Networking using LinkedIn

Last week for the first time I experienced ‘Business Therapy’ and it came from a group that I recently joined on LinkedIN.

I came late to LinkedIn, enjoying the community atmosphere in places such as BT Tradespace more, I just dipped in and out of LinkedIN. As most of you with an account there would agree, there is a strong recruitment theme running through the site and I had heard that only recruiters got business from it! (which is a load of twaddle if you ask me, anyone can get business if they have a plan).

Ian McAllister from Ajiri gave me some guidelines which were excellent and I carried on dipping in and out of LinkedIn, but changing little bits of my profile and connecting up with people I already knew. I should have applied Ian’s advice, but for some mad reason I didn’t.

Then came LinkedIn groups and I thought hmmm, being a bit of a forum junkie the groups would be a good way to interact with local people. So I set up my own Essex networking group and joined a few others including the East Anglia SME Group expertly chaired by Gordon Ramsey style coach, Gerald Price.

It was Gerald’s group that held the meeting that I went too. Here’s the interesting part – it was held in a pub. The pub managers cleared a huge space and set up a board room style area for all the attendees to sit around. Everyone got a drink and people got stuck in.

First up was Stuart Noton who has a marketing business called Business Vitamins with his wife and partner Selena. Stuart spoke about his business and his clientele and before he knew it he was under the ’spotlight’ and advice and ideas were flowing his way. For 25 minutes Stuart had the benefit of some good minds with a wide range of views.

Next up was a very calm, focused project manager called Tim Hearne, there was a good discussion about projects that Tim had managed and what sort of projects that he could save companies money on.  Jack Kuperman sprang to my mind as we chatted and I have been meaning to introduce them, they have similar ideas and attitudes and I feel the fact they are 6000 miles apart would make no difference. One for the to do list.

Then we met a very busy architect and planning guru Martin Casey. Martin was fascinating to listen too. He marketing was very different to everyone elses and that generated the ‘Bill Stickers’ stories and how to fly post an empty shop… very handy, but I cannot recall who to attribute the skill too.

Then briefly we spoke to Kevin Clark who is a IT Technical consultant. The majority of Kevin’s work came through networking and referrals which is the stage I would like to be at one day. Soon.

Through out all of this a yellow hard hat was on the table and that belonged to networker supremo James Davey from Hard Hat Business Advice. James had a lead for just about everyone and dispensed some excellent thoughts and advice.

I also spoke and this time I spoke about needing a photographer to do ‘Photos for a fiver’ at the Brantham event and how Business Scene was a multi network event and I persuaded Gerald and the guys to come along and see what it would be like to have more than one woman at a networking event

Then Gerald spoke about his aims and his successes and I was impressed, he had some amazing ideas and his delivery style was very Gordon Ramsey – behind it you could see a sharp, analytical mind.

I left the pub with admiration for the people who I had just met and despite the long drive home, I am looking forward to meeting them again in Bury in a few weeks and then the next day in Brantham.

More groups need to meet up, online is complimented by the offline and the best way to gain more business from LinkedIN is to connect and meet and build the relationships.

Your thoughts? please comment.

Sarah

Related articles

• A big small-town hotdog in East Anglia
• Linkedin 10 Great Tips For Your Business (in progress)
• New LinkedIn service-Whitepapers
• Social Networking World Forum: Shaping the Future of Social Media

Fame re-enactment in Shoreditch

Being in Essex when the word re-enactment is mentioned I tend to think of gun powder and men dressed up as Oliver Cromwell, Brentwood being home to a very active Sealed Knot group. There are also several civil war groups and medieval guys and gals all dressing up every weekend to show us how life used to be.

Today I was contacted by James Allen with a different kind of re enactment in mind featuring one of our most famous Essex Girls, Denise Van Outen. You can see the trailer here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAwmMx1IZPg

Yes, its time to get the leotards and leg warmers out again!

The public are set to get their ‘15 minutes of Fame’ as Denise Van
Outen leads a cast of thousands in the UK’s biggest ever movie scene
recreation for film channel TCM’s ‘Capture Your Classic’.
Bringing together people from across the country, the event will see
Denise, dancers and members of the public recreate the famous street
dance scene from iconic 80s movie, ‘Fame’, live on Sunday, July 12th
2009 at 1pm.

An area in London’s Shoreditch will be transformed into a dramatic
New York streetscape, where thousands of members of the public are
invited to don their leg warmers and participate in this free
and unique opportunity which will be choreographed by
Aicha Mckenzie and televised on TCM.

Joining Denise and fans of Fame will be another surprise celebrity
who will be announced on the day. All those who participate will
have their ‘15 minutes’ with the event being filmed and shown on the
channel as part of a ‘Fame Night’ special on 30th July from 8.30pm
which includes a behind the scenes programme of the event as well
as the film itself at 9pm.

‘Capture Your Classic’ is a nationwide competition inviting film
fans to submit video recreations to WWW.TCMUK.TV/CYC of famous film
scenes, as voted in a nationwide survey.
The winner will receive return flights to LA, with accommodation,
VIP tickets to the TCM film festival in Hollywood, and £1000 spending
money.

Fashion brand UNIQLO has partnered with TCM to bring cool style to
the ‘FAME’ recreation, and will be offering those taking part a 20%
discount between 8th and 12th July. Discount vouchers will be
available in-store and via UNIQLO’s online newsletter.

To participate, simply log on to WWW.TCMUK.TV/CYC for full details
of timings and a location map.

When my wag sees this she will be practising in the garden with her
sisters  

Watch out Shoreditch, here we come  

Sarah

Related articles

• A Gift For An Idiot
• The bank of Essex – where is it?
• Van Outen joins line-up at Fringe

Twitter and teens

I asked my teen (13) why she doesn’t like twitter and she replied ” I do, I am following two people”.

So I asked who she was following, and she replied “oh you, Kev, Auntie Ange and thats it, oh and Emma P from my primary school” hmm, I think she needs to pay more attention at school as thats clearly more than two people.

Like all mums this answer didn’t satisfy me, so I had to probe a bit more.. “so why did you join twitter then?”

Now be prepared for the insight here… it stunned me…. “I needed to reserve my name on twitter in case it was still about when I am old”. Excellent, like her forward thinking.

Sarah

Social Media Bullies – Ecademy -what to do when they step across the line

Last year I recieved an abusive phone call from a social media guru. Ever since that day they have wanted me off their site and in February this year they suspended me from that site after several months of sniping.

They decided I was a false account. Which was laughable. This is me and their membership manager.

William Buist & Sarah Arrow

Yes, look closely you can see the Ecademy name badges, it’s an Ecademy event. The third or fourth one that I attended. I asked William at this event whether I would be getting any more phone calls, and he assured me that it would NEVER happen again. How right he was, instead I got a poisoned chalice.

It appears they decided they didn’t like my mother and instead of dealing with her, they decided all sorts of lies and falsehoods. The culmination of this was we requested our accounts be deleted from that site. They had no interest in resolving the matter, ignored our invitations to come and check our ID which they illegally asked for (yes, for it to be legal, you have to ask EVERYONE if you don’t it’s called discrimination).

In short their only interest was to damage us, our business and reputation which deeply saddened me.

Now Ecademy have decide they are not going to ‘get over it’ they are going to slur us every time fake account is mentioned. Nice, how professional. I have just instructed legal representation and now they will have to prove in court what they have published is true.

1. Request they remove the content from the site, previous experience has shown me they need a nudge from a solicitor to do this

2. Failure to do this from them may mean you have a case for libel but more importantly the police start taking statements, it may be the company has a whole history of doing this.

I wonder how potential buyers will see that? I will be requesting public apology across all media, costs and compensation. It’s time the social media bullies grew up, not everyone is going to walk away when they do this. It’s time someone put a stop to it and that someone is now me.

Sarah Arrow

PS if you have had an experience like this with Social media, please feel free to share.

Spartacus the Rottweiler (pics and bits)

Spartacus has been accepted as a member of the local Rottweiler club, and each Wednesday he goes along to do his training.

Kev and Spartacus aged 10 weeks

It was very important to us that he went through the training, and he loves it except for when it gets a bit much for him and he suddenly develops a limp. He doesn’t have this limp any other time, just when training.

His fave training aid is cheese, and it’s good to see he takes it all on board in exchange for some cheese

Kev and Spartacus

In the above pic he is about 14 weeks old. He likes the park and is very sociable, if Spartacus had his way he would kiss every dog and person he met. He isn’t into chasing sticks, he gives a funny look as if to say “fetch it yourself”.

Spartacus on the beach

Taking him to the beach is harder, when there are lots of people we keep him on his lead. He doesn’t like the water much and never fancies a swim! He likes to dig holes though, like he is in the photo and the girls build him castles to dig up.

He has settled into our home life really well, he even barks at the golfers on the golf course behind our house and I didnt give him one iota of training for that, he done it all by himself

Sarah

More greedy politicians are resigning, but not the men

This is one for Harriet Harman to investigate, it appears that the female MPs and cabinet members have a sense of decency and decided that falling on their swords is the only option. Well done Ladies, you may go on and have other careers, I hope you don’t get greedy in those ones.  Harriet, please conduct an inquiry as to why the men are hanging on for dear life, equal opps and all that means a few men need to be tossed onto the bonfire or is there some real discrimination going on again, this time in Westminster.

Ms Blears, Ms Smith and Ms Moran – Remember if you claim for something and it’s not legitimate in the real world you will go to prison, the good news is you would be out in three months and could make a claim as your human rights would have been infringed somehow. The tax man isn’t so lenient on business couples as he is MPs who employ their spouses, ask the couple involved in the Artic Systems case.

So why are the male MPs lingering like a bad smell? Do they really think whilst this country fell into recession (unnoticed by Gordon Brown and Co) that we wouldn’t mind paying for their moats to be cleaned, their servants, their porn films, their church memorial wreaths even the money they donated at church for the collection? Whilst our small business go to the wall because the government / taxpayer owned banks won’t lend, who will earn the revenue to fill the coffers of the treasury?

No matter how often Gordon wheels out Sarah Brown to campaign for him, he needs to face the facts that his goose is cooked. Any sympathy the public had for him went over his mistreatment of the Queen and D-Day. Yet he still wants to insist their is a class divide whilst filling up the Lords with Labour MPs who do as they are told… or the speaker of the house. When is he going to wake up and smell the coffee?

Time to go Gordon, you were fortunate enough to do history at School (unlike our kids who get watered down Disney version of WWII and other historical matters), you know they honorable thing is to step down and call an election. Blaming other parties in the propaganda you posted to each household doesn’t work, you see none of us can read these days… it’s the result of our Education, Education, Education

I could go on, but to be honest the best thing Gordon can do is start sacking MPs in the Labour party that don’t behave. We know he is incapable of answering a question honestly, perhaps he really does believe his country needs him in which case a stint in the Priory with Susan Boyle should sort him right out.

Sarah

Related articles by Zemanta

• PM Faces Grilling Over Cabinet ‘Meltdown’
• UK resignation adds to Brown problems
• Hazel Blears Resigns from Cabinet

Pre school Funday Friday 3rd July

St Joseph’s pre school in Scratton Road Stanford le Hope are holding their annual fundraiser. They are hoping to buy some ICT equipment for the kids and have invited everyone

They have all the things toddlers love :

• Bouncy Castle
• Face Painting
• Kids lucky dip
• hook a duck
• nearly new toy sale
• a BIG ballon race
• A toddlers obstacle course race
• Grand Raffle

It’s on Friday 3rd July 10.30 until 1pm and the team at the pre school would love any grocery items for the tombola, raffle prizes and outgrown toys to sell to raise money for the school.

Look out for the ballons that afternoon and remember even a small donation makes a difference.

Sarah

PS the school is open weekedays except Tuesdays 9am till 3.30pm if you want to drop items off

Diversity win Britains Got Talent #BGT

And because they are from Essex I feel compelled to write and post a blog about them.

Ok, I shall admit to never having heard of them until Thursday evening. I don’t have a love of  ‘talent’ shows and do my best  to avoid watching them. Which means I have avoided most of ‘Britains got Talent’ like the plague

Anyway at Lakeside on Thursday, Sophie the marketing guru there said that they had had Diversity in earlier that day. Well, a young bloke called Perry and everyone wore Perry masks and they had lots of fun. Mum said “vote Diversity cos they are local” and like all good East End girls that live in Essex, I did exactly that. I voted for them as they were local to me.

(c)Pic Evening Echo - Diversity

I also voted for them as I felt that Simon Cowell needed a challenge and it would be easy for him to make money off of Susan Boyle or Julian Smith. A dance troup would be a challenge for his money making skills

Diversity are from Wickford, Basildon and Dagenham in Essex (or East London if it gives ‘em more street cred ) Diversity is consists of Basildon brothers Ian, Jamie and Matt McNaughton, Wickford brothers Ashley and Jordan Banjo, Dagenham brothers Sam and Mitchell Craske, Warren Russell from Dagenham, Terry Smith from Rainham, Perri Kiely from South Ockendon, and Ike Ezekwugo, from Leytonstone.

The choreographer is a very talented 20 year old called Ashley Banjo. He is very talented more so than Matthew Bourne and he owes this to his mother Danielle and her dance studio.

Taught the basics of ballet, tap and jazz by Danielle, and then left to create their own style, Diversity feel excited about being on the cusp of something quite new. Ashley says: “Unlike America or even Japan, there’s never been a street dance group to follow in this country. There is no next step. We are one of the first groups to show it is a proper form of dance. We can set the path.” Source : The Telegraph

I actually enjoyed watching them on stage, I haven’t watched any dance since I saw Giselle at the ballet 6 years ago. How times change! I like the fact that Wickford and Basildon are showing an incredible amount of talent (aside from Chantelle Houghton and Brian from Big Brother). I like the fact the the kids in the dance troup have studied hard, the older ones have A levels. They have not relied on their talent alone, they have a back up plan and that really impresses me.

Diversity really live up to their motto “dream, believe and achieve”. I wish you well guys, and I think you are terrific role models to the younger generation in Essex. I shall even watch you on the royal variety show

Sarah

Business Networking in Lakeside, Essex

£3 lippy, ice cream, postman’s leg and Pitsea Market

A few weeks back we dropped into Pitsea market, to kill some time before Star Trek came on at the cinema. We found a stall that was just cram packed with pet things and said we would go back. Today we went back.

Essex Fm & their Thunders were there as well face painting and handing round balloons. We wandered through the market and found our pet stall. The guy working there made a real big fuss of Spartacus and we were able to get a short lead, a new muzzle and a postmans leg… which is a bone that you would expect to have come from a dinosaur

Elvis Presley via last.fm

We then decided to look around some more places. I am not a lover of markets when I have the kids with me, I find I enjoy them when they are not there touching everything and demanding everything they see, but today Pitsea Market was a pleasant experience. Everyone was so friendly. People stopping to stroke the dog, the elderly chatting to the kids. It was real nice, for the first time in all the time I lived in Essex I felt like I belonged. It must have been sunstroke

We stopped for a while outside a restaurant that had a variety of entertainers in, Castaways it’s called. They had a DJ outside and then a young guy in his 20’s got up on the stage and he started singing. It turns out he is the number one young Elvis impersonator in Europe. He was blinking tall and quickly had a gathering of young and old ladies admiring his singing and dancing. Never having been much of an Elvis fan, I was dispatched to get ice  creams.

I got sidetracked slightly by a cosmetics stall selling l’oreal lipsticks for £3 and shock horror they had some of my favourite shades. I have run out excuses not to wear it anymore (did you know throughout her lifetime a woman will ingest 5lbs of lipstick?) so I bought one, just to show willing. I kicked, screamed and reluctantly paid. Then I recalled I was actually getting some ice cream.

Whatever happened to lemon ice? they don’t make it any more it seems, which is a real shame. There is nothing more refreshing on a hot day than a real lemon sorbet, so I got Screwballs instead. After being called love, darling and mate 17 times, I carried the screwballs back to Kev and the girls. There I found Spartacus barking at Young Elvis and I think they were glad to see the back of us when we started to walk back to the car.

As I type this I reflect that it was an enjoyable couple of hours and was dirt cheap for pet stuff, lipstick and ice cream. I should visit more often.

Sarah

PS Castaways can be found here, if you go drop me a line and let me know what it is like.

Lelipads (Lelli Kelly in the real world)

Why do kids always ask for £100 worth of shoes when you have only a tenner in your pocket?

The girls have been watching TV this afternoon because their swing is boring, their trampoline is boring and their 8 in 1 slide tunnel thing is boring too. Along with the wendy house, thats boring… in fact anything outside and in the sunshine was boring.

It seems like Lelli Kelly have been running adverts every 5 minutes, I timed it and it was every 15 minutes but the girls still demanded a pair each. Lelli Kelly took seriously the section on pester power marketing in their marketing training. They don’t care that their feet will smell nicer and not get hot in them, they just want sparkly feet.

At £52 a pair the girls have very little chance of  getting them, the dog would eat them and I would would have to put my arm down his throat to remove the beads and gemstones… and then they would fight over them and pull the beads off. I heard a rumour that boys are easier, they must be if they don’t require everything to be sequin studded.

I had a brainwave. We would make Lellipads as the girls insist they are called.

I went to Tesco and got two pairs of canvas ballet slippers, bright pink metallic paint, more glitter (we used a lot this morning making vanity dressing table sets) and more sequins. Total spend £9.78 and that includes the apples they insisted they needed as well!

The real Lelli Kelly

We have just finished painting the canvas shoes they look very pink and later we will stick the sequins on them. I think I am getting rather creative these days, first easter bonnets and now Lellipads…

Sarah