Think before you join

I was just asked by a woman business owner what groups/organizations she should join for networking. I'll pass along to you what I suggested to her:

Ask yourself 2 questions:

1. What do my current and potential customers have in common?
2. What organizations are they involved in?

If you want to sell to female senior managers and business owners, I would of course recommend attending Marigold events.

If most of your best customers are in the medical field, ask them which organizations THEY belong to. Most professional associations offer memberships to companies outside of their industry as "supporting members". Then promote your membership to the current membership. Use their logo (with permission) in all of your targeted advertising.You might even create a separate supply of business cards that include specializing in the medical field, or add a title of Medical Industry Specialist.

Taking this another step, what geographical are are you hoping to prospect in?
If you feel that another region, state or city has greater potential, join an organization THERE. Perhaps even in the state you hope to retire or semi-retire to. Make contacts in that area.

Consider what your customers would find appealing in your list of memberships. These associations create a sense of acceptance, credibility and can speed up relationship building.

When I owned a travel agency, I joined the Detroit Producers Association and marketed through their publications and events the idea that we understood their needs for last minute first class travel arrangements for difficult clients. All staff had a set of business cards with Production Industry Specialist. I volunteered many hours at their events and became known as THE travel agent for production companies. This was our most profitable revenue source. How many clients did we have when we started..... one.

Try it out and let us know what happens!

Chick in Charge of Time

Time is money.
Time is money!
Time is money?

However you approach the phrase, it may help you to think of the value of your time as, well... actual cash. I'm not thinking of billable hours or the income you can produce in an hour, but the satisfaction of being alive for that day, hour or minute.

We all have the same time budget, 24 hours each day, 7 days each week, and so on. How do you spend your time? Does your spending align with your values and priorities? Like anything else, our priorities shift with. Have you adjusted your time spending as well?

Routines are hard to change and can become written in stone simply because we are creatures of habit.

Here are two examples:

On the professional side: Sarah has always done the bookkeeping for her pottery supply business. She was told early on that this was a simple task with QuickBooks and that it was extremely important to have a complete understanding and awareness of the business finances. As much as Sarah hates bookkeeping, she accepted that it simply must be done. Over the years, the business has grown and now she finds that 40% of her time goes to managing the books, payroll, accounts receivables.

At home: Sarah has always felt that girlfriend time is sacred. Her work is very draining and she has been committed to keeping up with her monthly book club. She always comes prepared, having read the book selection if she wanted to or not. With the business growing, her girlfriend time is more limited, and the reading time is keeping her up nights, furiously trying to finish each book. Sarah considers dropping out, but she adores the time with her friends.

What to do: If time gobblers are causing you stress, give the situation some perspective. Why are you doing things this way? What do I gain from this? How could I change things and still get what I want? Sometimes, just explaining the situation to a friend, thinking out loud, can bring clarity you were missing.

Poor Sarah! Clearly she needs to either hire a bookkeeper or outsource the work. Every business owner goes through this growing pain and the bookkeeping is the first thing to unload from the owner's list of responsibilities. For many in her shoes, NOT hiring a bookkeeper has stunted the growth of the business because the owner was too busy sweating the drudgery.

As for the book club, she may be surprised to find that her friends feel the same way she does. She needs to try converting the book club into something that works for her. Maybe the restaurant of the month dining club? A wine tasting group? Her club isn't the problem, the BOOK is.

Finding time. Take a moment to consider your weekly or monthly obligations. Are they truly a good use of your time or fruitless routines? Is the annual vacation with your old college roommates really where you want to be each year, or is it one of those, "But we ALWAYS go to Vegas the 3rd week of whatever!"?

What about the morning sales meeting? Could it be 3 times a week? Does it really need to be EVERY day. Are you missing out on your kid's bedtime because of a silly TV show that you USED to like. Old habits die hard. Clean up your calendar!

Chick in Charge of her Nerves!

Ok, ok, I know I was supposed to write this week about time management, BUT...... the Indigo Girls just taught me a lesson.

Actually, I had to RE-learn a lesson and thought I'd pass it along in case you need a tune-up, like I did. Here's what happened, my producer on Mary in the Morning informs me that I'll be interviewing the Indigo Girls. Just like that. Its true that we interview very famous important people, and I should be behaving like a professional at this point in my broadcasting career (Ha!). Truth is, I still feel like I've been plunked down into a dream and when these big interviews pop up, they tend to happen very fast, maybe an hour ahead of time you get an e-mail that the celebrity is available and you either take it or lose it.

Understand, I am a huge fan of the Indigo Girls, their music got me through a rough patch in another life. But I know NOTHING about interviewing musicians. I'm comfy discussing marketing efforts and municipal budgets, not gigs and riffs.

Here's the lesson I RE-learned. Prepare as best you can and confess your nerves. Emily Saliers (the blond) calls my studio and casually says, "Hi Mary, this is Emily. You ready?". Keep in mind that I am still learning all the knobs and buttons over here and now I have an idol on the phone with me ready for her interview.

I wanted so badly to present myself as a seasoned pro. As soon as I heard her voice I bailed on that. "Hi Emily, I have to let you know that I don't get many chances to speak with rock stars and I'm more than a bit nervous. So, I'm going to do my best here, but anything you can do to help me out would be greatly appreciated..."

... Long pause of beastly silence.

"Hey, no problem, I've done thousands of interviews, we'll be fine", Emily graciously says with a casual tone. We chatted for a few moments and got to work. She was great and in the end said some very nice things to me off air. Whew!

The lesson is that I don't always need to be the Chick in Charge. If I'm going to learn new things, grow, expand, I need to accept the possibility that I might look completely inexperienced, because guess what???? We all are when we are learning.

Check out Indigo Girls at Interlochen on June 23rd!