One of the many fun aspects of what I do for my clients and subscribers is to interview other authors who have great messages to share. Recently I spoke with Greg Reid. Greg’s newest book is called “Think & Grow Rich, 3 Feet From Gold.” Let me give you a little back drop…

The original “Think & Grow Rich,” was written by Napoleon Hill in the early part of the twentieth century. It’s a personal development classic that has been read by anyone serious about achieving more in their lives. Andrew Carnegie was the richest man in the world at the time. He saw in Napoleon Hill something that Hill didn’t see in himself. Carnegie wanted to document the laws of success. He wanted to share with the world what he and other successful business people knew to be a winning formula. Carnegie wrote letters of introduction to people like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone. Carnegie opened the doors for Hill to begin his quest to reveal these secrets to the masses.

Fast forward 100 years…

Greg Reid was sought out by the Napoleon Hill foundation to modern day successes and reveal their formula. But this time would be a little different. Rather than just go right to the “Forbes 400” list Greg sought out people who faced enormous adversity and overcame it. He talked to people who didn’t quit. Which leads me to “Three Feet From Gold.”

The Story…

A young man who went west during the Gold Rush, R. U Darby, was determined to discover his fortune in gold. He staked his claim, and discovered high quality ore very quickly. With funding from family and friends, he started mining his discovery with early success and then one day the gold simply ran out. After weeks of finding no more gold, R. U. Darby grew exceedingly more frustrated and finally gave up. He sold his mine and equipment to a Junk-man in town. He returned east totally defeated and broke.

The Junk-man had nothing. But he had been studying gold-mining for 20 years – waiting for this opportunity. He hired the right adviser. He brought in a gold mining engineer to study the mine. The engineer told him that Darby had simply punched right through the vein of gold. All the Junk-man had to do was to go back to the beginning, to the place of the original discovery of gold, move three feet in the other direction and he would tap back into the vein. That is exactly what the Junk-man did and he discovered a great fortune in gold!

There are so many lessons in the above story. When I spent the time interviewing Greg he shared many of them. But the one that is so important is the fact that the Junk-man understood he didn’t have all the answers. He knew bringing in the right person with the right knowledge was key. Greg and I discussed this during the interview. Then he told me something that is overly simple, yet often overlooked; “Just ask! The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask!”

I not an expert on networking and have never played one on TV or Radio.

But this week on “Mike D’s Mobilazational Monday’s,” (my weekly radio show on WSMN 1590 in Nashua) I had two guests who run local networking groups.

Their respective groups have grown in recent months.

So Don Daigle & Joanne Randall stopped by the station to talk about effective networking.

This 8 minute video is only a small segment of what we covered, but I know you’ll enjoy and pull something from it.

OH– and One Danger of Facebook you’ll want to listen up for.

And our little blunder at the end!

Enjoy…

A couple of other things…

Of course, Happy Thanksgiving to my U.S. Peeps.

Jamie, Julia, Marissa and me we’ll be hangin’ out and enjoying turkey, peas, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. I think Jamie’s gonna whip up a Pumpkin Pie too.

Guess who does most of the cooking ’round here during the week?

Not Jamie – Me.

OH- she’s much better than me, so it’s mainly a schedule thing.

I’m more of a “short order cook”

 I can handle Breakfast and do make some kick butt omelets. Gotta have some meet to go with  breakfast too. Tomorrow morning I’ll do some sausage made from freshly ground pork. I added the spices- Pepper, Salt, Cayenne Pepper, Brown Sugar, and a little Crushed Red Pepper- good stuff.

Handling dinner is cool, but again I’m real simple. Usually some chicken, beef or fish and a veggie. We don’t do a carb every weeknight.

So where am I going with this??

Since Jamie is the better cook, she’ll be taking care of Thanksgiving dinner. Ya gotta know when to let the experts do their thang.

OK- down to bizness…

If you missed Monday’s radio show but would be happy getting some more leads from your website for your “local biz” than catch the replay. The Player is below.
 

And- if you want to read an “OK” (being modest) article, check out this link…
http://www.askmiked.com/unionleaderstory.pdf
 
It’s a story that came out about me in Monday’s state-wide Newspaper.
And lastly-

If you’d like some help to “Ratchet Up” your sales and marketing. Check out this compilation of wisdom to shortcut your success…
http://askmiked.com/shortcut/

I often seek out interesting and not so typical marketing materials for myself and my clients.

A very high percentage of the time (when applicable) I also use what I end up sharing.

Recently I came across some unique business cards. Those of you who have met me, know I currently have a unique business card. Anyway, these cards actually felt like credit cards rather than business cards. They were made from the same plastic. So I figured… “sweet, I can use these and recommend them to my clients too, these will stand out and be remembered.”

A few weeks ago I contacted the company and explained that I’d like to find out how to order some cards and also get some samples. Even if the samples were in digital form that would be fine. I basically wanted to see if they could also add some sample text that I would send so a few of my clients would have the cards 90% complete if they wanted to get some for themselves. I have learned to do my best to make things easy for people!

I wasn’t asking for a whole lot. Over the years I’ve had a numerous “samples” created and a fair share of my clients do end up transacting business with the companies I recommend.

The voice on the other end said; “Sure, no problem.” After all this is basically 0 cost advertising for them, plus I was also interested in getting some myself. He instructed me to send him the text and assured me this would take his designer a few minutes and we’d be all set.

I figured– about a week should be fine. “If I don’t hear back I’ll send an email.” A week goes by, nothing, no call, no email, no sample.

Three weeks goes by. Now I look like an idiot because I told some clients that I’d have a sample for them. I place a call to the company. The guy on the other end apologizes and then proceeds to tell me that the reason he never got back to me is because he was in the middle of selling a percentage of his company and in the transition they were “just not following through on things.”

Confused?? I was! Here I am trying to buy from this company and send them referrals and all they have for me is some lame excuse about being “in transition.”

So if this company’s business is “a little slow,” is it the economy or something else??

What do you think??