|
Small Business Articles from Make-it-Fly®
 Employ
the Power of Community
By Victoria Munro
Printable version
Since its inception, a key focus of
Make-it-Fly® has been
to employ (and enjoy) the power of community. Working
with small business owners, we see that a
sense of isolation often goes along with being the boss
and running a business. The phrase, "It's
lonely at the top" holds a lot of meaning. There
are some things you just can't share with employees,
colleagues or friends. For those working from home,
it can be lonely too—no more water cooler conversations.
Because we’re innately
social beings, this isolation can be tough. Through
advisory boards, our goal has been and is to give entrepreneurs
an environment of professional camaraderie and confidentiality—a
caring group of peers offering their hard-earned expertise
and ideas that enable each other reach better solutions.
When we gather around a boardroom table with the objective
of helping and learning from one another, the magic
of community takes place. We also see it at Make-it-Fly
Café events—it’s about connecting
and networking.
In the last three years, online
social networking has exploded. If you’re
not already involved, as a business owner, you should
give it serious attention. You can reap rich rewards,
but there are challenges.
Some Potential Rewards:
 |
Online
social networking is free—no
big financial expense. |
|
It
can give you immediate
reaction and response to ideas and issues. |
|
It’s
a valuable way to find
needed resources. |
|
It
can increase your visibility,
giving you opportunity to promote yourself and your
business to the world. People are looking for information
online, so give it to them. |
|
Your
network of contacts can grow beyond geographical
and cultural differences as you connect with people
the other side of the globe. . |
Connecting with others can be fun and profitable, but
it takes time.
When interviewed on social networking, author Seth Godin
warned that the Internet has allowed an enormous amount
of fake networking to take place. “Networking
is always important when it’s real,” he
stressed. “And it’s always a useless distraction
when it’s fake. It’s so easy to be seduced
by it because there’s a scoreboard. It’s
not about your number of Twitter followers or Facebook
friends. But, are there people whom I would go out of
my way for and who would go out of their way for me?”
Tip: Before spending
hours of your precious time connecting online, know
what you want and expect to gain. Have
a strategy and set specific goals. Put your plan
in place, and track the results of your time investment.
Tip: Consider
hiring someone or use a service to help. Large
corporations now have staff dedicated solely to social
networking for the company.
Tip: Be
authentic and be professional—you never
know who may read what you write.
At Make-it-Fly, we’re more passionate than ever
about creating genuine win-win communities, and Sky-Place
is another opportunity to do that.
I encourage you to sign up now at Sky-Place.com
and connect, collaborate,
create—enjoy the power of community!
(598 words)
© 2005-2008 Victoria Munro.
Click here
for printable version.
About the Author: Victoria Munro is
co-founder (along with husband Dave Block) of Make-it-Fly®
LLC, a company dedicated to creating success for
small-business owners through creatively designed programs
and tools. Victoria has started and run nine different
businesses. To receive FREE business success articles
with tips to help you with your business, sign up for
their award-winning ezine, “In-Flight Refueling,”
at: www.Make-it-Fly.com,
and receive a free copy of the eBook, Get
More Done in Less Time: 101 Quick and Easy Time Tactics
& Tips.
You’re welcome to “reprint”
this article in your ezine, print publication
or on your website, as long as it remains complete and
unaltered (including the “about the author”
info at the end). Please send a copy of your reprint
to info@make-it-fly.com.
|
