As you prepare for Christmas, I wish you joy and peace. Thank you for being a member of our Biz Growth Community and for your comments here at the blog.

I’d like to share a short carol with you that for me is one of my favourites, but like all strong, successful brands has evolved with the times in terms of it’s delivery so tat it remains relevant.

I hope you enjoy this short video of Bellatrix, Spitf’ya and MC Zani who beatbox the traditional Christmas carol “Silent Night”.

Have a wonderful Christmas Day with your families, friends and loved ones.

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I was delighted to find a new business blog providing commentary about trends and forecasts in the Irish economy by Gerard O’Neill of Amarach Consulting, an Irish market research company.

It’s great to see a Chief Executive stepping out into the Irish blogosphere.

Interestingly Gerard has decided to keep his blog separate to his business and states that the blog reflects his own views and not necessarily those of Amarach Consulting.

That’s a shame from a business blogging perspective as integrating his blog with Amarach’s website could have supported them in increasing their search engine rankings.

Another missing for me was the fact that Gerard’s blog could benefit from implementing a number of the strategies I mentioned in a recent article about common mistakes business bloggers make.

If you are interested in the Irish economy, I’d recommend adding Gerard’s blog to your RSS feed - by the way, the blog is called “Turbulence Ahead”. Does Gerard know something we don’t know? 

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In todays busy working week, I am begining to wonder if we have forgotten some of the basic good practice and good manners we were taught as examples of good business etiquette?

Perhaps I am becoming one of the “grumpy old women” portrayed on the BBC TV series, but it never ceases to amaze me that we seem to negatively impact our personal reputation and personal brand through forgetting to pay attention to our own business etiquette.

Here are three things I think are becoming increasingly common and yes if this were the “grumpy old women” TV show I’d be ranting:

1. Not offering refreshments - as a matter of good business manners, if you are meeting someone in your office, expecially a new client or business contact, please do not forget the pleasantry of offering your visitor or potential client a drink. It breaks the ice and shows you are attentive to their needs.
2. Leaving on your mobile phone in meetings - yes I know we are have high pressured jobs and have to be “on call” with our phones on, but please if you are in a business meeting, turn off your mobile phone. If you do need to take a call, tell the other people you are meeting with that you are waiting for an important call and is that OK if you are interrupted.
3. Not saying thank you - whether it is an email reply you get from someone in response to a question you raised, or perhaps someone has sent you an email with a useful contact or article, please, please, please remember to take 30 seconds to send your colleague an email to say thank you. Yes I know we receive a lot of email, but it really is business etiquette 101 to say thank you and helps you nurture your network.

And if you are a grumpy old woman (or man) and want to meet other grumpy old women in Ireland, you can book to see the “Grumpy Old Women Live Show” which is taking place on the 1 November at the Helix in Dublin. I wonder if they are looking for any understudy’s?

So what are your hot spots in terms of business etiquette?

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How do you evaluate the effectiveness of your investment in networking?

In our fifth podcast in the short series on networking success at Todays Women in Business we provide tips on how to evaluate your network.

In this show we cover how to how to evaluate your network so you ensure that you achieve a return on networking investment (RONI). these tips can be applied whether you want to evaluate your off line “real world” network or the social networks and online networks you are a member of.

Networking Strategies Part 5 Show Notes:                                       

00:58  How do we evaluate our networks and measure the benefits?
06:38  What you can do if you are not getting a perceived benefit from the networks you participate in?
12:19  How do you determine if you are “giving” too much to my network - how can you turn this around so that your network help you, or how should you disengage?
17:26  What if people are asking too much from you as a member of a network?
18:24  Conclusion

How To Leave Us Feedback

Do share your thoughts on this audio tutorial. Perhaps you have found some of the strategies and tips we share have worked for you or perhaps you have ideas and suggestions you would like to share with our listeners. You can choose one of 5 different ways to get in touch so why not:

• post your feedback the comments section leave comments at our media centre, you can call +1 214 615 6505 ext 6842. As this is a US based number you make low cost calls from Ireland using AllFreeCalls.ie or from the UK using AlllFreeCalls.co.uk
• leave an audio comment on Todays Women in Business - just plug in your headset and micophone and you can leave a message
• leave an audio comment on our Irish media centre at 086 8163096 
• or send us an email at connect(at)todayswomeninbusiness.com.

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Following on from the subject of blogging, in The Podcast Sisters Podcast we cover in the fourth show, how to build a website that works.

We share our acronym G.O.O.G.L.E as a reminder of what we need to consider when building our brand online with our website.

So get ready to listen to the show and take notes as we cover:

G for Graphics. What is the intention, are they relevant?

O for Offer. Do you have well written and relevant content?

O for Orientation. Make sure the navigation is simple, jargon free and easy to use.

G for Google Analytics. Be sure to measure what is working, how people are finding you and where they visit on your website.

L for Learn by user testing. Remember all strong brands evolve and adapt based on learning and feedback.

E for Engage. Connect with your website vistors through telling stories about the product or service and remember the power of photo’s, audio and video’s online to enrich the experience from your website visitor and encourage them to stay longer on your website.

You can listen to the podcast at “The Podcast Sisters” or subscribe to us at iTunes.
     

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