You Don’t Know What You’re Missing

What is the risk involved in speaking with someone new? Not too much, unless you think they are going to try to sell you something. Suddenly the person appears as a  threat to your time, energy, and money.

How are people perceiving you? Are you missing out on a genuine opportunity because someone in the equation feels like they are about to be pitched to?
Take this quiz to find out how approachable you are.

• How many times are you willing to attend a networking event before you get business out of it?
• When you enter a networking event, do you immediately go toward the people you know, or toward strangers hoping they need your product or service?
• Do you spend most of the conversation time at networking events focusing on the other person, or do you tend to monopolize the conversation?
• Do you connect with people on Linked In and other social media sites and stay in touch with them over time?
• Do you ever bring guests with you to a networking event?
• Out of all the people you know from networking, what percentage of them would you say are friends?
• Do you ever get together with some of your networking friends outside of work hours?

The answers to these questions will be different for everyone but they should provide some insight into your motivation during networking events. Make that time about helping other people first, and you will find what you have been missing; valuable relationships with other business people. Earning trust, and new clients, takes time and patience.

Joanne Randall

724-603-LEAP

joanne@leapyearmarketing.com

Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Marketing Mojo Radio

Accept No Substitutes

You can read, listen, and watch all you want, but there is no substitute for experience. Too bad.

Experience can be very costly; money, time, relationships, and reputation.
We have all lived life’s embarrassing moments. I have had my share as well. No one likes to play the fool and embarrassing situations are certainly some of the hardest lessons learned due to pride.  Most people can eventually laugh at themselves and their inexperience and move on. If I can’t be an inspiration, I can at least be an example (of what NOT to do).
Loss of time spent on foolish endeavors is a toughie since you can’t get that time back. But usually the lesson learned has enough intrinsic value that it doesn’t seem like a complete loss. And there is usually a good story to tell afterwards. Long afterwards.
Loss of money certainly hurts, and is akin to loss of opportunity. The good news is that you can always make more money. These lessons are often repeated as they usually represent an underlying problem of self-control to some degree or another.  If you kick yourself regularly, just know you are in good company.
The cost of one’s reputation can be tricky. If it is a public matter, all parties involved will never recover completely, but most can usually summon up enough support from their loyal fans to gather momentum and start fresh. How many comebacks have you witnessed? Music, business, financial, politics, you name it.  The bigger they are the harder they fall.
The last category is the most important. Relationships are crucial in life, and in business. No person in their death bed ever said, “I wish I had spent more time at work.” Once damaged, a relationship has the potential to go in any direction.  It could end, possibly resulting in damage to reputation. There is no such thing in relationships as damage control. Once damaged, it is nearly impossible to restore, sometimes you can’t even restore it to be in existence. Nothing is more important than relationships. Quality of life depends on them. We seek them out. Nurture them. Cherish them. Then take them for granted.

No amount of success in business is worth one iota of damage to a personal relationship. Always put them first and everything else falls into place.

Joanne Randall

724-603-LEAP

joanne@leapyearmarketing.com

Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Marketing Mojo Radio

What is the Big Deal About Social Media?

With all the items that fall under the umbrella of marketing I have found that people are most fascinated with social media. I think this is mainly because it is so popular in the mainstream and yet so simple it makes me wonder why no one came up with the idea sooner.

Jump on!

So why is social media so popular? My theory is that people crave relationships, friendships, and leadership. Deep down we all want to feel that we are needed and that we have value.

I believe that people spend time on social media to fill those gaps in their lives that are not being filled by people in their physical space. This is important because social media is the most effective way businesses can talk to people about solving their problems. If the business understands human nature and the psychology of purchasing habits, they can be extremely effective in growing their sales.

You may not care about someone posting that they are STILL waiting for their Maytag repair man to show up, but you should care that there are businesses out there not providing good customer service and customers react by posting it to the world.

How much time do you spend on Social Media each week for personal reasons? How about for your business? I would like to know.

Joanne Randall

Leap Year Marketing

joanne@leapyearmarketing.com

724-603-5327

http://www.leapyearmarketing.com

 

Should your friends be clients and your clients be friends?

I like to have a lot of fun. And by that I mean joking around with people and laughing. Since I work for myself and therefore I work a lot of hours, I don’t really get out much socially. So once I get to know a client pretty well we usually tend to banter back and forth and have a great friendship. This is really the best of all situations, because once a client has accepted you on some sort of friendship level, then they are usually very loyal and may even be forgiving when mistakes are made.

But how about when it is the other way around?  I have had plenty of friends who have hired me for various things. Sometimes it goes great. But not always. Some are surprised when I tell them I am not doing the work for free. Some are surprised that they don’t get much if any of a discount.

One of the toughest situations is when you begin to do work a friend and they take on a completely different personality once the work begins. This doesn’t always happen but periodically the fact that you are doing work for them turns them into a boss figure and for some reason they feel they need to treat you as and employee versus a friend who is doing some work for them.

How do you handle that?

My answer is, drop the client relationship before it completely ruins your friendship. If this person is a true friend, then no amount of money is worth risking it. So explain to them that you are not sure that working for them is the best scenario and make recommendations for other people to do the work. If they insist on you doing the work, then just be completely honest that you feel it is affecting your friendship. Give them an opportunity to recognize their behavior and possibly make some changes. Put a time frame around a trial working relationship and check in to make sure at that time that things are going the way all parties would like them to go.  If not, then run as fast as you can. There is almost nothing worse than working for a friend who expects special treatment and is not nice to you while you are doing the work. The key to this is that you are working for yourself and you have the right to choose which clients you want to work with. You are not obligated to work with anybody that you are not comfortable working for.

Joanne, joanne@leapyearmarketing.com, 724-603-LEAP

Leap Year Marketing. Let This Be Your Year!