Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You're only a stranger once.

How to Power Up Your Power Network and Bring It Closer to You

Filed Under Community, Marketing, Successful Blog | 8 Comments

It’s Always Been About Showing Up

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It’s fun to connect with people who do the same things we do. It’s also great business. But a quick hello and a conversation about what we do doesn’t make a relationship. If we don’t let our new friends know where serious about a relationship things often stop at that point.

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Suddenly we can find ourselves with idea, an adventure, or trip somewhere that would be a perfect fit for someone we’ve met but hardly know. We might have a product that would be a perfect fit for their network, but we’ve never gone past that first hello. We’d love to share the benefits with someone that we’ve met, but we’re not so comfortable that we’re not stepping over the line by even suggesting that.

Here are five highly effective ways to power up your power network and bring the people in your network closer to you.

  1. Be a good surprise. Keep a list of people who have referred you, recommended you, tweeted or retweeted your work, or done something large or small to help you. Write an unexpected email, direct message, handwritten note to one person on that list to say you appreciate the contribution that person has made in your life.
  2. Be a new encounter of the very best kind. As we travel Twitter and get introduced at meetings, we encounter more than a few people who have skills or interests that compliment are might add value to what we do. Once a week, make an appointment to talk on the phone with one or two people from that group. Ask about their goals for the next two quarters. Explore how you might align their goals with yours.
  3. Be a sincere fan. Email someone you respect and admire, but don’t know well. Write the email solely for the purpose of explaining the way that person has added value to your life.
  4. Be on a quest. Make it a quest to request help from someone you’ve never worked with. Every week, decide on one thing you probably would do better if you brought in some other brain, hands, or eyes. You’ll be surprised what you learn simply by deciding on what to request and then by listening to the answers.
  5. Be an idea explorer. Use a search engine, Wikipedia, books, magazines, and a rare group of friends to seek out new ideas on a subject your network cares about. Then share them generously online, on the phone, and in person whenever you interact.

Make time for all five of these every week and your network will explode with true connection — people you know, people who know you, and who know what you do. Every burst of energy in that direction with be a reminder that the people you’ve connected with are more than contact information to you.

How do you keep the power in your power network?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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8 Tips on Using Twitter to Build a Powerful Business Network

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Successful Blog, Trends | 7 Comments

From the Beginning

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More than ever, building and growing a business means becoming part of the social web. A powerful network of loyal fans means your message can be visible, heard, understood and spread with the speed and reach of the Internet.

How do you get a network like that?

I often call Twitter the world’s largest networking room, but that doesn’t do it justice. Networking rooms are physical and geographically limited. They can’t expand and contract in size. The people who visit the room are limited by those who can physically get to the location where the meeting and the room exists in space and time. And not every networking event collects the people who are interested in what we do.

Unlike that networking room, Twitter let us decide who is at our “networking event.”

8 Tips on Using Twitter to Build a Powerful Business Network

  1. Have one clear business message. Define yourself clearly as a business person. Use a photo. Write a professional bio. Name the metropolitan area you’re in. Link to a business site that tells more about you. Some folks link to a special page on their blog set up just for Twitter visitors. Add a unique background to further define yourself.
  2. Have a goal. If you want Twitter to be your relationship command center, you’ll set it up differently than if you want it to be your idea lab, your outlet store, or your customer service base. Think about that.
  3. Do the research. Check out how @DellOutlet , @ComcastCares , @TwelpForce , @AlyssaMilano , @WholeFoods , @SharnQuickBooks and others use Twitter to connect. You may not be as big as they are, but you can learn from their approach.
  4. Start small and listen. Visit Listorious.com
    listoriouseducation


    and TweepML to find lists of Twitter people who share your interests. Choose to follow a limited number a day. Get to know how they talk and what they talk about. When they follow you back, use that as opportunity to say hello to them in a unique and personal way.

  5. Talk when you have something that will add value to the conversation. Be helpful, not hypeful, just as you might be in person. Use the @ sign (@lizstrauss) to make sure your comment about a person or to a person gets to the person you’re mentioning.
  6. Start a Twitter list.
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    Lists draw attention to and from people. Each list can focus on one group of people. Check the lists that other folks make, see what their lists say about them. Have a core list strategy. Lists might include a handful of advisors, thought leaders in your industry, partners and vendors, key customers and clients, people in your home location.

  7. Decide early who you will follow – who you want at your networking event. Some folks follow only a few people and keep their followers limited to people in their business. Other folks look for input from a wider group.
  8. If you’re looking for clients, don’t just talk to the people who do what you do. It’s fun and safe to talk business with our peers, but the folks who hire us are the folks who don’t know how to do what we do.

Like any networking event, Twitter is filled with opportunities to meet people who want to do business. The difference is that some networking rooms are filled with people who have no business in common with us. On Twitter, we can reach out to folks who are interested in being at the same networking event as us.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

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Building A Powerful Personal Developmental Network – Is Your Next Teacher on Twitter?

Filed Under Business Book, Strategy, Successful Blog | 12 Comments

Great Networks and Partners Are Where You Find Them

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Last week was an exciting example of how Twitter has moved seamlessly into our lives. I left for D.C. on Wednesday stayed through Monday. It was the most productive week. Ideas were flying. Plans were being made.

How could so much happen in a city where I’ve hardly spent time?

It started with a quick conversation on Twitter with @SweetSue about her blog. Next thing you know, Susan Kuhn Frost, and I were planning an Association conference over several long phone calls, twitter DMs, and emails.

Susan had reached out to her networks — online and offline. I did to mine too. By the time I arrived in the capitol city. We had a week of meetings planned that made the conference and the content come together in record time. In the process, I think we both taught each other a lot. I’m delighted to have her in my network.

But I bet the story isn’t that unusual.

Building Your Powerful Personal Developmental Network – Is Your Next Teacher on Twitter?

Most of are great at seeing others, but it’s hard to see AND be the one we’re looking at. Whether we’re a company or an individual, it’s easy to find reasons that we made our successes, but that our failures were due to other circumstances. That’s where a powerful personal developmental network can keep things real.

In his new book, “Who’s Got Your Back?” Keith Ferrazzi talks about lifeline friends. They’re the sort of friends who hold us accountable and won’t let us fail. He suggests we build a handful of relationships based on vulnerability, generosity, candor, and accountability that’s reciprocal, constant, and intelligent.

Take Keith’s qualities and roll them into my definition of a Personal Developmental Network — a group of incredible people, individually chosen because of their unique abilities and their genuine interest in your success.

Imagine the power of that. It’s a personal board of directors time ten to the 23rd power!

Every day I touch base with people I trust — like Susan — to check my thinking and to stay accountable. Staying consistently in touch with my partners keeps the projects we’re working strong and able to move with action when opportunity arises.

My partners are a core part of my Personal Developmental Network — intelligent, incredible people, who help me stay on track with my most important goals. Many of my closest advisers are right there in my Twitter stream.

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Building A Powerful Personal Developmental Network – Is Your Next Teacher on Twitter?

Success for me, is when my whole life — head and heart — are focused on the same purpose. So my network helps me grow as a human meant to achieve something. I also believe that a network that grows with me will offer priceless depth and support.

To do that, build from the ground up.

1. Start with a foundation of concrete not sand.
– Qualitative Observations: Ask people who know you to describe your strongest traits — those that serve you well and those that get in the way. Make list. Then make a list of the kind of teachers who can teach you.

Use Twitter to ask questions and to find people who know what you’re looking to find out.

On Twitter, you’ll recognize the people who know you best by the way that they receive you. When we’re communicating people who know us, we don’t need to edit our behaviors for fear they’ll be misinterpreted. Explain why you’re asking and offer them more than one way to give you feedback: directly to you via DM, via email, or through an interview by a mutual friend.

– Quantitative Assessment: Check every test, performance appraisal, and personality measure you’ve taken. Ask your twitter friends for others that might offer a fresh view of your online persona. Learn what you can from all of them.

Use Twitter to find friends who have experience working with the tools or tests you choose. You might try a combination of Strengths Finder, the Enneagram, and the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory.

– Personal Reflection: Spend an hour / day for a week thinking about personal and business successes in your life. Look for traits and strategies that show up throw all of them.

2. Lay out a path.
Look three years down the road. Where do you see your best self? If you can’t pick a path, that’s a great place to start.

Pull it all together. Then look for online and offline partners who might help you define and refine what you found.

3. Wisely choose unique and valuable guides.
Choose people you would bet your life success and your reputation on — people who share your standards and your values, and who care enough never to let you fail. Choose people strong enough to tell you when they disagree. A strong network might include:

— a close friend who knows you and your history, both business and personal.
— someone from your business industry who knows you less well
— two or three someones who are from other industries
— two or three someones you respect and admire, but don’t know well

Use Twitter to choose people who can see the “you” people online see.

4. Check your bearings regularly.
Decide how you’ll meet with them. Will you call when you have questions or meet regularly? Will you meet one at a time? Check in with your network by asking, “How’ve I changed that you can see?”

Demand they hold you accountable. Do it by trading ways that you might hold them accountable for something they need to accomplish of their own.

5. Don’t Leave Out Learners.
People who are learning often teach us just by the questions they ask. Invite a learner to join your network to help you on your quest. That will make it easier to be a learner yourself.

When someone teaches you a skill, ask how you might use that skill to help that teacher. Ask questions, listen actively, and be first to offer a favor without strings. People remember sincere curiosity and true generosity. Add vulnerability and accountability and the combination is unstoppable, just as Keith Ferrazzi says.

6. Ask for Help — Communicate. Let your network know when you need help, when you have questions, or even when you need to vent safely. A developmental network that doesn’t know where we are can’t help.

A developmental network is not made from casual friending or among random followers. It’s the people who understand why we’re passionate about our calling. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find the right folks on Twitter and getting to know them well.

Wise teachers show up in all sorts of places.

Watch for and welcome every wise teacher you encounter. Wisdom and experience are a prize. True teachers show themselves by offering advice, expecting nothing in return. Mentors who come your way, offering experience and connections, see something in you. Let them help you discover what that is and what it could be if you let it grow.

Welcome all wise teachers into a Powerful Developmental Network, wherever you find them.

Nobody likes to go it alone, and it’s not a good idea. We need each other for information, insight, and inspiration.

Is your next teacher on Twitter? You never know.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Liz can help you find focus or direction, check out the Work with Liz!! page.

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Shashi and Barbara on Social Media for Business and Networking

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 3 Comments

The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. To underscore the importance of relationships in business and to have a chance to make and celebrate a few while we’re doing that, I’ve opened up this series by successful and outstanding bloggers like you.

Two SOBCon09 attendees have great new slideshare presentations online.

Social Media To Get More Business (DC Web Women) by Shashi Bellamkonda

Shashi Bellamkonda can be found at Happenings, advice & other technology thoughts ! and his twitter name is shashib

Social Networking 101 For Consultants by Barbara Rozgonyi

Barbara Rozgonyi can be found at wiredPRworks.com and her twitter name is @wiredprworks

Time to buy Liz’s ebook NOW!!

Get Positive Attention in the Twitterverse and Other Networking Situations

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 31 Comments

Anyone who’s spent time in the Twitterverse knows that every person uses it in a way uniquely suited to his or her own purpose. That’s the beauty of a great tool. But if your goal is social networking and conversation, you want to have folks around. Conversation without a few and followers is usually called a monologue.

The art of attracting fiercely loyal twitter followers can make the time we spend twittering useful, productive, and significantly more fun! Great Twitter followers are friends, business colleagues, and people who inspire us. Be a great Twitter conversationalist and those followers will bring their friends join in. These traits in a Twitterer always catch my attention.

Want to have new Twitter friends? Here’s how to be one …

Be the kind of fiercely loyal, intriguing follower-friends you’d want to have and you’ll find those are the kind of fiercely loyal, intriguing follower-friends who are attracted to you.

But you knew that.

What gets your positive attention in the Twitterverse?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Get your best voice in the conversation. Buy my eBook.

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