Wisdom of Life: “Pick the right people to surround yourself with, it will set the bar, encourage and support you. However, if you choose the wrong people, they will bring you down a different path,” Invisible Mentor, Jeanne-Marie Robillard tells her 12-year old son.
Interviews for Mentoring: Key Lessons from Jeanne-Marie Robillard
- Be grateful for what you have in life and count your blessings.
- Prepare for your day the night before, to help to decrease stress the following day.
- Network, network, then network some more, and never let little things such as shyness or “introvertedness” stop you. (Note to self)
- Allow people to get to know the real you.
- People rarely remember what you said to them, but they remember how you made them feel.
- Give a new job sufficient time – at least two years – before you decide if the fit is right
Invisible Mentor: Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive
Company Name: National Speakers Bureau/Global Speakers Agency
Website: http://www.nsb.com
Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I am currently a senior account executive, which is an agent to public personalities and celebrities for their speaking engagements. I’ve been doing that for 11 years. Prior to that, I was an agent to the performing arts community – groups like the National Ballet of Canada, Canadian Opera Company, to helping place them into seated environments for audiences to enjoy.
Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: It would be to make a lot of calls, touch base with clients, follow-up on proposals, keep speakers abreast of developments, and continue our marketing initiatives for the people who we are representing.
Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I’m pretty lucky because I work with speakers who are inspirational and motivational so I’m surrounded by positive thinkers all day, every day. I’m very blessed.
Avil Beckford: If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I would come back to being blessed. I have no regrets with my career path. I started first in the Arts working through the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and Art Gallery of Ontario. I did some consulting for the museums, all of that was very important, though I always struggled financially. I would say having gotten into sales, I call it the meritocracy – the more you work, the more integrity you bring to your work, the better compensated you are. Maybe I would have done that a little earlier getting into the private sector.
Avil Beckford: What's the most important business or other discovery you've made in the past year?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I would say that I have gained more confidence in my own public speaking. It’s funny that I represent speakers and performers and I have been nervous for so many years to get up and introduce them, and tell audiences about them. I would read from a script and now I have more confidence in just going for it. It goes much better. If I had changed that sooner, I wouldn’t have been as nervous.
Avil Beckford: What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard:
- Since I work mostly with the corporate sector placing speakers for public appearances, endorsements and sponsorships, the crash of 08/09 was a hard one that we are still recovering from. Many cutbacks occurred, lived through a time of austerity. Canada wasn’t affected the same way, but it reacted the same way as the US. We’re still seeing ourselves climb out of that. Our clients saw speakers as perhaps a luxury, and having not booked them for a year or two realized that speakers were an absolute necessity. Professional speakers bring all kinds of wonderful energy, insight and a fresh perspective to organizations, so now we’re seeing the recovery. That would be the biggest threat.
- Another threat within the industry I work in is that there are many new agencies – individuals who are branching off and doing this from their homes, or from smaller offices, so there is more competition out there.
- The third threat is the Internet of course which continues to be a competitor because people feel that they can contact the speakers directly, and they can, though it means being directed back and it makes the process so much longer and more complicated.
It’s all fixable but it changes the landscape a little bit.
Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I like to say I do not sell a product, but I sell an experience. People won’t remember exactly what you say, but they will remember how they feel. I’m pretty lucky, and I would say that what I love most about what I do is I get to brag about people all day long. Can’t ask for better than that!
Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: The most recent was going through a separation and divorce, almost six years ago. Though I was very hurt, it was not my choice, but four months later I realized I had gone through a process where forgiveness rose to the top. Though that may sound corny to some, it honestly changed my life when I realized I had forgiven. My ex and I are best of friends – we were as of that year – and we have a son and we parent together, he lives nearby, we email constantly, and speak every other day. My health improved during that time. My health stopped breaking down, my job got better, and I’m not kidding, it happened that quickly. Forgiveness is powerful!
Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I’ve had a lot of opportunities. I can’t tell you that there is a single big break, but I would say that every time someone offers you an opportunity it’s so important to talk that through. It doesn’t mean to seize it immediately and jump all over it, but it does mean to talk it through. Find out what it’s about, investigate, explore it and see if it lands where you need it to land. Every single job opportunity, and I have loved every one of my jobs, has been through a break. I have been so lucky. I have had six different positions in the course of a 30-year career.
Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: It was when I was a professional failure. We all have our personal failures on a day-to-day basis. However, on a professional level, when I did consulting for museums with one other person, the woman who owned the company, she recruited me from the Ontario Arts Council. It was an exciting opportunity, but I realized that I worked better as part of a team. She was traveling so much to Europe mostly, and I was keeping the Toronto office intact alone. I think I failed on many levels – failed myself, failed her and my clients in that I need the energy of others to stay inspired and motivated. So working in a team is what I learned out of that. I need that.
Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I was adopted as an infant into a fabulous family, another blessing in my life. I was only 10 days old so I was very little. I always knew I was adopted, and when I finished university I decided to meet my biological mother. It was a big decision and it impacted my life in every positive way possible. I learned all kinds of lessons and I was able to add a whole new arm to a family of friends. I’m very lucky and I would say that was a tough decision.
Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard:
- What I just talked about, landing in the family I landed in to parents who think they couldn’t have children adopted me and two years later adopted my sister. She was equally tiny when we adopted her. And mom and dad we already pregnant with my brother, they had nine months between the two of them. They had three children under the age of three. I have the most wonderful family. It has provided me with opportunities on every level, socio-economic, unconditional love and support, and encouragement. I won the lottery early in life.
- Having certain people around you. I tell my son who is 12 to pick the right people to surround yourself with, it will set the bar for you and encourage you and support you. However, if you choose the wrong people they will bring you down a different path, and it’s just so true.
- I would also say that one of the largest events that shaped my life was first year of university when I had a summer job as a tour guide on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. I met Pierre Elliot Trudeau. I walked across the room at a party, he was standing alone, he was the Prime Minister of Canada at the time. I walked across and introduced myself, and as a result, we had a friendship where we skied, had dinner and he invited me as a guest to parties at 24 Sussex Drive. It was a friendship that was quite exciting for about a year-and-a-half until it went in the media that I was a girlfriend which was not the case. But we never spoke after that. That experience shaped my life to learn to move through your fear to something that attracts you. Trust your gut. When you feel like there is an opportunity in front of you, take it. The worst that could happen is often not that really bad. What would have been the worst? that he didn’t say too much, “nice to meet you, see ya.”
- I also think that having my son has shaped my life in a very positive way. I learned how to increase my empathy level and responsibility.
Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: It’s an ongoing accomplishment and it’s that of helping people. I really enjoy helping people further their careers and/or their personal lives in some ways when they are struggling, and it’s usually through helping people make connections with other people who know exactly what to do. I’m a very good connector, that’s what I do in my work as well. I do it for friends who are looking for love in their lives, I’m a good matchmaker. And I do it for those trying to improve their lives and meet professionals who can help them.
Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: They taught me to stick to certain standards, to set certain standards, certain expectations of yourself so others know what you are about. There is a confidence for others in that. Mentors are also important in a continued, consistent kind of environment, so I was very fortunate to have those kinds of people as well. They are people who are dependable and there, present and engaged. So I have learned to do that in reverse for those who I have mentored.
Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I would say to have integrity. Integrity is key to every part of your life. Do it with intent, do it with meaning and do it with purpose. I would say that’s how I live my life as best as I can.
Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?
Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I would say it’s what I just said before, be true, do everything with intent, meaning and integrity and it will fall in the right places.
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