extreme makeover or touchup?
Happy “2K10″ Everybody!
What better way to start the new decade than to find a fabulous post from me, fresh from the old keyboard! Well okay, so an email announcing that you’d won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes would’ve been better but it wasn’t very nice of you to point that out, was it? Lucky for you that today I had a deeply introspective moment, complete with Random but Great Thoughts and a Brilliant Conclusion, otherwise this would be really boring..
Yesterday I found myself wondering what it is about the beginning of a new year that makes people obsess (uh sorry, I meant to say FOCUS) on starting everything over from scratch? (And why it is that when this phenomenon hits your spouse, it usually involves the moving of furniture and the painting of stuff, but I digress….)
So there I was, peacefully collapsed on my couch after another 2 hour session implementing my husband’s Great Upstairs Makeover Plan, when WHAMMO! the obvious connection between business networking and radical home maintenance hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean DUH, right?
In between bouts with a paintbrush, I’ve been spending some time lately evaluating last year’s business performance and considering what changes to make. Tweaking my networking game plan is at the top of my list, especially concentrating on my blogging, newsletter and social networking. But just like you should never go to Home Depot without knowing exactly what materials you’ll need for which project, (are you listening, my beloved husband?) you need to decide on what exact and specific changes you want to make before you set the dynamite and and implode your current networking plan.
There are 50 gazillion business and social networking options out there now and all of them have a slightly different angle of approach. On top of that, there are twice that many sites promising guaranteed “Extra Special Secret Super-Duper No Fail Completely Original Gotta-Have-It Business Strategies” that you simply must add to your plan “that only take an hour a day”…. The problem is that there is still only 24 of those hours in a day and have you looked at your calendar already today?
So I developed my own little 6 point checklist to help keep me from getting sucked into the middle of a scorched earth style, Extreme Business Makeover when all I really need is a spiffy new color scheme and a Touchup Painting on my networking system…
1 – Plan on Paper: Non-negotiable. Writing it all out makes you reeeeaally have to think it all out. The delete button is not your friend here. Read what you wrote. Read it again. Move your lips while you read if it will help you really think about The Plan.
2 – Controlled Spending: Decide how much time you want to spend networking per week AND per day. We’re talking about your real life at this time, not how it’s going to be 3 months from now when you win the lottery, hire a maid, send your spouse to the moon for the duration, get a chauffeur and arrange to be cloned.
3 – Target Practice: Decide which part of your customer base you are targeting and stick to them. Just remember that your most important customer is the one you have already. You just can’t connect with every person in the known universe, so measure twice and cut once!
4 – Limit the Socializing: Seriously, it’s okay NOT to have a Twitter, Facebook, My Space, LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati, a business blog, a personal blog AND 3 networking groups every day of the week. Really! …. Pick the 1-3 that best target your market, not every market. Make this plan manageable without some kind of Super Hero Skills.
5 – Play Well with Others: Get an Accountability Partner. Somebody you feel comfortable enough with to help you evaluate how you are doing on your Plan by getting together every week or so to grill you, nag or threaten you when you go off target…. In the nicest possible way of course!
6 – Get a Life: (this is the tough one..) Spending too much time on the computer every day can make you squinty, crabby, smell funny, socially inept without a keyboard in your hand, wear ugly clothes, mismatch your socks and become incapable of spelling correctly or writing complete sentences. OMG. WMPL.
Okay that’s the end of my Random Thoughts. Hope you found something here to help you stay on top of your goals… or at least kept you entertained for a few minutes.
TTFN, your BFF4E
Tags: Biz Blogs, networking
