The Invisible Mentor

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Like all the other Skinny On books, I received The Skinny On Networking: Maximizing the Power of Numbers by Jim Randel to review. The objective of The Skinny On series of books is to provide concentrated learning by extensively researching a topic, distilling the salient facts, and presenting them in a “progression of drawings, dialogue and text intended to convey information in a concise fashion. The book which can be read in less than two hours is presented in slides, two to a page, and 267 of them.

Networking is an important topic because success, happiness and personal fulfillment depend on the quality of your relationships. I consider The Skinny On Networking a good introduction to networking. I do no think that it’s possible to learn everything about networking, even the most important aspects from one book. Jim Randel highlighted some important aspects of networking that many would not think about. I have included some of these important points.

According to Randel, The Skinny On Networking: Maximizing the Power of Numbers is “about creating and maintaining your network.” And his definition for networking is “developing and utilizing relationships with other people…it is any activity that helps you to develop relationships with others…and is about increasing depth and breadth as a person…Successful networking entails identifying and asking your WHO to help you meet your WHAT.” The author includes 10 activities to clarify and support what he means by networking.

1. Staying in touch with people you have already met
2. Meeting new people
3. Doing research to find the person(s) who can assist you
4. Using online resources to identify someone you know who knows someone you want to meet
5. Increasing social capital
6. Entertaining and helping others – creating a desire for reciprocity
7. Building positive word of mouth
8. Marketing your expertise
9. Joining groups that foster natural connections
10. Asking for introductions and referrals

To achieve astounding success in life requires the use of your human capital (knowledge, skills, expertise and experience) as well as your social capital (the resources you have access to through your personal and professional networks). You create social capital by establishing, building and nurturing relationships. It’s important to invest in the relationship by giving something of value to the person before you start to make withdrawals by making requests. The longer you have known someone and the more time you have spent investing in the relationship, the more social capital you have created with them. Building social capital is a lifelong activity, and it’s also important to build social capital before you need it. You can lose social capital by asking for too much too soon.

Steps to Successful Networking

1. Tap into family, friends and acquaintances because they have connections that you are not aware of
2. Always be specific about what you want so that the person knows exactly what is required of them, and always give them an out just in case they may be uncomfortable filling your request
3. When making a request, make it clear that you are willing to reciprocate when they require your assistance
4. Use all tools available to you, both offline and online (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook)
5. Successful and savvy networking is very hard so make it an ongoing process
6. If you are shy or an introvert, use a connector to help you connect to people you’d like to meet
7. Create diverse networks of people, some who are very different from you – step outside your comfort zone
8. When you meet someone, put the spotlight on them, most people like to talk about themselves so give them the opportunity, and listen to what they are saying
9. Within 24 hours of meeting someone who you find interesting, make notes about them: how you met her, what she does, what you learned about her during the conversation
10. Keep in contact with your networks

Most of us, including myself know about popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but Randel includes four others that I have never heard of. I recommend that you read The Skinny On Networking: Maximizing the Power of Numbers, but keep in mind that it’s a very good introduction so you will not learn everything about networking. Despite the size of the book, you will pick up a few tips like I did. As usual, Jim Randel includes the books he referenced, as well as some quotes from them. The inclusion of books referenced throughout the Skinny On series of books makes it easy to decide which other books to read on the subject matter.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

Note: The copy of The Skinny on Networking that I received is a pre-publication copy.

Additional Resources to Assist With Online Networking

Make Your LinkedIn Profile Work for You

Use LinkedIn Effectively

Write Your LinkedIn Profile for the Future

If you are a blogger, Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using LinkedIn

50 Power Twitter Tips

My Best Twitter Advice

How to Prospect Using Combined Power of LinkedIn and Twitter

When I think of Diane Danielson, Brave, Bold and Pioneer come to mind. I always learn from each interview that I conduct, but there were many lessons in this one and I’m sure that you’ll agree. Some important lessons are: make sure that your career suits your personality, separate your emotions from the facts, figure out your passion and what you are good at and be at the forefront. And be flexible because your life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect, but change often brings lovely presents so be open.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I am the founder of the Downtown Women’s Club, which is a women’s business network and career website. I’m also Vice President of Business Development for a social media consulting firm called Convengine. I try to combine the two because a lot of what I do at the Downtown Women’s Club is the social media strategy and a lot of our online networking program. I’m also recently remarried, I have four kids and a huge dog and I live outside the Boston area.

What’s a typical day like for you?

They differ from day-to-day but some days I spend the entire day giving several speeches, mostly talking about social media, networking and the different skills you can learn. And other days I’m doing a lot of writing online and doing some strategy consulting for clients. It does vary from day-to-day but it’s a nice mix and I like the idea that there are different days for different things.

How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

To make sure that I stay motivated, every day I mix in some fun projects and fun for me is creative writing, so if I’m having a big accounting and bookkeeping day, because I’m a small business, the Downtown Women’s Club is run by a couple of employees and we all do a little of everything but I always make some time for something that’s really motivating like writing, or speaking and the speaking really does motivate me when I go out there and actually get to meet people.

If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I would be better at delegating things and I would have spent my money more effectively with the Downtown Women’s Club when I was building the company. There was a lot of stuff that I couldn’t control, we built technology that was later cheaper and that’s usually typical with technology, but I also spent some money in areas where I probably could have figured out cheaper alternatives. I did some traditional marketing things that didn’t have as much bang for the buck. I think it’s just something you learn from experience. Anyone who starts a business knows that you are going to make these mistakes along the way and mine weren’t costly but those are stuff that I would definitely do differently.

What’s the most important business (or other) discovery you’ve made in the past year?

I’ve gotten more cognizant that people are afraid of change, and a lot of what I do in social media and forcing women to network and learn technology, is a big change, and they are going through a scary time right now and my important discovery is that their reluctance, it’s not that they are dismissing it, there is this fear of change and I have had to figure out how to help them through it, and I think for me that is a big discovery because I used to walk around thinking why people don’t get this.

What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

Clearly it’s social media and social networking, it’s just huge – facebook, Twitter. People still discount how big it is but it’s not going away and it’s something that has changed every business model. I don’t think that anyone can name a business model that social media and social networking doesn’t affect in some manner.

What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

1. The economy in general. We ask people to join but they are wondering if they should spend the $49 here, or is that four cups of coffee at Starbucks, or whatever it is. People are questioning where to spend their money, but on the flip side people are spending their money more wisely. They may see that investing in their career is a good thing. I’m trying to explain how this has long-term dividends.
2. Our competition is always a threat in some manner, and I try not to see it as a threat because everyone does it a little differently, they have their own style, but that’s always a threat.
3. The other thing is being able to scale appropriately because sometimes we get caught when we do not have enough staff, we need to staff up more yet we do not want to bring on more people until we can be sure that the growth is continuous. It’s a big guessing game, and trying to make the big decisions and being aware of what’s out there and how we try to handle it is being open-minded about what can affect us.

What’s unique about the service that you provide?

At the Downtown Women’s Club we were always at the forefront of social media and social networking. We were the only club that was on email 10 years ago when we were founded so we always had this little edge and we’ve always attracted people who are interested in pushing into new areas. That’s very unique. And on my social media consulting side I’ve partnered with Lena West who is phenomenal and is a social media guru, and what we offer that’s unique, and I think some of it for me for my clients is my marketing background. I’m not coming from a technology standpoint, I am coming to social media from marketing and I understand the technology thoroughly, so that’s a unique mix.

What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

I think that I’m a little less ego driven than others. I don’t want the Downtown Women’s Club to be Diane Danielson’s club even though I founded it. I try to really empower local directors and try not to have my face be the face. We went through a phase where I was the face because that’s what everyone was doing and I decided that that doesn’t work.  I try to step back out of it. I think that that’s something a little different and it empowers other people to make the Downtown Women’s Club their own. When we start a local chapter the local director is the person who is in charge and makes the decisions.

Describe a major business (or other) challenge you had and how you resolved it.

One of the challenges we had two years ago is that we used to get a lot of website traffic from LinkedIn because we were listed as one of the first LinkedIn Groups and they actually posted a link to Downtown Women’s Club page from their group’s page. So we were always on the front page so if someone went to LinkedIn Groups they would see the Downtown Women’s Club so we had huge traffic, and then two years ago they corrected that, as they should and made it more of a directory so it was always different, and all of a sudden our website traffic went down. I was ready to shut down the shop. I was ready to close the Downtown Women’s Club, I mean, oh my God we’re not getting that website traffic. But what I did, I went and looked at the numbers and tried not to be so upset about it, and sat down and said before we shut down, let’s take a look at what’s going on here. And what I found out was that there was another site that I didn’t know very well, and it was facebook that was sending us a trickle of traffic, we didn’t put any effort there but it was converting into paid members at a higher rate than any other place, so I took that little bright spot and said let’s grow that bright spot and see if we can make it up, and within four months we were back to where we were with the LinkedIn traffic. We found that we got a lot of traffic from LinkedIn but it wasn’t converting to paid members. That was a big challenge.

What lessons did you learn in the process?

1. Before you throw in the towel, separate your emotions and focus on the facts. If 100 people are coming from facebook and 50 are joining as paid members, that’s more important than having 5,000 people of which 50 converted to paid members.
2. Work in small increments and say if things do not improve in three months then we’re done

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

I don’t know if it was necessarily a big break, there are no overnight successes, but there have been lots of people throughout my career, even when I was in a bad situation as an attorney early on, or in real estate companies, there always seemed to be people who I call my guardian angels. They just showed up out of nowhere and gave me some advice and helped me through a bad position. I can think of a single mom who helped me out when I first became a single mom, I haven’t seen her in 10 years but she came into my life when I needed her and then she moved on. I have had people take me aside and say, “Here’s what you need to do with your career.” I’ve had these wonderful mentors, men and women that for some reason I got their attention without me even noticeably trying. I think by being outspoken people came along and picked me out and said “here.” So there have been many breaks and thanks for people who look to help younger people.

Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

I was not a good attorney, but I was in a very tough place, and when my boss left for another firm he left me holding the bag and so I got fired. I thought that my life was over. I actually remember thinking that I was going to step in front of a bus or something because I couldn’t believe that I just got fired. I thought that I was such a good employee and some of it was my fault because I was not the best attorney. I mean I was better than average but it also didn’t fit my personality and I really thought that my life was over. I’d gone to law school and I was in debt for law school. I looked around and felt sorry for myself and I interviewed with other law firms and it dawned on me that I didn’t want to work in another law firm, so I started looking around for jobs that were in marketing and sales and I found one and had a great run. I had fun being VP of marketing in the commercial real estate industry. It was one of those things where I felt it was the most horrible point in my life and I ended up finding a career that was wonderful.

What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Not having more children when my son was younger. Of course now I have three step-kids who are wonderful and we have a wonderful house, but I did feel that I missed out on doing the big family thing, because it was just me and my son for eight years.

What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

Getting divorced while pregnant and it impacted my life because I embarked on being a single mom for eight years. I remarried when he was eight years. That was a tough decision because to walk away from a marriage that wasn’t working, and clearly neither of us wanted it to work anymore. That was a tough decision and I’m not sure that I had a choice. Even to this day I still refer to myself as a single mom and I think that I’ll always identify with single moms even though I’m remarried and in a wonderful family situation. I’ve developed a strong community with some of the best people that I’ve met.

What are three events that helped to shape your life?

1. Getting fired from being a lawyer. I have many friends who say they were glad that I worked at such a tough law firm because I would not have done all the things I’ve done for women in business had that not happened.
2. Becoming a single mom. It forced me to be a better mom and I suppose had I been married I would have had a nanny and all that other stuff but by making that choice because my son was in a weird situation, I would have to be the all round parent. That changed my view on a lot of things and I discovered that I was a pretty good parent, hopefully my son will agree with me. It also forced me to seek out flexible employment situations and make choices that were different than I otherwise would have made. I always thought that I would have been a big executive and head of a major company. Now I’m running a small business because it allows me to be entirely flexible for my son.
3. Discovering social media. I’m not good working at home alone because I like interacting with people and social media made it less lonely. It kept me going, it provided me with a skill set that was at the cutting edge, I started blogging back in 2003 for the Boston Globe. And now social media affects everything so it means that I was able to join my friend’s consulting business. For me it ensures employment going forward and it ensures me helping people going forward.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

The Downtown Women’s Club. The fact that we have 12,000 women involved in it and finding help and value in it, and doing any bit we can do to help women to get ahead. On some days it’s really tough and I wonder why I do this but I’m still really proud that it exists.

What can you learn from Diane’s experiences? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

About Diane Danielson

Diane K. Danielson is the founder and chief social media strategist for the Downtown Women’s Club, a professional network and career website.  She is the author of The Downtown Women’s Club Beginners Guide to Facebook ebook (2009), the co-author of The Savvy Gal’s Guide to Online Networking (or What Would Jane Austen Do?) (2007) and Table Talk: The Savvy Gal’s Alternative to Networking (2003).  Diane blogs for www.womensDISH.com, and Entrepreneur magazine and serves as a workshop leader and social media coach for companies, non-profits and individuals.

She is a former vice president of business development for Spaulding & Slye Colliers, a vice president of marketing for Meredith & Grew, Inc./ONCOR International, and an environmental attorney.   Diane is a graduate of Colgate University and Boston College Law School.

Recently I interviewed Diane Danielson for this blog, and during our conversation she revealed that over a period of 10 years, she grew the membership of  the Downtown Women’s Club, which she founded, to over 10,000 members. This level of membership is significant because many association type organizations are struggling, and bleeding their membership at a rapid rate. I was very interested in how she did it, and it turns out that it was done primarily through LinkedIn and Facebook. She recommended that I read Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah from Hubspot.

At 215 pages and large print, it’s a very easy book to read, but it’s filled with a lot of solid content so you can easily get overwhelmed. My advice is that you approach Inbound Marketing the same way you’d approach any large project, and that is to bite off small pieces and implement the recommended strategies that way. The concept of Inbound Marketing is about getting found on the internet using search engines like Google, social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and blogs. It’s about getting your customers to come to you online.

If you are interested in getting found on the Internet, and looking for strategies and tactics, this book is for you because it’s very hands-on with non-technical how-tos. The book is divided into four parts: Inbound Marketing, Get Found by Prospects, Converting Customers, and Make Better Decisions. At the end of the book you’ll have concrete steps to follow.

The authors stress that you find people who are potential clients and start by building relationships with them by serving them. So what would this look like? In the context of StumbleUpon and Digg, friend these potential clients and comment/vote on their articles. I really appreciated this tip because it would never occur to me to look at articles within my area and comment on them. This is something that I do for blogs that I subscribe to.

For Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, start a conversation with potential clients, answer their questions, and post content that you think they would find helpful. Consistently doing this, your potential clients will return the favor. For Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, there are search functions that you can use to zero in on your potential clients. It’s also important to spend some time thinking about the kind of information that would be useful to people in your marketplace.

While reading this book, I felt as if Halligan and Shah were holding my hand, and I appreciated it because I didn’t feel like I was being spoon fed. For instance, while reading the chapter “Get Found Using Social Media,” I was busy taking notes and prioritizing the steps to take, only to discover that at the end of the chapter there is a To-Do List with a summary of the essential steps to take to increase your findability. Examples of some of the steps include:

• If you’ve somehow managed to resist signing up for Facebook, despite requests from your friends and family, go ahead and do it
• Make sure your LinkedIn profile is 100 percent complete. Link your profile to your business website and blog
• Use the group search feature [in LinkedIn] to find the biggest groups in your industry. Join these groups and start participating  in discussions
• Use tools like Twitter Search and the search feature on Twitter Grader (http://twitter.grader.com) to find influential users in your industry. Begin forging connections early
• On Twitter complete your online profile including a brief bio, your location and a link to your website
• When you see an article that you like and that’s relevant to your business, befirend the person that submitted it. If the article is very relevant, review some of the other users that have dugg the article and befriend them too
• When you come across interesting web sites or articles, submit them to StumbleUpon (don’t submit your own yet). Do this by clicking the “Thumbs Up” button in the toolbar when on the page
• Begin befriending those that are submitting sites that you find highly relevant. Start building your friend list

Five + 1 Great Ideas

1. Rewrite the unwritten rules in your industry and don’t be a conformer
2. Create remarkable content
3. Think about the Sacred Cow Rules in your industry and how can you change them – think disruption
4. Pay attention to your customers but do not follow them
5. Think across the traditional boundaries of your marketplace to alternatives or be the world’s best at what you do within your existing market rules
6. Follow the 80/20 Rule – spend 80% of your time getting more visitors and 20% of your time getting higher conversion rates

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important to many of us and the authors explain that, “It’s about creating content that users would want to find and helping Google deliver great search results. The best way to rank well in Google search results is to create content that is rank-worthy.” (For many of my blog posts I use Scribe, an SEO software you can get from Brian Clark at Copyblogger.com. The software has a list of criteria, which it uses to judge the level of optimization in your article and it makes recommendation for improvements).

Other information that I found useful are:

• 7 Tools to Keep Tabs on Competitors
• Making Your Articles infectious
• Tracking Your Progress
• Compelling Calls to Action
• Tips From the Trenches for Headings

I recommend Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs because it’s the kind of book that you will refer to time and time again. As Halligan and Shah says, you have to be consistent and devote the time to implement the strategies and tactics. Whenever you get the opportunity, visit Hubspot and sign up to receive their blog.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

All book links are Amazon Affiliate Links.

Today, I present 24-year old Nathalie Lussier. It’s the first time that I have interviewed someone so young, but I thought it important to bring you a diversity of voices. Open your mind, and see what you can learn from this young lady who is not only passionate about what she does, but is wise beyond her years. It was a pleasure to interview her because she is so thoughtful, and she was willing to answer questions which require the wisdom that comes with age. For instance, when asked, “If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?” she responded, “I would have started earlier to try to understand what people wanted, see what they had trouble with and help them in that area.” In my opinion, that’s good advice because we often create products that we think people should want, instead of what they actually want.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.  

I am known as the raw foods witch, and I help people to eat more fruits and vegetables. I have a background in software engineering and all of my nutritional knowledge is self taught based on the experience of the results that I have had eating this way.

What’s a typical day like for you?

I wake up and drink a green smoothie, which is basically fruit and green leafy vegetables. After that I work on the computer, and sometimes I go for a swim during the day because I like to break things up. I do more work on my computer and in the evening I have a big salad with my boyfriend Robin, and later read a book.

How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

I like to get feedback so when I hear that others are enjoying my work or getting a lot of results from what I am teaching, that propels me forward and motivates me.

If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I would have started earlier to try to understand what people wanted, see what they had trouble with, and help them in that area.

What’s the most important business (or other) discovery you’ve made in the past year?

Making relationships a priority is the new way of doing business today. You can really connect with people online with tools like email, Twitter and Facebook. You can really get to know people and build relationships over time, and give them what they need instead of just pushing stuff in their direction.

What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past two years?

In terms of raw foods, things are shifting away from being very strict, and moving toward welcoming everyone to try eating this way a little bit more.

What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

1. The first is time management. I would be reading email and responding to them then I click on a link in an email and all of sudden a lot of time has elapsed and I realize that I have not done any work. So what I do is frequently check the time and see how I am doing and ask myself if I have done what I said I was going to do by that time of the day and that is how I handle that threat.
2. Another threat I would say is misinformation. When people hear the term raw foods, they immediately think it’s all or nothing, but the way that I teach it is you can eat fresh fruits and vegetables and get the benefits from that. You do not have to be that strict with yourself.
3. And the third threat kind of relates to the first idea is that I have a lot of passion and am prone to go off on a tangent and do something new and different that does not necessarily relate to what I am doing right now. The way that I deal with this is to focus on what my goals are and where I am headed.

What’s unique about the service that you provide?

I like to make it fun, informal, down-to-earth and accessible to anyone who is remotely interested in getting healthier, and I like to deliver all my stuff online except for a few things that I deliver personally, which I enjoy. I love to do videos and recipes that are simple so everyone can get their hands dirty. And what’s really fun about the way that I teach things is that I am known as the witch so I like to bring in a special magic feeling to everything that I do.

What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

Most people in my field do not have the type of technical background that I have so I am able to have interactive technologies and videos on my website and this may not be easy for them.

Describe a major business (or other) challenge you had and how you resolved it.

One of the challenges that I had in the beginning was getting people to visit my website and get interested in my services. I think that’s also a challenge that many people face. I resolved the challenge by writing something that really connected with my audience. In the beginning when I was writing articles, blog posts, I was really writing for myself. I was writing stuff that was useful for my colleagues and myself, but not useful to those who were new to raw foods. So just shifting to write about what raw foods is, and how you sprout your own nuts and seeds and dehydrate stuff has made a difference and my business took off.

What lessons did you learn in the process?

I learned to really listen to my people and when I had no readers to listen to I learned to use Google Keywords to identify what people were searching for in my field. I learned to shift my mindset to what my customers were thinking.

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

My big break happened last October about Halloween time. I basically did a big launch, had done a speaking engagement, another audio interview and a couple of radio that same week. It was an accumulation of all these speaking events and giving talks about raw foods that pushed things over the edge and made the launch a big success for me. One talk was at The Big Carrot in Toronto, Canada and I did some online podcasts.

Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

Before the big launch that I did, I tried to do something similar to provide a program for people, and it really didn’t resonate with anyone. It didn’t connect with my audience and my offering wasn’t quite right, the timing wasn’t right either. It was a failure in that I launched a product that didn’t take off, but it was useful to me to see what it took to create a program like that, the time it took and what people really wanted. Learning from that helped me down the line to achieve success.

What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

I always felt that I had this knowledge of what I was meant to do and it had something to do with health, but I became a programmer because I was very idealistic and thought that I could create software that would lead to finding the cure for cancer or something like that. I guess I was very disappointed that things didn’t turn out the way the way I expected. That has made me think about how I make decisions and my expectations of the world. These days I think about my decisions very differently from back then. I was pretty young when I made that decision.

What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

The toughest decision that I made was to turn down a job offer and go out on my own to start a business. I had a job offer to work on Wall Street in New York City and I also had it in my mind that I wanted to travel and visit China. My boyfriend Robin is from China and I wanted to visit his family. So I made the decision to turn down the job offer and figure out what I’d do when I returned from China. It was a very tough decision to make but it turned out very well.

What are three events that helped to shape your life?

1. I am a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and one of the events which shaped me was attending a big competition in the US and winning a medal there. And it was great to see what it was like outside of my tiny home town in Ontario. The experience built my self confidence.
2. Another event also occurred when I was younger. I participated in a forum for young Canadians. A bunch of high school students were brought to Ottawa, Canada and we talked about politics and how to change the world and it made me realize that we are all in this together and how we take action is how we differ.
3. I lived in California for four months for an internship and just being there, meeting people and attending a seminar was really life changing for me to be around people with different mindsets. Being there started bubbling some of my business ideas.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Being in business right now.

How did mentors influence your life?

Mentors influenced my life a lot! One of my mentors was my tae kwon do instructor and she was very influential in giving me self confidence. It was good to have someone who believed in me and wanted to see me go far. Other mentors were very instrumental, especially in business, and women I met online were very motivational to me and gave me the power and courage to step out and do this.

What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Trust yourself, listen to your intuition, and take action.

Which resources (books, movies, training etc.) did your mentors recommend to you?

One of the ones I liked was a book called Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. Other books recommended are all the books by Seth Godin and the Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy.

As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Trust yourself that what you are doing is going to work, put yourself out there and show people that you care and build relationships. Stick to what you are doing and don’t give up when things aren’t going well.

What nuggets can you take away from Nathalie’s interview?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know what you think about this.  Click on the comment link below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

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This is Part Two of Don’s interview. Please click here for Part One. In this content rich interview, you learn how he stays motivated, what are the threats to his business, advances in the industry, how he defines success, generates ideas and much more.

How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

I love technology and being the director of Digital Communications, it’s my job to stay on top of the trends and keep our clients and staff up to date with the latest info in social media. I help our account teams weave social media into their traditional PR programs so I need to be right on the cutting edge. Due to my love of technology and social media, motivation is never an issue for me.

If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I’d create Twitter and be a millionaire.

What’s the most important business (or other) discovery you’ve made in the past year?

The most important discovery I’ve made is pretty simple — social media is great, but it doesn’t replace the human aspect that’s needed to close business deals. Yes, clients like the fact that we are on the cutting edge of social media, but if we don’t vibe well with the client, we won’t win the business. Relationships and personal, face-to-face interaction is key to bringing in new business and keeping current clients happy.

What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

That’s simple — social media. It has greatly impacted the way we think about our business and our client’s business. Every program we develop is run through a digital prism. The lines of advertising, marketing, journalism and PR are blurred because of social media.

What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

There really isn’t three threats. It’s just one — social media. However, it’s also an opportunity. Social media has all but leveled the playing field for agencies. We are all “experts.” We are all going after the same budgets. It’s created a very intense and competitive environment, even more so than it was before. So the key is to stay on top of the trends and develop programs that are so forward thinking that the work you do speaks for itself. Clients hire on experience.

What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Our unique perspective on this business stems from the mashup of the PR world before the web and since eruption of the web 2.0. We have experience that runs the gamut and fusing that experience with the knowledge of the digital space, truly gives our clients a 360 view of their brand and how we can help them move the needle.

What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

There’s too much “me-me,” i.e. self promoters. Let your work speak for your company and your services. Yes, you should market, but don’t go overboard with how “great” you are. Writing a book about social media doesn’t make you an expert. Implementing a program that generates an additional 500 sales leads makes you not only an expert, but valuable to your client.

How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

I just do it. There’s no formula. There’s no “balance.” You do what you have to do to the best of your ability and you make the time for family. It’s not brain surgery. You have to make ample time to do both well.

What’s a major regret that you’ve had in life?

Zero regrets. Regrets are just heavy pieces of baggage that add no value to your life.

What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Be yourself. Be honest. Help people. Take care of your family. Own up to mistakes.

When you have some down time, how do you spend it?

With my kids or learning new things as it relates to social media.

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Talking to my kids. Playing catch. Walking or listening to music. My creativity is fostered when I’m not thinking about something specific.

What’s your favourite quotation and why?

“You don’t ask to take a photograph. You ask quietly, to borrow it.” I’m a photographer on the side and saw that anonymous quote once and thought how smart it was, because it’s true.

How do you define success?

Healthy and happy home life.

In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Healthy and happy home life.

If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

I’d meet my two great grandfathers (for family reasons), president Obama (for his vision), Steven King (for his creativity) and Nelson Mandella (for his life’s lessons).

Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply? Did you have an emotional or intellectual attachment to this book? Why?

Steven King’s The Stand, mostly because of the creative writing and the descriptions he used to set scenes, describe characters and make you, as the reader, feel like you were in their world.

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.

I’d honestly take any of Steven King’s novels because of their creativity and the fact that they would take me to a world that I’d never see. I don’t need any self-help books or any books about people’s lives, Shakespeare, etc. I’d want simple, yet descriptively satisfying books.

Have you read any books that inspired you to start a business, service or invent “something”? If yes, which book?

Nope, not yet. But I’ve read a lot of books that have inspired me to do better at my job, better as a person and better as a dad/father.

What one music CD and movie would you like to have with you (on the deserted island) and why?

Way too much to list. I couldn’t decide out of the slew of music I own.

What excites you about life?

My kids.

How do you nurture your soul?

My kids.

If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for? Or, if I gave you a magic wand, what would you use it for?

Honestly, I’d eliminate homelessness. It’s a sad thing to see and I see it too, too often.

Complete the following, I am happy when…

I get home and I see my kids after a long day at the office. It’s food for the soul.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab your personal copy by clicking here.

This is an interview with Don Martelli, VP, MS&L. He makes a fine invisible mentor (unique leader who you can learn things from) and you’ll agree when you read Part One of his interview. It’s very gratifying to see senior level professionals who understand that life is more than them. In the interview Don shares with you how he succeeded in his field and what someone starting out should do. He talks about the three events that shaped his life and you may be surprised by his answers. In his interview, you’ll also learn about his biggest challenge and how he resolved it, how mentors have helped him and a whole lot more.  I will post the second part of the interview on Friday, where you’ll discover the books that influenced him and the ones he would like to have on a deserted island.

Tell me a little bit about yourself

I am a 14 year-veteran of the communications business. I started out as a reporter for the Boston Globe and worked for six years in the education space in PR and marketing roles. I’ve worked for three top PR agencies, working on technology, corporate, healthcare and consumer accounts. Currently, I’m a VP and Director of Digital Communications with MS&L Boston (www.mslworldwide.com). You can find out more about me at www.donmartelli.com.

What’s a typical day like for you?

A typical day for me is one where I’m writing blog posts for our agency and some of our clients. I’m living in Twitter and other social media services all day. I’ll happen to design a piece or two for our new business process. I’ll also have a couple of client calls, media stories to pitch, bloggers to interact with and account management issues to deal with as well. To put it simply, I never have a typical day. The only thing that’s typical about my day is that whatever it is I’m doing, it’s typically done online and via some social/web 2.0 channel.

Describe a major business (or other) challenge you had and how you resolved it.

One great program we’ve developed and are still working on is one with Best Doctors (www.bestdoctors.com). They are an expert medical consultation service for large US employers. They work with employees to ensure that they are getting the right diagnosis and the right treatment. Basically, they help employees make better healthcare decisions. We wanted to inject the company’s point of view on healthcare reform into the online conversation, which is a very crowded one. Our first step was to launch a blog — www.seefirstblog.com. We then worked with the president and COO on messaging and tone as it related to the company’s POV on reform. Once we started to generate content, we connected the main author — Evan Falchuk, president and COO — to other online influencers in the healthcare space. We knew that making the right connections via services like Twitter, would get the blog’s content read and discussed in the space. Since April, we’ve had major news outlets like Wired, Atlantic Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, pick up See First Blog content online. Additionally, we’ve been linked to from Instapundit and have hosted the very popular healthcare blog carnival Grand Rounds. All of this work has resulted in over 2,000 unique visitors a month. We’ve topped off at nearly 4,000 due to trackbacks from Instapundit, Wall Street Journal, etc.

What lessons did you learn in the process?

The biggest lesson was that social media is not about volume. It’s about connecting with the right people that can help you move the needle.

How did mentors influence your life?

Guidance, education and common sense.

What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Be smart. Think things through. Be yourself.

Which resources (books, movies, training etc.) did your mentors recommend to you?

Too many to mention. However, that’s the great thing about learning. There’s so much content in this world to digest. The key is discovering what your passions are and running with it.

As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Read, read, read and read some more. You can never read enough.

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

My big break was when I was hired as a writer for the Boston Globe. I got the job through my cooperative education program at Northeastern University. Without the Globe experience, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

I honestly don’t consider anything in my life to be a failure. I am where I want to be because this is the path I have chosen.

What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its re-occurrence?

Again, no big disappointments for me. Everything happens for a reason. You need to learn from everything in life and determine how you can benefit from that experience in the future — negative or positive.

What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

I had a good job with a local college preparatory school and decided to leave it to come to MS&L. It was tough because I loved the mission of the school and I loved where it was headed. However, the opportunity to be part of a top, global PR agency with the reputation that MS&L had was one I couldn’t ignore.

What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Getting married, having kids and going to Northeastern University. Marriage and kids keep me grounded. That’s what is important in life. Knowing that I have a family to provide for is all the motivation I need. As for the NU experience, as I said, without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today professionally.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Raising two beautiful and healthy daughters.

What did you learn from this interview and how might you use some of the information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab your personal copy by clicking here.

There is truth to the adage that no one succeeds alone: the Lone Ranger had Tonto, and Bud Abbot had Lou Costello. They needed and relied on each other to achieve their goals. Even the self-made millionaire used “somebody’s” resources to achieve professional success. Would it then not make sense to have a system that allows people to pool their mental capacities to solve problems, generate great ideas and perhaps even conquer the world?

The Buddy System™, a support system consisting of about four to six people who are committed to co-mentoring  each other to achieve their goals, could be the answer. Members of this support network do not have to be from the same company, they just have to have a willingness to help others while helping themselves. Each member of the co-mentor network assumes the role of “buddy” or sidekick or co-mentor to the other members. Think of the Buddy System™ as a mini think tank where transformation partners pool their resources to achieve a greater good.

Finding appropriate buddies (co-mentors) takes careful planning, but the effort spent in getting it right will potentially catapult you to success. Have you identified those people in your diverse networks whose goals, personal mission and values intersect with yours?

Initially, get together to talk about what is important to you, and where you would like to see yourselves in five years? Brainstorm various ways to fill the gap between where you are, to where you want to be. Before committing, take the group for a test drive to discover if real chemistry is there.

If co-mentors feel comfortable together, decide which courses, webinars, workshops, seminars, conferences, podcasts, blogs and books would benefit the group the most. When deciding, focus on training and resources that will help members to attain greater personal and professional success. Allocate training and resources among members. When members take a course or read a book and so on, they should write a summary and teach the concepts to other members. This lessens the learning curve for each transforming partner.

For maximum impact, meet once a week and no less than every two weeks for two hours, but remember to harness technology by creating a group on LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo! or any other to circulate training or book summaries. If members are dispersed geographically, utilize video or web conferencing to meet. Reserve meetings as a forum for members to act as a Buddy Think Tank™ where they strategize, act on opportunities, and generate innovative ideas to resolve critical issues/concerns/problems facing them in their daily lives.

Potential ways to enhance the Buddy System™ experience:

• If members are located in the same geographic area make the Buddy Meetings™ a fun event – eat and laugh together
• When summarizing books, ask the following questions and include the answers in the summary:
  • What breakthroughs did you have while reading this book?
  • Does the book contain facts that are somewhat surprising because they are different from what you know?
  • Are there any rule breaking in the book? If yes, what are they?
  • Is there a method of thinking, or metaphor implied in this book that you could adopt to solve problems?
  • What are the top 5 great ideas/takeaways from the book?
  • How does the author’s ideas or solutions relate to your life and your work?
  • In what ways can you use the ideas/insights/takeaways to increase the value of your product/service to your customers (internal/external)?
  • In what ways can you use the ideas/insights/takeaways to add value to your life?
• Rotate roles and responsibilities among members
• Evaluate regularly to determine if the needs of all member are being addressed by the group

In today’s environment, standing still is no longer an option in work and life. Use the Buddy System™ to partner your way to success.

The Legend of The Lone Ranger Music Video By Carey Lee Fisher

Who’s On First? By Bruno Nomad