C.S.,
Welcome to Clusters. Since you have been following Teddy, Eileen, Paul and me, you have to know that we are big on "mutual collaboration." For us, business networking is not so much about sales as it is about making connections. Often, making connections means "lifting up the other guy...first."
Take Twitter, for example. Twitter does not work at all unless you "follow someone else...first." When you make the effort to follow someone else first, what happens? Someone else chooses to follow you? Why? I think there are two mainstream reasons:
1) They actually want to follow you. In fact, they may have automated their Twitter account through Socialtoo or TweetLater to automatically follow those who follow them.
2) You are following someone they admire and they choose via a service like Mr. Tweet to follow those who follow someone or some area they believe would benefit their business.
We just wrapped up production of magnetic to-do-list boards. These boards are designed to be placed on refrigerator doors advertising the businesses of Ryzers to folks living in Lake County, CA. One hundred boards are on their way to me. I will be manually stuffing them into goodie bags and handing them out at a community plaza next Thursday.
That is an example of something which can being accomplished through folks around the world working together. Well, Christmas is coming. What are you doing to promote your business for the holidays? We already have the prototype. We could easily tweak the design and make it about Christmas. Ryzer Sherry Simoes in Canada created the design. She could easily load the design up to Zazzle.com and you could order your tailor-made board right from there.
Keep in mind, what makes the to-do-list board such a powerful marketing tool is that it is not simply about one business. It's about "a community." The board sends a message that we are all on this Big Blue Marble together. Let's help each other out. If only one business were featured on the board, it would cost that one party a lot more to do the promotion. But, by working in mutual collaboration with other business, not only do you lower your cost, you enhance your business's credibility by being showcased among other businesses.
The message of the to-do-list board to the small business community is - "You need to be on a to-do-list board for the Christmas holidays." But, don't do it along. Do it in mutual collaboration with other businesses. And now, the Ryze Business Network has shown that it can indeed "make that magic happen."
Lamar Morgan
CDMM - Synergistic Business Marketing
707-709-8605
Need PR?...Call Lamar! Private Reply to Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 | 
