Are You a Contact-Aholic?

Anyone who knows me knows I am a HUGE fan of Facebook and Twitter. I have not only made a ton of great friends but also have found new clients by using both of these tools. I am however very selective of who I allow into my virtual "inner sanctum" of the social networking world.

A huge pet peeve of mine is seeing people with thousands of contacts. You know, just a few thousand of their closest friends right? WRONG! Some people will follow others just to see how many contacts they can rack up. I'm no shrink but my thoughts are these people are dealing with deeply rooted acceptance issues. They had little or no friends as a child and now they're trying to show off how many "contacts/friends" they have now.

Don't get me wrong, there are some out there who are well known successful people who have built up a large following of legitimate contacts who they interact with on a regular basis. That's not what I'm talking about. My gripe is the people who choose quantity over quality.
Here is what the quantity over quality attitude will get you:

1. Lack of a personal relationship: Let's face it, the purpose of social networking is to build relationships with people for personal or business purposes. If some random person asks you to be their friend or contact and you have no idea what they are about, what are the chances that they will build a personal relationship with you if you are number 4,321 on their contact list?

2. Lowered credibility: If you are building relationships and trust with people and become respected and well liked then people will tell their friends who will want to be your contact. If you are putting out a great message and interacting with your contacts on a regular basis giving them valuable information, services or products, then great! However, if you simply collect names and do nothing with them or constantly send out sales pitches, people will see that right away and label you as a spammer and consider you to be untrustworthy.

Also, imagine this scenario: You sign on to LinkedIn and notice that you have a contact request. You don't know the person but the invite says they are a financial consultant. Everything looks ok so you accept. One of your trusted contacts finds them on your list and decides to use their services. They end up losing thousands of dollars because of the misadvice your "new friend" gave them. Guess what? You now look bad because you allowed them on your contact list. Instant lowered credibility.

I've been on Facebook and Twitter for well over six months and I only have just over 100 contacts on each. I'm proud of my modest number because I have built my contacts slowly and carefully. The following is my criteria for accepting friend or contact request:

1. They must be my real life friend/colleague/client or a personal and trusted referral of one of those three

OR

2. They must produce a service or product that I use or plan to use (i.e. program, blog, newsletter) and I would highly recommend it to my friends.

OR

3. They are someone I can learn and grow from because I know their reputation and I trust it.

OR

4. They are a member of an online or real life group I belong to and after interacting with them in that group I have deemed them to be trustworthy

What is your criteria for accepting peope into your virtual world. If you don't currently have one I suggest considering it. Your success and reputation could depend on it!

**Lastly I wanted to remind everyone to catch me on BlogTalk radio tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. PST/Noon EST where I'll be a guest on Marketing Moments with Michelle-3M Ideas I hope you can tune in! It should be a lot of fun!

Have a great week everyone!

Jackie

It's Not Who You Know - It's Who You Used to Know

There are countless ways to find new clients. Whether it be from advertising, marketing, networking or referrals. Many business owners spend a lot of time, effort and money persuing these avenues in search of a larger client base to continually grow their business.

How many people though, take into consideration the people they already know or even better, the people they used to know who they've lost touch with. I'm talking way back, like high school and college. You laugh but it's true! Many of the people who you went to school with or were friends with back in the day could very well use your product or services today!

It's time to dust off that yearbook and take a walk down memory lane. I have to tell you, I did this recently and it was so much fun to look back at the clothes and the hair and all that. But what really surprised me was that I had forgotten about more than half of my graduating class! I still keep in touch with a select few good friends from school but haven't thought about most of my classmates for the 18 some odd years since we graduated. Sad really! So I decided to do a little searching. I started by logging on to LinkedIn and searching for some of the people I went to school with. Sure enough, I found a few! One is a successful lawyer in Michigan, another works for a major airline in Texas, and so on. When I ran out of options on LinkedIn, I decided to try a Facebook search since I knew more people were probably using it than LinkedIn. I was right. I found several of my old High School cronies and requested to add them to my friends list. We now keep in touch on a regular basis.

Remember the old classmate who works for the airline in Texas? He has started a company called Giving Grinch which is focused on teaching people how to identify their true needs and then finding ways to meet those needs in a financially responsible manner. When he found out I had written some articles and had a VA business he asked if I would contribute to his monthly newsletter. I'm contacting him this week about submitting my first article for the newsletter.

Just recently I got back in touch via LinkedIn with an old college professor of mine who I used to be a Teacher's Assistant for. He and I have been catching up on lost time and he informed me recently that he has started a business creating and selling online courses. When he found out what I did he asked if I would be interested in doing some work for him.

Around the time I started my business full time I found out that an old boss of mine was between assistants and needed help. I contacted him and told him what I was up to these days. We had a meeting and I've been his VA for over 2 months now.

You see? I didn't have to do any type of fancy advertising or marketing to find these "new" contacts. I had them all along, I had just forgotten about them.

Who's lurking in your past that you could dig up and bring into your present? Old high school or college friends? Former coworkers or even employers? Before you spend another dime on looking for new clients or customers, think of who you already know that may be able to benefit from what you have to offer. You might be surprised at what (or who) you find!

Have a great week!

Is Clutter Stealing Your Success?

I've been thinking alot lately about all of the millions of things I want to do and accomplish and how I'm going to get there. My problem is that I've got so much I WANT to do but then I look around and realize there is so much I HAVE to do and get overwhelmed. I decided that I have too much clutter in my life. Physically, emotionally, etc...

I woke up on Sunday morning unable to stand it a minute longer. I started boxing things up for Goodwill and knowing that we'll be moving across the country in six months or less I started packing things away. Things we don't need to use right now and things that I want to hold onto but frankly in our little apartment, don't have room for. I even dismantled a book shelf and dragged it out onto our front porch for my husband to take to the dumpster. (he was out of the house for an hour or so when I decided to do all this and was quite surprised when he returned).

Although I still have much purging to do I feel like I can breathe. A sense of accomplishment and less clutter in my life. I started to think about how this relates to other areas of my life and realized I could use some purging in lots of areas. How I spend my time, how I operate my business, what I put into my body, how I take care of my family, and the list goes on. I decided to go on a quest to remove the clutter and have a more fulfilled life by eliminating the excess in all the areas that are bogging me down. By doing this I hope to get rid of the junk and make room for what really matters.

So, what kind of clutter do you have in your life? Do you have too much stuff in your house and you wonder where it all came from? Do you have a lot of emotional baggage you need to work through? What does your pantry look like? Are you putting the wrong kinds of foods in your body? Are you overwhelmed by business tasks and to do lists and feeling like you can't do it all? Do you feel like you can't move forward toward success because of everything that needs to be done?

Take some time to look around you and within and find ways to get rid of your clutter. Have a garage sale, talk to a counselor, replace the junk food with healthy alternatives, hire a VA to help you with your business or hire a housekeeper to come in every couple of weeks or even once a month to handle the heavy duty cleaning. Whatever it is that is cluttering your life, find a way to clear it out. You'll have less stress, feel better - stronger -happier, and have more time to do the things that you really want to do.

I'm off to tackle my closet! Have a wonderful week!

Are You Living Your Dream?

This post is coming to you a little late this week since my family and I spent the long holiday weekend on the beach in California. While I was there with my toes in the sand I was thinking about how great it was that I am living my life my way. I set my mind to it that I was no longer going to work for someone else and no matter what I was going to start my own business and make it successful. So far so good! Then I started wondering, what was holding me back before? And what is holding you back? Is it fear? Money? Too many choices? Too little choices? What's keeping you from living your dream?

It's Your Life - Live It!
Sounds easy enough doesn't it? Of course life isn't always so cut and dry. There are those little things called bills that need to be paid and mouths to feed and all of that. It's not like you can just up and quit your job and follow your bliss. Right? Well maybe you can. Now I'm not suggesting that you write your 2 week notice right now and pack up your desk but is it possible that you could start thinking about what you really want to do with your life? Life is too short to be miserable in a job or even a business that you hate. Maybe you started something because you thought it would make you money but you don't really love it. Maybe you've always had that great idea for a business but never knew how to get it out of your head and into reality. Maybe you don't know what you want so you just do what you do because it pays the bills.

Believe me, I'm no expert on living your perfect life and since I don't know your dream, I can't give you a step by step plan on how to get there. But you can! You are the only person who can make it happen. Starting NOW. It worked for me and it can work for you too.

My Story in a Nutshell
About 10 months ago I realized how miserable I was at my job. I knew I wanted to work for myself but had no clue what I could do. I started to work on myself and did a lot of soul searching on what it was that lit me up. I thought about what made me happy, what I liked doing and started thinking about ways I could get paid for it. After several months of research I knew what that was and was determined to make it happen ASAP because I wanted to wake up happy every day and excited to get to work, not miserable and dreading the day ahead as with every other day before. I wrote everything down. My dreams, my goals, my plan.

I scoured every website that I thought could help me get that much closer to my dream. I read books, listened to teleseminars, whatever motivated me to keep going toward making my dream a reality.

From the time I decided that I wanted my own business to the time it happened was 7 months. Not bad! Especially considering that in the 3 months that I have gone full time with my business I am now making more than I was at a full time job where I was undervalued, underappreciated and bored to tears. I now wake up each day, bring my daughter to preschool and jump into my day excited and feeling great! I'm in control and I am making my dream come true.

How About You?
I tell you all of this not to brag about my own success thus far, but to bring home my point that IT IS POSSIBLE you just have to figure out what that passion is, set a plan in motion and KEEP that plan in motion. If you're wishy washy about staying on track with your plan it'll never happen. You have to want it. You have to spend every waking moment living and breathing it. If you don't know how to make the plan, find someone who can help you. A coach, a mentor, a friend, or whoever you trust with helping make your dream a reality. You can even email me if you like and I'll tell you exactly what I did. If you're not living your dream and the life you want to be living ask yourself why not? Then ask yourself how you can make it happen. Aren't you worth the try? Now, it's time to stop reading. Go, live your life and live it YOUR way!

Have a great week everyone!!!