Pay it forward: Offering no-strings-attached help expands your network

February 25, 2011

Pay it forward: Offering no-strings-attached help expands your network

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Meeting attendees Jennifer Hawkins, left, and Katerina Prochaska talk about the field of architecture with Gary Barber, middle, who volunteers at the American Institute of Architects to help other job seekers. (Linda Hughes)

By Lora Shinn
Special to NWjobs

A few months after he was laid off in 2008, Gary Barber began volunteering twice a month at the American Institute of Architects’ Seattle office, where he offered career support and advice to fellow unemployed architects.

Now starting a new venture — Urban Solutions Studio, an architectural design and planning firm — Barber admits that many of the people he helps could be competing with him for the same jobs.

Still, Barber says he is happy to volunteer. “I believe you get back what you put out, multiplied many times over,” he says, even if the payback isn’t immediately obvious or direct.

In a slow job market, it may seem counterintuitive to pass along job opportunities and build your network by doing favors for others. But paying it forward is exactly what some unemployed people and career advisers say is important now.

Resources

Give2Get: Network with the goal of helping others at this free event from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. March 8 at Bahama Breeze, 15700 Southcenter Parkway, Tukwila. For details and registration, visit biznik.com/events.

Pay It Forward Foundation: This organization logs inspirational anecdotes and news stories about goodwill gestures around the world. Visit payitforwardfoundation.org.

The concept was popularized in 2000 in a movie titled “Pay It Forward,” based on a novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde. The idea is to do a favor for someone without expectation of repayment in hopes that the person will do the same.

Sandy Jones-Kaminski, an online-marketing consultant and author of “I’m at a Networking Event — Now What???” applies the theory to networking at her Pay It Forward parties. At “PIF parties,” guests attend intent on helping others with professional support or personal advice.

Jones-Kaminski sees the networking events as community service — a way to give back as much as she can. She says successful PIF-goers skip the conventional elevator pitch and instead ask, “What are you working on these days?” The question allows the unemployed to save face (the reply may be “trying to find a job,” or “working on my degree”) and provides the listener with greater insight.

“Make it easy for other people to share with you,” Jones-Kaminski says. “Even if you don’t personally do the hiring at your company or know of a job, you can still help compel change and feel helpful.”

Teresa Springer, CEO of the marketing and multimedia production company Seeds of Love Productions, hosts a networking event held periodically at the Bahama Breeze restaurant in Tukwila.

At Give2Get, about 50 to 60 people — including real-estate agents, consultants, college students and entrepreneurs — discuss their needs and concerns, such as marketing dilemmas or customer-service challenge. Attendees can ask questions and offer advice and suggestions.

“One thing I impress upon everyone is that there’s more than enough [work] for everyone,” Springer says. “At our forum, people feel like they can ask and receive. Everyone can walk away inspired to help, because we all possess a wealth of knowledge. I love to share with other individuals and receive from them. It is a back and forth.”

Good deeds are like oxygen, says Seattle’s Bob Rosner, who writes for the career-advice website workplace911.org: Whether you’re inhaling or exhaling, you’re contributing overall. You should be prepared to give time, advice and attention on a regular basis, he says.

“If someone doesn’t stumble across your path, go out and find somebody,” he says. That could mean taking an employee to lunch or mentoring a recent graduate.

After all, he says, everyone has benefited at some point from help provided by educators, mentors or co-workers.

“We have a debt to repay,” Rosner says. “It takes constant thought and effort about how we’re going to pay it back.”

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3 Comments

Edward Stephen Dolan, DDS on February 27, 2011 6:46 PM | Reply

Dear NWJobs,
My name is Ed Dolan, and I'm a dentist, business owner, and
entrepreneur. I have a potential story idea for you regarding passing on free information to people through free webinars to help people reduce paper clutter, reduce the workload in their office and personal life, and possibly help to increase people's mobility, and mental and physical health.
Here's my story: I found the two missing links to creating a
paperless office.
1) Earth Class Mail (ECM)
2) Bill.com
In my dental practice we used to have tons of mail coming to the
practice and my office manager would open the mail, prepare paper
check deposits, and physically drive to the bank to make a
deposit. Obviously businesses all over the world still do this.
Today, we give people our ECM address and have them send our mail
to our ECM account in downtown Seattle. Then the ECM employees
open and scan our mail under video surveillance. Then we can log
in to our ECM account online or on my iPhone to view and manage
our postal mail. We can direct ECM to shred, recycle, or re-ship
our mail. In addition, if there is a paper check in the mail,
ECM uses a third party called DepositNow to deposit the checks
into my business bank account. Moreover, this process allows us
to outsource our data entry to a company in Georgia. They have
an employee who works from home, logs into our ECM account to
manage our mail. She can read the incoming information from the
insurance companies and from our patients and enter the data into
each patients ledger using GoToMyPc to remote into our computer
system. Furthermore, my accountant who works in South Carolina,
logs in to my ECM account and takes the scanned images of our
incoming payables from our vendors and enters them into Bill.com.
Then, as the business owner, I receive a notice in my email inbox
informing me that I have bills awaiting my personal approval in
Bill.com. Then I login to Bill.com, review the scanned images of
our payables, and either approve or deny the payment. For
example, if I approve 5 bills totalling $2,000, Bill.com will
take one lump ACH transfer out of my business bank account and
distribute paper checks to the vendors. The advantage to this is
that it eliminates the need for me, as the business owner, to
physically sign any paper checks. The approval process takes me
approximately 10-15 seconds and can be done from anywhere I have
computer connection or from my iPhone.
These systems have significantly decreased paper clutter in my
practice, have eliminated the need to go to the bank to make
deposits, have significantly reduced the opportunity for check
embezzelment in my office, and has reduced the noise in the
office from shredding paper. It has eliminated one FTE in my
practice.
Other significant features offered by ECM are they will receive
FedEx and UPS packages on my behalf and they will sign for
certified mail. I currently have ECM accounts in New York, Los
Angeles, and Seattle. This gives business owners the opportunity
to have a presence in multiple cities. ECM also offers multiple
businesses. So I have one administrator account and I can switch
from business to business. This limits the office manager of
each business to access only the mail for one business.
As you may already know, the App on the iPhone that converts ECM
into a user friendly format on the iPhone is called iClassMail.
I am currently giving free webinars to teach people how to set up
and utilize all of these tools to improve their life. If you or
anyone you know would like to attend one of my webinars, please
send an email request to DrDolan@Lakeview-Dental.com I am happy
to share my understanding of all of these helpful tools with you.
Please feel free to call me on my cell at 808-283-4300.
Here are some of the people that in my opinion would benefit from
using ECM:
1) people who travel frequently
2) snowbirds
3) people who live in RVs
4) business owners
5) remote CEOs
6) college students who change addresses frequently
7) Peace Corp volunteers
I have a theory that people who use ECM will increase their
mobility in life which leads to a healthier lifestyle. I can only
speak from personal experience with this. After I implemented
ECM in my practice and then my personal mail, I headed for Maui
and stayed for 8 months while other dentists worked in my office.
Another helpful tool that works in conjunction with ECM is the
General Delivery service offered by the United States Postal
Service. I can direct ECM to mail an item (envelope or package)
to Edward Dolan GENERAL DELIVERY, Anywhere, USA Zip code and the
USPS will hold the mail at the post office for 30 days free of
charge until I pick the item up by showing my ID. This gives a
huge flexability to receive postal mail all over the US as people
travel.

Thank you for reading this if you've read this far.

Sincerely, Ed Dolan, DDS
Director of Lakeview Dental and Mail in your pocket

P.S. As you may know, the SwissPost is now using the ECM software
platform to offer mail scanning services in five European
countries.

Edward S. Dolan, DDS
Director
Lakeview Dental/ Mail in Your Pocket
P.O. Box 4668 #29275
New York, NY 10163
DrDolan@Lakeview-Dental.com
DrDolan@MailinYourPocket.com
Direct: 808-283-4300
www.Lakeview-Dental.com

S Kaye replied to comment from Edward Stephen Dolan, DDS

As a former patient of Dr. Dolan, I'm not quite sure I recommend the set-up-forwarding-and-go-to-Maui approach to running a business. I just stumbled onto this comment but it does explain some of my reasons for leaving his practice (different dentist every visit? Check! Odd billing errors? Check!).

Sandy Jones-Kaminski on February 27, 2011 7:53 PM | Reply

As the founder of Bella Domain's Pay It Forward Party, I am thrilled to be mentioned here and to learn about the other events listed. If anyone is interested in learning more about co-hosting a Pay It Forward Party with me, please check out my site: http://belladomain.wordpress.com/pif-parties-networking/

Also, on Amazon, you'll find my book, "I'm at a Networking Event--Now What???" which includes a chapter on how to have your own Pay It Forward Party. Here's a link: http://amzn.to/fg1vTA

Thanks again Lora!
Sandy

Pay it forward: Offering no-strings-attached help expands your network

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