I love saying yes, as often as possible. I love spending time with friends and networking connections online and in real life. Some have told me, You can’t have coffee with people. I call B.S.
I am an extrovert, so meeting in person is important to me and I know it’s still important to many others as well. In fact, it is a point of differentiation in my opinion. In this age of the glorification of busy, I believe it’s so important to stop and give someone your time.
I will continue to say yes to community, to relationships, to having more fun. And, while I absolutely intend to say yes to much I have also decided to say no a bit more often. In a way, this is really an example of me saying yes to my boundaries.
I will always say yes to:
- Acting like the CEO of my business. It’s a completely different mindset.
- Knowing my numbers. The more I’ve dug into the numbers around my business, the more secure I become.
- Always using contracts.
- Keeping promises to myself. Why does it seem so much easier to keep our word to other people, but so much more challenging to ourselves?
I would encourage you to say no to at least one of the following:
- Doing anything for exposure.
My friend, Michelle Mazur, says, The only thing exposure ever got me was the flu. What I have found more times than not is the person asking for a service or product for exposure usually gets the better side of the deal.There are exceptions to this rule, but if you’ve been in business longer than a few years, you deserve to be paid for your expertise. There is energy in the exchange of money.
- Tolerating crappy behavior on Facebook. (this could actually be its own blog post)
I am getting a lot quicker with unfriending on Facebook. If you spread hatred (no matter who your political pundit) you are gone. If you refuse to start a business page and use your personal profile to continue peddling your MLM wares, I don’t need to see you in my feed.YOU ultimately have control of your Facebook feed. This is just one way I am choosing to take control of mine.
- Networking for the sake of networking. (I’m working on a blog post around this one, too!)
Have you ever thought that networking might be hurting your business rather than helping it I have fallen into the trap of going to as many networking events as humanly possible. Did that help my business? Maybe a little, but it also left me without time or energy to follow up. This was even worse when it came to free networking events.
Your time has value. Be sure to track how much worth you are getting from all your free networking!