Welcome to Episode 3 of Solink in the Cloud! Today, our host is Cathy Langley, Senior Leader of Asset Protection at Solink. Cathy is speaking with Rhett Asher, the Senior Vice President, Partnership Development of ALTO. Rhett is here to discuss how to build a professional network. The biggest tip: Whether you are an extrovert or introvert, just put yourself out there and good things will happen!
Please note that Rhett and Cathy use several abbreviations for different events and groups:
- RILA: Retail Industry Leaders Association
- NRF: National Retail Federation
- ASIS: American Society for Industrial Security
- FMI: Food Marketing Institute
- ORCAS: Organized retail crime associations (generic term for several groups of this type)
- GROC: Georgia Retailers Organized Crime Alliance (an example of an ORCA)
Rhett has had a long career in the retail industry, which he separates into three distinct phases.
“I’ve been at ALTO just under a year. Actually, March will be a year for me. My background has been retail, retail, retail. I grew up in retail operations for the first third of my career. The second third of my career was working with fine people like you at the trade associations and bringing different companies and people together to share best practices, work on research projects, and things like that, and that’s really where I made a wealth of the friends that I have now. Then, this kind of third half of the career, I’ve been with a couple of really great service or solution providers and absolutely love it here at ALTO. Great people, what we’re doing is awesome, and, yeah, I’m just having a blast.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
The basics of networking
Rhett provides a lot of advice on how to network. It can be summarized as putting yourself out there as often as possible, even when you might not see a particular event as valuable beforehand.
Remember, putting yourself out there only begins with attendance. It’s important to actually meet with people, cultivate relationships, and go in with zero expectations.
Attend, Attend, Attend
First and foremost, people looking to network need to attend events. If you are too junior to be invited to the biggest events, go to local ones.
“There are an enormous number of ways you can build your network today, especially through all the great technology. But when we were starting out, it was DOS computers and all that crazy stuff, so you really just had to do it or not. I really think the best way to start is to be present, attend, attend, attend. Just take every opportunity you can to get in front of different types of people and listen. For people like us who are in an industry that is going to conferences and going to industry meetings and stuff like that, you get thrown into these situations. There might be people who are up and coming in this industry that don’t get to go to the RILAs, NRFs, or FMIs of the world, but they could go to some small regional networking meetings. There’s all kinds of Toastmaster-type things and various ways to do it.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
Never miss an opportunity to do something
Sometimes the best relationships are found at the events you might not even see value attending beforehand. That’s why you should have an “always say yes” attitude towards attending new and interesting events.
“I would just say what I’ve always done, is I’ve tried to never miss an opportunity to attend something. That could be as simple as your spouse saying, ‘Hey, let’s go to this family reunion’ or ‘let’s go to this thing at my work’ or whatever. It would be super easy to go, ‘Uh, I don’t feel like going to that. I’m tired.’ I have tried every time somebody’s invited me somewhere, whether it’s been personally or professionally, to just go. Because you never know who you’re going to run into. You never know what you’re going to hear. Frankly, I’ve met some of the most interesting people at events or places that I truly had no desire to go to.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
Force yourself to get out there and meet people
Not every person is an extrovert, and even extroverts have days they’d rather not put themselves out there to meet new people. Even on those days, though, it’s worth trying to be excited and ready for who the world may bring to you.
“Go to an ORCA meeting, go to a Better Business Bureau meeting. All the little cities and municipalities have business meetings. Just go. You’re not going to meet anybody sitting in your house or in an office all day. I truly believe you’ve got to force yourself to get out there and meet people. But Cathy, to your original question, there are a ton of other ways to network today. There is LinkedIn, connecting with people, reaching out through LinkedIn. There is Facebook and there’s Instagram and all the various social networks that you can find people to connect with. There are podcasts like this that you can listen to. I would just say you have to work at it. You can’t assume relationships are going to come to you. You have to be proactive in trying to build those.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
People want to do business with people they know, love, and trust
Be honest and open with people. While being a good person is its own reward, it also makes you the type of person others will want to do business with.
“Yeah, I’ve always said people do business with people they know, love, and trust. There are two caveats in there. First, for ‘people do business with,’ I don’t necessarily mean buying or selling transactional business with, but what I do mean is leveraging of relationships and introducing other people. There’s a whole wealth of doing business. It’s that whole interaction that you have with people. Again, people do that type of business with people they know, love, and trust. The second caveat is that word, love. I don’t want people to take that literally, but love, like, respect, appreciate, whatever word you want to put in there. It means genuine honesty, integrity, being a good person, calling people back, making the relationship two ways. Somebody introduced you to someone, so when somebody asks you, you should do the same thing.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
Avoid the quid pro quo mindset
Don’t network with a goal, especially a financial goal, in mind. It’s off-putting and will hinder your networking results.
“I think the biggest pitfall is anytime you go into a relationship wanting to get something out of it, that whole quid pro quo or tit-for-tat or whatever, I think you are literally shooting the relationship in the foot from the beginning. I try never to go into any relationship assuming or wanting something out of it. I truly enjoy just that interaction with people. If it comes to something, which a lot of times it just does naturally, great. If it doesn’t, then you’ve lost nothing, but you’ve potentially impacted somebody else. That’s so important.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
But 50% of relationships will pay dividend
While looking for a quid pro quo return from networking should not be on your mind, it is very likely to happen. Rhett figures that half his relationships provide a true dividend eventually.
“Yeah, and listen, I think 50% of those relationships are going to pay some sort of dividend at some point during the relationship. When it happens, it’s amazing. It feels great. You’re like ‘man, I’m super glad I went into this with not wanting anything.’” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
Asset protection/loss prevention networking
Most business functions tend to network with people in other businesses performing similar work. However, for asset protection/loss prevention networking, you need to network with those in different roles, or different types of organizations entirely.
Here’s how Cathy put it:
“In the asset protection/loss prevention industry, we’re not just building a network of other professional individuals, but, hopefully, building a network of law enforcement agencies, at various levels, and other government agencies. What feedback or suggestions do you have for the listeners? Let’s say I’m a local loss prevention manager, a regional director. What should I be doing to reach out?” ~ Cathy Langley, Senior Leader of Asset Protection, Solink
Rhett expands on the general networking advice here to put it into the right framework for asset protection/loss prevention.
Expand your circle beyond those you are comfortable with
First of all, don’t just network with people like yourself. Get outside your comfort zone so each new person you befriend provides an educational experience.
“An important part of relationship building is meeting not just the people you’re comfortable with or who are like you. We always talk about how if you surround yourself with people just like you, what’s the point? You want to surround yourself with people who are not like you and who can add value from an educational or relationship standpoint or just through learning. Law enforcement, other retailers, other industries, government agencies, like you said, local chapter groups, whatever it is, I think our industry relies on such a breadth of relationships from different areas and different industries.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
Diversity is such a huge word
Speaking of getting outside your comfort zone, diversity is key to building a valuable network of business contacts. People from different backgrounds, working in different industries, and having different views provide a great opportunity to learn and evolve.
“Again, it’s super important to make sure that your network is not just that small circle of people who are just like you. I don’t want to be a cliché in using the word, diversity, but that word, diversity, is such a huge word because it doesn’t just mean race or culture or gender. It means experiences and ways of thinking and different job skills. Any chance you get to meet somebody who is not like you is even more beneficial than meeting somebody just like you.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
Be charitable with your time
Give back to the loss prevention/asset protection community. If your network has helped you, then help your network. Get involved in the major groups. Finally, encourage them to support the charities that are meaningful in your life.
“On the charity thing, that’s a great epiphany just from this conversation. I know our industry has really done a great job over the years, whether it’s through the big associations or it’s our companies that we work for, or just to your point, the passion of people. We do a good job of sharing the different nonprofits and charity organizations that are special to us.” ~ Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development, ALTO
Final networking advice
Rhett wants to make it clear that, while he is an extrovert, that’s not necessary to be great at networking. Meeting new people comes naturally to some people, but everyone can learn. That effort, in fact, is an important part of cultivating great business and private relationships.
It also makes the experience far more rewarding!
Cathy Langley:
Welcome to Solink in the Cloud, where we are talking to industry leaders about topics that matter. I’m Cathy Langley, Senior Leader of Asset Protection with Solink. Solink’s mission is to protect people, places, and profits, which is why we’re bringing together thought leaders within the loss prevention, asset protection and retail security industries to share their expertise and passion. So with me today, I have Rhett Asher with ALTO. Rhett, can you just introduce yourself to our audience please?
Rhett Asher:
Sure. Thanks for having me, Cathy. And by the way, I got to tell you, I’m jealous of your hair. Anyway, yeah, Rhett Asher, Senior Vice President of Partnership Development with ALTO. Been here just under a year, actually, March will be a year for me. And really my background has been retail, retail, retail. I grew up in retail operations for the first, I guess, third of my career. Second third of my career was working with fine people like you at the trade associations and bringing different companies and people together to share best practices, work on research projects and things like that, and really where I made a wealth of the friends that I have now. And then this kind of third half of the career, I’ve been with a couple of really great service or solution providers and absolutely love it here at ALTO. Great people, great. What we’re doing is awesome and yeah, just having a blast.
Cathy Langley:
That’s awesome. I’m thrilled to have you with us here today. So Rhett and I are going to chat about building a professional network. Not only the importance of it, how to go about it, and just almost lessons learned. Rhett, as I was prepping for this, I’m sure you did the same, I just sort of was, I know how I build a professional network, you know how you do it, but I just Googled it. Gee, what do they say, building a professional network and there’s some good stuff out there, but what you and I really want to chat about is what has worked for you. I feel that that’s, it’s almost like, I think some people are natural at it, and so we can chat about those things, but then we also want to chat about the things where maybe it’s not natural for somebody to reach out. What’s the best way? What are best practices, et cetera.
And then also the differences between, I don’t want to say a normal professional network and an asset protection professional network, but it is a little different, right? Because in my opinion, we have a broader reach. So let me just start with the question of where do you think the best place to begin is, building your network?
Rhett Asher:
Well, listen, I think as we talked about a little bit before the podcast was, there are an enormous amount of ways you can build your network today, especially through all the great technology. But when we were starting out, it was DOS computers and all that crazy stuff. So you really just had to do it or not. And I really think the best way to start is to be present, attend, attend, attend. Just take every opportunity you can to get in front of different types of people and listen, for people like us that are in the industry of going to conferences and going to industry meetings and stuff like that, you get thrown into these situations. There might be people that are up and coming in this industry that don’t get to go to the reloads or NRFs or FMIs of the world, but could go to some small networking regional meetings. There’s all kinds of those Toastmaster type things and various ways to do it.
But I would just say what I’ve never done, is I’ve never, tried never, to miss an opportunity to attend something. And that could be as simple as your spouse saying, “Hey, let’s go to this family reunion, or let’s go to this thing at my work or whatever.” And it’s super easy to go, “Uh, I don’t feel like going to that. I’m tired.” Or I’m this or I’m that. And I have tried every time somebody’s invited me somewhere, whether it’s been personally or professionally, to just go. Because you never know who you’re going to run into. You never know what you’re going to hear. And frankly, I’ve met some of the most interesting people at events or places that I truly just had no idea or no desire to go to.
Cathy Langley:
That’s interesting. I think the other thing that does, is, especially if it’s not your natural state to make small talk and meet people, it also gives you practice. So not only are you meeting interesting people and you never, you just don’t know who knows who, right?
Rhett Asher:
Exactly.
Cathy Langley:
And then you just start branching out. The other thing is if the listeners are not in a position where they do go to some of the larger conferences, to your point, there’s also a lot of small, just even local business meetings. And then also I know ASIS has local chapters. So find out where your local chapters are, where those local meetings are happening, and just go and be present.
Rhett Asher:
Yeah, go to an ORCA meeting. Go to a, what is it? Better Business Bureau meeting. I mean, all the little capitals and cities and municipalities have business meetings and just go. You’re not going to meet anybody sitting in your house or in an office all day. I just truly believe you got to force yourself to get out there and meet people. But Cathy, to your original question, there are a ton of other ways today. There is LinkedIn, connecting with people, reaching out through LinkedIn. There is Facebook and there’s Instagram and all the various social networks that you can find people to connect with. There are podcasts like this that you can listen to. But yeah, I would just say you have to work at it. You can’t assume relationships are going to come to you. You have to be proactive in trying to build those.
Cathy Langley:
Right. And I think the other thing is if you do attend a meeting even with somebody, you can ask them, please introduce me to so-and-so. That’s okay, it’s perfectly acceptable. And your point about LinkedIn, LinkedIn is a phenomenal tool, but it’s not just a matter of connecting to people, it’s reaching out to them, sending them a private message, sending them, actually doing that communication back and forth. The one thing you and I chatted about before we started was the importance of being not just genuine, but genuinely yourself.
Rhett Asher:
Yeah. And listen, I agree. Frankly, I don’t know how to be any other way.
Cathy Langley:
Too stressful.
Rhett Asher:
eah, I guess. I’ve always said people do business with people they know, love and trust. And there’s two caveats in there. It’s people do business with, I don’t necessarily mean buying or selling transactional business with, but what I do mean is leveraging of relationships, introducing other people. There’s a whole wealth of doing business. It’s that whole interaction that you have with people. And so again, people do that type of business with people they know, love and trust. And I’ll go to the second caveat, is that word, love, I don’t want people to take that literally, but love, like, respect, appreciate, whatever word you want to put in there. I just think that whole genuine honesty, integrity, being a good person, calling people back, making the relationship two ways. Somebody introduces you to someone, then somebody asks you, you should do the same thing. And I think it’s one of the things we also talked about, and I know one of your questions was about what are the pitfalls in that relationship?
And I think the biggest pitfall is anytime you go into a relationship wanting to get something out of it, that whole quid pro quo or tit-for-tat or whatever, I think you are literally shooting the relationship in the foot from the beginning. I try never to go into any relationship assuming or wanting something out of it. I truly enjoy just that interaction with people. And if it comes to something, which a lot of times it just does naturally, great. If it doesn’t, then you you’ve lost nothing, but you’ve potentially impacted somebody else. And I think that’s so important.
Cathy Langley:
Yeah, I would completely agree with that. And I think the other thing that a network, again, we’re not necessarily doing it to get something out of it, but at the end of the day, it can be a great support system. That’s one of the intentions, is having a great support system, bouncing a question off of somebody that maybe has a different background, either has different experiences or from a different geographic area, different outlook than you have. And it’s just interesting to have a group of people to bounce ideas off of or “Gee, I’ve never experienced this before, have you experienced this?” You’re building the network of connections and also support.
Rhett Asher:
Yeah, and listen, I think 50% of those relationships are going to pay some sort of dividend at some point during the relationship and that, when it happens, it’s amazing. It feels great. And you’re like, man, I’m super glad I went into this with not wanting anything, because when you get something from that, it just makes it, it’s almost like when your parents used to give you an allowance and then they’d say, “Nope, no more allowance. Go earn your own money.” When I bought stuff as a kid with my allowance, I wouldn’t care if I dropped it in the ground or I lost it. No big deal. I paid for it with my own money, man, I’m coveting the crap out of that. So it’s that kind of thing when you go make it-
Cathy Langley:
Yeah, it makes it more valuable, absolutely.
Rhett Asher:
Yeah, absolutely.
Cathy Langley:
Yeah. So from an asset protection, loss prevention industry, we’re not just building a network of other professional individuals, but hopefully building a network of law enforcement agencies, various levels and other government agencies. What feedback or suggestions do you have for the listeners? Let’s say I’m a local loss prevention manager, a regional director. What am I doing to reach out?
Rhett Asher:
Right, and I think that’s super important. It’s part of that whole importance of relationship building is not necessarily just the people you’re comfortable with or that are like you. We always talk about if you surround yourself with people just like you, what’s the point? You want to surround yourself with people that are not like you. And that can add value from an educational or relationship way or just a learning. So law enforcement, other retailers, other industries, government agencies like you said, local chapter groups, whatever it is. I think our industry relies on such a breadth of relationships from different areas and different industries. I mean, you could get into supply chain and logistics. We all touch some way, shape or form there. A lot of us work with government or law enforcement. I mean, there are so many different types of people we touch every day.
And I just think it’s super important to make sure that your network is not just that small circle of people that are just like you. I don’t want to be a cliché in using the word, diversity, but that word, diversity, is such a huge word because it doesn’t just mean race or culture or gender. It means experiences and ways of thinking and different job skills. And it’s huge. And I just think that any chance you get to meet somebody that’s not like you is even sometimes probably even more beneficial than meeting somebody just like you.
Cathy Langley:
Yeah, I would agree with that. Another idea that I just thought of is probably attending charity events.
Rhett Asher:
Absolutely.
Cathy Langley:
Charity events could be, you’re talking a lot of various people attending those and it can be a charity that you’re passionate about and attending and also volunteer work. There’s just so many ways to meet people and build that professional network.
Rhett Asher:
And that’s, the charity thing, that’s a great epiphany just from this conversation. I know our industry has really done a great job over the years, whether it’s through the big associations or it’s our companies that we work for, or just to your point, passions of people. We do a pretty good job of sharing the different nonprofits and charity organizations that are special to us. I did a podcast or a webinar with LP magazine not long ago, and one of the things they asked about was a charity. And something that most people outside maybe my super inner circle don’t know is that my mom committed suicide when I was young. And so I’ve always had a passion for those suicide prevention type charities or hotlines or education groups. I just think those are so important. Again, I’ve met some incredible people out of that tragedy and into getting involved in groups like that.
So I go back to the first thing I said, it’s meet everyone you can and go everywhere you can, get involved because the more you do, the better your life is, the better fulfilled you are. You’re happier. And you can look on Google about all the things that being happy and having relationships reduces illness and reduces depression and da, de, da, de, da. But I think at the end of the day, it just makes you happy.
Cathy Langley:
Yeah, I would agree with that. And you and I were joking beforehand, shockingly enough for the listeners, Rhett is not an introvert and I am. And we were talking about, although both, I think, very good at building relationships and reaching out and putting yourself out there, it’s more about the way we recover. So whether somebody says, “Well, I’m an introvert,” that’s probably how somebody recovers and shouldn’t impact them being able to reach out. Again, it’s a skillset and the more we practice it, I think the better off we are.
Rhett Asher:
Yeah, I told you earlier the funny story about I have a 246 step walk to work now in my new office and home here in Miami. And I walk literally across the street around this little alley to my building, and I probably run into half a dozen, maybe a dozen people walking around too. And I say hello to everybody and everybody looks at me like I’ve got three heads. Who’s this guy walking around with this huge smile on his face saying hi to everybody? But it’s just what I do. I don’t know, but anyway. Hey, maybe one day of those relationships will turn into something super awesome.
Cathy Langley:
Yeah. And someday maybe when you’re not feeling extremely cheery and you don’t say hello, somebody’s going to say hello back and that’s going to make your day, right?
Rhett Asher:
Hey dude, what’s wrong with you?
Cathy Langley:
What happened? What happened here? So Rhett, with your position at ALTO, and they do some phenomenal things, so what events do you and ALTO have coming up that you’re going to be with folks from the industry and present? Give the listeners an idea of what do you have upcoming on your agenda?
Rhett Asher:
So we’ve got a variety of things. I mean, part of it’s I’m lucky enough to head our marketing division, so I get to pick a lot of that and choose a lot of those. But what ALTO does is super special in that we do have to network with all those levels. And so we’re going to be at the typical NRF, RILA, FMI, big shows, ASIS, things like that. But then we’re also going to be at those regional shows, like the various ORCAS, GROC, those events that are more regionally focused. So we get to really build relationships and tell the story at that level. And then we do a lot of law enforcement events, chief of police events, law events, things like that where we get access to have conversations with people there. So I would say watch our website, watch our LinkedIn post. Just like with you guys, we post everything, everywhere we’re going to be, but we are going to meet as many people as we can because it’s just what I like to do, so.
Cathy Langley:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So as we start wrapping things up here, one of the things from a professional standpoint, I don’t want to say, I, probably, I think the majority of us are in this constant state of improvement and assessment. So I always enjoy the stop, start and continue. So what is one thing I’m going to start doing professionally, stop doing professionally and then continue doing to just continue to improve? So if we take that, we already said our industry is all about relationships. If we take that and we spin it from to a personal perspective for you, can you give us, give me and the listeners a stop, start and continue for you personally?
Rhett Asher:
Wow, I think the most important thing about what you just asked is how do we continue to assess what we’re doing and are we in the right place? And so if we’re talking start, I want to start enjoying the Miami lifestyle where there’s no winter and snow. But I want to start, I think since I’ve been on the solution provider side, I have not done one of the key things in building relationships, which is don’t forget to reconnect with everybody and you get busy all the time. So I’m going to start or restart from a professional level, making sure that I do not lose touch with all those people that I enjoy being around. And I’m not just talking about at conferences, but I mean picking up the phone and taking 10, 15, 20 minutes to talk to people. And then personally, I think I’m going to start working out again.
I have gotten crazy busy and like a lot of us through COVID, we just kind of lost control of, well, I’m not going to say a lot of us. I did not probably eat best. I was in a basement in Chicago in the winter and it’s cold and you know, just eat comfort food. So I think I’m going to start reaching out more and start working out more from a start standpoint. On a stop, I think I’m going to stop letting myself, stop talking myself out of things that I know are right. And by that I mean I get in my head sometimes about, oh well, if I do this or I do that, will it lead to 10 other things that I don’t want or I do want? I tend to overthink sometimes and so I’m going to stop overthinking and just doing.
And that’s something that’s always done really well for me in the past. And I think some points of our lives we get in ruts about things that change us and I’m going to stop doing that. And personally, I’m going to stop eating so much and work out more. And then you notice I didn’t say stop drinking beer because everybody that listens to this knows I’m a beer guy and that’s not going to happen.
Cathy Langley:
And we really desire for this to be a factual conversation.
Rhett Asher:
So continue, I’m going to continue enjoying craft beer with my buddies in the industry and my friends and family because that’s something I super enjoy. And then professionally, I think I’m going to continue to put myself out there in ways like this. While I am an extrovert, I do get nervous speaking and just like everybody else, putting yourselves outside of your comfort zone. And I’m going to continue to challenge myself to be the best I can be and do all those things that are scary and non comfortable.
Cathy Langley:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you for sharing. I know that sometimes it’s not always easy, so I appreciate that.
Rhett Asher:
Absolutely.
Cathy Langley:
So really appreciate your time today, both for the listeners, both Rhett and I, reach out to us on LinkedIn, but send us a note, let’s connect, let’s build networks, and at the end of the day, we’re here to support one another, not just professionally, but also personally. So thank you, listeners. Thank you, Rhett. Really appreciated the time and I will chat with you soon. Thanks.
Rhett Asher:
Thanks so much, Cathy. And have a great day.
