October is International Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast Cancer Awareness is one of the most successful campaigns that I have ever experienced and offers everything from the ridiculous to the sublime. Where else can a man say “I Love Boobs” and NOT get his face slapped or reported for sexual harassment?

What makes the Breast Cancer Campaign so successful is that most everyone knows someone that has been directly or indirectly impacted by the loss of someone from this disease and is touched by their story. From a business and marketing stand point there’s lots to learn from this example.

1. Your message has to touch people deeply.
2. Express your passion and your pain.
3. Believe that what you’re doing makes a difference.
4. Allow people to show their support in their own way.

This month, observe the Marketing, Free Press, Rallies, Pink Ribbons everywhere and notice what you like, what you don’t like and what engages your sense of caring for other people and the Breast Cancer Cause.

Awareness is the first step to accomplishment and when combined with a model that works can make a difference for YOU, Your Life, Your Business and Your Community.

Terry Hall is a co-founder of Networking Event Finders and a Business Development and Web Integration Consultant.

Orange County, California, located in-between Los Angeles & San Diego is known to the world as the home of Disneyland (Anaheim) and Surf City, USA (Huntington Beach).

That is where you’ll find Marcie Taylor, our Orange County Ambassador & self-described “Networking Ninja” (We, unlike LinkedIn recognize “the OC” as a vibrant business hub with its own identity, therefore we do not lump it into the Greater Los Angeles Area).

Marcie is the newest member of our editorial team and a prolific participant in the social networking scene…She blogs, she tweets, she Yelps and she has been connecting people since before the term social media was all the rage.

She ALSO take pictures. She is a professional photographer. I initially met Marcie on the phone…she does marketing support for one of our advertisers Quattro University. She asked if we needed a Networking Paparazzi…I said YES! We will start posting her pictures when we get our new site up next month.

And as a bonus, she is an excellent writer. Check out her addition to the Orange County Networking Guide Blog
Marcie’s written a book with an intriguing title – Missing Mangoes: For Filipinos And Those Who Love Us.

If you are an Orange County, CA networker…watch for Marcie and her camera at a networking event near you!

Kaaren Douglas of the Los Angeles Networking Guide is one of those special people whose warm smile instantly creates friendships. I had not met her in person until after she was brought on board, but she would have the person in the crowd that I would have gravitated to…

Kaaren was the referral of a referral.  Karin Conway, the editor in Wisconsin had referred me to her friend Chris Kokalis in Los Angeles as a possible Editor.  Well, he was too busy conducting LinkedIn Trainings, BUT he knew the perfect person…He was right!
Here’s a happy coincident (They say there is no such thing as a coincidence). One morning, Kaaren & Karin both mistakenly called into my conference line thinking there was a call scheduled.  There they met for the first time and talked for almost an hour.  They are now planning a joint venture in Illinois!

Kaaren lives just a hair outside LA County in the Thousand Oaks/Westlake area but she puts on a lot of miles in her networking endeavors from Pasadena on down to Santa Monica.  She is constantly looking for guest bloggers to write reviews…anyone interested in Los Angeles?  Maybe in the San Gabriel Valley, or South Bay?

Read her humorous accounting of an unfortunate incident with a rude networker in her article Speed Networking.  This person missed out…BIG time.  Kaaren was upset, but the loss was clearly that misguided woman’s.  I hope you continue with Speed Networking, Kaaren…more people need to meet you!

Team Women is one of the biggest networking success stories I know of. Judi Finneran, Owner of Team Women is partly responsible for the creation of Networking Event Finders. Team Women, based here in San Diego, was growing so fast that she told me one day that if I took the San Diego Networking Guide concept national, she would advertise with us. We did, & she did! Team Women is a woman’s exclusive-category referral group that meets every second week, which makes it more manageable for busy women who can’t commit to a weekly group. Their members are fiercely loyal and chapters are popping up everywhere. Team Women is a cool chick group that networks from the heart! Look for a chapter near you.

The Link System® has been called The Grad School of Networking. Based on a simple, non-selling, relationship-building concept, The Link System® gives you the tools, tips & strategies your sales trainer never taught you. Taught nationwide to Merrill Lynch, these simple skills will increase your return on your networking dollar tenfold. For more information on The Link System®, click here. (Fr’ee stuff, too!)

5 Star Investors – Some say this is the time to jump into the real estate market. Need training? 5 Star Investors represents Nouveau Riche Real Estate Investment College. Nouveau Riche offers a revolutionary method to achieve your real estate investing goals. Nouveau Riche does not merely educate people about real estate investing, they create Real Estate Investors. You will learn CURRENT “how-to” real estate investment concepts and strategies to apply in the real world. In addition, Nouveau Riche will be there to support you as YOU put your education into ACTION. Contact 5 Star Investors to learn more.

www.bizOmundo.com is a network of business websites and blogs designed to get new clients into your sales funnel. bizOmundo Offers Free “Do It Yourself” (DIY) blogging options and full website integration and business development strategies for your business. @bizOmundo – the network that promotes YOU and Your Business. Get started today with a Free Business Website/Blog and get clients now!

Finding local Business Networking Events just got easier!

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Ooops: We forgot Washington DC

Networking Events Finders – Your Voice in Business Networking

Get Ready: The Global Elevator Speech Challenge starts February 3, 2009!

Networking Events Finders and Maverick Creative Group wants to know…

Who has the best 30 second elevator speech or elevator pitch in the world? We will find out soon.

Elevator pitch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds and 100-150 words).

The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist or angel investor to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitches to quickly weed out bad ideas and weak teams.

It is said that many of the most important decisions made on the floor of the United States’s House or Senate are made “within the span of an elevator ride” as a staff aide whispers into a Representative or Senator’s ear while they head down to the floor to cast their vote. A variety of other people, including entrepreneurs, project managers, salespeople, evangelists, job seekers, and speed daters commonly use elevator pitches to get their point across quickly.

Elements of an elevator speech – elevator pitch:
An effective elevator pitch generally answers questions such as:

• What your product or service is.
• What it does for the buyer (e.g. the benefits).
• Who you are.

What’s your elevator pitch? Get ready to share it with the world! Details January 31, 2009.

P.S. If you provide elevator pitch and/or elevator speech training, let us know. We will introduce you to the world. Use the contact form below.

Networking Events Finders Introduction and Orientation

The Networking Events Finders is an easy to use for the business community to find networking events. As mentioned before, we Are NOT a social networking site and we don’t host our own networking events. And lastly, we are not a Community Calendar – no charity fundraiser, no golf tournaments or Bar-B-Ques. In other words…

Nothing but Business Networking

Business Networking has three types of content. Networking Events, Networking Groups & Networking Venues. Let’s start with….

Networking Events. Our networking events are grouped by the type of group hosting the event. You will see these choices in the search functions and on the calendar:

• Referral Groups/Chapters – Exclusive category weekly membership based groups. They are chapters of a large multi-chapter for-profit company or small, independent groups that may or may not be non-profit.
• Commercial/Business Events –Workshops- seminars- trainings presented by the host of the event. If the host has more presentation time than anyone it is usually a commercial event. These are paid inclusions.
• Association Events – Trade/industry chapter meetings. Usually held once a month and organized by volunteer management. Non-profits
• Women’s Events – Most Categories will have women’s groups as well. Monthly groups and associations will often welcome men. Weekly referral groups will not.
• Open Networking – No restrictions or eligibility requirements. Open to all business people.
• Special Interest Groups – all participants have interest in a common issue (but are not an association) (Investing, Real Estate, Green businesses, etc.)
• Service Groups – Rotary, Kiwanis & Lions. Toastmasters would be in this category as well.
• Featured Listings – Basic listings are free, but to stand out from the pack you can get a Featured listing starting at $9.95 a month. See Subscriptions
• Chambers of Commerce – That community champion of small business. Cities, communities and even nationalities have their chambers and networking is an integral part of them. Most events come in the form of a Breakfast, Lunch, Mixer, Award Dinner, or Expo
• Large Expos, Tradeshow, Conferences. These are often industry, affinity related.
• Online Networking – Human nature being what it is, they meet online, but then they want to meet in person. There’s MeetUPs and now Tweetups
• Corporate Events – Mainly targets executive or C-level participants.
• Alumni Groups – College & Universities I think that is self-explanatory enough
• Job Fairs – In this economy, they are popping up all over the place.

Networking Groups – Who knows how many thousands of networking organizations there are in the world? For our purposes we will refer to them as groups. It’s a shorter word and fits in Twitter better. This catchall term covers any entity that holds a networking event. This includes Chambers, Associations, referrals groups, etc.

Networking Venues – I wish I had a dollar for every time I have been asked if I knew of a location to have a meeting, workshop, or mixer. In this section you can find the locations others are using. Finding the right Venue for your event is not easy!

Basic Site Navigation

We have three major components to the site: The website, which is a blog format, the calendar and the forums.

Business Networking Calendar: The event listings tell the basic who what when & where. The URL in the listing then takes the visitor to the group’s page on our website. This has much more information about the group and their other offerings, if any. There is a link from that page to the group’s own website.

Business Networking Website – We chose a Wordpress blog format for its ease in keeping the information fresh, current, relevant, and most importantly… Search-ability. More on that in a bit.

Business Networking Forum – The Calendars and Networking Guides Website lists Networking Events & Happenings, but in the Networking Forums you interact with the global business community. Anything that you post in the Forum will be propagated throughout our global network of Networking Guides. The feed will scroll on the front page of every Networking Guide we have. Post in the forum and you have entered a global discussion. Hence the Market Globally – Connect Locally(tm) tagline.

Search-ability

The Search bar in the upper right corner will be your best friend on this site. We have hundreds of events on The Networking Calendars. Search will help you sort through them all. Our events are searchable with these identifiers:

• Local Regions: We’ve organized each calendar into geographical regions
• Local Venues: You want to find your friend’s group that meets at the Sizzler? NO problem.
• Local Groups Category
• Article Key Words

Editor/Bloggers

Our local Editors and Special Correspondents are the ambassadors to the business community. They put a local face and personality to your Networking Guide. They know the communities, they know the people. They will keep you informed. We have started to add to our family of Editors nationwide. In San Diego Mindy Selinger is not only the Editor, but also the Publisher of NetworkingEventFinders.com, the parent company of global Networking Guides.

Subscriptions

We are much more than a static networking events calendar which lists networking events. We are a fully integrated Web 2.0 platform promotional site that leverages Email, RSS feeds, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing to promote your groups and events globally. We have no competition in that arena. The increase in traffic we have achieved in our first three months shows us that we can produce for our groups a significant verifiable increase in visitors. Basic Listings are free and there is no charge to the visitor to access our resources. However, if you want your chapter to stand out from the crowd or you are the owner of a networking organization wanting to add chapters, take a look at our Subscriptions.

Networking Event Finders History

The San Diego Networking Guide is the flagship publication for the global network NetworkingEventFinders.com. It began in 2001 as a column of 5-6 events in the newsletter Mindy sent to her coaching clients. It was a non-commercial labor of love for 7 years….and it got bigger and bigger. In June of 2008, it was a fortuitous combination of timing, technology and “thinking out-loud” to the right person that started the project of creating a global networking of Guides & Calendars. Six months of 18 hour days got us to this launch.

We have tracked our Alexa ratings from the beginning and it is a point of pride to say that we have not spent one DIME on advertising, or PR, yet our rankings have steadily grown 5,100% since the first day of our web presence. See this Alexa Page. At this writing we have not yet put out a press release, or implemented the majority of our planned marketing. Instead, we have designed and constructed the site to maximize organic Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing.

We invite you to submit your comments, suggestions, even Rants & Raves in our comment box on the Contact Us page or in the Forums. We are here for you. Let us know how we can best serve you.

Until Our Next connection.
San Diego Networking Guide Staff

Networking Events Finders publishes locally-edited and moderated Business Networking Guides featuring networking events calendars & newsletters for your local Business Networking community.

If you don’t see a Networking Guide for your area, visit our flagship publication: San Diego Networking Guide to see what we will be bringing to your local area very soon. Our publisher Mindy Selinger began publishing a San Diego Area Networking Calendar in 2002… Now we are expanding globally.

Happy Networking!