The Brains of the Outfit

I was speaking to the North Fulton Small Business Owners this morning, who, by the way, are a really fantastic group. Not a huge group, generally 15-20 people, but really dynamic and very networking-savvy. While talking to these folks, I got a question that I’ve been getting quite a lot lately about separating your personal from your professional profiles.

My answer – you can’t.

Sure, it’s technically possible on individual outlets to do it with privacy settings and company pages, but why would you? Some of my best business leads and referrals come from people who, had I decided to try and separate my personal and professional lives, I would have placed in the “personal” category.

Let me offer a couple examples. One of my old high school classmates has connected with me on Facebook. Not an uncommon occurrence, you’re thinking. He’s become a pretty regular reader of this blog, and a fan of Realize on Facebook as well. He has recently connected me with a friend of his who is on the adjunct faculty at Rollins College. She has invited me to speak to her new media class virtually, as a practitioner who isn’t there in Florida, and who has a broad base of geographically dispersed clients across industries. Had my “personal” friend not been as aware of my business, I’d have missed that opportunity.

One other opportunity came in today that started the same way. Another high school classmate, also connected to me on Facebook, has unbeknownst to me, been reading this blog and generally following the activities of Realize. I received an e-mail from him today through the contact form on the Realize Web site. He runs a large seafood business back in my hometown, and is looking to us to help him solve some pretty serious marketing issues. Again, a “personal” contact that resulted in business.

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Yesterday evening was another big first for us – our first official Realize-sponsored event, ‘Food (& Wine!) for Thought’. Knowing that most businesses are in the swing of planning and budgeting for 2010, we wanted to gather a group of business owners and decision makers in the north Atlanta area to share our thoughts on marketing for the upcoming year.
We partnered with a fantastic restaurant in Flowery Branch, GA called Grapes & Hops Bar & Bistro, who was very welcoming and provided a wonderful facility along with great food and drink. Also, Salon Greco in Suwanee attended and very graciously provided all of our guests with gift certificates for free massages or facials.
After a bit of networking and introductions, we all settled in to watch John present a 20-minute slideshow on what we believe are the absolute ‘must-dos’ for marketing your business in 2010. After the slideshow, we all joined in and discussed the challenges of marketing in our current economy, how best to balance traditional and social marketing, brand authenticity, and what to plan for down the road.
We’ve already received quite a bit of favorable feedback from this inaugural event and hope you can join us for the next one! If you’d like to check out the presentation, we’ve also uploaded a PowerPoint version onto our website. Check it out and let us know what you think!

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I presented Using Social Media to Build Your Business to the Roswell, Georgia Kiwanis. Great group, and they had a bunch of future Kiwanis from the Roswell High School Key Club. Definitely a good time. A video excerpt is below:

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Today I had the distinct pleasure of appearing before the Dahlonega Rotary to speak about Using Social Media to create Friendship and Goodwill. I know I had a great time, and I hope they enjoyed the presentation. If you’d like to see it, the video is below.

If you’re a Rotarian and would like to have me give this presentation to your Rotary club, just let me know.

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