Job Title: Retired
Company Name: Retired from Development and Fundraising
Jeannie Shy has more than 40 years of experience in sales and marketing across various industries, with a focus on gift planning, fundraising, and development. Her career highlights include working with individuals to design the philanthropic component of their estate plans, raising funds for scholarships, buildings, and programs in education, and creating effective sales and marketing strategies in retail and community service environments. Jeannie holds an advanced degree and a CDP certification in Development and is now enjoying retirement after a rewarding career.
Jeannie is now enjoying retirement, spending time with her grandchildren, traveling, and embracing new experiences. She remains passionate about staying connected with her community and continues to share her wisdom and insights from her decades-long career in development, fundraising, and marketing.
Building deep and meaningful relationships, resulted in the most effective outcomes of my work. When I was able to lock in and focus on the individuals I was serving and truly understand what motivated them, I was able to be most effective. Often this came down to simply being an excellent listener and asking thoughtful questions to know how best to be of service to others. I always had the best results when I took time in advance of a meeting to plan one or two questions, I might want to get answered in order to move forward to the next step. Being organized and executing a good plan may seem like a simple concept. But often times, people spend a lot of time creating grand plans and not executing them.
I had to learn to be patient and learn how to talk to people in different ways to appeal to their communication style. I found that no, didn’t always mean no. It might mean no not now, or no it is the wrong project for me, or no I need more information. Some people need every detail while others are overwhelmed by details and want just the big picture. Learning to recognize all of these nuances in conversation with others and find the correct rhythm was a challenge that took practice and attention to overcome and often tested my patience. Some conversations are practical, some are emotional, and some are social. But whatever the conversation, it is important that you communicate in a clear, concise and consistent way. And not only paying attention to what was being communicated to me, I also had to learn to be constantly aware of how I was communicating both verbal, non-verbal, visual and in writing. Good communication was key to my success.
"When I was 19, I was named the #1 salesperson for a large major retailer that month. It was the 2nd month of the program. I felt sincerely honored to be the 2nd person they selected to honor with this award. Looking back I realize that this experience helped to solidify my interest to pursue a degree and career in sales and marketing. "