to save you this year. I'm going to save my salary plus the guy next to me, plus the lady next to me. Boom. I'm paying for this department through this initiative or whatever it might be. So actually do some investment there. Did you have another thing as well?

I do. Following up on what everybody has said. Look, I am of the opinion that your participation and your attendance here has everything to do with your brand. The brand of you. The brand of who you are in your company, who you want to be in your company, who you eventually want to be professionally. This is a fantastic conference to raise the profile of your brand. So we were just talking about LinkedIn and connections on. On LinkedIn. What about posting on LinkedIn? Now, you all probably have to check with your companies to understand what you're allowed to post or not post. But I think even for those of you who find networking and find introducing yourselves to strangers is daunting, then why don't you post? Why don't you post something and see who responds to you? Why don't you put something out there? I attended this session. Interesting session. Repost something that AFP has posted. This is all about your network. This is all about sharing more of yourself with your colleagues, all 6,600 of them, and frankly, moving your career forward in some way. Hopefully you've gotten some tool, some idea that you're going to walk away with that's really compelling. I. I also want to encourage each of you as you continue thinking about your careers, look for speaking engagements. And we are perfect examples up here. Look for speaking engagements. Again, hugely helpful to your brand, but also hugely helpful to your ability to network, be known and for people to know who you are. And also talk about return on investment if you are a speaker. I didn't pay for the conference. I paid to get here. I pay for my hotel, but I don't Pay for the conference because I am a speaker. Why wouldn't you want to do something like that? Maybe that's what you use with your company to say, let's do a speaking engagement. Just some other ideas and for you.

And. Or taking it down a slight level from there is some are Talked about, regional AFPs. Get involved with those guys and you don't have to do your own speech and everything else. Volunteer for a panel, be on a panel. Other people just talk about your experiences. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I've done Windy city summer now 15 times. Now when I walk, I know those guys. We have a great conversation. We can talk to them sometimes on the panel, sometimes I leave my own session. But 15 years ago and then now it's like more normal. And so you can still give value as well. We're going to give you some good takeaways. Go on. You're going to say something. We're going to give takeaways shortly. So questions from some of you. Come on. You may. We made this opportunity. You've come all the way here. Give us a question or two. You can go to the speakers. Come on, give us a go. No, someone.

Someone must have a question.

No questions. That's it. Oh, there you go. Yeah, go to the middle. Thank you very much. Come on, queue up behind him. Give us one. When was the last chance you got? Yeah, there you go. Loving it. My question is, how do you.

When you're networking and how do you.

Keep track of what conversations you have? I'll take. Can I take that, first of all? So you do basically a Chris Fulton and you're like, what? Who's that? Chris Fulton is an incredible treasurer. Was a treasurer. Now he's the COO of Prior Cashman Law Firm. Talking to him on the podcast a while ago, when he was a treasurer, back in the day, he was treasurer for another law firm. And he gave me a great networking tip. I want to say it was mine. I'd be lying, unfortunately, but it's something I've taken away with me. So you've got the business cards. Someone gives you their business card, you might have done an exit chat and everything else. What he would do is then someone else was. He'd go, sorry, can you give me a second? And he would literally take their business card and just write a couple of notes about it. Oh, yeah, their daughter's going to Purdue. This person's doing this. Or they're about to do this and think. And what he was doing was paying it Forward thinking about how he could help them. And again, I've still been frustrated by him because he's got two or three of his jobs through his network. When he was approached about the role of prior Cashman law firm where we do some of our sessions, Amazing. In New York, he was approached and he said, I'm not looking for a job. They said, no, we know you're not, but we want you. Because everyone. It wasn't just because of that, but. But also he was doing it to invest in himself, to invest in others and actually paying it forward. And it sounds a little bit cliche, but it's not. And then what he would do is he would follow up as well. So that's what he would do. He'd go back, said, oh, we met at this conference. He's been on the board here as well. Dana's done it. I'm noticing a lot of these network people. I didn't just go for all the guys off the AFP board, but they are their great network. They're master network. Again, that could be another question. When you see some of the people presented later and you see the AFP board members talk to Summer and you get some advice from them, that's a great starter question. Notice you're on the board. Can you tell me how. How did you get to that position? That's why I do the podcast. I say how people started in treasury where they are now, get some of their secrets. Tony Robbins says, success leaves clues. So go and ask them those clues. You got something else in there? Stadium.

Listen. And I do the same thing because I meet so many people. I use voice to text. I don't have time to write anything down. I put my phone up here. I say, I just met Nicole. I can't remember her last name. She's really tall, she had a sparkly jacket on. She's a recruiter in New York. Follow up with her. It really could be that I could be. There's so much going on. That's all I write down. But somehow I find Nicole. I go back to the AFP app. I'm like, how many Nicole's were there? Oh, look, there she is. She's a recruiter. And then I send a note, I send a connection on LinkedIn to say, really enjoyed meeting you. Thanks for those tips. Great to know who you are. Whatever it was, send the follow up. I'm telling you, you would be shocked at how few people follow up. Very few people follow up. And I'm telling you, it pays off hugely to Follow up, did you have.

Anything else about one thing you talked about organizing your thoughts around it. It's about being present and that sounds awfully cliche as well. But if we're in a conversation and my goal is to find and meet five people, I want to quiz myself later on, who are the five? What was spectacular about them? And if they weren't that spectacular, then be like that was the one that wasn't that spectacular. But really try to block out the noise around you and it's okay to say to the person, hey, do you mind if I. If we connect on LinkedIn right now? Like I want to make sure that I remember this. So it's being present, finding one little thing that they said that you were interested in. And when you send them the LinkedIn request, add a note. The note will also help you. When they accept the request, you'll be like, oh God, I don't know what this is. Once you put the note in, normally people are polite and they respond to the note and they say thanks for following up.

And you had a question please.

Yes, My question is how do you see the relationship over time? As I mentioned before, it's a two way communication and you can start building that based on information you gather from the person at the conference or Viking Mass. But over time as you're building a network, one of it was a he like reach out to the person comes know how, I provide an article, advice.

See how we're doing.

But as your network is growing, they can't really necessarily be able to do that with everyone. How do you maintain that and how.

Do you come back?

For example, if after a couple of years you haven't had a chance to contact that person and perhaps at this time that something happened, you need something for advice on a particular situation in business or perhaps you're looking for a job and perhaps uses that company or the advising that person. How do we.

This is why it's network. It's a lot of work. It is, I'm sorry to say there's no easy way around it. It is a lot of work. I am in the business of constantly asking people for favors. Do you know someone? Do you know someone? Where can I find somebody that looks like this? I am constantly asking people for help and I pretty much get what I need because I spend an inordinate amount of time texting people, whatsapping people all over the world, emailing people, LinkedIn, ing with people, if you want to call it that. Quick notes. I saw you at afp, didn't have a chance to say hello. Hope you're well. I remembered, wasn't it two years ago you had a grandchild? How is that child? And these are the voice notes I put down. I am talking to people and I meet people I think live here, just bought a farm, just became a grandparent, just became a parent or just lost their parent, whatever it was. And I actually, with purpose and with intention, address that in a note now, years. I also say, if there's anything I can do to return the favor, to return your generosity, please feel free to let me know. And I find that just offering that most people don't take me up on it, but just offering that people feel good about the next approach and they haven't spoken to you in years. I wanted to reconnect. I'm wondering if I could ask your advice. I will say people love giving their advice. We all like to talk about ourselves. We just do, most of us. And people like giving advice. I find when I say, can I ask you a favor? Can I have your time? No, I don't have time for a favor, but can I ask your advice? People seem to feel very good about offering advice versus something else. But it is a lot. It is a lot of work, but that is exactly how you have to do it. And I have a database of tens and tens and tens of thousands of people where I have something probably personal, about 80% of them from a conversation, from something I picked up on. And even if you're going back five years later and you're saying, how is that grandchild? He's eight. Oh my gosh, where did the time go? That's amazing. Tell me more. This is about creating the connection.

I'm going to go in a slightly different direction and say, the reality is you probably won't keep in contact with everyone that you've been met, but the folks that you connected with that there was something that they had that you wanted, needed, or were curious about, it's then about prioritizing what's important to you and you are going to make the effort to connect with them. If you wanted to become a treasurer and you met someone who just became a treasurer, you would put on your calendar, probably follow up with such and such. I think there's something to be said about we invest time in things that we care about and. And it's like anything else. If you're nurturing a relationship, the ones that are most important to you are the ones that you're going to organically follow up with. How do you do the follow up. As Nicole said, you can ask them for some advice or follow up with something things with the articles. When people send me random articles and we only had one conversation, I'm like, what makes you think a, I didn't read the article or B, I'm going to read the article. Give me something tangible that connects me to you. Hey, when we met, I talked about trying to explore starting a women in treasury in my local city. And I know you've done that. Do you have time to talk about what that looked like? To Nicole's point, people love telling their story. Especially if they founded something, they want to share that information with you. So I think just being realistic about the 15 people I met. Which of the five do I want to stay connected with and what does that look like for me? Am I going to enter time on my calendar and ask to speak to them regularly or am I going to hope that they reach out first?

So we always run to time so we can do our takeaways. So we'll start off with Nicole's takeaway and then I've got a couple and then summer. So Nicole, takeaways for today for these guys.

Again, I encourage you five people in this conference, walk up to five people, hopefully with intention and purpose, and introduce yourself. Figure out what's your elevator speech. If you don't know what it is already, think about what it is that you want to ask them. Think about what it is that you can offer in return and then give yourself a pat on the back for approaching a stranger. For those of you who find this absolutely daunting, if you struggle to do this, come find me. I am around for the entire conference. I would be very happy to help you. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. Call me. Look, you're not in this alone. This is daunting. I remember early conferences looking at a room, thinking, I would really like to go home now. Look, I don't know anybody. I don't want to know anybody. It's frightening. It really is frightening. You are not alone. You are not alone. So challenge yourself to meet five new people this week. And hopefully we've given you some tips on how to do that.

So for me, couple of ones. Firstly, pre Covid, we all came to conferences. That was the norm. You wanted to get some credits, you wanted to meet people. Along came Covid this thing called hybrid. Then working from home, corner office, your basement, your kitchen, you didn't get out. And then you've made the effort to come here again. So first of all well done to yourselves. Actually, it wasn't easy. If anyone's come more than 4,000 miles, we'll have a drink about it later. But joking said, you guys have made the effort. So firstly, and keep doing that, not just for this conference, get out of your own way as well. The other one I was going to say is. And it's linked directly to that. Earlier on, we had the slide about networking. You've taken this opportunity, if you like. This is once a year. Yes. You're here in Nash Vegas. Nicole hadn't heard that earlier. Nash Vegas. That's right. And I had Summer talking about Broadway. We were there last night. It was crazy. Don't let that get in your way. You've got an arena full of your peers. Make your investment in yourselves today count. Because otherwise, guess What? It's wasted. Two, three days. They're gone. That's it. Summer to wrap up.

30 seconds. I would say be really intentional about what you want out of this experience, especially if it's your first time. Don't hang out with all of the first timers. There are some vets hanging around and some really tenured participants. Find out what keeps them coming back.

Amazing. Put your hands together for these amazing ladies, please. Hello, treasury professionals. Before you dive into the next episode, could you please help me continue to grow? And the world's only global treasury salary survey. That's right, our one. So you know your compensation is constantly benchmarked against the market. It's amazing, isn't it? Just go to treasurysalary.com takes less than two minutes to complete, start to finish. You then gain exclusive, regular, updated access to our salary survey. Keeping you ahead of the curve. The survey is an evolving breathing entity that constantly tracks the salaries of treasury professionals on a global basis. Currently, we have over 1100 participants taking part@treasurysalary.com thank you for being such amazing, loyal listeners. Your support is incredible. Couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Go to treasurysalary.com.