Nicholas Boothman writes…

People can be roughly divided into three types, depending on how they primarily experience the world. We call these Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic (meaning related to touch or feeling). To the untrained eye people all look, sound, and feel just like ordinary folks, but to the trained person there are subtle, but important differences.

via test your senses.

Read the article… http://durhamregion.com/article/175808

Join the group… http://www.smpd.ca

On February 15th, 2011 LinkedIn announced the launch of  a simplified LinkedIn Account and Settings dashboard which just appeared for me yesterday.

Although LinkedIn claims member settings/defaults have not been changed, if you haven’t updated your LinkedIn account settings recently, I urge you to take a few minutes now because most people I offer fast track LinkedIn Training to tell me they didn’t even notice the options were there!

To see the Settings link, click on the small arrow to the right of your name (top right of your LinkedIn home page) and click on ‘Settings’.  So long as you’re logged in, https://www.linkedin.com/settings/ should also work too.

1. BRAND - Decide on a brand and use it consistently on the web and in your social media spaces so it’s easy for you and your target audience to remember.
2. SOCIAL MEDIA EMAIL ADDRESS – so when you go on holidays manning the social media storefront can be delegated, and so you can filter it into a special email folder, so you can look only once per day. Perhaps a gmail account as you’ll need one to
3. BLOGS / RSS NEWS FEEDS — so social media spaces can automatically syndicate it.
4. SCHEDULE TIME IN YOUR SCHEDULE – get it done
5. PROFILE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE – to watch your pages, those you manage and your competitors
6. COMMUNICATIONS PLAN — what do your customers want? what will they share?
7. RESOURCES – what do you have now, what is available for free on the net
8. ALLIANCES – who do you know, win/wins?
9. EDUCATE YOURSELF – fast track your success and avoid fatal errors.
10. GOOGLE ALERTS & ANALYTICS — on your website so you can identify what works and repeat it, as well as what does not, so you can eliminate it and focus on true success

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend or a meaningful day. ~ Dalai Lama

One of the categories SMBs ask for the most help with is social media. You need to quickly and easily keep an eye on what people are saying about you; more importantly, you need to participate in the social media conversation yourself, without drowning hours upon endless hours bouncing around various websites.

There are three great tools we’d recommend for pushing out updates to a variety of sites at once. All three have free, web-based services, and they’re great for working with teams, too. Depending on your specific needs and tastes, you could try out Hootsuite, Seesmic and TweetDeck.

If you want to see what people are saying about your company, your product, your location or your vertical in real time, try searching for relevant terms on Collecta or SocialMention.

You also have options for network-specific monitoring tools. To see how your tweets are performing, tryCrowdBooster. And remember, Twitter’s official analytics product is coming soon, too. For Facebook, use that social network’s Insights dashboard for your business’s Facebook Page.

via 23 Free, Web-Based Tools SMBs Are Asking for Now.

Just read an really interesting post by Recruiterpoet called “Networking Needs Compassion” and loved the way he summed up the Rules of Networking…

Some approaches can be successful but one must always remember a few key principles of networking.

1.) It takes time. Networking is like a fine red wine. It takes time to age but when you finally open it, the rewards are bountiful.

2.) Networking needs compassion, trust, and respect. We will get into this further on in this article, but the bottom line is don’t be a selfish networker. You know who you are. You only reach out to people when you need something. You play the sales role well by shaking hands, taking cards and buying a drink or two but never follow up unless you need something. Bad, bad, bad networker.

3.) Diversify your network. Now I sound like Jim Cramer. Use a variety of means of networking including face to face, social media and internal corporate channels. Do not limit yourself, but also do not over extend yourself.

4.) Continue to evolve and grow. As your professional, personal, volunteer, publications, events, and other aspects of your life add to your life summary, update that information and ensure that all the individuals in your network are aware of how well you are developing and diversifying.

5.) Be cautious of hitchhikers. There is nothing wrong with aligning yourself with open networkers but be careful of their message and what they are trying to gain. Aligning yourself with the wrong individuals could have an adverse affect on your reputation.

6.) Be generous but be aware. Be generous with how your share your time and connections but do not over use your power. Your closest networking counterparts put a tremendous amount of trust in you and if you use them too much that is an abuse of the trust and it could damage a relationship.

Please follow this link to read the whole post…
Networking Needs Compassion « Recruiterpoet’s Blog.

Do you fancy yourself a good networking?  Please click comment and add your tips below!

…with the day’s third viral scam just picking up speed as we post this. Don’t click on any posts that look like the one below unless you want to forward this spamware to all your friends on Facebook.

Word of this new scam arrived in our inbox within 20 minutes of learning that Facebook had diffused a prior spam campaign.

via ALERT: Third Scam Today Rips Across Facebook.

LinkedIn is a fast-growing social website, connecting over 65 million business professionals in over 200 countries, with a new member joining approximately every second. Join Sue Sutcliffe as she guides you in the first steps to getting connected on this valuable network. By optimizing your professional profile, learning the power of groups, using LinkedIn business listings and creating a professional profile, you can build your professional network with other entrepreneurs to share valuable information and gain an advantage in developing your business.

By SHERRY HINMAN Special to Sun Media

“The key to a growing a small business? Have a plan! For a business of any size, it’s important to know what you’re about and where you’re going,” says Mark Drager, president of Phanta Media, a corporate video production company in Markham, Ont. He sees his company’s plan as being like something a general would use before a war, to rally the troops.

A traditional business plan begins with an executive summary to allow the reader a quick look without delving into details. The company overview follows, outlining the mission statement, goals and objectives, corporate values or philosophy and vision statement. Following is a description of the business environment, which looks at the market trends for the particular industry, as well as the company’s competition; then, a description of the company and company strategy, which outlines strategies about the industry, markets and competition.

Finally is the financial plan, which covers the position at the start of business and where the financial position is expected to be in the future. It includes an income statement (revenues less costs to show profits), balance sheet (record of the financial position at a given time) and cash-flow statement (cash in and out as it’s received and spent). A good business plan also includes an action plan, showing how the business plan will be carried out.

A business plan doesn’t have to fit the traditional model to be valuable, though. Drager says he would write a full plan if he needed it for bank financing, but instead he develops what he calls an annual vision statement. “This concentrates mostly on what the company will be like in the future. Where will we be in one year? Three years? Five years? It’s a two-page document that outlines aspects like the company’s vision, mission, positioning in the market, objectives and corporate values.”

It also gives staff and prospective employees a sense of the culture of the company, something that Drager feels is critical. “We use it as a recruitment tool.” Once they’re close to hiring someone, they share the document with prospective employees. “This is what we’re about. And this is where we’re going. If the person is not on board with it, then they’re not a good fit with the company culture.”

It can be difficult to write a business plan as you launch your business, because there’s a lot you still don’t know about where you’re heading. But it’s worthwhile. “If you don’t write it down, you can’t articulate what you’re doing as a company,” Drager says. “And you need to articulate your plan for staff, investors and clients. That gives you the confidence and allows other people to buy into your plan.”

Once the plan is up and running, it needs to be maintained. Sue Sutcliffe, owner/manager of aWEBthatWORKS, an Internet marketing company, feels one of the most important aspects of working with a business plan is a system to track your goals and objectives. “I look at my plan once a month and update it two or three times a year. I do this whenever we have a new project or new product, to see what’s working, and tweak it. Action items have to have a date associated with them, for example, achieving this much in revenue by a certain time. But we track a lot of other aspects, too, such as where customers come from.”

Drager does the same. “I do quarterly goal-setting, and the action items are specific, for example, to systems, marketing or accounting. Our quarterly goals are only for one or two of those, so that they’re achievable.” Goals may be related to revenue or about next steps for growth, for example hiring staff or opening a new office.

The process of updating the business plan is one Drager does himself, as president. “You’re driving it,” he says. “But you’re not in it alone.” So he shares the plan with staff and gets feedback. “Then everyone will make sure it happens.”

Drager’s advice about business plans is to “just do it. You won’t see the benefits if you don’t do it. And, unless you’re taking it to the bank, don’t struggle to make it perfect.”

— Sherry Hinman is a freelance writer/editor and owner of The Write Angle. info@thewriteangle.ca.

Toronto Sun | Last Updated: October 19, 2010 4:20pm