Networking with the Military

I left home at 4 pm CST. After 1 hour of driving and thinking of all the things that I will experience in the next 60 days I realized that I had forgotten ALL of my dress pants and jackets on hangers at home. Man that was not a good feeling. “What was I going to wear when I met professional people for one on ones and meetings” I thought.

I called my husband upset at myself for doing this and he told me to just go buy new ones. What a guy! All I really needed was a set of dress pants and shirt.

My drive was 3 hours to a Military Reintegration for Soldiers coming home from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Tom needed to be there because he was one of these soldiers and I needed to be there because I’m the liaison for the CBHCO program for the wounded soldiers from Minnesota.

I spent 2 days networking with the families and Military officials within the state and program. I’ve met some great people and lots of contacts.

When soldiers come home from being deployed they are transitioning themselves back into the civilian world. It’s sometimes hard for them to go back to their jobs especially if they didn’t like their job in the first place.

So Tom and I visited with a few and qualified them for introducing our business first before we said anything. Only because the focus here was to get them thru this program and get all of their questions answered.

There was a sharp couple sitting behind us that we had fun with during one of our workshops. The soldier had gone back to his job and hated it and his wife loved candles. Tom said “great, you can work with us. We have no one in Austin and would love to work with you.” I gave them a business card with a french vanilla attached and told them to view the “presentation" on this site. The husband said “who knows this might be something I could do too.” They gave us their contact info and they know I will be calling them within a few days.

We had something in common with them and they want something different in their life.

You see the Military are trained to focus and get something done. There’s no fooling around! And many are over qualified for jobs when they come back because of the experience they had in their deployment. They are always open to a challenge.

Out of the many contacts I have from this get together there are 3 people that I will be contacting for a one on one presentation of our candle business. They all know what it is and look forward to finding out more about fundraising, home parties and 2 that I will be contacting for referrals.

The cool thing is that I feel that we were very productive even though we needed to be focused on the program also.

Tip: Have fun when you’re contacting people. Use humor to break the ice.