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Archive for August, 2009

I’m Back

Monday, August 31st, 2009

I’m back from vacation, and I’m feeling good. A part of me would like to say that I created a bunch of blog posts while I was gone, and they are lined up and ready to go. But I didn’t. And that was kind of the point.

As entrepreneurs, we have a lot of advantages over the 9-5 crowd. We have flexibility. We can work whenever and where ever. We don’t have a boss telling us what we can and can’t do. And we have a lot of disadvantages. We can work whenever and where ever. We don’t have a boss telling us to go home. We don’t have “use it or lose it” vacation.

It’s all too easy to get caught up in work and to forget that we are people, with human needs and wants. Vacations should be a good reminder of that. But how many of you take cell phone and laptop with you? Uh huh. I thought so. Many of you.

Let me let you in on a secret. I took my phone and my laptop with me. The iPhone was in airplane mode, so it was a great iPod. I listened to lots of music, got really good at Sudoku, and read a couple of fantastic books. Laptops make great media players for a camper. Who needs a TV? We brought the second half of Torchwood Season 1 and watched them all. A bit of WiFi for Netflix Watch Instantly would have been nice, but we survived.

I didn’t respond to either voice mail or email. Yeah, I have a lot of catching up to do this week, but it’s okay. I felt my creativity slowly return over the last week. I even wrote a bit of fiction, and I can’t do that if I’m not rested and relaxed.

So when’s the last time you took a vacation and really unplugged? If you can’t remember, it’s been too long. Find the time, and do it quickly. Your business will be better for it.

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Tags: iPhone, time management
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Going on Vacation!

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Just wanted to let you all know that I’m getting ready to leave for vacation. My birthday is this Saturday, and we’re going away, just me and my husband. No son. No dog. No cats. Just us.

If you’re interested, we’re going to be spending three days at Douthat State Park in Virginia and then on for four days at Stonewall Resort in West Virginia. Don’t be fooled. There is “camping” at Stonewall, though it doesn’t look a bit like we’ll be roughing it.

I’ll be back and blogging again on August 31. Until then, network well!

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Review: Getting Things Done

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

I’ve been recommending a fantastic book to many of my clients, and the response from them has been overwhelmingly good. The book is Getting Things Done by David Allen. Mr. Allen takes a different approach to time management and organization than many other authors, and I think most of his ideas are relevant to networkers.

One of the most interesting is that he suggests getting rid of priorities and To-Do lists. I had a hard time with both of those when I read the book. I lived and died by my To-Do list, and I wasn’t willing to give it up without a fight. But when I finally got his point, I gave it up. He suggests that we look at everything in our life and work as “next actions.” That concept, which seemed so simple, was almost revolutionary.

Look at a typical task: “Buy stuff for networking event.” Seems simple, right? Actually, that task can be broken down into a series of next actions:

Determine attendance
Decide on food for event
Pack projector and computer
Buy food

And so on. The point he makes is that if you leave a task too broad, you will tend to avoid it because it seems to hard to get your head around. Breaking it down into a series of discrete next actions makes it easier to actually take action and get an item off the list.

Another point he makes is to combine “work” and “personal” actions. That flies in the face of the advice of many time management gurus. But again, I see his point. His goal is to have his readers put in place a system where they are doing the right thing, in the right place. For example, if you need to go to Staples for work supplies, and your system includes both work and personal, you’ll also remember to pick up poster board for your son’s school project. If you maintained separate lists, the odds are good that you’d end up making two trips.

Go buy the book. It’s worth it. I’ve always thought of myself as organized, and I got so much out of this book that I completely reworked my systems. And I am getting a lot more stuff done.

In future posts, I’ll share some ideas for implementing the GTD system on the go and how it can fit in with an overall networking strategy.

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Tags: GTD, networking on the go, task management, time management
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News on the Go

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Last week, I posted on giving, and I mentioned that information can be an excellent way to give back. But with all the information available, and all the demands on our time, how can we keep up?

Getting your news on the go is what I am finding works the best. Google Reader is an excellent (and free) way of keeping up with news and blogs. They have an excellent mobile site, so you can access it from your smart-phone almost as easily as from your computer. The Washington Post just updated their mobile site, and I have been very happy with the redesign. The New York Times has an iPhone app that I use for accessing their site. I haven’t made a study of it, but I am certain other major papers have similar mobile access.

There are a myriad of mobile apps for keeping up with Twitter. The one I have been using is Twitteriffic for my iPhone. There is a free, ad-supported version that does everything I need.

What about you? What are you using to keep up with news on the go?

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Tags: Giving, iPhone, networking on the go
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Don’t Prejudge What You Can Give

Friday, August 14th, 2009

This issue has come up a couple of times this week. Two people have been thinking about going to networking events, and before they go, they worry about how they are going to give back. Neither of them have very big networks right now, and they are concerned that they are going to ask for referrals with no way to give back.

I’m very happy that they get the giving part of networking. But I told both of them the same thing. Don’t worry in advance what you are going to be able to give. You don’t know until you ask someone what they want. And you may be surprised at the answers you get.

Giving can take many forms. Sometimes information is a great gift. I get a report every month from my local county supervisor. This month there was an article about a senior center opening up in Springfield. I have a client whose business is located in Springfield and involves working with the elderly. So I forwarded her the email. She was delighted! Now she has another avenue to pursue for growing her business. No referral was involved, but she needed the information.

So certainly be in a giving mindset when you network. But don’t worry in advance about what you can give. Ask the question, “How can I help you in return?” Listen to the answers. And be open to creative ways to give back to the people who refer you.

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Tags: Giving, Referrals
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Caveat Networker

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

I wanted to share this story to illustrate why you need to be careful with whom you use for a service provider. We all want to assume that people who share our networking groups are the people we want to support with our business. As with anything in life, do your due diligence and use caution.

I have a client who was excited to tell me about the company he had just hired to help him with website promotion. They were setting him up with Pay Per Click, guaranteed his website would be at the top of Google and were going to work with him on his email newsletter. They were in the same networking group and had just done a one on one meeting, which was how my client had learned about him.

As it happened, I had just had a phone conversation with a company offering similar services, so I asked a few more questions. A telling answer was cost. My client was going to be charged $500 a month for this service. That raised a red flag, because the company I had been talking to charged half that.

I don’t want to say that paying less is always the best approach. That’s not what this is about. Price is only part of the picture. The “guaranteed top of Google” was another red flag. I’ve been doing some research on SEO, and it’s certainly possible, but it’s difficult, and that guarantee is a pretty high bar.

So I did some research on the company. My client gave me the website, and when I visited, I was unimpressed. There was little to no content on the site. Each page was a description of a service with a “Get a Quote” button at the bottom. There was a page for “Sample Website Design,” but to access that page, you already had to be a client! To contrast, the company I had been talking to gives away a lot of information and uses those give-aways as a way to gauge interest in their services.

I did one final test. I did a search for the company on Google. I tried various keyword combinations, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t find them on the first six pages. I don’t know anyone who searches farther than that.

I wrote back to my client something to the effect of “if they can’t do what they promise for themselves, what confidence do you have that they can do it for you?”

By the way, the company I had been talking to, Hubspot, does show up on the first page of Google if you search for “Inbound Marketing” and on the second page if you search for “Internet Marketing.”

The moral of this story? Just because you share a networking group with someone does not guarantee they are the best company for you to use.

Anyone else have a good story to share?

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Tags: Networking, Networking Groups, Referrals
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Review: Word Press Mobile for iPhone

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Good networkers are often on the go. But we frequently have time between meetings to do some work. Mobile devices make that easier. So much nicer to pull out the phone while filling a few minutes between meetings than messing with a laptop.

Let me start my series of posts about mobile networking with a review of Word Press mobile for the iPhone. I have written several blog posts on the go with it, and so far I like it. (Yes, I wrote this post using it at Panera, waiting for a client.)

I can create a new post, even adding tags and categories. Categories are synced from the website, but tags aren’t, which is a bit of a pain. As my list of tags grows, it will be hard to remember which ones I use.

I can write and save directly to the phone, so I don’t need an active connection. Great. When I am camping in a couple of weeks with no cell signal, I can still write if the mood strikes me. But I kind of hope it won’t.

One of the nicest features is the ability to review and accept comments. Since there are days when I leave the house early in the morning and don’t get back until late, I am glad I can monitor the discussion around my posts on the go. It would be even nicer if the program pushed comments to the phone so I knew about them in real time. Right now I do have to remember to open the program and check. Maybe in the next version.

It does not support the iPhone landscape keyboard, but that’s a non issue with me. I almost never use it.

Syncing a post to the web, even over Edge, is fast. This post took about 15 seconds to upload on Edge.

Pros:
ability to create posts off-line
Ease of use
Quick learning curve
Ability to monitor comments

Cons
No use of landscape keyboard
No pushing of comments
No saved tags

Overall, I give it a solid 4 out of 5.

What? No iPhone? There is a beta version for you Blackberry users. If any of you want to test it and write a guest review post, I’d be happy to publish it. Just let me know.

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Tags: blogging, iPhone, networking on the go
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Are Brochures Relevant in Networking?

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I may generate a bit of controversy on this one, and I’m okay with that. I am very much interested in your thoughts on this topic.

I had the idea after reading Jason Alba’s excellent blog post on Why Resumes are Relevant. He started me thinking. In networking, brochures are much the same as a resume in a job search. But with websites and social media, are they useful networking tools?

I do think they have their place. At a trade show, they are vital. In that environment, you meet so many people in a very short period of time, and you need something to remember them by. But what about in networking activities?

When I do a one on one meeting with someone, I usually am handed a brochure. Honest moment here. I toss them when I get home. If I kept every brochure, I would have a closet full of them by now. If I need to refresh my memory on products or services, I visit their websites. If I need to give more information, I send a link to a website. If I want to show that someone is an expert in his or her field, I will send a link to an article, or a blog.

In fact, I have never been asked, “Do you have a brochure about that person?”

So what do you think? Is there a a need to hand out brochures at networking meetings? Or are we just wasting a lot of paper?

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Tags: marketing, Networking
Posted in Networking | 7 Comments »

Archive for August, 2009

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