Based on John Jantsch’s best selling book of the same name, The Referral Engine workshop, is more than just a meet up. Think of it as a book club for Entrepreneurs! It is a hands on workshop with action items and checklists on things your business should do to leverage word-of-mouth marketing! According to John Jantsch, word- of-mouth referrals are what drive business today. People trust the recommendation of a friend, family member, colleague, or even stranger with similar tastes over anything thrust at them by a faceless company. Most business owners believe that whether customers refer them is entirely out of their hands. But science shows that people can’t help recommending products and services to their friends—it’s an instinct [...]

These days, everybody and their uncle seems to be an expert on social media and networking.  While we’re all talking about Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, not enough is being said about Meetup! Meetup.com was founded in 2001 (long before Facebook!) by Scott Heiferman, Matt Meeker and Peter Kamali.  I first heard about it sometime in 2003.  Most people I knew then were using meetup to connect socially and the groups were unified by a common interest, such as books, games, movies, dinners etc.   I was a busy bay street lawyer at the time and had little time to socialize so after browsing the site a bit, I dismissed it and filed it away. Over the last few years, I [...]

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are becoming increasingly reliant on email, text and bbm as means of communications as opposed to the old fashioned letters, faxes, telephone conversations or face-to-face meetings. There are many reasons for this: 1. It saves time: We can so it quickly and and receive (and sometimes even expect) an instant response to our query. 2. It cuts through the small talk: Your message can be brief and to-the-point and its acceptable. 3. It’s open all hours: The communication revolves around your availability and convenience. If you’re up at 3 am, there’s nothing wrong with firing off that proposal at that hour (even if you know that the other person will only see it [...]