Why You Need a Personal Brand in Treasury (Whether You Like It or Not)

In a world where visibility means opportunity, your personal brand is no longer optional – it’s essential.

In this episode, discover why treasury professionals can no longer afford to stay silent online, and how building a strategic LinkedIn presence can future-proof your career, attract opportunities, and showcase the value you bring – even if you’re not actively looking for a new role.

Listen on:

Featuring

Joe Grabowski

Executive Consultant for US Treasury from The Treasury Recruitment Company,

Mike Richards

CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company

About this episode

This special episode features Mike Richards, CEO and Joe Grabowski, Executive Consultant for US Treasury from The Treasury Recruitment Company,

Together, they dive deep into the often-overlooked power of personal branding within the treasury profession, sharing real-life examples, practical tips, and hard-won lessons from their decades of recruitment experience.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why personal branding matters more than ever for treasury professionals
  • The evolution from offline networking to the LinkedIn era
  • Misconceptions about being active on LinkedIn (and why it doesn’t mean you are job hunting)
  • Practical steps to start building your personal brand today
  • How to post about your achievements without sounding boastful
  • Managing internal perceptions and maintaining authenticity online
  • Tips for updating your LinkedIn profile and avoiding common mistakes
  • The power of consistent networking and making meaningful connections
  • How to handle professional conflict while maintaining your brand
  • Why “visibility” is your new career currency

Check out the FULL Video via our YouTube: https://youtu.be/bJtLXO7pShQ

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Mike Richards, CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company: Welcome to this week’s Treasury Career Corner podcast, where each and every week are usually. Interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. But this is a week with a slight difference because we were asked by one of our associations, uh, to run a virtual session for them. They were actually saying that a lot of their members, if you like, were struggling to get their heads around why, uh, they needed a personal brand in treasury and whether they really need one.

Mike Richards: I said, yes, you guys need one. Whether you like it or not, this is what you need to do. So. Gave them a load of advice. What we actually did was we kept the audio. Uh, there’s also a video available, uh, where Joe and I we give some illustrations and talk a bit more about exactly what you should be doing with your personal brand in treasury and why it’s so key nowadays.

Mike Richards: So have a listen. If you want to go and check it out on YouTube, enjoy the episode and let’s get on with the show. Hello everyone. I’m Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. Literally it says down over there somewhere on that side. You know that side? That’s it on my screen. I’ve been a treasury recruiter for 25 years.

Mike Richards: Joe, let’s do you, we talk about personal brand. Joe, do you wanna explain who you They go, that’s me. There you go, Joe. Yeah, I’ll,

Joe Grabowski, Executive Consultant, US Treasury, The Treasury Recruitment Company: I’ll keep it to what’s relevant. I’ve been in recruiting for 20 years. I’ve been in the treasury space for about five, and I oversee the US operations for Mike. Lovely.

Mike Richards: And when we first started, I about you, Joe.

Mike Richards: You didn’t need a personal brand. It was like your personal brand was you go to the pub, you meet some treasury folks, you talk about your treasury careers, and if you wanted to go and get business, you get a new directory, a FP directory, a CT. You go through, you talk to people. That’s how you built it.

Mike Richards: Then along came. Social media. Then came LinkedIn, the Beast, that is LinkedIn, and then this all started as well. So that’s how it’s grown and that’s why now both Joe and I, we go across, we spoke a FPI shared a stage with Summer Simmons about networking, but also your personal brand at a FP last year in Nashville.

Mike Richards: And now you have to do it because the fact is if you don’t do it, someone else will control your personal brand. The worst thing is. If you are not doing things on LinkedIn, we’ll come back to that in a minute, then someone else will do it for you and they will steal your limelight if you like, and they will control what people are saying about you.

Mike Richards: So we’re gonna go through this, try and give you some advice. Do ask questions. Again, as I say, with a lot of our live sessions, if you don’t, you are missing out. It’s your fault. You’ve got a chance to ask just Joe and I, some straight questions. We’ll answer them as best we can. We can do some of them offline as well.

Mike Richards: So yeah, Mo Richards run the Treasury recruitment company. Also run a podcast. And a number of people have been guests throughout time. We’ve got Tim Husni, got some great podcast guests there. I’ve been talking to treasurers for 20 plus years, I thought six, seven years ago. Why don’t I record these conversations, talk about people’s treasure gives and help them, which it has done, and it’s grown and grown.

Mike Richards: 200,000 downloads. It’s free. You can get it on all your apps. So go on Apple, go on Spotify and everything else. We talk about how you develop your treasury careers. And as part of that, we talk about how molding your own professional brand is a key part of this. And actually having a professional brand and a crossover, a personal brand, and I’ll get Joe to talk about that as well in a minute, is actually quite tough now, trying to keep those two things separate.

Mike Richards: So this is why it matters. It’s bigger than you guys. It’s what is said about you. We go, here you go. This is Jeff Bezos. He said this little known guy, he knows a few things or two. Apparently only one of the most successful people of the world. It’s about what? You’re not in the room, but actually I’ve taken this a little bit further.

Mike Richards: Say, there you go. It’s not about what they say, it’s about what they also think. Believe about you,

Joe Grabowski: Joe. What are you gonna say? As far as personal branding goes, I know you, you mentioned LinkedIn and social media and had the, the advent there. I’ve been using LinkedIn since 2008. More of a cautionary tale. I didn’t take my personal brand seriously up until, oh, I had a pretty good brand and then I deleted my profile.

Joe Grabowski: I. Believe it or not, when I joined a competitor in the treasury industry, I guess is what we’ll say, that was back in 2019, but I lost 15,000 connections, a ton of referrals and just a lot of connections that would still benefit me today built off of that previous brand. Now, I guess I’ve done it twice and I would much rather not do it a third time.

Joe Grabowski: So if you’re, no matter where you’re at on your journey, keep going.

Mike Richards: But Joe, we are recruiters. These guys are treasury professionals. It doesn’t matter to treasury professionals. They’re not in sales. They don’t need this, surely.

Joe Grabowski: Treasury professionals, present, company included, possibly excluded. They are a very, how do we say, may not interact with everything, but certainly are paying attention to what’s going on.

Joe Grabowski: So I guess, for lack of a better term, creepers is what you could call them. But yes, so that’s why in order to be known about what you do or what you’re actually doing, what, like where you want to take your career, the only way to do that is to put it out there. And to continue to celebrate your own accomplishments in some way.

Joe Grabowski: And it’s counterintuitive because nobody wants to, everybody has that humility or that humbleness about them. But if you’re not putting it out there, how are people gonna know?

Mike Richards: And this is the thing, when I did this for New York, people were, why did they avoid it? These are the reasons, and these were the top reasons.

Mike Richards: And we did this brainstorm as well. This is the key one. I think the biggest one is, hang on. Oh, they must be looking for a job. No. They’re not looking for a job necessarily. They’re wanting, and you guys, as treasury professionals, you do a great job, but no one knows. It’s like a leaf in the forest that drops.

Mike Richards: No one hears it if no one can see it. And this is the thing. You can go on to LinkedIn and you can put up there your achievements. What have you done? What have you achieved this week? Maybe? What have you achieved this month? It doesn’t have to be showy off. People were worried about it, and we’ll come back some other bits about being boastful.

Mike Richards: What about negative feedback or controversy? Don’t put anything up there that can be controversial. You don’t need to put a political opinion. You might have one, but you don’t necessarily want to do that. One of the, you give a practical example. So I had Emma Hayward. Treasurer, Dal Lace Group. Amazing lady.

Mike Richards: We talked about her achievements and what she needs to do or what the way that she records them. She said, mark, I’m a really busy treasurer, but what I do on a Friday morning, 10 minute cup of coffee and I send myself an email, okay. And it goes into a little email folder, and she keeps a little black book of her achievements and of her team.

Mike Richards: Whenever her C-F-O-C-E-O walks up, how are you getting on? What have you done this? What week? What have you achieved? What have done this quarter? What have you done this half year? She’s having to gimme a sec. Boom. It’s a great tip and you can literally just see that and it comes out to you as well. And Joe, what other thoughts do you think with people updating it on LinkedIn?

Joe Grabowski: It’s, there’s just a lot of, a lot of hesitancy. The imposter syndrome is probably what I hear most commonly is like, who cares what I do? Or am I even good at what I do? And the reality is we all think that our problems are individual to ourselves, but chances are if you’ve faced something or you’ve overcome something that someone else in your network that you’re connected to is either going through the same thing or at least has been through something similar.

Joe Grabowski: So put it out there and see what happens. You never know how your community is gonna grow or what post is gonna resonate with what. With your network, I guess you can say. Yeah.

Mike Richards: And the other bit is your LinkedIn profile is your business calling card. It’s working for you 24 7. Now, again, you might put on here, where are you looking for a job?

Mike Richards: What if you are not looking for a job, but what if a job comes looking for you? We also do a salary survey as well, so feel free to take part. It’s free. We have 1500 treasury professionals take part in it and it’s continuous, continually goes on and stuff like that. We’ve just changed one of the questions, the question before was, are you seeking, are you open to new career opportunities?

Mike Richards: About 70% of people were saying, yes, I’m open to it, and 30% were saying no. That’s fine, but actually I’ve changed the question now. The question now is if we came to you with the right role that was the right fit for you and everything else, would you be interested in the conversation? It’s jumped to 95%, so 95% I would say, of treasury professionals are open to role.

Mike Richards: You’re not looking, you don’t have to be. It’s like when I talk at various conferences, like Chicago for instance as well, did this last year’s conference. I said, who in this room is looking for a role? They went about 10%. Put their hands up. Great. Said, okay. Who here? If I came to you with a role that was of interest to you, would answer, the phone would be open to it, 90% of hands went up, and then of the 10% that didn’t.

Mike Richards: I said, I know you guys are sitting next to your boss. Don’t worry. I’ve already got their resumes. So Yeah, and they were all like, oh. I was like, yeah, I know you’re looking, so that’s fine. Oh,

Joe Grabowski: poll question. Go on, Joe. Oh no, I was just gonna say it’s. It’s interesting, and I think most of the individuals in this room are probably more senior level, but as you get higher up in that hierarchy, it really becomes an issue of timing because the right job might pop up for you when you’re not ready to make a move, but it’s not necessarily going to be on your terms.

Joe Grabowski: Yeah. It’s up to you to seize the opportunity. And that’s most common conversation I think I have with more senior level treasury professionals is my job search is taking a lot longer than I ever thought it would, and it ultimately just comes down to timing. So whether you’re looking for a job or not.

Joe Grabowski: Build your brand and more opportunities will pop up for you. Start to knock

Mike Richards: on your door and stuff. So guys in in the chat, if you can look at this again, you’re not sure whether it’s worth it and we’ll just give you some advice. So choose with it. Don’t wanna sound like I’m bragging. That was the top one actually.

Mike Richards: ’cause this is what we found with, when I did the New York session, I found that we found that 90% of treasury professionals hadn’t updated their LinkedIn profile in six months. Anything but on there, it’s just like holding page just sits there. Boom. It’s not doing any work for you, but you guys are working head down.

Mike Richards: Do you think your companies are looking after your treasury careers like you are? You’ve got to be in charge of it. You’ve got to take responsibility. If you don’t direct it, then you are letting them. Take charge of that stuff. There you go. So yeah, you’ve got caution about how it might be internally.

Mike Richards: Yeah, that’s a key one as well. Now the key thing here, it’s, you don’t have to be bragging about it. Chat GBT actually is really good for this. If you say, look, I wanna put up something about this, I also get the pushback, some sort of privacy I wanna say about what we’ve achieved by implementing this treasury system.

Mike Richards: I didn’t do it all. Don’t say you did it all. Just explain. We’ve recently implemented a new treasury management system. This is what it’s done for us, and then what a surprise people will start to approach you. Nicole and I, we were just talking. Who’s helping me with this? I’ve just said to Nicole, and actually I did the women and treasury event for the guys at New York Cash Exchange earlier this year.

Mike Richards: I just saw they were putting forward a session doing this, and I said, look, can I help just put my hand up? Yes, please. Actually, could you be public? Yeah. Great. That led to getting CTP credits for doing your live sessions, Mike, that led onto. Anyone doing this session may get CTB credits. But anyone, if you listen, that was the other thing.

Mike Richards: Listen to our podcast. Now you get CTB credits. You a little quick quiz. But again, the way that this comes across, I’m not bragging about this, is if you want to come across and say, look, I said I’m not sure how it’s worth sharing if you don’t share, no one else is gonna, it’s just gonna be in a vacuum. Joe, other thoughts or bits as we keep moving on?

Joe Grabowski: No, I’m, I think we all think that people are paying more attention to what we do than they actually are. Yeah, it’s a busy world, let alone whether or not people are even on LinkedIn or we’re connected to the people that would matter. And part two to that is if someone came up to me and was like, Hey, I’ve noticed what you’ve been posting on LinkedIn.

Joe Grabowski: I, I’d tell him to get a fricking hobby if I was working with him. Mike, if you came to me today and you were just like, Hey, you’re posting some weird stuff on LinkedIn and be like, go do something else. This is my brand, this is my profile. This is what I’m doing. So that’s just gotta throw caution to the wind in some ways.

Joe Grabowski: And to Mike’s point, don’t throw a whole bunch of internal con confidential information or anything out there. But yeah, keep it within reason and continue to build who you are.

Mike Richards: It’s a professional website. This is it. Some people have also said, oh, but it’s actually about jobs. It’s not about jobs. And in actual fact, with the video feed and all the other changes that LinkedIn are making, they are trying to push it more and more towards advertising professional services that.

Mike Richards: Does include careers. That does include jobs, but it’s not. It’s about you guys. And actually having that professional brand, it can be about getting speaking gigs, it can be getting out there, and this is your, as I put here and I’m putting on my screen business card, it’s there and make it for business. Do professional stuff, go over to Facebook.

Mike Richards: I don’t even do Facebook because that’s my private life and I don’t even do Facebook. So that’s it. So other things, if it’s a business card. If you don’t have a photo on there and it’s a professional photo, and we’ll go that in a minute, then it just, why bother? It’s, I’ve done this before, actually I can do it now.

Mike Richards: It’s like you have this, and I did this in Brussels a few years ago and I’ve done this before if you’ve seen it, sessions, and they said, oh, I don’t really like having a photo. And I said, great. You walk into a business meeting next time you meet a bank and I want you to go, hi, I’m Mike. How are you guys?

Mike Richards: Yeah, great to see you. Yeah, lovely. Yeah, like that’s what you’re doing. You’re essentially turning your back on your audience and not making them feel welcome. They wanna see you, they wanna check you out. They wanna see that Joe on photos, and we’ll come back to that as well.

Joe Grabowski: I was just gonna ask if you could do the rest of the presentation facing in that way.

Joe Grabowski: It’s less distracting. Yeah,

Mike Richards: he’s so rude. It’s so rude. This is it. That’s, you guys are recording this. This is a verbal warning. This is it. We got this now. It got on tape. Thank God. No, but exactly right. And the key thing is as well, this separate thing with photos is. If you do change your photo, put it up there, get someone who’s not connected to you to please check your photo.

Mike Richards: Why do I say this? Because LinkedIn changed their rules. You can actually, I’ll send you some links after this as well. That doesn’t always show your photo. It will come up as a gray blob and I see some of my rival recruiters come up as a gray blob ’cause their privacy settings are set wrong. How do you do this?

Mike Richards: We’ve got a little bit, you can go onto our website, be on my weekly news letter, actually this week, next Tuesday, coming out next Tuesday, which shows you how to make sure that your is visible headlines. Why shouldn’t Joe, why shouldn’t someone just say, Hey, I’m a treasury manager,

Joe Grabowski: because that’s boring.

Joe Grabowski: What do you actually do for a living? Are you a an expert cash manager? Are you an expert FX hedging or an fx? He hedging expert? Are you an expert in capital markets like there are, God knows how many treasury managers out there. You gotta find a way to separate yourself from the noise.

Mike Richards: Yeah. And again, I’ve done this at conferences.

Mike Richards: I said, how many people just have cash manager on the profile? I said, okay. Has anyone here saved any money this year? Yeah. Has anyone saved any man hours? Person hours? Yes. Done it. Bob, hang on. Tell us about that. I. It doesn’t have to be confidential information. ’cause that leads into your about section on your LinkedIn and people say, hang on, I’ve got a full-time job.

Mike Richards: I know you have. But if you were just to put in, think what the, you know, so on Friday morning, maybe after this, just pencil in, have a coffee with yourself, said, what difference did I make to my company, to my job this week? Put that in your diary for Friday morning, five minutes over a coffee and then.

Mike Richards: Without being, keep it confidential, but then put it on your LinkedIn profile, what difference you made. Don’t just put in, I implemented this. So what, like what difference did you make? Did you save the company money? Did you save them time? Did you reduce cost? Just put it in there and by doing this, you’ll actually, and keep on repeating it, I’m doing it with a business coach and I’ve said this to other people that I have to record my wins each week.

Mike Richards: I hate doing it. I want to be bragging. I don’t find it comfortable. I force myself to get outta that and that has led to lots of other stuff. It’s like doing our conferences, doing sponsorships, doing, coming across, speaking at a FP. Without doing that, I’m not sure I would be speaking at a FP in Boston because I got got out of my own way, and that’s what you treasury folk need to do.

Mike Richards: Joe, other comments?

Joe Grabowski: Not only that, what you’re talking about is essentially building your business case for review time. That’s, I don’t know about you guys. I barely remember what I did last week, let alone three months ago or anything like that. So that’s just the running tally of success that you’ve had along the way or, or adversities you’ve overcome along the way.

Mike Richards: Yeah, and then it’s, again, it’s here treating LinkedIn like your online cv. So next bit I think at photos. Yeah, this is my favorite. So what you’re about to see comes with a health warning. Okay? These photos, uh, now you might recognize who they are of in here, so. Strap in, sit down. Great. Yeah, look at that.

Mike Richards: Those, a lot of those are a face of radio. I know they’re bad, but what these were is we created this as LinkedIn post actually, and went a bit viral, got thousands of views, but each of these photos is a remade photo. ’cause I thought actually if I included the real life photos, I would be in court. People would just say, slander.

Mike Richards: That’s it. We took all these photos and they were roommates and at one stage people were saying, can you show me the real one? And I did. And there was this one guy with a phone looking really serious. I’m like, really? That’s your LinkedIn photo. You’ve got me with the Kronenberg and the Crazy shirt. You can borrow that for parties if you want a Bar Mitzvahs.

Mike Richards: I don’t mind. All of these are real photos we managed to find from people, and a lot of them were in treasury. Now, the worst one, you can’t actually see why, because the one of the photos was a treasurer global treasurer. For a tire manufacturer in France. That’s all I’m telling you. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Mike Richards: ’cause actually he’s moved on jobs, so it’s okay now. And it was a photo at the Christmas party and he, there was a little character and on his shoulder, he is like doing a little kiss. They put it as his LinkedIn photo. I was like, oh, MG man. Really? Like, why are you doing this? You’ve also, when you update your photo as well, just check it on a different device.

Mike Richards: Look it on your phone. Look it on someone else’s phone. Make sure it’s not squashed. Yes, it’s great to have kids. That’s a photo of my son from years ago. We don’t wanna see that. That’s not, that kid can’t work very much. That’s child labor laws. Joe, some of the worst photos you’ve seen.

Joe Grabowski: How much time do we have to cover here?

Joe Grabowski: Yeah, it’s, you’ve covered the basics.

Mike Richards: We’ll leave it there. Right. Okay. Keep going. There you go. Have an appropriate photo, not a berry photo. People have said so one again, Emma Hayward, she said the other day, she still had a photo on her LinkedIn of one of the cars that they do. Said, Emma, really? I can’t do that on the LinkedIn stuff, on the podcast, rather.

Mike Richards: So we, her son took a quick photo. I did a couple of edits on it. 10 minutes later, she’s got a new professional photo. It was, oh wow. That’s great. Thanks very much. It was on his iPhone. It doesn’t take very long. Yeah, it’s a good one, right? What we go next? Yeah. Friendly, professional. Yeah. Not having been a beer.

Mike Richards: The thing is, I’m not saying you, as I said earlier, not saying a job. You are looking for a job, but a job might come looking for you. It might not just be a job, it might be an opportunity. It might be to speak at a FP to speak actually on one of these A FP panels. One of the regional group panels to contribute to help your colleagues, to help your peers as well.

Mike Richards: It’s a really good thing. So none of that actually shocks me. Joe, any other tips? It’s,

Joe Grabowski: no. It’s again, if, even if you’re not looking for a job where, how and where are you come up in search results also depends on how often you’re using the platform. Because this is social media. At the end of the day, it is business social media, but it is social media.

Joe Grabowski: So if, again, I think the theme of the. Presentation seems to be, find the time. Make the time each week. And again, the theme there is just you’re using this as a running business card for what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished. That way when you go to create a resume, or if you ever do find yourself in the job market, you’re not scrambling because you already have that running list and that dialogue, or I’m sorry, that diary.

Mike Richards: Yeah, and one thing I would add is I spoke a few years ago at Windy City Summit, which takes place this week, but I was talking to one of the student interns and he was, I said, look, he said, oh, I do LinkedIn, but it’s all right. I said, Facebook and I don’t do this. And I said, grant, can you just do me a favor?

Mike Richards: Can you grab me a beer, please? And someone said, oh, okay. So went off and get a beer, and he came back five minutes, a couple of minutes later. I said, oh, thanks for that. How was Juan? He said, what? I said, how was TJ over the border? And he is like, what are you talking about? And I just took his, showed him a photo that I’d managed to find.

Mike Richards: I said, look, I used a really little known search engine called Google, and I Googled your name and I put in party and I put in beer and it’s you. He said, oh my goodness, how did he at the time was implying for applying for internships? And I was like, yeah, you need to get off of Facebook. And he had to go in, he had to remove some photos, but he’d been tagged in his friend’s photos.

Mike Richards: So it’s visibility does create career opportunities, but also can be a danger. So be careful there. That’s the health warning. Oh, podcast is sponsored by ICD. ICD are an independent platform trusted by thousands of treasury professionals worldwide to manage short term investments. One. Global Treasurer recently told me it was one of the smartest technology decisions they’ve made.

Mike Richards: No license fees, rapid setup and tangible returns. If you are looking for a smarter, simpler way to manage your liquidity, then head to find out more at our partners page, treasury recruitment.com/partners, and find out much more. Let’s get back to the episode. Right there. Go. These are some of the other things you can do.

Mike Richards: We’ll keep it short and sweet. There you go. It’s about getting out there, networking, raising your hand and everything else. I do want some questions from you guys in a minute. No, difficult one summer. Thank you. And, uh, networking more than just drinks. This is exactly it. Now there was this amazing lady I shared a stage with.

Mike Richards: She might be on this panel, but not really on this panel we talked about at a FP in Nashville, the networking. Isn’t just having a beer. When we did our session in Houston two weeks ago, the challenge I gave to the audience when, you know, and again you guys can do it when you go to sessions as well, is after this, everyone’s gonna break for a beer.

Mike Richards: And I was like, oh great. And I said, and if you walk out of here and you have connected to no one else on LinkedIn and not just a random connection request, Hey, connect to me. Connect to me you were at the event, and just see their badge. And you haven’t exchanged more than three words to that person you failed.

Mike Richards: Said what you need to do is engage with someone. Doesn’t take long, have a conversation. I said, you’ve given them my permission. And actually everyone was like, oh, bit quiet at the beginning, but even our sponsor said three minutes in because I’ve given everyone a challenge to make three friends, to make three connections in that.

Mike Richards: Within 10 minutes, the room was on fire. It was like buzzing. I was like, wow. And one of the guys came up to me after 50 minutes went, I’ve got seven, Mike. I’m like, what? He said, I’ve got seven connections and they’re all relevant to me and it’s really good. And I’m meeting a couple of them for a coffee next week.

Mike Richards: I’m like, it’s more than just about the beers, Joe networking tips.

Joe Grabowski: Just be intentional with your networking. Yeah, and just to get to know people. Get to know the person, but also get to know how you might be able to benefit one another in the future. Don’t focus on what’s in it for me. Focus on what can I do to help you or how can we connect?

Joe Grabowski: What do you, just start asking questions and be curious. I think that’s the most important thing in networking is just be curious. Ask questions. Don’t focus on talking about yourself and to steal

Mike Richards: a phrase from Summer Simmons who is part of this group. N Networking is hard work. As it says in here, there’s work in the middle of it.

Mike Richards: It’s not easy, and particularly if you may be a bit more introverted and stuff like that, you do need to get out of your own way. Now, it doesn’t mean to say you have to be out there. Hi, hi. Hi. You can just go and meet someone, talk to them. When you go to your next conference, whether it’s a regional or whatever, go there and that’s with your aim to make three new connections and the next time make four.

Mike Richards: It’s iterative and it grows your network as well. So you go, so it’s not socializing. Proactive follow up is key. Oh, here we go. Like this. Nice. Hang on, I’m gonna come back to some of those questions in a minute. Your network is your net worth. That is from Leanne Perkins. She’s brilliant. She just used that phrase and she said, look, the more that you can network, the more that you get.

Mike Richards: Inbound inquiries, the more that you can meet people and it’s made her a success and it gets you more opportunity. She said herself that she’s not a natural, but that’s what she’s done. She’s put in the work, and this is a key thing within treasure. You guys do a great job and you don’t tell anyone about it.

Mike Richards: Yeah. We got questions. We then went to question and answer with our audience, and I was then asked a very honest and vulnerable question by one of the. Panelist, one of the participants if you like. And I think what she shared speaks something that to, that a lot of us wrestle with. So their question was, I’ve always believed what other people think of me as none of my business.

Mike Richards: But I struggle to separate that mindset from the reality of office politics, career progression, and there’s someone I work closely with. We just don’t see eye to eye. I’ve tried to use data and logic to support my approach, but they don’t seem open to it. I don’t necessarily, on a personal level, care about their opinion, but we’re in such a specialized field.

Mike Richards: How do I manage the professional aspects from that? Someone’s negative perception of me, especially when I feel that I’m in the right and I want to manage this going forward. Can you help me? You know what? What advice do you give? And this was the answers that both myself and Joe gave. The way that I would say about it is you accept that they’re a rock.

Mike Richards: They’re not gonna move, they’re transited, they’re staying there. So you either have to navigate round that rock or over it, or just try and work with it. They’re not gonna move. They’re just gonna stay where they are. They’re not gonna change. Your opinion is wrong. Wrong, okay? You can counter that by saying, and not go into conflict with them.

Mike Richards: Just actually try and work with them. Just say, look, you’ve got your opinion. I’ve got mine. Let’s try and wait. Look at middle way. See if you can do that. Sometimes you’re just not gonna be able to work with those people and just try and have to work with other team members and stuff. Joe, have you got

Joe Grabowski: any thoughts?

Mike Richards: I.

Joe Grabowski: Yeah. At the end of the day, you can’t please everybody. What you can do, you can control how you’re reacting and how you’re communicating with that person, right? You can’t control how they’re receiving it, how they’re going to react or anything like that. So as long as you’re staying professional within your realm, then at the end of the day, it.

Joe Grabowski: It’s just gonna be, it is what it is, and you’ve got a job to do. He’s got a job to do. I don’t know if you’d ever cross paths if either one of you ever moved on again or like how his perception of you might be impacted If you’re handling things professionally and you’re controlling what you can control in a positive way, and he’s still going out of his way to badmouth you or create some sort of perception around the company, I would like to think that people would see through that and it would speak more about him than it would about your you or your ability to be perfectly honest with you.

Joe Grabowski: You’re also interacting with other areas of the business, right? And you’re, you have partnerships. People know who you are, people know what you’re capable of. So at some point it’s your word against his. And you can control your word, right? You can control your own perception or how you’re being perceived by other people, by the actions that you’re taking day to day.

Mike Richards: Yeah. You can only control your actions. You can’t control the actions of others. Yeah, necessarily as people say about stress, there is no such thing as stress. People say yes, there is a no. That’s your reaction to pressure. That’s where when you have pressure put on you, you can get stressed or you can choose to run away or you can ch you choose your reaction.

Mike Richards: So this is what I’m saying is that you choose how you react to that, that’s what’s in your control. That’s

Joe Grabowski: one of the key things as well. And as for everybody else, that could be a potential stakeholder that you need to stay on good terms with. You just kill them with kindness and whatever. The heck your revenue cycle manager is saying just whatever.

Joe Grabowski: Yeah, he’s gonna go off and do his thing.

Mike Richards: And feel free to chuck any further questions in there if you’ve got anything else. One of the other things I was gonna say, if you go to treasury recruitment.com, we’ve also got advice about LinkedIn profiles as well. So you can go there and it gives you more advice about some of the do’s and don’ts.

Mike Richards: Um, here we go. So Nicole, what advice would you give to someone who feels like they’re being too much or not enough when trying to define their personal brand? Ooh, good one. Feels like they’re being too much or not enough. I think there is a balance. If I give, so I’ll give a personal example. We do a Tuesday newsletter.

Mike Richards: Which is my thought. We plan them out once for once a week, of course, of course of a month. And then on a Friday I do a conversation. I do a bit to camera and I’m gonna do some conversations with Joe and do some conversations with Katie. Just about the, and these are pieces of advice that I give from conversations with guys like yourselves.

Mike Richards: For instance, one of the upcoming ones is with candidates who have been saying to me, I wanna get into treasury. But brilliant. Are you in treasury now? Have you got any experience? No, but I’ve read about it. I’m like, okay then. Alright, so you’ve got none of that, but you are a banker and you’ve just dealt with treasury people.

Mike Richards: Yes. I wanna be in treasury. Okay. And I try and give advice about how they might make that bridge that gap and what they can do. So we try and do that. And when it goes about too much, and I sometimes worry that I’m flooding LinkedIn too much with too much content. However, what I have found is by just doing it twice a week.

Mike Richards: The feedback I’m getting from you guys is incredible. ’cause also a lot of the time we do the podcast and that’s not about me, I’m doing it because I love talking to treasurers. And actually we share that with you guys and that’s just bigger and bigger. And now I’ve got more inbound inquiries where a FP want me to speak.

Mike Richards: A FP said, can we get CTP credits for that? And I’m doing that to help you guys as a treasury professor, which I’m passionate about. I’m not doing it to big PR and stuff like that. Joe, what

Joe Grabowski: are your thoughts? What’s the balance? I, I naturally default to authenticity. Whatever feels comfortable to you, but you do have to challenge yourself and take yourself outta your comfort zone because that’s where the growth comes from.

Joe Grabowski: For instance, if you’re only comfortable posting once a month, I would challenge myself to do once a week because again, that’s, it’s the practice and the repetitions that’s gonna get you more comfortable there, as long as you’re staying authentic to who you are. And I would also define the purpose for why you wanna post, too.

Joe Grabowski: A lot of it. Like my content that I put out there is conversations that I’ve had with treasury practitioners that I was like, oh, this person had this question. Somebody else in my 5,000 plus connections probably has this too. And I get tons of messages and tons of responses. People saying, thank you so much.

Joe Grabowski: I was going through this, blah, blah, blah, blah. You just never know what conversation it’s gonna start, but that’s why. And I know it might be controversial, but that’s why I hate using AI for content and I just, because it’s not my authentic voice. You can tweak it, you can do that type of stuff, but you might use it for idea generation or something like that.

Joe Grabowski: But just stay authentic to the brand that you want to create because it is tiring trying to maintain an image or a brand for the sake of your audience, and it doesn’t align with who you are as a person.

Mike Richards: And I’ll just add something actually on ai. We, we were talking about about some AI sessions coming up.

Mike Richards: Kevin Chemin, who’s my podcast coach and he’s brilliant. Kevin did a post and I listened to his podcast as well. AI, for all you guys out there is average. I. It is 100% average and then But what? No, hang on a I was really, no, it is average. What it’s doing is it takes a load of content that we’ve been feeding into it for the past, what, five years or whatever.

Mike Richards: It’s gone back however long it’s gone. Back in the past. It’s taken all the, this content and it’s taken bad content. It’s taken average content, and it’s taken great content, and what it’s done is averaged it all out. So if you put stuff into AI at the moment, it comes out as average unless you give us clear instructions.

Mike Richards: So if for instance, you wanted some food or you wanted the best poached egg or something like that, it will give you a very average poached egg if you ask it to do it however you say, can you take these three chefs, look at all of the stuff they’ve told us and do we an average of tho those three eggs.

Mike Richards: It’s gonna give you a great poached egg. So when you are using ai, it’s a tool. And then the fact is a tool can be very useful, all can be very dangerous as well in the wrong hands. So yeah. That was just one of the things that I heard the other day. Joe, we’re gonna do key takeaways. Yep. Joe’s you first.

Mike Richards: Wow. Look at that. Very professional. It is.

Joe Grabowski: Yeah. I think the theme has been, no matter where you’re at, if you’ve been doing this, I know Summer’s gone now, but she, she’s very good at being constantly present on LinkedIn. She had to start somewhere, and what you can’t do is get lost in the comparison game saying, oh, this person has so many followers that, and they have so many likes, so much engagement, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Joe Grabowski: That’ll never be me. That’s, you’re just giving yourself reasons not to start. So the whole idea, quit making excuses just fricking do it. See what works, see what doesn’t continue to work with what works, drop what doesn’t. And that kind of flows into the second point, which is done done’s better than perfect.

Joe Grabowski: You could get into your head quite a bit and wastes quite a bit of time, or maybe never even post or put something out there because you could sit there and say, I don’t like the way this sentence is formed, or, I don’t like the way I said this. Put it out there. I just put it out there, wrong or indifferent, see how it resonates with your audience.

Joe Grabowski: It’ll come across as human. It’ll come across as authentic. It’ll be all right. And of course, that follows into the third, be authentic. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. It’s fricking exhausting, and the content won’t come across and may not resonate with your audience. That way. If you’re not being authentic, and you’re also, at the end of the day, you’re cheapening your own brand if you’re not being authentic with who you actually are.

Joe Grabowski: Yeah, so that’s what I’d say.

Mike Richards: I’ve got this other question. How do you differentiate your personal brand for companies, especially if the two are closely tied? I’ll probably give it in my example. So the Treasury recruitment company is my company and the way that we are as a company is we are very corporate because we deal with corporates, we get inbound inquiries and everything else.

Mike Richards: The opinions I put out, I sometimes see it on LinkedIn. I say the opinions are entirely my own, my opinions, I, there are some things that really grind my gears and drive me crazy. I don’t put them out there. I. Because the fact is my personal brand and who I am, yeah, you’ll get that a hundred percent from me when we’ve had a few beers and I’ve got to know you in a private setting.

Mike Richards: I’m not gonna give you my full a hundred percent every day on LinkedIn. It could damage my brand. And in that sense, that’s one of the things I would say is that you do need to be careful. Because both reflect on one another. It’s a bit like that Facebook thing as well. Joe, what would you say about differentiating the two?

Joe Grabowski: I kinda look at it like work life balance in some way where it’s not a balance, it’s a blend, right? So you can still be professional, but you can still be authentic and stay I. Within your own brand that you want to build it. It’s again, you’re managing, you’re doing what you can to manage perception of yourself externally.

Joe Grabowski: So if you decide that you wanna engage in religious or political conversation on LinkedIn, then by all means, but don’t be surprised if it comes back and bites you in the butt at some point. I always was taught very early on that always, anytime you’re gonna put a post out there, anytime you’re gonna do anything like that, act as if the owner of the company is sta standing over your shoulder reading what you’re saying.

Joe Grabowski: That’s the devil and angel on the shoulder where you can sit there and be like, I could go this way, or I could go this way. But yeah,

Mike Richards: and it doesn’t mean to say, as you say, that you don’t have an opinion, but the fact is you need to back it up and realize that you are being judged. Social media is social.

Mike Richards: Yeah. At the end of the day, you, you are putting yourself out there if you don’t wanna be judged, don’t put yourself out there. That is what is you are giving. You’re putting that opinion out, but be ready for it to come back. And the more extreme it is, the more you’re gonna get it back and stuff like that.

Mike Richards: And if you’ve got other questions, you can drop either Joe or I Joe at Treasury recruitment, mike@treasuryrecruitment.com. But my bits takeaways for me, I’ve talked to a few about this. This is the first bit network with purpose. It comes back to what I did with New York Cash Exchange and some other things is I.

Mike Richards: Build real connections. Don’t just go there. Oh, hi. Hi, hi. Glad hand quick. That’s why we do a lot of the stuff we do because then it will, if you go to these conferences, these relationships will open doors for you whether with your planned about it or not. It’s the fact is, if you are doing this stuff, if you get involved with CO A FP and if you do this stuff and put your hands up to help out the team there as well, you get involved.

Mike Richards: The more you do, it will open doors for you. You dunno what doors they will be as well. Sharing your wins please, guys, come on. It’s not bragging in that you can do it confidentially. Just do an iterative process. I said to you, please, on this Friday, have a five minute coffee with yourself. What did you achieve?

Mike Richards: Send yourself a quick email. Put it in a little folder. Do it again. Do it again. After three weeks, you’re gonna want to give up. Do week four, five, and then suddenly you’ll start to see it. I’ve done it now for 20 weeks with this blog. I hate doing the blog, but I. The benefits after doing it for 20 weeks.

Mike Richards: Now, I’m also changing it a little bit. We’re gonna do some more conversations with Joe. ’cause I’m just a bit of an echo chamber. I wanna do it with Katie. Now we’re getting this. People are saying, oh, we want your opinions. I’m like, really? Are you sure? An English guy, let me. But anyway, they are, and this is again, that comes into tracking your achievements.

Mike Richards: When you record your success, it means your career moves become easier. So if at a later stage, someone said does approach you for a new role. Or internally as well. If someone says, oh, we are interested in, you may be doing this. What have you achieved in this role? You go, oh, actually I’ve done this, I’ve done this and this.

Mike Richards: It just makes your life a lot easier sort of thing. And oh, here we go. And then this other one, networking in the real world. So we are doing this virtually. But the other thing is, I did say this here, well done for turning up today. You’re educating yourselves. You could have just not bothered and you might be eating your sandwich.

Mike Richards: That’s fine. I don’t mind, but at least you’re listening and actually engaging a little bit. When you do meet people at the conferences, Chris Fulton, great networker and he grabs someone’s business card or whatever. He goes and meets them and he’s now the COO of prior Cashman, the law firm. And he says he’s not that good network.

Mike Richards: He’s brilliant. ’cause he will go meet someone at an event, he’ll talk to them and he will like, he’ll talk to them, say, and someone else, oh hi, come on, gimme a sec. And say, well, that person’s going to such and such. Their daughter’s going there. He follows up every time, all of the jobs he’s got. And I have told him about this.

Mike Richards: I’m not happy about it. They have come, come and found him. Knock ’em through me. They come and find him. So actually it creates those opportunity, opens those doors, as we said, and networking. No, it’s hard work. Summer did this, when we did our session in Nashville, she actually said to people it, it’s tiring.

Mike Richards: So take some time. If you go to a conference, if you go to a regional, if you do that, give some time for yourself. Just don’t go crazy. Yes, it’s great. Take some time out as well. That’s it. Thank you very much. Today’s episode of the Treasury Career Corner was brought to you with the support of our partners ICD.

Mike Richards: If you are looking for a smarter way to manage your short term investments, ICDs independent portal gives you access to a full range of investment products, integrated analytics, and a simple centralized platform built specifically for treasury. If you head over to treasury recruitment.com/partners, you can learn more.

Mike Richards: And we’ll be able to connect you with the right person at ICD for both you and your business. Many thanks for listening to the show, and thanks for your continued support.

  • Visibility Creates Opportunity: Even if you’re not job hunting, a strong LinkedIn presence can attract opportunities.
  • Start Small, Stay Consistent: A weekly five-minute reflection on your wins can fuel great content and career growth.
  • Be Professional and Authentic: Share achievements respectfully, avoid confidential info, and be true to your voice.
  • LinkedIn Is Your 24/7 Business Card: Make it clear, current, and reflective of the real impact you deliver.
  • Networking Is More Than Beer: Set intentional goals when attending events – engage, connect, and follow up.

🎧 Earn CTP & FPAC Credits by Listening to the Podcast

Whether you’re at the gym, on your commute, or walking the dog – you can now make your podcast time count toward your professional development.

We’re thrilled to share that Treasury Career Corner podcast episodes now qualify for CTP and FPAC recertification credits through the AFP’s Independent Study category.

How It Works:

  • Each episode comes with a short multiple-choice quiz
  • Score 80% or higher and you’ll receive your credit confirmation
  • You track and submit your credits to AFP directly – nice and simple

➡️ The longer the episode, the more credits you can earn:

  • 30-minute episode = 0.6 credits
  • 45-minute episode = 0.9 credits
  • 60-minute episode = 1.2 credits

No filler. No fluff. Just real conversations with top treasury leaders on strategy, leadership, risk, tech, and team building - everything AFP expects at an intermediate to advanced level.

🧠 Quick Facts:

  • 📝 Quizzes are 8–10 multiple choice questions
  • 🎯 You need to get at least 80% to pass
  • 📨 We’ll send confirmation - you log the credit with AFP
  • 💼 You can include this as part of your recertification record

NOTE: In line with AFP compliance requirements, no more than two quizzes may be completed per day.