Mark Hershberg: Tech Career, Negotiations, Networking, and 700 First Dates | Be Yourself Podcast

Mark Hershberg

Career and leadership strategist, MIT alumnus, and author of The Career Toolkit — on growing up in the 80s, choosing tech before it was glamorous, efficient negotiations, the psychology of business communication, what 700 first dates taught him about networking, and how to build a personal brand as an independent consultant

Watch on YouTube The Career Toolkit
1 hour 8 minutes
Career В· Leadership В· Networking В· Negotiations В· Sales В· Personal Brand

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About the Guest

Mark Hershberg — Career Strategist, MIT Alumnus, and Author

Mark Hershberg is a career and leadership strategist, CTO, MIT alumnus, and author of The Career Toolkit — a practical guide to the professional skills most people are never formally taught but that shape every career. His experience runs from the early days of the internet in the 1990s to today's world of remote teams and personal branding.

He is a genuine expert in networking and sales — not collecting business cards, but understanding how human connection actually works and how to build relationships that compound in value over time. He has written about these areas, taught them at MIT, and applied them across a decades-long career.

Who He Is
Career and leadership strategist, CTO, MIT alumnus, and author of The Career Toolkit. A veteran of the early internet era who has spent decades helping professionals navigate the skills that actually determine career outcomes.
His Expertise
Networking, sales, negotiations, leadership, and career development — with a specific focus on the skills most professionals never formally learn. Mark teaches at MIT and consults with executives and companies on these areas.
The 700 Dates
Mark has gone on 700 first dates. He treats the experience with the same analytical rigour he brings to business — and the lessons about connection, listening, and genuine interest apply directly to professional networking and sales.
His Book and App
The Career Toolkit covers the professional skills that determine trajectory but are rarely taught. Brain Bump is a free app he created for retaining insights from books and podcasts — available on iOS and Android.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Intro 2:42 Mark Presents Himself 4:50 How the Year 2024 Started for You? 6:17 At What Age You Realized What You Wanted to Do in Life? 10:50 How Companies Around Mark Felt Really "Corporate" 12:05 Mark Lands in a Small Tech StartUp for Eliminating Other Options 14:00 How Sergey Picked His 1st Job 15:30 I Didn't Want a Job That Made Me Dress Up 16:38 What Does a Doctor Practice Really Look Like? 18:10 Take Internships 18:42 Hiring Rule Sergey Learned From Investors 20:53 A Note from the Host 21:53 Secrets to Efficient Negotiations 25:03 Mike Tyson's Quote and StandUp Improv Technique 29:00 Psychological Approaches in Business Communication 30:54 Why You Don't "Fake it Till You Make It" 33:05 Make People Feel Heard 34:35 Mark Has Gone to 700 First Dates. Here's What He Learned 36:35 Best Networking Practices and The Art of Giving Advice 41:20 In Sales — Show Off Your Wares 43:30 Meetings in Corporate America 49:00 Remote/Hybrid Work in Post-COVID Era 55:22 A Lady Who Flies In Every Day for Work 57:40 Mark's Experience on a Fully Remote Team 58:40 Starting a Career as an Independent Consultant, Creating a Personal Brand 1:05:34 Sergey's Independent Career Bump in the Road 1:06:34 Funny Story from Mark 1:08:04 Last Word

Key Quotes

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again it was the 9s software was really growing we didn't use the word Tech startups yet but they were they were starting to be there in 1995 internet was times man of the year I think it was this is when it kind of came onto the scene I wasn't excited I wasn't moving towards it I was moving away but had to make a decision and I got a little lucky here because it turns out that was the right fit
Mark Hershberg
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interviewing is sales we are selling ourselves actually both sides are selling people miss this we know anything sales well I've got a product hey you should buy my product and here's why it's great when you're in an interview you should buy my product my product is me you should hire me I'm great
Mark Hershberg
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I do this as a passion project because my day job is fun building Tex startups this is fun for me in a different way I'm not worried about the money but it's a lot of work it's a lot of frustration don't think this is the magic way to riches it's a full-time job it's a lot of work and it may not give you the ROI
Mark Hershberg

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Want a podcast that looks and sounds this good? Check out Beverly Production →
0:00 Intro
Serhiy everybody Welcome To Be Yourself podcast the podcast on expressing our true selves today I have Mark herberg he's a fractional CD CPO for tech companies all across the US he's a speaker he's an MIT instructor and he's an author of the book the career tool kit essential skills that no one taught you mark thank you very much for being a guest on my podcast
Mark well thank you for having me on it is my pleasure to be here
Serhiy Mark is coming over for the second time for those of you guys who've been following me you might have seen my first conversation with Mark and it actually got a lot of eyeballs and I'm super super thrilled to pick up right where we left off Mark me back and hopefully we can add some more value to your audience absolutely but before we do that would you please introduce yourself once again and tell us how the year 2024 started for you
2:42 Mark Presents Himself
Mark sure I'll do a little of my background and then we'll talk about the start of the year my background I came out of MIT back in the 90s back during the dotc era and began my career as a software developer I knew I wanted to get into a leadership position I wanted to be a CTO Chief technology officer and I recognized that to be successful in that role there were a number of skills I would need that I didn't yet have leadership communication hiring team building negotiating skills we've heard about but no one actually sat down and taught them to me so I set out on a journey to develop them in myself we didn't have great podcasts like this back then it was a lonier journey and as I was doing so I recognized these skills would help everyone on my team not just myself not just those in the SE Suite so I began to upscale my team as well now I went on in my career and I am a CTO CPO these days I've been doing that for many years but in parallel something happened MIT where i' had gone to school had gotten feedback from companies saying we want to see these skills in the people we hire not just your students not just recent College grads not just Engineers but everyone we hire we want these skills and we can't find it either so MIT of course listens well and said wait a sec if you want this it's our job to get this into our alumni into our students alumni so set out to create a program to do that when I heard of that I reached out and said hey I've got some content maybe this is helpful please take it best of luck they said not so fast help us create more content this is good it's not enough so I stayed and help them create some more and then they said you know we have these great worldclass professors but they're academic and you're a practitioner and we think it would be helpful to have this class have both sides so we have the professors teaching from Sloan and the School of Engineering but also practitioners like myself and now for over 20 years I've also been teaching these skills at MIT and that led to the book the app and the speaking in parallel to my tech career as a CTO
4:50 How the Year 2024 Started for You?
Mark oh you also asked about start of my 2024 so it's a good start to the year 2023 was kind of a a rough year I think for many people just lots of volatility certainly in the tech World we've seen a credit crunch with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank with Rising interest rates the last almost two years it's been a little volatile and so it feels like things are really starting to thaw these days I took my first real vacation in about three years at the end of December and so I got to go on vacation had a nice relaxing vacation I then went to the Rena weekend event which is how I celebrate every New Year's these days I mced a comedy show New Year's Eve it was a lot of fun great seeing friends had a really good start to the year so I'm very excited about 2024 I feel like I have some good relaxation and momentum going into it and I'm excited for what 2024 is going to bring
Serhiy I'm excited to hear that you had such a great great time starting starting the year because sometime shifting our focus is the best thing that we can give us just shifting to something different completely different forget about work and then just get back with all this new brain power and energy and Mark you mentioned something very very interesting for me as a person who wasn't able to find things that I really loved till I was probably around 29 you said that you knew you knew distinctly knew that you wanted to pursue a career as a software engineer moreover be be someone in a leadership position can you elaborate more on that how did you know and at what age did you know that this is something that you want to pursue and how come did you have a role model
6:17 At What Age You Realized What You Wanted to Do in Life?
Mark let me give you a little more background on that because of course it's not as simple as it sounds it's like when you hear the story of the overnight success that took them five years to be the overnight success yeah when I was younger obviously I started with the I want to be a fireman I want to be whatever little kids want to be including actually for me stockbroker at one point but when I was nine I learned about physics and I got very excited about physics and decided I wanted to be a physicist that was the plan I also decided I wanted to get into programming and this came about because in high school I was trying to take an elective I want to go into Politics as well and so I want to take the elective Justice and I signed up for it and my guidance counselor said oh we're not offering that next year choose something else but I had no plan B I sat there with no other options so my guidance counselor did what we would hope guidance counselors do she said why don't I sign you up for computer programming one I don't know know but she understood she knew I was 80s nerd I was into math I was into science she figured out hey computers he'd like this and it has a f and so I signed up for it thinking well I'll I'll change it I'll do something else later but never got around to and I got to the class and I loved it said okay I really like this so I knew physics I knew programming and I knew I want to go into politics I went to MIT and followed all three of those paths I double majored in physics in eecs electrical engineering and computer science and minored in political science now I got turned off from politics when I was working on a political campaign and saw how the sausage was made said you know what I do not want to do that this is not the right path for me so dropped out of that I was still interested in physics but two things happened one physics funding was declining at this point it was the end of the Cold War funding was declining and my advisor I want to do theoretical physics and my advisor very politely said to me I'm going to say it more bluntly the problem with theoretical physics there's about 100 people who lead and everyone else just kind of follows along and doesn't really do anything interesting and you ain't one of those hundred he said again much more diplomatic stiff yeah those I I think I'm a pretty smart guy but I am not one of the top 100 physicists under theoretical physicist in the world
Serhiy this is the area where you should either be one of the top level players or there's just no no no no no pretty much uh Essence in in in being in the middle or something right
Mark exactly you could get a faculty position somewhere and have a job but you won't be making positive contributions to the field okay okay that's not a bit so software and again it was the 9s software was really growing we didn't use the word Tech startups yet but they were they were starting to be there in 1995 internet was times man of the year I think it was this is when I kind of came onto the scene so okay this seemed like the right path but even then I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do because just picking a field isn't sufficient for example if you think about I want to be a lawyer there's still multiple paths you can go into big law this big law firms you can do smaller Boutique law firms you can go out on your own you can be in-house at company there's different sub Fields within law you could do nonprofit law so just saying I want to do law there's still a lot of variety a lot of different things or even some lawyers say I'm going to use my skills and do something else like be an agent so I knew software but there was other decisions to be made
10:50 How Companies Around Mark Felt Really "Corporate"
Mark and I knew the options I looked at there was big Tech and big Tech back then was Microsoft and I think maybe yahoo was be big IBM thank you as the other one uh it's not today's fangs they didn't exist yet so that was one option I said that doesn't feel right it wasn't sexy at all at the time correct me if I'm wrong it was something real blury yeah it felt very corporate it felt well you can do software just in big corporations and that didn't feel right to me I could have gone to Wall Street Wall Street was recruiting heavily but again it felt very corporate and though there was a lot of money the culture didn't feel right to me and I wasn't excited about helping rich people make more money third option the consulting firms back then it was the big eight Cap Gemini BCG McKenzie Mckenzie was an implementation uh Arthur Anderson now Accenture so I had that option but it also felt corporate to me said none of these options feel good we didn't quite use the term Tech startups but there were some smaller tech companies out there and I wound up at one not because
12:05 Mark Lands in a Small Tech StartUp for Eliminating Other Options
Mark I said this is the right fit it's because I eliminated all the other options I said these three don't work I guess I'll do this because I don't know what else to do I wasn't excited I wasn't moving towards it I was moving away but had to make a decision and I got a little lucky here because it turns out that was the right fit going into a small Tech startup that is the right fit for me and so I figured out it's a great landed in a good place so as of this point early in my career through my first job early 20s I was not directed I was not well directed I just landed somewhere by elimination so don't worry if early in your career you're not sure where you want to be that's normal many of us go through that let me pause there and I can continue the story but let me just pause there so I'm not monologuing for 10 minutes straight
Serhiy yeah this is really fascinating because for a lot of people especially in Ukraine especially among my peers and the generation the younger generation that you know who learned the majority of the information from Tik Tok and all these short clips under one minute let alone you know watching or let alone reading books not not even listening to podcasts but I hope this podcast will find its way to our younger audience if you don't know what you want to do in life try things out this is the lesson derived from your story try things out and I think the courage uh Point here is to be able to say no to something that that doesn't feel right you distinctly emphasized how Corporate wasn't in the line with what you wanted to do like why is that so like how can a person
14:00 How Sergey Picked His 1st Job
Serhiy understand because I remember myself I didn't know what I wanted to do when I when I uh started my first job as a support team member u i we you know the only thing that kind of that I was enticed by was the fact that I could practice my English that's it Mark that was the only thing that really uh thed me and but you sometimes you know what you definitely don't want to do and that this could be a guiding guiding Point can you pick up from here
Mark absolutely and let's dive into that a little more I gave the example of lawyers we're looking at the example of software Engineers because you might say well Mark whether you're writing code at this small company or you're writing code at IBM or you're writing code for a Wall Street firm you're writing code isn't the same and maybe some of the job is the same I'm at the keyboard I'm typing code but the environment in which I'm doing it and that can range from the motivation again are you making rich people Rich are you building a software product that will be used by millions of people for example at Microsoft are you trying to revolutionize some industry or even some small segment at a startup your mission your goal may be different the culture may be different I did not like bureaucracy and policies I didn't want have to dress up and on Wall Street back then you still had to dress up I said I do not want any job that makes me
15:30 I Didn't Want a Job That Made Me Dress Up
Mark dress up now ironically I actually wear French tough shirts in the office just about every day unless the weather's really bad or really hot I actively dress up I work in Tech I can show up in a t-shirt now if I never wanted a job where I was forced to do it and that mattered to me so there are cultural things there are other questions to look at for example how much travel some jobs keep you on the road quite a bit a bit others don't these days this was a consideration back then work from home back then you were in the office 5 days a week but now it's a question how many days a week do you want to be in the office some say five days a week some might only be two or three what is it you want cultures such as how many meetings do you have some companies are very meeting heavy some are not and maybe you prefer one over the other we often think of a job as just that core aspect to it it's a common example here in the US medicine you think doctor what does a doctor do well I know what a doctor does we all know what a doctor does you see patients you see sick people and you give them prescriptions you treat them you test them okay that makes sense but if you ask an actual doctor here in the US
16:38 What Does a Doctor Practice Really Look Like?
Mark it might be different over in other countries with nationalized health health care but here in the US doctors and private practice all complain I have so much paperwork I have to fill out half my day is done filling out paperwork and of course if you're running a private practice you have to Market you have to get new customers you need to hire staff and manage staff and there's a whole bunch of other things that aren't taking care of sick people which is the core competency and so you have to decide what you want you can go into a hospital where there's probably a little less of that because the hospital has administrators to do it on the other hand in hospital you're not in control you have to follow procedures and regulations there's bureaucracy there might be politics which in your own company you don't have and you just have to decide what feels better for you so recognize when you look at a job it's not just that core thing there's a bunch of other things that can make you happy or sad and some might be tolerable you might say I hate meetings but you're G to have some meeting you can't have a job with near zero meetings but what level now the other point you brought up and I'll pause for a second the other point you brought up is if you don't know what you want to do try different things yeah I tell my undergrad students say look if you're not sure what you want to do find an internship if you're designed between two take the one that is less interesting because you can try it for a few weeks say wow I hate this
18:10 Take Internships
Mark it's eight or 10 weeks long you can survive that and then you go off and say I'm glad I tried it I will never do that again it's harder to do that when you're 30 but in your summer internships and even in your early to mid 20s you can EXP experimental you can do a job for 18 months and say wow I didn't really like that no more I'm going down a different path so don't be afraid to try but again it's not just about the core job it's about these other aspects as well
18:42 Hiring Rule Sergey Learned From Investors
Serhiy you know when you were saying this I recalled one interesting hiring rule that our investors were teaching us they said they were saying hire for obvious glaring strength not for the collective absence of weaknesses so hire for some a person should be a superstar in something and there's definitely going to be sacrifices he might be an amazing speaker he energizes the entire team but his bad is at putting data at Excel so decide what what's more important for you and I think this principle applies to finding a proper workplace where there's definitely going to be something that you will dislike but maybe there's something that you love and adore so much that you're just glued to this place and you want to be there every day s every single day uh in the morning you know regardless of the weather and everything
Mark you should absolutely look for that you should be moving towards a job not just away from others not away from others especially early on as you're figuring yourself out I mentioned the first job I took I was just kind of moving away from others and you might find yourself in that position and that's okay but then still view it as that experiment say well what's bringing me towards this job is I'm going to explore is this the right culture environment type of role for me and even put a timeline on say I'm going to do it for a year and then I'm going to re-evaluate am I happy here so that's okay especially again early in your career you can do it later but it's a little harder having that little zigzag in your 40s can be a little hard it's harder to get the job it's harder to then pivot back unless you've got a long track record already where you're pivoting back to same thing applies to to dating right a lot of parallels here we can talk about it a bit later
20:53 A Note from the Host
Serhiy a quick note guys if you enjoyed this episode and and specifically the way it is edited the the way it's produced the entire production of the podcast was completed by my team and in addition to offering business communication lessons in English the way I make a living is by helping people to launch a podcast if you're interested in launching an audio or video podcast with the help of my great talented Ukrainian team we all speak flawless English don't hesitate to contact me you can see the examples of our work on my Instagram I will leave the link to it in the description and in addition to that if you enjoy this episode please do me a favor and hit that like And subscribe button thanks a lot and enjoy the show further
21:53 Secrets to Efficient Negotiations
Serhiy what I uh read on your blog be before we started the show was that a good negotiator puts in a lot of effort before ever setting foot in the room so a negotiator is always well prepared and I wanted to ask you mark along these lines how well prepared should be an applicant applying for a position do you think that there is there is place for improvisation during the job interview or it should be strictly checking the marks if if if we fit each other
Mark you are right that good negotiator is prepared you do significant work multiple amounts of hours outside the room as what you do inside the room but that doesn't mean you don't improvise in fact we often tell people want to get very good at negotiations take improv classes or for musicians learn jazz because improvisation negotiation never goes according to a plan is that correct to say exactly right yeah just like if you think about a sports team you're doing drills you're doing practices you're doing a lot of work off the field you can't just say but wait wait they're doing something we didn't plan for that stop I don't know what to do no you're in the game you just go with it you make it work now when you think of interviewing interviewing is sales we are selling ourselves actually both sides are selling people miss this we know anything sales well I've got a product hey you should buy my product and here's why it's great when you're in an interview you should buy my product my product is me you should hire me I'm great it's true on the other side as well hi I'm selling this great job opportunity you should buy it because the job opportunity with my company is great both sides should be selling now if you talk to a salesperson I strongly recommend you do because we want to use sales and marking techniques on both sides of the table you're going to know it starts with being prepped A salesperson doesn't just walk in and say hey I'm selling vacuum cleaners so tell me a little about what you do here and if you need vacuum cleaners and how you might use them they'll have done the research to say I get what you're doing and why a vacuum cleaner may help you and here's the specific type of vacuum cleaner I'm going to be talking about but then of of course they're going to hear oh okay you just told me something I didn't know I did a lot of prep it's not perfect and in the moment realize new information and adjust the sales pitch you're going to do the same thing you want to prep you want to do as much as you can but you're not going to know everything and you're going to dynamically adjust in the moment and again this is true for both sides the candid and the hiring manager plan your sales pitch plan your evaluation of the other side and improvise in the moment
25:03 Mike Tyson's Quote and StandUp Improv Technique
Serhiy Mark also mentioned this quote allegedly often used by Mike Tyson who said that a plan never survives a contact with an enemy so that means and on this same block post you said that we should apply The Improv uh kind of method used by a lot of standup comics where we say yes and I think it more and we can smoothly transition to more of a networking uh part of our of our like teaching because what you're we're doing here is educating folks so this this is the rule that we can heavily uh apply when we're networking so to to never end the conversation and to smoothly transition to to the place that where where that where we want to go even if it started somewhere completely different
Mark yes that that quote of course has been said by many military generals Mike Tyson he's a famous boxer his version is everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth and he uses it literally and it's what we talked about you go into that sales mean that negotiation even a conversation and networking and you have your plan I want to sit down and talk to you about something but of course you're going to direct the conversation as well and so if I just say well this is my plan oh my God you're throwing me off my plan I'm in trouble but just like the athletes like The Improv comedians like the negotiators we adapt in the moment and the key thing when we will use negotiation as an example if you didn't start with your plan if you didn't start with well here's what I really want to get here's what I'm willing to trade off on here are the things I won't trade that's very important to me if you don't have that in the moment you can get caught up you can give away things you didn't want to you can forget to bring up something you you really thought was important you might do bad trade-offs you weren't prepared just like as an athlete if you haven't run the drills in the moment you might just get flustered and your shooting is off or something else is is not as good as it should have been so with conversations as well you want to think in this conversation here is my goal now this sounds a little more rigorous I'm not saying every conversation I have with someone I've got my set goal plenty of them are just conversations but if for example I'm at a conference or a professional event I have certain goals my goals are to learn about the other person maybe if I think this is going place for selling I might want to make sure they understand what I am working on maybe it's looking for opportunities for us to to look together to work together it could just be how can I relationship build these are some of the goals I'm coming in with and so as we have the conversation I might steer it a certain way to make sure oh we haven't we haven't gotten to talk about my thing I think he's going to be excited to learn about my thing how do I subtly direct the conversation not just say hey wait wait we got to talk about me but how do I bring it up maybe oh I totally get what you're going through you know we just went through something like that at my company so yeah I know that's a really difficult thing to be in okay now I kind of direct us you might say well what is your company or what is you do your experience so these little little slight directional changes can help move the conversation where we want to take it to get more value out of these conversations
29:00 Psychological Approaches in Business Communication
Serhiy you know uh I've been to an networking event pretty big one in the end of the year it was solely in English which was which which was surprisingly awesome you know for me and I and I thought that I had an advantage going in there and you know what I felt I felt like I H I almost have a joker have an ace up my sleeve and I almost didn't want to use it unless it was necessary and here's the question for you mark how often showing your superiority in something can hurt the potential deal I I I I think we're we're going to touch some psychological material psychological part of of you know our human nature but I for one didn't want intentionally intentionally didn't want to show off right and I knew sometimes people are composed you know I'm this energetic pretty confident fell do you ever utilize some kind of psychological tricks to make the counterparty feel better do you have something like that that you use at your disposal
Mark well I will never use tricks tricks but I will in fact work to make sure the person I'm speaking with or people I'm speaking with are comfortable there's a famous story uh in the book The Charisma myth written by my friend Olivia Fox kaban it is a wonderful book and it teaches you how to be charismatic it is a great book I highly recommend you can learn how to be charismatic which is interesting in the first place it is a learnable skill just like you can learn accounting or football or any other skill just like you can learn leadership negotiation networking skills I teach Charisma is learnable and ites it till you make it right first it doesn't feel natural or no well so I do not like the term fake
30:54 Why You Don't "Fake it Till You Make It"
Mark it to you make it because it sounds disingenuous but you first try and it may not feel natural but you're not faking it just like to use a sports analogy you might start out doing something in a new sport and you have to be really conscious of it and okay this isn't natural I have to really concentrate and focus you're not faking it you're really doing it just takes a lot more effort and then later as you're more advanced okay I can I can do this without thinking about this particular thing it's just more natural and that's what we want with these skills yeah so she gives this great story she's not the the first one to tell the story I don't think it's in the UK when Disraeli is running against someone else for prime minister I believe I forget his opponent and a woman has dinner with disi and with the other person a newspaper then asks her well you just had dinner with both of the leading candidates what's your opinion and I I can't remember who was who but she said one of these candidates was it sounded like the most interesting man in the world he was brilliant he was fascinating just so incredible and then the other one made me feel like I was the most interesting person in the world he made me feel brilliant and fascinating and amazing yeah and it was that second candid that won and so when you show up and go hey here's why I'm awesome it it is arrogant you're making the other person feel inferior and they're probably not going to like that no that's not saying hide everything uh when I meet someone who's a Nobel laurate they don't show up saying hi I'm a Nobel laurate but it comes up okay that's impressive and most of us say well you're an Olympian you're a Nobel laurate you're best selling author okay that's that's impressive I probably want to pay more attention to you than someone else but they don't beat you over the head with it and the best people make you feel special because when you walk away well Olivia teaches us in her book when you walk away and you say wow I had such a good time with this person yeah you want to spend more time with that person like
33:05 Make People Feel Heard
Serhiy you feel heard there's just something about people who can make you feel heard and this is something that I need to learn to do as a podcaster I think this is what Joe Rogan is an expert in he is always Consulting his ignorance he's asking dumb question which requires courage to an extent correct and that and he listens carefully I think for us it's a question of self-esteem make no mistake about it but being able just to listen sometimes even asking something that you might partially know have an answer for but give the person the stage to answer right is I think is just an amazing amazing uh human skill as Simon syic calls it he doesn't like the this The term soft skills he says that there's nothing soft in knowing how to listen for example uh he calls it human skills on I like calling them firm skills fir firm as in corporate and firm because they're not totally soft they're not quite quantitative so we've used the term firm skills
Mark I mentioned in the book let me give you a specific technique you can use
Serhiy please
Mark I was single for a very long time in New York City and going on many many dates I was very proactive in trying I remember you told me that last
34:35 Mark Has Gone to 700 First Dates. Here's What He Learned
Mark time we saw each other okay I have gone on probably about 700 first dates in my lifetime that's my estimate from looking at looking through my calendar and doing some projections I sat through a lot of mediocre and bad First Dates where you show up and you know within a few minutes you're thinking I am just not there's not a fit here but I'm not going to walk out on my date after five minutes I need to spend time with her I need to be polite so here's what I would do on the date I think I've got another 45 minutes minimum here there is something about this woman I'm with that is interesting I don't know what it is but there's something maybe she has a really interesting hobby maybe she visit a really interesting place maybe she grew up in some location that's very different from mine and will have a different perspective I don't know what it is but I am going to spend the next 45 minutes trying to learn it I'm looking for that needle and a hay stack and the ACT looking because I'm asking her about her I'm paying attention to her I am listening I'm very engaged and that Focus curiosity yeah it's better than okay great uh how many minutes left okay have another sip oh great how many minutes left now I'm focused on her and I might learn something I might even make a friend and I I have there are plenty of dates that turned into friends for me and I've learned things so when you're in a conversation thinking H why am I talking to this person but you know you're stuck I think there is a needle in this Hast stack there is something interesting about this person and my job is to find it and that's going to focus you and engage you in the conversation and create a positive outcome for both of you
36:35 Best Networking Practices and The Art of Giving Advice
Serhiy you said that the last time we spoke you said that we have to think longterm not transactional when we when we go networking and you also mentioned that you even go in thinking about how I can help so it's it's not like me having an agenda I I'm looking for a job are you offering a job no so sorry next it's more along the lines how can I be helpful you know but this also borders with this I think this one of the best advice that I've heard in in in the entire year when you that when you uh said me said about giving uh how how how about the tenderness of the science of giving advice how how how actually it can you elaborate more maybe you've gotten some new insights into this art of how do you offer an advice if you really care let's take a case where we really care for a person but we're not sure if they're willing to take in advice but you know that they would benefit how would you approach the situation like that
Mark very carefully one of my biggest pet peeves is that people offer unsolicited advice to you and the to me or to anyone I I see people do this all the time and sometimes I can watch the B language of the recipient thinking like yeah yeah come on I I don't care I know I've gotten unsolicited advice well-intentioned I don't blame them they're they're trying to be helpful but it might be I already know that or this is not how I like to do it so it's not a fit it doesn't align to my values or my situation or I might just disagree and think it's wrong yeah again I know it's well intentioned so I'm very careful about giving personal advice now I will go on in my blog and podcast and say hey here's general advice I have no idea who you The Listener are if it's not helpful fast forward through that part hopefully there's other parts that are better but I'm very careful and I won't just say oh let me tell you about this I usually ask permission I have some thoughts but only if it's helpful and I give them a very clear out you might already be set in this so they can say yeah I'm good I talked to someone else yesterday I'm good on this because I want them to be able to say no if it's just like well I've got some great advice would you like to hear it it's hard for to say oh no I I don't want your great advice you're you're saying them up when you say I've got some great advice on this because I've been through a similar thing but you might already have gotten lots of advice might even be tired of hearing advice on this so only if you're interested permission based approach
Serhiy and I think this technique can be also used in sales permission based approach can may I ask may I add something to this conversation may I offer you something for example right now I'm offering this new service of mine of starting um starting a podcast for people and also starting their YouTube channel and I have a lead a woman who already working on her YouTube but there are so many things that she just does wrong Mark and I know that potentially it can increase my sales pitch you know it can um strengthen my sales pitch but at the same time it could can ruin everything so I sent her a message if you will be interested ever interested in having you know some uh analysis as as as as far as your channel goes I'm here I got something that I want to say maybe maybe even saying this was too much because if the person is defensive you know I got something that can help you is already could be pretty pushy right
Mark with sales there's a fine line and now most people when you're selling corporate we're say Corporation my job isn't as personal if you say hey I've got something for your job I happen to know the woman who you're speaking to and it's her personal business so it's a little more personal and connected to no no no it's not it's not Marney it's a different Lady it's a different lady name okay that's somewhat someone else the so I would I would say with sales
41:20 In Sales — Show Off Your Wares
Mark you do have to be a little pushies too strong word but you have be forward you have to say here's what I've got you've got to show off your wares but not too much and one of the things I hate is when I get a sales pitch they will do their demonstration and they'll have their their set 30 minute oh here's my pitch and it starts with telling the history of the company and then this and that it's a lot of things that aren't relevant for me and that wastes my time and I'll even tune out before you get to what is relevant so you do want some of that exploration in fact one of the best sales guys I have ever known he's a former Army Ranger this guy is incredible Army Rangers are very special people they've had Advanced Training and they know how to plan missions under very dire conditions he looked at these sales calls he would plan it the way I imagined he would plan one of his missions maybe not quite as intense because lives weren't on the line they'd say okay before we go into this meeting here's who we got here's who we have from our side here's who's going to be there from their side here's their backgrounds we're going to start the meeting like this I'm going to start out we're going to do introductions we're going to ask for them then we're going to go through and we're going to do U you you in this order then I'm going to walk through here's the agenda we have for the meeting and do a check-in we're going to talk about this then something else is that your expectation at that point might say no we don't care about that just this and the other thing okay we'll adjust and then he'll start into something and he'll do these checks to make sure where we still relevant and focused and I thought this was brilliant I've never seen any other salesperson that proactive and engaged and that's what you want to do you have your plan going in no plan survives contact with the Enemy so he adjusts the plan as he goes and always keeps it relevant to the other party
43:30 Meetings in Corporate America
Serhiy sales is something that we should definitely talk a little bit more but before that I recently watched a very rare uh interview of Jeff bases recent interviews at Lex fredman's podcast and he was telling about how they approach running meetings which is which is very very creative they don't they don't send an agenda they one person creates a mem Mo a very very deep you know focused and descriptive memo that they all read in the beginning of the meeting so they allocate like 10 15 minutes to read the memo because in fact for all the meetings people are expected to read the agenda but what Jeff argues is that in fact no one actually does it so people kind of jump into meting and trying to sneak into the agenda so they actually allow some some time and there is and there is a difference between a memo and just an agenda for him so for I think do you do you share my uh belief I actually have a friend in Ukraine they are startup they're building an an app or a Google Chrome extension to simpli ify running meetings Believe It or Not uh can you give us a few few thoughts on on how the meetings are run right now in a corporate world in America if it's if it's a really really big pain for a lot of people and then maybe we can talk about sales
Mark it is a pain for most people it's one of the biggest complaints I he I do like his idea now I believe in agendas M but I agree with his approach that often people show up they have different levels of background because we're busy we're running from one meeting to another and saying we're going to spend X minutes at the start of the meeting getting everyone on the same page I do like that idea I'm going to have to think more about that and how we might incorporate that into some of the meetings I run and what we do now I would recognize that perhaps not every meeting needs that one of the things I talk about in the book there are three basic types of meetings but we often screw it up because we don't recognize what type of meeting this is and I say types of meetings you can have multiple ones in in the same meeting but you want to understand that so I almost think of them this goes to my physics Roots three unit vectors three components three building blocks if you will for meetings so three different types of meetings there are one to end meetings that's the broadcast meeting that's a meeting you might have corly meeting where the CEO or the executive team does an all hands meeting says we want to update you we want to pass this information onto you you know one or a small number of people too many people the second type of meeting is end to end and that's where you have multiple people in the room and generally everyone has to share with everyone else this this is common for a status update meeting in software engineering we have a daily scrum where we go around everyone says here's what I'm working on here's what I'm going to do today and just everyone says okay good I'm on top of where things are probably your team has a weekly meeting where just everyone reports in Project STA and so everyone has something to share that's relevant to maybe not a 100% but most other people need to be aware and likewise you need to be aware of most other people that's an endtoend meeting mhm and then finally you have decision meetings and that's where you have to make a decision decision might be we have to set the budget for next year decision might be we have to vote on you paint color for the break Ro whatever it is big small a decision has to be made now I'm not including this one-on-one conversations those aren't meetings those are one-on-one conversations that could be boss giving someone feedback it could be two people coordinating those are those are separate but these are the common meeting meetings that we have as groups of people when there's more than two people meeting and so those are the three components what's important is to recognize what are you trying to achieve because so often you will have for example an end to endend meeting you have these people and saying okay we're we're doing our update and soone says oh you know what we have to decide on this okay let's let's also while while we're here let's do that but you know who's not in the room Carol and Carol is key for that decision you said okay let's do it or you didn't plan to have that decision so no one is prepped for it and so the problem is one meeting morphs into another but people might not be prepared you might have the wrong people in the room or not the right people in the room and it gets messy so be very clear on what you're trying to achieve and you can say look we're going to have the one to end I'm GNA give you all an update because I just got back from some important meetings myself and then we're going to have our quick updates and then we're going to make a decision and that's fine as long as you are explicit and you say do we have the right people
49:00 Remote/Hybrid Work in Post-COVID Era
Serhiy for each one of those components I remember this quote that also by Simon syic he said that trust is what happens no there is there is this quote by famous composer I forgot who he was he said that music is what happens between the notes and Simon said that trust is what happens between the meetings on this point we're living in a postco era I don't know can you tell about the landscape of the Us corporate world right now how many people returned to the offices how many employers require people to return to the offices or there there's a new normal that we're now applying to our daily life
Mark great question I wrote back in 2022 maybe even 2021 I've said this on podcasts where people are saying are we have we shifted are we going to be virtual or semi- remote and my response was we have to see what happens the next few years because if the economy cratered and we're all desperate for jobs in that case companies are going to say we want you back and everyone say well I need the job and I will do it and that would have just been ablp I argue if it stayed for 3 to 5 years and so we're now about three almost four years into it yeah it's starting to get institutionalized where it becomes the norm I think there's a window where if it doesn't if corporations don't push a certain way where things stand today is going to be the new normal is going to be the standard where a company then needs to justify why it's off the standard now we know this is only a small number of jobs my friend Jeff Wald wrote a book called the end of jobs and in it he gives the data that I think less than 50% of jobs maybe it's a little over under can be remote there's plenty of jobs that have to be done in person working on assembly line I certainly want my surgeon to be there in person although we're starting to see robotic techniques it might suggest they can do some remote still I'd like them there in case something goes wrong plenty of jobs that need to be person for companies we have a couple Dynamics at play individuals like working from home we like the flexibility we like the I got to pick up the kids for 15 minutes and it's great I can do it from home I wrote one of my more popular blog posts is your manager may not be as excited why your manager is less excited about remote work than you are because you're a contributor and you just need to get it done your manager needs to spend time understanding what's going on coordinating and so your manager may not have the same visibility your manager could see things from just a spontaneous hallway conversations to even I could see things like when I walk out into the the area where most of the team is are people collaborating and working together are people I can see the B language these two people aren't getting along are people feeling stressed about we've got a big deadline coming up this week are people feeling stressed you can that t you can't get as much information when remote and you have to be more explicit so managers are less excited about that I want people in the office more so you have different motivations now there's something else we're going to be seeing in the coming years what I've argued is for offices that are semi- remote if you're going to be in the office one or two days a week or even less for some you need to focus more on social that seems countering to you think well that's where we need to get together and that's when we're we're together to do work and yes and there are certain things that maybe there's things that are more independent we do those the other days and when we're in the office that's when we have meetings it might be meetings are so easier when done face to face standing at a whiteboard together still easier physically at the Whiteboard than trying to use Virtual tools do that in person but also let those water cooler conversations happen also let people you know what hey let's you and I I'm going to grab coffee why don't you come with me and instead of five minutes it's going to be 15 or 20 minutes because we're talking a lot but that's building those relationships which is really important those internal networks are important for the company they're important for you and one thing I worry about the people who say I move 500 miles away to a beach because I can do my job remotely yeah you can indeed you can do that but there are two longer term consequences you're not building those internal relationships and that can hurt you when it comes to your long-term opportunities promotions even just being aware reading the corporate tea leaves gets a lot harder when you're remote second you still have concentrated areas of Industry we might be remote New York is still the head of Finance La is still the head of Hollywood you still have these areas where this is the space and this is where the afterwork activities and just running into people are just saying hey let's meet up you can't do it as easily when you're 500 miles away and I I've been someone saying it's good that you can do virtual coffees now but being in person is still better and so we have to be careful that when you are fully remote well I fly in once a quarter when they need me you're still going to miss out and that could have some long-term impact so so those are a couple basic things also training up the younger folks the younger folks need to be in the office but that means some of us who aren't younger need to be in there to do that mentoring to show the behaviors so there's a lot of secondary effects even if to A first order yes we can function remote absolutely
55:22 A Lady Who Flies In Every Day for Work
Serhiy I can't agree more and I think you also posted about this lady that are that is actually flying in like once a week to her office SOI from Financial standpoint it makes sense but from all all the other standpoints it doesn't make sense and you wrote that she's missing out on the social capital she's missing out on the opportunities that she would otherwise gain if she were just around her peers maybe a new job opportunity that would pop up out of nowhere right while if you're just just living at the beach I don't know maybe there are some professions that are cool just being remote that you know maybe people who are more introverted and but I still believe that the key to a healthy life lies within uh social interaction
Mark now that woman for the record this was a BBC article she has summer internship and her calculation was getting an apartment in the New York metro area with expensive there were cheap commuter flights and she could spend time with her family which was important I'm not saying never do it may have been the now she was missing out but still there are trade-offs in life so I speaking in general we we all need to recognize what are the tradeoffs okay I'll share another a more recent BBC article that said companies are now doing corporate travel corporate travel has changed corporate travel used to be um going off on a sales call or Business Development and now of course we're saying you know we can start with just a virtual meeting that's good enough and we can save so much time and money I think we're all happier with that in most cases so what's replacing that is but you and I who are co-workers don't see each other as much let's get together more socially we might have some meetings but it's really more for that social aspect as I was saying when you get into the office that one day a week or a few days a month do focus on the social because that's important and we're starting to see corporate travel is focused on that
57:40 Mark's Experience on a Fully Remote Team
Mark I was part of a virtual company as far back as 2017 I've actually had even virtual companies prior to that 2017 we had a virtual company of about 30 people all over the us and we would get the executive team would get together about every four to six weeks for a few days we'd bring everyone together less frequently when we do that we would have in-person meetings where we could dive deep and made sense to have folks but we also made sure we did social activities together we'd have dinner together every night and we'd get nice fancy din we weren't paying for an office so we could pay for nice dinners we would go out and do some fun activity from one time it was s'mores on the beach another time we were in Vegas we went out to see a show and did things together and doing that stuff together that really help create those bonds that would lead to in fact I I now have a client who was a salesperson at that company who says hey we need your help and I got a job because he and I did get to know each other socially at that company so this is important for long term
58:40 Starting a Career as an Independent Consultant, Creating a Personal Brand
Serhiy this is so so key tell us more because I have a lot of my listeners are at the crossroads in terms of starting something in addition to their main job we all it seems like we're living in this area era now where everyone wants to express themselves and that's something that I'm preaching about I'm like telling we all we're all unique we all have something to offer start with generating content start with putting yourself your voice out and your uh something that you told me was that it's a lot it's a long road ahead you have to just you have to get used to not being seen or not being um like at the spotlight like because it takes a lot of time tell maybe I can combine the question of personal brand and sales and ask your general thoughts on um how do we how do we become an independent how do we maybe create additional source of income and uh yeah and what are some keys that work for you and maybe you can touch on sales as well when you are trying to sell not yourself to become a part of a team but as yourself doing something or offering some service
Mark that's a a very big set of questions I'll try to address it we do see a lot of people taking on secondary work now unfortunately a lot of that's because they're not making enough with their primary job and that's where the side hustle I I need more money so I'll start being an Uber driver or doing something else and the motivation there is primarily Financial some people do it because they do have a side passion that's not fully engaged with their primary job and that's fine too but let's talk about that road and what the expected Roi is now I've written a book and what everyone will tell you is you do not write a book to make money and I didn't write my book to make money I wrote it because I want to get the word out and help people and I could give away for free but then it start oh it's some free thing and you you kind of lose some credibility the same reason newspapers used to charge 25 cents their money came from advertising but if they just gave away the newspaper for free it was seen as a lower end newspaper they had to have some value when you do a book it's an incredible amount of time and here's the secret most traditionally published books when you go through a big publisher the average book in its lifetime only sells 3,000 copies if you're self-published that number I've seen anywhere from 100 to 250 so people put all this effort to write a book not to mention the whole process of the editing and getting the thing out there and then any marketing they do and it barely moves the needle so if your hope is oh I'm gonna write a book and people will come not happening or I'm gonna create a course it could be something that you put a lot of effort into right a product so I was GNA get to courses people think oh online courses it's great because I just record a series of six 1 Hour videos and then I've got the course and there's a company that says I just upload the videos and they'll do the rest and I take a split but if you build it they won't come unless you Market it and so for courses or for podcasts you have to go out and you have to say hey pay attention and that's the real effort the marketing for books for courses for podcasts for your brand it's an obscene amount of effort I I have on LinkedIn I've got a couple thousand followers I haven't really I've spent zero dollars on marketing now I've put in some time I go on podcast and people hear me and add me I speaking to someone recently he has 10 times the followers unlinked in and I asked I said I'm really curious how you did and he said I don't use Bots or those Farms these are all legiate people but to do this he spent two to three hours a day for a year going out using techniques that he had learned to engage with people online to build up followers and now he has tens of thousands but even then that was a lot of work if you think about he was spending maybe 500 800 hours to do this in a single year but they're just followers they're not sales yet he now has to convert them into sales with a product and so that Roi is questionable I go on podcasts and here's the truth podcast you sell a hand full of books any given podcast there's a couple people say oh you Mark he's an interesting guy I'm going to buy his book we'll get uh more app downloads because the app is free so people are more like okay well let me download the app that doesn't cost app is brain bump uh right on App Store yeah brain bump but even then when you think about the time it takes just the hour we're spending together not including the emails back and forth or any prep time and then you look at what you make per book which for a traditionally published book their the royalties are going to be on average a dollar a book you're saying wait a second you're making far less a minimum wage and now most people hope that once you buy the book they'll be able to upsell you and say okay now I'll buy my very expensive coaching packages I am not a coach I have no Consulting no Executive coaching to S merchandise never no merchandise I do this as a passion project because my day job is fun building Tex startups this is fun for me in a different way I'm not worried about the money but it's a lot of work it's a lot of frustration don't think this is the magic way to riches it's a full-time job it's a lot of work and it may not give you the ROI so if you're thinking of going down this path recognize that most of the work is marketing at least 50% of the work is constantly marketing yourself and the world's just getting noisier because more and more people are doing it so understand that and look at the ROI and see if you really want to do if money's your motivation see if the numbers work out before you go down that path
1:05:34 Sergey's Independent Career Bump in the Road
Serhiy I'm hitting the wall of frustration when I'm when I was able to get some interest from people but then the next step seems to be just so difficult or for some reason people just are not sending the money not not pushing this button and uh um I I remember this quote that I think Jim Ron said it that people don't spend major resources on minor things so in sales somehow you have to let them understand that what you're offering is actually valuable in their picture of the world
Mark there's I I'll give you a small example of this I wasn't too excited about putting this on the book but based on marketing feedback I had to so on the back cover of the book you have a little about the book you have a blur and I've got a couple bullet points what this book will teach you and I forget the
1:06:34 Funny Story from Mark
Mark actually I have the book here so I'm read off the back cover because I back cover in a while on the back cover so we have things like creating a dynamic career strategy building a high value Network okay these sound like good value propositions and one of the bullet points negotiating a job offer and then parentheses this alone will pay for the book can you show the back back cover this alone will pay for the for for those who are on the video you can now see the back cover for those who aren't if you go to Amazon you can see the back cover it's in the Amazon description but what I did there is I basically said here's the ROI if you think if I can help you be a better negotiator in just a single job you're going to make the book costs 20 some dollars depending on where you're buying it you're going to negotiate for more than $20 in your job there's a clear Roi yeah and so that becomes an easy decision I buy the book they don't even have to read the whole book they have have to read that one chapter so I spend 20 some dollars I invest 45 minutes reading the chapter you can easily get $500 a, dollar you can probably do better than that but there you go positive Roi so I I didn't like it felt a little gimmicky to me but okay I needed to do that
1:08:04 Last Word
Serhiy I understand from my perspective I can say that I just I'm getting a ton of of great stuff that is actually applicable that that is practicable you know from Mark's blog I haven't yet bought the book but definitely uh when we think that people are giving out something for free and it's no good we should put this put this type of thinking too bad because there are a lot of a lot of good free stuff maybe even all maybe even you can find everything for free right some marketing is just a type of better packaging or or or something but all this stuff is available for free so I highly encourage you guys to go check Mark's blog buy a book or download a free app which I actually installed which sends you cool hints every single day on one of the topics that Mark covers in the book and other books too as well if I'm not mistaken
Mark correct the the brain Bump app so this is something that's free the brain Bump app free on iPhone and Android and what we've done is we've taken the key points from books blogs podcasts and other sources we're not one of those book summary apps and we have the owner of that IP put it on there because we don't want to take someone's IP without their permission they put in here are the takeaways it's as if you went through a book with a highlighter but that's all done for you it goes into the app so you have it in your pocket the whole time because I know when I read books I'll read it I'll forget a few weeks later so for example you read that negotiation section you go okay well this is great well I'm not negotiating a new job anytime soon a year from now when you're negotiating a raise or a new job you can just open up the app in seconds because everything's tagged by topic you say give me that negotiation set of tips they're right at your fingertips or you can set up to get that daily reminder so if for example you want to be seen as a leader imagine if you got every day you might set to 9:00 am you get a leadership tip so right as you go into the office it's like oh right I gotta remember to do more of that and by seeing it over and over it stays top of mind if you don't want to get the daily reminders you can turn it off we only send you when you want what you want so it's always relevant and this is all free and we keep adding more content because as I mentioned I'm not here to sell you coaching or other services I do this because I want to help people and this is a great free tool to do that so brain Bump app it's free and has that great advice
Serhiy I share your vision Mark I also started this podcast and started my content marketing uh for the same reason I just want to share the experience that I've had in life and uh to be an example to be a role model for someone who also wants to maybe uh pursue a career of independent consultant so and I'm super inspired by you you are one of my role models and I'm thankful that you found the time for for us today thank you Mark
Mark thank you for having me on the show really appreciate being here