Blog

Question of the Fortnight: What is your best networking tip?

Fortnight QuestionWhat is a fortnight? It’s 14 days or 2 weeks.

Why am I talking about fortnights? Because I want the question to be out there for more than one week and less then a month (I thought about doing a question of the week or month). A month seemed too long and a week didn’t seem long enough. And biweekly can be a confusing term (does it mean twice a week or every two weeks?). So, I borrowed a word from British English.

What is “Question of the Fortnight?” Every other week I’ll ask a question here on the blog. Through out the two weeks I’ll update the blog post with some of your answers. These will be from the comments below, from people I see networking and any other way I happen to receive your answer to the question.

This fortnight’s question is: What is your best networking tip?

Some of the answers I’ve received are:

Get involved in what other people are interested in…then they are more likely to involve themselves in what you’re doing. You may not reap where you sow, but you will always reap WHAT you sow! – Felicity Joy

Listen more than you talk. I try to pay attention to what people need, and meet those needs if I can. – Mary Wu

I believe being a person of integrity at ALL times is most important. Regardless of the business, be honest and forthright always looking out for your clients’ best interest. Never compromise on this point. – Karen Carlson

I also believe listening is the key but then after listening asking questions to find out what your client really needs and wants so you an address these. – Sue Kelbus

Share in the comments below what your best networking tip is!

What do you really control?

ClickForControlHave you ever noticed how much we don’t have control over? We can’t control the weather, our friends and family or other drivers.

Sometimes this can be rather frustrating. Where is spring? Why is it still chilly here? Why is that person tailgating me? Who’s going to be nice and let me change lanes?

So, it’s natural to nod our heads in agreement when someone says that being in control of our lives is just an illusion. After all, just look at the list of things you can’t control. The list of things you and I can’t control is infinite.

But there is one thing everyone does have control of in all situations. You are in control of how you choose to react in each situation you’re in or observe.

You get to choose whether the guy tailgating you annoys the heck out of you or not. You get to choose to complain about the cold day or enjoy the fact that the sun is out.  You get to make those decisions every single day.

So, is control an illusion? I guess it depends on what you’re trying to control.

Are you trying to control the situation or your reaction to the situation? I find it’s less stressful for me when I make the decision to control my reaction, rather than the situation.

What do you think? Share in the comments below.

What are the unimportant things you want to spend less time on?

I’ve been thinking about the quote I used in last week’s post:

Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life. – Brian Andreas

What needs to change so there is enough time for the important things?

What immediately pops to mind is that you need to know what the important things are. I talked about this a bit in last week’s post.

The less obvious thing you need to know is what are the unimportant things? Knowing this can be just as difficult as knowing what the truly important things are.

For me, it’s recognizing that watching YouTube videos over breakfast are a huge time suck and I end up having a really long breakfast. It’s closing my email window and checking it once every couple of hours instead of once every 15 minutes (and doing the same for Facebook). It’s recognizing that there are some social media options that I don’t get and it’s okay for me to not understand them right now. It’s realizing that spending 15 minutes (or more) trying to get the formatting perfect for something that I’m going to be the only one looking at probably isn’t a good use of my time. It’s not picking up my phone to play a quick game, because I’ll spend at least five more minutes playing than I anticipated.

Lots of examples above of what some of my “time wasters” are. I get so much more done when I don’t do those things, or recognize early that I’m starting to do them. And at the end of the day, I just feel better – my attention hasn’t been splattered a lots of different places.

Now it’s your turn. What are the “unimportant” things you want to spend less time on so you can spend more time on your important things?

Share in the comments below.

business person deciding road to take

What Do You Need Right Now?

business person deciding road to takeWhat areas of your life are the most important right now (keeping in mind that these change on occasion)? List the top two or three. Is it family, your business, church, friends, an organization you belong to or something else?

Now, for each of those areas what things are the highest priority – the way that you most want to spend your time with them or will move you toward your goals?

So, for family it might be spending one night a week together, a weekly (or monthly) date night with your husband and a phone call with your mom.

For your business it might be that one big project you’ve been thinking about, making some of the phone calls you know will generate money or any number of things.

What do all of these things require? Attention, energy and time.

Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life. – Brian Andreas

I heard that quote last week and think it is beautiful, wonderfully simple and so true.

And while it’s so simple, it’s also not.

Why is it we have so much trouble identifying what is really important AND spending time on it?

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking this during my phone calls with potential clients. I’ve heard over and over again that there’s so much to do that it feels absolutely impossible to pick one thing to focus on.

I even saw it show up in a Facebook update of an acquaintance.

One thing that you can do is stop taking advantage of all the free or limited time only offers.

For me, this used to show up as signing up for any free teleclass that crossed my path that might have any information in it that I was going to need at some point in my business. I was spending HOURS listening to teleclasses trying to learn what I might need later.

I see it now in some of the groups I belong to. They’re filled with great people and great products and smart marketing. And almost everyone wants to take advantage of the specials that everyone else has – and they’re stretching themselves thin, because they might need that information someday.

I get it, the offer might not be as good later, or even apply! And that’s the point of the offer – to give you a reason to act now if it’s the right fit.

Here’s the thing with those free teleclasses and great specials – it might not be what you need right now.

There are lots of opportunities for you to further your business, lots of wonderful people who can show you how to do it in the way that they’re teaching – but if it’s not what you need right now then it’s okay to say no thank you.

Like many things, this takes some practice and discipline. It means knowing where you are in your business and what your main focus is right now. Once you know that then you can work with people that specialize in that.

And I can almost hear you saying, that’s great Evie, but I’m feeling so lost and frustrated right now that I have NO idea what that focus is. So, I want you to do something that might feel really uncomfortable. I want you to STOP doing all the running around your doing and take a step back to look at your business.

What are your business goals? And what is it that you need the most right now to reach those goals? Then pick one thing that you’re going to focus on to reach that goal.

And when another great opportunity comes along, recognize if it’s not where you are right now and let someone else who is there have that opportunity. It might not be that you’re not there yet or it could be that you’re past it and just haven’t realized it yet.

I’d love to know what your highest priority goal is and what you’re going to focus on to reach that goal. Share below in the comments.

Image courtesy of 2nix / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Free stamp

How Free Are Free Offers?

Free stampHow are you spending your time?

Is it with a lot of free offers? Free opportunities?

My free of choice for a long time was teleclasses – meaning if you had a teleclass with some information I though might be useful to me at any point in my business, then I signed up!

I see other people doing the same thing. Sometimes it’s a free teleclasses, sometimes its a free consultation. Sometimes it’s something else, but it’s free, therefore it costs us nothing, right?

What we forget about these free things is that they take time.

And suddenly we’re wondering when we’re going to have time to call that person who expressed an interest. Or even just get some of the core work done in our business.

All because we’re grabbing that free.

What is that free really costing you?

I’m not saying that free can’t be valuable – heck, I do it too! I offer a free 30-minute conversation to people who want to learn more about what I do and how I might be able to help them.

There can be a lot of value in free, but it’s only valuable if that’s what you really need.

I’ve done it and I see others taking advantage of all the free because it might not be free later!

What if you believed that the free that you don’t really need right now will be available in some form or another when you’re at the place when you do need it?

What if that information IS available later, maybe just in a different form? And you don’t need to add more to your day to get it now?

What would your business and life look like if you truly believed that you could let go of what you don’t need right now and instead focused on where you are and what you need now? How would that feel?

Paint me a picture of what that looks like for you over in the comments below!

PS. If you’re having some problems figuring out what it is that you really need right now – be sure to read next week.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net