It might look like English, but look again…

So this is just too cute not to share. I just saw an email posted to a business website by a man from India. His signature line had his name, and then it said “fun love self expression”.

Wouldn’t it be great if we all could be so self-expressed?

Small World Update

So I get a phone call from the guy I met, and after we talked for a bit it looks like we’ll be working together. The part of this that strikes me the most is when he said “I need to work with someone I trust.” My brain asks - why does he trust me? Why? Because he asked around the Yacht Club about me, he knows our mutual friend Steve trusts me, and we made a connection. It’s all good. Visibility (I left my cave and went out and socialized.), Credibility (I got connected with someone who is connected to me in a couple of ways.), Profitability (he’s hiring me).

What are you doing this week to increase your Visibility and Credibility?

Small World

I live in a small world. Thursday night I was at the local wine bar (town of 900, we have just one) and ran into three guys who sail out of my marina. Turns out one needs some help with his website, so we exchanged cards and went on our way. Next day I’m telling a friend of mine in Minneapolis (70 miles away, pop. 2 mil) about the guy I met but just gave him the company name. “You had drinks with Bill Kirkpatrick?” Yes, they know each other. Turns out they’re on a ski team together.  Steve will tell Bill to hire me, and one more time connections are made, testimonials are given, and my world continues to be small. Ain’t it grand?

Go Wrap Soap

Feeling overwhelmed? Looking at the long list of todo items that seems never-ending? Wondering how you will possibly make a dent in anything that massive? Go wrap soap.

My friend Judith makes wonderful homemade soap and sells it at her shop here in Pepin, Third Street Deli and Juice Bar. She is a great source of wisdom and food, both of which she spreads freely around our community. On Saturday we were discussing our feelings of feeling overwhelmed by all we had to do each day. Her answer, she wraps soap. It gives her a true feeling of accomplishment. She has something tangible in front of her to touch, smell and perfect. When she’s done wrapping soap she can decorate the wrappers with glitter and stack them in her shop for sale. It gives her a true sense of accomplishment.

What is the corollary in your life? In mine it’s doing the dishes, something that is mindless and that I’m always behind on now that I don’t have a dishwasher. Another friend paints a room, or moves furniture. Maybe it’s pulling weeds out of your garden, or straightening a closet. Whatever it is, next time you are feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of your life, find a small, significant chore that you can accomplish in a brief time that has a visible impact. Go wrap soap.

Widen Your Network

I was volunteering at the Information Booth at Laura Days last weekend and a friend said to me “Gee, you’ve only been in town six years and you know lots more people than I do! How did that happen?”.

A photographer from a nearby town called me on Monday and we got into a conversation about the people he wanted to meet. Turns out I know just about all of them. He wanted to know “How is it that your network is so broad?”

Both questions got me to thinking…how DID I meet all of these people? The answer? I got involved. When I first moved here I had a gallery and wine bar in the busiest part of town. I was also business partners with someone who had lived here a long time, so that also helped. But I joined the local community club, volunteered on the committee for a 150 year event, stepped up when asked to participate in the local festival. Basically, I got out of my cave and got involved.

Now six years later I am the resource for all things website related in the area. People call me with questions, bring me all kinds of business, and I have a wide recognition factor in the area.

I’ve always said if I wrote a book on moving to a small town, the first advice I would give would be to “do retail” whether it’s weekends pouring coffee at the local shop or ringing a cash register at the gas station - because you meet everyone that way. But if that doesn’t do anything for you, I think volunteering is the next step. And go to the meetings, bring ideas, speak up, work hard, do the job no one wants to do (once, anyway) and people will notice you, remember you, respect you. This is the beginning of the VCP process - Visibility, Credibility, Profitability. Small towns are a great way to get VCP.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Days

I live in the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and this weekend is our Laura Days celebration. We’ll have 3000-4000 people come through here, and that’s pretty good for a festival that doesn’t serve beer!

When I was 10 I read the “Laura books”, as they are called. It’s a series of books written about pioneer life on the prairie. The most well-known television series was called “Little House on the Prairie”, named after one of the books. I live in Pepin, Wisconsin, home of “Little House in the Big Woods”.

(picture at right courtesy of Midge Bolt)

My Grandma Anderson was born in a sod hut in North Dakota, and never read a book in English until she was 70, when I was 10 and introduced her to the Laura books. We read them together, and I remember that time in my life with great affection.

When I started my first company I needed to come up with a name. Anderson Consulting was taken at the time (who’d want it now?) and BMA Consulting was just too boring. Then I remembered the Laura books, and since my favorite color at the time was purple, Plum Creek Consulting it was. When I say my company name in front of women of a certain age, 95% get the connection immediately. Men, maybe 30%.

And everyone in my village thinks it’s amazing that I named my company Plum Creek and then ended up making this my home. I think it’s pretty amazing too! Stop by sometime, if only virtually. www.pepinwisconsin.com. Check out the photo albums - I have this thing about taking sunset photos from my sailboat.

Connecting Everything and Everyone

I took some friends sailing yesterday, and before we even got on the boat I had found the common ground between them. Andrew is a business consultant who works with companies to help them better manage and market themselves. Sue is an organic dairy farmer. What could they possible have in common?

All I said to Andrew was, Sue & her husband are organic dairy farmers and he says “That’s great! I’ve been wanting to meet an organic dairy farmer! This is perfect! I have an idea.”

And there it was - a connection was made between two disparate people in my life. They spent quite a bit of time on the boat talking about Andrew’s idea. We’re all going to go over and look at the operation, introduce Andrew to Chuck, and see where it goes from there.

The world is small and connected, but only if you are awake and present in your own life. Be interested in others, and the connections will come to you. Once you start connecting people, your circle gets larger, your friends do business with each other, and everyone benefits.

Pay attention to those around you, and remember that every profession and every interest has a networking connection buried in the middle of it.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. - Dale Carnegie

Accountability Partners

Tonight we had our monthly telebridge call for aspiring authors with Dr. Ivan Misner. The topic was accountability. He first asked if anyone on the call had a story they’d been telling for years, but had never written down. 6-7 people piped in with examples, including me.

Then he made us accountable - to him and the entire group - by telling us that we had until a certain date to write the article and send it to him. He asked for agreement, which everyone gave (like who wouldn’t?). Then he said that he will be sending out a list to the entire group (about 70 people around the world) that either says “Here’s their article” or “They didn’t fulfill their commitment”.

You could hear a couple of people on the call gasp.

So what do you think? Is fear of public shaming enough to get me to write the article? Actually my word is good enough, and I don’t need the shaming piece to get the job done.

It will be interesting to see who steps up, and who does not. As my friend Dan Boisclair says, All excuses are equal, pick one, mine’s peanut butter.

My topic? You Can Meet People Everywhere. Ewww….I need a better title. The story is about attending things you might not be happy about but by making yourself go you never know who you might meet. The more exposure you have, the more business you will get. That kind of thing.

If you’d like to be considered as a contributor to my article, post a comment here and tell me either an off-beat place you met someone important to you or how you start conversations with strangers. Or whatever you’d like to say on the topic. Because I have to go now…I have an article to write!

Quotes That Don’t Fit

I am a collector of quotes. I have them taped all around my desk, I even created a website where one of the features is that you can sign up to receive a Quote of the Day from my collection. While I often don’t connect with a particular quote, it isn’t very often I run across a quote that makes me stop and think - No Way! Here’s one such quote:

Robert L. Schwartz says “The entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and an actualizer… He can visualize something, and when he visualizes it he sees exactly how to make it happen.“

Has this been your experience? It sure isn’t mine. I have started several different ventures over the years, and while I might have thought I knew how it was going to go, I soon discovered that there was so much that I didn’t know that I thought I knew that….well…the journey is always a series of lessons on its own.

To me an entrepreneur needs to go with the flow, make decisions on the fly, and use her experiences and expertise to make the best decision that can be made with the information at the time. To me making a bad decision is better than making no decision, and no decision actually IS a decision. Things can always be changed as you go, but to me any movement is better than standing still. I am an agent of change, and it doesn’t frighten me. Quite the contrary, I revel in it!

So what do you think? Did you know how it was all going to work, step by step, before you started your last adventure? I did not, but I still enjoy the ride!

Networking Gnomes

A friend of mine who I believe to be intelligent, classy, sophisticated and wise, has a thing for gnomes. Yes, gnomes. Those plaster of paris, red-hatted garden statues that just scream for smashing. But she loves them. So what do I do? I keep sending her gnome cards, gnome cartoons, gnome references. I think the whole thing is HYSTERICALLY funny, and thank goodness, so does she.

What does this have to do with networking? If you want to build a stronger relationship with someone and stay top-of-mind, find something they are crazy about and then send them snippets. If they like dogs, put a dog sticker on the envelope with their invoice. If they are wild about the Green Bay Packers, forward them a picture of a Green Bay logo on a garage door (okay, you kind of have to live in Wisconsin for this one, but you get the idea). Anything that says “I know you like this stuff and even if I don’t get it, I like you and am thinking about you”.

In marketing it is said that you need to touch someone 7 times before they pay attention - but adding a Gnome cartoon to a letter of introduction might just be the way you can open that door faster. But not with me….they creep me out!