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"Kathy is a natural. She's such a giving and entertaining speaker. She gives the sizzle along with the steak."
- Jeff Crilley, Emmy Award Winning TV journalist
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This week on my radio show, I had two guest experts on networking to grow your business. Even as long as I’ve been in the “networking” world, I learned more best practices in networking. A few tips are included here and to listen to the full show, please download “Get the Edge on Networking” from my BlogTalk page, The Leader in You.
Following up with people you meet is one of the most important tasks after networking. Otherwise, you lose your opportunity to build your network. Michelle Martin of C3 for Women and Metro Woman, suggests following up within 48 hours to continue building the relationship you started at the event. Michelle has a guideline I appreciate. She always asks if she can stay in touch and add her new contacts to her database. Please do your part to reduce the email overload by asking first.
Peggy Edge, President of TeamNetworking and owner of Edge Packaging, suggests reading a book about networking, “Power Networking” by Donna Fisher and Sandy Villas.
Another tip both Michelle and Peggy follow is to plan time right after the networking event or block off an hour the next morning to make sure you take time to follow up.
Peggy recommends starting your 30-second commercial with a power question that gets people thinking about what you do. Most people start with “I” which isn’t very effective to grab the audience’s attention.
To learn more tips about networking do’s and don’ts, click on the link to my radio host page and download the segment titled “Get the Edge on Networking” at The Leader in You Radio Show.
Kathy Garland specializes in business growth and leadership for women-owned businesses. She hosts a radio show, “The Leader in You” on BlogTalk Radio and speaks frequently on business growth and leadership topics. For more information, visit Kathy Garland International.
Quick note today: I want to share with you a link to an article I wrote about Personal Branding for Women Leaders. It’s featured on www.eZinearticles.com! You can read it by clicking here: http://EzineArticles.com/?id=2744157.
Kathy Garland, http://www.kathygarland.com is a transformational leader who works with women leaders on branding, client acquisition and creating focus for the future. She frequently writes and speaks on these topics.
Yes that’s correct. Thirteen women business owners joined me October 24 – 26 in Paradise, Texas for a phenomenal weekend of business strategy, planning and fun. Here are a few photos of the weekend.
Women of Worth – WOW! Fall 2008
Team exercises kept us energized
Quiet, peaceful rocking chairs and porches gave us space to think and plan.
Classroom time to focus on our vision
If you’d like to join a dynamic group of women business owners to take your business to the next level, my next retreat is scheduled for November 6 – 8, 2009 . As I roll out details I will post them on my retreat blog at www.kathygarland.blogspot.com. Or you can reach me through www.kathygarland.com, Kathy Garland International, a company whose programs lead women to enhance their wealth, balance and freedom.
Do you take time to plan your goals and how you will achieve them? Do you write down your goals each year?
Taking time to plan and focus on what you want to accomplish and how you want your business or your career to grow dramatically increases your chance of reaching your goals. Brian Tracy says that every minute you spend planning saves you 10-20 minutes later.
Not only are goals important, but also taking time to reflect on what you’ve accomplished in the current year and deciding what you need to stop doing gives you focus, power and energy.
My commitment to you is to provide programs to enhance your brand and your leadership skills. One strategy to keep focused is to take time to plan goals and strategies for the upcoming year. This October, I will be leading my fifth leadership and planning retreat for women.
If getting away from the hectic pace of your life, focusing on what you want and spending a weekend with a powerful group of women leaders is appealing to you, I invite you to visit my Annual Leadership Retreat Blog to see how you will benefit by attending.
You can view two video testimonials from women who attended the Annual Leadership Retreat in October 2007 who are coming back this year:
For more details, read the May 2 post on my Annual Leadership Retreat Blog. You can also visit my website or call me at 972.529.6744.
Give yourself the gift of time to plan, think, reflect on what you want to accomplish in 2009.
Are you watching the Olympics? Superstars like medal winners Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt make the Olympics exciting to watch. They appear to be super-human in their talents. Watching Phelps and Bolt compete in a field is amazing. Their extraordinary talent spurs everyone else in the race to push harder and turn in their top performance.
It’s the same with your team. Do you have employees that excel? Those that perform above the rest set the standard and encourage everyone else to work harder and ideally improve team results.
Women have great ideas and intuition about people, places and things. However, we sometimes let it stop at the idea instead of implementing something that could radically change our businesses, our families and our lives. Big ideas often seem like dreams, however, big ideas and dreams come true because someone decided to take some kind of action toward a dream.
Recently, I posted the response below on LinkedIn to a question on what people do to reach their dreams and received positive response from it so thought I would share it with you.
The success I’ve found in reaching my dreams and what I teach others in my teleseminars and workshops is a very simple formula:
1. be very clear about what you want
2. write it down
3. believe it is possible and visualize it
4. take action (any action) to get started
5. if you lose focus, remind yourself of what you want and do steps 2 – 4 again.
Some key concepts to keep in mind about your big ideas:
- The most important things to do is take some form of action right away because dreams lose their power if you don’t get started when you have the inspiration.
- If other people drag you down, it’s because they are thinking of their dreams and don’t understand yours.
- To me, it’s a good idea to always have dreams to work toward. Once we stop dreaming, we stop growing, stop innovating, stop being curious about the world around us.
I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes about dreaming big:
"All men dream, but not all equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake to find it was all vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous, for they may act their dreams with open arms and make things happen." – T. E. Lawrence (a.k.a. ‘Lawrence of Arabia’)
Dream Big!
Visit my web site at www.kathygarland.com
A recent article in the Jobs section of the Dallas Morning News caught my eye – Expand your marketing from boomers to Gen YÂ by Mildred Culp, a workplace expert. She gives timely advice to make your services relevant to more than just baby boomers.
Just as we must learn how to market more effectively to Gen Y (born 1985 and later, sometimes referred to as Millennials,) and Gen X , these young people are the leaders of the future. How do you adapt your leadership style to these generations who have different attitudes, behaviors and values?
Whether you are marketing to Gen Y or leading Gen Y, understand the fundamentals of their makeup. Their attitudes are influencing and changing the workplace so we need to pay attention and nurture them, rather than try to make them adapt to who we think they need to be.
Some tips to lead Gen X and Gen Y:
- Honor their personal goals and values
- Get smart on social networking. Notice how many young kids spend time at dinner with their parents and in social situations texting their friends.
- Do your part to go green or save energy. Some baby boomers and WWII generation refuses to believe that we are in danger, although that is quickly shifting. To relate to this group, you must be environmentally conscious.
- Be civic-minded. They are the most community-oriented generation we’ve had since before WWII.
- Most importantly, be authentic and genuine with them. The world they are growing up in demands them to hone their ability to understand what is real and not real, what is fake and what is genuine. Be honest and upfront and you will build a better relationship with them.
How do you be more effective leading this generation? My best advice is to find a Gen X or Gen Y to mentor.
I recently heard a comment from Selling Power’s publisher, Gerhard Gschwandtner, that astounded, maybe even flabbergasted me. He was interviewing Mary Delaney, Chief Sales Officer, CareerBuilder.com, about how women lead.
What he said that startled me was that his staff had trouble finding women executives to interview. The comment they get a lot is that the women executives are too busy. And we wonder why there is a glass ceiling. We are doing a pretty good job of limiting ourselves when we avoid the spotlight.
For me, I think of the time about 10 years ago that I received a call from a recruiter about a position with significantly more responsibility and more money. I did not even go talk to this recruiter because I was very busy and happy where I was. However, there was definitely an element of insecurity there as well. Now I look back and wonder why didn’t I take time to meet with this person?
More recently, I wanted to interview some women executives for a webinar I led for a corporate women’s group. The committee members had trouble finding a female executive to interview. Eventually one woman was able to fit me in her schedule. However, they easily found a man for me to interview.
Say yes to these opportunities. Part of building your business and your career is being visible in order to build your reputation.
To view the video I mentioned, go to http://www.sellingpower.com/video/Â and search Delaney.