Interview: Melanie Hope, Author of Nose-to-Nose Networking

Book Title:
Nose-to-Nose Networking

Website URL:
http://www.hopespeaking.com

Social Media Links:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hopespeaking
Facebook: http://facebook.com/hopespeakingllc
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/hopespeaking

What is your book about?
How often have you attended a networking event and collected a bunch of business cards – only to end up with a great collection but no real connections? What is the point of all the schmoozing if you aren’t furthering your business or building your network?

The fact is, in this wonderful age of cyber connections, we have only surface relationships with the most important people in our lives: our customers and business associates. How can we build meaningful relationships when we’ve lost the arts of meeting, greeting, and conversing?

It’s not as hard as we build it up to be. In fact, it’s so easy a dog could do it!

Nose-to-Nose Networking is old-fashioned, in-person networking with intention – as taught by the master networker, my Golden Retriever.

What inspired you to write your book?
As a survivor of domestic violence, I found that I had something to give to women who were where I was not too long ago. I volunteered for the YWCA as an instructor in their Return to Work program, and found my self so jazzed by the amazing women in those classes that I started writing a program of my own, “The Employment Empowerment Workshop.” Most of my work revolved around empowering women who had social anxiety.

Every day, I would take my dog, Abby, and work on the program materials in a little coffee shop downtown.

One day, I realized that Abby had left my side. I watched as Abby made friends – literally working the room! I thought, “When it comes to networking, what does she have that we don’t?”

And, then it hit me – NOTHING! We just need to rediscover our trust in ourselves and each other. I started writing down the ways that Abby interacted with people and other dogs, then translating it into how we humans can better interact with each other. Thus was born “Nose-to-Nose Networking.”

How did you come to do what you’re doing today?
I am a recovering accountant who decided one day to follow her bliss. After caring for my dying mother, also an author, it just seemed silly to go back to a job where I’d spend my life balancing books yet never actually have my life add up to anything.

I began first by writing short, inspiring articles, then turning them into speeches. People said I had a knack for both. I found my love!

Can you describe a typical day in your life?
I am a “crack of dawn” girl. My man and my dog, not so much. I wake with the first light (which, in the winter, comes from our sunrise alarm clock, rather than the sky) and bounce out of bed singing. It annoys the whole house.

After I grind the coffee beans and prepare the French press, I ease the rest of the house into wakefulness. Abby staggers to the hallway and slides down the wall, where she’ll lay for a while until she’s ready to fetch the paper. After breakfast and reading the funnies, I send Jim off for the day.

I keep Mondays and Fridays holy for just writing, planning, and catching up on e-mails. The rest of the week I spend running around – networking, speaking, teaching, doing whatever needs to be done. Somewhere in there, Abby gets a walk (she doesn’t care about the weather), unless I’m on a plane, then it’s up to her to booboo face Jim into a session of fetching.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
I love to help people creatively and with boundless enthusiasm. If I wear you out while you learn something about yourself – great!

My joy is fed when I can help unstick someone. It seems that we are so stuck in a cycle of believing we can’t that we don’t know what to do with ourselves when we find that we CAN. When someone lights up with an ‘aha’ moment that spurs a life change, it makes it all worthwhile.

Are there any people and/or books that have inspired you along your journey?
I am a voracious reader and usually have several books going at once. I recently discovered all the classic self-help books, “The Magic of Thinking Big” by Dr. Schwartz, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, anything by Stephen Covey or Dale Carnegie. I’ll read anything with a sense of self and sense of humor at the same time. Papers, magazines, novels – I love it all.

The person that most inspired me was my grandmother. She was a music teacher with a fierce sense of justice. She adored every single one of her students as her own and was always high-energy. She did not take any crap from any one and was a strong woman before it was cool! Her love for just about anything in life overflowed into each one of us and remains there today.

Most recently, my greatest inspiration is my fiance, Jim, who stuck by me in the middle of crisis and still spurred me to finish my books. He believes in me like no one else ever has and loves me even when I’m a mess. He’s brilliant, funny, and open to change. (Thanks to Abby, he even became a dog person.)

Can you share some business tips for our readers?
The most important thing to realize in business or in life is that you are never done. You will never be perfect, and that is a good thing. You should never stop learning – it’s one of the best parts of life! You are surrounded by abundance and opportunity, it’s just up to you to go for it.

Can you share something that people might be surprised to learn about you?
I used to be absolutely terrified of people. I joined Toastmasters just to try and get over fearing to speak out. Really! My first presentation, my hands shook, I held a paper in front of my face, and I literally cried.

Is there anything else you would like to add?
All that cliched stuff about you choosing your destiny and life being what you make it? Yup. All true.