St Mary Parish of Milford, CT

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Job Search Support Group Update - Oct 20

Greetings!

A special thanks to all of you that attended the second meeting. I also want to thank Jim Hedges from coming up from lower Fairfield County to be our guest speaker. 

Although we didn't have quite as many people on Tuesday as we did at the first meeting, this group was very engaging and there were some good ideas and feedback from the meeting.

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It appears that I found a guest speaker for the November Meeting. I won't reveal who it is just yet because I want to include a bio and other information when I do. But she is an HR exec. I've worked with her in the past and she is excellent!

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Please return to this website blog once or twice a week. I'm going to try and post at least twice a week.

Thanks for visiting,
Andy

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Overcoming the Word-of-Mouth Flaw!

Greetings!

Word of Mouth is flawed! 

I was flabbergasted when I first heard this point of view about of word-of-mouth. Tom Gay, a business development and business growth expert brought this to my attention. 

Tom is an entrepreneurial guru who heads a forward thinking internet company called 22Touch. 22Touch is a powerful system that gives its users the tools to build successful and productive relationships. 22Touch helps build relationships that not only last, but also transforms those relationships into successful networks through referrals. Here is a link to 22Touch.

Click this link to go to 22Touch

So what am I talking about? You may be thinking that word-of-mouth is the best advertising vehicle in any marketplace. 

By way of an explanation, consider the following.

Rod is talking to Mike. Rod tells Mike, 'You know you really should sign-up for Andy's Saturday one day course on Marketing. I took the course and it was excellent.' 

Mike replies, 'I think I'll do that, I've been looking for a course like that. Thanks for the information.'

This is an abbreviated version of a classic word-of-mouth conversation. Conversations like this happen almost daily in our lives. But what's missing? 

Here is the missing link. I'm Andy and even though I stand to benefit from the word-of-mouth encounter of the two friends, I'm out of the loop. I have a great chance for a new customer and I don't even know it! 

I appreciate's Rod's efforts but I'm missing one vital piece of the puzzle. I'm missing Mike's contact information. 

I need to train the people in my network how to give back to me. It sounds a bit self centered. But it is a necessary step to help make my referrals really count. 

So how do you do this? It is very simple. When the people in your network refer someone to you, ask them to provide you the name, phone number and email address of the person they referred.

Now the referral is in your hands and you can follow-up. You can now take action and increase the chances of gaining a new customer or in the case of your job search, add another viable contact.

Good contacts are like gold in a job search and you want to do everything possible to build your network. After all, odds are that you'll find your next job through your network!

Thanks for visiting,
Andy