Inquisix’s own Betsy MacKinnon was interviewed on blogtalkradio recently. The topic for the show was “Has Blogging Crossed the Threshold of Legitimacy?”

If the above does not work, please click Has Blogging Crossed the Threshold of Legitimacy?

From The Liquid Betsy:

Jon Hansen, host of Blog Radio’s PI Window of Business asked me to join a panel to discuss “Has Blogging Crossed the Threshold of Legitimacy?” I was happy to accept. What an excellent experience I had! The panel was outstanding, the discussion was fast and furious, and our host kept the us all on time and on topic. One of the best interviews I’ve ever done or been associated with. We went over the allotted time limit. I could have chatted for a lot longer (but you knew that…)

So many thanks to my fellow panelists: the delightful Dr. Ellen Brandt, Ph.D., the winner in the Community Marketing’s Great Blog Off. – congrats to her for this week, she launches her new blog “Baby Boomers – The Angriest Generation”; the insightful Elizabeth Hannan, an on-line evangelist at Pragmatic Marketing whose firm focuses on leveraging the new media to elevate brand awareness; and David Bush, who as CEO of Iasta (a supply chain software company) launched probably one of the first “content marketing” blogs as the creator and editor of an industry leading blog the e-Sourcing Forum.

This is the second in our series of meeting our Inquisix community members.  Thank you to Rick Roberge, master networker and sales coach with David Kurlan & Associates — and an Inquisix member since December 2007. Rick spent some time to answer a few of our questions about trends in business and networking and we’re much obliged.

This is Part II of our interview with Shiera O’Brien, Inquisix member since April ’08.  Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, she recently started an Inquisix Group, The Dublin Chamber Business Referral Traders. 

If you missed Part One just click HERE. Now on to Shiera…

About the Inquisix Group you started- The Dublin Chamber Business Referral Traders Group- please tell us more…

I started the Dublin Chamber Business Referral Traders Group because I was keen to bring Inquisix to my contacts there and try and replicate an on-line experience of the great networking events they put on around Dublin. I run a program at the Chamber called “Maximize Your Membership,” how to really get value from networking, because the consistent problem was that people let it all slide after attending an event. They never followed up. And that can be expensive. So I thought with Inquisix, we could keep the momentum.

Do you see a specific need that Inquisix addresses of your group?

Inquisix allows the group to start building their on-line network and continue the conversations they have had at the Dublin Chamber events. It will strengthen the ties within the group and encourage them to trade and conduct commerce between each other. It is still in the early adopter phase. We are planning to do an on-line event with Michael Kreppein to demonstrate the power of this tool to help our members. We hope to do that in the next month and really get the buzz going about Inquisix over the summer months.

If you could get across one thing about Inquisix to a perspective member what would it be?

Inquisix is like clean energy in on-line networks – no noise polution, no spam footprint & a cleaner world. It’s real and you do make connections.

I really love the clean way the information is presented, I’m not bombarbed with job adverts and spam, which is a serious problem with other tools, which devalue the experience of on-line networking. So keep it clean and it will build loyalty. With Inquisix, I can just get on with the job, which is to make connections and build a business network worth participating in and generate real business opportunities.

Thank you for talking with us Shiera, Happy Connecting!

For more information on how you can start your own group or about our affiliate program, contact Michael Kreppein.

We were lucky to grab this very busy power networker – meet Shiera O’Brien, Inquisix member since April ’08.  Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, she recently started an Inquisix Group, The Dublin Chamber Business Referral Traders. 

Hi Shiera, so tell us about your business.

Zenith Training and Development is my business. I work specifically with sales professionals, helping them have more powerful sales conversations and meetings. I offer training and coaching to clients in the psychology of buying and selling and how to get better results from sales meetings and become a buying facilitator rather than a sales person.

Why do you network?

I network because meeting in person is powerful as an introduction to my company, and I am generally meeting people on the sales front line, so it’s the type of business introduction I want. I use on-line networking to back up my off-line/in-person networking and am sharing this methodology to all my contacts. I need other people to create a business network, and I want technology to do the work for me after I’ve put time and effort into an event.

What made you join Inquisix?

As an active member and Ambassador at The Dublin Chamber of Commerce, in Ireland, I found the on-line networking tools to be lacking in process, when it came to post-networking follow-up. Linked-In was too public; would I want to put all my contacts on public view? I loved the idea that I could keep my contacts in a Vault, yet allow others to tap into the contact pool and return the favour. The real attraction is holding contact privates, yet opening the doors of opportunity to others and vice versa. We get a glimpse at the potential for real connections via this tool.

I found Inquisix mentioned in a blog and then was travelling to the US and met Michael Kreppein. I really liked how he communicated the vision of what they wanted to achieve with Inquisix and so far they’ve been loyal to this vision, willing to invest in supporting users in Ireland. Inquisix went a out of their way to make the address fields work for us here, which was the only way we could kick start things and build a community.

Prior to joining, I was doing lots of in-person business networking through local business groups. I found it to be useful, yet the missing link was an easy to use on-line follow-up tool- a system to follow-up that I could have on-line, that would keep track of all my contacts and referrals. The follow-up process and technology was the big missing link- I couldn’t work with the tools that existed out there, because of the public way it displayed contacts and there was no proper referral tool. Inquisix came across my screen when I did research on it for the Dublin Chamber of Commerce.

What do you like best about Inquisix?

The layer of anonymity: I can see what’s happening in the world of my contacts. Somebody asks for a referral, and if I don’t see the real value in the connection, I can make a decision anonymously whether I want to give the referral or not, and relationships remain intact. I also like the pro-active referral tool. I meet people every day that I think should hook up and it’s great to be able to go in, hit a button and send on referral contact details with a note. Pure Magic. Like a gift in their In-Box. It’s a very powerful way to say “Hey, I am serious about helping you with your business, ” without always looking for a return favour. This helps build a reputation, which Inquisix tracks and profiles, so people can see how committed I am to networking in the local business community.

Easiest thing about Inquisix is, it does all the work I don’t like doing; keeping track, sending emails, and putting all that information on referral into somebody’s inbox with a few clicks. And it shows me graphically what is happening. It’s very well designed and takes the effort out of passing on contacts.

Any great examples of using Inquisix Trusted Referrals™?

I had a request from somebody in the network, who knew me, but I didn’t know them as well. I got the request one morning, called him, asked about his business, thought it was good fit, so I hit the referral button; 30 minutes later he was on the phone talking to a contact he had been looking to meet for 2-3 previous weeks. I gave him an additional contact in same business arena. So he got two targeted contacts from one request through Inquisix. This demonstrates the power of Inquisix and got me very excited about the possibilities it can bring to businesses in a way it hadn’t existed before.

What are the misconceptions about online networking? 

The misconceptions in this part of the world are based on people’s perceptions about social media in general. Can we trust these people? What if I give a referral? What will happen to my reputation?

The reality is, the next generation don’t have that at all, so as they come into the work force, Inquisix will be a natural tool to use; they will want to use it and won’t think twice about asking for a referral into a network they don’t personally know, they will make the connection and move to the next one. When somebody really embraces this technology they will experience rapid business growth.

Do you like the direction Inquisix is going? How do you see the future of networking?

Yes, Inquisix is going in the right direction. I like how it has closely replicated the real world of networking. Networking on-line is the way forward.We are in a time-poor work society, where connecting to the right person is absolutely vital. I can see that the next generation are going to drop all concerns and embrace this like no other group of people. They do not have the same “perceptions” around relationships. On-line relationships are as real to them as off-line relationships.

I see it being an integrated part of a Sales Strategy, CRM strategy and people will build profiles and businesses rapidly by embracing it now rather than adopting a wait-and-see-attitude. I am an early adopter and I am willing to put the effort in and harvest the reward over time. Like everything, Inquisix will reach a tipping point and create the snowball effect that will bring in the wider web community.

Next post : Part II, Shiera talks about starting an Inquisix Online Networking Referral Group.

For more information about how you can start your own group or about our affiliate program, contact Michael Kreppein.

(Goofy shirt not required)

Inquisix is looking for a few good great interns.  

Do you blog? Love business, marketing and PR? Fascinated by Social Media and can succinctly express yourself in 140 characters or less?

Inquisix is a up & coming business referral network start-up looking for some marketing and sales interns. This is an unpaid internship.

At Inquisix, we all wear a lot of hats. This is a fantastic opportunity for the right person. No coffee-making, no errands, no copying. You’ll be thrown right into the fray, get hands-on experience and will have genuine work-product to show for your efforts. Areas you may work on: strategy, blogging, tweeting, member relations, sales presentations/materials, and media outreach.

We want enthusiastic, creative entrepreneurial problem solvers who happen to be persuasive writers and speakers. Our interns will work remotely, so while we’re based in Boston, you needn’t be (though we prefer it)– you do need to be self-directed and be able to work independently, have a computer with dedicated Internet access and can consistently devote at least 10-15 hours a week to us. 

Above all be smart (book/street, it all works for us.)

So send shoot us an email with your resume and why you want to be our intern. Charm us, dazzle us. Be creative. 

Send your resume, pitch letter and a sample “tweet” to:

Betsy MacKinnon, V.P. Marketing & Communications at Inquisix 

betsy@inquisix.com

No one is arguing the power of Social Media (SM.)

Established players are getting involved heavily in SM: blogging, Facebook (and other social communities) and microblogging (like Twitter) to name a few.

What these sites facilitate are conversations; discussions about the product, service, product attributes, marketing, even customer problems and issues. Companies that “get it” know having a presence is not the end of their SM program. It’s the beginning.

So after you get that nifty, exquisitely designed, cutting-edge blog up and running, companies who thrive using SM realize it’s not enough to have the blog regularly updated. They start to listen. To respond. To react.

With Twitter, this listening can be much more active. It can actually be valuable customer service and sales tool.

For example let’s look at ComcastCares, the Twitter SM program run by Comcast Cable.  Tweet (that’s a Twitter message and it’s ≤140 characters) you have an issue with Comcast, within a minute you’ll get a message “Can I Help You?” from one of the ComcastCares team (mine was from @ComcastBonnie.) Helpful, unsolicited, almost immediate, it is a frank example of great customer service. 

Twitter is also great for selling.

Take how Dell Computers utilizes Twitter as a sales channel. First they made over $1 Million through their @Direct2Dell Twitter address, mostly by alerting followers of sales. Then they started offering exclusive Twitter discounts through the @DellOutlet Twitter address. Their 370,000+ followers basically get a sales email and are happy to receive it. It has been a huge success for Dell both as a sales and PR tool.

Twitter can be a research and sourcing resource.

Sometimes you just need to fine something. Fast. The early adopters of Twitter are from the creative, media, PR, marketing academic, investing, technology, and finance. Think these people can help you? Probably. And most are happy to help. You can tweet a question and get an answer back sooner than later. There are also “hashtag” (#) groups- some are dedicated to small businesses, PR, journalists, and investing for example. All are there to connect you to tweeps who share similar interests.

There’s some great tools to use for marketing and communications.

Many second party apps allow business to listen, sell, communicate and market themselves more effectively. Applications like Co-tweet, Seesmic, Tweetdeck enable companies to listening (what @ComcastBonnie used to “find” me, apps use a filter to find key words or phrases.) Another nifty thing is Tweetdeck  has a language translator, you can tweet (and translate) from 32+ languages including French, German, Japanese, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), even Indonesian and Slovak. Imagine if you were trying to research new markets for wine in Germany, France or Spain or find a new manufacturer in China. Planning a business trip in Indonesia? Just imagine what markets could you open up if you had 32+ languages at your disposal? Well you now do. For Free. 

You have to find the right mix of Social Media to fit your company.  If any at all. Sometimes a small business owner just doesn’t need a blog, or a presence on Twitter or Facebook. For most, some sort of presence is a good idea especially if you are in creative, consultant or intellectual services.

Learning if Twitter should be a part of your mix isn’t that hard, there is a lot of information out there. There’s information specifically tailored about Tweeting for business - the best thing about Twitter is that Tweeps (people on Twitter) pretty much just love to help.

Other Twitter for Business resources:

Small business advisor Duct Tape Marketing’s Free e-book “Twitter for Business.”

Liz Strauss- put up “30 Twitter Apps We Actually Like to Use and 140 After That” 

Copyblogger did a piece on “Use Twitter to Grow Your Business”

New York Times’ piece “How Twitter Can Help at Work”

Plus here’s is a great little video (and there’s a bunch on YouTube):

Make a referral week starts next week– are you ready? March 9-13, John Jantsch (Duct Tape Marketing) and some other really great sponsors including Inquisix are getting geared up for it… are you?

Did you take the pledge?

Did you sign up for the conference call?

Did you schedule yourself to listen to the other speakers?

How about the most important? Did you get yourself ready to make a referral?

Seriously, make a list of the people you know that need a solution for their business and make a list of the people you know that can fill that solution. (or make it easy on yourself by joining Inquisix!)

The goal is 1000 small businesses receive 1000 referrals.  This is not just about getting a referral but giving one too.  Some call it “giver’s gain” but we at Inquisix call it smart.  

For example, let’s say your good customer Bob (or Sally or Sanjiv or Fido or whomever your customer might be) told you they were in desperate need of a solution to a particular problem they might have. You run into or connect (on Inquisix!) to someone who does EXACTLY what your customer needs. Now what do you think happens when Bob (or Sally or Sanjiv or Fido) is introduced to EXACTLY what they need by you– your relationship to Bob just got better.  Your business just got stronger. Your a networking star (and now Bob or Sally or Sanjiv or Fido will recommend you to anyone they know!)

So as we begin Make a Referral Week make a point to GIVE than GET– you might find that it benefits you more in the long run!

Follow the action on Twitter: add #MARW09 to the end of your tweets!

Jump start the economy.

No we’re not talking about recently passed stimulus bill. Or even a bailout.  We’re talking about something more tactile, more visceral– more like an A+B=C.

John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing, and Inquisix have joined forces (with some other amazing sponsors) to promote Make a Referral Week, this March 9-13th.  The goal is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses.

This is a good thing.  For you. For the economy.

So take the pledge.

It’s tough times. Everywhere you turn negative economic indicators are released, reports on recessionary fears, and opinons on the impact of the economic stimulus package crowd the news.  Overwhelming problems and few solutions.

It is time for small businesses to take matters into their own hands.  Positive changes in small business can have a positive impact on the economy. Hey, it’s no biggie surprise to the rest of us that small businesses basically drive the economy.

As a class, small business:

• represent over 99.7% of employers;
• employ over half of all private sector employees;
• generate between 60%-80% of new jobs in the last decade; and
• produce more than 50% of non-farm private gross domestic product, or a GDP of roughly $6 trillion.

As John Jantsch sees it, “Make a Referral Week is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small busienss economy one referred business at a time.  The goal is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars of new business. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention saved for corporate bailout stories.”

It’s Inquisix’s hope is that this one week further highlights the power of the referral. Referral prospects are less price sensitive, and, as Joanne Black, author of “No More Cold Calling,” points out “[a] referral is pre-sold on you … and [you] get a new client over 70 percent of the time.” We believe that by highlighting the high ROI benefits of referral networking, more businesses will permanently adopt this as a new strategic marketing tool, which will translate into healthier bottom lines. Good for them. Good for you. Good for the U.S. economy.

So be among the 1000+ small businesses to get new business the week of March 9- March 13, 2009. Take the pledge. Give a referral. Get a referral.  There will be an exciting schedule of programs to tune into featuring Ivan Misner (founder of BNI, author of Masters of Networking,) Bob Burg (Author of Endless Referrals, The Go-Giver,) Bill Cates (author of Get More Referrals Now,) Guy Kawasaki (author of Reality Check,) Scott Allen (author of The Virtual Handshake) and Susan Solovic Wilson (of SBTV.com) to name  few.

And for the social media savvy, follow the action on twitter and connect to tweeps partaking in Make a Referral Week (Add the hashtag”#MARW09″ to the end of your tweets!)

Happy Connecting!

So I was trapped in a local selectman’s meeting recently.  If you’ve never done local or town politics, I can confidently say Dante would have reserved an inner ring of hell for what I experienced. 

I love efficiency. When I was taking French I often dreamt in French, but now I just dream efficient– probably because it has been beaten into me over time and sealed off when I had twins.  One can not be inefficient and have multiples.

So back to the meeting. I was there on a pretty serious matter– a stray bullet zippin’ across a neighbors’ yard, breaking a window and firmly entrenching itself in the bench the kids sit to take off their muddy boots.  Investigations, issues with the local gun club all found myself and my neighbors at the local selectman’s meeting.

Not the top of the agenda, I waited as the selectmen debated for an hour and half on boat hoists and a request for proposal for a new dock.  I was impressed with how thorough they were for the RFP, and was really not happy that I would, given the nature of my business, be there most likely for the long haul given the time and depth spent on boat storage (which I know now more than I ever hope to.)

So imagine my surprise when they spent a total of 20 mins on the matter and basically left it as a status update with no resolution. 

 What?

Yessir. 20 minutes and I was home before Ugly Betty was over.

The ridiculousness of the situation gnawed at me until I actually realized what was going on.  It’s only natural actually, I mean haven’t you found that the more important, more crucial the task, the more it gets put off until it reaches a “critical” level.  I’ve done it personally, because if I only had more information, waited until the price went down, or had more time to complete it, the best possible outcome would be achieved.  Right?  Wrong.  Usually I forget about it or postpone it (stressing all the while) until I realized I wasn’t ever going to get any more info or the price had going back up or it’s backordered, or I had so little time left that only “merely adequate” end product was derived.

Let’s give it a name: Inverse Proportion of Immediate Action to Importance of Task*  (*the exception being life-threatening instances where it is a direct proportion– we all seem to rise to the occasion when a tornado is a comin’.)

Do you suffer from IPIAIT?  Take a look at your day-to-day projects and I bet you’ll find at least three that are in a holding pattern while you’re waiting for some key piece of data that, given a second look-see, really might not be that key.  Waiting for the moons to align will leave one waiting longer than really necessary.  I know from personal experience that the times I’ve “just did it” were often my best work product.  So from an efficiency and a productivity perspective, when you know you have around 80+% of what you need* (*outside of something like the space shuttle or nanotechnology where this doesn’t work so well) just do the first draft.  Anything extra is gravy.

As for my fair Selectmen.  Seeing local politics in action I don’t envy the job one bit.  Of course there maybe other reasons at play so it might not be absolutely fair — but I will say it was my first impression… and, as far as I’m concerned… they count.

And just because, an inspirational little video for your viewing pleasure:

I was just reading Mark Cuban’s blog and he has some sage-like advice.  He’s made a ton of money, dedicated to speaking his mind and ticking people off. Plus he’s smart. So I take note.

His latest piece on the economy resonated me like tin drum.  He gives a broad list of scary facts about the U.S. economy (and I won’t go into it but just say, you should read it)– the end result is… with respect to the economy, no one knows squat.  No one knows where it’s going: up, down, sideways.  And these are the experts, the pundits, the people in charge.  With mounting stress, your average U.S. citizen that holds a job, pays into a 401K, saves for their kids college and holds a mortgage is like a deer in the headlights.  We are at an economic psycho-social paralytic standstill.  What do we do?

We all need to find our inner Hustler. We need to start doin’ the Hustle.

Before you click off, think about it.  The real definition of a “Hustler” is less 70’s Pimp, Disco and dirty magazines and more about attitude.  So where one might see visions of Starsky and Hutches’ friend (and Snoop Dogg Doppelgänger) Huggy Bear, I see the people, and more importantly, personalities that will not only survive life’s rotten episodes but thrive.  Classic examples? Rhett Butler AND Scarlett O’Hara, The Wright Brothers, The Greatest Generation (who survived Depression AND won WWII AND brought the atomic age…,) Oprah, Post-WWII Japan, Martin Luther King, Estée Lauder, Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela,Thomas Edison, James Bond,The Founding Fathers, MacGyver, Tina Turner, Madonna, and the list goes on and on…

The one thing all these people (real or fictional) had is that they refused to be hindered.  Their progress (professional, personal, economic, political) was not going to be halted by anything. Not the economy. Not politics.  Not tragedy.  They looked at the issue from the perspective of “there is success to be made and the path to it might be different than expected.”  So they got creative, they rewrote the rules,  they re-invented themselves/their company/their country, and they SOUGHT OUT NEW WAYS of doing things.  The new opportunity is always out there, you just have to seek it.

So how does this apply to you?  We are in tough and uncertain times, no arguments there.  It is time for you to tap your inner “Hustler” and “hustle” for new ways to do business.  Your business. New products and services that can affect your company’s bottom line by either saving you money or helping you make money faster or (even better) DO BOTH.  The old way of doing things is exactly what everyone else is doing, and that doesn’t make it right, it only means you’ll all be (sinking) in the same boat.  Seth Godin, in his new book Tribes (read it if you haven’t yet) subscribes that playing it safe isn’t exactly safe.  He believes the world is ever-changing and new rules apply.  The Hustler learns how to play them.  Or else get played.

And just because, under the you-know-you-thinking-about-it file: