Remember at the beginning of 2009 when Obama was in his first 100 days of office and expectations were so high?  At that time I decided to see how much I could accomplish in 100 days by concentrating my efforts on my new book “Turn Your Business Card Into Business.” Well that 100 days set the groundwork for a number of activities which have carried me through to the present day. So the message is short. Spurts of concentrated effort can pay long term dividends.

Here is my new concentrated effort. My plan is to make an effort to meet 100 new people in the next 50 days. I may achieve the goal a little sooner or a little later. That’s what we will see. I plan to blog about my activities here and introduce readers to the people I meet and just see where this leads. We are all out networking to some degree, but I want to illustrate what we might learn from a concentrated effort.

 I am going to give myself a leg up and begin April 27^th and continue until June 16^th. I have no rules about this, we’ll just let it progress. I’ll be happy to get your feedback as I go along. You can even help me out if you want to introduce me to someone or suggest an event I should attend. Updates may be daily or every other day depending on my activity.

The beginning:

 Day 1 April 27, 2010. I wanted to start with this because it shows there are a lot of ways to network. Today I met (1) Joe Corroccio of AuthorsRoost via the phone. One of my book video clients Beverly Flaxington author of “Understanding Other People” mentioned that she had an article featured there. So I checked it out and liked what Joe was doing with his podcasts and contacted him. After a fairly lengthy conversation we found there is indeed a synthesis between our two author related websites and we are currently exploring ways to joint venture.

 Day 2 April 28, 2010. I had lunch today with (2) Jim Kepler of Adams Press  .  Jim and I had both attended a meeting of the Midwest Writers Assn and happened to begin chatting as we were both walking out the door of Hackney’s in Glenview where the meeting took place. We stopped and exchanged cards and agreed to follow up. We did, and that culminated in lunch at a restaurant in Rogers Park. We learned a lot about each other and I believe that this might well be as Bogey said in Casablanca, “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

In the early evening I attended a networking gathering of a the Linked N Chicago Group which as you might have guessed was bunch of folks who use the LinkedIn social media tool. It seemed like a good chance to maybe meet face-to-face some of the people I have met (or not) online. I brought my buddy Bob Solomon along who is the relentless promoter of Video Catnip a video designed to provide your cat with hours of television enjoyment. The meeting was held at the 33 Club on Wells Street in “Old Town” and just a few blocks away from my wife’s piano studio.  So Julie joined us towards the end of the event.  One of the first people I spoke with was (3) Mary McFarlin, IT management, and this meeting’s hostess. Mary mentioned that she is part of a kind of networking meeting organizer’s alliance which may be of benefit to my businesscardtobusiness networking group, we’ll follow up on that.  A related contact was (4) Jonathan a marketing research expert who might be a good speaker at one of my upcoming networking meetings. (5) Ricca Slone provides legal services and has already invited me to another networking event next week at Ann Sather’s Retaurant in LakeView.

(6)Sara, (7) David, and (8) John were job seekers. Sara is looking for work as a meeting planner I was able to give her a lead with (PMPN) Professional Meeting Planners Network. David was a very nice guy seeking a marketing management position with a NFP.  I was able to introduce him to a friend who is an accountant specializing in not-for-profit organizations. John is looking for a VP leadership position with a software firm. (9) Shane is a hair stylist at SWERVE next door to the restaurant. I have 20% OFF coupons if you’re interested. I directed him and his associates to my blog article right here about how to promote your hair salon or spa.  (10) Susan Carter is a sales associate with Caldwell Banker and we spoke about the possibility of my creating a video for her website. The last person I spoke with was (11) Brad DeSent, President of Apex Consulting Group. His firm provides “cloud computing” solutions for small and large firms. I noticed on his website that they are offering a Lunch and Learn Seminar, “What does Cloud Computing Mean for My Business?” at Walker Brothers Original Pancake House in Lincolnshire, June 23^rd. Check out the details on their website.

Okay so I have begun my quest by meeting eleven new people, only eighty-nine more to go. I will blog about it here and give a shout out to as many as I can. In this way you too can benefit from my networking and by doing so we can cast a wider net.

We have a monthly networking meeting in Chicago that gathers at the Atlantic Grill on North Lincoln Ave (near Foster) the last Tuesday of every month.  This month’s meetup was a lively and interesting discussion about business issues affecting business owners on the far north end of Chicago as well as Evanston, Wilmette and the North Shore led by two graduate students from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. They are covering the business beat in that area. However we did share ideas about marketing and business growth as well as some SEO and online tactics as well. To learn the details of this networking opportunity visit our page at www.meetup.com/businesscardtobusiness we have over one hundred registered members.