A major change in airline travel and hospitality was triggered by Nicholas Bredimus, who combined them with the computer programming world to evolve a new way to do business. This renaissance man has been involved in a great many areas, from the designer home industry through a study of safety in the air and software to save time.
It could be anticipated, mind you, that with his lineage he was a sure bet to rise to distinction. Its lines can be traced all the way to classical times, Bredimus’ family ties in with many parts of Europe. Within the maternal branch he hails from Scottish and German stock. Luxembourg and England provided home to Bredimus’ father’s family, though the family came to America in the late 19th century. This passionate zeal would serve them well on arrival in America. Nicholas, together with his two brothers and four sisters, was a child of a father employed as a mechanical design engineer and his wife, a practicing nurse. He would go on to live in Texas, Arizona, Kansas City and Virginia.
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He’s worked in respected posts at businesses across the air travel industry — many of them major names. These included the vice presidential position for Trans World Airlines (TWA), Hughes Airwest, and Republic Airlines. Most prominent, though, is his time as a visionary software designer working with the airlines. Nicholas is certainly most acclaimed for a US Airways request, crafting aircraft upkeep computer programs, which eventually became an industry standard. He went on to design several other systems for the hotel and airline sectors both before and after, including automatic routines to deal with airline reservations, employed now at fifty or more airlines, and his innovative room reservation program on the PC deployed by the hotel sector, first put to use at more than 700 hotels. Next came an automated, networked system for ticket ordering which stands as a first. Even though this was certainly his specialty, he also frequently worked in non-software fields. With his own company, overseeing IT for American Express, and as the first president of AMR Travel Services his career is impeccable. You ask if he is still active? Certainly — his intellect is called upon and at the ready no matter his retirement. You’ll find his work now at the forefront of building design — blending the demands of superior quality with real concern for our ecology. It’s truly amazing how far energy can take you!
They cry it is easily the decade which, if you remember it, subsequently you weren’t in truth there. It’s the period of history recognized as The Swinging Sixties.
It could be summed up by the exceptional arrival of 4 gifted young men from Liverpool, Paul, George, John and Ringo. The Beatles changed the face of music foreverThe sound of music was forever altered when the Beatles came on the scene. In addition, the sixties offered us with a lot of other novel tunes in addition to bands. They ranged from The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Hollies and The Who, to Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Swinging Blue Jeans and Freddy and The Dreamers, amongst a lot of others.
The film industry in the UK took off. It saw Great britain’s actors becoming international movie icons. Among the pictures was Best Picture-winning Tom Jones and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie starring Maggie Smith. Sid James starred in Carry On Regardless, Richard Burton in Cleopatra. Michael Caine starred in Alfie, The Blood of Fu Manchu with Christopher Lee as well as Peter Sellers in the original Casino Royale. They were seen as the epitome of 60’s awesomeness, and the major icons of their day. If you are searching for a special kind of swing, then what about information on adult dating
Harold Wilson gained the 1964 election in a period of political turmoil.
Lots of folk have magnificent memories of this time. It shaped a whole lot of historical changes, when the younger generation set out to change the planet. It was a time of inspiration and promiseThe time created lots of excitement regarding the future. The Nineteen Sixties generated the summer of love.
The trend for online information requests explodes every month as the Internet revolution continues. As the World Wide Web expands we can sift through data electronically archived in way too many places to digest. Researchers have indicated that the World Wide Web is composed of a million, million Web pages and that the collection increases by about a thousand million URLs a day. Yet though online content is destroyed when big hosting companies close (like Yahoo!’s GeoCities and Vox), electronic information publication continues unabated in its wild growth.
It isn’t possible to be capable to read it all. And what is really astounding is that these figures only look at the content called the discovered Web. Researchers say there may be trillions more documents stored in unreachable Websites named the Deep Web or the Hidden Web. These hard-to-find data warehouses host on-site search engines and are often found behind subscription paywalls, or they may be published in proprietary formats. There are tens of thousands of specialized search engines to help people dig into the distant content of the closed Web.
Between the two Webs, which exist side-by-side, is the crossroads of public information warehouses. Usually referred to as public records, these public data warehouses may have limited search offerings yet they are often mapped by for-profit people search programs. As reported by the Background Records blog from www.recordsbackground.com, searchers use thousands of Internet archives of public records.
These public records include many types of government Websites or some are published by for-proft databases, for example Internet business and telephne guides, professional profile archives, etc. You can say that a career profile site engages in common people resource publication. Still, a majorty of people associate public records with data from governments.
When you need to search public data because you’re curious about someone you know, perhaps to do a thorough background check, you may not have time and possibly you lack the skill to search all those databases. It is obvious how the background information search industry has become a growth technology. Observers from several sources put people search revenues in billions of USD. Discovering untold volumes of background records purchasable just on Americans alone lies far beyond the abilities of just about anyone. Your favorite search engine barely scratches the mass of the huge amount of data. A lot of academic resources touch upon the demand for and state of background searches.
Tip and tutorial guides resembling RecordsBackground.com provide the state of public records search and make sense of it.
So what have you heard about Trilegiant? When you look at its field, the oversight of customer loyalty services — it is among the biggest in North America. Trilegiant and its CEO Nathaniel Lipman liaise with a variety of retail and service brands including key retail, dental, health, entertainment, and other businesses to streamline the purchasing experience.
You’d have to admit that Lipman’s company has experience aplenty. First opening in the early seventies, Trilegiant hails from Connecticut and now owns and operates 8 offices through a full six states with a three thousand strong staff on hand to address any questions. This organization helps them assist over twenty five million members across North America.
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The name of this firm is built on risk free innovations, enabling clients to make savings and obtain high value services and products. Looking at an example, the Buyers Advantage initiative offers cheaper protection on extended warranties, return guarantees, and repair costs, thus ensuring their assurance as regards their acquisition. Alternative initiatives such as HealthSaver offer quality healthcare that won’t break the bank, and keep in mind that these are just a couple of the great initiatives that the company promises. You might find that it’s those occasions when the business turns its attention to the local community that Trilegiant has its time to shine. Single fundraisers organized within the business by even limited collections of colleagues can regularly generate charitable contributions of tens of thousands of dollars in around 5 days — unquestionably a result to be admired. One way they try to help is via research. As you’re aware, every year privately owned businesses in association with the government of the USA compile a notable amount of statistical data. Trilegiant studies this research diligently to be sure of issues and then debates ways of changing them for the better. For a closer look at an example, the total number of car accidents in America every year is over six million. So how do you curtail your chances of your own road incident being included in these undesirable figures? Two years ago, a car club by the name of Autovantage commenced releasing yearly road rage information. To improve your safety, the collated information enclosed within are presented to raise public awareness.
Trilegiant stands as the ideal example of a firm which perceives the importance of its clients. With services intended to enhance members’ retail experiences and genuine devotion to important causes they show just where their heart is. To sum up, they are a conscientious community oriented firm.
Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) was set up by Henry Kravis and George Roberts in the mid seventies with the assistance of the First Chicago Corporation. But just a year ago they have established a unique enterprise which focuses not just on optimizing ROI, but also on how ecologically aware each of their companies are. When Henry Kravis from KKR and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) merged just a year ago green matters all of a sudden turned into a mainstream topic. Critical environmental issues like water pollution and exaggerated consumption of water resources feature high on their list of priorities.
In order to implement these goals, they apply a procedure labeled eco-efficiency which involves techniques like optimizing data centers for efficiency, increasing the durability of products, and fuel economy. Efficient though it was the management didn’t see the full benefits of the program until Ken Mehlman, the executive in charge of the Green Portfolio Project, reviewed the project after its first year in operation.
Only at that point did Ken Mehlman notice that practicing eco-efficiency wasn’t solely reducing their environmental impact, but in addition it was helping to save companies a large sum of money. Virtually all of the firms affiliated to Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and Ken Mehlman today are involved in eco-efficiency techniques. Seeing that this group of business concerns is worth $86,000,000,000, you can imagine what an accomplishment this actually is. Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co along with Ken Mehlman are expanding the initial program. The Climate Corps Program administrated by the EDF is just one of these, it heightens awareness of cost-effective, green principles to interns taking a Master’s degree in Business Administration. KKR and Ken Mehlman have made the effort to formulate a package of analytical tools that quantify and manage various resources. With this information available, companies can analyze their day-to-day activities and find out how they can improve while at the same time tracking their progress. Henry Kravis, the KKC, and the Environmental Defense Fund have made going green easier for business organizations all over the world. So, to summarize, these systems have made ecologically friendly business techniques not only viable, but commercially desirable, and their novel ideas are setting a new standard in the high-pressure business world of today.
The revolution in hospitality and air travel was touched off by Mr Nicholas Bredimus, who combined them with the programming world to produce a new way to do business. His CV covers effort-saving computer software, airplane safety developments, and he’s even involved in designing luxury homes.
Anyone could have predicted, though, that given his heritage he was sure to reach distinction. Coming together from many nationalities, his clan traces to Classical times, with his mother’s branch predominantly German and Scottish. Luxembourg and England are home to Bredimus’ paternal line, although the family emigrated in the late nineteenth century. After arriving in America, they still worked hard to climb up the social ladder. Growing up one of seven children, Nicholas had a father employed as a mechanical design engineer, and a mother who earned her living as a practicing nurse. His homes for many years were spread across a number of states; Texas, Arizona, Virginia and Missouri.
After completing his education, he engaged in quite a few prominent posts with many of the most acclaimed and strongest firms in the airline industry. Hughes Airwest, Trans World Airlines (TWA), Republic Airlines - all three would at various times respectively name him VP. An inspired software programmer, Bredimus’ innovations in airline software are arguably his greatest legacy.
He is most recognized for a particular project, namely his aircraft maintenance management computer programs which you’ll now find being used by most air carriers. He went on to develop many other programs for the hotel and airline industries as well, including completely automatic routines to handle flight bookings, used by fifty or more firms, as well as his innovative pc based room reservation software deployed by the hotel industry, the rollout for which took place at more than seven hundred hotels. And next he developed QuikTix, an automated, networked system for ticket sales which stands as a first. Nicholas Bredimus employed these achievements to move into capacities less connected to software design, and we should note that he went on to make a name in these fields as well. Responsible titles with American Express and American Airlines followed, and of course he established his own business seventeen years ago.
Though he has departed from the businesses in which he first knew fame, his abilities are nonetheless still in demand. Now, he designs and builds high priced houses deploying many of the most advanced green technology available. It’s truly astonishing how far zeal will carry you…
A constantly rising number of celebrated entrepreneurs are very enthusiastic about philanthropical work these days. You have in all likelihood heard mention of Mr. Naveen Jain’s name in connection with him being the CEO & co-founder of Intelius, Inc. the predictive intelligence service company. In addition to making the Forbes 400 Richest in America list in 2000, this maverick entrepreneur has gained multiple notable awards, foremost the WSA Industry Achievement Award, the Albert Einstein Technology Medal, and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, to list a small selection. Nevertheless things certainly expand out from there. For Naveen Jain and his relatives are in the same way as impassioned about philanthropy and will seek to give aid wherever possible. The youth of today are doubtlessly our #1 aspiration or the future. This enterprising man regards (and treats) children as the pivotal core of his charity works, and he leverages any occasion available to support them. This, of course, is the main reason why he is persistently using every opportunity he can to offer assistance wherever even remotely workable. Therefore Naveen Jain, his relations and his staff at Intelius have decided to veritably follow up in earnest: they devote their time and effort to charities such as the University Preparatory Academy, the Overlake Service League, and TreeHouse. Of course they hand out magnanimous monetary aid, but most importantly they devote a lot of time and care to the youth who need it the most. Beyond, Mr. Jain gives aid to the Children’s Hospital in an effort to restore children’s health, too.
With Jain being a former student of the Indian Institute of Technology and XLRI Jamshedpur, it comes as no wonder that schooling is an exceedingly important rank within his humanitarian worldview. This also includes campaigns and good causes that run the gamut from neighborhood programs to the global. Therefore Intelius and its CEO are assisting aid agencies and charities such as the Vedic Cultural Center, the Children’s Hospital and the Indian American Education Foundation. Providing for the world’s famished makes for yet another serious litmus test for Jain and his family and to him, it makes not one speck of difference. Although he is conscious that the project of getting food for all the world’s famished is an eminently staggering one, he also understands that the unattainable can indubitably come to be possible if everyone works together. If this entrepreneur actually achieves his goals, there will be a final end to privation and malnourishment everywhere at some point.
You could well be pardoned for believing that as the man in charge of a very flourishing enterprise as well as being an out-and-out family man would leave him with little spare time for philanthropic activities. Yet he makes certain that all of his charitable projects can rely on all the aid he can possibly donate. This earnestly visionary businessman is undeniably way more than merely a business maverick. He is an exceptional citizen and an exceptional community champion.
Judging by the popularity of instant message programs, chat
rooms, and discussion forums, it would seem logical to
conclude that people enjoy interacting with one another in
an almost anonymous, virtual environment. Although people
enjoy the anonymity they still crave attention and
relationships with other people. Sometimes, the internet is
so impersonal, and cold that getting a nice email from an
actual person that doesn’t want your money is almost
exciting.
People especially enjoy interacting with those of similar
interests. Why not use this to the advantage of your
business? Internet marketers don’t usually have anybody in
their lives that shares the same passion. And, as a whole,
Internet marketers are very passionate about what they do
and love discussing it with others who share that same
passion. By creating friendships with other online
marketers in your niche you open yourself up to a world of
possibilities.
The ability to build an alliance with someone powerful and
successful in your field is literally priceless. A lot of
businesses survive on their contacts alone. With a good
contact you open up to joint ventures, exchange of
information and ideas. Affiliate partnerships, market
research, years of experience, links to your site These
friendly contacts, all which are call “alliances,” can
provide you with the leverage that you need, not only to
learn quickly, but to market your product to large
audiences of people fast.
Having an alliance is many times better than just proposing
a joint venture to someone for several reasons. First, a
joint venture proposal to someone you don’t know will be
treated with so much skepticism that your chances are slim
to none. Whereas getting a JV proposal from a trusted
contact whom you have been exchanging emails with regularly
for a couple weeks will get much more consideration.
Building up a friendly alliance with someone online is a
lot like making friends in the real world. People don’t
like to be badgered, they don’t like know it alls, they
don’t like back-stabbers, they don’t like needy people, and
they don’t like it if you follow them around and use up
their time.
It is recommended contacting someone for the first time via
a short email. Compliment their site, explain who you are,
and then ask them a simple question that wouldn’t
compromise their business. This way, you won’t use up too
much of their time but your inquiry demands a response.
When they email you back, follow a similar format but offer
more information about yourself. Write a longer email. Try
to keep a volley going back and forth and after a while see
if they have an IM name. Infuse your emails with your
personality and become curious about them, their
motivations, and their life. Before long, you will have a
friendly business contact with someone that could pay off
in infinite ways.
Getting business alliances to promote your product Before
seeking to ask a business alliance for any favors, such as
blasting your ad their list. You must already have a
powerful, proven sales process in place before you seek
their counsel and/or assistance. Do not become overzealous
and assume that someone has the same belief and passion for
your product as you do. All too often we become prideful
and think that our product is the best when, in fact,
others do not share the same appreciation. If you are
seeking to have someone with a big list send out an
advertisement for you product you would have to be careful
in how you went about it.
Someone with a big list and a successful business is, most
likely, busy. They probably get hundreds of emails a day.
Unless your proposal is credible and attractive to them it
will not get consideration. The majority of people and
especially entrepreneurs are cautious by nature. They will
not undertake a joint venture unless you can prove that you
can make them money, that you are reliable, and that your
product will not tarnish their reputation. Make sure that
you don’t waste their time. Don’t insult them with a hyped
up sales pitch about how much money they can make if they
sell your product. If you are trying to get them to mail
something to their list about your product include
statistics, documentation, and, if possible, your actual
product.
Find an ad that pulls extremely well, through testing. Know
the conversion ratio and have everything documented. Let
them know that you are legitimate and that you are selling
a high quality product. Nobody wants to get involved with
someone who is going to tarnish their reputation. Give them
specific, documented conversion statistics from similar
advertising campaigns Make sure and state what is in it for
them. Are they going to get a share of your backend
profits? Are you going to sell their product to your list?
Tell them that promotions for your product have been going
well.
Tell them that your particular ad converts at a specific
ratio. Tell them that you think they should give it a shot.
You do, of course, want to be sure that what you are
recommending will turn out to be profitable for them.
Otherwise, they won’t ever work with you again. And don’t
just pop this sales pitch out of no where or the person
will feel used. It might be a good idea only to mention the
idea and then if they sound interested fill them in with
the details.
You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter on
your web site as long as the byline is included and the
article is included in it’s entirety. I also ask that you
activate any html links found in the article and in the
byline. Please send a courtesy link or email where you
publish to: support@multiplestreammktg.com
Copyright 2005
Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow
their business fast, and without spending a fortune in marketing and automation. http://www.realbusinessleads.com
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“Fear not to entertain strangers for by so doing some have entertained angels unaware.”
This quotation is from the book of Hebrews, which means it probably has nothing to do with networking.
Or does it?
Networking is the process of sharing knowledge, helping others, and developing mutually beneficial relationships. Serendipity is the lucky tendency to find interesting or valuable things by chance. Mix the two forces, and you’ve got a sure-fire formula to boost your business.
Now, I understand the Catch-22: if it’s serendipity, how can you plan it? Well, you’re right - you can’t. But you can do a few things to be more aware of it and prepare yourself to leverage it.
What is Serendipity Networking?
First and foremost, serendipity networking is unexpected. You never know whom you’re going to meet! So don’t discount the power of each person to affect your business or even your life. For example, the birth of my career was a direct result of the “Start Conversations with Random People on the Bus Who Happen to Know the Editor of a Major Newspaper Theory.” Works every time!
Secondly, being at the right place at the right time is good; but being at the wrong place at the wrong time can be better. I once attended a small group discussion under the impression that the speaker was a certain author, only to realize I had read the flyer incorrectly - the author wasn’t coming at all. When I learned who the actual facilitator was, I was initially disappointed. I then realized how much she and I had in common, and now I’m happy to say we’re great friends and colleagues who share information and ideas on a frequent basis!
Next, serendipity networking is powerful. I mean REALLY powerful. How many times have you met a valuable contact and said, “Wow! The planets must have been aligned tonight!” “The Gods have smiled down upon me!” or “What are the odds of meeting someone as perfect as her?”
World renowned speaker, author, and my friend Carol Weisman experienced the power of serendipity networking years ago. She was giving a speech at a conference that unfortunately conflicted with a concurrent session by Dr. Steven Covey. Obviously, attendance was low, but Carol didn’t care. She did her absolute best and blew the audience away - all six of them. At the end of her speech she announced, “And now, I’m going to do something that Steven Covey would NEVER do - I’m going to take my entire audience out to lunch!”
Little did she know that a member of her audience worked for PBS. Five seasons of a hit program and a Telle Award later, Carol understood the power of serendipity networking.
Warning Signs That Networking is in the Air
Do you see the same person time and time again at similar meetings and events? Great! You are experiencing “Networking Dejavu,” and it’s not an accident. This is a person with whom you obviously share common interests. So go talk to him! There’s a good chance you can help each other.
Have you ever walked away from a coffee shop, bar, store, gym, church, mailbox, park, train, street corner, or bus and said to yourself, “Thank God I had one of my business cards with me today!” What a great feeling! Remember, chance encounters like these may be more valuable than you think.
Did you recently have a business conversation that contained the words, “A friend of a friend,” or, “I don’t know how I ended up at your website, but…”? Perfect. Localize this connection; then generate mutually valuable information and CPI’s (Common Points of Interest).
A person called, emailed, wrote, or contacted you because “something made her think of you.” This should set off an alarm. Discover what associations were made so you can learn how to recreate that tipping point in the future.
7 Serendipity Networking Tips
1. Talk to everybody. We are conditioned not to talk to strangers, but some people enter our lives and change them forever.
2. Be nice and help people. Reciprocity is an inherent human need. Go out of your way to extend kindness, friendliness, and assistance to everyone - they are likely to pay you back. Possibly by giving you millions of dollars.
3. Keep a list of your “People Collection.” (In an non-crawl-space-under-the-deck kind of way) Whether you use a journal, database software, or bar napkins, make sure you write down the names of every person you meet - not just business contacts. You never know when, 6 months down the road, an idea will pop into your head and you’ll need to call someone.
4. Get out there. Make a weekly/monthly networking plan. Serendipity networking has a lot to do with being at the right place at the right time. And although you can’t create serendipity, you can certainly put yourself in a position to grab it when it crosses your path.
5. Always have business cards. Always. Most of your networking won’t occur between Monday and Friday from 9-5. So remove the following phrase from your vocabulary: “I don’t have any of my business cards with me right now.” No excuses. Unexpected conversations are the stuff serendipity networking is made of.
6. Always have something free to give away. People like free stuff. They also like to show it to other people.
7. Wear your nametag. A person’s name is the single context of human memory most apt to be forgotten. So, at a meeting or event when you’re given the chance to remind someone who you are - do it. They’ll thank you by approaching you. And possibly by giving you millions of dollars.
Luck is Not a Word
For effective serendipity networking, remember the three L’s: Listen, Localize, and Leverage.
Listen: the most important communication tools you own are your ears. Keep them open for iceberg statements - key phrases under which 90% of the remaining important information awaits.
Localize: If you’ve ever been stricken with food poisoning, the first thing you always do - after chugging the bottle of Pepto - is localize your sickness. Serendipity networking is the same way. Retrace your steps and discover where the rock created the ripple.
Leverage: After you’ve identified which person, event, situation, letter, gossip, or bathroom stall writing was responsible for the spark and development of a mutually valuable relationship - make a mental note. Hell, make a post-it note! Do anything that will remind you of the chain of valuable events so in the future you can put yourself in a position where it is likely to happen again.
Serendipity networking takes time. As the definition says, it means a lucky tendency to find interesting or valuable things by chance. Now, you can’t make it happen. But you CAN make yourself more aware of the warning signs and more accessible to that which fortuitously affects you. And even if you really DO think it’s all about luck, remember: L.U.C.K is an acronym for Laboring Under Correct Knowledge.
© 2005 All Rights Reserved.
Scott Ginsberg is a professional speaker, “The World’s Foremost Expert on Nametags” and the author of HELLO my name is Scott and The Power of Approachability. He helps people MAXIMIZE their approachability and become UNFORGETTABLE communicators - one conversation at a time. For more information contact Front Porch Productions at http://www.hellomynameisscott.com.
Have you received one of these lately?
Dear FirstName:
I have been using YetAnotherSocialNetworkingService to keep track of my professional contacts. Since you and I know each other so well, we should connect and share each other’s networks.
or
FirstName:
I’m updating my address book. Please take a moment to update your latest contact information. Your information is stored in my personal address book and will not be shared with anyone else. SuperMegaHackableDirectoryService is free, private and secure if you’d like to give it a try.
Did you immediately accept? Or did you let it languish in your in box for awhile before deciding to either delete it or do something about it? If you’re typical, then the first two or three of these you received were intriguing and you signed right up, but by the time you receive 10, 20, 50 nearly identical messages, you start to get jaded, and the canned messages simply don’t have the same impact.
Similarly, have you ever had the experience of getting into someone’s sequential autoresponder — a program that sends a series of predetermined emails, usually either daily or weekly? Have you started to get seemingly personalized messages, but when you try to get through to them in person, you can’t?
How did that make you feel? And would you ever wish that on someone else?
According to Robin Dunbar’s research, as popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and Duncan Watts’ Six Degrees, the human brain is only capable of handling about 150 close social relationships. That’s approximately the number of people for whom we can remember their name, their face, where we met them, our last conversation with them, and other details. As Dunbar put it, “It’s the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.” For most professionals, a network of a mere 150 direct contacts, including friends and family, would be woefully insufficient to support you in achieving your business goals. But our brains simply can’t handle more than that.
And so we turn to technology — distributed cognition. We use our computers to expand our processing power and storage capacity. Unfortunately, in so doing, many people lose track of the human element. They forget that the technology is meant to assist us in dealing with larger numbers of relationships, not to replace interpersonal interaction. Designers of social networking tools failed to understand this early in the design process. As a result, there is now some backlash against many of these tools and, to some extent, the people who continue to use them in this manner.
Fortunately, most of the social networking companies have now figured this out and are shifting away from the canned messages. LinkedIn and ZeroDegrees have both added half a dozen or so different templates from which you can choose. Of course, one of them is still the default, and most people will simply accept the default without changing it. That’s a big mistake if you want your invitations to not only be accepted, but to actually help build the relationship.
The first thing you have to do is get the right frame of mind about why you’re using technology to help you manage your relationships. It is not so you can pretend to a larger number of people that you care about them when you really don’t. It’s so you can treat more people who you really do care about as you would like to treat them, if only your brain were capable.
This is not supposed to be a tool for mass marketing; it’s simply a way of sustaining a lot more relationships with a little less effort.
Here are some of the practical ways to apply this:
Master email merge.
Many people do not realize that this is a built-in function in Microsoft Word, most other word processors, and many email programs. For people who you truly have an established relationship with, mastering mail merge can be a huge time-saver. Besides the obvious things like basic contact information, store data about your contacts that allows you to really personalize your messages, such as a phrase that complete the sentence, “As you may recall, we met … .” For example, we suggest sending out a holiday greeting like,
Dear…,
Happy New Year to you and Carlos! How is the baby?
I have attached below a brief summary (admittedly canned) of the latest news in our life, along with our new home phone number at the end. If any of your contact details have changed, please mail me. In fact, we’d love to hear from you regardless, just to catch up!”
Segment your database.
Store information that will allow you to easily send messages to small groups of people:
- All the people in a city you are going to visit (”Hi, I’m going to be in NYC next week and would love to see you if you have some time free.”)
- Everyone who shares a particular personal interest of yours (”I saw this article in Fast Company. I thought you might be interested in.”)
- People of a particular political, religious, or ethnic affiliation (”Happy St. Patrick’s Day!”)
Customize your social networking invitations.
Even with the new choices, tweak the default text to make it personal. Even better, segment your invitations. For example, send one invitation to people in your executive club saying, “I know we have the directory for connecting with each other, but by joining this site, we can help each other even better by leveraging our extended relationships.”
Write every group message as if you were writing it to just one person.
This is a great lesson from the Internet marketing gurus. An email from Mark Joyner will have you convinced that he really is personally expecting to see you at the next big Internet marketing convention. Think of one person in the group you’re writing to, and write the email as if it were just to them.
Review everything by hand before it goes out.
Automated data will do wacky (and often embarrassing) things. Scott recently received a contact update request from a close friend that showed his name as “Scott Guide”, because Scott’s About.com email account has his name listed as “Scott Allen, About.com Entrepreneurs Guide”. Or you may accidentally send a message that says “I haven’t seen you in a while” to someone you just saw yesterday. If you set your mail merge to not automatically send, you can go through and tweak individual messages to fit the particular situation.
Don’t send automated contact update requests.
Instead, send a personal update message with a contact update request incidental to it. Consider the possibilities:
- The contact info you have is correct, in which case it’s a pointless nuisance to ask them for an update.
- Their email is inaccurate, in which case you’re not reaching them anyway.
- Their email is accurate, but the other info you have isn’t. In this case, you can reach them via email, and if you need their phone number, you can probably track it down.
A better approach is just to send out a personal update once or twice a year — what’s going on in your personal life, maybe a business highlight or two, and ask them to send you their updated info in reply.
You’ll notice that this approach requires you to get a fair amount of information about the people in your network, as well as some time to manage it effectively. If you’re trying to create an anonymous mailing list, there are ways to do that, but that’s not how you build strong one-on-one relationships. If you want more than 150 strong relationships, you have to make sure you don’t make them feel like a number.
David Teten and Scott Allen are coauthors of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, the first guide to winning friends and influencing clients with online networks, and joint contributors to the companion resource site and blog. They write a monthly column for FastCompany.com, where this article originally appeared, and are contributing authors to Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business and Culture.
David Teten is CEO of Nitron Advisors, a securities research firm providing institutional investors with direct access to industry experts. To participate in paid consulting opportunities, join Nitron’s Circle of Experts. Scott Allen is the About.com Entrepreneurs Guide, providing free resources and guidance to help entrepreneurs as they start and grow their business.
