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Booked on Tuesdays: Review – Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas

Avil Beckford — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:30:08 +0000

I finally got around to reading my complimentary copy of Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas by Dan Zarrella, which is a manifesto from Seth Godin’s Domino Project. The manifesto is a short read but it is packed with a lot of punch.

We’ve all seen videos, blog posts and ideas that spread like wildfire over the internet.

But what makes them spreadable? Is it because they are good?

Not necessarily, says Dan Zarrella, since some of those videos, blog posts and ideas aren’t good. They spread because they have contagiousness factors. They spread because they are able to reproduce themselves. “In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme” to mean a “unit of cultural inheritance.” His point was ideas evolve like genes do, and their success is based on their ability to spread, not on their benefit to provide to their hosts,” says Zarrella.

What I liked about the manifesto is that it’s researched-based and the author loves to tests things. Before an idea is spread, there are three criteria that must be met first:

Exposure: People have to be exposed to your content, so that means that they have to subscribe to your blog, be on your email list, or follow you on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. To win at this you have to increase the number of people who subscribe to you blog, are on your email lists, and who connect or follow you on the various social networks.
Attention: They have to be aware of the content that you want to spread, so they have to read you blog post, open your email or read you status update. To win at this, you have to write better headlines/subject lines for your blog posts and emails, as well as more engaging status updates.
Motivation: They have to be motivated to share your content. Always have a call to action so people know what they are supposed to do next.

And the key to the above is really to experiment to determine what works and what doesn’t work so well.

Zarrella takes each criteria, and delves into them in their own chapter and gives deeper insight into exactly what he means. For instance, we are often told that if we have a small engaged list, our idea will spread, but the science doesn’t really support that. Yes, there are times we’ll get lucky, but for an idea to spread, it’s better if it’s exposed to a larger audience because not everyone will read it, and of those who read about your idea, even less will be motivated to share it.

In addition, certain words such as official, founder, speaker, expert and so on give us authority and increases our exposure. Another interesting piece of information is that people prefer information from you that’s positive because they are bombarded with so much negative information every day. And when you write, they want to hear your voice, your unique take, they want you to be authentic, but they do not want to hear about you. It’s what’s in it for them.

To grab attention you have to cut through all the clutter, but to do so, you have to say something new in a way that is familiar, or say something old in a new way, and one of the examples Zarrella gave was new adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. Another way is to personalize your message, or even broadcast your message at counterintuitive times such as on the weekends. Email messages that were sent between 5 and 6 am had the highest click through rates.

Certain types of information are more spreadable than others:

People have to be eager for the information.
Have to know what information people already have and what they lack.
Have to have an understanding of what moves them – their hopes, fears, hostilities.
Have an understanding of how they deal with their hopes, fears, hostilities, and so on.

Some of the reasons people are motivated to spread your ideas include: Personal relevance, humour, usefulness, shared common interest and so on. And the easier it is to read and understand your idea, the more spreadable it becomes.

3 Great Ideas

Talk as yourself, not about yourself.
Add to the conversation with interesting content.
Scarce knowledge is power

I recommend Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas by Dan Zarrella because it has tips that you can readily implement to test for yourself.

Other Resources

How to Write Magnetic Headlines, Copyblogger.com

How to Write Headlines That Work, Copyblogger.com

102 Proven Social Media Headline Formulas, Chris Garrett

Idea Starters: 52 Headline Archetypes to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

How to Spread Your Ideas, Leo Babauta

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.

Book link is affiliate link.

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Interview With Invisible Mentor Sean Ward, Entertainer & Comic Artist

Avil Beckford — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:30:51 +0000

Interviewee Name: Sean Ward

Company Name: SeanWard.net

Website: http://www.seanward.net/

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Sean Ward: I’m an artist and an entertainer from Toronto, Canada and I’m doing stuff that I always dreamed and swore that I was going to be doing and I just have a lot of fun. I’m trying to make and retain products both in print and stuff to watch that I hope people can watch and enjoy so it gives them a tickle and gets them thinking about certain ideas that are going to lead to joy and a better world.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Sean Ward: A typical day such as there is one is getting up sometime in the late morning between 10:00 am and noon. I get caught up with the world checking in with the correspondence, Twitter etcetera. For the rest of the afternoon I like to crunch in some work time so I try to stay off Twitter as much as I can, often without much success. Late afternoon into early evening is spent interacting with other people. There is lot of shifting going on then with people getting off work, between the entrepreneurs that I know being able to actually get some work time in. And if there is nothing going on in the evening then I get a big chunk of work done on whatever is my biggest project at that time. Typically at some point in the night I have to make myself stop and call it a day, and that will be anywhere between 2:00 and 6:00 am. Then I rinse and repeat.

Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

Sean Ward: Mostly I try to have the presence of mind to remember how good I’ve got it, and how good we’ve got it in this part of the world. I try to connect with that. There is a lot of spiritual minded stuff that goes into my work – how I do it and why I do it. I take a moment or two when I need to connect with those ideas and if I can sync with those ideas and feel the familiar sensation off the top of my head then I know I am in a good place and doing good work.

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

Sean Ward: I’ve always wished that I could go back and talk to my teenage self and remind myself that the world that I was living in, and the value system that I didn’t connect with at that time, to really hammer home just how little it actually meant and how on the right track I was at that time. What would I do differently? I might have left the education system earlier, who knows if I would have gone back to it, but I would have gotten started earlier, because it was a little bit later when I started to make the decision to finally be an artist and try to pursue that seriously.

Avil Beckford: What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

Sean Ward: I discovered how little it matters what other people are thinking about what I’m doing or whether they are thinking anything at all. I guess the biggest thing has been about detaching my perception of other people’s perception of me and what I’m doing from my own perception of it, if that makes sense.

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

Sean Ward: Me being an artist on the Internet. The Internet itself has been revolutionized again and again so many times over the last five years, and the sheer velocity of which it has been hurdling toward the future. It’s tremendously exciting and I feel very privileged in a very big way to be here at this point, and to be doing the work that I do at this particular time in history. The answer is not so much the Internet but the speed at which the Internet moves.

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

Sean Ward:

There is only so much attention people have based on the fact that there are only so many hours in the day and there are so many other things to do so standing out is always a challenge, and finding new ways to do that is a challenge, and how I address that challenge I’d like to think is by trying to cook up ways to be different from everybody else, or whoever else is in the space. I find ways to be unique and interesting.
Money is a challenge and how I’m addressing that challenge is to bootstrap it and try to continue to deliver a high end product on a shoebox budget.
My own time and how much time I have to put in it and the fact that there are so many moving parts to this huge lumbering beast that I’m trying to construct, and the best that I can do to address that challenge is to always be aware that time is passing and try to be on the ball and focused and limiting distractions and getting in tuned with my own working styles.

Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Sean Ward: I’ve spent a long time cultivating a worldview that informs the service I provide in such a way that I sometimes feel that’s great about what I have on offer. And I also feel that it’s what makes what I have to offer a harder sell, but at the end of the day I hope it all adds up and it meant more to me than it otherwise would have.

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

Sean Ward: I would say that what I observe other people doing badly is treating every new thing that comes along as if it’s the most earthshaking thing ever. In 2010 social media happened, and everybody, their hearts started beating faster and their breaths quicker, and they got agitated without the baggage that comes with it. Everybody got riled up and so what I see people doing badly is staying riled up and living in that world of tweets which are very ephemeral, and what I’d like to think that I do differently, and what I’d like to see people do differently, is to take a step back and actually start thinking about the sum total of what it all represents when you look at it as a whole.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?

Sean Ward: My business and personal lives are so tied up and intermingled that I don’t think they can be separated. I thought I was on a certain trajectory and the work that I was doing took me into a mainstream entertainment job, which was to go to work for a late night TV show. The show was a legacy show and had been on for a couple of decades already so to try to try to get them to actually do stuff that they had hired me to do, and to get them to actually cooperate in the news ways I needed them to, and to think in the new ways I needed them to think and get done what I needed to was tremendously difficult because of the entrenched corporate culture, because of so much of what was going on. This was when YouTube was brand new, now a few years ago.

In the face of the realization that what I went there to do, and what I thought was going to happen, wasn’t going to happen. What I should have done differently, was to keep my momentum going under my own name. When I went to work for that show it didn’t end up being the outlet that I was promised, and thought it was going to be. But at the same time, to start actually putting on my own shows and this kind of stuff, I had so much of my output, so many of my projects tied up into that company and into that show that I was kind of tied up and there wasn’t a lot that I could do because of all the different stuff I had on the go sort of promised to and tied up in this TV show that I was working for. So to actually stop worrying about that, and to just do another show, start something new without worrying about how many people show up to see it or whatever is really what I should have done differently. All that happened is that I waited until the show was no longer working for them, and it ended up that I had to start over from zero anyway. So the lesson I learned is not losing my momentum when it comes to my own thing, not being afraid to trade on my own name. I worked for that show longer than I should have.

Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

Sean Ward: That’s a good question because on the one hand I would wonder if I had that one big break yet. But on the other hand I’ve done a lot of interesting and colourful things in my career so I would probably say that if I had to chock it up to giving you an answer like that to one person I’d have to say it was a man by the name of Peter Miniaci. It wasn’t so much that he gave me break, as in he was the producer of a show and he gave me the gold, it was more like he equipped me with certain modes of thinking, and certain ways of approaching what I do both in terms of my art output, and how I conduct my life day-to-day.

There was a lot he opened my eyes to, and a lot he coached me on how to conduct myself and be a likable person, and be a person that people would be interested in. That’s what entertainment is about, so the coaching and the help he gave me in the broader life sense is really what helped set the stage for me to have that boost of confidence to start being an artist, to take it more seriously, and to build up the confidence and faith that I needed to dive in and take the lumps that I had to take on my way to success.

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

Sean Ward: The failure was that when the show was about to get yanked off the air I and the company I was working for decided we weren’t going to work together anymore and then being afraid and shy to start trading on my own name and put together a new show, entertainment product or whatever and spending the rest of that year trying to do it the straight way. Having come out of my underground ramshackle, squeezing a dollar out of a nickel way of doing things to them go to work for an established entertainment brand, coming out of that position having the weird compulsion that I felt to try and stay in the mainstream way things are done even though I had learned many times and previous to that, that I don’t operate that way. I’m unemployable that way.

I do best when I get “scene hot” and other people come to me and say we’ve seen what you do, we like it and want to be part of it. Those have led to some interesting partnerships, but the whole thing about trying to go around town and interview with production companies, networks and this kind of thing, trying to sell them on an idea. That’s never been the way I’d done anything successfully and I think that’s what I learned that year was that realization that there never comes that point that I was dreaming of when every thing is easy and takes care of itself.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with people over the past couple of years describe my attitude after working on that show that the game was over and I had won. So waking up to the realization that it never gets to that point where the game is over and you’ve won and it takes care of itself, that it’s always going to be hard, you are always going to need to hustle, it doesn’t matter how famous, successful or popular it gets, maintaining something takes effort. It’s never going to get easy, it’s always going to be hard, and you have to find the fun in that, and that’s got to be where the addiction is, so to be that kind of guy who’s the best at getting something going at the beginning, and that kind of thing figuring out how to do the work in a way that plays on my strengths and keeps it exciting and fresh and new. You know if I’ve got to be way out on the leading edge of things and it’s the people who are coming up next who kind of look like the first people on it because they were able to jump on something that was already there. You know what I mean, I’m figuring out my own working style and playing to it and that realization that it’s never ever going to get easy, it’s always going to be hard, it’s always going to be a challenge and that kind of thing.

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

Sean Ward: The biggest disappointment is realizing that the people on the show are not going to do anything differently because their habits are so entrenched. They can’t think laterally in the way that I needed them to. So that day that I actually said, “Oh my God, I finally get it. This is not a creative outlet for me.”

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

Sean Ward: When I realized that it wasn’t going to get easy I felt that the decision was to get a job that had nothing to do with something that I actually wanted to do in my career and be able to have a modest living that way, or to go back in to that point that I thought that I had gotten to previously bootstrapping it and doing everything cheap, not knowing where the next meal was coming from and realizing that it was probably going to be a good six months, eight months, a year before the gears were well lubricated enough that it would start bringing in returns.

That decision to take part in that difficult year was the toughest decision I made in recent times. It’s one thing to take my comic books to Queen Street when nobody knows me, but it’s something else once you’ve already got what you think is a track record established, and what you think more people should be knowing about you because then you have the ego in it and all that kind of stuff and it takes a lot of inner work to conquer that ego when it’s talking to you so the decision became a bit easier once I was able to beat out whatever demon was whispering in my ear, but it was still a really tough decision.

Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Sean Ward:

The first time somebody gave me money for a comic book that I had made. That happened when I was standing outside waiting for a ride to pull up and I had a handful of copies of a comic book that I had just made that I was taking with me to wherever I was going. While I’m standing on the street corner waiting for my ride to pull up, just to be silly, just to be obnoxious I started asking people as they passed, “Hey, you want to buy a comic book?” And maybe the third or fourth guy stopped and said, “Sure, how much?” And at the top of my head I said, “$3,” and he handed me a loonie (Canadian $1) and a toonie (Canadian $2) for the comic book and I quickly did the math on how many I would have to sell to be able to pay my rent, and what that worked out to be per day, and it actually was doable so that’s what I decided to do, and that completely consumed the next three years of my life.
The second event is the first comic book convention that I exhibited at after I had been doing the comic book thing for a while. I had been out on the corner selling on the street for quite some time by that point, so now I’m taking it a little more seriously and I’m actually getting a table in the Indie section of a comic book convention. So to go in there and do the thing I do where I’m loud and funny and having a good time and I’ve got pretty girls in tow with my logo on the t-shirt and I’ve taken over the whole convention floor. Seeing the fun we were able to have in amongst some of the sour, quiet, introspective artist types and to see how we were able to turn that whole scene on its head and to see how much business we were able to do, numbers that were very contrary to conventional wisdom, in those kinds of situations.
Podcamp Toronto 2010 because I mentioned that 2010 was the year that the social media thing, the Twitter thing just exploded so there was a lot of us that was already into it and there for when it exploded. And it felt pretty much like Podcamp 2010 was the moment you could pinpoint as the beginning of what I describe as 2010 social media “Summer of Love.” So you had from February on, all kinds of tweetups going on, and all kinds of events happening where you go and see all kinds of people you knew from Twitter. The community had gotten very close and tightly knit over Twitter around that time so Podcamp was really the first time that a lot of us were actually meeting face-to-face especially in that context of the big, large group where we all are, and that sort of felt like it set off the movement over the next few months toward these bigger and bigger gatherings. You would go out and start seeing all these people you only knew from Twitter and everybody’s got their name tags, and you go, “Oh my God, I remember you. I follow you.” And this kind of thing, meet new people and follow them. From February 2010 on it altered how we think and communicate to the point where now, I can’t speak for everybody, but I know for me, as a “Twitter influencer” it’s really hard for me to talk to people who aren’t in it about how it works, why it works, how it has changed my approach to communication. The world is different now in a really big way and I pinpoint 2010 Podcamp as the beginning of that change.

Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Sean Ward: It’s the number of comic books I have sold on my own over the years. I was doing it whether it was an industry thing, conventions, events or whatever. There was no bar set yet for me because when I was first doing it whether it was the comic book thing or putting content online on YouTube or this kind of stuff, I’ve always been kinda see something which looks kind of fun, I jump in and do it. And it’s not until later on, when I’m able to assess how it did. So having no idea how well I’m doing at any of this stuff, to be able to look at it later on, once it actually grew and more people were doing it, and business models around this stuff started to emerge, to be able to look at the numbers I was doing on my Internet radio show I had, and to look at the number of copies of comics I was able to sell at the convention and whatnot. I was actually doing really good, especially looking at the numbers that are now established as the benchmark of what’s doing good and what’s not.

Out of those sorts of things, the number of comic books I was able to sell on my own by myself in this city is probably what I’m the most proud of because I look at those numbers and what was written up in a magazine article as successful sales number for an indie comic and so to see that someone was able to sell X numbers of copies of their indie comic via all of these traditional distribution avenues and to be able to look at that and say that over my X number of years doing comics I sold three, four times as many from a street hustle is a good feeling.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Sean Ward: They influenced my life in a very big way, especially when I think about what I just told you about how so much of what I’ve done has been about just jumping in when something new is happening, and being one of the first one to try stuff before there is any mode of how to do it before it’s established or any idea of what success is. So mentors are vitally important to me because without that thing to compare against because everything is either new, or the way it is combined is new.

The mentors have been important to me because the only thing that I’ve had to compare myself to is like successful stories. Stories of people who I look up to, heroes of mine and that kind of stuff. The mentors have been vitally important in keeping me focused on trying to be an artist who creates timeless work that people enjoy long after their time is done and to try to continue to see myself in the mode of some of my heroes. They have been also vitally important in keeping me on track, from giving up and keeping me from selling myself short, and in fact if I look at that year and a half or so that I was telling you about earlier, when I didn’t know what I was going to do, and was thinking about what I was going to do next, I would say that it was a lack of suitable mentors that was why I was in that situation if that makes sense.

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

Sean Ward: To sum it up, that core message has been that there are things that work, mysterious forces, whatever, that are beyond us, bigger and at the same time smaller than us, and the things that we are not equipped to think about and process, and it’s fun to talk when you get together with certain likeminded people but you can’t spend your whole life thinking about it because it will drive you crazy. But art is how we try to express it, and art is how we try to take that thing that you can never put into words to make it knowable and to give it form and I’ve always felt like anything less than an attempt at that is a failure and a waste of time.

So mentors have really given me that thing that keeps me warm at nights, that thing that keep me full when the cupboards are bare, and that is the idea that I’m going somewhere with this that’s beyond anything that I can see and imagine right now than to be confident in that, have faith in that and to respect and have the work that I do be a tribute to that idea. That’s in a big way what I got from my mentors, and the people who helped me to grow my conception of that to develop modes of living it, and working it into my day-to-day working life including and especially when things have been tough.

Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Sean Ward: I would try to explain to the readers to look at it as if you are a superhero. Your talent is your super powers, and the work that you do is your feat of gallantry. So keep that context in your head, and to do it right and to remember the Spiderman thing, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Well if you’ve got a talent for writing songs, or you’ve got a talent for painting, or an eye for photography, that’s a great power and you have a responsibility to that great power to try and shepherd the world toward where you’d like it to be. The real big takeaway from all of that from my Invisible Mentor message would be that the world really is what you make it, and the world really is here for you and mysterious forces will come to your aid when you need it if you trust in it.

Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau (theinvisiblementor.com)
The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay (theinvisiblementor.com)
The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews: Do Big Breaks, Mentoring, and Hard Work Equate to Success? Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)

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The Invisible Mentor Interviews Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia

Avil Beckford — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:30:08 +0000

Interviewee Name: Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia, Founder

Company Name: NORSUN Diversity and Cross-Culture Consulting

Website: http://diversity-and-cross-culture.com/

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: I am Norwegian, I have lived in Switzerland, Cyprus and the US, now I’m living in France. I am a consultant, trainer and coach – and also mentor on a voluntary basis for the European Professional Women’s Network (EPWN). And I recently started up my company NORSUN Diversity and Cross-Culture Consulting.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: Not sure I have a typical day yet, as my company is still in the making. But the day always include morning, afternoon and evening walks with my Golden Retriever. The last few months I have been working on three trainings, and recently I have been busy setting up a blog and using Twitter.

Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: It is rather easy, as my work is something I feel passionately for. Otherwise it is important for me to keep a balance between work and leisure, and this balance keeps me motivated.

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: Concerning my business, I would have contacted more large consulting companies to freelance at an earlier stage. The financial market is still tough in the consulting business and if I had more freelancing contacts I think that would have been better.

Avil Beckford: What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: It has been a pleasure to discover that the consulting business is very supportive. I had expected fierce competition, whereas what I find is that my “competitors” if you like are very willing to share information and be supportive

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: I would say that it’s E-learning, blended learning, more structure – and demand for certification – around what it means to be a coach and mentor

Avil Beckford: When you say blended learning, what do you msn by that?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: I mean training that has many different elements so that could mean an e-learning element within the blended learning. It could be that you have to do exercises, or group training combined with more traditional face-to-face training.

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia:

The financial market and competition.
1. It is all about networking and creating trust so that customers choose me despite the above.
Gender discussion “fatigue”. By that I mean I have noticed that some people feel tired of the subject “women on boards, leadership.” I think that communication that focuses on a better future for men and women in business and at home is the way to go forward.

Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: To do that I have to go back a little. It is proven that a diverse company with an inclusive environment produces better bottom line results. I help businesses increase organisational performance through focus on inclusion, a diverse workforce and a better understanding of working across national cultures.

As a consultant, coach, mentor and trainer, my strength lies in my combination of strategic and operational experience, as well as having worked internationally cross-border and living in different countries. I am a good listener and have a solution-minded attitude.

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: I don’t like to focus on what others do badly. But I see a danger in cross-cultural trainers getting too hung up on the theories of intercultural specialists like Trompenaars and Hofstede. Their tools are helpful, as long as one does not forget about individual differences and taking the time to get to know people.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it.

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: It was actually to get all the paper work done to set up my business. With my cultural background (Norwegian) it is not natural for me to chase people, it is considered rude in my culture. But here in France it is more common to chase people to get things done. I learnt it by doing, and I got it done, but it was hard for me.

Avil Beckford: What lessons did you learn in the process?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: Listen to the people who have “inside information” and follow their advice, even if it is difficult to do.

Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: It wasn’t a big break, but I would like to mention the story. In high school I had a gym teacher that had the ability to “see” people. One time I was going through a difficult time, she saw it without me having to say a word. She asked me if I wanted to talk and I said yes. It was a relief to talk with an adult that showed so much understanding. It is something I have carried with me, the importance of “seeing” people and reaching out a hand. Sometimes I fail, but I try the best I can.

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: One time I did not work well with a superior. I learnt that there may be greater cultural differences than one would expect between neighbouring countries. It forced me to flex my style, it wasn’t comfortable, but it gave better results.

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: I rather tend to have many small disappointments, and they come in squadrons, as they say in French. When these periods arrive, I focus on “what happened instead?” “What positive outcome has there been from this disappointment?”

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: Well, I think the toughest decisions in life are most likely to be very personal ones. One that I can share was the decision to settle in France with my French husband. I knew that it would be a long process to integrate, as I had to learn the language (which isn’t easy!) and get used to yet another culture. The result is that I have indeed learnt the language, although it took longer than I liked, and I live in a very beautiful country with a wonderful climate – and we live a blessed life.

Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia:

The fact that I decided to take an education abroad set the scene for my intercultural experience. I had traveled over longer periods of time before that, but actually spending years abroad gives a stronger impact.
My husband. He provides a balance to my life that is amazing.
It is rather a personality trait than an event, but it does shape my life; I tend to take calculated risks (e.g. quitting my job before having another one, starting my own business). These risks have brought me exciting challenges (e.g. international job in a large petroleum company).

Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: I am very proud of a blended learning on working across cultures that I produced (main designer and team leader) in 2009 for a large petroleum company.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: I have had many invisible mentors, and some formal ones. They help me to trigger off new ideas or push me to get done things I already have in mind.

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: That they believe in me

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

Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia: Follow your interests and don’t give up.

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3 Tips on How to Use LinkedIn

Avil Beckford — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:30:52 +0000

In the webinar “LinkedIn Fundamentals”, Jan Vermeiren author of How to Really Use LinkedIn shared a few tips that I’d like to pass on. To be honest, I haven’t spent a lot of time learning about most of the functionalities of LinkedIn, but after “LinkedIn Fundamentals” I made a few changes and will make more tomorrow.

We’ve all heard the phrase that givers get, so a simple way to give is to add a Slideshare presentation with helpful information. This reminded me that I have not created a presentation in over a year.
With over 17 years research experience I know that one of the ways to narrow search results is to use the Advanced Search feature, and this is the same for LinkedIn. So for instance if you’d like to create a list of marketing managers in a specific city, you can narrow your search by using Advanced Search.
Use LinkedIn as a research tool and not as a contact tool. This sounds counterintuitive, but with the proliferation of social media and networks, communication can often be impersonal. Let’s say you are trying to reach the Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) within a certain industry in a specific region, conduct your search, identify which of your contacts know these CMOs. If more than one of your contacts is directly connected to any CMO, get in touch with your contacts that you have the best relationship with by telephone, and gather information about the CMO, then ask for an introduction by email. This makes the process a bit more personal.

What are some LinkedIn tips that you would like to share with us? 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.

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10 Tips on How to Find a Job the New Way

Avil Beckford — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:14:48 +0000

In a very crowded space how do find a job? How do you stand apart from the other job search candidates? How do you know what tips to follow when there are so many experts out there giving advice? Like anything in life, it’s important to weigh the contradictory information. What makes the most sense to you?

Don’t be afraid to try something new because it’s radically different from what you’ve heard or seen before.

Phil Rosenberg a job search consultant shared a few tips on his webinar, Resume Revolution, which made me think carefully about the new “Job Search” era that we find ourselves in. The old ways of doing things simply no longer work.

The cover letter is no longer QUEEN; her reign has come to an end – if your information is not on your resume that means it simply does not exist. It’s also time to bury the Highlights, Objectives, or Summary statements because they occupy Prime Resume Real Estate, and it is about What’s In It For Me.

The new kid in town is What’s In It For Them.

Here are some tips that Rosenberg shared:

When you send your electronic resume, send it in a .doc format and not .docx, .pdf or dot, except if you are a designer and want to showcase your talent use .pdf.
Employers get flooded with resumes for each available job so they use Applicant Tracking Systems which search for keywords. All the information that candidates once put in their cover letter to demonstrate why they are qualified for the position now goes into the resume. Make sure the main keywords the employer is looking for is on your resume.
Heavily customize your resume for each position you apply for to prevent the Applicant Tracking System from screening you out.
The average time spent on a resume to decide whether or not to grant an interview is 15 seconds, so you have only 15 seconds to make a great first impression.
Demonstrate value don’t list your previous responsibilities. How did you save your previous employers money? How did you increase revenue and by much? What systems did you introduce to increase efficiency and by how much? Always think What’s In It for Them. If you received a prestigious award, why did you receive it, was it because you solved a critical workplace problem?
In fiction writing they always advise the writer to show and not tell, so describe why you are the correct fit for the organization.
Do not waste your time applying for jobs on job boards because that’s not how the majority of jobs are found. Instead use them for research to determine which industries and organizations are hiring. Use your research findings to build your target list and gather insider information. Find out more about these organizations from your contacts on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Brand yourself as a Subject Matter Expert, the days of the generalists are over.
Use social tools and networks like Google, LinkedIn and Twitter to make yourself findable.
Use your resume to demonstrate that you are the perfect person to fix the organization’s problem. Organizations hire because they have problems.

Phil Rosenberg offers programs to assist his clients to navigate the new job search maze, but I am sure if you use these tips from his webinar, you are much further ahead than other job seekers.

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Five Tips From Social Media Week 2011 – Toronto

Avil Beckford — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:58:48 +0000

This week nine cities around the world, including Toronto, are celebrating Social Media Week 2011. From the session Business 3.0 – Strategies and Tactics that can be leveraged to help small companies grow their business and brand here are five tips.

Panellists

Chris O’Neill: Country Director, Google Canada

Jonathan Lister: Country Manager, LinkedIn Canada

Carissa Reininger: Founder & President, Silver Lining

Sean Stanleigh: Editor, Your Business, Globe & Mail

What are your objectives? What do social and digital media mean to you? Create a social and digital media strategy then build relationships and share.
Play with the platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to understand what they can do.
Find out who the influencers are and get them to help you spread your content.
Be clear about what you do, who you do it for, figure out the best way to do it then seek the best tool to help you do it more efficiently.
If you are selling consulting services and higher priced products you are in the relationship business and you have to take the online relationships you build, and build them further offline. That’s the only way you will make a sale.

Social Media Week … or Weak? [Matt Hodkinson] (ecademy.com)
Social Media Week kicks off today, find out how you can get involved (thenextweb.com)
Social Media Week Seeks Innovation With Multi-City Approach (mediabistro.com)

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11 Transforming Sales Trends to Capitalize On

Avil Beckford — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:31:30 +0000

Whether or not we want to admit it, each of us is a salesperson. We are constantly selling to our bosses, colleagues, spouses, children, family, firnds and so on. In a recent webinar, “The Top 11 Transforming Sales Trends for 2011,” Josiane Feigon, CEO, Telesmart Communications shared 11 transforming trends for this year.

11 Transforming Trends

Smart Trend #1: Customers are Mad as Hell!

Customers are very frustrated these days and are tired of being pushed or prodded. Because they have access to so much information, they are very knowledgeable and do their research. They want a new relationship, more control over purchasing decisions and want to learn in bite-sized pieces. This doesn’t spell the “death of the salesperson,” all it means is changing the way you interact with, and care for your customers.

Smart Trend #2: Nurture & Engage

Research says, “9 out of 10 buyers say that when they are ready to buy, they will come looking for you.”

The sales cycle is longer these days, so while waiting there are several things you can do to nurture and engage them, which include providing the following:

Webinars
White Papers
How-to Guides
e-Books
Blog Posts
Presentations on Slideshare
Newsletters & e-Zines
YouTube Videos
Podcasts
Case Studies/Success Stories
Industry Research

Smart Trend #3: Social Surfing Beats Setting Appointments

Research says, “8 out of 10 IT decision makers say word of mouth is the most important source when making buying decisions.”

People make decisions based on what others say about you. Join the conversation on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and on industry related forums.

Smart Trend #4: Your Social Graph- New Job Security

Testimonials matter, so does peer reviews and customer case studies. Nowadays it’s about how many people like you. Create Google Alerts for you and your company so you know what’s being said about you. Ask your satisfied customers to write recommendations for you on LinkedIn and Yelp. Listen to conversations about you on Twitter using the @reply and search functionality. Make sure that you have a presence online.

Smart Trend #5: Write On

Writing is now a mandatory skill so write up! Comment on blog posts, join discussions in forums and in LinkedIn group discussions, have a tweet stream on Twitter and write your scripts for your YouTube videos. Text appointment confirmations since most people have mobile phones. So hone your writing skills, craft good subject lines so your emails get read.

Smart Trend #6: Hey Coach, Watch This!

The sales cycle is longer, the sales process is very different and customers are more enlightened and knowledgeable, so sales managers have to be more realistic in their expectations and they have to spend time motivating the sales force.

Smart Trend #7: The Hip and Hungry Boomer Reps

Because of the economy, there is a lot of available talent. Don’t overlook the more seasoned professionals for younger ones.

Smart Trend #8: Data Grows Up

There is so much information out there that people are overwhelmed and have started to data cleanse. How do people really use data? There are lots of sales intelligence so there is no reason to be uninformed about your customers. Create Google Alerts, join in the conversation on LinkedIn, use Hoover’s Online, and Insight Research Group.

Smart Trend #9: Call Activity Gets a Makeover

Stop counting the amount of calls made, instead spend some of that time creating an online presence and being part of a community of like-minded people on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Smart Trend #10: Going Mobile

You need to understand how to deliver information the new way. More people are using the iPad. It’s time to collaborate and include.

And today, more people are using QR (Quick Response) codes. According to Entrepreneur Daily Dose published by Entrepreneur Magazine, “You should think of a QR code as an easy-to-create, two-dimensional bar code that can be scanned by a smart phone to instantly and effortlessly share targeted content online with minimal exertion by the end user…. But the really cool thing about QR codes is that any business, start-up or entrepreneur can create them online themselves, and in many cases, can do this or free (see Kaywa and ZXing for more information).”

LinkedIn now allows you to use PingTags, a service that lets you connect to your LinkedIn Profile and generate a QR code for people to scan, says Chris Brogan from CrossTech Ventures.

Smart Trend #11: Virtual Salespeople

Not everyone is in the same office. Many people work at home or in remote locations, so create virtual meetings throughout the sales cycle.

Additional Reading

PINGTAGS Adds QR Code Access to Your LinkedIn Profile by Chris Brogran

Using QR Codes to Promote Your Business by Entrepreneur Daily Dose

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Transforming a Negative into a Positive: What I Learned from Adversity

The Invisible Mentor Interviews Susan Murphy, a Creative Genius

Avil Beckford — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:30:11 +0000

Interviewee Name: Susan Murphy

Company Name: Jester Creative Inc.

Website: http://www.jestercreative.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Susan Murphy: I live in Ottawa, Canada with my husband, 3 cats, and 1 dog. I’m an entrepreneur, a writer, and a teacher. But mostly, I’m a storyteller.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Susan Murphy: A few years ago, my business partner and I made the decision to get rid of our office and work remotely. Our team also works remotely, and it’s the best decision we ever made for the company.

As a result, I have a lot of flexibility in my days. Typically I start the day off with a big, warm mug of coffee and my laptop or iPad. I read through the morning headlines, check in on Twitter and Facebook and say good morning to some friends. I then usually compose a blog post or two, for my own personal blog at suzemuse.com, or for one of the other blogs I contribute to (Workshifting.com and Thoughtwrestling.com).

I try to schedule meetings for late morning or early afternoon, so I can work in lunch and errands midday without affecting the flow of what I call the “real work” in the morning and afternoon.

My “real work” time is focused on projects like client work, working on our television show, or prepping for classes and speaking engagements.

I teach at the local community college a couple of nights a week as well as some online courses, so my evenings are usually made up of either teaching commitments, events, and of course, some social time with family and friends, too.

Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

Susan Murphy: I love to work hard. I’m not afraid to work hard, and since I’ve been self employed (going on 8 years now), I’ve not had a difficult time staying motivated. When you are solely responsible for your own income, it pushes you to keep bringing in new opportunities. Lack of money is a big motivator!

But mostly, I try to surround myself with people and ideas that are inspiring. I watch successful people and study how they work. Then, I try to bring what I learn into my own environment. Watching other people succeed is a great motivator.

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

Susan Murphy: I would have way more confidence. I’m a shy person by nature, and I tend to not give myself enough credit for my experience. I’ve been working in media and communications for 22 years, but sometimes I still feel like I’m a kid just starting out…like I have so much more to learn. And I realize that in many ways, I do.

However, if I had the chance to do it over, I would have done more to overcome my fears and shyness sooner, to make the most of the opportunities that have been presented to me.

Avil Beckford: What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

Susan Murphy: I think the thing that’s been the most apparent to me this year is the real power of what’s possible when you work and collaborate with other people.

I’ve learned both sides of collaboration too, because there are times when it works and times when it doesn’t. I’ve worked on some great blogging projects, and some awesome web and video projects this year, where the team was tight and there was a lot of trust, and the ideas and work just flowed. However, I’ve also had some situations this year where trust and respect went by the wayside, and collaborative efforts broke down.

When trust leaves a relationship of any kind, business, personal or both, it can be very damaging. Unfortunately, not every collaboration is going to work out, because not everyone has the same level of trust and integrity.

I guess the important discovery for me was to realize that it can, and will be both ways, and that we should focus on the positive collaborations, and know when to let things go if it’s not working out.

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

Susan Murphy: Well, hands down it has to be the emergence of the social Web. As I mentioned before, I’m a storyteller. I started my career by helping people to tell stories using video, by helping people produce TV shows that were important to them. I moved into the Web world in 1997, and continued to help people tell stories by building an online presence. But when I first got involved in the social part of the web – things like blogging, podcasting, and of course, Facebook and Twitter – the way people told stories began to evolve again.

I was like a sponge back in 2007 – absorbing everything I could about this new, social, online place. I contributed, I got to know people, I learned, and then, I started to really understand how to use these social tools to help people tell their stories.

I’m still a storyteller, at the root – but now, I have a whole lot of new storytelling tools at my disposal.

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

Susan Murphy: I try not to focus too much on threats, other than being aware that they are there. I prefer to move my business forward on the positive. If I feel threatened, I’m fearful, and I don’t think that’s a way to run a business.

But I suppose the biggest threat, if there is one, is the one that we all have – what if business dries up? What if the downturn in the economy hits hard? Being in a marketing-related field, we’re well aware that marketing budgets are often the first things to be cut. So, to counteract that, I think it’s necessary for companies to continue to be diverse – don’t just pigeon-hole yourself into one specialty. Use all of your skills and experience to find ways to help people.

That’s why, not only am I a TV producer, but I’m a consultant, a web site designer, a teacher, and a writer. I even do HR and recruiting work sometimes, because I have a background in that. I move my work in and out of where it needs to be for me to be always expanding, and growing.

Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Susan Murphy: Jester Creative prides itself on being a one-stop media production company. We build web sites of all sizes and complexity. We design print layouts. We write copy. We run marketing campaigns. We do training. We produce videos, and make television shows. We help our customers design and create and manage all of the media they make.

A lot of companies only provide one service or another – just web design, just video production, or just social media consulting. What sets us apart is that we do it all. We deliver fully integrated media campaigns on as small or as large a scale as our customers require.

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

Susan Murphy: I think by far, the thing I see done the most poorly is anything to do with social media. First of all, I believe that social media in and of itself is a buzzword, and because it’s a buzzword, there are lots of businesses out there who are trying to take advantage of the trendiness of the term. They are trying to build entire businesses around teaching people how to make an @ reply on Twitter, or create a page on Facebook, and charging way too much money for social media consulting services that are mostly bogus and not based on any real best practices or experience.

We don’t need to be teaching people how to get more followers on Twitter, in my opinion. We need to be teaching people how to become better communicators in this new era of communications.

People don’t need to be taught how to upload a video to YouTube. It’s one button – labelled, “Upload”. I think most people are smart enough to figure these things out. Given a bit of time and the self-motivation, anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can figure out how to use Twitter. What they may need more help with is using it to communicate well.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?

Susan Murphy: Back in 1994 I had the worst year of my life in terms of my health and personal life. In addition to the end of a significant relationship, I ended up quite sick more than once for 3 different, and fairly serious ailments. I spent much of the year either not working or only working part time. The worst of it was, I was only 24 years old.

Until that point, I’d always been very healthy. But I was working 100 hours a week in a very stressful environment. I had no distinction between my personal life, my friendships, and my work. In short, I was way out of balance, and at just 24 years of age, it had caught up to me. My body literally shut down, forcing me to stop suddenly, and take stock of where I was at and where I wanted to go.

It was a turning point for me, because I realized that everyone has a physical and emotional limit to what they can do.

I spent a good chunk of time over the next year or so healing physically and emotionally, and I came out on the other end of the experience a much stronger person with a sense of the direction I wanted to take with my life.

Though I would never wish sickness or heartbreak on anyone, these are often the times in our lives when we learn the most.

Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

Susan Murphy: I was just out of college, 19 years old, and ready to take on the world. Only the world was not quite ready to take me on yet, apparently. Two years of broadcasting school, and there was not a job in sight. It didn’t help that the same year I graduated, both the CBC and CTV had just gone through rounds of layoffs. The future didn’t look so bright in my industry.

I discovered that the local community cable channel was looking for volunteers to work on productions, so I signed up. I quickly realized that this was a great way to get experience and to meet new people. Since I didn’t have a job, and I was still living with my parents at the time, I dedicated 40-60 hours per week to working on productions. One day, I was giving one of the staff producers a ride home, and he asked me if I was aware of a job placement program being run by the provincial government, where I could work at the station 40 hours a week for 4 months with pay. I signed on immediately and was accepted to the program. I was immediately taken under my boss Andre’s wing. He taught me everything he could about producing shows.

About 1 month into my placement, Andre got a promotion to Executive Producer. Suddenly, he had far less time to devote to producing his shows. He figured, since I was already basically doing the job, that I might as well step in and run the shows. He gave me a shot, trusted me with 7 programs that meant a lot to him, and set me off and running. I did so well that 3 months later, when my placement ended, I was hired full time. Andre was the person who believed in me from the beginning. To this day, 21 years later, he and I are still very good friends. I am forever grateful for his support and friendship.

It just goes to show that one must seek out and grab onto opportunities when they come their way. Even if the opportunity doesn’t mean a paying job at first, if it’s in line with your path, then it’s vital to grab hold. You never know where the path will take you.

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

Susan Murphy: I once made the mistake of trusting the wrong person too much. Although things were fine for the first little while, I started to feel suspicious that the person was not being truthful. Instead of terminating things when the red flags went up, I ignored the warning signs and continued. Ultimately, the bottom fell out of the relationship, all trust was gone, and it wound up being a very expensive mistake, both financially and emotionally.

I’ve learned that it’s one thing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but it’s another entirely to throw caution to the wind and blindly trust, especially when entering a business relationship with someone that you don’t have a history with. Trust and respect are to be earned, and take time to build. If you see red flags, heed the warnings and get to the bottom of it. Even if it means saying “no”, you’ll be better off in the end.

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

Susan Murphy: To be honest, I spend so little time focusing on disappointment that I can’t answer this question. Everyone makes mistakes, and I’ve made several. I’ve had hard times like everyone else, but I can’t look at things with regret and disappointment, because then I could never move forward. My advice is, when bad things happen, work as diligently as possible to pick up the pieces and carry on. Harbour no regrets. Forget about being disappointed. Take the lesson and move forward.

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

Susan Murphy: The toughest decision for me was finally quitting my full time job to start my business. Jumping off the cliff into the unknown was very frightening. Many things had to be put on hold financially. My husband had to sacrifice a lot and take on a second job.

There were many times when I wanted to give up and go back to my old life. There were lots of sleepless nights. But eventually things started to turn around, and now, 7 years in, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’m grateful to my husband, my family, and my friends for sticking it out with me on this journey.

Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Susan Murphy: Getting my first job, marrying my husband, and starting my business.

Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Susan Murphy: I am a very shy person by nature. I’m most proud of the ability I’ve gained to stand up in front of people and teach and speak. It’s something I would have never dreamed of doing 20 years ago.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Susan Murphy: Through all the iterations of my career, mentors have been there. I watch, listen, and learn from them on a regular basis. And now, with the Internet, our mentors can be anywhere. I have friends that I only know online who influence me and teach me things on a daily basis. It’s a remarkable thing.

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

Susan Murphy: Above all else, be yourself.

Susan Murphy: Don’t spend too much time getting caught up in the method and the process. Spend the most time on using your natural talents and abilities to create great things.

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Review of The Skinny On Networking: Maximizing the Power of Numbers by Jim Randel

Avil Beckford — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:30:47 +0000

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.

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

Tap into family, friends and acquaintances because they have connections that you are not aware of
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
When making a request, make it clear that you are willing to reciprocate when they require your assistance
Use all tools available to you, both offline and online (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook)
Successful and savvy networking is very hard so make it an ongoing process
If you are shy or an introvert, use a connector to help you connect to people you’d like to meet
Create diverse networks of people, some who are very different from you – step outside your comfort zone
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
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
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

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The Invisible Mentor Interviews Diane Danielson

Avil Beckford — Thu, 27 May 2010 09:30:09 +0000

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?

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.
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.
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?

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.
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?

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.
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.
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.

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