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It Was A Dark And Stormy Night...

Guest post by: Bobby Darnell

Article Overview: Seven Points of Encouragement To Push You To Build New Business And Get Busy With Social Media

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night...

...and the estimating department had just put on a new pot of coffee with the hopes they have not reached the point of diminishing returns on their caffeine intake. As the clock approached midnight, the chief estimator entered the room, shaking the rain from his hat while no one said a word.

Carl, the rookie, peered above his monitor, still trying to get past the careless mistake from the last bid, he wanted more than life to not miss anything on this one. As the chief approached his desk, Carl was certain the entire room could hear his heart beating. "Listen Kid," barked the chief, "I have been doing this a long time and the secret to success in this game is simple..."

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I have been toying with the idea to begin a blog posting with the famous line, ‘It was a dark and stormy night.' for a while now and it finally dawned on me this week how I could pull this off. With apologies to Nike, the answer was, just do it. The point being, with the Internet and social media, there is nothing stopping me from writing a blog dealing with building new business in the construction marketplace with any title I desire. That is the power and freedom of social media, just do it.

I have shared more than once my conversion from being a staunch ‘agnostic' to the whole social media, blogging game to a full-bore evangelist. When I first heard of blogging, my initial thought was, ‘What kind of egomaniac would create a page where he/she posts their thoughts with the expectation that others will want to read their offerings.

The same with Twitter...how in the world could there ever be any practical business use for a company to gain any traction by ‘Tweeting'?

We are currently working with a client who is in the midst of a total rebrand; Website 2.0, social media explosion even a new ‘mascot'. One of the neat things for me during this has been going back over the basics with the client and taking a look at my own company and how they each apply. However, the freedom to initiate change is often negated by the lack of drive.

So, apart from writing a blog with the cliché for a title, what else do I plan on doing?

I am going to encourage you to write a blog, or hire someone to write one for you.

I am going to encourage you to add at least two more blogs to your RSS feed or subscribe to them.

I am going to encourage you to have someone listen to your sales presentation and give you their honest feedback.

I am going to encourage you to take a look at what you use for your CRM and come up with five items you need for it to do that it isn't already...and come up with a plan to make that happen.

I am going to encourage you to add ten new and appropriate contacts on LinkedIn, join two new groups show your expertise by answering at least one question.

I am going to encourage you to join or start your own networking group.

I am going to encourage you to set a goal of ‘x' number of contacts and forward them your ‘Finder's Fee' agreement. (If you don't have one, let me know and I will send you ours.)

There are so many ‘little' things we can do that will help us build new business, the problem is that too often we are busy ‘sustaining old business' to think about the new. One is never too successful to learn new ways to make things better.

And as far as storms go, I am reminded of the old saying that Noah did not wait until it started raining to begin building the ark...and if the past 18 months have not been stormy, call me and tell me your secret.

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Article Tags: Business Development, Construction Marketing, Marketing, Sales
Referred by: http://virtualassistantindustry.com/



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Which movie will make the most money this summer? - Which movie do you think will make the most money this summer and why? Moreover, what do you think its box office total will be? Personally, I'm most looking forward to watching the new Batman movie ("The Dark Knight"), but I think "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's" brand and family adventure appeal will help it to reign supreme at the box office.
Love your quotes - [quote="semray":145k1y25]I would be inclined to say The Dark Knight expecially here in Australia, it has received alot of positive feedback and with the recent misshap, this has added extra publicity and critical reviews, i would say this would be the winner. Steven Hayes SEMRAY Pty Ltd[/quote:145k1y25] Thanks for the Bruce Lee quotes, it remove the lid of mediocrity. I am printing it out and pasting it on my wall
Re: Which movie will make the most money this summer? - Hellboy disappeared from the Top-10 faster than I expected.. Journey To The Center of the Earth was fun (I saw it in 3D), but really suffered from the fact that it didn't have a villain to provide tension. The problem with Crystal Skull as a family film was that it had that totally unneccessary sequence with the voracious ants eating people alive... I didn't like it when it happened in the Mummy with the beetles, and I didn't like it here! Dark Knight seems to keep chugging along. One thing that really irritates me about movies is that sometimes the trailers shown are totally inappropriate for the movie it's preceding. I went to a screening of Wall-E - with a theater full of little kids, and they showed two rather graphic trailers for horror movies! That's totally unacceptable!
Re: Which movie will make the most money this summer? - [quote="OmnivoreInk":36efkahb]One thing that really irritates me about movies is that sometimes the trailers shown are totally inappropriate for the movie it's preceding. I went to a screening of Wall-E - with a theater full of little kids, and they showed two rather graphic trailers for horror movies! That's totally unacceptable![/quote:36efkahb] Hi Barbara, I felt the same way when I saw "The Dark Knight" because there was a trailer for a boring love story. But I think the reason for the mix genre promotion is because that particular romance feature was also produced by the same movie studio.


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