I am absolutely convinced that some people believe a logo can be changed on a whim! I was reading another blog recently and came across some interesting comments about my company, BNI. The graphic designer said on her blog (referring to BNI), “…the organization is wonderful, they do great work, but their logo is SO ’80s… really needs to be punched up and brought into the new world!”Of course, since the company started in 1985, she made an assumption that the logo was done in the ’80s. It w...

Sell is not a four-letter word. OK, it is a four letter word, but you know what I mean. …It’s not a “bad” word. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run across businesspeople over the years who are fantastic networkers, but they think that just because they know how to network, they don’t need to know how to sell. They think that people will like them, and then their products or services will sell themselves. This kind of mentality is unfortunate because people who think this way may be ...

A good friend of mine, Raymond Aaron, just released a new book called Double Your Income Doing What You Love. This is a great book that I highly recommend. Most people want to make more money, but they often feel that in order to do so they’ll have to sacrifice their lifestyle and then work at a job they don’t particularly like. Raymond (seen below with me) says that if you’re like most people, your life is likely to be filled with activities, obligations and commitments that have nothing to do with...

Trey McAlister, a certified trainer/coach with the Referral Institute and a BNI director in Northern California, was commenting to me the other day on a huge BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) he had about how and why professionals often become disillusioned with networking. Trey said he realized that many professionals go into networking events ignoring one of the principal “commandments” of networking, either by having the wrong goal in mind or not having one at all, and they therefore end up leaving d...

I recently had two organizations attempt to create a strategic alliance with BNI and the Referral Institute and I got two substantially different results.    The first company (which shall remain nameless on the grounds that they like to attack folks they are not happy with via the media) contacted me and wanted to speak.  With them, it was a case of “Glad to meet you—let’s get married!”  I really got the sense that they wanted to GIVE me the privilege of sharing my entire database of contacts with them...

In my monthly column on Entrepreneur.com, I wrote about the 5 Ways To Break Into Online Networking. One of the things I recommended was to “join one or more online networking communities.” There are a lot out there to choose from today. However, there’s a new one on the web that I’m impressed with. It’s called FastPitchNetworking.com. It has many of the same features most online networks have, such as the ability to create a profile, and promote your website, blog and professional servic...

I was recently speaking to a friend of mine who is a partner in an international consulting and training company. We discovered that we had a mutual acquaintance who is a bestselling author and fairly well-known speaker. In our discussion, we found out that he had contacted each of us individually to see if there were any possibilities for some type of strategic alliance with our companies. We were both open to that possibility but couldn’t see any immediate and dramatic way our companies could link up with his and...

Welcome to the second annual International Networking Week (February 4-8, 2008). Last year, thousands of people from around the world recognized the week, and even more are expected to recognize it this year during hundreds of large events and thousands of small events and networking meetings all around the world. International Networking Week is about celebrating the key role that networking plays in the development and success of business around the world. It is about creating an awareness of the process of network...