Experience, hard word and talent are not enough to succeed in today’s workplace. You need to also focus on building a network that will bring you the success you want. Your career will likely span multiple jobs and fields and the best and fastest way to get where you want to be is having a network of people you can call on. Building an effective network takes time, planning and intention. Here are 5 rules that will help you out:

1. Talk to strangers. You never know who is standing behind you at Starbucks.
2. Build a network with intention; create a plan of the types of people you want to meet and work the plan.
3. Give as much as you get; don’t be stingy about looking for ways to help others out. This will repay itself many times over when you need a helping hand.
4. Reach out to people long before you need anything; do not be that person who only ever calls when they need something. That is not networking – that is using people and you will not be appreciated for it. Stay in touch regularly with the people in your network.
5. Ask for what you want, not what you think you can get. The simple act of asking will get you a lot more than you can ever imagine.

Remember: success does not come to those with a low tolerance for risk or those who are led by fear. Start talking to people – you will be surprised what you learn!

Fiona Walsh, CEO, FM Walsh & Associates Inc., www.fmwalsh.com

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit – Aristotle

Human beings in and of themselves operate on autopilot for much of their day. We complete daily activities like, showering, brushing our teeth, drinking coffee, reading the paper, with little or almost no thought about what it is that we are actually doing. These habitual behaviours add up throughout the day and by the time we go to bed, somewhere between 75-80% of our activities were exactly the same as yesterday and will be exactly the same as tomorrow. This can’t be possible you think – take stock – I guarantee you’ll find what I’m saying to be true.

This month we’ve been writing on ways you can automate your business so that you don’t have to be the one doing all the work in order to be successful. Today, I want to draw your attention to your own personal autopilot mechanism, known as your ‘habits’, because, as positive as all the tools are that we’ve been sharing with you all month, your own personal habits can be equally as detrimental to your success.

For example…

Almost every person that I know, with the exception of a few, and especially entrepreneurs, complain that they don’t have enough time. It’s become somewhat of an epidemic. Stock answer to the question ‘how are you doing’ has become ‘busy!’. People are running around like mad men, always in a hurry and rushing. Not to mention what these raised levels of cortizol and adrenalin are doing to your body, how is this ‘habitual way of operating’ affecting the success of your business?

Being in a habitual state of ‘busyness’ is doing nothing for your health personally or professionally and if this describes you in any way, it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate. There is no way, at least that I’m aware of, to add hours to the day, so the 24 that you’re working with, is all you have. How you spend those 24 hours, however, is directly reflected in the results you are achieving in your life.

Go back to you goals for 2009 and read them over. Are you getting closer to accomplishing? If not, it’s time for you to take a look at your habits. What are you doing everyday and how is that contributing to the achievement of your goals? If you’re doing things that are not contributing, time to ditch those activities. Getting what YOU want in business and in life is 100% up to you, if you’re willing to take responsibility for your own success. The actions you take in your life are producing your current results. If you don’t like what you see, time to change your actions.

All the best,

Heather White, CEO 2020 Communications Inc.

Time is money. It’s a cliché with the advantage of being perfectly true, so organizing your time effectively can be a huge boost for your business.

What is your time worth? Just think of all the time you spend entering contact information from networking events into your database. It may be worth it to look at incorporating an application that does more than just keep track of names and addresses.

Thanks to the growing popularity of CRM (customer relationship management software), you’ve got many options. Software like Maximizer and ACT and web-based applications like Salesforce.com allow you to plug contact information into applications that can keep track of your entire sales process.

Many SMBs are using these kinds of tools to do things like synchronize and update contact information by importing from other sources, track business appointments, share the database with colleagues and more. These kinds of tech-savvy organizing tools for business can be very cost effective.

Start thinking about how much your time is worth and then look for the tools that will help you maximize your efforts.

- Linda Chu, CEO – Out of Chaos