ACTUAL Social Networking with Clients, Colleagues, Friends & Family
June 22, 2010 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
A recent TV commercial for Coleman camping equipment stating that they were the original social networking site with their little green stoves reminded me that getting back to ACTUAL socializing has become a lost art.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe digital social networking is aaaahmazing and blogging is freedom of expression in its purest form. I also believe the lost art of actually visiting with people face to face and not just through facebook is a pretty cool thing. I also think that the art of sending cards and gifts through the snail mail postal system is another art that isn’t near extinction yet, but it’s been fading into the background.
Research shows that only 3% of our mail is personal and the rest is filled with marketing, logos and bills. More data suggests that 83% of people would rather receive a paper greeting card than an electronic greeting card. It means the sender spent a little more time thinking of you and spent a little extra care in creating or selecting the card. What would happen if you sent more greeting cards and gifts to friends, family, clients and colleagues?
What would happen if you became more social and invited them to lunch or to coffee to connect? What about sending them a Thanks a Latte card wiht a $5 or $10 Starbucks card in it and invite them to join you to catch up, to actually socialize and network.
The greeting card industry shows that most people send about 10 cards per year, but they have a need to send about 70 cards per year. Now you have a system at your disposal to actually send actual greeting cards, gift cards, gifts and postcards in a couple minutes from your computer for less than the cost of a retail greeting card. You can completely customize your cards with your handwriting and photos. When you click the SEND button, your card is printed, stuffed, stamped and mailed for you in 24 hours. I’m in love with this system of sending out cards and gifts.
It allows me to connect with my tribe on a regular basis and allows me to express how I feel about them simply and easily. The best part is it allows me to acknowledge and appreciate them and make their day. I know appreciation wins over self promotion every single time and what I send out comes back to me exponentially. I choose to send out positive vibes every single day to stay connected.
How are you choosing to stay connected with your network? How do you choose to socialize and actually meet, greet and make other’s days? I choose to add love, light and joy to my day by sending positive thoughts through pictures, words and deeds.
How are you making the days of your network? If you want to brighten somebody’s day, my treat, and test drive this vehicle for the Law of Attraction; send me an email at Gail@GailHahn.com and I’ll set up a gift account for you to send a card on me. Let me know how it works out and how it feels to make somebody’s day with an unexpected social card.
Check out this and other videos on the page to view the power of gratitude and appreciation and how sending out to give can change lives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi5kxE57Oio&list=PLtUVv9eXCdIKmF4MMCOVMBuzeZ1nrrUQF
Think “Give” vs. “Get” in (Social) Networking
April 25, 2010 | Posted in Leading Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
If you’re an entrepreneur worth your salt, you’ve no doubt attended gazillions of live networking events and at least dipped your toe in the social networking waters. What confounds me at nearly every event is the brashness and ‘in-your-faceness’ of so many business owners, who I would like to think are well-intended but come off as desperate and smarmy as they shove their card in your hand without a conversation and are off to the next ‘victim’.
One recent event found us ladies once again in the powder room line. One woman who was not having any real conversation whatsoever was ‘working the line’ passing out flyers to whom she deemed good targets for her weight-loss boot camp. As you can imagine, she only sought out those she considered in need of shedding some poundage. When she got down to her last few flyers, she got more particular in asking if her intended were even interested. The rest she just shoved in their face and kept on going down the line since were were, after all, a captive audience.
Back in the general session room, we returned to find our tables covered in propaganda from other attendees – a result of the spray and pray method of scatter-shotting your marketing materials in hopes somebody would pick it up. It was appalling.
May I be so bold as to suggest we all have an honest, decent, real conversation with others and genuinely seek out what they do and how best we can be of service or be able to refer them, or keep them in mind if we meet others in need of their service. Be attentive first to the needs of others and figure out how you can help them and ask for their card for future follow up. The giving means giving value, not just giving your card and getting theirs. Give a good listen to others, give referrals, give eye contact, give good conversation and give genuinely before you give your card.
Politeness and eye contact count. Running around the room, or cyberspace with automated trashy, irrelevent, ‘join farmville’ status updates and shoving your card or your postings in other’s hands doesn’t really count as networking; it counts as annoying, disingenuous and networthless. Focus on the relationship part of relationship marketing to get better results. People want human contact – not to be treated as a number.
Just my seven cents on being a giver so networking works and so it makes sense. We’re supposed to be helping each other prosper. Whether social or business networking, as Ivan Meisner of Business Networking International so aptly states, “givers gain”. Be conscious, be appropriate and be relevant online and off.
I’m giving you a gift of giving and sending out some cards, my treat at www.BizBuilderCards.com – I’ll pay for the cards and the postage so you can send somebody a nice note.
Watch this video on the power of gratitude and giving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi5kxE57Oio&list=PLtUVv9eXCdIKmF4MMCOVMBuzeZ1nrrUQF
AND another on the amazing affects of giving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQqtVobx1oI&list=PLtUVv9eXCdIKmF4MMCOVMBuzeZ1nrrUQF