If You are Not Networking You Are Losing Thousands Of Potential Customers

Let me say from the onset that networking is not multilevel marketing (MLM) or a pyramid scheme. Having said that networking is the building of business relationships. Note that the primary focus is on building relationships.

• Sales and business connections are often developed from the relationships we have with other people, and networking provides the opportunity to meet people and expand your contact list.

• Choosing the right group to join or event to attend is crucial, otherwise you will meet people who have very little or no interest in what you have to say. Focus on the quality of your contacts not on quantity. Getting two quality contacts who will answer your phone calls or read your letters are better than having ten who will not.

• The first impression your contact gets about you could be what cement the relationship or take it apart. A firm handshake, a pleasant facial expression, a demonstration of interest in your contact, and attentiveness to his/her name and line of business will convince your contact that you are not only there to sell some product, and quickly move onto your next victim.

• Your first meeting with a contact should be about understanding his problems, needs and concerns and collecting contact information. Clearly state what you do in 15 seconds and in 30 seconds what you have done to help people with similar problems. Don't use the initial meeting to promote your credentials. Your contact is not interested in your credentials, not yet, but in how your solution can solve his problem.

• The follow up after a networking event is where many small business owners come short. Send a handwritten card to the people you met the next day, referring to the networking event where you met. Within two weeks send them letters arranging to meet for lunch or coffee to learn more about their businesses and how you can help.

• If a month goes by with no communication between your contacts and you, they may forget about you, and potential customers may be lost. You may talk to your contacts by phone, but you will get better results by using a letter, newsletter or articles in your blog to demonstrate your expertise or the value of your product by sending them useful ideas and suggestions they can use immediately.

• The average person is estimated to know about 250 people. This means each person you meet has the potential to connect you with over 60,000 people. The more people you meet, and the quality of your relationship with them will take your name and products to places where alone you could never have reached.

• This reach will allow you to become a powerful resource for your contacts. The quality and regularity of the ideas and suggestions you send to them will keep your product on their minds, and be the first person they come to when they need help.

• Your contact list will further expand when you follow up on referrals that others give you. Contacts who give you referrals have confidence in your expertise, reliability or the quality of your product. They have found your solution to their problems helpful, and would like to share with their family and friends what they have found. Be sure to follow up on your referrals.

• Social medias like facebook, twitter, myspace and linkedIn are providing networking opportunities for millions of business people on the Internet. But you will agree that eventually you have to meet your contact in person and shake his/her hand before you feel comfortable enough to sign that $100,000 contract.

• If you are not networking, you are losing thousands of potential customers who have money to spend and need your service or product, but do not know that you exist. Go to events where you will meet large number of people. Initiate conversation with people you meet. Ask to be introduced to people you don't know. Express genuine interest in your conversations. Give out your business cards, and follow up on your contacts.

The primary purpose of networking is the building of business relationships; the buying and selling of goods and services are its byproducts. Only when you have developed those relationships will you get their byproducts in increase sales.

Did Nature Program Man/Woman To Eat Specific Foods

Did nature have a diet program for humankind? Boyd and Konner in their 1985 report agreed that such a program may have existed, at least by implication, when they wrote, “From about 24 – 5 million years ago fruits appear to have been the main dietary constituent for hominids”. And might I add, fruits did not create overweight and obesity problems for our prehistoric ancestors.

• For almost 20 million years, as far as the records can show, prehistoric men and women ate mainly fruits to maintain their health, growth, activity and reproduction. The large variety of fruits and the ease of reaching them provided our prehistoric ancestors with the required protein and essential amino acids to maintain life. The question is, what transformed man into a meat eater?

• Human anatomy and physiology are poorly adapted to the processing of a meat diet. The gastric juices of humans have less active antiseptic and germicidal properties, thus eating raw meat would have caused prehistoric man severe abdominal discomfort, and was the reason they ate mainly roots, barriers, fruits, nuts and grains.

• The fact that raw meat had to be cooked to denature the protein, melt the fat and break down the fibrous tissues to make it palatable, easily chewable and digestible suggests that man did not eat a significant amount of meat until he was able to harness fire about 500,000 years ago. Before then man was almost entirely a herbivore.

• The jump from being a herbivore to a carnivore might have been forced upon man by climatic changes, or a natural disaster that destroyed the forest along with the fruit bearing trees. A large fire could have done that leaving in its wake charred animals. With their main food supply destroyed, and starving, prehistoric man ate the charred animals, and found them to be palatable. After that they increasingly included meat in their diet.

• Natural carnivores like lions and tigers are anatomically and physiologically adapted to processing a meat diet. They have short intestinal canals, strong secretions of hydrochloric acid to quickly digest and expel the waste products of the meat they consume before putrefaction - the catalyst for degenerative diseases - can occur.

• The intestinal track of humans is 4 times longer than that of a lion or tiger. While the natural carnivore’s intestinal track is smooth to dissolve meat quickly and pass it out of the system, man’s intestinal track is corrugated to keep food as long as possible in the intestines until all nutrients are extracted from it.

• Because man’s intestinal track is poorly adapted to processing meat, it takes too long for the waste product of meat to pass out of the intestines allowing putrefaction to occur. This results in toxemia, which is the beginning of degenerative diseases like obesity, gallstones, colon cancer, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, gout, tooth decay, piles, peptic ulcers and hardening of the arteries.

• In spite of the known health risk, having eaten a diet including flesh foods for more than half a million years and enjoyed it, it is understandable why man is not in a hurry to return to a totally vegetarian diet; not to mention the deficiencies of iron, vitamins B12 and D that tend to result from a vegetarian diet.

• Meanwhile, the human anatomy had changed in response to eating cooked foods. Our jaws and teeth have become smaller, and our stomachs have shrunk. These changes have made man less adapted to living entirely on fruits, vegetables, roots and nuts; and suggest that man will continue to eat cooked flesh foods in the foreseeable future, in order to more easily extract the protein and essential amino acids necessary to maintain life.

• In addition to animal protein, man is consuming increasing amounts of salt, sugar and saturated fat. The consequences of the consumption of such high calorie diet are all around us. The rates of obesity are rising in the general population. The percentage of children who are overweight has doubled in the last 20 years. The percentage of adolescents who are obese has tripled in the last 20 years.

• We have a war on our hands, and it’s a war against ‘calories’. A calorie is a unit of energy. A food with 250 calories means that your body will derive that much energy from eating or drinking it. The body needs calories for energy, but if you eat more calories than you can burn through activity, the excess calories are converted to fat that lead to overweight and eventual obesity.

• Certain thyroid problems and genetic factors are involved in weight gain and obesity, but their effects are magnified by the quantity and type of foods we eat. Work with your nutritionist on healthy food choices, appropriate portion sizes and new ways of preparing food.

Effective weight control is a function of vigorous physical exercise on the one hand, and the amount of daily calories intake on the other. Check your daily recommended calories intake and take the necessary steps to maintain a healthy weight. The control of calories intake through our food choices may well be Nature’s diet program for humankind.