If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Or, join our email list and get a free audio gift. Thanks for visiting!

This one is from my friend and client, Kevin Johnston, CMP, CEO of Advantage Event Group.

In difficult times, how we view the present and the future often dictates our actions and reactions. Accident prone people often draw attention due to their “bad luck.” When we wake up on the “wrong side of the bed” do we not view things negatively throughout the day? Rhetorical questions, I know, but are we not what we think we are?

Current industry conditions: Good or Bad? Research shows that our industry is cyclical. The pendulum swings from buyers market to sellers every seven or eight years or so. PricewaterhouseCoopers details this “cycle” in a very concise Hospitality report that is used by hoteliers and hotel owners to assist them in purchasing and forecasting. They, fairly accurately, predict trends and forecast when there will be ups and downs. So what? How prepared are you (were you) for any downturn?

Read the rest of this entry »

On October 28th, law management guru, Ed Poll, JD, MBA, CMC and social networking strategist and author of Relationship Economics (Wiley, September 2008) David Nour, presented for managing partners and law firm administrators on how to extend the reach of their business development efforts using social media strategies and related technologies such as LinkedIn®, Twitter, Second Life and Plaxo.

Webinar host, Ed Poll, a nationally recognized management consultant who has helped transform many law practices into profitable and successful businesses, featured guest David Nour, who demonstrated to a sold out audience how to develop a meaningful online presence utilizing various social networking sites to enhance both an individual as well as the firm’s visibility.

Below are just some of the topics covered in this session:
Social Networking / Web 2.0 Overview
LinkedIn® Best Practices, including:

1. Creating a content-rich profile
2. How to connect with your most trusted relationships
3. Searching for people, companies, and opportunities to reach out to others
4. Turning everyday contacts into answers and revenue
5. Advanced search techniques to target your efforts
6. The real value of premium membership
7. Most compelling approaches to creating access
8. Highly decentralized knowledge management
9. Turning answers into alliance relationships
10. Due diligence best practices

Click the player below to hear the audio from this session.

 

 Ed Poll [59:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We recently enhanced our email newsletter distribution system in an attempt to further focus the value we provide to our broad base of constituents based on their individual and often unique preferences. 

Many Fortune 500 companies can’t get this right, so I was amazed at some of our findings:

1. On the positive side, many of the 40,000+ recipients not only opened our newsletter, but read the content, found it of interest and value, and even forwarded a number of items to others – see article on the value of social networking at work
2. Why do I need to know you’re out of the office and won’t be back until next Tuesday at 12:28 AM?!?  We all get way too many emails, and I’m convinced this is one we can do without.
3. The referral to others while you’re out was interesting, if not amusing – “here are 28 different names and numbers for you to contact if you want any of these 117 items on the menu of what I do each day.  By the way, I’ve stepped away for a bio break for 00:02 minutes.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Integrated Broadband Services (IBBS) recently had me speak at their 2008 User Advisory Council meeting of their top clients.  They also asked me to facilitate a very candid and poignant Q&A session with their top executives.  Below is a kind note via LinkedIn® from one of their new customers, Steve Sizemore, Director of Advanced Services at CMA Communications.

Wonder,

At Relationship Economics®, we believe whether in a turbulent economy or otherwise, it’s our investments in the “favor economy” which will benefit all of us the most!  Check out Relationship Economics (Wiley, September 2008) for more actionable examples of quantifiable and strategic investment ideas in your most valuable business relationships.

what does your agenda says about your company meeting?

There are three types of relationships:

• Personal – These are your friends (golf buddies, neighbors, parents at kid’s school, etc.); they like your warts and all and you choose them, making them rather safe.
• Functional – These are people you work with to perform your job or realm of responsibilities.  You build relationships with them, often because you have to (colleagues, customers, suppliers, etc.). You don’t necessarily choose all of them, but because of the context of your relationship, likewise they feel fairly safe.

Read the rest of this entry »

Increasingly, I find myself working on various speaking, training and consulting engagements in Canada. During a recent dialogue with some colleagues and clients there, I asked about the health of their economy. One of the most interesting responses I heard was, “Unlike in the U.S., our media is not trying to drive us into a recession.”

Read the rest of this entry »