Men insult each other, but they don’t mean it, Women compliment each other and they don’t mean it either. I found that quote on my Facebook wall one day and I thought, wow, how profoundly true that statement really is. The last few weeks I have been thinking about how women treat each other, the back biting, gossiping, undermining way that we treat each other has a long term profound affect upon women as a whole and maintains a man’s view of women in the work place and in business.

 Women are often guilty of Crab mentality, and it is not just a corporate phenomenon. I see this mentality happen everyday with women business owners and on more than a few occasions I have even been the victim of the ladies in the crab pot. In all likelihood I have even been a participant in the crab pot.  Just as one woman rises to the top, all the rest of the women reach up and pull her back down.

 Women are often the first to criticize and sabotage one another. When one female business owner has a little success, others will pull her down, withhold connections, referrals and even ignore her. Recently after looking at a list of female entrepreneurs who had won awards for achievement, other women were being petty and unkind about the winners. With comments like “She must have nominated herself” “She is always in it for the glory” “She gets everything like she is the only female business owner out here” and “There are others who are so much more deserving that her.” Susan Tardanico had this to say in Forbes Magazine,  the same behaviors that wound and traumatize us as girls are alive and well in the workplace, undermining our career success.

 We worry that one women business owner is going to get further a head in her business than we are, so we don’t choose her to do our business with, we don’t give quality referrals to her so she can grow her business with our connections, we don’t build her up, talk her up, we don’t help her climb that ladder of success.  Worse yet, when she does succeed we will pay lip service to her success, but we will not show up to celebrate with her and we will not give her the credit for hard work to get where she is, we will just compare ourselves to her, find ourselves lacking and talk about how lucky she is.

If we are going to evolve as a gender, if we want to be taken seriously, if we are going to change the world,  then we all have to step into the space of change.

Correct yourself first – if you hear a fellow women business owner being demeaned or negatively talked about, don’t participate. Set the example and refuse to participate, leave the conversation. When we participate in running down another woman we do damage to ourselves and all women. We keep the stereotype alive.

Speak up – take a stand for other women. When you stand by and allow others to ruin the reputation or spread gossip, it is the same as participating in it. “Evil wins when good men stand quietly by.”  It is by our silence that others are allowed to continue.  Speak up and remind the ladies that it could be them that others are talking about.  Then offer 2-3 positive things to the conversation.

 Support – Build relationships, make connections, do business with and give quality referrals to the women in your community. Promote their business, show up at their events and give support whenever possible. Stop talking about supporting and start doing it.

Celebrate – Stand up and speak out for the success of other women, even small successes celebrated build spirit and momentum.

Pass on the information, change the conversation, we are women, we have the power to change the world,  but it starts with us.  We may not be able to change all women and how they behave, but we can certainly change how we show up and set the example

This is part two of a post by my friend and fellow Tweeter, Greg Magnusson DVM is an Indianapolis Veterinarian and owner of Leo’s Pet Care.  Part one is on the Blog for Lipstick on The Rim.

Greg is a prime example of why it is important to have a good social networking strategy.  I met Greg on Twitter, later I met him in person at a Tweetup during the Super Bowl.  Of course we hit is right off, we already knew each other from our online connections.  When we met offline the relationship was already much further along.  One of the things that we had in common was our fondness for a good beer and how beer is often seen at networking events.  Below is a great post of what not to do when networking and drinking beer.

Here’s how not to network with beer:

1. You’re three brews in before the other party takes a sip. If you wanted to get drunk, do it in the privacy of your own home or at the bar with your buddies. Even off duty, you’ve got the same name, and the same reputation to uphold.
2. If the other party is holding a cheap watery beer, resist the urge to tell them how terribly said beer sucks. It does you no good to insult someone’s taste.
3. At no point attempt to demonstrate your superior knowledge of hops, barley and water. Nobody is at this function to learn how much you know about beer.
4. Never be the first guy with a lampshade on your head. Further, before you allow yourself to be photographed, consider that photo will end up on every screen in the city for weeks to come.
5. Don’t drink just to give yourself an excuse to say dumb stuff you’ve always wanted to say to someone but common courtesy had previously prevented you. Nobody buys the excuse that you called your boss a jerk “because of the beer”.
6. If beer makes you surly and rude, don’t drink at networking events. Be honest with yourself. Surely by now you know your response to beer, right?
7. Never drink so much that you don’t remember who you were talking to or what they said.
8. Mind your manners, hitting on the opposite sex is not a good idea when you are drinking at a networking event, it will damage your reputation.

Nothing can ruin your credibility faster with those who you are networking with than breaking the rules above.  How many times have you been at a networking event or even a party with co-workers and watched that one person get so drunk and do something completely offensive.  Drinking let’s your barriers down

Shortly after finishing one of my monthly Referral Success 101 classes I had a gentleman participant approached me with a concern and a question. His concern was a very familiar one to me;

“I have spent so much of my life always trying to get the deal, looking for the next customer, that I now realize that I have become that person whom others avoid at the networking events I attend. Whenever I had a one to one with someone I met I would spend the entire time pitching my service to them. Many of them I closed so I did have some sale success. Now I realize, I really do not have a network of people whom I can turn to for help to grow my business or frankly any other thing I might need them for. So, what do I do, where do I start?

My answer was simple, “Begin again, and start from where you are”.  It is never to late to start again. This was the very same answer that I was given when I found myself not doing my yoga and meditation practice. I had lost much of what I had learned, I felt defeated and my friend simply said, begin again, from where you are now.

Don’t be defeated, don’t think that you have to scrap what you have and start over, and don’t give up. Take a look at your database and decide who you know and how well you know them.  Are the members of your support network, your knowledge network, your referral network or simply a contact or customer.  If you can’t remember who they are or when and where you met them, removed them.

Now you know where to start, start connecting with those you know and make a list of the people whom you want to reconnect with or build a deeper relationship with. Reach out and begin to start building your network with stronger relationships. As time goes by you can add to the network and deepen the relationships.

Start from where you are, get educated, help others and your network will flourish.

Remember when you were a kid and you would catch someone in a lie, all the kids would run around and sing “liar liar, pants on fire, tear your britches on a telephone wire”. I felt like tweeting that very thing to a tweeter this week.

I was on twitter early in the morning this week when I came across a tweet that said the following: “If you are thinking about or like tattoos here is a great resource link”.    I like well done tattoos, and I wanted to see this resource, so I clicked the link.

Imagine my surprise to be taken to a splash page to buy a social media marketing kit! I thought that I may have made a mistake so I closed the page and went back to the original tweet and tried that link again. No I had made no mistake at all, it took me right back to the splash page.

I went back to the tweet again and reviewed this “Social Media Marketing” experts profile and it appears that it is common place for her to tweet this way. More shocking she follows and is followed by 22,000 people and she has tweeted 10,000 times. So I went to her website and I was not surprised to find it filled with buy, buy, buy propaganda.

My next step was to report her tweet as spam, unfollow her and block her. In my opinion I think that she is a liar and not someone I care to follow or to expose my followers to. But here is the bigger question, does this this kind of bait and switch social media really work? Is this the level of integrity that people can expect in the world of social media?

If you expect me to buy from you, recommend you, or even continue to follow you then DON’T LIE TO ME! Don’t leave me feeling deceived, tricked or taken advantage of. Ok rant over, but I would love to hear from others of you. What is your experience?

I did a presentation today for the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, Business Growth Series.   I was asked the following question, How do you get connected to the decision maker of a company?

A good question and one that many people ask. The answer is simple, but it is not easy. Here is the answer for all of you who want to know the simple answer;   Ask you network to connect you.  There I told you it was simple, just ask.

Ah, but I also said, it was not easy.  Here is the rest of the answer.   There is a lot of work that must go into your network prior to asking and getting the connections.

1. You must develop your network – Too many business people spend all their time building these huge databases of people, constantly adding to it. They have very wide networks, but not very deep. Stop adding people to your network, take the time to identify the people in your network whom you need to really develop a relationship with. Go into your network and start working on building relationships.  See who is already referring you, find your key sources and connectors.  Spend time working in your network, develop the people you already know versus adding more people to the network.

2. Identify your key connectors. Who are they? In every network of people there are key connectors who will be able to connect you to a multitude of people you would not otherwise have the opportunity to meet. Build deeper relationships with your key connectors.

3.  Know who you want to be connected to.  This means you need to do a little homework and find out who this contact is you are after.  To often I hear “I want an introduction to the head of Marketing for the XYZ company.”    It would be more effective when asked this way:  ”I am looking for a personal introduction to David Jones, of the XYZ Company.”  Now your network knows who you want to be connected to and how you want to be connected.  They can easily look in their database and see if they know that person.   Most networkers never do the home work to identify who they want to know.

Friends who care about you are hard to find and should be held onto even when one screws up. There is always room for open honest communication and forgiveness. The hardest part is the open honest communication, and ASKING for Forgiveness then GIVING it!

I wrote the above statement and posted in on my Facebook Profile, because of the numerous comments I decided to write more here. The most important thing that we build in our lives are relationships, the people whom we call friends, those who help us, mentor, encourage and cheer us on. Now and then we screw up, do something wrong or hurt someones feeling and suddenly we find that we have caused great damage to the relationship. We may not have intended to do it, nevertheless we did. At this point we have a choice, let the relationship die or reach out and attempt to repair the relationship.

Repairing the relationship first requires open and honest communication. Both sides need to be willing to speak what is there without blame or excuses, to listen to one another. That communication should consist of 3 things.

Take Responsibility – don’t make excuses, don’t blame, just take responsibility. Part of taking responsibility is making sure you have taken steps not to repeat the action.

Ask for Forgiveness – asking for forgiveness is not easy. It is necessary if you want to recover your relationship. There is nothing more that needs to be said beyond “I take full responsibility for my actions and I ask for your forgiveness.”

Give Forgiveness – if you want others to forgive you when you screw up, and you will, be willing to Give Forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that you condone the action, you just release the anger, upset and disappointment and move forward.

People who really care about us don’t come along everyday. We are all human and in our humanity we screw up, it is our nature, but it does not mean that we have to give up the friendships we have created.

Have you ever ask someone for a referral or introduction to one of their contacts only to be put off or not introduced at all?  Did you wonder why?  You might be surprised to know that your referral source did not have the same level of credibility as the level referral you were asking for.

I once had a referral partner who boasted a very large database.  We decided to sit down an do a little identifying out of each others database.  He had great contacts in his database, but when we began to rate the level of referrals that I was looking for against the level of relationship he had with the contact, there was a great disparity.

He quickly realized that his network was wide, but not very deep and he had some work to do to build higher levels of credibility with some of  the people in his database.  Once he had done some that work, be became a much better referral partner.  Most people spend a lot of time adding to their network instead of building relationships with their network.  They are always collecting cards and adding them to their list, but they take little time to go deep and develop strong credibility with the right people.

The reality is for most of us, we already know all the people we really need to know to accomplish the things that we want to accomplish.  Get to know the people you already have in your network.  Spend time building credibility with them before you go adding more people to your network.

Linkedin, Twitter, FastPitch, BizNik,  Ecademy, Plaxo, HiveLive, Facebook, MySpace, and any of the 500 different sites online are all available to you if you choose to network online. However, how many and which ones should you belong to?

I am often asked  if I am able to track back any income from the social networking sites that I am on.  I am certain that I have indeed generated exposure and branding and I have been able to generate referrals for others in my network because of my membership.  I can track income because I have booked 2 speaking engagements via the sites.  and a couple of new coaching clients.  That being said, does the income match the time spent.

I do know that I easily spend at least ten minutes per day six days per week on the site for a total of one hour weekly.  At my current billing rate that is $125 per week multiplied by 52 weeks for a total of $6500. On average most people belong to 5 social networking sites, doing the same math above for all 5 sites I would spend a total of $32,500 per year on my social networking site.

Therefore, the question is how much is too much.  It really depends on what results you are trying to achieve in your activities.  I recently had a man who paints homes ask me if he should be on all of these sites promoting his business. If he were going to join one or two sites, which ones should he choose?   Here are the five tips that I gave to him.

1.  Find a local networking site, for instance, I am on Smaller Indiana. This would allow him to promote his business to people who might be willing to hire him.  Smaller Indiana is predominately people in Indiana who are in a variety of businesses.  Not for Profits, Professional Services, Business Owners, and Employees of companies are all members of this site.  The key is, they are local, so I can sit down and have a cup of coffee with anyone of them at any time and build a stronger relationship.

2.  Find an online networking group that has people with common interest.  Ning has a variety of these kinds of networks.   On Linkedin I belong to a Group that is made up of other BNI Directors.  We are able to share information, help one another and arrange to meet with each other at conferences.  I may or may not generate new business from this site, but I am able to build stronger relationships with those who are members because we have a common interest.

3.  Know why you want to join the group. Is it for information, connections, to sell your product or services, to develop your expertise or just to socialize?   I am a member of Ecademy.  This is the only group where I actually spend money to be a member.  Ecademy has a very international flavor and I want to make connections with people who can help me land more speaking engagements in the UK.  Last year when I spoke in Bristol, England, I had the opportunity to meet several of the people I had been networking with online.

4.  How much time do you want to spend online?  Online networking takes time just like face to face networking.  If your intention is to be known as an expert, you will have to spend time online blogging, spend time in discussions and commenting on other blogs.  Do the math, even if you are not paying to be on the site, you are paying in valuable time.

5. Free or Fee?  Most sites like Linkedin have a Free and a Premium membership. With the exception of Ecademy I am on the free memberships for all other sites.  Try the 30-day free trial that most sites offer, if you like it and want to get more involved, then you can purchase up.  Ecademy has two different levels that you can purchase; power networker and black star each are vastly different both in price and in access to the network.  I recommend the lowest priced level to start and once you know for sure that you are going to be consistent and use the site, then consider moving up.  Otherwise, it is like joining a gym; you make the payments every month and never go.

Just like face-to-face networking, you can waste a lot of valuable time and money if you do not have a plan and a system to utilize your network.  For me this is Visibility Networking, and some Credibility Networking.  I have been able to connect others in very powerful ways and that goes a long way to building trust with those I have made connections for.

If you are going to jump into this arena, you must have realistic expectations.

You know how sometimes you get involved in a relationship and you are sure that it is one thing only to find out it is really something else?  Women can certainly relate to this, they find themselves dating for a while and they believe they are in one kind of a relationship, headed down a road only to find out the other person took a different path because they thought they were in a different relationship.

It works the same way in business relationships too.  You meet someone, have a one to one meeting, find some common ground and believe that you are on your way to a productive business relationship.  You begin to practice givers gain, passing leads and referrals to the other person and after a few weeks or month you notice that it has become more of a one way relationship.  The relationship is entirely different than what you thought it was going to be and once again you find yourself in one way relationship. One person is getting what they want while the other person is doing the giving.

This happens most often when you do not have open, clear communications on an ongoing and consistent manner.  When there are no clear expectations communicated it causes confusion in the relationship.

If you want to develop a strong network it is important that you have clear communication, set expectations, and have a level of accountability for the relationships.  Making sure that all of you are on the same page is important if you are going to develop a strong networking team.

How many times have you loaned something to someone only to have them return it damaged? How do you feel? Angry, disappointed and yes hurt, after all it was your item and you trusted the person that you loaned the item to.

We loan our credibility to others regularly when we make a connection for others or pass a referral to them. Each time we make a connection or a referral we are allowing others to borrow our credibility. Unfortunately many times that credibility is brought back, nicked and scratched.

So, when you go in on someone else’s credibility, what are you doing to return it better than when you borrowed it? What steps do you take to increase the credibility of the person who gave you your last referral or last great connection? How do you bring a persons reputation back better than when you borrowed it?

Remember, if you borrow it, return it better than when you got it!