Now refocus your attention to your existing network and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Who in your network will play to your strengths?

2. Who will cover your weaknesses?

3. What one person would you like to meet if you could network with anyone in the world? What qualities does that person have? List them and then look for people who have similar qualities.

4. What top three industry leaders does your network listen to the most?

5. What top three leaders in all other industries do they most admire?

6. What if the network you had comprised of only top performers? What qualities would they have? What qualities do you have to would complement theirs?

7. How can you listen better every day? Top-performing networkers are top listeners.

8. Who is one person you know who helps others in the organization above and beyond his or her own work responsibilities?

9. What one thing would you like to be doing or do differently that you are not doing now. (e.g. have great meetings that lead to new business or design a program that comes in under budget and on time).

10. What would it look, sound, feel like to be more successful in your networking?

Any of these questions can be used to get you thinking in ways that will help you take your networking to “the next level.” Please feel free to offer up some answers here. I will also be sharing these with my Networlding Group on LinkedIn. Please join the discussion there also by clicking here.

Reid has kept that question at the center of his life as he continues to grow LinkedIn into an organization that benefits millions allowing them, as he puts it, to become “sofware entrepreneurs.” He illuminates the fact that the working world is changing making every person “somewhat entrepreneurial” especially when one is looking for a job.

Reid, as he has stated in past articles (I read as many of them as I can) has said that he is still trying to get people to realize the day-to-day benefits of LinkedIn. Well, this article pulls Reid’s vision forward just a little more. For me, I see LinkedIn as much more than a software tool for job seekers. I see it as an integral part of building successful careers, businesses and communities. But, of course, it is also incredibly beneficial to job seekers! Stay tuned!

We’re trying to win the 2016 Olympic bid here in town and I can’t think of a better way than to create a retail environment where people can connect with other like-minded and, in Networlding’s case (my company) like-valued individuals. Here you would see concierge, imagine 8 highly trained people–perhaps with masters degrees in Library Science, sitting around a beautiful, U-Shaped Teak Table ready to help you connect online to all the sites (like this one) that would be important to you.

Now imagine that there are computers imbedded in either side of that large front desk. You can see everything that the concierge is doing, easily being able to follow her or his suggestions for your online connection and learning. Continue to imagine now that you can jump into a networking group, one of a dozen or so that is forming around the first floor of the center. Here you can meet others who want to collaborate and brainstorm around ideas and opportunities you have in your head.

You get a simple guide for facilitation or. . . you choose to have a paid facilitator help you leverage your connections and conversations to a new level of effectiveness. You can also get a transcript of the conversation which is recorded (if you choose). The conversation is also (if you choose) mapped online with other conversations to find, yet, other similar and complimentary conversations with others would might like to meet with.

The ultimate aim of these conversations is to create new products, services and career opportunities. The missing piece has and will always be a live person who can help you bridge between high touch and high tech. So will people buy these services? You tell me.

Check out these two web sites - www.edisonnation.com (a site that helps women create and invent products) and www.inventright.com (another wonderful site that also provides information for inventing new products). I spoke with Stephen Key the president of Invent Right. He firmly agreed with me that people can get started to realize success for their lives online, but, imagine how much better life could be if we could accelerate success with live connection and direction.

Are you in? If so, send me an email at melissa@networlding.com and vote “yes” for an innovation center on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Once it’s up, it’s your city’s turn!

Melissa speaks from the heart with warmth and sincerity. She is able to take complex ideas and simplify them so that they are easy to implement immediately. She is able to speak to an audience and communicate with each person as if they were alone and talking one-on-one. She has designed and delivered dozens of customized leadership programs for senior executives and individually coached several hundred more. Winning a consummate speakers award created by a leading, national speakers bureau, Melissa has continued to engage and wow audiences with her creative, tailored presentations. She takes the extra time to thoroughly research her topic and customize her talk to the needs of the audience. 

If you do see something here of interest, please don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call for more information at 312-421-4213.

Leading in Tough Times

With these increasingly difficult times more and more employers are wondering how they can stop their employees from continuing in a downward spiral of negativity. Throughout history, the greatest leaders have found ways to connect with their employees and inspire them to move through negativity, becoming proactive leaders themselves, gaining more success as they build internals networks of support. Melissa will show your audience participants how they can grow strong leadership skills and networks of support in their own organizations, quickly and effectively. 

The topics covered in this talk include:

• How to be right without making people wrong
• Dealing with resistance to change
• The truth about trust
• Listening like a leader
• Developing buy-in and loyalty 
• How to get difficult people engaged and more collaborative
• How to be more approachable
• Managing expectations and emotions 
• Miscommunication and how to handle it
• How to repair relationship damage fast
• Understanding your contributions

Networlding: Creating Success in Our New Networked Society

Building mutually beneficial business relationships today involves so much more than simply exchanging business cards and giving away promotional items. Those in your organization need to form relationships that produce win-win solutions for everyone involved to co-create transformational opportunities such as strategic alliances and new products and services. This process called Networlding, is a system that shows you how to build and leverage a more powerful and successful network that shares better information, knowledge, leads and referrals to create truly transformational opportunities.

People with complimentary values serve as Networlding partners who help you achieve your goals as you help them achieve theirs, cutting down sales cycels by upwards of 50%. Learn the powerful yet simple Networlding process from nationally renowned author, Melissa Giovagnoli, as she shares with you fast, effective strategies for thriving in today’s new Networlding society.

Word of Mouth Marketing Through Networlding

How do you build a network that will double your sales success? You must know how to reach those who are influential in their respective networks and then provide an easy, consistent and expanding process to turn those relationships into sales.

After more than twenty years helping people learn the power of Networlding or what Melissa calls “The Network Effect” you will learn the marketing strategies that will finally get the results that you deserve.

Questioneering:A Better Way to Innovate

Innovation is necessary to success but how do you make it happen in your organization more easily? Try using Melissa’s process she created with co-author, Dick Whitney in their best-selling book, 75 Cage Rattling Questions to Change the Way You Work! These presentations are fully interactive, fun and engaging. Your employees or association members will learn not just what to do but how to ask better questions to get better answers for business growth and innovation. Sal Marino, chairman emeritus of Penton Media, Inc. and a top columnist had this to say about the Questioneering process, “Melissa Giovagnoli and Dick Whitney are my kind of people. They’re out of the box, off the wall and out of this world.”