I ran across this article on networking in one of my favorite newsletters – Early To Rise – and thought I would pass it along.

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

Are You Listening?
By Ilise Benun
Everyone tells my friend Andy that he is a good listener … because he doesn’t say much. And I’m thinking the reason he doesn’t say much is because, well, he’s not really listening.

He may start off by asking great questions and listening to the answers, but his mind wanders. You can see it in his eyes. Maybe he’s thinking about what he’s having for dinner. Maybe he’s thinking about his girlfriend. Maybe he’s even imagining that the person he’s talking to thinks he’s a complete bore.

Whatever is going on in his head, Andy misses out on a lot because of it - like new project opportunities or suggestions that could help him improve his business. But he’ll never know.

Listening is one of the most valuable skills a businessperson can develop. And all it requires from you is to be attentive. To be curious, sincerely curious. To ask questions because you are genuinely engaged in the conversation and interested in the person in front of you. To be willing to take in new information and ideas and act on what you hear.

You needn’t advise, coach, or even sound wise. All you have to do is sit there and take in what’s being said - which, for some people, turns out to be a pretty tall order.
 

Here are some concrete suggestions to help you build your listening muscle:

1. Be open. Being open means forgetting (or at least setting aside) everything you know about the person or the topic and listening with every ounce of your attention.

2. Be interested. Most people try to be interesting when they should be interested. To be a truly successful communicator, you must be curious about and fascinated by the way another person’s mind works. You must want to understand others, to know more about what they think and feel.

3. Don’t be distracted. Give your full attention to the conversation. Don’t let your eyes wander if someone enters the room or passes by. Don’t answer your cellphone. Don’t check your watch. These are all signals to the other person that what he’s saying isn’t important to you.

4. Don’t interrupt. Resist the urge to respond immediately to something the other person says. Learn how to hold your thoughts until it’s your turn. Speaking just for the sake of speaking won’t add to the conversation. It’s more likely to derail it.

5. Reveal yourself. Being a good listener doesn’t mean all you do is listen. A good listener also reveals information about himself that makes the other person feel more comfortable about opening up. For example, if someone tells you about a struggle he is having, wait until he finishes. Then, without shifting the focus onto yourself, respond with a bit of information about a similar struggle of your own.

6. Ask unexpected questions. Don’t ask a question you think you know the answer to. Ask "Why?" or "Why not?" Use unexpected questions to find out what makes the other person tick. You may get an unexpected response that could take the conversation on a more interesting path.

7. Ask for clarification. You are not a mind reader. If the other person uses jargon or terms you don’t understand, or makes statements that confuse you, ask, "When you say ____, what do you mean?" Or, "Can you expand or give me an example of ____?"

8. Take advantage of an occasional lull in the conversation. Don’t feel that you have to fill in a moment of silence with a forced question or comment. Hold back … and see what the other person will reveal.

Most people listen with the intent to reply. But it’s better to listen with the intent to understand. If you listen with the intent to reply, you’ll spend your time thinking about what you’re going to say next, and you’ll miss what the other person is telling you. If you listen with the intent to understand, you will hear more - not only what they are actually saying but also what they are implying.

Nothing affects the quality of your relationships more than your willingness to listen to others. Start listening better today, and you could see big changes in your personal and business life - better friendships, more (and better) clients, more respect, and more attention when you speak, too.

[Ed. Note: Ilise Benun is the author of Stop Pushing Me Around: A Workplace Guide for the Timid, Shy, and Less Assertive

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.
 

In Part I we covered expectations for yourself. 

Next lets examine your expectations for your business. Michael Gerber, in his Dreaming Rooms says we all should have a Dream, Vision, Mission and Purpose for our business. Do you have a dream for your business? Have you established a Vision and Mission for your business, how about a purpose for your business?

Additionally what do you want your business to look like in five years? Not only financially (which goes without saying)…

But organizationally – what kind of structure do you desire. How many employees will there be? What level of education will they have? What type of decision participation will they have?

Will your business a process or systems dependent business? What type of systems do you want? How will they be codified? Will they be on paper? Electronically produced? An Internet service?

How will your business be run? What do you want administration to look like? How will you want finance to be run – what about your cash conversion cycle, what will it look like and be run?

How will your business be guided? Who will lead it? How will it be led? Who will be developing the strategies? How will they be developed? What will your management team look like?

How will your business get business? How will it be marketing? Locally? Regionally? Nationally? Globally? How will it generate sales?

These are just some of the expectations you should have and make known. Have you thought about them at all, much less formally put your thoughts into some coherent manner?
 

Another article from the newsletter Early To Rise that I want to pass along.

Getting the Most Out of a Business Seminar
By Suzanne Richardson

Whether you’re attending a conference on upgrading your customer service or a seminar on the newest Internet technology, you’ll want to take advantage of every last ounce of valuable information. Bill Lampton, Ph.D. - a 30-year veteran of attending and speaking at seminars - offers eight ways to maximize your conference experience.

1. As soon as you get the conference agenda, pick out the sessions that will be most beneficial to you. Keep away from lectures on topics you already know and topics that you’ll never use. Stick to subjects you have yet to master.

2. If the conference recommends rooms at a specific hotel, stay there. By staying in a hotel with other conference attendees, you can network long after the day’s presentations are over.

3. Attend the seminar with a colleague or partner up with a "conference buddy" so you can share what you learn. You’ll be able to double the amount of information you take in if the two of you attend different presentations - and you’ll get the benefit of your buddy’s perspective when discussing a speech you both heard.

4. Stay for the entire conference. By arriving late or leaving early, you could be missing out on valuable information and networking opportunities.

5. Be prepared to network. At any seminar, you have the chance to meet and mingle with colleagues and experts. Make sure to bring a stack of business cards to exchange with your new contacts.

6. Ask questions and make comments. If you’re actively engaged in the seminar sessions, you’ll get more out of the experience.

7. Be on your best behavior during after-hours events. Even though the day’s lectures have ended, you still have the opportunity to make good impressions on potential employers, clients, or business partners.

8. Once recordings of the conference are available, buy them. By getting CD or DVD recordings of the event, you can reinforce what you learned and get the chance to view presentations you didn’t see in person.

(Source: BusinessKnowHow)

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

As a small business advisor, I frequently work with business owners on expectations. Not only the owner’s expectations for their business, but also their expectations for themselves and most especially for their employees, partners and vendors.

Everyone needs to make their expectations crystal clear. The more clarity you have the better. The more often you do this and the sooner you do this the more favorable the outcome of whatever event it pertains to will be.

So let’s take it one step at a time.

Expectations for yourself. You may think that this one is easy. Okay, how many of you have clearly thought out and published expectations for yourself? This would include personal business performance and achievement expectations – as in a written (personal) business plan. What are your personal goals in business, what are you personally going to learn, personally going to teach, personally going to achieve?

What about your personal performance, core values, ethics, morals and manners – as in a personal code of conduct and a plan for achievement, if you will. And of course this would be written and published, albeit only to yourself.

Michael Masterson – the founder and editor of one most successful electronic newsletters, “Early to Rise” – suggests that you not only have a written core values statement that would include work, personal and individual core values.

But he also suggests that you do an annual five year plan for yourself encompassing Wealth (Financial), Health, Personal-Relationships and personal growth.

You may look at this a merely goal setting, but it also has the additional benefit of making your expectations for your own behavior and achievement crystal clear.

Now how many of you do this?
 

I just got back from one the new Support Groups I facilitate and this is going to be a great group. There is tons of energy, “postivity” and interaction. They’re establishing trust and rapport within the group. I hope they make it when they go off on their own and I truly believe they will.

For those of you who aren’t a support group, get in one now. This type investment – of your time and effort – will have one of the highest ROI’s of anything you do.

Support groups are about problem solving, support of your peers, fresh points of view, support of your peers, accountability, support of your peers, challenging each other to excel, support of your peers and brainstorming issues.

No one goes through life without a support system, “No man is an island”. Whether that support system is your family, your church or temple, your friends, or something else, everyone and I mean everyone has a support system as they go through life.

That support system nurtures them, challenges them, solves issues with them, holds them accountable, provides different points of view for them and so on.

All team have coaches, why wouldn’t you want a set of your own trusted coaches, that’s what a support group is. A business support group is no different. Find one, join one, use one and enjoy them.
 

This book should be one the essential books for all businesses with employees. The authors make a very convincing argument that truly effective and high performance companies only do so through what they call the idea revolution.

The idea revolution is about taking the many small ideas that employees generate and evaluate, test and implement them quickly and efficiently – rather than searching for the one big or grand idea which is more likely to be discovered and copied by your competition.

Small ideas are much less likely to be copied by your competition. Yet the shear volume of small ideas with their small incremental changes adds up to a truly transformational organization.

In the high performance organizations that the authors studied employees averaged over 100 ideas every year. No manager could possibly hope to manage this; the solution was to push decision making authority for most of them back down closer to the employees and their supervisors.

The authors also make the proposition that employee ideas – handled properly – are a virtually unlimited, free and perpetually renewable source of competitive advantage.

This would be especially true for those small businesses that can understand the concepts they put forth and harness the power of their employees.

At the end of each chapter the authors give “Guerrilla Tactics” for actions that can promote ideas that any business owner and managers can take and require little or no resources.

This is a compelling and quick read. Get the book today!
 

Accountability, the very word can strike terror in the hearts of grown men and women, if it is about holding themselves accountable. Holding others accountable is different, that’s easy.

Why is that?

I believe that self-accountability is one of the major reasons why so many business owners will not do a business plan. And if they do a business plan, they show it to no one. Self-accountability is one of the major reasons more business owners do not participate in support groups.

Again, why?

Having something on paper and in the public domain, so to speak, holds them to it, makes them accountable. It’s the old adage “Do as I say, not as I do”. We as business owners need to get over this. In a support group your goals and objectives, both long and short term, are fully known to one and all in the group.

So why is this a big problem, is it fear of failure, is it fear of weakness, is it fear of embarrassment?

Let’s take these one at a time.

Fear of failure – as a business coach or consultant and as a business owner, I fail every day, I don’t get all of my to dos done. I don’t make that phone call. I don’t do all the follow ups I should. I don’t do all the prospecting I should. Does this make me a failure, no!

Does this equal failure, no! It simply means that what I tried on that day in those circumstances, didn’t work. Learn from it and move on. It makes me human. I hate to quote pop culture, but I will, as Rocky Balboa said, “Its not about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, that’s where winning comes from”. Keep moving forward.

Fear of showing weakness – just because you don’t accomplish everything you wish to accomplish at any given time is not necessarily the end of the world, get over it. Move on, learn from it and become better for it.

Fear of embarrassment – I believe this is a biggie; everyone thinks they are the only one who doesn’t do 100% of what they say they will. Yet in all the mentoring groups I facilitate, it is a rare time indeed when some one does 100% of their goals and objectives. I would say it is far less than 5% of the time. That means that more than 19 out 20 times we didn’t do what we said we would.

So what! Life happens and business happens – usually at the speed of light, there too many uncontrollable events that impact us.

Does this mean we shouldn’t hold ourselves accountable? No, be accountable, to yourself, to you staff, to your peers – but lighten up. Set goals, hold yourself accountable, investigate what prevented you from accomplishing your goals and learn from it, the move on.

If you don’t hold yourself accountable how can you hold others accountable?
 

The birds have flown, both of the boys are gone now – sniff, sniff, I’m getting misty…

Nah – this is great! I can finally walk around the house in my underwear and so can mom!!

OOPS… guess not, number one son’s new wife is living with us until he gets out of Boot Camp and his ‘A’ School, looks like July sometime… RATS…

Oh well, but expenses are dropping like a rock – Cell phone bills, phone bills, water, electricity, car insurance, FOOD! I swear those two eat 10,000 calories a day each. We used to go to Cost Co twice a month ($400 each time). Plus the local market. They paid room and board, but trust me they weren’t even close to covering.

We eagerly await their VISITs.
 

We have done an extensive update of the Small Business Assessment tool.  We are now on verison V and we have made it even more user friendly and much more responsive for you, the user.

Please take advantage of this tool, today!  Go to the Resource Library and then to Tools to download your copy.