I attended a conference here in Southampton in the UK yesterday and had a great time listening to some great speakers talking about Networking.
I have been a member of BNI (Business Networking International) for over 5 years. For those of you who have not heard of this organisation, the philosophy can be summed up in two words – givers gain. The whole purpose of the weekly meetings is to pass referrals to fellow members. Don’t worry about what you are going to get out of it as a member but concentrate on giving – the point being that if I give you business you will want to give me business. I love that idea. What a great approach to business!!
If you follow my blog for any time you will soon learn that I consider networking to be the best way to grow your business, be it face to face in BNI meetings or through on-line sites such as Ecademy.
The two best speakers in my opinion were Dr Ivan Mizner – founder of BNI and Frank De Raffele who has co-authored books on Networking and Executive Director for the Hudson Valley BNI Region in New York.
The interesting thing is that I have always considered BNI to be very American. BUT and this is what fascinated me – Dr Ivan Mizner in his talk said that setting up BNI was probably the most un-American thing he had ever done. His whole background had been companies who had that ‘dog eat dog’ – ‘kill the competition’ attitude.
Yes there are different approaches to business – but just look up the stats about BNI and it is hard to argue against the success of a collaborative approach to business.
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Take care
Keith
About Keith Watson
Hi - I am Keith Watson.
This blog is dedicated to Banger - a teacher from my teenage years who - at least once a week - insisted upon cracking the hilarious - and I have to say - never heard before line "What's on Watson?".
I would smile demurely - the rest of the class would fall about with sides aching - and life would go on for another week.
'Wats-on My Mind' I have decided will assist me personally as well as be of interest to others (I hope) who share my challenges. It will help keep me organised and document my activities so that I know what I did yesterday.
You think I am joking!!
I have been in the website development game since 1993 and have been involved with over 2000 website builds (with the help of my fantastic team of freelance programmers)
It was only in the last two years though that I have moved over to making money for myself on line and in particular linking up with an amazing talent called Adam Eason to produce and distribute self help and hypnotherapy products.
As a result of looking to promote these products I have downloaded hundreds of internet marketing articles and e-books, studied countless reports, tested list building tactics, butterflied, boot-camped, buzzed, adsensed, affiliated, met a jerk, jv'ed, plr given-awayed, and generally suffered from information overload.
My computer - presumably in a fit of pique or simply demanding a holiday has given up the ghost on at least two occassions - causing me even more stress.
Oh this simple business of making money online.
BUT the great news is that it is all working and our list has grown - I have found some gurus I have complete faith in - and Adam and I are actually making money from our endeavours.
Some way to go but I am more relaxed and can spot a phoney over hyped, sexed up, must have latest product which you must either buy or if not, simply fade into oblivion. There’s not room on this Internet for the two of us.
This ramble of an introduction is really to set the scene for I am sure an interesting journey which I invite you to join. In fact I want you to help me find the right tools, scripts, plugins etc. etc, that will catapult me into the stratosphere of success. I hope you will be there with me.
I don't just consider success in a monetary sense. I so want to help some friends of mine who are involved in Christian missionary work in some pretty harrowing parts of this world. If I can bring any help to their missions that will give me more satisfaction than anything else.
I really, really do love this web stuff and the people you meet. I am convinced that this powerful technology can be harnessed to do some good.
