Kicking ASK!!

High on my list of most annoying parts of networking group meetings were the "60 second commercial". This was true for a few reasons:

1. If you meet with the same group of people weekly or even bi-weekly, they become very repetitive.

2. Most people spend time talking about what they do (yawn) as opposed to why they do it (engaging) and for whom they do it (useful info one can use to search their "mental rolodex" for like opportunities)

3. Lots of people have no idea how long 60 seconds is. 60 second commercials that last for over 2 minutes are painful.

4. You can't get much else accomplished with a 60+ person group if everyone takes 60 seconds to introduce themselves.

So you get it, I wasn't fond of 60 second commercials. Compare this knowledge with the fact that we never once hosted a meeting in an elevator (so, no "elevator pitches" and it became critical to do something different.

If you look at point 2 above you see other valuable information people could share. I think passion is important for sure. The challenge is while there are lots of "solopreneurs" on the networking circuit, there are many folks who haven't made the leap yet. Let's face it not everyone does their job for love...yet. So passion couldn't be the focus, at least initially.

It made the most sense to get people to talk about who or what they needed to meet.

When you come to a Motor City Connect meeting you have 15 seconds to tell us:

Your Name
Your Company name
Your Industry (if you're a job seeker you tell us the industry in which you'd want to work)
And the one person, company or idea that if one of the attendees could introduce you to today, would make your month.

HERE is a link to the 5 pieces I have written about the ASK. You will want to read them to have a real KICK ASK.

It's a great system that yields significant results for many people. Mostly because when you're in a group there is bound to be someone with access to what you seek. Sometimes you're describing the person next to you. Other times, you're talking about a person that someone in the room knows well. It's awesome to watch the response someone has when they "have the answer" to someone's ASK. It's hard for us to hide when we are able to help another.

This is from page 1 of my upcoming book entitled "Be connected". I wonder where I got that name?

Be connected-

Terry Bean