Our own Carolyn Cooper-McOuatt is speaking at Vancouver Business Network’s Virtual Event.

Come and join her on Tuesday evening, November 10, 2020 and learn how to transform your business with a well-crafted brilliant business plan. You will discover how it is the superpower tool to support your business growth and the means to become prepared, systematic and meaningful to maximize your potential. Each element of the plan builds on the other and links together cohesively. It’s vital to document your value, mission, marketing, operations and your financial health. To be clear on where you are going, grounded and confident in the process and cultivate a mindset of prosperity.

To soar in the twenty-first century, marketing needs a twenty-first century approach; and that approach is, in a word, Agile.

We had a great event last Friday with our expert speaker Jim Ewel. He shared that now is the time to fix your marketing efforts and discover the unique trends available with agile marketing. It is now a necessity in our current market to go from surviving to thriving in our post COVID world.

Traditional marketing is broken and we need to learn how to make marketing as effective as possible.

We we thrilled to with these three great networking organizations:

• The Connected Woman – Cathy Kuzel – Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Farah Networking – Farah Hussain – Scotland
• BizSocial Networking – Brian Morrison – UK

We all built better virtual networking skills and formed new business relationships as we listened and learned from our presenters and moved around from room to room. We all had an opportunity to meet new potential collaborators and customers and practice our introductions with the intention to connect, create and collaborate.

Our Sept 25 Grand Connection was very valuable!

Mike Wolf shared with us how to work smarter and not harder in business. Like most people he started out broke not really knowing how to build a business and that he did not have a clue.

Since then, he has participated in a lot of entrepreneurial ventures. He said there is an evolution and there’s never really a finish line. He recommends to just keep going and keep making it better as you evolve!

Mike figured it all out of necessity – how to have balance and go from being a workaholic to playaholic and now to do the things that he loves.

We were thrilled to collaborate with Terilee Harrison of TEAM Referral Virtual Network, Global and Chris Christoff of The Connect Collaborative from Brisbane Australia who both shared brilliant virtual networking tips. It was a powerful collaborative networking experience for businesses from around the globe including Scotland, the UK, India and North America. Businesses came together to virtually network in rounds of intentional break out sessions and practice their introductions.

Terilee Harrison shared how you can maximize our time with online networking. The concept of putting your “Big Ask” out there. She says we don’t ask big enough. It’s up to us to ask people we meet for what we need in a way they can hear it. Put it out there on a silver platter so they say to themselves “Oh I know how to help here”. Terilee invited us not to waste our time and to maximize our time to get the most out of these events we can.

Her recommendation is to make a list:

• Create a description of your best clients and share that with the group.
• Decide how you could ask for more than one client at a time.
• Ask to meet your competition to collaborate.

Network with your power partners, the people who share your clients.

Always put out there:

• This is who I am …
• This is what I do …
• A good power partner for me is _____.

When we play small we don’t get what we are looking for. Make your “BIG ASK” so audacious that we chuckle. By putting your big ask out there it will change the trajectory of your business. It will bring results you are looking for. Terilee promises you will be glad you did!

Chris’s networking tip was how to approach networking. He says it’s about the relationship more than the transaction. He recommends us to connect with people to build the know, like and trust factor. He shared that there is a fear component in networking and that online events are a safe environment to get to know people and develop those relationships. To take a referral to another level; both parties have a reputational capital that is sound. We can look at people inside your industry and the swimming lanes; either side of your industry. They can make great collaborators. To collaborate and refer across to each other is a great opportunity. Also, think about networking outside your industry. It’s not what you know or even who you know, it’s who they know. Make a connection through a connection. He explained that LinkedIn is a great tool to reach out and search to find the right contacts you are looking for.

For those who missed the last Grand Connection event, the Power of Podcasting, you can find it, along with other recordings and offers in the Facebook Group.

 

Michelle shared her deep passion for podcasting, the global trending podcasting landscape and how podcasts amplify your influence.

She told us that we are in the golden age of podcasting with tons of room for growth.

No other platform even compares to podcasting in regard to time spent.

Facebook – 18.2 seconds
YouTube – 4 minutes 20 seconds
Instagram – 26 seconds
PODCAST AUDIO/VIDEO – 20 minutes!

The Grand Connection Community is having a contest for our members. Winners will those who invite the most NEW guests who attend our meeting August 14!  A group of winners will have the opportunity to spend 90 minutes with Hilary DeCesare in a small group MASTERMIND DEEP DIVE experiencing the ReLaunch Method for Business (valued at $1000).

The ReLaunch method provides tools for change and supports you to get back to relaunching your revenue.  

Our last event was a lot of fun. We did two rounds of real-time-connections followed by our expert speaker Terilee Harrison who shared her wisdom on growing your business through virtual networking. She kindly got up at 2:00 AM her time in Singapore to meet our community.

Terilee shared the tips on how to network like a Rockstar!

It was a extraordinary event July 17th with Judy Carter. Her formula for creating a memorable 60 sec pitch was well received and we have all been practicing. This will be so useful for our rounds of real-time connections.

If you missed this talk, it is saved in the facebook group. Also the handout is in the comments. Judy generously offered our group one year access to her online message of your program. Details for this is also in the group.

We are having another contest for our members! For those of you who invite the most NEW guests who attend our meeting September 25th, you will have the opportunity to spend 90 minutes with Mike Wolf in a small group MASTERMIND DEEP DIVE experiencing Mike Wolf Mastery Method for Business (valued at $1000). Start inviting now!

This was a fabulous talk and we do recommend watching the recording if you missed it. Here are a few notes of interest.

Hilary asked us what is going well in our business and life and what is holding us back? She shared with us the ReLaunch Recipe for Change and its formula which is the foundation and asked if our vision for the future is super clear. Hilary recommended we have a plan and know our WHY behind it. Of interest is 95% of our decisions are made by our subconscious mind and that we need to OWN our energy. We have the ability to change our thoughts and have 60,000 thoughts an hour and 2000 visual images. Questions to think about: 1. What we are propagating?  2. If we could re-imagine three areas of our business / life what would they be and what is one small step we can take? Hilary said that stress is fear and resistance and that we CAN go from transition to transformation!

Kimberley Day demonstrated step by step how easy it is to create creative images with Canva to attract ideal clients. We discovered how simple it can be!

Kim said that lead magnets are an integral part of our sales funnel and need to be enticing and provide great value!  Why? To build trust and authority. She told us we can start teaching our prospects, provide advice so they know, like and trust us and choose to go on our email list. To move them down the sales cycle.

Kim shared that we need to know our prospects’ pain points and how we can help them to have a quick win. She said we can create lead magnets with designing customized checklists, a Facebook Business Header or a full workbook on Canva.

Sherri-Lee Woycik shared that Facebook is a powerful tool to create relationships that last with these 4 steps. She shared that there are 2.2 billion people on Facebook with 60 million active business pages. She told us people want to be educated, informed and be distracted from real life. Her recommendation is for 80% of the content be engaging, fun and interactive and 20% to share your products, sales or promotions.

The 4 steps to attract more clients: The name of your page needs to speak to your ideal prospects and the outcome they want to achieve. Your profile image is best to be a clear picture of you. Your cover image can tell a story in pictures and is best to be changed every week. Sherri-Lee says the image can represent who you are, what you do and speaks to your ideal clients. For your content post everyday and stack up your newsfeed. Start with a quote, post engaging questions, inspiring content to get likes, comments and shares. Create connection and rapport and reply to all comments. And finally FB live for your educational and promotional post.

Janice Porter’s presentation – Making LinkedIn Work for You – gave us an overview of how to make a great first impression when someone comes to your profile. She outlined the importance of a personalized banner, a professional headshot, and a headline that really speaks to your strengths. Janice really spoke to LinkedIn as a much misunderstood and underused platform … and encouraged us to really take a closer look at it.

Here is a free download her 16 Point LinkedIn Checklist to get you started.

Janice is offering a 2 Part LIVE LinkedIn Webinar series – on Thursday, June 25th 2020 and July 9th at 4pm – for anyone in our group who wants to take advantage of taking a deeper dive and actually getting things done.