One day a nice Jewish Family girl named stopped for a Minute to check out some Superior Sheds. She had the Ways & Means* from her Scholarships & College Planning, in fact she was Beyond Rubies*! In a Spirit-to-Spirit meeting with Life Coach Sheila Pearl, she rediscovered her Sophistication & Abundant Life. This Lucid PEP talk revealed that every cloud has a Silva Lining, and was Simply Flawless. After the delivery of the Savvy Structures, she hopped on the Great Hudson River Water Quilt, powered by New York Solar Energy, and flew from Pine Island for her Luxury Sun Vacation. All this Independent Living made Emily homesick, so she hopped into a Newburgh Envelope and mailed herself to Weinert t-Shirts, a well-known Middletown Business. She got there Just In Time to SCORE 4.0 on her exams.

* website pending

So, can you come up with an interesting story based on YOUR client’s business names? My apologies to clients who were left out. I’ll try to come up with revisions that add more clients in!

I apologize. I had to do it. I saw the photos, and this parody immediately came to mind. I was careful not to make too much fun of our new most honorable President, but I had to do this at the expense of (former) President Bush.

Please laugh! Please. Don’t cart me away. LOL!!!

JPEG (below) & PDF versions available. Feel free to print it, pass it around the office, have a good laugh.

Apologies to the Chicago Tribune, but your excellent photos inspired this parody. Click the thumbnail for the full-sized version.

Parody of the coverage of the Inauguration of President Obama

Click for images to spark the imagination on how to think differently about the so-called recession.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t ask for a recession (or depression, or whatever….). It wasn’t on my list of “things to do” this year. It’s not on my resolution list. And it’s not even on my bucket list.

I’ve decided to boycott the recession. I refuse to buy into it. It’s like the guest you really wish you didn’t have to invite to your potluck — they don’t bring a dish and they eat for 20. And they pick the best dishes to eat. Nothing left for anyone else. Well, I’ve decided I don’t care if I piss off Uncle Sam, this person ain’t coming to my bar-b-que.

Maybe you’d like to join me. I have created a group of images, badges, stickers, funny sayings — stick them wherever you want as long as you keep to the “by” attribution requirement. Put them at the bottom of your email, on your blog, on a card in your wallet. Or don’t. If you find them offensive or silly, then move along. I don’t know what colors people need them in, so I didn’t get fancy with colors. It’s a boycott, not a Gala.

I’m especially fond of “While you were out griping…”

I’ve been saying it for a while, but avid networker Dr. Ivan Misner inspired me (in this YouTube video) about buying in to the recession. He met someone with a “I ABSOLUTELY refuse to participate in this recession” button. That’s what did it. Criss on inspiration. That means “Watch Out!” to anyone who knows me. If anyone is actually interested in my hastily-designed buttonfest, I’ll make this one easier on you and actually slice up the images so that you can post them individually on your website with a transparent background where warranted….but if no one wants the images, I won’t bother.

Keep working, keep thinking, keep dreaming big, keep your head above water, and don’t stop doing the doggy paddle. You know, all that law of attraction stuff, right? Don’t think fear. Don’t feed the mental commiseration going on. You’re running a business! Think of sales closing the way they should. Think of checks in your mailbox. Think of how much your business is going to grow. If your business is growing double this year, you have a lot of work to do — “Sorry guys, no time to gripe….” or, as one of my images says:

“While you were out griping ….you could have picked up a client.”

Oh, no, not another one of those “networking” posts. Never fear — I have some ideas that are different from the run-of-the-mill ideas.

Hint 1: Manage your expectations. Do you expect the event coordinators to provide you with a room full of warm bodies to toss your business card at? If someone did that to you, would you be impressed? As the economy has declined, I’ve heard complaints from event-goers about attendance. Take the opportunity to connect with people who threw your business card out the first time you handed it to them: if there’s a connection, they’ll keep and remember your business card.

Hint 2: Bring a host-gift. Ok, so let’s say you DO expect your networking event host(s) to supply you with a room full of warm bodies to throw your business cards at. Return the favor to your fellow attendees and the event hosts. Invite your prospects, your entire mailing list, your clients, to any event you’re going to go to. You’ll get another moment of face-time with your warm prospects, which couldn’t hurt any, a chance to make sure your clients are happy with your services, and there will definitely be more warm bodies in the room for everyone else. If every other guest did this, suddenly you’d be at a standing-room-only event and have to fight your way to the bar. Don’t complain–contribute.

Hint 3: This builds on idea #2 — carpool. The host-gift is built-in and you end up with a captive audience for the drive to and from the event. Don’t be a boor, though — spend your time driving and listening without talking. They’ll think you’re the most brilliant person on the planet if you just listen. When you do finally speak, they’re sure to hear you if you heard them first. Talk about time well spent! You just networked during what would normally have been dead time.

Hint 4: Note who DOES show up. So there’s very few people at the event. Look around carefully. Have you cultivated a close relationship with the diehards in the room? This is your prime market! These are the avid networkers, the people who come early, stay late, form lasting ties with other networkers, and refer clients. Don’t be disappointed — be excited. Pick 3 people, make a point of looking them in the eye and asking if you can contact them after the event to do coffee (breakfast, lunch….). These are the people you need to catch. Get on their preferred referral list. They’ll be at the networking events you miss. These are the people who could be your unpaid sales force.

Hint 5: Play a game. Pick out a topic for information you want to know — something of importance or common experience to most people — and make a game out of getting an answer to the question from as many people in the room as possible before the end of the event. Here’s some ideas: Who was your favorite pet? Where did you grow up? What did you study in school? What is your favorite sport? Make sure it’s an open-ended question, and that you ask for more details (i.e. What was it like growing up in Brooklyn?). The best thing about this exercise is that you’ll definitely be taking your eye off the prize. You’ll get to have some interesting conversations, and maybe someone will actually ask you what you do, or ask for your business card.

Hint 6: Play matchmaker. This one is fun. Go to the event with a bunch of business cards for people you trust and can refer. If you’re new to business this could be your plumber, your beautician, or your brother. It doesn’t matter what they do, just make sure that you know their services are good and that they give great customer service. Now, while you’re at the event, listen for any opportunity to give out one of their cards. Talk less about what you do, and find out more about what people in the room are looking for. Turn into an opportunity ninja. When the attendee shows a moment of need, search your brain for the right connection. It can be someone in your card case — or it can be someone else in the room. The best black-belt opportunity ninja tactics happen when you can drag someone across the room and make a direct referral on-the-spot. If you don’t know the quality of the person’s work, and can’t give a hearty honest recommendation, just mention it: “Oh, I just met Jane, she said she’s a realtor. Here, let me introduce you to her.” — the person will know that it’s a cold referral, but it’s better than nothing. Note: The best way to give a referral is to hand the person the card for the vendor and ASK if you can give the vendor their information. “My brother John is a plumber. Here’s his card. If you give me your card I’ll have him get in touch with you about that leaky sink.”

You get out of networking what you put into it. It’s got “working” in the name — it’s not a free ride, business doesn’t just happen. It can take months before you see the results, but when you do see the results, they’re profound. Referred clients gripe less about your services and are usually your best customers, because they come to you with some measure of trust & faith. But for your referral partner to transfer that trust & faith, they need to know you and see you at work. Get to know your referral partners — that’s the real power of networking.

For local networking events, please see Networkaholics Anonymous — help increase attendance at local networking events!

Melanie Richards of Prisms Promotions is considering starting a “How do YOU use promotional pens?” contest. Let’s see if we can start her off on t he right foot here….

If you hate when someone hands you a business card like someone handing out a leaflet outside a gentleman’s club, then you probably have an equal dislike for rinkydink promotional products that are worth virtually nothing and have no meaning behind them. Like a pen.

Oh, we all need pens. The idea behind a promotional product pen is wonderful — pens are things everyone carries around, get annoyed when you can’t find one, and some people actually do something important with them, like actually write something with meaning. Then again, those of us who are writers probably have a favorite type of pen. When it comes to paper & pens, suddenly we’re as obsessive-compulsive as Felix Unger. For us OCD writers, only our favorite pen will do. I won’t be caught without a pen, and if I don’t have pen & paper on me at ALL times, it’s like the Muses take it as a personal affront. I always keep pen & paper on or near my person — it’s like a charm to make sure that I won’t have ideas, inspirations, song lyrics, or poems suddenly overtake me. I take on a FAVORITE type of pen. Right now it’s Pilot G-2 5mm. I took a brief sojourn with the Uniball Signo RT Gel .38 because a really super fine line gets me every time — but the ink doesn’t last long enough, and I can’t find refills. So it lost and I’m back on the Pilot G-2 5mm even though the ink doesn’t dry fast enough for my moleskines.

Oh, back on topic — you can see I’m a real pen-obsessed person. I love my pens. Guess what? I don’t love YOUR pens. I don’t love them when I get 3-4 per event I go to, and I don’t love them when you try to give me them again at the next meeting. And I don’t love them when I’m doing the artwork to fit into their 1.5″ wide by .25″ high imprint area. You want to fit your business name, name, tag line and phone number — plus logo — into WHAT? I’ll try, but I need a shoehorn & a magnifying glass. But hey, you’re the customer, so you’re always right.

Pens. Why did it have to be pens? Sure they’re one of the least expensive promotional products you can get — but you get what you pay for. Please save your $.30/piece. Figure out your budget then get a real consultation on how to best spend your promotional item funny money with Melanie rather than just buying some more pens.

So what do I do with all those pens when I get back to my office (read: Home)?

Well, in my house I have a special place for those pens. It’s a pen jar in my office, as far from my desk as possible. It sits there and it’s convenient to point to when my son needs to do his homework. If the pen jar were in his room, he’d empty it under his bed. He “borrows” a pen and “brings it back” later — well, it works that way sometimes — but since you still give me more pens, the jar ends up with more & more pens in the long run anyway. Since I’m so anal about my pens, you can bet he’s not touching my pens. If he loses YOUR pen, what do I care? You have 500 more where that one came from and I’ll get another one next week, right?

I have to say, I make an exception for a few exceptional pens. Jellybean: I like the purple pen. I won’t use it, but as a designer, I have to say it’s awesome to have a pen that writes in your logo color. I have some admiration for your other ink pen, too. Nice choices. They’re in the pen jar for my son, but I do admire them.

Carol Garcia, Carole & Company — LOVE the light-up pens. Hours of amusement for my son. One stays at my bed for writing dreams or notes to myself in the middle of the night. You took “promo pen” to a new level for me. Thank you! Thank you! A pen I actually use — myself! I write in journals at my bedside with your pen, too.

The rest, I could take or leave — no actually I’d rather leave them, because I’m an environmentalist. But if I have to take them, at least my son puts them to good use — or loses them, chews on them, breaks them, tries to sharpen them in the pencil sharpener….better your pen than mine though!

Do you have any funny tales about what you do with promotional pens? Please feel free to comment, send the information to Melanie at Prisms Promotion or send them to me.

Last word: Do you really want your company associated with writing out checks to pay the bills, signing tax forms, or best yet, an item that’s eminently disposable? Does your company run out of juice just like the pen? Be careful what products you tie your name & image to.

I’m an unashamed pack-rat. It’s my doom, especially in a small home. It’s also occasionally enabled those odd moments of synchronicity to occur. Right now is one of those times. Being organized is exceptionally important, mind you. But I get stressed out when I go on the occasional tossing streak, because at the time I collected something, I probably had a reason for it, whether conscious or subconscious.

Flashback to something like 2-3 years ago, when I was frequently combing Craigslist for what was going on in the Hudson Valley. My eye was caught by an ad for massage space by the hour. On the surface, I thought Maxine Ward, my favorite massage therapist could use the space for her practice. I gave the info to Maxine, but held on to it myself. It tickled my mind somewhere — I couldn’t let that paper go. I found it during a descavation (that’s to say the digging out of one’s desk under long-standing rubble). Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to categorize it, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. So, it being on a Post-It™ note, I just stuck it to my desktop almost under my keyboard — it was temporary. I’d do something with it shortly.

I did. A few days later, under the sounds of jackhammers, and exchange students with dust masks and brushes gingerly brushing the sand off the desktop, I got annoyed at said Post-It™ note. I have this wonderful saying captured from a judge from the MyDreamApp.com competition:

I welcome with open arms any tool that tries to make me more organized! But I have one reservation about this idea — and this is largely a personal problem — to me, Post-It notes are, in a way, the very opposite of organization. They’re 3 inch squares of pastel-packed institutionalized chaos, the paper product demon spawn of Lucifer himself. What starts with one simple Post-It note — “Don’t forget to e-mail Ged!” — quickly devolves into four hundred incomprehensible notes saying things like “magic beans” and “do thing”.

During the descavation, my partner Chris (yeah, Chris) laughs because I’ll find pieces of sticky note that are rendered completely undecipherable by time. The exchange student hands me something that might be useful, or beetle dung. I just exclaim “Magic Bean!” or “Do Thing!” and throw it out. My partner chuckles.

I was having a “Do Thing!” moment when looking at this note. I grabbed it, crumpled it, tossed it into the recycling with dozens of other Post-It™s. Then the little voice in my head said “Noooooo!” and it turned into a scene from Indiana Jones, with everyone rushing to the precipice of a newly uncovered chamber of some ancient Pharaoh’s tomb. I dove nearly head-first into my recycle bin and fished it out. I had it — I knew suddenly why I had been holding on to that piece of paper for Two Years. I was becoming a coach, business & life coach, and there was no way with my towers of pack-rat-itis that I’d have clients peacefully recline in my home office and tell me their dreams. No. Nope. No-way.

Suddenly the piece of paper was a string of rubies, the collar of the Pharaoh’s wife, a new sarcophagus. I could use this woman’s hourly massage room to coach clients. The heavens opened up, and pixie dust rained down on me. An epiphany.

Today she returned my call, and we’re meeting later this week. You can tell I’m a little excited.

Was this an epiphany, design of my conspiratorial subconsious, the world’s Abundance, divine design, or just a coincidence? I don’t care!! “What does it matter–you weren’t looking anyway.” (What Dreams May Come) I wrote to Cindy Marsh-Croll, professional organizer, just to let her know:

Score: 1 for being a Pack-Rat.

But then again, if it weren’t for Croll Organizing, there would have been no descavation at this site in the first place. Thank you, Cindy for teaching me that there might be some treasures, or even an ancient city, buried on my desk. I might even find Atlantis!

Note: Post-It™ is a trademark, probably registered, of its respective trademark holders and thus I didn’t manufacture or attempt to claim the label as my own….I just tried throwing it out.

Note 2: My son wants me to make another disclaimer. I disclaim my ability to make another disclaimer on his behalf. I’m just doing this because it makes him laugh.

I’m a website designer & programmer. I can work with anyone, anywhere in the world. I chose to be different and do most of my work in the local region. But like I said, that’s different. Many of my colleagues think more is better, and try to price low and gain money on quantity rather than quality, both of their clients and of their services.

When searching for a service online, I don’t care if you’re looking for website hosting, website design, logo design, custom graphics, or an alarm company (the only item in this list that I’m not providing), you probably want — or need — to know where the person is.

So how do you figure it out?

I wanted to use a specific set of examples in this post. Top-of-the-search engine results with fantastic prices, and absolutely no phone number or address to be seen on their website. Sites that ended up being in other countries. Websites with blatant grammatical errors that obviously still rake in enough cash to get to the top of Google search results on pay-per-click hot topics that are highly competitive.

But they asked me nicely to remove their website address and information from my blog. So I’m removing it. Not exactly sure what offended them about the post, as they were only a live example and it was true that they were in a foreign country, but I’ll remove it to keep the peace.

Some cliches exist for a reason. “You get what you pay for” is one of them. In a vast sea of choices and no education, people choose the products by lowest price. There’s either too much information, or not enough, to educate the consumer into making informed choices.

There are real dangers in sending your money to a foreign corporation. They can be of the most stellar reputation, 100% honest, hard-working people, but you are still never afforded the same protections and conveniences you have working with someone in the same town or at least the same state. It is much less convenient to do business out-of-state, or out-of-the-country. If it’s out-of-state you have the additional complications of figuring out which state/jurisdiction to interpret your contract in, and where you have to travel to in order to arbitrate disputes. In foreign matters, unless you have the type of money it takes to go to International court, you don’t have legal protections no matter what the contract says.

If you are going to a local company, you can check their mailing address, their reputation, get a real referral from someone you know to someone you know you can trust. You can track their professional affiliations, check the Better Business Bureau to see if there are complaints against them. And more.

So how do you figure out who people really are? There is a database that stores their legal domain registration information. There is real consideration to abolishing this information on the web, but in the meantime the more of us who are using it for legitimate reasons (to check on the idenitity of a service before purchase) the better. This database is accessible at http://www.whois.net/

If you enter theirdomainname.com into Whois you can see their registration record. Enter “theirdomainname” in the field for looking up domain registration data. Make sure the right suffix is selected (“.com”) and click GO!

Not all domains show legal registration information online. The domain owner can hide that information by paying their domain registrar a few extra bucks to make even that anonymous…. Then you need to get into some website gymnastics to figure out who these people are, and I am not sure it’s worthwhile. If they’re hiding, maybe they have something to hide. More often, though, people are banking on ignorance. This blog post is to help some people wake up and smell the scandal. The flip side of this idea: If you run a legitimate business, you should not be anonymous on the web, and prospective clients shouldn’t need to resort to the “whois database” method above, just to figure out where you’re located. I get a few junk mails and a junk fax or 3 for having my information up — the worst is the domain-registration related spam, but that’s a hazard of doing legit business on the web.

I suggest you look at people’s Contact Us page and check that their information matches their WhoIs registration — check their professional affiliations and their memberships in local chambers of commerce. Ask if there have been any complaints against them.

If you’re in the local region, you could ask for a face-to-face with the person you’re doing business with. The only way to see eye-to-eye on any project is to actually be able to look someone in the face.

Moral: You pay for what you get.

Good luck!

I run this one-woman minority-owned company called Eclectic Tech. Started out with the intention of doing whatever it takes to help people (with technology). Found that most people need help with websites, so that’s my primary selling point and like any other company, I have to flaunt it.

I do my best to make sure I don’t bleed my clients for every cent they have. Came up with a great way to picture it — sudden inspiration in a restaurant in Warwick: “Free your website from the Bastille! Liberate your website from your oppressors!” all in a French-ish accent I like to flatter myself is pretty good. It was a hit. I love making people laugh.

Well, I have yet to find a French person who is offended. I don’t like doing the same schtick twice, but this is certainly my most popular self-aggrandizement. So it stuck — now I run around saying “Liberate your website!” a Whooooooole lot. Usually with the French accent. Because people actively request it. Once I did it in a fake Transylvanian accent “Is your vebmaster sucking you dry??” Did any Transylvanians come out of the woodwork to take offense? There was a room full of about 60 or 70 local business people — no one said anything, a few people laughed, most people smiled.

So, my client Paul Ellis created this Faaaaaabulous commercial for me, inspired by my own inspirations. He has 4 actors do this commercial — 3 “Mexican revolutionaries” and a damsel in distress. Same basic schtick: freedom from your oppressive webmasters. It’s on the radio. It’s on my website. I love the commercial. It’s a work of art. It’s a whole minute-thirty long, you can’t BUY an ad slot like that on the air!

After all my other “revolutionary” spontaneous ads, someone’s taking offense at the commercial. Maybe more than one someone. Because maybe, just maybe, it’s racially biased.

I don’t know who you are, but there’s no racial slurs in the commercial — there’s no vandals or “bad guys” in any of the voices and the webmaster’s race or lifemate are not mentioned. The damsel cries “Help, Help” and the revolutionaries come to tell her about Eclectic Tech and how Eclectic Tech can free her from oppression. I’m not Mexican, so maybe I have no right to portray Mexicans in my advertising any more than I had a right to portray a French revolutionary, or a Transylvanian vampiress. But I grew up the daughter of an Argentinean immigrant. I’m Hispanic. My children are 1/2 Puerto Rican, and all Hispanic. When he described the commercial to me, and I read the script, I thought it was cool. When I heard it I thought it was brilliant.

All of this was probably not an issue until it came time for Paul Ellis to run for Chester Town Supervisor. After all, someone has to find some dirt to fling and get offended — and men aren’t marching after him with torches and pitchforks for the character named “Harry Paratestis” so I guess the next obvious target is my commercial. Gotta get dirt on this man who works himself to the bone, collaborating with everyone on every project, trying to make people laugh, no matter what their color, gender, or who they sleep with. So this man makes me an inspired, funny, and talented commercial, intended for play during a radio COMEDY, and somewhere in the middle of the high sidekick and the dead guy with the dirty name, people can’t seem to locate their sense of humor anymore. It’s with the missing sock, people!

No wonder commercials have to resort to CGI-animated bullfrogs and geckos. People have missed the point, but I’ll let you in on it: The joke is NOT about the revolutionaries. The accents are trite clues that there’s a bigger joke going on. The REAL joke is about web-masters who take advantage of their clients, creating websites no one can touch but them. These people charge either monthly fees or per-change charges for people to keep their websites up to date. And so far, even THEY aren’t taking offense!! No matter what color they are, where their ancestors are from, what language they speak, who they sleep with, or what gender they are, the webmasters have not risen to defend themselves. I believe they have every right to their residual income, and I believe their clients have every right to get fed up with it and choose a different alternative, which I will happily offer them. And I’ll use every historical reference to revolutions and oppression I want — as long as it makes someone giggle — to drive that point home. Robin Hood? Sure! Boston Tea Party? You betcha!! Moses & the Pharaoh? Now you’re talking! “Let my website go!”

I don’t get people. But here’s one Hispanic woman who is saying WTF about this attitude. Do you want to talk about crimes against humanity: Paul Ellis made me laugh! Now there’s a crime — I might live a little longer because I laughed and released some endorphins. If you don’t find it funny, why are you listening? At least I got a good hearty laugh out of the thought of anyone being offended!

[tags]activism, bias,clients,competition,freedom,humor,identity,inspiration,legal,life,news,organization,rant[/tags]

I have a client. Not a loud client all over my portfolio, a pretty quiet client. A good client. A repeat client. I worked with Kevin Burke of Lucid Marketing last year doing piecemeal projects while their systems administrator was out.

He’s started a new company named Light Iris, with a focus of marketing to new mothers.

He had a notion one day that he should get a better perspective on being a new mother, and has been wearing a 35-pound pregnancy suit on his off-hours. Not to parade around town, but to get an idea of what it’s like to have all that extra weight on.

He’s doing this experiential experiment for a month. You can read about it at http://blog.lightiris.com/

[tags]clients,bias,education,family,humor,identity,inspiration,life[/tags]

My taste in chocolate went from white and milk in childhood to darker and darker chocolates. With the one exception of some stale 70% cocoa concoction my roommate gave me, I can go up to a 90% bar and be quite happy. I keep a bag of Ghiardelli double chocolate chips in the house to dip into for a quick fix, or for a rare batch of cookies or pancakes. Organic, free trade, Swiss, German, it doesn’t make much of a difference to me — just give me my chocolate, and no one gets hurt!

Except that those are made in a factory. The best chocolate to give, receive or eat is chocolates made with love.

Fran Greenfield (aka “Candy Fran”) of Candy Designs by Fran is sought-after and well received in both Orange and Sullivan counties, and most definitely makes her chocolates with love. Hand-made, melted, dipped, coated, drizzled, packaged, and often hand-delivered, Candy Fran makes the most exquisite treats you could ever eat. People who have given her corporate gift baskets always come back to give them again and again. Last fall, all my top clients got a treat created by Fran and I got thank-you emails including one with the subject line of “MMmmmmm chocolate!”

One was undeliverable, and so I ate it (can I still deduct it from my taxes? I tried!!). Clients shouldn’t move without informing their vendors *tsk*.

Fran’s treats are available retail and wholesale, and she’ll ship them to you or your clients. If you buy your candy from other online vendors, you might just be getting Fran’s chocolates under a different name…I just hope for everyone’s sake they still have a healthy dose of Vitamin-L (love), because if that’s lost in translation you ought to order straight from the source.

“My name is Fran, and I’m a chocoholic….” (Fran Greenfield, Orange Networking Alliance, Feb 20, 2007)

A year ago, I joined the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, and I went to my first business networking blast last July. I didn’t have the networking thing down yet, so I was sitting and crowd-watching, and saw this woman with an enormous basket of little bags. It was a “speed networking” event, and I wasn’t in her row, so I didn’t have the pleasure of being directly gifted with a sample. When the event was over, she announced that she had plenty left, and put them on a table on the side of the room. I still didn’t “get it” and continued networking as much as I could stand to before fleeing. The event had started at 6:45am, so I beg both ignorance and exhaustion as my lame excuses.

In September there was going to be an Expo, and I considered sharing a booth at the Expo with another business. I had been taken under wing by Melanie Richards of Prism Promotions who showed me the ropes and gave me several really good lessons about networking in Orange County, NY. It was due to Melanie that I spoke to the Chamber about sharing a table, and Fran was recommended as a booth partner. I spoke to Fran about possibly sharing a booth with her, but as enticing as sharing a booth with the highly-sought-after Chocolate Lady was, I bowed out due to financial frustrations and a lack of preparation time. It was my first year in the Chamber, and I’m the type who learns (A LOT!) by watching. I volunteered to help at the event rather than take a booth. So I finally met Fran at the member dinner mixer after the event. She was bubbly, lively, friendly and forthcoming, if a little frazzled, but who isn’t frazzled at the end of a long day at an expo?

I had been checking out local networking/referral groups, and because several people I had met and really liked at the Chamber were members of Business Exchange Network, I ended up joining that group. Fran is one of the members, and since I now get to see her almost every week, I’m a little more out-of-shape, a lot more chocolified, and I’ve gotten to know this wonderful woman much better than I would have otherwise. She is quirky, but bright and cheery, and I admire her. She’s modest and exceptionally generous, and she actually has two jobs — Candy Fran by night and child photographer by day. I can only imagine she gets the biggest and brightest smiles out of children, without needing to bribe them with chocolate, because she gets smiles out of adults without the chocolate as well, though I suppose the chocolate anticipation really helps.

If you’re looking for a treat for a holiday, a gift to say Thank You to a client, something to bring for an extra “Ah” or “Oh” at a networking event, an unforgettable chocolate business card, or to put on a few pounds in absolute ecstasy, talk to Fran. If you don’t believe me, come to some of the events where Fran often shares her treats by bringing samples. Or I’ll send you a chocolate business card made by Fran, I have a few left…

This post is a whole lot of thank you for someone who touched my heart as well as my taste buds!

[tags]clients,Chamber,candy,creative,expenses,gratitude,holiday,humor,information,inspiration,life,local business,networking[/tags]