You Don't Say

Friday I had a meeting with Gary Bright. He works for Century Health and is an ambassador for the GreaterFindlayInc. This means that he wears a red blazer to GFI events and welcomes participants as they come in the door. So I knew who Gary was, but I didn't really know anything about him.

VP of Business Development for GRI, Jeremiah Gracia, suggested that Gary would be a good person for me to get to know. So I contacted Gary and he graciously agreed to meet Friday afternoon at Coffee Amici's in Findlay.

Now, let me tell ya', I had wrongly assumed the Century Health was a durable medical goods company and I figured that Gary was a marketing representative, selling wheelchairs and hospitals beds and other medical things. That's where it is really important to connect with people.

Because of our meeting today, I now know that Century Health is a non-profit mental health agency, focusing on emotional wellness and recovery for adults. This is Gary's second stint with CH and he made the decision to return because of the integrity displayed by both the agency and the executive director. His job is to get out into the community to let people like me and other people know of the services they can provide.

We also talked about how funding is always a challenge for non-profit agencies today and that he's always open to ways he can help bring in more money. He said that he is confident that the money they do spend is done in a manner that is very stewardship-like.

Gary talks R-E-A-L slow. I am more of a hard charger. I can tell you that after spending 45 minutes with Gary near the end of a very busy week that I felt very calm.

So, stop assuming that you know what someone does. At your next networking meeting seek out one person to really find out what they story is!

I Will.......

I'd like to talk about commitment this morning.

Relationships cannot develop without some type of commitment between two people. In fact when relationships falter it is because commitment is ignored.

Back in the "old days" I was a participant in the est seminar, which has now evolved to The Landmark training. One message that was impressed upon us during that rigorous two weekend seminar was that our commitment was all we could give and it had to be 100%. What was really difficult for me to wrap my head around was that if someone in the group was late, then it affected the integrity of the whole group.

Of course I, being the very typical "good" girl, thought that wasn't fair, because after all, I was on time. It took me more than those two weekends, but I now understand what that meant. If the whole group is not there and there on time, then a part of the group is not there, hence the group is not whole. Less than whole affects the integrity of the group just as it would if we took one brick out of a building.

With that understanding, it is the same between two people. If one person doesn't keep their commitment, then the relationship is not whole. Both individuals suffer this loss and the relationship is diminished.

While I know we live in an imperfect world, what would happen if everyone kept 100% of their commitments. I strive to do that and do fail every day. It's when I am 30 seconds late that I justify by saying, "Well I've had to wait for him in the past." I do know that I now think twice before making commitments so that I do have a very good chance of honoring those commitments.

What can you do to keep your commitments 100% of the time?

Whenna Ya Gonna' Henna?

A week of my time away from blogging was to spend some time with my friend Marcia Housel. Marcia and I have been friends forever -- well almost. Believe it or not, she was my eighth grad science teacher, then Girl Scout Leader and finally after I married, our families were such great friends that we vacationed together every year.

I moved away and as with long distance friendships, we kept in touch with Christmas letters to each other. We still keep this tradition. She and one other distant friend are the only holiday cards I send. Fat letters are in both.

About four years ago, we decided to begin seeing each other instead of just relying on words. This year was no different. I made the ten hour trip to north of Scanton to Tingley Lake. This is so back in the woods that they have given themselves their own address -- 12 Cottage Lane.

This year Marcia is going through chemo for Ovarian cancer. She lost her hair because of treatments. So what do 60ish year olds do when adversity happens? We just play with it. We played with henna (semi-permanent tattoo dye) one day. Marcia wanted a flower on the side of her head, but I figured I was better at copying a dragon fly from a suggested list of designs. We also each did one foot. Marcia's daughter, Nancy, also helped by doing my foot and I put some henna on Libby's hand. Libby is Marcia's precocious almost four year old granddaughter.

We have not lost our connection with each other in the kitchen. It was amazing one night when we pulled out a summer squash casserole recipe that neither of us had made in a long time. Without talking about who was going to do what, we just started in and made the whole thing in a very coordinated fashion with never a word between us.

Marcia is doing really well with her treatments, no ugly symptoms. She will be seeing the oncologist this week, so all you out there, just keep her in your thoughts that her health will continue to be strong.

And for all of you, have a little fun this summer by doing the unexpected. Henna ain't just for the young people!

60 60 60 60 60 60

Well, I'm back from not blogging for awhile. Lots of stuff got in the way -- but good stuff.

I celebrated my 60th birthday with a BIG party thrown by my sons,
daughters-in-law and hubby on July 27. What a wonderful day. Seventy people showed up for a picnic on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.

In the invitation that my son, Greg, sent out via Evite, he let everyone know that I didn't want gifts, but if they wanted to donate to my two favorite charities, that would be a bonus. Everyone was very generous and Way Public Library Foundation and Hannah's Socks got some cash that they weren't planning on.

All the birthday cards were great and I really thank my lucky stars that I have such a wonderful family and so many special friends.

A friend who went the extra mile was Deanna Tucci Schmitt. (In this picture she has just had a full day of travel and is holding one of my grandchildre and playing with the other.) She lives in Pittsburgh, but was training at BNI headquarters the week before the party. She changed her original flight reservations, so that instead of flying home, she flew into Detroit on Saturday. Greg and Lisa (son and d-i-l) picked her up and then they all came down to Toledo together. The day after the party, Deanna and I left early so that I could take her home on my way to visit another friend in Scranton for the week. Just changing her flight reservation cost $150 dollars. Wow! Friends sure are great.

I have never had a birthday celebration before and this one sure did make it fun.

I'll fill you in on other stuff I've been doing over the next couple days.

Take More Time

This morning I attended my BNI meeting. As part of the meeting we give a short, timed infomercial about our business. To be successful it needs to be within the time limit and it also needs to contain a little bit about what we do and also, specifically what we need.

Last week out of about 25 members, there were 9 specific requests.

Of those nine, I was able to react to 6.

Of those six, one was a "no" answer, two are in progress and the rest were referrals.



This week I am frustrated. Of all the commercials, there were only two specific requests and mine was one of those two. I have fifteen minutes before I have to go to an appointment. If there had been other specific requests I might have been able to be making calls on member's behalf right now. But my co-members wasted their commercial time this morning by not completing their requests. And I don't really have time to do their research, because I have to spend time doing my own. It would be like buying a spot for a TV commercial and then not producing anything to fit that time. Wasted time.

Please, if you want your friends and business associates to help you, you have to know what you want. Do your homework. Figure out who would be a good customer for you. If you don't know, I don't know either.

Speed Networking

Last week I went to my first ever business speed matching. Or as a friend of mine put it, speed dating for business!

I have always avoided this type of marketing because it didn't seem to fit my way of marketing which is to develop relationships.

It worked like this: There were twenty participants. At the start, people are sitting facing one another. At the signal, we had five minutes to talk with the person we were facing. At the next signal we all moved to the right, having a new person to communicate with for five minutes.

I had no goals set going in to this event, other than to experience this type of marketing.

I found it a frustrating experience for me, but I told Jeremiah Gracia, VP of Business Development for GreaterFindlayInc that I will try it again. Here are a couple of my frustrations.

1. Each person handed me their business card, whether I wanted it or not. I do not hand out business cards unless someone asks for it. I gave out two. Is "dealing the deck" better in this situation?

2. My style is to ask questions when I meet someone for the first time, to find out more about that person. Consequently, most of the 19 conversations I had were focused on the other person -- not a bad thing, but I would guess that for most of the participants, they don't know what I do. Is there a format to follow as a participant of one of these events?

3. One participant gave everyone a fairly large gift of a beautifully wrapped dish of taffy candies. They were lovely and they were also cumbersome. I met with this person fairly early so I had that, plus my portfolio, my purse, my coffee, etc. to move each time. I felt like the one-handed paper-hanger. Should gift items be given at the end of the event?

4. Five minutes went quickly. There was no midpoint signal to suggest the conversation focus move to the other person. Or should there be a smaller group, so that there are two rounds with the first round focusing on one person, and the second round on the other?

Now, even with the frustrations, I did accomplish two future appointments and have since scheduled a third. I must tell you that the third was sort of reluctant to schedule when I emailed. I was thinking, "why bother go to these events if you're only going to skim the surface?"

So what do I think of this type of networking? The jury is out. As with anything new, there is a learning curve. I will register for the next event to see if this is an option for me.

What advice do you have for me?

Later:

(Okay, Since I wrote the above post I've done some additional research looking for actual hints on what to do at a speed networking event. While there is not a lot of info out there that specifically addresses that topic, one article did give me a lightbulb moment. The article was giving the benefits of speed networking with one being "Professional Development." Specifically it explained that a speed networker will "learn to perfect their 30 second elevator pitch" That's when I realized my frustration. The elevator pitch signifies selling for me and that is NOT networking. I was trying to network when most everyone else was selling. Just having that realization helps me to realize that I'm not crazy!)

Update

Gable is still alive and last night I enticed him to eat with his most favorite thing in the world -- carrots. (I have no carrots left in the garden because Gable and the devil Springers dug them all up.) Then I gave him a plate of a scrambled egg and leftover green beans from the night before. All slurped eagerly. So I feel a little more positive about him this morning. He even ate a little dog kibble when we went out to the barn to let the other two devils out.

I am going to take him to the vet, just to make sure that there is no blockage in his stomach that may be creating all this. I caught him with garbage on Sunday evening and I took the foil wrapped morsel away from him, but who knows if he hadn't already swallowed some of it.

I'll keep ya' posted.