SPOTLIGHT: TRISH RUBIN

Renaissance Woman

Written by Marie Donski
Consultant with a focus on: Fundraising, Communications and Management
New York Women in Communications (NYWICI) Member and Volunteer

How can you turn your professional experience into a brand when networking?

Trish Rubin, a “communicator first,” marketing professional, educator, author, speaker, global business instructor with a career in Communications and Branding (in agencies and government), as well as NYWIC member and Volunteer Mentor suggests the following:

• Find three powerful words about yourself and build your brand from that.
• Make one of the words a personal tagline or mantra and use it everywhere when speaking and writing.

She chose the word SPARK from her list of three and “faithfully uses that in written and oral contexts. It’s a part of my elevator speech and appears in all aspects of my professional life,” said Trish.

You Don’t Need a Mentor – Be One Instead

Before meeting with NYWIC members seeking guidance, she asks them to think about and write “How would you describe yourself in three words” to prepare for her 10 minute mentoring sessions.

Trish said this focus on three words is based on the marketing concept of the Power of Three, and cites Nike’s famous “Just Do It” slogan as an example. The Power of Three is a principle Trish uses in her work to position her own branding, marketing and advertising clients. “Put simply, the brain likes the Power of Three,” she said.

A Belief in Authentic Networking

“I spent a lot of time at networking events in tech and I knew nothing about tech, but people were always interested in talking about themselves and tech, so I learned a lot,” Trish said.

Trish advises that when you go into a room with people in a new industry, the goal is to be authentic, curious about their industry and ask how your skills might complement what they are looking for.

Trish’s Networking Process:

The ACE system (Activate, Create and Engage)

•  Activate: Lay out a strategy for (touching) (engaging in) the industry you want to join through activating new knowledge about Topics of Interest in that sector. Curate current knowledge of that industry. Be prepared to share what you know about their industry. Be curious about others and what they do to show your authenticity.
• Create: Create your story and your brand. Use your Power of Three words and test your fit in an industry you are interested in by using the content you have gathered to help growing connections online and in real time. Continually show your openness to learn.
• Engage: Get in front of people. Go to typical networking events or social events. Be memorable with your ACTIVATE and CREATE strategy. Also take advantage of Zoom, volunteer, talk to people: at the gym, the nail salon, the bus, etc. Be ready with your Power words as you talk about yourself as authentic. Always ask, “Is there someone you know that I should know?”

She believes that writing got her “on the radar”

Trish was writing articles and had to come up with models for women in the legal profession as businesswomen. She wrote an article for a law journal called “Networking is your Little Black Dress,” a model for women, based on women having “little black dresses that reflect who we are, but we change the black dress style based on the audience; same idea as networking, keep the basics and change with the context,” Trish recalls.

The Networking yoga pose (knees together and hands in front, held together). Trish advises that when you are talking, don’t use your hands too much, hold them comfortably and breathe.

Be an intentional listener: pay attention not only to voice your own thoughts, but you need to understand someone else’s point of view. She recommends making eye contact and asking questions “about business and of a personal nature because most people like to talk about themselves.”

“New York Minute Boogie”

Trish came up with the Boogie because she “always loved music,” and when she moved to NYC, she sold her car and “lost radio music time.” She needed an iPod because she “started researching neuro-marketing and neuro-science, and found the brain loves a dopamine rush. Great for networking events, and that’s what the boogie was about, a natural high through music.”

The types of music that give Trish energy are jazz, big band and rock. She also loves to crank up Frank Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight” before entering a room because it adds to her SPARK!

Her Story: Adaptability, Persistence, Networking, Mentorship and Working to Reach Your Goals

Trish told me that she enjoys meeting powerful women through mentoring and loves giving back and “paying it forward” by volunteering to educate the next generation of women in communications.

Trish credits her sorority sisters from college for inspiring her. “To know them over decades and through so many life changes while living a distance from each other is a testament to friendship,” she said, adding, “We all took different paths as women and we are still the closest of friends. When we were young, we didn’t have access to women mentors or role models, but we were always there for each other.”

Trish did not have a business mentor until she was 29. She said her first mentor was a businessman who “saw her as a creative academic who was crossing into the world of business.” His advice was that when networking, and using her relational SPARK brand, she should ask, “Who do you know that I should know?”

Trish believes that if people see you as someone trustworthy, they will open their network to you. This observation led her to “weave her teaching life” into her first communications business, The EdVentures Group, aligning her education and business skillsets. Her new network grew quickly and gave her an opportunity to travel and meet contacts for sustaining her work.

While growing her business, she has mentored with Executives on Campus (EOC) at Baruch College, which connects undergraduate and graduate students with executive mentors that offer guidance on networking, and professional etiquette skills to help students find career success and also mentors with marketers at Baruch.

Communication and Education: Opening Doors

Trish grew up in Northern New Jersey where the first career advice in her life came from her dad. He noticed that she was good with kids and suggested that she explore the field of education, which at that time, offered that now-rare benefit of a good pension.

An English teacher in her all-girls high school next influenced her career. “She saw something in me as a writer,” said Trish, adding, “I learned about the craft of writing in her course in my senior year and got published out of her class. I was hooked on writing for an audience.”

She received a swimming scholarship from William Patterson University in New Jersey where she got a BA in English Literature (swimming is still a love); an MA in Education from Rowan University, and an MPA from the University of Pennsylvania in Public Policy.

Trish never imagined becoming a teacher, and yet she did, following in her teacher’s path. As she developed a national writing program, Trish was influenced by her teacher’s relational workshop teaching model, developing lesson plans around her method of connecting students and educators.

She taught reading and writing, but always assigned real-world projects, taking students to see the behind-the-scenes in community and in business life. After these trips, she would ask students to write about what they saw. It was an early way of bringing together business and learning.

Meeting people who were often entrepreneurs helped her create a program for use in classrooms K-12 (sponsored by the U.S. government). It gave her an opportunity to travel to 38 states and train thousands of educators in how to teach writing. The worlds of business and education also came together through taking on communication consulting projects for clients that ranged from partners in law firms to the New York City Department of Probation.

Changing and Pursuing a New Career: “Be Fearless and Tireless”

“It is important to believe in yourself and not always listen to others,” Trish said, reflecting on the worst advice she received from a friend that told her to stick with education and that going into business was a bad idea.

Trish has an entrepreneurial mindset and that drive started while she was teaching, when she wanted to start a business focused on communication. After 25 years in the classroom, Trish felt it was time for a change and thought “if not now, when?” Her advice to those seeking to follow her path: “Ask yourself what skills you need to accomplish what you want to do and make sure you have the tools that can help move you forward.”

She said that her first client after she left the education world was the International version of USA Today, calling that “a pretty good start.” She decided that if she was going to be successful in business in New York City, she needed to hone her communication skills.

She wanted to become a speaker and consultant. So she set off to “validate herself” by writing a book. Through a National Speakers Association course on how to write a book she was able to complete that goal in just 90 days. That book on building relationships “to grow a responsive network” filled a gap, she said, since “networking” was then seen as a transactional extra for business people.

Later when she developed Trish Rubin Ltd, her second company, she presented herself at the “intersection of Education and Business.” She told me that one of the things she’s most fond of is when a client said, “All roads lead to Trish.”

Trish feels that being credentialed is important in getting you to where you want to go. However, she believes that there are many ways to build a resume “with credentials that show accomplishments, and not just through degrees.”

One of her recent NYWICI mentees, Cheyenne Tull, did just that with her help. Cheyenne, a graduate of Albright College, applied and was selected as part of the Fulbright Association’s inaugural Global Leadership & Diplomacy cohort meeting in New York City. Trish believes that “by adding an international credit to a resume (a game changer) her network will be supercharged.”

Some of the biggest challenges in her professional life came from convincing people that she had transferable skills that don’t limit a person to specific industries. However, she believes communication skills can always get you through the door, and that “once you are in, you can demonstrate your connection to that industry.”

Trish thinks that doing anything you can to show those skills, either by writing, building your LinkedIn presence with content, or volunteering are some activities that can help you develop. “Showing you are curious is always a hallmark of a communicator,” Trish said.

“Today in a time of AI, showing your ‘Human Premium Skillset’ is something I share with mentees, students and in speaking engagements,” said Trish.

The Present

Trish is currently teaching at New York Institute of Technology in a joint Master’s Degree International Program in Communication. She is currently taking on select, new clients for short-term branding projects. Trish prefers her international professorships in higher education with universities across the world in intensive one credit courses in communications, marketing and branding.

“I love speaking and participating on panels about communicating in the age of AI using ‘Premium Human Skills’,” she said.

Her Next Chapter

Trish started painting recently. She also combines her love of music and traveling by visiting stores that sell vinyl records.

“I am currently going on my next career journey. I’m developing my artistic side. In the last year and a half, I’ve taken courses and surrounded myself with artists. I discovered I can paint and opened an Instagram site, @trishrubin_art. I am using art as my newest communication lane of expression. It continues the SPARK.”

Ways to Connect with Trish Rubin:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trishrubinnetworking
Email: trishbrand.nyc@gmal.com
Her services: Branding, Business Development, Digital Training/Events, PR Media and Coaching: https://trishrubinltd.com/about-1