John Strauss at High Point Market, Spring 2012

Linking Triad attended the Spring 2012 High Point Furniture Market. We met John Strauss through Twitter in 2011. We’re very impressed with his sustainable approach to furniture design. We think you will be as well.

John Strauss, furniture designer
http://www.straussfurniture.com/

Top 5 Piedmont Triad Resources for Small Business Owners

When it comes to owning your own business, finding resources that actually help you succeed without requiring a huge investment of time or money are rare.

This list is meant to inspire business owners to think outside of the box when it comes to what may not be traditional resources to most.

Help to a small business owner comes in many forms.

1) Ed Mckay’s Book Store – Learning about your industry and where you can grow your business is crucial to making the changes you need to survive. Ed McKay’s is one of my favorite places to invest in books for my business library. I can stay in my budget and come out with an amazing selection of books that keep me up to date, inspired and focused on success.

2) Habitat Restore – Whether you are building your home office or furnishing one off site, Piedmont Triad area Habitat Restore Store outlets are a great place to shop for chairs, desks and any thing else you may need to make your space work ready. Not only do you save money – you also support a great cause!

3) Public Library – The public library is an amazing community resource. You can take computer classes, access their premium business databases, receive planning consultations as well as receive direction in career development. It is as simple as contacting your local business librarian.

4) Board of Advisers – Having a trusted Board of Advisers that you can turn to as you make decisions for your small business will help you grow and learn faster that going it alone. It’s recommended to include people that are outside your area of expertise so that you can learn from their unique perspective and see the bigger picture of where your business can grow. Inc.com has an amazing article on How to Assemble a Board of Advisers.

5) Attend Local Social Events – Professional Networking and Educational Groups that offer FREE memberships such as Linking Greensboro and Linking Winston Salem are great examples. They offer social events that share the best and brightest from in and around the Triad on a regular basis. Not only to you get to network with other area professionals and small business owners – for the price of lunch, you get to learn from Triad’s brightest leaders who speak on a wide range of topics. They also offer networking online via Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin Groups – so even if you can’t make their events, you can still connect and benefit both personally and professionally!

—-

As a small business owner, what have been your top 5 resources to grow your company?

What resources have you discovered that are free or have little to no cost to you and your company?

7 Tips for Organizing Your Finances

Dr. Dorothy Merchant of SImple Solutions Professional Organizers

Dr. Dorothy Merchant of SImple Solutions Professional Organizers

This past week I had the pleasure of learning from Dr. Dorothy Merchant of Simple Solutions Professional Organizers    at a Linking Greensboro Luncheon.

Dr. Merchant shared tips from one of her posts : 7 Tips for Organizing Your Finances.

She not only encouraged us to discover our spending triggers (we all have them!) but she encouraged us to understand the importance of knowing what our expenses are each month and setting a saving plan in place.

Ideally we should all have 3-6months worth of living expenses saved in case of emergencies as well as a stocked pantry that can feed your family for a few months if need be!

The great advice offered that could help you change your financial future?  Have a clear picture of your current financial situation,  create a spending plan for each pay check and save consistently.

One of the highlights of her presentation was pointing out how much we all spend on food each week. A simple exercise she shared was to make 3-4 columns on a sheet of paper with the headings of meats/fish or fruit, vegetables, grains. Under each of these headings quickly write down 5 of your favorite things to eat under each category. . . read each line across from each category and voila! You now have a whole weeks worth of dinners.

What are ways you and your family save money?

 

 

Visiting the Piedmont Triad

There are many reasons visitors come the the Piedmont-Triad.

 

High Point Market | The World’s Home for Home Furnishings

Wyndham Championship

Piedmont Triad International Airport

 

Why do you love visiting the Triad?

Social Media: How Much Time Do You Spend Online?

I recently posed a question to via Facebook asking, on average, how much time people spend online per week on social networks.

Here are the results thus far. . .

It’s not surprising that the majority of those polled responded with 5+ hours per week. Many citing that there should have been another choice of 11+ hours.

A few who responded are online because of the nature of their business. But to me, that is irrelevant. As a wired society we are all spending more and more time ‘plugged in’, and it will be interesting to see the new usage statistics come out for 2011.

As we all have seen, so much can happen in very short period of time on the web. Case in point : Google+ Growth Rate Shattering Competition. Yep, you read right – it took Google+ only twenty-four days to reach twenty million users. 24 days.

Just a year ago shared in a Mashable post that Social Networking Dominates Our Time Spent Online. Adam mentions that 2010 stats from Nielsen show that sites like Facebook and Twitter account for 22.7% of time spent on the web. And a  2010 study by comScore Media,  shows that the average American spent 32 hours per month on the Internet.

As with any study there will be a ‘heavy users’ group where a small percentage make up the majority of time spent online and since the number of mobile-only households overtook the number of landline-only households in 2009, that means that the average time spent online on sites like twitter, facebook, and now google+, will continue to grow as the global internet penetration rate continues to climb.

Currently 56% of Americans Check Online News Daily with 24% going to four or more unique online news sites daily. Think about it. Where do you get your news? Do you read an article shared by a Facebook friend? How about click a link while you’re on Twitter? The way information travels to us is through our networks. Who we follow, fan or watch.

Check out these 20+ Mind-blowing social media statistics: One year later. It really puts in perspective how much the internet and social media has changed our personal lives and the way we do business.

While researching for this post, I found this Press Release dated 2002, July 12 : Carnegie Mellon Study Reveals Negative Potential of Heavy Internet Use on Emotional Well Being
Though it’s 9 years old, it poses questions and concerns that are still relevant today. How much is too much? Are you monitoring your children’s time spent online? Are you substituting online relationships for interaction with family and close friends?
So how many hours do you spend online per week?
Where do you spend most of your time online? Email, Social Media, Games, Movies or News?
Do you “unplug” on a regular basis?


Top Ten Linkedin Howto’s

  1) LinkedIn How-Tos from Dave Taylor « Linked Intelligence

2) LinkedIn SuperGuide -Tutorials, Tips and Tools

3) LinkedInHow-To Help and Videos – For Dummies

4) Get Ahead on LinkedIn – Wired How-To Wiki

5) Tutorial: How-to Add/Embed Video On A LinkedIn Profile Page

6) How To Merge Multiple Profiles On LinkedIn

7) How to Remove a LinkedIn Connection | Peak Profits

8) 10 ways reporters can use LinkedIn to find sources, track changes at companies

9) HOW TO Optimize Company LinkedIn Profiles for Search & Lead Conversion

10) How to Use LinkedInHow To Information | eHow.com

What HowTo’s Have helped you use LinkedIn more effectively?

How much time do you spend on LinkedIn on average per week?

 

Goals and Their Impact on Your Success

If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.  – Lou Holtz

 

If you don’t know who Lou Holtz is :: From wikipedia -Holtz is the only college football coach to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to the final top 20 rankings. Holtz also coached the New York Jets of the NFL during the 1976 season.

 

What are your goals?

Reading over Jack Canfield‘s The Success Principles this morning and on page 56 there it was. . . this quote from Lou Holtz. I am no big  sports fan, but could absolutely appreciate the story of what changed his life.

In 1966, after a personal set back, Lou’s wife gave him a copy of The Magic of Thinking Big, by David Schwartz. In this book, David encourages you to write down all of the things you want to accomplish in your life. This simple act would change Lou’s life and help him make history. By owning his goals and having a daily reminder of what he wanted to do – Lou was able to achieve nearly all 107 goals he set for himself.

As I continued to read about Bruce Lee’s letter and Jim Carrey’s check, it was apparent that these success stories all had one thing in common. . . clearly defined goals.

Ask anyone who has achieved success (could be someone you know personally or admire) and they will tell you that having clear goals of what you want in your life is vital. Whether it is writing it in a letter, a journal or on note cards. . . write them down today!

You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming – Jim Rohn.

Do you have clear personal goals?

What goals do you have for your company or career?

How do you stay on track when you hit a roadblock?

Share your success story with us about a personal success you have achieved thanks to your goals.

Business Blogs: Inspiration to Grow Your Audience

After reading over Social Media Examiner’s post on the 10 Top Business Blogs and Why They Are Successful – it made me curious as to what business blogs the leaders in the Piedmont Triad enjoy and why you think they are successful.

We each have different needs as it relates to our professions – but we all have one thing in common when it comes to blogging . . . we want to provide relevant content for our readers and hope that they connect with us and continue to come back and comment.

Some of the best ways to learn how to improve your own business blog is to be a devoted reader of other blogs. It could be a plugin that you discover that could be the missing ingredient, a layout or theme that catches your eye or simply a style of writing that really inspires you.

Here are a few links for inspiration to grow your business blog awareness and your eventually your audience.

The 50 best business blogs – Times Online

Small Business Blogs – Forbes.com Best of the Web

Top 10 Business Blogs for Women | Little Pink Book

Top Business and Entrepreneurship Blogs

Top 10 Business Blogs to Bookmark

 

What are your favorite business blogs to read? Why?

Monday Morning Motivation: Communication

Monday Morning Motivation by David CottrellIf you haven’t picked up the book Monday Morning Motivation – Five Steps to Energize Your Team, Customers and Profits by David Cottrell – it is a must add to your business bookshelf.

Whether you are a small business owner, a mid level manager or a CEO – David will guide you to effectively motivate and energize the way you interact with your business. It takes commitment to become successful and making sure that everyone on your team has the same level of commitment as you is vital to your businesses bottom line.

In chapter 6 we learn that high level employee engagement has a measurable impact on the bottom line. Companies who have a strong internal communications programs are more successful than those who don’t.

Take a look at the top 50 most admired companies. How are they engaging with their own army of brand ambassadors? What are they doing to empower their top performers? How are they keeping their teams motivated and on task?

“The most important element of the communication conductor is to connect the corporate goals and objectives with the activities on your team.”- David Cottrell

 

This brings us to the Monday Morning Discussion questions from page 105 –

  • How often do you as you team for feedback and input? Do you receive it constructively and genuinely listen to the ideas?
  • Do you promote a culture of learning within your team? What additional information and knowledge can you share with team members so they will better understand the business of your business?
  • How can you tear down the walls and create better connections within your team? Between your team and others in the organization?

If you are interested in making your Monday morning meetings meaningful – take time to pick up Monday Morning Motivation, Monday Morning Mentoring and Monday Morning Choices by David Cottrell. His books will change the way you do business.

xxx

How does your company communicate?
Does your company ask for valuable feedback?

 

What company do you look toward for inspiration?

 

 

 

 

Mentors and the Success Principles

I am currently reading Jack Canfield‘s incredibly informative book The Success Principles. This morning I on principle #44: Find a Wing to Climb Under.

The chapter starts off with this quote relating to mentors. . .

“Study anyone who’s great and you’ll find that they apprenticed to a master, or several masters. Therefore if you want to achive greatness, renown, and superlative success, you must apprentice to a master.

Robert Allen, Self made multi-millionaire and coauthor of The One Minute Millionaire.


Here is some great info from Wikipedia on Mentors ::

Today mentors provide expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education, and build their networks. In many different arenas people have benefited from being part of a mentoring relationship, including:

Who was your mentor?

How did having a mentor shape/change your life and career?

Are you a mentor now?


Here are resources about mentoring in the Triad and North Carolina ::

North Carolina Mentoring Partnership

National Mentoring Partnership

SHIELD Mentor Program

UNCG Guarantee Mentor Program

Have additional resources for those interested in becoming a mentor or those in need of one? Please share in in the comments!

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