Interview with Monika Talašová - Business Development Manager at HAVEL & PARTNERS

Hear how Monika Talašová turned an Instagram follow into a potential referral relationship and how she learned to turn men's attention into professional cooperation and lasting friendships.

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Guest - Monika Talašová
Host - Carl Grant
Producer - Seth Grant

Transcript

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Carl Grant: 0:18

Welcome to Rainmakers. I'm here with Monica Talasove. She's the business development manager for habel, and partners, and she is in the Czech Republic. Welcome, Monica.

Monika Talasova: 0:30

Hi, Carl.Thank you for having me.

Carl Grant: 0:32

It is my pleasure. So Monica and I met under unique circumstances. And I think this is interesting for our audience, Monica in that we're talking all about business development, and connections, and you have a job similar to mine, for a law firm in the Czech Republic, and I'm here in the US. And yes, we're a global law firm, but we're not in the Czech Republic. But you engaged with me, because you took a job a few years ago, not too dissimilar to my job. But you wanted to learn about the profile of somebody who does a job like yours. So talk to us a little bit about that.

Monika Talasova: 1:15

Absolutely. So I'm going to start from the birther perspective, as I have two master's degrees, and Wilmington, finance. The other one is in international relations, but I ended up doing business development. Firstly, my career wasn't really straightforward. I chose from basically, I'm an advisor, from transaction advisor to Goldman. And obviously, when we do something, you want to learn more about the thing. So this is how I started to be interesting in the environment of law firms. And I was, I was just doing my regular research, looking at law firms on the internet, looking what law firms would be interesting to larger corporations where I could learn more. And this is how I came across Cooley. I was wondering like, this law firm is very unique, it's very strong in venture capital, where we want to also proceed forward, get more engaged, maybe look at them more how they do it, and learn from it. So this is how I can raise your profile. And then I was reading more about you, I was reading more about what you do. And then I was like, let's find out who is this person, like what is behind this person. And then I use a very unusual tool. and various other you have a great background, not only like from a professional point of view, but also what is behind you as a person. And so the traveling ulos ports, that you are open to new experiences, and this is something that resonated me as a person as well. And this has always started.

Carl Grant: 2:56

Yeah, and you followed me on Instagram, and

Monika Talasova: 2:59

Indeed I did.

Carl Grant: 3:00

And so and so Instagram can be very impersonal. Right? People just follow you. And you follow back. Maybe you don't follow back. And I looked at your profile, you had nice pictures. So I followed you back. I didn't think I really didn't think about it at all. Right? And I am and you posted nice pictures. I liked them. Or if you didn't post a nice picture, I didn't like them. didn't really think about it. All right. And then you when you engage with me, this is this is pertinent to our audience, because this is a real connection, like you and I are now friends, I think and and you engage with me, because you saw that I was doing interesting things. I was actually dogsledding and you this shirt, and you sent me a message.

Monika Talasova: 3:50

Yes, I did send you a message older, I have to admit that at the beginning. It was not my intention. It was not my purpose. And your activities. I was actually following your stories. I was watching what you do. And then as I said, it resonated with me and I thought this person could be fun. Let's let's give it a shot. And let's have a look where it is complete. So I shot your text. In Instagram, I actually commented on your dog spledding. I think we were talking about probably both COVID. And suddenly, I decided to come up with a confession and with truth how I came across your profile.

Carl Grant: 4:39

And I thought that was really interesting. I'm like, Oh my gosh, she's following me because she's interested in what I do. And so I immediately went to your LinkedIn profile, which is not impersonal. That's like a professional profile. And I looked to see who you were, and I saw that you had two master's degrees and you had a job similar to mine. And I thought, wow, this is an interesting person. And so we started talking about work. And then we scheduled a zoom call. And the two of us talked for an hour and a half, about work. And in and so a real professional relationship developed. And here you are on my podcast. So anyways, I think that's interesting because because in developing a professional network, you can happen through meeting somebody at, at an event, you can meet somebody through a professional relationship, like a an introduction, a connection. But even a random, well, seemingly random, it wasn't random for you, but it was random for me and Instagram connection can turn into a real relationship. And we're talking about looking to see what clients we have in common, and how we can refer stuff to each other. And I don't know it to me, it's, it's fascinating that somebody, as far away as you are, we have like a six hour time difference. You're in the Czech Republic, I'm in Austin, Texas, we're talking about trying to figure out how we can help each other in business. To me, that's fascinating.

Monika Talasova: 6:15

It was like with you, the thing is also that I need to have respond from the other side. So in this case, you were very responsive, you did pull up my LinkedIn profile, you put the effort in reading what is written there, you put in for us in showing interest in what I do. And then then also proposed goals. So all this happening, and I think we have very fruitful conversation last week.

Carl Grant: 6:45

Yeah, so it's, it's really the power of social media. It's pretty powerful, right? Because if I just looked at you on Instagram, I could have thought you were just an Instagram model, from your Instagram photos, you post nice photos, they're very nice photos, but but it doesn't really show who you are. But your LinkedIn showed a lot more about you. And you've really done some substantive things in your life. And, and, and, and you the other thing that blew me away about you, Monica is that you're you're conversant in three languages, and you're learning a fourth. And in being from America, we're, you know, kind of less motivated to learn languages. And because most people speak English, but you speak, what languages do you speak?

Monika Talasova: 7:34

I speak Czech, then I learned English for all sorts of Chinese. So something was born. The thing in Europe is that English is exempt from the the Great Britain. We are not native speakers. So speaking language, it's it's something like a master. It's just a tool. I don't find it a special specialization, although some people might study languages, but I don't really think it's a facilitation. I just think it's a must something that I need to learn and have my own facilitation. So you don't need to think twice. It's just it's just a tool that opens possibilities.

Carl Grant: 8:12

And do you speak as well, in French and German as you do in English?

Monika Talasova: 8:17

I'm so French. I actually I study French longer than I studied English. Although English is closer to my heart, because I spend a lot of time in the US and I have many American friends for us. odorous I traveled to France, but the connection is so strong. Yeah, obviously I can speak French, I also have many exams in French. So I should be able to speak in writers monthly. And I studied German, and which is our neighboring country. So it's our limiter off, so I better speak German well, but I don't even know my profile. I tried to avoid it. Because this is not the way the language is pronounced. It's not. It's not very political language. It's not close to my year. So I try to avoid speaking German. And Chinese. I always very useful in business.

Carl Grant: 9:08

Yes, for sure. So we were talking a little bit about how you develop business in your world. And it seems like you use a lot of your background in the transactional services and accounting to to interact with prospective clients talk a little bit about how you develop business, for the law firm you work for.

Monika Talasova: 9:31

So I was very, I was very surprised when we had this conversation beginning about the development job, how rayas the activities might be, for example, you you said it's mostly networking. In your case, you bring directly the clients whereas in my side, there is a bunch of different activities. On the one point as you mentioned, it's the transactional services. We are not just m&a law firm of any law firm but m&a is an important part of work and investment background I worked in previously. So this is something that is close to my heart and that I wanted to get engaged. So in this case, tutorial size, which is far bigger than any other law firms in the market, we are in direct contact with many investment advisors, m&a, boutique more, and we learn about the investment opportunities directly straight away from them. So in this case, I'm able to learn about the investment opportunity identify the potential target or the investor. And then we present the incident opportunity, and then they decided to proceed further and do the transactional service with us. And this is one channel, that would be a bigger business. Another one would be working closely with international law firms, such as yours. And mostly it's because we're in the Central Europe, the heart of Europe. So we will start with Austria, but also work with UK and the United States. And cities are independent, we receive a lot of work from, from our partners of growth. This will be another another channel where we get the work from from the foreign law firms. And I'm happy to say that we are getting stronger and stronger, and also the economy's growing, and our clients are going more international. And we also send more referrals of ties.

Carl Grant: 11:41

And I'm sure we'll find ways to do things together. So, and the other thing we talked about, and we talked about this before, I'm going to ask you about this, so I'm not just hitting you with this call Monica. But we talked about the fact that, you know, a lot of the people you deal with are are men. Right? And, and your nobody can see you on this podcast, but you're a younger, very attractive woman and and in a business development role that can attract some negative attention. And we talked about that. And you talked about how you can convert that negative attention to business opportunities. And I think that's interesting, because there could be, you know, young listeners listening to this and not knowing how to deal with that talk about how you

Monika Talasova: 12:25

To start, I am going to say that maybe I w ll not be so politically corre t. Because being from the Europ an background, it's not so ay politically correct as it is in the US. So I'm having a lit le bit more open than you wo ld think, yes, I'm just going to start with things that if you re being a relatively young wom n, I hopefully looking at might be helpful when doing busin ss because or not just a woman a ts looking personality, or l ss person to look at as people as people like being around you nd speaking with you. And it mi ht be a powerful tool. On the ot er hand, you might came acros a situation when this could be rather harmful, especially as you said, being in an environment when you re surrounded by men, then you w ll get some kind of attention t at is not pleasant, especially if your intentions are stric ly professional. Yeah, that's f ne my mind to something else. T is just seems really import nt learn to handle this, just he first step is mate, you got he interest of the person. So y u, you're lucky, you already h ve the interest, you don't need to initiate anything else make ny other steps. But now it's y ur turn, how to convert he attention to some kind of professional level or e en better friend and professio al level. And this is someth ng that I think I learned to mas er within the years that the peo le learn that I'm also a per on that I could like interest ng person that I could be a fri nd to them and that could be helpful. And they are we of en switched from this kind of personal interest to professional interest. S I think that people if t ey already have the attention of the person and it's ot professional, they should le rn how to work with this and how to turn it into a po

Carl Grant: 14:36

That's really good advice. It's you know, it's it's I think it's a subject that's it's hardly ever touched on and, and I'm glad you addressed it. So for for a young woman coming up or young person coming up in their career, what advice do you have for them to prepare to do what you do?

Monika Talasova: 15:08

My advice would be pretty much simple. If you know what your love what is your passion, what is your thrives you What is your thesis, then you should follow it. I think if a young person knows and this guy in this age being at the college or even high school he or she wants to pursue, then just go for it, and the rest will come.

Carl Grant: 17:38

Monica Talasova, tha k you for joining us on Rai makers. I appreciate it.

Monika Talasova: 17:42

Thank you for having me.