MJ Ryan, the famed author of AdaptAbility, This Year I Will…, Attitudes of Gratitude among other best selling titles is speaking at our main meeting. She is the queen of “change”, allowing yourself to take those steps to make yourself a better person, better business person, or take your life to the next level. You have been asking for highly touted authors and this month gives you the chance to meet this wonderful woman in person. Come join us at the main monthly meeting this month.
Register Here

By: mfrank

How often do you get to pick the brain of a highly accomplished corporate attorney for free? Come join us at Michael’s at Shoreline this Thursday evening to learn more about California corporation law, business transactions and how you to make sure your business is set up in the best way for you and your clients. Katie Phetteplace, Esq. of Starr Finley LLP in San Francisco has an LLM in Taxation and specializes in corporate formation and corporate transactional matters. Be sure to bring questions about your business and we will try and get them answered.

https://www.kintera.org/AutoGen/Register/ECReg.asp?ievent=338210&en=otJSLYMII9LKK5PNLaKKI2MNLpL5LdOLKkI0K4OGJbISL5POIxG

By: mfrank

Our Workshops team has put together an awesome Social Media Workshop this next Monday in Santa Clara. This workshop is not a repeat of last years content but focused towards people at all stages of social media proficiency to help them learn to utilize, socialize, and monetize their business online. Come join us for this great presentation.

https://www.kintera.org/AutoGen/Register/Register.asp?ievent=422806&en=eqIDITNFIbKKL0OuH6IILQMCKkJLJTOCIeLLJ5NHLdKNKVPzFiKRK3PALhJ3F

By: mfrank

Meet Katie Phetteplace, Esq. Partner at Starr Finley, LLP this month to discuss the impact your company’s formation can have on it’s growth, taxation, as well as your overall success. Consultants face a unique challenge in choosing what type of business to form, Katie will help you navigate the options in a simple way that will allow you to leave ready to take action.
Come join us this month at 6:30 pm at Michael’s at Shoreline in Mountain View to learn more or sign up at: https://www.kintera.org/AutoGen/Register/ECReg.asp?ievent=338210&en=egLDLTOFJbJKI0PuH6LILQMCJjLLI0NCJ9KGJZMHLdJLITOtE9LKKUNvEhI3F

By: mfrank

Do you remember the pit in your stomach that would form when you faced test questions in school that you couldn’t answer? Maybe you felt anxiety as you glanced at peers who were busily writing or turning the pages of the test while you stared at your page, feeling helpless.

Perhaps you wrote answers that were part fact, part educated guess, in the hopes of getting partial credit.

Or maybe you whizzed through, only realizing near the end that half your answers were wrong because you had repeated the same incorrect assumption.

Figuring out how to use social media to promote your brand and expertise to generate bottom line business results shouldn’t be a best guess or leave you feeling lost or anxious. Neither is it wise to breeze along assuming that what you’re doing is right. Least of all, you shouldn’t avoid it because it’s too daunting or assume that social media doesn’t really matter to your business.

The truth is, social media is here to stay. The strategies, techniques and tools will undoubtedly evolve over time, but the bottom line is that you need to be in the game and need to know how to play it well before you fall critically behind.

The May 17 workshop, “Generating Business Via Social Media,” is designed to give you a comprehensive and in depth understanding of how to develop an integrated marketing strategy that incorporates social media and how to use the three big social networking sites—Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook—properly and optimally.

At the end of this intense six-hour workshop, you will have the knowledge to develop and execute a sensible social media strategy for your business. If you already have one, this workshop will help you calibrate your efforts. Six hours of time for that kind of payoff. I think it’s well worth the investment.

This will be a hands-on and interactive session. I highly recommend that you establish an account on each of these sites if you haven’t already done so, bring your laptop and be prepared with questions you want to ask our expert presenters. The speakers will provide several demos and are prepared to dynamically adjust their presentations to address your knowledge level, questions and issues.

Topics to be covered include:

• Characteristics and challenges of social media channels

• How to develop an integrated marketing approach and utilize social media for your business

• Developing a targeted approach for finding the right people to follow on Twitter and generating the right followers

• Strategies for what to tweet and when

• Best tools for organizing Twitter activity and measuring success in meeting your business goals

• What it takes to have a complete LinkedIn profile

• How to strategically build out your network, successfully connect with people and establish trust

• The best LinkedIn tools and how to use them

• How to build a company profile

• How to build your online group—groups and answers

• What Facebook can and can’t do for your business

• Differences among Facebook personal profiles, groups and fan pages, and which makes most sense for your business.

• Best practices for fan pages

• Understanding the Facebook newsfeed algorithm and why it’s so critical

• How to integrate and leverage social media channels

Please don’t miss this opportunity to prepare your business to pass the social media test.

Sign up now. Register at the Kintera web site by May 1 to receive the early-bird discount.

By: mfrank

Networking Etiquette

Women in Consulting is a great place to network to meet potential clients, friends, and referrals. But let’s be honest, we’ve all had days after a meeting where we get bombarded with well… SPAM. Here are a few rules of etiquette that I suggest for those attending WIC Events, or any networking environment similar to our meetings.

1. Just because you got someone’s card doesn’t mean you have permission to SPAM them.
While it is true that the CAN- Spam Act (see http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm)
allows you to contact people once you have received their information by personal means, this does not mean that you should. Bombarding people with your newsletters, personal rants, or marketing attempts does not endear you to your fellow WIC members or motivate them to hire you or refer you.

Due to the nature of our table networking, you collect cards from a number of other individuals at the meetings. This does not, however, necessarily mean that they are interested in your services or want to receive marketing email from you. If you feel that you made a real personal or professional connection, feel free to add them to your email marketing list. But if you made no personal or professional connection, don’t add them to your list.

2. Don’t sell, transfer, or aggregate WIC email and contact information and pass it on. I don’t believe this has been an issue, but just in case, I’d like to remind everyone to please respect the privacy of our members and do not pass on contact information to people that may utilize it for any other reason than they requested a referral.

3. Represent yourself! Networking is all about first impressions. Make sure you’re bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to talk about what you are doing and why. Make sure that you don’t hog the networking time. You don’t want to look selfish or self-important.  What you do want is to act interested in other people. And I should scarcely need to remind you that you should dress like you’re meeting a client for the first time—because it’s just possible that you might!

By: mfrank