You Don't Say!

Way back before I went on vacation, I held a preview for our upcoming classes that will start very soon.

There were two women from the same company who had attended together. In fact, Rebecca brought Kathy with her. Because our course tuition offers a very generous discount to those in the non-profit world, both women expressed interest. It seems that each is a board member of a charity.

Out of curiosity, I asked Rebbecca to tell me about the charity she was involved with. It happens to be the Aurora Gonzalez Community Center. I shared with her that last year Certified Networker shared profits from an event with the Center and also collected over 300 children's' books for them. Kathy perked up and looked at Rebecca and said, "The non-profit I am connected with raises money for those situations and we're looking for a charity to give to."

Now these two women sit by each other in the office each day and even share client opportunities. Yet it took an outsider (me) to be the catalyst to them figuring out how they could help each other.

Kathy laughed and said, "Yeah, we each know that we leave the office to go to these board meetings, but we had never asked anything else!"

Networking is about finding out about each other. Not just the surface stuff, but the next level and the next.

What are you in the dark about with your best friend?

Vacation Musings

Okay, I'm back from vacation.

Not to Costa Rica this year, darn, but to share a little over a week with my friend Marcia Housel. She is my friend who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer this summer. I am so pleased to tell you that as of right now, her tests say that she is cancer-free!

She received a certificate for completing her chemo and posted it on the door just like she does when her grandchildren bring her things that they've been recognized for. I thought I'd take a picture of her with the cert.

Also, in my email queue when I arrived home was an email from a friend who also has a friend with stage 4 cancer. This friend wanted to write a children's book as one of her "bucket" items. The link to the book is here. It is a true story about hair loss and the woman's pet cat. If you have someone in your life who is going through chemo, she might appreciate this book for the people in her life.

I think Marcia looks marvey without her hair and believe me, each day when I got up to my "hair all over the head" look, I was somewhat jealous. What Marcia has decided is that when her hair comes back in, her hairstyle will be a pixie type do instead of the old style that she had to tame each day. She has beautiful white hair, so it will look great.

And by the way, this is the view out their back window at dusk. I vacationed for years at this lake when my kids were little and this is the first time I saw it clothed in snow. Beautiful!

Really Getting to Know You

It's always fun to meet with networking friends, because I usually walk away with a new idea.

This week was no different when I had coffee with Certified Networker Sharon Czarny, owner of Czarny Insurance Agency. Sharon wanted to meet with me to talked over an idea. I hope our conversation helped her because she shared a really great networking exercise with me.

It seems that David Marrufo who is the Educational Coordinator of her BNI chapter, is really creative. Not too long ago, he had every member write something about themselves that others might not know. Each slip of paper was folded and then he collected them and put them into a paper bag. He then went around the room again and having each member draw a slip. His instructions were that each member had to find out who was connected to the information they had in hand. That in itself is a great networking exercise, but here's the twist David added. The members had to count the number of guesses or people they went through to get to the right person. Whatever that number was, they had to schedule that many one-to-one meetings with members. Sharon said that she had 8 meetings set as a result of this exercise.

I love it. BNI's success is based on members really getting to know each other, so that they feel comfortable referring each other. David's creativity will help that to happen for their chapter members.

Thanks Sharon for sharing!

It's More Than I Thoiught

Last week I attended a networking event in Findlay for those clients of Flag City Online. Now I gotta tell ya' until just recently, I just didn't think those city online directories were really worth anything. But then I got to know owner Karla Lewis better.

For Karla, the online directory is just the jumping off point. Beyond that, she hosts now monthly networking events for all her clients. That's just one thing she does, but I want to focus on that today. I had to arrive late for the event (which Karla knew about) because I had an appointment in Toledo that morning. As I arrived, the assembled group was beginning to do introductions with a twist.

Evidently when each person arrived they somehow received the company name of another person in attendance. (I'll have to find out the logistics from Karla!) Instructions must have been given that each person was to find out about the other person. Then during introductions, instead of self-introductions, each participant gave the introduction for the person theyhad been paired with.

The introductions were wonderful. People bragged about each other. As a new member of the group, I found out quite a bit more about people that I thought I knew pretty well.

Hats off to Karla for making this community be REALLY connected.

Collaboration Makes More

Friday night last week, I attended a party to help celebrate some January birthdays. Joy MacLeod, is a member of our Certified Networker community -- all those in the area that have graduated from the course.

Within the past year, Joy has been on a mission to launch a business of being a patient advocate for cancer patients. While out there networking she found two other people that were wanting to provide services to cancer patients, too. Instead of looking at them as competitors, the three decided to form a non-profit that would service the cancer community. By chance, all their birthdays are in January, hence the party which will hopefully give them some money they can then use for their new organization.

Some of their objectives are to provide housing for those coming to the area for treatment -- sort of like the Ronald MacDonald house does for families with ill children. They also want to be a centralized resource center so cancer patients know all that is available to them. Additionally, they want to provide the patient advocate services that Joy is all about. Their organization is called Cancer Connection of NorthWest Ohio. They have applied for their501(c)3 status and expect that they will receive that designation very soon.

As Joy said Friday night, "All of us have been touched by cancer in some way. We want to connect cancer patients and their families and caregivers to physical, emotional and spiritual resources." If you want to know more call Joy at 419-902-4742.

I am so proud of how the CN community members make a difference in the community.

Are Robins Snowbirds?

Today, I played most of the day. First I went for a short winter walk with hubby, Steve and then later I headed out to a Secor Metro Park to strap on the cross country skiis. I really didn't put in that many miles, probably about 2, but the trail was untracked and it really got my heart to pumping!

Before leaving home, I packed a sandwich and some strawberries, so at some point I came upon a wonderful bench where I could sit to eat my lunch. I cleaned the foot of snow from it and enjoyed my meal while watching the birds high above.

What really fascinated me were the two Robins in a tree that had dried black berries on it. Now, it's January 18. What are those Robins doing here? Have Robins stopped heading south because of the mild winters we've been having for the past decade????? Or was it all a fallacy that Robins migrated.

Part of networking is gathering information and also getting questions answered.

So who's out there that can fill me in on Robin behavior?

Fill Those Slots

I learn so much from the people I network with.

Monday Sarah Wicks, AFLAC, was my guest at the WEN West meeting. That meeting always ends with everyone joining in a circle and then each of us pass one business card to the right till the leader says stop and then that action is repeated to the left. The two cards each person has in their possession, are the people to meet individually in the next month.

Sarah participated. She always jumps right in. That's what I like about her.

She showed me something else, too.

You know those little slots in your planner which are supposed to be used for credit cards or other credentials? Well, here's how she uses them. She inserts the business cards of people she is meeting with in the next week. That way they are handy, right there, in case she needs contact info.

Great idea.

Thanks, Sarah.