Interview with Angie Collier, VP at Dupont Circle Solutions

Learn the concept of a "business development date," from Angie Collier, a true partner in business development.

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Guest - Angie Collier
Host - Carl Grant
Producer - Seth Grant

Episode Transcript

Carl Grant (00:01):
Welcome to rainmakers. I'm here with Angie
Collier, Vice President atDuPont Circle solutions.
Welcome, Angie.

Angie Collier (00:21):
Hi, Carl. Thanks for having me.

Carl Grant (00:23):
So Angie and I met about eight years ago when she
was Angie Jusino. And she was asales salesperson. Right. You
were coming out of a sales roleat what was the name of that was
it was? Yeah, you were directorof sales, selling to small
business. And then you had takenon a business development role
at Aronson, an accounting firm.
And I think I was introduced toyou almost on day one was my

Angie Collier (00:50):
very true I actually think it was my first
day at Aronson and I went to anevent that evening and had the
pleasure of meeting you.

Carl Grant (00:57):
And so a partner from Aronson introduces me to
you. And, and so an interestingdynamic here like you, you did
not have any contacts in ourspace yet, right? Zero, right.
And so, but I saw you and Isaid, this person has potential
she is bubbly, is that a goodadjective? Lovely.

Unknown (01:18):
I hear that a lot. Yep.

Carl Grant (01:21):
But that you talk so fast, I, my brain doesn't
process Angie, I have to sayslow down. And she I can't
comprehend what you're saying.
Because you have so much to sayso fast. So he and I have become
good friends if you can't tell.
And we've done a lot togetherover the past eight years. And
so I saw this, this vivaciousbubbly personality. You're 18

(01:45):
years younger than me, wefigured that out when we talked
yesterday. And and You're a lotcuter than I am. For sure. And
so I and I said, you know, she'sgoing to be good at this, like
she's going to be good at thispeople are going to be drawn to
her. She just has thatpersonality that look that that
that draw, I'm going to investsome time in this person,

(02:06):
because because she's gonna bereally good at this, and then
she's gonna be able to help meone day. I didn't know you're
gonna become my friend. But, butI introduced you to a whole
boatload of people that night.
Do you remember that?

Angie Collier (02:17):
I do. I absolutely do. Because I was my
first night and the Aronsonpartners took me to I think it
was actually like an industrybank holiday party early. And
everyone knew each other. And Ididn't know anyone. I didn't
even really know the people Iwent with. And they introduced
me to you. You took me aroundand introduced me to everyone.
And then you I think we even satdown at a table and you kind of
just ran me through kind of theindustry really quickly and how

(02:40):
you spend your time and I and Iwas immediately like, wow, this
guy's this guy's awesome. reallywilling to spend time with me
and help me. And quite honestly,like, we all know, when you
started a new job, you don'treally know what you're getting
into. And I had yet to figureout exactly what my role was
going to be. I knew that I wasgoing to be helping us grow in a
certain market in the techspace. But you know, other than

(03:03):
that, I was I was a totalnewbie. So I definitely remember
that evening, because it wasvery helpful.

Carl Grant (03:09):
Yeah, I remember too, because I knew you were
going to be good. And and so itblossomed into a great
friendship. We've done so muchtogether over the years, we've
served on the board of anonprofit organization, we've
referred business we've so SoAngie, I, we talked about this
yesterday, we're going tointroduce a whole new concept in
business development, right. Andthis is going to be foreign to a

(03:32):
lot of people. And we never, wenever really called it this. But
this is the this is the conceptof the business development
date. Right? I don't get thewrong impression people who are
listening, this is not like areal date. This is this is
purely business, right? Like,and she's married, I'm married.
I'm friends with her husband,she's friends with my wife and

(03:53):
our spouses actually do dothings together business wise
have, and so and so. But Angie,and I have strategically worked
many events together. And, andso Angie, I want you to talk
about how some of those haveplayed out and how they've
benefited you. And I know thatthey've benefited me, but I want
to I want to hear from you.

Angie Collier (04:10):
Yeah. So Carl brought this concept. We were
talking yesterday and I laughedbecause it's spot on. And I
think of us as like kind of wingmen for each other. But in
business development, it's allabout relationships and helping
people and who you know, and oneof the things that Carl does
really well is he connectspeople. I think everybody would
agree with that. And over thelast eight years, Carl and I

(04:33):
have hosted, sponsored, attendedmany different events together
and kind of as this payoff duotogether. And it's been
extremely valuable becausebecause of his tenure in in this
space versus mine and age andall of the other things we just
have totally different networks.
And kind of a pairing up allowsus to introduce each other to

(04:54):
other people we didn't know andkind of attract new crowds that
You've probably wondered on youron your own. Plus, it just adds
this element of kind of havingfun like going to a work event
after you've been in the officeall day. doesn't suck as much
because you've got a friendthere with you who you can chat
with. Or like, if you're notmeeting other people go back and

(05:14):
circle up with or just getintroduced. We've done some
really fun things. One of thefirst events Carl and I hosted
together was on Carl's boat,which was a really fun happy
hour with maybe like 15 liketech executives and people in
the tech space. It it was it wasreally well done. fun afternoon

(05:34):
out on I think the Potomac if Iremember correctly, we had
perfect weather.

Carl Grant (05:41):
Yeah, so I could get a boat and I could get beer, but
I couldn't do I couldn't do therest. And so, you know, don't
want to sound sexist here, but Isaid, I really need a business
development woman who knows howto do food. And Angie, you
played that role perfectly likeyou. Like I brought the drinks
and you brought I don't knowwhat you brought, but it looked
good. I would have broughtchips,

Angie Collier (06:02):
right? So that wasn't gonna fly chips. Chips
wasn't gonna cut it. But yeah, Ilike I love planning events,
even in like my personal life.
I'm just a planner. So it was itwas a really good collaboration
and, and then we were both ableto invite people that we thought
would enjoy each other, which Ithink is like, you know, bizdev
part of it but everyone andeveryone had a good time. And
I'll tell you some of thosepeople who were on the boat for

(06:23):
like my, you know, my tenurethere. And still in this space.
We remember each other from theboat, the boat party on the boat
event.

Carl Grant (06:32):
Let's talk about the range of activities. So another
one that's very memorable in mymind is is South by Southwest we
spent like several days togetherin Austin, Texas.

Angie Collier (06:43):
And that's more than once because we've done
South by Think twice togethernow. But yeah, you know
traveling across the country togo to this really fun
conference. That's that's workwork focused for us. And there
are a lot of

Carl Grant (06:56):
work focus to you with your giant Margarita. Come
on now. It was it was fun towrite. It's

Angie Collier (07:02):
called networking. Yeah.

Carl Grant (07:04):
I always love and you would put post these
pictures you did hashtag workingand you had a giant Margarita.

Angie Collier (07:11):
And Carl's downplaying the size of the
margarita. So I appreciate thatCarl giants kind of another
statement for this week, had todo with like their signature
thing. But yeah, we travelacross the country. And there's
so much going on itself by itcan almost be paralyzing. If you
don't know where to spend yourtime where to go. There's just
1000s and 1000s of people andevents going on all day, every

(07:31):
day. So Carl and I both went outthere twice, and were able to
attend so many fun eventstogether. And actually, we
actually went to events thatsome of our competitors would be
hosting at the time and kind ofbe like, Oh, he's my plus one,
or I'm his plus one to get into.
Maybe that's a secret weshouldn't be sharing. But it was

Carl Grant (07:53):
fun. But it helps but it helps he like when when
you're when you're having thatconversation with somebody at an
event. And then the conversationends and then you're all by
yourself and you're feelingawkward because you have nobody
to talk to, you always got youryour plus one to go back to talk
to you. So I've always got Angieto come back to alright Angie,
who we're going to talk to younext. Right? So it worked. I

(08:13):
mean, it worked great, becauseif I don't have anyone to talk
to, and I'm standing there, andI'm looking around, and
eventually, I feel insecure andI want to leave, right. I mean,
I don't know if you know, my

Angie Collier (08:24):
totally, you're also kind of like, Alright, I
think I've maxed out my, my timehere I'm gonna go. And
especially at a place like Southby there's a ton more people to
meet. So you kind of give eachother like a boost, or I'll be
like, Alright, let's go talk tothese people. They look
interesting. And I actuallyremember we did that at one of
the barbecue places. I rememberwe met some people from Chicago

(08:44):
just by going up and talking,you know, sharing a bar table
with them. And just chitchatting because there were two
of us it was easier to easier tointroduce ourselves.

Carl Grant (08:51):
Absolutely. It's so much easier to work in an event
when you're not by yourself. Andyou have a friendly person that
you know, like you and I kneweach other, and we could joke
around with each other and wecould play off of each other.
And it just made it it makes itso much more pleasant, right?
Because so many so many of theseevents are drudgery, right? It's
like a pain to go to theseevent. Well South by is not not

(09:12):
drudgery. But but if you're allby yourself, it could be because
because you're you know, you'realone in a crowd. But if you're
there with a friend, and you'regonna attract people different
than I'm going to attract justbecause we're different genders
or different ages where we havedifferent personalities, and it
just works really well. And so Ithink the secret sauce of this
whole interview that we're doingis really developing a

(09:35):
friendship like this and beingable to work together. And then
we did a CEO, we've done severalof these, but it's I remember
the CEO launch that we did,right where you invited people I
invited people, our firms cohosted it together. Not
everybody who's listening isgoing to know these things
intuitively. So let's talk aboutyou plan that thing. I just
invited people so let's talkabout how that went.

Angie Collier (09:57):
So we did a series At least I think we did
maybe three over like two yearswhere we just invited leaders
and CEOs of like local techcompanies to have a nice lunch
with us. And I remember from thebeginning, we were like, well,
how do we get people to go? Soso we both tapped into kind of
our networks that people likethese executives that we already
have relationships with. Andthen you just plan a nice event

(10:19):
where people want to go right tobe picked a good restaurant that
might people would happily leavetheir office for. I leave a
really clear on our agenda,which was, we have no agenda, we
just want you to meet each otherand have a good lunch, like,
we're not going to do a longpresentation, we're just going
to feed you. And we want you tomeet other like minded people
who are leading businesses inthis community as well. And I

(10:42):
remember, I was really excitedthe first one because we didn't
actually have to send like,round two of invites out
everyone was excited to come.
And I think it was back to thiswhole relationship building.
Most of the people who wereinvited and attended already
knew Carl or myself or firm'sreally well. So it's not like a
cold call email inviting them toa nice lunch. It's kind of a

(11:02):
friend or someone you'venetworked with coming together
and the value for Carl and I wastremendous. We got to meet each
other's networks. And then thisgoes back to helping our
executives got to haveconversations with other
executives who had similarchallenges and like phases they
were working through in theirbusiness. So for them, it was
like invaluable hour where theygot to go and sit there and talk

(11:23):
to another executive aboutraising money or like,
developing their product,whatever it might be. Hey, and
for us, it was as simple as kindof planning a really nice lunch.
And based on the feedback, wedid it again. And then I think
we did it again. And look, we'vedone some events in the past
that we don't repeat. But if youdo something and people like it,
especially if it's kind of easyto do, just do it again. So that

(11:45):
was a really interesting seriesthat we did. I liked it.

Carl Grant (11:50):
Absolutely. So. So I don't think either of us were
looking for this type of, ofrelationship. When we found each
other it we just kind ofhappened upon each other. But
now in hindsight, we've been,you know, collaborating for, you
know, a long time. What advicewould you have for somebody who,
who might be listening and say,I need a wing man, I need

(12:11):
somebody, you know, what wouldyou what would you say to look
for? And what what are some ofthe pitfalls out there that they
might run into?

Angie Collier (12:18):
Yeah, that's a great question. So Carl's right
was like, I didn't even knowwhat I was looking for I was I
was new in the world. I think itcomes down to a simple
philosophy that people likeworking and doing business with
people they like, with Carl andI, it was never forced, like I
met Carl Carl met me randomly atan event and we kind of
instantly became friends. And wehave a friendship outside of

(12:41):
work stuff now. And it's reallybecause we just enjoyed each
other's company and goodconversation. And I think that
when people think work, they'relike, immediately of like, who's
going to benefit me the most.
And look, Carl met me I had, Ihad no network, and I
immediately probably couldn'tbenefit him the most. But he
knew there was potential. And wealso kind of made this

(13:04):
friendship. So I think forpeople out there looking, I
would really encourage you tokind of go with your gut of
like, Who do you like spendingtime with, it's not always
instantly like who has thebiggest Rolodex, or who can do
what for me today, I think youhave to open your eyes a little
bit more to it. And for me, Ididn't even know I needed a wing
man, because like I had donenothing yet. And then as soon as

(13:24):
you start going to these events,anyone in business development,
like you're out a lot in a preCOVID world, you're you were out
at events almost every night,every few nights. And if you
can't find a way to somewhatenjoy them, you will probably
stop going therefore you willprobably be less effective at
your job over time, because youdo need a physical presence. So
I think just like you got tofind what invigorates you and

(13:46):
and realize that having thatthat duo is a huge plus. And
that person may not again, theymay not fit this picture of who
you think your wing your wingman might be. But it's really
helpful to have that network andthen to build those personal
relationships because I think weall know that work blends into
home home blends into work. Soit's just it's just nice to

(14:07):
actually take relationshipbuilding to the next level as a
business developmentprofessional. Right. Not just
connecting executives. It's likebuilding your network. Yeah. And

Carl Grant (14:16):
then on the flip side, if you're somebody who's
been doing this a long time andyoung a young person like Angie
comes along, give this somethought. Right You know, because
while she didn't have anything,you know, to benefit me at the
time. I can tell you over thepast eight years, she has she
has benefited me immensely likeI have actually had a richer

(14:39):
experience. But yeah, businesshas come out of it but I've
enjoyed what i've what I'vedone. And in in my life has been
better knowing Angie Collierbecause because I took some time
and I sewed into her career andas she's sewn back in and a true
friendship has developed and andI've seen her get married and
have kids and And your husbandhas gotten to know my wife and

(15:02):
she's come out to speak atevents with him. And it's just
like a full circle. So it'sbeen. It's been a really rich
experience. And Angie, I'mbetter off for knowing you. And
thank you for being here, Carl.

Angie Collier (15:11):
Yeah, thank you for everything. And it's been,
it has been a wild and fun eightyears with like, lots to come in
the future, you know, and sincethen to Carl's point, like our
worlds have melded, I'veactually started a new role
elsewhere. We still havesynergies and we still stay in
touch. So it just shows thatlike the power of building a
network is so important for yourown personal professional

(15:34):
development, not just thecompany you work for.

Carl Grant (15:36):
And like he thank you for joining. Yeah, we're
still friends. We still his bestweekend. So thanks for joining
us on rainmakers.

Angie Collier (15:44):
Thanks for having me. Have a good day. You too.