Street musician (Photo credit: Another side of yukita)

I am a big fan of Chris Brogan as many of you may know. Today I can’t help but respond to his recent blog on influence. Following is an excerpt I have taken from his blog that I think is exceptional:

Who are the influencers? Is it me? Sometimes. Is it you? Often. It’s fluid. For instance, anything Dave Thomas likes in music on Spotify, I’m bound to check out and eventually purchase. Likewise, if Steve Garfield or C.C. Chapman blog about some new photography product a company’s given them to try, I’m going to give it consideration.

I’m asked all the time why I don’t much like Klout. It’s because I think the platform is flawed in how they determine influence. They measure chatter. If I tweet a link about some product in a category, and a lot of people retweet it or the like, it counts as influence. (This is the least accurate portrayal of Klout ever. Read Return On Influence (amazon affiliate link) by Mark Schaefer for a much better one). Click here to read the full blog post. You don’t want to miss this.

Influence in My Book

I share often during my talks that everyone has influence. Many people don’t think of themselves as holding influence. They think influence is held by someone higher up on the corporate ladder or someone who has a bestselling book or someone who has ten times their annual income or someone who is on TV or someone who has won an oscar or someone who has won a Nobel prize (my eye is on this one) or someone who runs a country . . . get my point?

But as Chris points out, we all have influence. Here are the fears I hear people  and companies sharing around influence:

• Won’t the never-ending “push” for recognition, coupled with the ever-increasing noise of the web make getting attention that creates influence harder and harder.
• How will we grow market share when now there are much lower barriers to entry?
• If we aren’t at the top of a Google search how will that affect our success?

There is no simple answer to these statements or question, but the reason I bring it up is that these comments help me understand the plight of those wondering how to maneuver through the maze of social media options for us and our organizations. Here are two simple tips to help you get better results faster:

1. Pick Two: You know how you go to out to eat and they give you two sides to pick with your entree? Here, I’m recommending you do the same with social media. This will help you leverage those two social media tools that can be the most helpful. Recommendation: I would recommend a blog and a tool like LinkedIn and Twitter depending on what type of product or service you are selling. For a business-to-business play I would suggest LinkedIn. Twitter allows you to make a worldwide reach.  Determine your niche, and follow others with similar interests and values.  I strongly suggest tweetchats too. Learn everything you can as to how to use these tools. According to the amazing site, Hubspot, writing a blog, even once a week, will help successfully you grow inbound leads.
2. Choose Ten Companies to Follow: I am always looking for companies and leaders in those companies to follow that I admire. Right now my list includes: Digitas, Southwest Airlines, Zappos and SAS. You can follow these companies with tools like Google Alerts, Twitter and LinkedIn. Learn how these companies make the most out of their social media tools. Learn who are the most active “social media leaders” in each company. Connect to these leaders, but, first, see what matters to them most. Don’t just connect for the sake of connecting. Connect with a purpose.

What do you think? What other tips do you have? What has worked for you or your colleagues?

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www.nourishcapital.com

1. Please provide a two paragraph overview of your company.

Nourish Capital is an early-stage growth equity investment firm focused exclusively on the restaurant industry.  We fill a major void in the funding landscape that exists for multi-unit brands between friends-and-family and traditional institutional sources of capital.  Beyond capital, we provide a leveraged platform rooted in deep industry expertise which increases the probability that a restaurant concept can be successfully scaled.

We are looking to partner with entrepreneurs who think big and we will work tirelessly to help them grow intelligently, operate effectively, eliminate excess costs, mitigate risks and maximize the value of their brand. We focus on the fast casual brands with 2-10 units, as we believe in the “Chipotle effect” or that fast casual segment will continue to lead the restaurant industry overall in terms of growth throughout the next 10 years.

Our collective team brings 200+ years of multi-unit growth and operating leadership in the restaurant industry and the requisite investment and fund management experience.   In addition we have developed and will continue to grow a broad network of industry leaders and service providers who are eager to work with our portfolio companies.

2. Why did you create this business? What need in the market did it answer that was not being answered before or well enough?

Over the next decade a new group of leading growth restaurant brands will emerge, creating tremendous wealth for their founders and shareholders.

Resulting from shifts in demographics, economic disruption and industry cycles, new brands will continue to steal market share from old, tired brands locked into legacy infrastructure, historic locations and dated offerings that have lost touch with consumers. The next big winners will be more innovative, more capital efficient, more nimble, more customer experience focused, will better leverage technology and have more savvy management teams than their predecessors.

However, early-stage brands face a dearth of the right financing, strategic expertise and operational discipline required for creating real enterprise value.  Nourish will fill this void as the first strategic investment fund solely dedicated to providing growth capital and active, value add expertise to emerging early-stage multi-unit restaurant concepts.

3. What is your goal for the next three to six months for your company?

Over the next three to six months our goal is to identify and invest in our first portfolio company – a unique brand with goals and aspirations of becoming national or perhaps even international player.

Social media has become an integral part of not only how we pick places to eat but an invaluable business resource. Widespread development of digital media that happened within the past several years gives Nourish an additional powerful resource in finding, screening and evaluating potential investment opportunities. We now have access to an army of food writers and professional restaurant critics who publish their findings in real time. Social media resources such as Yelp, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, Foodspotting, etc. give Nourish instant insight into the wisdom of the crowd. Dining out is a hot topic among young and tech-savvy, and Nourish is fully utilizing the opportunity given by this trend.

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I have had several people ask why I accepted the invitation to serve on the Advisory Board of Social Media Week Chicago. While my first response is usually look at the list of names I’m serving alongside and you’ll get your answer, I can honestly say that I think I have something unique to contribute. Specifically, I see the potential of digital publishing in the social media as a largely untapped, vulnerable resource that is just waiting to be unleashed.

This summer, Borders declared bankruptcy and closed its doors. This might have come as a shock for some but CEO Mike Edwards said it perfectly in the email sent to faithful customers explaining the demise of what seemed like a bulwark in the book selling industry: “The fact is that Borders has been facing headwinds for quite some time, including a rapidly changing book industry, the eReader revolution, and a turbulent economy.” Basically, the company didn’t see the potential of digital publishing.

One of my passions and commitments is creating an ongoing social media innovation environment in the city of Chicago. I believe that Networlding is positioned to continually re-invent itself as we further the reaches of social media into markets all over the world. Upon joining such a leadership team as is represented on the board, I bring the opportunity of digital media not only to the city of Chicago but to the world as hundreds of thousands of men and women will tune in to discover the future of social media.

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He gives the example of Amazon who has six options listed for those people who bought one book there are six other book options available. He also talks about Chicago’s 37 Signals who offers 4 – 5 options from each of its services.

The important thing to remember here is that people want to choose and they want you to make it easy for them to buy. I can’t tell you the number of times I have spoken to prospects and clients who have dozens of ideas they want to offer their marketplace. This is a big red flag. Take the time to cull your offers down to a few really great offers. Then think about what makes those few offers really unique. It will be all about those personal touches, going the extra mile, the unique differentiators that will draw people to you.

And most of all, realize that we all need help. Ask your colleagues, your advisors, your friends to help you figure out those first three really good offers you can start with if you are in the place of having too much you are currently offering. Do MORE with LESS . . . NOW.

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Many people wonder when it is going to be their turn to get attention on the web.  ”I’ve been blogging for months now. I don’t get people coming to my site! What’s wrong?”

Experts tell you that  you just need to keep at it. Eventually your voice will be heard if you do certain things. But how do you get there? What’s the path? Where do you start?

Following are 10 ways to can jumpstart your success:

1. Write about someone else. Who is big in the news right now? Write about that person or those people.
2. Write about the biggest trends. What are they? You can find those trends on sites like Twitter.
3. Write about one of your passions. Write about the top 10 things people should know about cars, books, dogs, travel, etc.
4. Create great questions. What’s the best question you have ever been asked? “That’s a good question,” people will tell me. I am a question collector. Collect great questions from those you know.
5. Do something for someone else and write about it. Spend a day helping out in a non-profit in your area. Whether it’s the Boys and Girls Club or a soup kitchen or a school, etc., write about that experience. Send it to the organization when you are done and ask them to share it out on the web.
6. Run a contest for a day. I ran a contest for a day and gave away a gift certificate of $25. I had over 100 people actively involved. It was a fun contest to find out how many pictures were on the wall at a local restaurant that had over 350 caricatures lining their walls.
7. Build a list of top resources. Everyone loves lists. They make things simpler. What’s your top list of resources for your particular business or area of expertise. Create that list.
8. Share a vulnerability. I’m shy. Most people would never believe that of me. But I am one of those people who teaches what she most needs to learn. I have been working in the area of teaching people how to network better for more than 15 years and I still HATE to go to live networking events. What about you? Where can you share a vulnerability?
9. Create a video. Start Vlogging. I have been wanting to go out and video people on the street and ask them their tips for better networking. I have been asking this question for years but I would love to do this on the street and see what develops. You will not only get one form of media but more as you realize that people share things when they are on camera that will surprise you . . . sometimes even, delight you. And if it surprises or delights you chances are, it will do the same for your readers and their friends.
10. Create a podcast. Use a tool like Blog Talk Radio. It’s been one of my best strategies for growing content. I get to bond when I interview someone for my radio show. It’s a much deeper interview and I get the most amazing guests.

Bonus: Read other bloggers such as Chris Brogan and Seth Godin and Carol Roth who love to push the envelope on blogging. Get inspired by blogs like 1000 Awesome Things. Start writing. Do it for you. You will build a discipline and a following as you build your passion. Jump down the Rabbit Hole! Have fun! Share your results with me!

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I’ve also had the benefit of participating in Oprah’s online community as well as having a book on her show and getting a chance to visit last week for lunch with one of her employees. It was great fun. I met wonderful people and got a fantastic vegan lunch. But I digress.

What I see as a partnership looks something like this:

• A group of book loving leaders, the Domino Project team, listening deeply to their respective “tribes” to unearth the best topics and questions bubbling up from their conversations.
• This team, along with Seth and Oprah, taking the topics and questions and pulling insights from thought leaders for future books.
• Taking the most powerful ideas and questions and using them, identify top author thought leaders who are currently writing on these topics.
• Create Oprah-Seth Godin book clubs that can get the whole world reading these great books as they come out.

Oprah and Seth love bold books that change the way people see the world. They are positive change agents. They want to help people learn and grow. They want to create a sustainable way to make the world better for all. In summary, this would be a great partnership.

Most importantly, this partnership would be “revolutionary” rather than “evolutionary.” It would also start bringing together what I call “Consumer TV” with “Business TV.” I remember after my book, 50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family, was on Oprah. I had been working with one of Oprah’s employees who had been her head of marketing. She really loved another book I had written on networking but she would say to me, “Oprah doesn’t do business books.”

I believe we are now moving beyond whether books are business books or non-business books into books that make you think, big idea books, books that make your life better, books that matter. Both Seth and Oprah are on the great book bandwagon.

My bottomline is that OWN needs more great programming. Oprah loves good books. Seth loves good books. The Domino Project Team loves good books. Books convey ideas that are stickier which make them easier to transfer ideas to others faster and better than even blogs or webinars. We need to spread these books and their ideas faster around the world. Is this a great partnership or what? Your thoughts?

Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner, Lois Weisberg, will be retiring this year. It’s interesting that she is leaving just as we are revisiting the human phenomenon that 12 years ago became an international notoriety when Malcolm Gladwell showcased her in his groundbreaking New Yorker article, “6 Degrees of Lois Weisberg.” Our book, Networlding 4.0: The Great Exchange, shares Lois’s powerful talent for connecting AND creating opportunities. In the following excerpt from our book, we reveal more as to how she connects in valuable,mutually beneficial ways and how you can do the same thing, starting today, with your network.

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Lois, as her friends know her, was said by Gladwell to be one of the most influential people on earth because she understood the power of our networked world well before Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform popularized it. Weisberg, 85, is the only remaining member of May Richard M. Dailey’s original cabinet.

Some of Lois’s contributions to the city included innovative ideas like the famous Cows on Parade public art project in 1999. This idea was spread around the world and duplicated by cities taking on their own unique themes. She also worked with Maggie Daley to create the successful Gallery 37 and After School Matters programs focused on the arts.

For 22 years Lois has been supporting the arts in Chicago. She has done it with a passion focused on a vision of what could be for the city as well as the talented people who would make your visions turn into realities.

As Gladwell illuminated in his article in January of 1999, “There are probably Lois Weisbergs in Akron and Tucson and Paris and in some little town in the Yukon Territory, up by the Arctic Circle. We’ve all met someone like Lois Weisberg. Yet, although we all know a Lois Weisberg type, we don’t know much about the Lois Weisberg type.” From here, Gladwell began to make more “explicit” the infrastructures built from the minds and hearts of people like Lois.

To do this Gladwell, a social scientist, directs our attention to the experiments of Stanley Milgram of the famous Six Degrees Experiment. Gladwell said perhaps it should be referred to as “The Lois Weisberg Problem.” I have been sharing that experiment with audiences for years and, each time, I would note how many were not familiar with it, even after “The Tipping Point” was a bestseller. The experiment began in Omaha, Nebraska, where a hundred and sixty people were randomly selected and given a packet of postcards to mail to a randomly selected stockbrocker in Boston.

When, surprisingly, postcards from the packets were received by the stockbroker within five to six mailings, the “small world concept” or “six degrees of separation” was born. But Gladwell went even deeper into this phenomenon, explaining that an equally important part of the experiment created by Milgram was the realization that the majority of the packets were delivered to the final recipient by the same three people. What this revealed was that there are certain people who are better “connectors” to diverse individuals than others and that illumination was well evidenced in Lois Weisberg.

Gladwell went on in the article to explain that Lois has a powerful pyramid of pyramids of connections. In other words, Lois is connected to “Connectors.” That awareness that started with this article now plays out perfectly on the site LinkedIn.

Here, you can see, right under the heading “Contact” you can click on “Network Statistics.” From here you can see your first degree, second and third degree connection numbers. So, for example, Melissa has 5000 connections. Melissa’s connections are made up of eight years of connecting with top networkers on LinkedIn. Therefore it is not surprising that her second degree connections exceed two million and her third degree, fifteen million. She is connected, like Lois Weisberg, to connectors.

So, bringing this into the real world, how can you build a similar network? Follow this mantra: care, connect, promote. It’s Melissa’s mantra and if you can adapt it to your world you will be on the path to success. You don’t need 5000 connections to get there. Just start with five or ten and keep going. You will get there faster than you realize!

Ben & Jerry’s Mission Statement is like reading a mini Declaration of Independence. It truly shares a better way to work in this world. Read it over. What does it convey to you? I saw this ad in a movie lobby of Odeon movies in London this last weekend. I took a photo of it so I could go back to it, again and again, to remind myself that people do care about making a difference AND making money AND the two can go together just like peanut butter and jelly or coffee and creme or . . . . you get the point. At Networlding I took the time when I last published our new website, to state our core values and mission

What I also like about this ad is that it is about the HEARTS and VALUES of the people who are involved in this company rather than just their MINDS. But, remember, just like above, it is a YES-AND proposition, not an EITHER-OR one.

So, what important strategies can you take away from this ad for your own company? How about these three:

1. Innovation starts with the heart. What do I mean by that? If you can capture the heart–that more impactful place in most peoples’ bodies where, when they know something is good, they get it–like the Ipad or Iphone. I was just at the largest Apple store in London where they shared that they sold $2 million products their first day of business. When I was there  absolutely every product was being used, played with, studied.
2. It’s not just about your mission but also about your product (or service), employees AND the money you make. Just as the above mission statement says, it’s not just about the social mission (hey, that’s important and notice it comes first), but your product or service must also be of the highest quality AND you need to be financially sound to “sustain” your venture.
3. People like bigger visions. Take for example, the famous quote by Daniel Burnham, the architect who, along with John Root, planned the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 when he said, ”make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” His foresight and planning were largely responsible for the rebuilding of Chicago after the fire of 1871. Stir the hearts of others through a big vision and then, bonus point, collaborate with others to achieve a vision. You can do this through hiring employees or, if you are a smaller company, consider partnering with others you admire.

This final bonus point is what I do often. I collaborate to grow. What does that look like? I would rather collaborate with ten great partners a year, each of us helping one another grow our respective businesses, sharing businesses.

What do you think? How have you grown your business?

1. Become a Networlder. A Networlder, unlike a networker, has ten or fewer key people they consider partners. These partners are participants in regular exchanges of emotional support, information, knowledge, promotional support as well as leads and referrals for new business or career opportunities. The focus of Networlding is on mutually beneficial exchanges with like-minded and like-valued people. The great thing about Networlding partnerships is that they are fun and get results three to five times as fast as traditional networking relationships.
2. Create a Primary Circle. We all have networks. We just don’t necessarily realize it and we spend most of our time with a few people. Networlding is about becoming aware of our network and consciously creating exchanges with a few people who become our Networlding partners in a primary circle. Social science research suggests that we can’t communicate regularly with more than 15 people. Primary circles, we have found, work best when no larger than 10 people.
3. Initially, you only need one Networlding partner in your Primary Circle. In an extensive study we did with 200 executives, we discovered that the majority of people connect with only five Networlding partners once a month, every month. This means that even one person with whom you share similar or complementary values, and who is ready, willing and able to become a Networlding partner, can create a whole new world of opportunities for you and you for them.
4. Find Networlding influencers for your Primary Circle. We define Networlding influencers as people who know how to influence and are ready, willing and able to do so for you and others with whom they Networld. For example, you might know people in your industry who are highly influential but are not Networlding influencers because they keep their power to themselves.
   
   
5. Put others in Secondary and Tertiary Circles. Again, whether you consciously do this or not, some people will fall into your secondary or tertiary circles. People who might go in a secondary circle are those who are not, right now, ready, willing or able to exchange with you once a month. These are people, however, with whom you should stay in contact with and connect every three months. Tertiary circles are for almost everyone else, because you never know who might become a good partner later and vice versa.