Dave is now friends with…

I had one of those “ah-ha” moments last week that I usually make fun of people for saying they have. It was a moment in which I heard something very familiar, but it was as if I had never heard it before. I was in my weekly Chamber Leads Group meeting when someone described a proactive approach to connecting with new people on a regular basis. It allows her to introduce herself in person and – well, that’s about it.

She offers a very specific professional service – OK, that sounds weird – she is a lawyer who specializes in an area for which her new contacts are unlikely to be in the market. But that makes no difference to her, just as she knows the majority of those who see her ads in the newspaper won’t need her either – at least not today. But someday they might, and it is quite probable that they will know someone else who will.

The point is that networking is simply about expanding your circle – connecting to one more person who will know someone else who just may be fascinated to learn more about what you do.

This concept is certainly not new to me, but the utter simplicity of its mission is. I too often rate contacts in terms of the likelihood that they will ever directly lead to business. But that is a short-sided and unenlightened view of the beauty of networking. The truth is that everyone is worth getting to know – not in a Dr. Phil kind of way – but because you have no idea what lies on the other side of that business connection.

Of course, today, network expansion has been made exponentially easier through online tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Trusteria.com and others. Admittedly, I was a bit hesitant at first to spend time on such endeavors, but I now am a true believer. It is a blast to spend a few seconds in your day reading the thoughts of people you know and gaining at least a drive-by view of their lives. It is simple human dynamics – the more you know people, the more comfortable you are with them, and the more likely you will be to think of them when a potential business connection arises.

Online networking is an incredible way to stay connected with friends, reconnect with past colleagues and reach out to people you sort of know but would be much more hesitant to approach at a party.

In Facebook specifically, which is the most visual of the ones I use, you just see someone you recognize, click on a link and ask to be their friend. And unlike my similar strategy used in middle school with the “Do you like me?” notes complete with check boxes, my success rate here has been incredibly high.

It also is a good thing, of course, to join professional groups, attend networking opportunities in person and become part of your community. Pressing flesh is not always my favorite thing to do, but I realize that it is an essential part of the mix in promoting my business and myself.

So let’s encourage each other by connecting online and in person – sharing ideas, opportunities and prospects. After all, we can all use a few more friends.

ISO Generator or Ice Cream Scoops

If we are hit by a storm any time soon that knocks out our power for any length of time, my family will be hosting an ice-cream party for the ages. No, we won’t be celebrating our lack of modern conveniences, but rather trying to consume a cache of the dairy delight that is incredibly disproportionate to the amount of other, more practical, foods in the house.

Normally, we would not own enough ice cream to supply one of those trucks that blares creepy music around unsuspecting neighborhoods, but the recent demise of the Killearn Albertson’s proved too strong a temptation.

After driving past the board-toting, earbud wearing, profusely sweating people providing roadside reminders that the discounts were increasing by the day, we finally stuck our heads in during its final hours. On the last Saturday, after my wife came home with a decent collection of marginally useful food products at 90 percent off, I grabbed my hat and jumped in the minivan with one goal in mind – score some cheap ice cream.

Inside, the store already had a moved-out odor, and there were large piles of sand on the floor – I assume leftover from bags recently used to protect the store from rising parking-lot waters resulting from Fay. It just added to the ambiance.

I headed for the near-empty coolers and bumped carts with those cleaning up on some kosher foods and bakery deals on leftover cakes and pies. With some searching and a distinct lack of pickiness, I pushed our ice cream total for the day to around 20 half-gallon cartons. It was all Breyers and Edy’s, but most of our favorite flavors were long gone.

At around 50 cents a carton, it was still quite the deal, even though they were slightly squishy and some certainly appeared destined to be used only for some creative shake concoction. I even grabbed three cartons of what I later discovered was a cherry-flavored frozen dairy dessert – whatever that is. I am still the only one who will eat it – and that is strictly out of a sense of duty.

So what happened to Albertson’s? I do not have any inside scoop on its corporate health or profit margins, but I do know one thing. It was pretty gross in there. I know people who shopped there, and I don’t think they are gross, but on the rare occasion I stopped in that Albertson’s, I could not wait to get out. Even the checkout was weird. Your groceries were placed on a spinning counter that was very small, and your cart went on one side while you stayed on the other side. It just didn’t make sense.

I hate to hear about the demise of any business – especially if it is locally owned. I feel like regardless of the nature of the business, we all have a kinship in trying to create something significant by providing a product or service that makes people’s lives better or other businesses more successful (which of course, makes their lives better).

So if you are still plugging along, congratulations and stick with it. Over the last few months, there certainly have been times that I have questioned my immediate future, but I am still here and I even found time to crank out this blog – which is a good sign.

So don’t give up, focus on what you do best, keep networking and provide the kind of customer service that your customers love to brag about. And I guess, don’t be gross. I don’t have the energy to sift through your stuff for the last, half-melted carton of Rocky Road.