Posts Tagged ‘Business planning’
Live Event Networking Tips
Well, yesterday I booked myself a seat at a Live Event happening in Washington DC in December – it was very last minute, but an opportunity came up so I grabbed it. I’m heading to the 7 Event hosted by David Neagle, Suzanne Evans, Blue Melnick and Bari Baumgartner in order to learn new business strategies to help transform my business. In fact I am going with a colleague (friend) I originally met at another conference in 2009!)
Now they say that you can’t teach old dog new tricks, but you can teach them something new about business. I try to learn many new things every month to help me improve my business and my service to clients. There is so much you can bring to your business – marketing, sales, organization, management, leadership – and many of these skill lessons are best learned in person at live events.
Live events have a myriad of opportunities, that you almost have to be wearing running shoes to get around to taking advantage of them all. One plus in particular is learning new business techniques. There is not a single person (and that applies to gurus as well) who couldn’t stand to learn a thing or two. In fact, they will probably be the first ones in line.
The person who has stopped learning has also stopped growing. The only limits that are placed on your business are self-imposed. The Internet is a wealth of knowledge for the one who can access it – trust me I have learned this BIG time in the past 3 years! – but did you ever stop to think where that knowledge was received?
At least some of it was gained at live business events. Here, you are exposed not only to people who can expand on marketing techniques that you currently utilize, but also individuals who have found new ways to harness business power.
Stop and think for a moment. Those who host these events are looking for the best and the brightest to entice you to come. These people prove time and time again that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to business.
Here are a few things you can take part in and learn from at Live Events:
- Brainstorming sessions – Imagine the energy in the room when hundreds of entrepreneurs get together at tables to discuss new ways to improve each others’ businesses? Be sure to take copious notes to refer to later and get the names of everyone at the table.
- Visit the Vendor area – This is an opportunity for businesses to highlight their products and services. You can learn about new programs computer programs, business software and get to demo items right there on site.
- Keep all Materials given to you – Within the pages of those handouts are vital information. Speakers may lay out for you how they go about promoting new products, implement new programs and techniques and list online resources for you. You may want to bring a binder, folders, tote bag or a briefcase to hold everything you will get so it is easier to reference later.
- Networking – This has got to be the #1 benefit to attending any live event. The People... you can meet such a variety of people at all stages in their business and each one with something to share.Take advantage of this, roam around, sit in different places each session, open up and say hello. Networking is what will grow your contacts, your vision and your business.
Attend live events with an open mind. Be ready to expect the unexpected and get immersed into business techniques you haven’t tried before. I will be certain to report on the goings on in Washington. I won’t be able to take a White House tour (it seems – you have to book those 5 weeks in advance) but I will be certainly exploring as much as I can.
Any tips on the “Not to be Missed in Washington”? Post them here so I can do a little planning! And feel free to share any Live Event Networking tips you have, either here or on our Facebook Page.
Cleaning up your email list … and what to do with Mickey Mouse!
We are in the process at Time on Task of switching to 1 Shopping Cart for our newsletter and auto responder system. That has meant checking into our list of subscribers and cleaning up the names and information to import to the new system.
I had been thinking that this is a task to do regularly with an email list – check your reports – especially after talking to a new client and discovering she had been using an automated newsletter system for a few years now and never once checked her bounce/delivered reports. One quick call determined she had many errors, current clients on the bounce list and many old and out of date ones as well. She also had no idea how many were getting opened every month and if anyone was clicking on the links in her articles. Keeping this list up to date is important for a few main reasons:
- When you are paying a different fee with different subscriber levels -you will want to ensure that invalid emails are not going out every month – causing your numbers and thus your fees to be higher.
- Knowing if there are entry errors on your list and that people who should be getting your emails are not.
- You are investing time and money into creating your newsletter – what if not one soul was reading it? Would you change things around with your content, try something new or maybe even stop altogether and use your time/money elsewhere?
You would not know the answers to these questions if you are not checking your reports.
It is important to take a few minutes and review your bounce list each month and see if anything is out of place. Bring it up to date, fix the errors and get rid of the invalid emails. Sometimes you will come across emails you are uncertain what to do with.
Mickey.... one of my email Subscribers
Which brings me to the point of my post today… Mickey Mouse is on my Newsletter list. Yep – Mickey Mouse. The big-eared one himself… and I am sure it is him because of the email address – mmouse at a Disney domain name (I can’t publish full email addresses you know). An interesting dilemma…
I was going to delete him, but then realized his email was being delivered and opened – I checked my reports, again the importance of checking these reports comes out.
Curiouser and Curiouser… I think for now I will leave Mickey alone and be happy I have such a celebrity on my list.
What would you do? and more importantly, do you regularly check your reports/list?
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