Author’s note: I have a fever of 100 degrees and feel really gross, but if I don’t write this post now it’ll never get written. See what I go through for you?! I love you guys!!

On Monday I returned from a week’s vacation with my Lovely Bride to Minneapolis and Chicago. We visited with my family in Illinois, had coffee with Patrick Rhone and lunch with Kimberly Sellnow in MSP, and then more fun than you can shake a stick at in Chicago with the SOBCon folks.

The highlight, of course, was my annual “Pizza Party” with Phil at Pizzeria Due in Chicago (three years straight now, IIRC). We shared our time with Jesse Petersen and Chuck Frey and had a very nice evening. Unlike the unfortunate travelers a few miles away at O’Hare Airport whose flights were being cancelled due to high winds and golf ball-sized hail.

Upon our return we spent Monday afternoon relaxing with each other and went straight back to work on Tuesday morning. It was the usual routine, just Super-sized, with hundreds of emails and other inputs to process through the system. For me Tuesday was intentionally designated as a day to catch up, process, organize and communicate.

E-mail

The first thing I did was sort my in-box by “From” and started deleting things that I didn’t need to worry about. Then a quick second-level sort into the Today, Tomorrow and Later folders. Finally I opened the Feeds folder, where all of my blog and other subscriptions go, and triaged those messages by sender as well. Pretty much all of those emails were deleted.

Communication

Many of these emails required a conversation of some sort, whether in a digital response or the need for a phone call or meeting. This area was of primary importance to me, as I do not like to keep people waiting for information.

Organization

By the end of the day I had communicated with nearly everyone who had reached out to me, either by email or telephone or Facebook or Skype. I had a good list of things that needed to get done over the coming week and a tightly-focused list of tasks for Wednesday. I was ready to get some serious stuff done, and I did. I had an amazingly productive day on Wednesday.

Thursday morning at about 3:30am I woke up choking and strangling from the Alien Face-hugger that was trying to jam its tentacle up into my sinuses. Well, something like that anyway. I had been feeling a “tickle” in my throat the past couple of days but I wasn’t worried – I’d been going to bed early and behaving myself. Har. Too bad. Fever. Phlegm. Watery eyes. Aching bones and joints.

Yep, I was sick (or rather, am sick, as it’s Thursday afternoon as I type this, in between naps).

I can’t get sick, I have too much to do!

How many times have you said this to yourself? Or how about the first topic of this inane, rambling post, Vacation? How can you take a vacation and go out of town when there is so much work to do?

If you are anything like my Lovely Bride you will start working extra-time for a week or so before you leave, to get those important things done that no one else is going to do while you are away. You also need to make sure that everyone knows what is happening, what events or activities are planned for that time, so they don’t get dropped or missed.

You plan ahead. Way ahead.

You probably also took a look at some of the things that were on your plate and decided someone else could handle them for the time that you are going to be away. Or you decided they could go in the trash because no one would miss them. The rest, the really important stuff, you took care of. You completed those tasks, filed those reports, prepared the briefs, whatever. The point is, the big rocks got processed. You completed tasks and assignments that weren’t due until after your vacation, so you wouldn’t have to scramble to complete them when you returned.

Facing the deadline of your vacation like a man staring down the barrel of a gun, gives your mind a remarkable focus, your attention became disciplined and you did what you needed to do.

A similar thing can happen when you get sick, unexpectedly, and you miss out on work time. For me, this morning, as I sat there on the couch making tuba-like noises with my face into tissue after tissue, I decided that there were really only two things that I needed to accomplish today. One of them was this post, the topic for which came to me as I lay in bed during my mid-morning nap. I can’t be sick, I have to write a post for Phil. His readers are counting on me to show up and do the work. What the heck am I going to write about?

I looked ahead to my deadlines for this week and decided while other things could wait, this particular task needed to get done. And because the fever was messing with my ability to concentrate I decided to write about this process of deciding to write this post. (is that too meta??)

The “Vacation Razor”

That’s what I am calling this effect. The ability of a scheduled absence from work to become a tool for slicing away everything that is not important, a method for eliminating all of the distractions and side-tracks.

What if we could work like this all the time?

No, I am not talking about the extra hours and increased stress and the other, negative aspects of the Vacation Razor. I am talking about thinking further out, eliminating useless BS and being true to our real work.

Imagine that you have just won tickets to fly to Fiji for an all-expense-paid vacation, starting a week from tomorrow. You will be gone for an entire week.

What will you do with this weekend?

How would you prioritize your tasks and activities for next week?

Let’s do an experiment. Let’s do this for real, preparing to take a week off. Make some notes as you go through your week and we will re-group next Friday and share our experiences.

Add Stephen on G+

About the author: Stephen Smith teaches Productivity and Social Media Literacy skills at In Context MultiMedia. He will be publishing a compilation of best practices based on his popular Weekly Letter this month (special pre-order offer for Work. Smarter! here).

You can follow him on Twitter at @hdbbstephen.

This is a manifesto, or maybe just a rant, that I have decided to publish because I have been hearing so many Small Business People complaining about how much work they have to do.

Perhaps you have heard the expression:

“It’s hard to think about draining the swamp
when you are up to your neck in alligators.”

This is the wrong perspective. If you are indeed up to your neck in alligators then you need to make a change. You need to get back in the boat. Right now. Capture the alligator!

Let me take a step back. Back to September when I quit my soul-sucking job as a restaurant manager to go back into the freelance world. The first thing that I did was renew my Chamber of Commerce membership and get involved with the gatherings again.

Networking. Connecting. Sharing. (and a bunch of other things I have learned from Phil over the years.)

I set up some consultations and meetings and sent out proposals. I made some websites with blogs. I set up Twitter accounts and Facebook Pages.

Then something amazing happened. These small business owners and operators invested real money in an Internet presence and training on Social Media Marketing and then they did the most stunning (to me, at least) thing that they could.

Nothing.

Zip. Zilch. Nada.

No tweets, no blog posts, no Facebook activity. Yes, I am completely serious. And when I went back to them, to follow up and see what they were up to (because I hadn’t seen any updates or anything in my own feeds or in-box from them) they simply said they were too busy. They didn’t have enough time.

I call BS on that.

Of course they have time. You do too. In fact, those of you reading this are here because you want out of the time-trap or you already figured it out. Good for you. For those of you who haven’t figured it out, here are some tools and ideas for getting back in the boat so that you can drain the swamp.

Get up earlier. How easy is that? Get out of bed an hour or even a half-hour earlier and write that blog post. Or schedule some tweets to share links to the products that you are featuring this week. Even if you only do this once a week, you can promote your business more than you are now.

Get in control of your email. I am not kidding, this is one of the most common complaints I hear. I wrote an entire section in my new book about this. Here is a piece of it:

The essentials of managing your email:

• Create 3 folders in your email Inbox, labeled “Today”, “Tomorrow” and “Later”
• Each email that you receive gets prioritized according to its importance:
  • Is this something that must be handled Today?
  • Is this something that can be handled Tomorrow (or Soon)?
  • Is this something that can be dealt with Later?
  • Move it to the appropriate folder.
• If the email is something that someone else should take care of, forward it to them with a brief note and a due date. Tag the original email with “Delegated”, the name of the person it was delegated to, and the Due Date. Then move it to the appropriate folder.
• If the email is about something that you do not need to act on then file it, archive it or delete it.
• If, like me, you receive email notifications from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or other Social Networks, then create individual folders for each of these types of notifications and set up a filter to automatically move the incoming messages to the appropriate folder. Then you can deal with all of these at whatever time is best for you to do so.
• If you receive any emails from sites that you have subscribed to set up a filter to move them to a “Subscriptions” folder automatically. This is fantastically important! I can’t stress enough how much easier your life will be if you filter out all of these messages from merchants that you may have given your email address to. You may even wish to create sub-folders for this category of email, to separate the merchant-subscriptions from news and information subscriptions. This way you can process all of these at once when it is convenient for you.

Your email folder tree should look something like this:
Inbox

• Today
• Tomorrow
• Later
• Delegated
• Subscriptions
• Social Media
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
• Archives
• • 2011
  • 2012

Once you have set this up you are in business and should be able to process your Inbox in a short time each day.

Use SocialOomph to schedule your tweets. There are two schools of thought on this, but unless you have the time (and isn’t that why we are here?!) or the budget to hire someone to keep an eye on your Twitter and Facebook and Blog Comments and ghost-tweet for you, you need to put out some scheduled, automated tweets. Post 4 or 5 tweets per day, and then keep an eye on your email for responses. I use Socialoomph.com because it is free and simple.

Get a freakin’ smart phone already. Really? You just have the landline for your business? And a little flip-phone? I know it looks cool and Star Trek and all, but if it can’t get on the Internet and can’t be used to manage your email it’s a glorified paper weight. You should be able to run your Social Media Marketing from anywhere. Not that you have to, if you read the next tip, but you can.

Delegate the Facebook and Twitter stuff. I know, you’re a “dinosaur” when it comes to technology. Those kids are always doing stuff on their phones and you just don’t get it. Fine. Tell “those kids” what you want them to do and they will do it all day long. And at night. And weekends. Let them share pictures of your products and handle the Customer Service issues that come in via Twitter or Facebook. You don’t control your brand anymore, anyway. You never did. But you can and should be a big part of the conversation about your brand.

If you have a brick-and-mortar store you need to be using Foursquare. I wrote about Foursquare a month ago. Read it, do it.

Capture your customers’ email addresses and send them a quality newsletter. I simply cannot believe how many small businesses do not do this. What a wasted opportunity. You have the opportunity to create a personal, relevant and highly anticipated communication to your best customers. You know, the ones that want to have a conversation about your products or services. The people that like your company so much that they will tell their friends about you. They will share the newsletter. They will buy more stuff from you.

It’s the 21st century, and yes, things are moving very quickly. But the basic principles have not changed. Even if you are your only employee you need to invest some time, energy and yes, money, on marketing your business. Build your network. Get out there in the conversation and let your customers do the heavy lifting and sharing.

You have plenty of time. You’ve just been spending it on the wrong things instead of investing it on better, smarter things.

Add Stephen on G+

About the author: Stephen Smith teaches Productivity and Social Media Literacy skills at In Context MultiMedia. He will be publishing a compilation of best practices based on his popular Weekly Letter this month (special pre-order offer for Work. Smarter! here).

You can follow him on Twitter at @hdbbstephen.

Picture this: You just got back from a networking event, and you exchange e-mails with someone you want to schedule a meeting with, because you know how important it is to connect the offline to the online back to the offline. And you’re busy, so you never find the time to enter that person’s contact info into your contacts – and you need to call them right now because you got lost on the way to see them at their office and the GPS directions you have aren’t quite right – you’re going down Oakwood Avenue and you need to be on Oakwood Road. So you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, and you vow to never let that happen again!!!!

And yes – this has happened to me PLENTY. I vow to update my contacts as soon as I get back from a networking event – but I never do. It often stops at the first email back and forth, and yes, I occasionally get lost.

So I’ve been looking for a better way.

For a LONG time.

About a month ago, I found WriteThat.Name, a web service that scans all my incoming emails and automatically creates contact cards from email signatures. Helpful for me – and helpful for my contacts.

And the best part… it’s done while I sleep!  How cool is that?

I signed up for WriteThat.Name on March 28th and have already had 56 contacts automatically updated. I’m on their premium plan which is $20/yr and will continue to update any new contacts I have without an ounce of effort from me. (Anyone that tries out the service gets the premium plan the first month then moves to freemium).

I also tried out their extra service, HistoRecall, and got a whopping 540 updates (culled from 52639 emails!), hence all of the people from last year whose info I didn’t have, and all of this instantly went into my address book. Pretty cool, eh, and all that for a mere $20!

And according to Brad at WriteThat.Name, I am in their Hall of Fame (for top 20 updates ever). Most folks get between 50-250, and the most ever was 1456. Pretty cool!

If the service was just awesomely helpful, it would be worth the small investment I made in it. But the best part is the personalized service I got when I realized I signed up for the wrong service. Brad emailed me to reassure me everything would be fine, he pointed me (with a link RIGHT to the page on their site) that was for the right service. And I got a personal email when the process ended so I would know all my updates were done.

Because I love this service so much, I asked Brad if I could give away a subscription to all my readers. He said no (dang it!) but he did give me a 1 year premium subscription of each service to give away – to 2 lucky commenters.

ENTRY RULES: Leave a comment between now and May 11th, 2012 at 5 PM central time on this post with your BEST email story (anything related to email will work). I’ll pick 2 winners at random and connect you with Brad so you can give this service a good shot for the next 12 months or benefit from HistoRecall.

And definitely check it out, either way, as EVERYONE gets a free basic account of WriteThat.Name, just for signing up.

“Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.” – W. Clement Stone

The late businessman, philanthropist and self-help book author W. Clement Stone firmly believed that within every big problem we face lies a bigger opportunity. There’s always some aspect of a challenge that can be turned to our advantage, if only we have eyes to see it. Inevitably, thanks to his unshakeable belief in the power of a positive mental attitude, he was always right.

In other words, perhaps the problem is the way in which you’re looking at the problem. To uncover the solutions and opportunities that lurk within adversity, you need to step out of your well-worn paths of thinking. You need to attack it with smarter questions, which will give you the insights you need to solve it.

Thought-provoking questions like these:

- What’s good about this problem, challenge or situation?

- What benefits will you receive from solving this problem?

- What would the ideal solution look like? Can you picture it in your mind?

- How did someone in an unrelated industry or profession solve a similar problem? How can you adapt their solution to your challenge?

- What if you “crowdsourced” the solution (have a large community of people submit potential solutions to your challenge)?

- How would a famous, brilliant historical figure approach your problem or challenge?

- How can we dissect the problem into it’s component parts? Can we solve any of those sub-problems? How could the solutions you brainstormed be applied toward the overall challenge?

- Can you restate your problem? How many different ways can you restate it? More general? More specific?

- Gain a new perspective by looking at the problem from different angles. Can the rules be changed? What if you reverse your assumptions?

- Reframe the problem as a positive question, beginning with the words, “In what ways might we…?”

So what big problems or challenges do you face? How can you bring “opportunity thinking” to bear upon them?

About the Author: Chuck Frey is the author of Up Your Impact: 52 Innovative Strategies to Add Value to Your Work. Chuck is a recognized expert on the topics of innovation, creativity, brainstorming and visual thinking.

Guest author Brad Shorr has agency, in-house, and entrepreneurial marketing experience. He writes frequently about social media, SEO, content strategy, and other business issues of interest to small and midsized companies. He lives in the Chicago area and has been blogging since 2005. Connect with Brad on Twitter: @StraightNorth.

Twitter is my favorite social network. It’s fast, making connections is easy, people share great information, and the atmosphere (at least in my corner of the twitterverse) is friendly and open.

Another nice thing about Twitter is how conducive it is to relationship-building. Big brands use Twitter routinely to provide customer service. I’ve had personal experience with this with Comcast and Ford Motor Company — the latter case being a direct result of a blog post I did right here!

But using Twitter to build loyalty is not just for the Fortune 500. Small businesses and entrepreneurs can use Twitter just as effectively for communicating with customers and potential referrers. Here are a few ideas …

1. Reply when Mentioned

They say the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. When someone mentions you on Twitter, in the form of a question, a retweet, or something more generic like a Follow Friday shout-out, acknowledge it! This is always good form, but takes on added importance if you think about it from the loyalty-building perspective. How likely are people to recommend you or endorse you they get the impression you are ignoring them? The downside of not acknowledging a mention could be huge, even though you may never be able to measure the new business opportunities you don’t get.

2. Make the Unexpected Gesture

A successful sales rep I know makes a practice of sending out Thanksgiving cards rather than Christmas cards. Why? Because Thanksgiving cards are unexpected, and are therefore more appreciated and better remembered. The same idea holds true on Twitter when you endorse someone out of the blue, or retweet a great piece of their content with glowing praise and without being asked. Do you think clients will remember that when they are considering a new contract? Do you think referrers will keep that in mind when someone asks them who they recommend in your field? I know I do.

3. Make the Effort when Asked

Once in a while, your Twitter connections will ask you to retweet something, or to help get the word out about a promotion or a new service. When asked, do you roll up your sleeves and get to work, or just go through the motions? I’ll admit there are times when someone asks me for a hand and all I do is shoot out a perfunctory tweet or two. This is not good. What I should do is put together a really compelling set of tweets, and go a step further and tweet the message directly to people I suspect will be very interested. When you make an effort in response to a request, people notice — not just the person asking, but everyone else in your community. Which is better for building loyalty — earning a reputation for being generous, or earning a reputation for being oblivious?

Over to You

“Give to get” is the social media mantra. How have you made this principle work for you and your business?

Note: Brad Shorr works for Straight North, an agency doing Web development in Drupal, located in Chicago. They specialize in small and midsize B2B, with clients in diverse niches such as knife safety gloves and online payment gateways.

(Image Credit: © Wichittra Srisunon #38996339 – Fotolia.com)

One of those ideas was to create “Easter Eggs”:

Hide “Easter Eggs” in your products or billing statements. Print out a mini-flyer describing your Foursquare specials and hide them inside books, packaging, or include them with correspondence to your customers. Remind them that when they visit your store they are eligible for special rewards when they Check In on Foursquare.

You can include these in mailings, shopping bags, table tents or anywhere you have an opportunity to send or give your customer a piece of paper.

I have created a couple of templates for you to work with for incorporating these promotional materials into your marketing program.

A check-stuffer: download the .doc file

I used Open Office Draw to make a table tent: download the file here

Get creative! What are some other ways that you can think of to create a IRL invitation to join a virtual community?

Buttons? Imagine making a badge that the Mayor of your place of business can wear while they are visiting.

Stickers? Share your thoughts in the Comments.

Add Stephen on G+

About the author: Stephen Smith teaches Productivity and Social Media Literacy skills at In Context MultiMedia. He will be publishing a compilation of best practices based on his popular Weekly Letter called “Work.Smarter!” (special offer at the link!) in May.

You can follow him on Twitter at @hdbbstephen.

So how can you do a better job on your taxes for next year?

5 Tips for Better Taxes Next Year

1) Keep a separate bank account just for business and run only expenses through that – This is one of the first things I did when I started my business, and I am vigilant about ONLY using my bank account for business expenses. It helps I have online banking so I can transfer money to my other account on the go.

2) Use Mint.com or some software so you don’t have to manually enter your information onto a spreadsheet – We bought Quicken early in the year to help with this, because last year took me 10 hours to do this. OUCH! I hated doing it. But I had to – and you will too. Uncle Sam doesn’t like it when you guess at stuff like this. Be accurate and do it with software.

3) Keep all other receipts in a safe place – If you have other receipts that you didn’t pay with your business account, get a big envelope and put them all in there. And make sure it’s in a safe spot.

4) Put your money away in a place you can’t reach for next year’s taxes – I’m starting this one for next year. I did a terrible job at this – and my wife wanted to kill me – because I thought we needed all the money to live. Turns out I was wrong. Learn from my mistake. Please.

5) Hire a reliable accountant who can help you maximize your deductions – Yep, I am doing this now. Mo doesn’t have a website or I would link to him. And he’s actually so good, he doesn’t need one. Crazy I know, but yes – he saved me $6000 this year. A good accountant can help you do that.

Admittedly I did a TERRIBLE job in 2011 prepping for my taxes so I am taking my own advice. These tips will help me stay on track for my 2012 taxes, and I think they’ll help you too.

Want more tips? Check out this great article about tax resolutions over at Business on Main.

YOUR TURN: How do YOU keep up with your taxes? What’s worked for you? What hasn’t worked for you?

Disclaimer: My blog is a part of an online influencer network for Business on Main. I receive incentives to share my views on a monthly basis.

Acknowledge, but don’t argue with, the negativity on the platform it was presented. Some say a “thank you” is the right way to go, some say “I’m sorry” is better. I say it depends on what’s being said, but you need to acknowledge it.

Offer several contact methods that you will respond to (on the platform used) -  in order to get the hater to contact you so you can fix the problem. You’ll show your other customers that you are willing to try, even for folks who are shy about sharing their information (or that are such jerkwads they just want to take a shot at your business).

Fix the problem – if you’re given the opportunity to fix the problem (and you often won’t be) FIX THE PROBLEM. Simple as that.

Thank them for the opportunity to resolve the issue (on the platform used) – if you are allowed to fix the problem and you do fix the problem, thank your customer for the opportunity to fix the problem.

Reach out one more time – If you’re not given the opportunity to fix the problem, give it one more try. Make this a week to 10 days after the problem was reported, just in case the person is there. Repeat your contact info and be available to fix.

Never mention the problem again (but continue to monitor the page each week) – You had the last word, so you’re done. But you still want to monitor the page, so look every 3-5 days to make sure nothing new has cropped up.

Want more tips for stopping the anonymous hateraid? They’ve got some great insights over at Business on Main that will help you deal with these anonymous haters from some very smart entrepreneurs. Definitely worth the read.

YOUR TURN: What’s the best way YOUR business has handled anonymous haters? Have you seen an even more effective way of dealing with these folks? Leave a suggestion in the comments for your chance to win 1 of 2 $50 Amazon gift cards. You have until April 27th, 2012 at 5 PM central. I’ll be announcing the winners the first week of May, along with the winners of the 2 other contests I’ve been neglecting to post. Sorry about that.

Disclaimer: My blog is a part of an online influencer network for Business on Main. I receive incentives to share my views on a monthly basis.

Author’s Note: The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, “Work. Smarter!” which will be available in May. You can pre-order a paperback edition of the book, along with a special coaching opportunity for any of the book’s topics here – The Work Smarter Book Pre-Order.

I am looking forward to the launch and helping people get a grip on their work.

I am a big fan of the Chamber of Commerce. Part of the reason is the opportunity to meet other business people in a relaxed social setting at the regular get-togethers such as Business After Hours, Lunch-and-Learn, or Breakfast Seminars.

Sometimes these meetings have a structure, with a focused presentation, other times they are more free-form with food and beverages. All the time they are a great way to meet others in your community that you can work with, or can send more business your way.
I always attend a networking event with two goals in mind:

1. Meet at least one new person and introduce them to someone I already know that would have an interest in developing a business relationship with this new person.
2. Re-connect with someone that I may not have seen/spoken to in a while and get caught up on what they are working on.

By following these steps I have often been able to help others create business relationships and establish myself as a Connector. This often brings people (and business opportunities!) to me that I may never have had the chance to meet otherwise. The most popular type of networking event is the Business After Hours which has some excellent opportunities as well as its own special pitfalls to watch out for.

One thing to remember – have a good supply of business cards with you. So many people do not bring cards with them, and they miss out on opportunities. I also recommend having a short stack of 3″x5″ cards in your pocket for writing quick notes about the people that you meet.

The Challenges of the After-Hours Event

Your typical Business After Hours is an unstructured event with some finger food and a beer/wine bar. We can look at an event like this as having two main challenges and three primary opportunities.

The Challenges

1. First, the bar. Avoid the bar as best you can. Getting tipsy at one of these events may be expected by the majority of the participants, but no one has to know that you have been carrying the same glass of wine for two hours. Consuming alcohol reduces your ability to stay focused on the reason you are at the event: meeting people that can bring you business. Limit your alcohol consumption or avoid it altogether to get the most out of your attendance.
2. Your close friends and co-workers. Since you already have a relationship with some of the attendees it can be easy to spend most of your time talking shop with your co-workers or friends, rather than catching up with folks that you do not get to see very often or meeting the new people. I suggest that you work toward a goal of meeting 2-3 people that you do not know at each networking event. Ask them about themselves and their business, with an eye toward introducing them to someone that you already know.

As you can see, the challenges are insidious in that they are so easy to fall into. Stay focused on your own goals and you will be able to get the most out of your attendance and reap the benefits of the opportunities that the event can deliver.

Networking Brings Opportunities for Your Business

The primary opportunities of a Business After Hours event can build your authority, credibility and your bottom line. Have your elevator pitch ready to deploy!

Most people that attend these events are looking to sell something, that something being their product or service. You need to attend the Business After Hours with the goal of selling yourself – not your business, not your new product. Use the networking event to sell “Brand You” and set times for follow-up with the people that you meet.

These follow-up meetings or calls are the time for selling your business.

The Opportunities

1. Build Authority by meeting new people and introducing them to others in your existing network. If you meet someone who has a new company that makes widgets and you know someone that makes widget-packaging machines, get them together. This will demonstrate your knowledge of the market and showcase a benefit of developing a relationship with you.
2. Offer Value by listening to the people that you meet. Encourage them to talk about their business and interests. You need to work toward engaging them about them, and by explaining how you help others. Not by promoting your own business. That will come as your relationship grows.
3. Get more business! By engaging the people that you meet and learning more about them you develop your credibility in the community. Bringing other people together into new relationships establishes your ability as a Connector and creates a positive balance in your Emotional Bank Account. Be prepared to help someone else get more business and they will come to you for help later. That is how relationships work!

Letting the other person talk, and actively listening, is a good way of beginning to build a rapport with a new person. People do like the sound of their own voice.

Phil has written a fantastic article about exactly how to follow up after a networking event here, at the end of the post on “Why I Hate Your Newsletter“. Specifically:

“Personally email each person you met at the networking – Follow up is where most networkers (myself sometimes included) fall down. Make time that night or the very next day and send a personal two paragraph e-mail to each person you connected with. Paragraph 1 should include something you enjoyed about the other person. Paragraph 2 should be asking them for that coffee date, and offer 2 mornings and 2 afternoons that work for you in the next 2 weeks. Make sure to include your email signature in case a curious person wants to learn a little more about you.

Attend the coffee meeting with a notebook and pen and some questions about their business – Show up early to make sure you get a spot both of you can sit at, and be prepared to ask some good questions about their business and their role in it, some things you CAN’T find out on their website. Ask if you may take notes (it makes some people nervous, that’s why you ask first) and write down key points. This is NOT meant to be a grilling session, so if you bring out your order pad, you are going to scare this person away. Find out what their biggest goal is for this year and think about how you might be able to help them achieve it. Pleasure is WAY more fun than pain if you ask me.”

Do you have a networking event coming up? What are some of your own, personal strategies for meeting new people and incorporating them into your network?

Share in the comments.

Add Stephen on G+

About the author: Stephen Smith teaches Productivity and Social Media Literacy skills at In Context MultiMedia. He will be publishing a compilation of best practices based on his popular Weekly Letterin May 2012.

You can follow him on Twitter at @hdbbstephen.

The best time to do something is 20 years ago. The next best time is right now.

I searched and cannot find the originator of this, so for now, I’ll leave it unattributed, but I think this is so right for where I am right now in my business.

For the last 2 weeks, I’ve been working with my amazing art director/blog designer Jesse Petersen on the complete redesign of my blog.  It’s a completely new design, with new colors, new layout, new navigation, new categories, and finally a focus on what’s most important to the people I work with. We tweaked stuff, we’d just about go live, and then I’d ask another question and we’d tweak something else.

Another question.

Another tweak.

Question.

Tweak.

What that really meant is one word: DELAY! And to be honest, it was two words: NEEDLESS DELAY!

Because it’s never going to be perfect – but it is the right time, or more correctly, the next best time.

So I’m launching the new site – TODAY.

New logo – new look – finally focused at Phil Gerbyshak.com

And a new newsletter – TODAY. Small Business Success Tips. You can sign up by clicking in and reviewing my new site design and then signing up. I’ll let you know right now: I don’t have the perfect signup email (it sucks actually) or the perfect thank you for signing up email (also sucks) but I am launching it today because it’s the right time. – and I will continue to work to make it better.

What doesn’t suck is the design – and the content I will be sharing. It won’t always be my insights – though usually it will be. I think guest posts and interviews are VERY important so you can hear another voice, another opinion, another way of looking at things. And I’m not the only one with answers. I learn from you – your successes, your struggles, your questions, your answers. You’re learning from mine too.

And my focus doesn’t suck. I’m focusing on these 6 areas that you’ll find across the top of my site so you can use my site more effectively and find what you want faster:

• Speaking and Training – This will explain where I’m speaking or trainings I am offering (or that I’m attending and recommend you attend) this is the spot.
• Customers First – Customer service matters even more in this high tech world. I’ll share the best tips for connecting to your customers and offering the best ways to improve your customer experience.
• Connecting – People matter to me. A lot. More than anything, and if you want your business to be successful, they better matter to you. I’ll share the best tips for connecting people to the other people and ideas that will grow your business.
• Success Tips – Small businesses have different challenges than big businesses do. I consult with a multitude of them, and I love them, and I love to help them be more successful.
• Social Media Marketing – This is an area of mystery and intrigue for many small businesses, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ll talk about how you can use social media to market your small business.
• Tech Tips – Finding the right tools are very important for a small business. I’m always looking for tools to help my clients business, and I’ll share the most effective ones here.

Thanks for your continued interest and attention in my small business success tips. Whether you’re the only employee or you have many more employees than you, you’re important to me and I appreciate you.

And Jesse – thanks buddy! You gave me a great place to START from! I appreciate your work SO much!

YOUR TURN: What do you think of all the changes? What would you improve?