Blog

Meeting strangers can be scary. Going into a room filled with people you don’t know with the expectation that you’ll chat with a few of them – is not easy. It’s human nature to want to stick with what is familiar to us and stay within our comfort zones. The...

It’s 8:27 am and my anxiety level is rising because I need to get my kids into the car so we get to the bus stop on time. This is the moment I feel the most pressure to step up as a parent and not give in to the angst that makes me want to yell at them to hurry up....

Raise your hand if you've ever given away an hour of free advice only to have that person hire someone else. Happens more often than you’d like? Yeah, that sucks. Let's paint the picture… Mary asks to "pick your brain" or meet for coffee - or maybe you scheduled a...

My kindergartner is learning sight words in school right now and the teachers sent home some worksheets to practice. I don’t remember what it was like to learn to read and hadn’t much thought about the process until this year. Each night, we practice after dinner...

We moved into our dream home last summer and felt quite fortunate that we didn’t need to do a lot of big home repairs right away. Since home improvement tasks aren’t my strong suit I searched for and found a handywoman to help me with odd jobs that came up as we...

A few months ago, I attended my first in-person business event since the pandemic began. It was a 10-person mastermind in New York City that met six hours a day for three days. There was a kick-off dinner the night before it started. I organized networking dinners...

In April 2020, it seemed like everyone and their mother announced they were hosting a virtual summit. I get it, in-person events were canceled or postponed, and entrepreneurs needed to find a way to provide value in a disrupted world. Most of these summits...

Is writing a book one of your New Year’s resolutions? Or did you recently publish one? Writing a book is not an easy task and I speak from experience having written two myself. For a book to be worth all that effort, it should be helping you meet your business...

In early 2015, right after I left my career to pursue entrepreneurship full-time, I was flummoxed by the question, “Who is your ideal client?” For five years, I had been presenting my signature Art of the Schmooze talk to non-profit boards of directors. I knew...

Welcome to 2022! Let’s make this an exciting year of profound personal and professional growth. As events (hopefully) begin to shift back to in-person we need to fortify ourselves against spammy networkers. You know, the guy (or woman) who after shaking our hand...

12/7/2021 Back in the day, before cell phones were all we looked at while commuting, people used to read the newspaper on their way to work if they commuted via train. In New York City, this meant that all squooshed together on a crowded train you’d see people...

When I was sharing early drafts of “Small List, Big Results” with my assistant, Peya Robbins, she had quite the reaction. She realized that for years, she had been avoiding the one strategy that was guaranteed to help her figure out what her audience wanted. Asking...

In 2020, I reinvented myself and grew my business from zero to six figures in eight months. My new book, "Small List, Big Results: Launch a Successful Offer No Matter the Size of Your Email List" answers the question, “Robbie, how did you do that?!?” More...

When you co-create your offer you guarantee success. Even before my book officially launched on Sunday, October 31 it had already achieved the metrics of success I was expecting. "Small List, Big Results: Launch a Successful Offer No Matter the Size of Your Email...

Let’s say you’re getting ready to buy a new printer. Do you buy the one that’s available at Target? Do you first check reviews on Amazon? Have you ever found yourself checking Amazon reviews while standing in Target? Then you already understand why reviews are...

Have you ever been enthusiastic about a new business idea only to realize you needed to let it go? That’s where I found myself in the summer of 2018, when I had to accept that it was not the right timing to launch a new podcast about parent inventors. I then...

It’s been so fun going down memory lane and sharing stories from a few years ago. I had forgotten this one, which in it’s own way is a lesson. Read on and see if you get what I mean… I did a thing. It pushed me way outside my comfort zone and now that it’s behind...

It all started because I wanted to get away for one night. It was September 2018 and my 5th wedding anniversary was in a couple of weeks so we arranged to get away for a night without our children. A night without our children. Just seeing that in print gets me...

My first book, “Croissants vs. Bagels: Strategic, Effective, and Inclusive Networking at Conferences” was published in July 2018. I put a ton of effort into the book launch and was very pleased with the results - 150 Amazon reviews posted within one week of the...

I remember it like it was yesterday, it was mid-2015 and I had left my career just six months earlier to pursue speaking as a business. I was feeling a bit unmoored. After having my days clearly defined by endless deadlines, I was the one who had to decide what was...

I left my career at the end of 2014 to pursue speaking and coaching full-time. Every course I purchased, and there were quite a few, stated how important it was that I identify my ideal client. The typical exercise proposed in these programs: Think about your...

This email was originally written three years ago, but I remember the feeling all too well. I was winning the morning, until…the toilet overflowed. Now... Baby is crying in his crib. Toddler is whining in his bed. Breakfast is half made. And the bathroom is a mess....

Three years ago, I revealed a truth about myself that had slowly been coming into my consciousness. I remember how hard it felt to come to grips with my new identity. I finally spoke up because I needed to find my community - be around people who understood. My...

Each time I kick off a new mastermind cohort, I start with a round of one-on-one calls with members. From my experience, this is a critical step that is often skipped - that’s been the case for the masterminds I’ve paid to join. It’s through these conversations...

That was the question I wanted to ask my client. We had been discussing the logistics of her MVP (minimally-viable product) and I had helped her overcome every objection she could think of. We made the RSVP goal smaller. We figured out a free venue. We discussed...

I was raised by an avid golfer, whose age and best score lately is in the mid-70s. My dad taught me how to golf when I was “yea high.” I learned all the basics and hit a few rounds on the course with him as I got a bit older. Golf faded from my life in my teens. My...

I pulled up to the restaurant and parked my car. As I got out, I nearly stepped on a wallet sitting on the ground just outside the driver’s door. This was about ten years ago and not the only time I found a wallet, but a memorable one. Immediately, I looked through...

Time has been odd over the last year. Weekends and weekdays blurred. Annual events that normally would mark the passage of time were canceled or postponed to later in the year. For a while, it was hard to forecast plans more than a few weeks or possibly a few...

Last spring, I heard that our upstairs neighbors had added a trampoline to our shared backyard. It brought back memories. Remember when you were a kid and your friend had a trampoline in their backyard? Or maybe you were the family that had this set up for hours of...

I remember the first time I was paid $5,000 to speak. What’s memorable is that a professional development opportunity that cost $5,000 had just appeared in my life and it seemed like fate that I was about to be paid that exact sum. I don’t even remember what the...

In the interest of checking out new ways to network virtually, I signed up for LunchClub a couple of months ago. This is a website that uses AI to match you one-on-one with someone based on your responses to a few open-ended questions. That has led to a lot of...

“Do you know anyone with experience working on a dairy farm?” That’s not a question I expect to be asked anytime soon, but after doing a quick LinkedIn search I know the answer is “Yes, yes I do.” A decade ago, that was not the case. I knew a lot of people, but...

In 2006, I founded a Meetup group, Socializing for Justice (SoJust), that grew to thousands of members and hosted hundreds of events over the next 11 years. We got so big that I ordered branded BIC pens to give out at our events with the bingo ice-breaker sheets....

For years, I struggled to take a simple step that would improve my health. I tried a lot of different hacks to make it a daily habit. I knew that it would not take more than a minute of my time but somehow could not get into a rhythm around doing it. Of course,...

My wife is sitting at our kitchen table scrolling through Facebook when something catches her eye and she starts to laugh out loud. A moment later she calls me over to read the post and when I do, I’m confused. I had never heard about the #TargetDressChallenge and...

Two weeks ago, on a random Thursday morning, I found myself driving around the Boston area for over an hour. I was on a quest. After keeping temptation at bay for nearly two months, I had finally given in to full on FOMO. At first, I told myself it was a good thing...

Four years ago, in February 2017, I started to actually write my book, “Croissants vs. Bagels: Strategic, Effective, and Inclusive Networking at Conferences.” I had been “writing” it for years but making no real progress. Finally, I committed to a writing program...

It was about 1 pm in the afternoon on a Monday in mid-January and I was sitting with my wife on the outside deck of a restaurant. A heat lamp hovered over us casting warm air down towards our table. This allowed me to wear just a heavy sweatshirt and still be...

Why do you open my emails? Is it my witty subject lines? I do aim to write “open loops” - a concept I first shared with my list back in July 2018 in one of my earliest emails with a story and a “your challenge for this week” section. According to Copyblogger, “open...

After my wife and I got married we realized it would be smart to meet with a financial planner. At our first meeting, I asked to see a list of all the “adult” documents we’re supposed to have - our financial planner laughed. But when she handed us a long intake...

Our family is moving later this week - that’s a story for another email. There is a lesson I learned the hard way during this process though that I wanted to share. Although, truth be told, I doubt you’ll learn this lesson simply by reading about it. That’s because...

Are all the emails in your inbox about New Year’s resolutions? This one isn’t. Instead, I’m sharing five of my favorite productivity tech tools to help you get your year started in the right direction. Canned Responses - I’m listing these in alphabetical order, but...

It’s that time of year again. When I get the itch to make unrealistic lists of what I want to accomplish in the final days of the year. These lists never seem to take into account how many distractions there are in December. It’s definitely not business as usual...

“Do you want to be filmed discussing gender over dinner?” That may not be the exact quote, but it’s essentially what I gleaned from the email I was reading. I had a million questions and a few reasons I almost said no before reading any further. For starters, the...

Sleep. I think a lot about sleep. Mainly, I think about whether my kids are getting enough sleep. And whether I’m getting enough sleep because of my kids. When I’m feeling a bit run down, overwhelmed, or lacking focus - I start to get myself back on track by making...

It’s true, I do wear a lot of hats in my business. A quick review of all that I do would take at least 20 minutes and you’d still miss some of the pieces of the puzzle. I wrote “Croissants vs. Bagels” an Amazon bestseller which has nearly 200 reviews worldwide. I...

The next cohort of The M.O.R.E. Program for Entrepreneurial Women just got underway, which is quite exciting. When I was having my first one-on-one coaching calls with each of the participants, I started to see a pattern. They had really, really big ideas of what...

Last week I shared that a very unlikely thing has happened to me… I’ve become a seltzer drinker. Every day, I’m getting used to this new identity and I’ve experimented enough with various flavors that I can now say plain seltzer with fresh lime is all I really...

It’s time to come out. I haven't been able to come to grips with my new identity, but it's time I share so I can find my community. It's been years of trying and failing. I kept going back to my old ways. I was being stubborn or at least going with what was...

I just had a very interesting conversation with my friend Jeffrey Shaw, host of the very popular podcast Creative Warriors. Jeffrey had recently heard me being interviewed on The Profit First Podcast hosted by Mike Michalowicz.   While Jeffrey has known me through...

5/8/2018 Have you ever been voluntold to do a task that ends up being an amazing opportunity? That happened to Susan, one of my clients. I had encouraged her to get involved with her industry’s association. Not to just show up to a few events over the year, but to...

That’s what a client told me. She had hired me to come speak about networking at a women’s leadership conference. “Men,” she said, “naturally gravitate to talking about business and always exchange business cards.” These were her examples to back up her statement....