For those of you not familiar with the story of stone soup, I would encourage you to go to: http://www.extremelinux.info/stonesoup/stonesoup.html (Is the Internet great, or what?)

It’s not a long story, but it explains in easy-to-understand terms how you can turn nothing into something, and that is what I am about to suggest we do.

At one time, our evening newsletter had 25-50 new jobs almost every night. Ah yes, those were the halcyon days of job leads. And, back in those good old days, we only had about 20,000 members on distribution for our newsletter. We now have over 32,000.

Since 1996, we have registered a little over 12,000 Friends of The FENG. These are the individuals from the search community who have posted with us at some point. We are now down to about 3,200 with presumed good addresses.

That said, the job market has changed, and we must change with it. If the “almost free” job boards of the early 2000’s didn’t hurt the search community, LinkedIn certainly has. Every Human Resource Director in the world now has a targeted database to research and to which he/she can submit opportunities to very specific audiences. It is no longer enough for us to rebuild our database of search professionals (although I want to do that as well).

We need visibility at ALL middle market companies. Why middle market companies? The reason is because that is typically where our members find jobs. Large companies don’t generally hire senior level executives, they grow their own. The problem with middle-market companies is that there are so many of them and they aren’t active in OUR market except perhaps once every 3-5 years.

We have three target audiences that I need your help in reaching. The first is Human Resource Professionals at middle market firms. The second is Operating Partners at Private Equity Groups. The third is Search Firms (they still do handle many jobs)

Because many of you will be writing to the same people, it is vitally important that you take the time to personalize your letter to anyone you know introducing our organization. If you would like to help make a little “Stone Job Soup,” please send some variation of the message below:

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Dear (insert your contact’s name):

Allow me to introduce you to The Financial Executives Networking Group!

The FENG is the world's largest networking group of senior financial officers. Our 30,000+ members are primarily CFO's, Controllers, and VP's of Finance, Treasury, Tax or M&A. Utilizing The FENG for your senior level financial searches will shorten your timelines and enable you to deliver great candidates.

May I invite you to post appropriate jobs on our Job Board? You will find our website at: https://www.thefeng.org/.

The FENG is a matrix organization. We have 85 Chapters and 35 Special Interest Groups. When you post a job directly to our website, you are encouraged to focus your desired response by identifying specific geography and areas of expertise. There is a box for the city location, but if you are not able to reveal that information, you can at least get close by specifying one or several Chapters. Please limit yourself to no more than 3 Chapters. In terms of expertise, specifying Special Interest Groups will let our members know your preferred industry (i.e., Construction or Healthcare) and/or expertise (i.e., Manufacturing or Treasury).

You may instead send your requirements to: [email protected] and our newsletter editor will take care of them for you. Jobs must exceed $150,000 in base salary. Paste the position description you would like published into your email or attach a Word file. Position descriptions do not have to be shortened. Be sure to indicate where you want responses sent at the end of the position description as well as in your email cover note.

- Jobs remain visible on our website for only 2 weeks. Each day these "active" jobs appear in our 5 day a week email newsletter as "thumbnail" descriptions with links to our website.

- For best results, be sure to include a salary range and exact city location.

- Sign your email with an outgoing signature that includes your FULL business card information as it makes your posting look more serious.

- You will generally get a targeted response within 48 hours. Unqualified applicants often result from not providing a salary range or exact city location. Remember 2 facts: "money talks" and "location, location, location."

- The FENG does NOT charge for your postings. Our members appreciate the opportunity you give them to present their credentials for appropriate opportunities.

We look forward to hearing from you and being of service.

Sincerely, (your name here)

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Each of us has our own “inner circle of friends.” The reward for participating in our “Stone Soup” program will be a flood of opportunities for you to consider. If you think about it, anyone you know who had a job for YOU would call you. You’re not giving up anything by introducing our organization to EVERYONE you know.

In the alternate, you are welcome to send me the contact information of anyone you think would benefit from a relationship with our organization and I will gladly contact them and mention your name as their “munificent benefactor.” I’ll do anything to get more job leads for our newsletter. I hope you will too.

So, if any of you are hungry for a tasty meal of stone soup, please have at it. Reservations aren’t required for this restaurant.

Regards, Matt