Beans, Raspberies and Snakes

Today, before leaving to visit my friend, Deanna Tucci Schmitt, (She's the BNI Executive Director for Western PA.)

I decided to pick the first crop of green beans and also pick another quart of red raspberries. Steve will be home while I'm gone, but I know that he might forget to pick.

I had mentioned to a friend while at my BNI meeting early this morning, that I was going to do that task. She said, "I would offer to pick, but when we were out at your house the other night for the 5th Birthday Party for Certified Networker, Greg (our son) told me that you have snakes." I assured her that was history, that I had not seen any snakes this year.

Forward to the raspberry patch. I was trying to pick as quickly as possible so that I could get on the road. At one point I pulled a raspbery stalk aside and there curled around the top of the short wire fence was a snake. At first I thought it was a bungie cord and couldn't figure out why Steve had put one there. But I soon realized that I was seeing just the middle of the snake.

So I guess there goes my line about no snakes!

Don't know what that has to do with networking. Maybe we can turn that into, "expect the unexpected; it will probably show up at networking events."

WiN Meeting - Thursday, July 5th

Hello Ladies,

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful summer! Next Thursday is our July WiN meeting to be held at By The Lake Spa & Wellness Centre. Registration begins at 11:30 and the meeting will run until 1:30pm, cost $15.00 for members and $20.00 for guests. Kathy will be working hard to whip us up a wonderful lunch. I haven't yet confirmed the speaker but will let you know as soon as I confirm.

Please let me know if you will be attending. Thanks to those who have already responded.
For a map to the Spa click on the map link in the top right hand corner.

Warm regards,
Heather


LOOK WHO'S COMING...
1. Colleen Collins - Jem Advertising
2. Kathy Quinn - By The Lake Spa & Wellness
3. Heather Chapman - ExcluZiv Marketing
4. Bookie Bell - Checkers Entertainment Service
5. Meredith Montomery - Big Event Floral & Decorating Company
6. Glenda Ashby, Maid In Canada
7. Susan Taylor, Taylor & Associates
8. Barbara Leffering, Quilt-A-Graffix
9. Rachel Kruyf, Accouting

Empty Seat Syndrome

Let's talk more about joining associations.

A couple days ago I had a conversation with a business person wanting to make connections in a specific market. I asked if she had joined the association of this industry segment. The answer was yes, but she had not yet become active.

My thought was, "Well, I guess you didn't put much thought into this membership."

In order to get anything from being a member, first you have to be active. Then you have to give to the group.

So if there was a plan, it might have looked sort of like this.

Goals of Joining (set before joining!)

1. Join Association.
2. Attend 10 out of 12 meetings annually.
3. Note those meeting dates on my calendar.
4. Meet with executive director to find out what role I can play.
5. Assume the duties and responsibilities of that role.
6. Make a list of members I want to meet one to one.
7. Set a goal of how many member to meet with monthly.
8. Invite prospective members to meetings as my guest.

Of course, your goals might be slightly different. But it doesn't matter. What does matter, is having a plan of action before you join so that you hit the ground running. You don't want to waste several months of membership time trying to decide what to do.

What goals do you have in place for the associations you belong to?

No, I Don't Want to Play

I was talking with a friend the other day about the networking event we are going to have in the fall for the launch of the new book Masters of Sales. I am a contributing author to this book. Page 250, just in case you wanted to know!

This friend is also a published author. In my opinion her book is great because it makes me laugh out loud. She is self-published, but she paid the extra money to have a cover designed and also had some stiff editing done to make it read better. I have purchased several copies of the book to give to friends.

So there you have the background.

In this conversation she mentioned that she still had several hundred books in her garage.

I shared that at our event, we were thinking of asking other local authors to be in attendance. We want to support their efforts, too.

She said that she didn't think that it would be good for other local authors. It is her experience that BOOK FAIRS don't work. She explained that people only bring a certain amount of money and she didn't think people would budget for other books besides ours.

Now, she has probably done a lot more work of promoting that book of hers than I will ever personally think of doing for Masters of Sales. After all, we have the whole BNI network behind us. But why would she kick a gift horse in the mouth?

If you were an author and had some books you needed to sell, would you want to be a part of this networking event which is not a book fair?

Visual Connections

You know what would be fun?

I'd like to turn my four office walls into a giant white board.

Then, I'd like to draw the connections that I've made between people to see the network grow.

Think about it. Think about the people you've introduced. And then think about the second generation connections they've made.

It'd just be fun to see.

And gratifying, too.

I've never tracked that -- the number of people I've connected.

Have you?

Ear piece, Smear piece

Word-of-mouth! It can win for ya'

Or it can KILL ya'

Motorola -- you're getting the second answer today.

Last week I decided to join the forward generation and bought a wireless Bluetooth earpiece.

KOOOOOL!

Well, not really.

It took a call to New Deli, to get it to set up. Of course, one of the directions they told me to do was not listed on the "fast start" printed instructions that came with the device.

Got the pairing done.

Then I found it difficult to use because I was getting an echo.

Hearing me once is enough!

Second call to New Deli.

This person had me delete the device and start over again.

Did the start up steps. It paired. It would not work.

New Deli suggested I call Nextel's help line. Gave me number.

I called number. It was for Mobile T.

Called New Deli back. Told me to return it to where I purchased it.

Retrieved the packaging from the trash bin. It had a little bacon grease on it from the BLTs we had the other night.

Went to Home Depot. The nice lady helped me again.

Tried to make it pair and work today.

It paired but didn't work.

Called New Deli again.

New Deli made me go through all the start-up steps again. Doesn't work.

New Deli said, "I cannot help you beyond this."

I returned the ear piece for $106 back into my pocket.

Bought wired version. Ten Bucks. I plugged it into the Blackberry. It works.

Motorola, you SUCK.

You have done everything in your corporate power to NOT have me buy from you. I can't imagine that is the goal, but ya' just never know.

Marketing Cartoons

Tom Fishburne creates some pretty funny cartoon panels about marketing and advertising. His most recent post in his new blog is along the lines with what Seth said today about the ROI on adverting. I first read his material when he drew a cartoon about word of mouth marketing. That one is right here.