Relationships PT. 3

Today we are going to feature Angela Schiek with Aflac. Angela is the President of our non-compete lead-sharing group call Business Power connection. See Relationships for more details on BPC.

Is there anyone here that is NOT familiar with Aflac? You know... the duck! Want the ringtone or wallpaper? Get it here. Want great supplemental insurance for you or your employees? Contact Angela:
Angela Schiek
312-661-1222 ext.5711 office
angela_schiek@us.aflac.com
When you contact Angela, tell her that I sent you!

Next week I will introduce you to Dr. Phil.

For a bonus on relationships this week, check out this post from yesterday. Rick Bahl appointed to the NKCCC Board of Directors. I am very excited about this opportunity to establish new relationships and serve other businesses in the Fox Valley.

Rick Bahl appointed to the NKCCC Board of Directors

Today I am honored to announce that I have been appointed to the Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. The NKCCC is a regional Chamber, representing the communities of Carpentersville, East Dundee, Gilberts, Sleepy Hollow and West Dundee. I am very excited to help in supporting its mission in, "...identifying and fulfilling the needs of the business community through leadership, education, support and promotion."

We completed the annual retreat this morning where we discussed some wonderful ideas that will help businesses in the Fox Valley not only survive but flourish in these tough economic times. There was some rather impassioned discussion surrounding the best ways for the Board to serve the general membership and the surrounding communities at large.

If you spend any time on my personal blog, you will know that I have an every increasing passion for relationships and community, so it should be no surprise that I am very optimistic about this opportunity.

Windows 7 Beta

By now you have probably heard that the Window 7 Beta has been released. I have already had several people ask me about it. To be perfectly honest, I haven't looked at it and probably won't anytime soon. Believe it or not, we are rather busy these days.

Mark Manasi, a best selling technology author and speaker who has been around for... a long time. He has posted the deck for a Keynote presentation that he made late last year. It contains some initial insight into Windows 7 / Windows 2008 R2 that some of you may find interesting. The document can be found here.

If you do decide to jump on the Windows 7 Beta bandwagon, I would be very interested in your experience and feedback. Please post you comments here or send me an email.

What exactly is your website doing for your business?

Stuart Crawford is a good friend of mine from Calgary Canada. The description may suggest that the topic is geared toward only technology companies, but I am thinking that it will contain beneficial info for any small business owner with an active website. If you would like to catch it live, I would encourage you to do so. Otherwise, I'll check it out and let you know. Stuart's programs are always available for download after the fact. As a matter of fact, I was a guest speaker on one of Stuart's programs back in December. You can hear it here.


What exactly is your website doing for your business?

Is your website a huge billboard that sits on a less traveled highway in the middle of the country?

Many IT Professionals have websites that are not working for them, period. Many websites, and this is true for many of us in the technology business, have websites that we have designed ourselves and do nothing to attract new business opportunities. Many IT firm websites are simply blind to the Internet. Many technical focused firms have way too much technical content that scares off the business client and simply many of our websites are not being found by the leading search engines.

Join Small Business IT Radio on January 16, 2009 as we focus in on strategies and tactics that you can put to work NOW to attract the right visitors to your website and also have tools available to you to convert visitors to solid business opportunities.

Stuart Crawford and David West from eKzact Solutions, Calgary's leading web designer as they share some of their tips and tricks that they use to generate business opportunity after business opportunity all from a well performing web presence. Learn how to leverage search engine optimization tactics, blogs, twitter and other social media to drive lead after lead to your business.

Showtime is Noon Eastern/9 AM Pacific on Friday, January 16, 2009. Listen live or download the show.