Connect

Reach Out, Connect, Care

Garth Beyer

connect

I’m not sure why I still get amazed by it, but I do. I get amazed by the friendships I have with people who, one day long ago, I reached out to on a whim, with no expectations for what might come from it. They were strangers at the time. Just names.

An email has connected me with people all around the world and people who travel around the world (see above). My response rate to emails is 92 percent and 90 percent of the strangers became friends.

On top of that, every job offer and all freelance work has come from me reaching out to someone. No applications, no resumes, no formal letters. Just a considerate email. (Or tweets. The freelance work I’m doing now came from tweeting to a business letting them know I would be happy to work with them if they wanted to expand their PR team. Yup, it’s that simple.)

If there’s one thing to take from this, it’s care.

Care is why the response, rather, connection rate is what it is. You show someone you care about them, they’ll be happy to connect with you.

Not only do people love knowing they are cared about, they also love caring. Every person I’ve reached out to has helped me in a way because they cared that I cared about them. It’s a crazy spiral of success (and, corny as it may be, of friendship).

Just wanted to let you know how worth it it is to reach out to… anyone, really.

Reach out, connect, care.

 

Stay Positive & Go Send An Email To Someone You Think Is Interesting

Almost forgot. My email is thegarthbox@gmail.com in case you didn’t click the “connect” tab at the top of this page

Building A Winning Team

Garth Beyer

I was ignorant when I began building teams. I didn’t necessarily make a big mistake, I simply wasn’t as efficient in my gathering of team members as I could have been. Early on I thought the best team members were the ones who were extroverted, spoke up in classes, sought extra work out and openly challenged things often. (Yes, basically people like myself.)

Doing so left out two extremely important categories of team members.

1) People who are extroverted and speak up, but only when called upon.

2) People who are introverted in the environment you see them in, but who are extroverted when on their own turf.

I don’t believe there are people who are introverted 24/7. I don’t buy into the idea that those who are extremely intelligent and passionate about something can do so quietly. They may put on a decent illusion, but if you get to the heart of what they love, there’s no stillness, quietness or introveredtness.

There’s talent all around you. What makes you a good leader (and gets you a winning team) is when you’re willing to actively call on people to join you as well as meet them on their own turf.

There’s a regularly held belief that if manager’s employees don’t see their managers doing tasks that they (the employees) are set to do, then the manager misses out on important respect. For example, a store manager needs to stock, run the register and reorganize the decor section (it’s one of the worst kept sections) in order to earn the trust of their employees as well as inspire them.

The same goes for those wanting to build a winning team. You’ve got to meet people on their level, ask to learn from them and show them what you already know. You’ve got to connect.

You might be able to gain a following sitting behind a computer screen, but you’ll never build a winning team.

 

Stay Positive & Go Build A Winning Team

Talent, Finishing, Conversing, And Starting

Garth Beyer

You have no clue just how talented you are.

The two best things you could be doing with your talent is finishing and conversing. These two actions not only compliment you by expressing how talented you are, but they precede growth.

You learn best from finishing. When you finish something, you have the choice to keep it quiet, stick it in the drawer, erase it entirely… or share it, talk with people about it and get feedback. (Both are positive, but you know which produces the greater result.)

The tragedy is that you may also not know how untalented you are. The fear this ignites when faced with being part of a group is enough for you to stop considering it all together.  So, you finish and that’s it.

That was okay to do prior to the connection economy we are in now. 25 years ago, you could stockpile your art and still leave a legacy. Now you never hear of a person who kept everything to herself and became a legend.

I encourage you to get together with someone or a group of people.

In a world that demands you to finish, don’t forget to start something incredible along the way. Eight people getting together to converse about what they have finished. That in and of itself is incredible.

 

Stay Positive & Go

Garth E. Beyer

The Web Does Wonderful Things, But…

Garth Beyer

The web is like a shortcut, a way to streamline any process, a method of simplifying the complex, leaving the hard work still needing to be done.

Anyone can now do anything with the web. I can collect programmers to mimic nearly any site available which makes that site less valuable. It’s a crumbling collection of incredible infrastructure and design.

If a blog, a website, an online service is all that you have to offer, there’s a very low life expectancy for you.

Remember that the hard work can’t be accomplished online. You can get by for a time, but with how swift laypeople are at creating online content, it won’t be long until someone mimics your original idea and adds their human, offline, personal touch to it.

 

Stay Positive & The Web Gives You Freedom, But There’s Still Competition

Garth E. Beyer

“Tip or Die”

Garth Beyer

An ongoing argument, making its presence with the New York Times, is one worth riffing on real quick. Should restaurants do away with tipping?

I’ve written posts about tipping. The reason there are so few is because tipping is very cut and dry with me. Why go on arguing it? Oh, because

you can argue that tipping is not capitalism, or that a greedy goal ruins the process, or that it’s withering good character. But the truth of it all is that tipping is just like giving someone a tip.

I can give you writing tips, or tips on battling fear, or tips on relationships, but I only give them because I care, because I want to, because I know it makes you happy or benefits you in some way. It has nothing to do with any service you have provided me.

(The people who get talked about, give others something worth talking about. The people who get tipped, give others a reason to tip them. It’s not rocket science.)

Sure, we could simplify this and cut tipping in restaurants and other services, but let’s keep all the good and bad of tipping and simplify the why and how people tip. Businesses don’t need a lesson on whether they should keep tipping or not, people need a lesson on tipping.

Lesson one: Did you connect with those who served you? Was it personal? Did they help you? Did they go the extra mile? Were they happy, fun, energetic people who read you like a book? Did they bring a drink before you were finished? Did they memorize what you desired? Were they perfect?

Lesson two: Forget lesson one and tip big.

Either they were exceptional or they need a sign to show them that they are exceptional.

 

Stay Positive & Will You Be There For Them?*

Garth E. Beyer

Worth mentioning is that I view tipping as my charity. While I freely give my time and resources to those in need (sort of my passion), I rarely donate money to charities. I decided early on to focus my charitable giving on something that means a lot to me. Just so happens, that it means as much to the baristas, servers, and caretakers of the world as it does the recipients of your giving through other organizations, non-profits, or charities. Keep an open mind to who you will give an open heart.

Connect To Connect To Connections

Garth Beyer

Yesterday I participated in a Twitter chat that a dear friend of mine put together.

For some it was their first Twitter chat, for others, far from their last. #cxchat is where connectors, entrepreneurs, creatives and makers share resources on topics such as networking, relationship management, professional growth, and community development.

Hosted by Michelle, she came up with a question every ten minutes that introduced a new topic. Rather than going through my reaction to the chat, here are three notes I really want to make.

1.

2. (What I believe is) the most powerful moment of the chat – when Karthik tweeted “Knowledge is on wikipedia, what’s not is the courage to apply it.”

3. You can find the #cxchat summary here.

Oh, yes. Can’t end without saying that Michelle will be putting on another #cxchat Tuesday the 11th at 4:00p.m. eastern time.

 

Stay Positive & Looking For Role Models?

Garth E. Beyer

*Yes, number 1 was left blank because I was speechless. Speechless that there really are people out there that want to connect with you, hear your ideas, share them, nurture them, and encourage you in return for your encouragement. There are people who are not looking to make it big, but working to make it – whatever “it” is into something remarkable. I’m speechless because after connecting with these impresario’s, they connected me to even more.