AUG 6, 2013 ROTARY IN REVIEW:
Marcia Ballinger

Past Governor Joe Kovarik exhorted everyone to “sing, citizen, sing,” as Dennis Boom provided the accompaniment.  Jean Vukas Roberts provided the invocation.

Greeters were Carol Bufton and Tony Scheuerman, and Bill Collins facilitated the introduction of six guests, including one prospective member!

Club business included the following:

-          Geoff Kaufmann and some of his team from the Red Cross encouraged everyone to give blood before or after next week’s meeting (between 10 am and 3 pm.)

-          Past Prez Doug Bruce asked everyone to mark their calendars for August 27 – the annual roast for outgoing Presidents, in this case Dan McKeown!  (President Jim declared it to be the final club roast, but he was politely ignored.)

-          Al Zdrazil reported that Wednesday and Thursday of this week will feature performances by the Nagasaki Peace Singers – representation by the club was requested.

-          President Jim presented the first-ever “Mark Weber Service Above Self” award – naming Valdi Stefanson to this honor!

There was time for happy dollars, and lots of good news about family, professions and life milestones was shared – Carolyn Brusseau even helped us to understand what anesthesiologists are usually doing when they get together.

Bonnie Holub introduced our speaker at 12:55.

Marcia Ballinger is an active community leader in the Twin Cities, and a partner at KeyStone Search.  Her extensive experience networking with executives led her to write “The 20 Minute Networking Meeting.”

In fact, she has conducted more than 1,000 one-on-one networking meetings in her career – and she wrote the book after she realized that most of the meetings had been less than effective.  Her first attempts were to improve the meetings once they were underway, but that was difficult – it requires prior planning and preparation – so she began analyzing the key elements of the most successful meetings.

Marcia says key outcomes of effective networking meetings are gained when:

1.       If you seek to learn new things.

2.       If you add new contacts to your network.

3.       If you find someone who will evangelize for you when you are not there.

She says these outcomes can be gained in a 20 minute meeting, if you are prepared – but most people waste both their time and the time of the person they are meeting with.

Key elements of the effectively planned and executed networking meeting are:

a.       Proper invitation/request to meet, introduction of yourself, and advance plan/research.

b.      One minute overview of each person, by that person.

c.       12-15 minutes discussion of things you could not have found out about each other in advance.  (Three questions are best – prime the pump, get names, offer help to the other party.)

d.      Review any action steps discussed or follow-up needed.

e.      Execute on the action steps, including circling back to the person in your network who referred you to the person you met with.

Marcia’s belief is that “your network is your net worth”, and in fact she says that 70% of our relationships (business or personal) come from networking!