Posted by Dave Lorenzo - Business Coach

Individuals with Career Intensity prepare for every interaction.  (Chapter Six of Career Intensity: Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs is dedicated to this very topic).  I do my best to “check out” people that I will be meeting with before I sit down in front of them. 

There are a number of ways to do this. The easiest way is to type their name into Google and see what comes up.  Try all different variations.  Put quotes around it to get specific.  Use their middle initial.  Use a nickname. Add their work company and location.  I call this trial and error process “The Google Dance”.  You’re trying all the different variations of your contact’s name, company and work location.

New additions to the dance include the blog search engines.  Google’s Blog Search seems to be working well.  Technorati and IceRocket are also effective. If your target has a blog you can find out a ton of information about him/her.  You should check the comments to see how he/she interact with their readers. Look at the topics they choose.  Is anything interesting or provocative about them? Is the blog well written?  Is the style formal or more casual? 

There are a couple of other sources of information that may be useful as you do your research on your meeting partner.  ZoomInfo has some interesting information on people.  You can often find old press clippings there as well as some stray information collected over the years.  LinkedIn also offers information that the user has entered.  While neither of these directories are comprehensive, they may provide you with some useful tidbits of information. 

Knowing about the person you are meeting with is just the first step in being prepared. We’ll be discussing other ways to prepare for every interaction in the future.

Filed under: Personal Productivity
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