Practice What You Preach

Practice What You Preach When I stand in the front of the room, sit in a coffee shop, type on my blog,  and talk about  the importance of meeting new people, I 100% believe this to be important and I practice this myself.   There are no excuses not to meet new people every day.   Any one can do it if they try.   Ive said it before, Ill say it again, I am an introvert.   I generally do not like following this advice, but do it anyway because I know how important it is. Last night, I had the opportunity to sit with  5 people who are practicing and preaching this as well.   (More about why I sat with these people in a future post, because it is a work-in-progress). Dr. Neil Hair is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Saunders School of Business at RIT.   I confessed to him last night that he was the first person I followed on Twitter.   Dr. Hair teaches Marketinghe actually lives and breaths it too.   He is talented, engaging and on the cutting edge of what personal and professional marketing is all about.   He maintains a website worthy of visiting: http://www.neilhair.com/  and you too, can follow him on Twitter @neilhair Steven Tylock is the author of the first book on LinkedIn, The LinkedIn Personal Trainer.   Steve speaks at various venues around  Rochester.   One of Steves missions is to get people to use LinkedIn while employed to grow and nurture their contacts and network.   Help Steve spread this important message, because developing your network from scratch after a layoff is plain old difficult.   http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com/. Deborah Mourey is a marketing professional with years of experience and now shes added  social media to her arsenal of marketing expertise.    Deborah speaks and writes on the use of social media. These tools  help grow personal and professional networks.   I loved Deborahs use of the analogy (and I hope I get it right):    If LinkedIn is like a  Professional Conference and Facebook is like a backyard barbe que, then Twitter is like a cocktail party.   Deborah is the Social  Media Sherpa.   Her blog which provides advice to jobs  seekers is http://www.hellinthehallway.net/.   Follow Deborah on Twitter  @dmourey David Pope,  AKA, The PDA Teacher, has been  training people for years on the use of hand held devices.   Obviously, the advancement of technology  has taken Davids courses on to smart phones.   David is savvy and a  talented presenter.    He is an advocate of Toastmasters and a poster child of how Toastmasters can help  develop professional  communication skills.   David credits most of his success in growing his business activities to LinkedIn and Facebook.   Read his website www.thepdaschool.com  and follow him on Twitter @pdateacher Last but not least,  Carol White-Llewellyn  is a creative genius.   She is a marketer, promoter, writer and more.   Carols network is vast and she nurtures it well.   I enjoy learning from Carol in every conversation I have with her.   Carol has several careers shes masterfully juggling right now. To see her work in action, you can follow Carol on Twitter @TheTravelmaven Meet new people every day.   You never know what will happen or where it might take you!