Being members of Ecademy, LinkedIn, Facebook puts us in a unique position of appreciating the power of social networking. So what is the power of social networking?

Well those in the know say it is about forming relationships. OK then what? Well then you create the opportunity that others will trust you, get to know you, and show your expertise.

So does any of the above relate to how high an IQ score you have? Is the prerequisite of having to form relationships wrapped up in your intellectual achievements? No. Successful people would say that people buy people. They say that they would not do business with anybody they didn’t like, trust or believe in, even if they were the best in their field.

The traditionalist who hasn’t mastered the power of social networking call it by another name, referrals, good customer service, word of mouth marketing. It all boils down to; I like that person I would do business with them.

Assuming that human being’s are more likely to do business with someone they like, trust and who seem credible, what stop’s people looking at ways that ensure they can build more relationships so more people like and trust them and so generate more business? Society puts a lot of emphasis on education and the need to go to university to increase your chances of succeeding in life, yet if you look all around there is no correlation with academic achievement and success. (however it is defined)

Is there a common denominator to success? Culture no, colour no, education no, gender no, money no, luck no, race no. However if you believe the current buzz of the way business is to be conducted in the 21st century, it is through networking, be it social or business, online or offline. To be effective in networking, people would want to like you, for people to like you, they have to know you and for people to know you, you have to connect with them. How can you ensure this connection is such that it will become something that both parties want to continue?

Emotion.

How do you feel? How did you fell when you met that person? Everything we do has an impact on our emotion and every emotion we feel has an impact on what we do. So why so little appreciation of it, and why so little training to create better emotional awareness in ourselves? We are all looking to create wealth. The default assumption here is money, however when you question people more deeply you almost always see that people want emotional wealth as well. There is an assumption that once you get that monetary wealth you will get emotional wealth. This is based on the premise that all current negative emotional wealth is based on the fact that you don’t have monetary wealth. Ask anybody who has monetary wealth and they will tell you it doesn’t go hand in hand, it might help a little, but not as much as we think. It is often the case that emotional wealth more often leads to monetary wealth.

Emotional Intelligence, as Daniel Goleman defines it helps us know our emotions, manage our emotions and also recognise others emotions. I am sure most of us can recognise emotions in ourselves and others, however the resulting reaction we display when we interact with someone in a highly emotional state, would say not. The reaction is one of what we want to show, to show how WE feel. Which doesn’t always serve the situation.

Being emotionally aware in business and especially in networking is fundamental in ensuring you grow. Like the elite sports performer, when you point out what they are doing that makes them the elite performer, they would say, well that’s obvious, don’t all other performers do that….er no that’s why you’re an elite performer. The same with natural networkers, they have a knack of being liked by all, understanding how we all tick and knowing what to say at the right time.

Are we all natural networkers? No. Can we all be natural networkers? Yes. If you take one step back and ask yourself, what does prevent someone from networking and putting themselves out there, assuming they would like to. Fear of being judged, fear of looking stupid, fear of rejection, fearing of saying the wrong thing, being embarrassed or not wanting to be seen as being pushy. All these fears are driven by an emotion we are feeling. Managing our emotions and being in a place where this fear doesn’t exist, diluted, or at least not shown is the key to building long lasting relationships. Do we believe that the natural networkers do not have all these fears? They do, we all do, however at different degrees.

The leaders in the world, not just world leaders but company directors and managing directors, who are successful, would all have a high level of emotional intelligence. Would they all have a high IQ? The evidence would suggest not. Do only leaders need to have high EQ? What would the impact of business be if each of us increased our emotional awareness by 10%, even 1%? Would an understanding our own emotions, understanding others and understand what happens to us when these emotions arise help us not only in our business but in our everyday life. Absolutely.

Being more emotionally aware will not only help us in our business, networking and home life, it also make us more healthy. The ability to understand that, you can ONLY control what you do and nothing else. That the only way to get what you want is what you are doing NOW, in the moment, and being at your best in the moment. Do you turn up at every moment in the day? By being more emotionally aware you can do this and it will be effortless.

In conclusion I would say without any hesitation that EQ is more important than IQ in business, all you have to do is look at the evidence around you.

I recently attended a workshop run by Robert Craven. The workshop was on how to make more profits. The key thing when running your own business, and what you can do to make more profits, is to be open minded about what others are doing and to really look at what works for you. As someone, who not only delivers, but also attends workshops, I am always fascinated how the same old things, when put to you in a different way can have a positive impact. Three things about this workshop that resonated with me were;

1. Scoring your Business. You score your business on 3 fronts;

• Finance
• Marketing
• Operations

Knowing something and doing something, that has a positive impact on your business in another. Robert asked us to score, out of ten, what we would give ourselves for each of the categories above. What was found that on average the score for Finance was 5/6, for Marketing was 3 and for Operations, i.e. how good you are at what you do, was about 8 (apparently modesty prevented us from giving ourselves a 10!)

So what is the point of this? Most people in business focus on what they need to do to improve their finances; however we all know, that the quality of your marketing has a significant impact on your business.  Simpy speaking the average of your score for Marketing and Operations is your Finance score. Agreeing that, you do what you say you do and that the quality of your marketing does impact on your finances, you can see how, if you focus on what you do to generate leads, the finance will look after itself. Obvious when put this way and quite logical. So now you know this what could you do to make more profits?

2. Tactics to increase your profitability. There are 5 ways

• Increase your volume
• Lower Direct Costs
• Fix the underperformers
• Raise prices
• Lower the overheads

The question was asked which of the five would have the biggest impact on your profitability. Although it was agreed that all 5 can have an impact, the one that was the top of the list was raise prices. Now the initial reaction was, well I would lose customers, or will I be competitive? What would happen if you did raise your prices? Think about who you would lose. Are these the customers you would really worry about losing? Probably not. The 80/20 principal tells us that we get 80% of our business from  20% of our customers. The ones you lose may just be the ones that only contribute to 20% of your business. On the surface raising your prices may not seem like a good idea, however when you look at the customers you will lose, and you will lose some, it may just be what you wanted.

3. Networking

The one area of marketing that everybody did agree that was useful was networking. I will talk more about networking in my other posts, however the one area that people seem to worry about is the elevator pitch (coined in the USA to signify the amount of time you have to say what you do when in a elevator, i.e. about 2 mins),  Robert presented, for me, one of the easiest and effective ways to develop you elevator pitch. By following the 5 points below you will not only produce an effective speech but also cover all that you want in a few minutes. Start each sentence with the following and complete as appropriate;

• We/I work with…
• Who have a problem with…
• What we/I do is …
• So that…
• Which means that…

So here goes for my elevator pitch.  We work with Teachers and Directors to improve their performance and reduce their stress simultaneously, who have a problem with letting ‘stuff’ like too much to do, not enough time and things outside their control, effect their performance. What we do is provide coaching and training so that they be at their best more often, which means that they have more energy, feel less stressed and improve their productivity.

Feel free to comment on this blog and let others know what your elevator pitch is.

I am a regular on my local radio station Southend Radio, and after a recent show where i talked about how to be happy, the station received a fantastic response and as a result want to conduct an experiment to see if we can do things that are within our control to feel, and be happier.

I am speaking again on Thursday 16th October at 11am on Increasing your Self Esteem and launching the happiness experiment on Tuesday 21st October. For me more details of the experiment go to The Happiness Experiment

I was recently interview by Jason Dormer of Dormer Finance about starting a new business and how new business can beneft from good quality performance coaching .

Tell me why you started Performance Coaching and Training?
My passion has always been in educating, motivating and inspiring. In my formative years I used to teach Psychology and the satisfaction I got when I knew I could make a difference to people was immense. Having trained as a Performance Coach the last number of years, while working full-time, it was a natural progression for me to start my own company where I could assist individuals and business is be the best they can.   (more…)

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to appear on my local radio station Southend Radio 105.1 FM www.southendradio.com since its launch in March 2008. I have been on several time taking about several subjects from building up your confidence, how to follow your dream to learn to love your job and overcoming procrastination. On the last show we talked about happiness. How to be Happy. I went through 6 reasons that prevent us from being happy. After the show Tracie Young the DJ said that the response from the public was fantastic with a few people saying how following the tips they did feel happy.

This got us thinking. As a result of the feedback I am looking to run an experiment on the airwaves to see if we can actually make ourselves happier. An experiment was conducted some years ago in Slough and I will be using the same methodology.I will be finalising details soon and will post them here. In the meantime if you would like the 6 things that prevent us from being happy click here how-to-be-happy.pdf

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.

I have read with interest some posts on having meetings, what gets done and how useful they actually are. It has been indicated that when you are in a meeting you don’t have to actually work. The number of times people have said to me they have been really busy all day in meetings, I ask myself but what actually has been achieved. Granted some meetings do have their use, but do you need to have as many meetings in a week as we all do……

Speaking to a Solicitor recently he said that every Monday morning they have a meeting talking about the weeks work, everybody has an opportunity to talk about what they need to do, but when it comes to it, they can all virtually predict what each other is going to say and most don’t actually have a plan…… most of the good stuff is done when they are down the pub in a relaxed atmosphere, so in effect 2 ½ hours are wasted each morning, and the only reason they have a meeting is because they always have one…….

The philosophy I follow when I have meetings with my business partners is

1. AOB – gets the stuff out of the way, ensures meeting finishes on high

2. Success’s since last meeting

3. 6 Objectives for the week, (or until the next meeting)

4. Time, date and duration of next meeting……

When looking for inspiration we look far and wide and find it in all shapes and sizes, however sometimes you only have to look at what’s in front of you. My daughter, Sapna, is currently taking various tests in school, which can be quite demanding for them. In amongst all her homework and preparing for her tests at school, she wrote this and I thought I’d share it with you, she is only 12

Everyone gets worried and worked up about tests in school, in university or for a new job.
All these tests are on paper, are written or are taken by experience.
But there is one test, bigger than any other that you can think of . Life.
All the other small tests are just like tiny atoms of it, there are millions of them.
Life isn’t on paper, Life isn’t written. Life isn’t taken by experience.
Life is one chance that you’ll never get again.
Life is something that you should treasure. Make the most of it now, while you can.
No one can avoid the bad times, but you can help yourself and others to recover from them and soon share and treasure the good times.
ONE LIFE
YOU CONTROL IT
YOU OWN IT
YOU TREASURE IT
YOU LIVE IT

Wow, well that’s what I thought….