Christine Kruger-Leonard

Christine and I met at the Centre Club this afternoon so that I could learn more about her and her business. She is a Family Service Counselor with Blount & Curry Funeral Home. I met her at the Neighborhood Network meeting last Thursday in Carrollwood. Christine was born in Canada but spent her Junior High and High School years in the Virgin Islands. She then moved to the United States and lived in the Kentucky/Tennessee area before moving to Tampa eleven years ago. She had been a Mary Kay representative and a Capitol One employee before finding her niche with Blount & Curry Funeral Home. Christine has been with them for four years and loves her calling.
Why would anyone want to do what Christine does? Well, there are many reasons. I think the best one is that she can empathize with those who need her services. Her father passed away unexpectedly while driving home from work. His truck was found in their cornfield. He had suffered a heart attack and drove off the road to prevent his vehicle from hitting others. He died as the truck came to a stop. Unfortunately, her dad and mom had not made any plans for what should be done when either of them died. Later, Christine's uncle passed away. And, he and his family had everything planned in advance. His funeral and burial all went smoothly with no surprises or unexpected and unplanned decisions or expenses.
Christine really enjoys being able to help people going through this sorrowful time in their lives. She reaches out to them to calm their stress and give them the help they need to make these trying decisions. She really feels that she has not only done her job but is very blessed when a family member gives her a big hug and thanks her for making the funeral reflective of their deceased.

SEMINAR!

"HOW TO SUCCEED IN NETWORK MARKETING"

June 6th, Largo, FL

Click here for details.
I attended a 1.5 hour seminar put on by Mandy Wildman and Wayne Porter in Seminole, FL May 9th. They discussed all the different aspects of how to be successful in network marking. They did a fantastic job! It was entertaining as well as educational. And, it was very reasonably priced. If you have the time, it is very much worth your time and money to visit their next class.

Dominic Monfred

I had an opportunity to get to know Dominic better last Wednesday afternoon. We met at the Centre Club for that purpose. Dominic is a Life and Health insurance agent who is looking to partner with a Property and Casualty insurance agent. Dominic is married and has two children. His daughter is 3 years old and his son is 8 months. He met his wife at a bar. She was the bartender. They dated for awhile then decided to elope to Belize. They got married there and had a great honeymoon before returning to Tampa.

In his own words...

I focus on finding families and the self employed or small businesses affordable options for health, life and dental programs. Many people today are losing their group insurance. I work with all major carriers to help customize the right plan for any budget.

-Individual Health Insurance For Families & Self Employed
-Dental & Vision
-Life Insurance
-Long Term Care
-People With Underwriting Challenges
-Supplemental Programs To Help With High Deductibles

Laura Sienkiewicz

This morning Laura and I met at the Centre Club for a nice visit. I met Laura a couple of months ago at the Circle of Success which meets at Mimi's in Carrollwood every Thursday morning. She works for EMS (Electronic Merchant Systems). Laura likes to help the small guy get big guy credit card service. She can even set up home based business with the ability to take credit card payments without all of the extra fees that most companies charge. Even if you don't know where to begin, Laura will take you through the process step by step. She really believes in giving the face to face personal touch to everyone she works with. Laura's husband is an entrepreneur who has developed his own business called Credit Union Consultant. They have two children ages 19 and 17. The 17 year old will be a senior at Cambridge this fall and her 19 year old will be starting his second year of college at USF.

Bill Deloatche

I got a chance to visit with Bill Deloatche this morning at the Starbucks on Bay to Bay here in Tampa. I hadn't seen Bill in over a year. His name popped up on my contact manager recently but instead of sending him a card, I sent an e-mail to him asking if he would be willing to meet face to face. He agreed and we had a great visit this morning. Bill told me about his new job with Reliant Medical Systems. He is the Regional Sales Director for the company. They sell MRI, CAT, X-ray and several other types of medical equipment to medical offices. Bill's the man to contact if you or anyone you know should need that kind of equipment.

Bill had a opportunity to travel to India recently. He told me about how poor most of the people are and what kind of "houses" they had. He was really impressed with the roads and traffic. But, not in a good way. The last day in India, his employer, the employer's spouse and Bill traveled for four hours to see the Taj Mahal. He told me some really interesting stories about the history of that tomb.

I didn't know this before. Bill is a motorcycle enthusiast. He likes to take day trips on his bike with about 8 to 10 of his friends. I had noticed that the skin on back of his hands had a oval tanned spot. I had been thinking that if he were a golfer that could explain one hand having a tan like that. But, until he mentioned that he rode motorcycles, I couldn't figure out why he had a tan on the back of both hands.

We also talked about out families. Bill is really proud of his children. His oldest daughter is a lieutenant in the Air Force. She finishing up dental school and will go on active duty as a Captain. She may also be getting married later this year to another Air Force Officer. Her fiance is in flight school right now. His son is an architect and is really enjoying his work and he is really feeling fortunate that he has work in this economy. The youngest daughter is doing very well in college and is going to San Diego for the summer to take some courses that are not offered here.

Bill and I had a really great visit. I really enjoyed my morning with him at Starbucks.

Mattie McPherson

I had a great 1 to 1 (1 to 1 is a non-virtual meeting where two humans actually meet face to face) with Mattie McPherson this morning. She told me about her Pre-Paid Legal business and I told her about my SendOutCards business. But, we really spent most of our two hours together talking about our lives, family and life in general. Mattie is really in tune with God's spirit and it was really refreshing to visit with her. In the course of our visit, she shared several touching stories of occasions where she was guided by the Spirit to reach out to others and how she was able to touch their lives as she was also touched by theirs. While I was answering a question about SendOutCards, she popped in with a story about how SendOutCards had touched her without even sending out a card. Mattie's husband, Sam, was in Texas on a job. And Mattie hadn't seen him in three weeks. They had never been separated that long before in their marriage. So Mattie decided to send Sam a SendOutCards greeting. She went to the website, chose her card and started to write the words that she wanted to share with Sam. She became so overwhelmed by the thoughts of missing her husband and trying to put her feelings into words that she stopped typing and called the airlines, got a ticket and flew out to see him instead! SendOutCards are powerful even when you don't send them!!!

Chad and JoLyn Hansen passed through Tampa several months ago on their way to a seven day cruise to the Caribbean. We met briefly the Sunday that they boarded their ship. I asked them if the cruise was to celebrate their anniversary. They said no but that it was a vacation. So, I asked when their anniversary would occur. They told me that it would come up on May 1st. I posted this information into my SendOutCards Contact Manager. Seven days before the anniversary I received a reminder via SendOutCards e-mail. I logged onto SendOutCards.com and found an appropriate greeting card, added a small box of brownies and clicked the send button. Seven days later I found a voice mail on my cell phone from Chad that lasted about five minutes. He and JoLyn had been "blown away" by finding a box of brownies and the "perfect" Happy Anniversary card on their front porch. It arrived right on their anniversary. They were not expecting anything. So, this really caught them by surprise. At the end of the voice mail, they asked me to call them. A couple of days later I called them and after thanking me again, we visited for about an hour over the phone. Now, I have two new good friends in Salt Lake City. This is the power of SendOutCards. Send an unexpected card and make someone's day. They may even call you back and make your day, too!

Send a card for free. Click here: SendOutCards.com

"How To Succeed In Network Marketing"

I attended a 1.5 hour seminar put on by Mandy Wildman and Wayne Porter in Seminole, FL this past Friday. They discussed all the different aspects of how to be successful in network marking. They did a fantastic job! It was entertaining as well as educational. And, it was very reasonably priced. If you have the time, it is very much worth your time and money to visit their next class.
Contact Mandy at mandy@twocupsconnect.com

Clean Your Monitor Correctly

I know you don't get to clean your computer screen very often and it is really hard to do the inside, so for an immediate inside cleaning...click HERE!

There...now, isn't that better?

Online Social Networking

Many of us are using social networks as another source of keeping in touch. I use Plaxo, Boomj, and daily I'm receiving invitations from many more. There seems to be a new one opening almost every day.

For my professional side, I use LinkedIn. One of the features of LinkedIn is that it has many GROUPS that you may join. Below is an article published by LinkedIn:

Here are 5 ways to get the most out of your groups memberships:

1. Commit to a couple of groups focused on your key professional interests. LinkedIn groups provide the opportunity to collaborate with professionals you would otherwise never meet - and with current and former coworkers, all in the same professional environment. Pick a couple of interests about which you're most passionate and jump into the action of groups focused on those interests. Many of our most active members find their participation in the right groups directly enriches what they do at work.

2. Follow other groups. Groups provide a great way to keep track of what your fellow professionals have on their mind and what news they think is notable. Subscribe to the digest emails summarizing the activity of the group. Use the new tools for "Following" to keep an eye on the specific discussions you care about most. I use this a lot myself to monitor the flow of key discussions from my work email so I can jump in quickly at the right moment.

3. Use the news. Posting news is one of the best ways to participate in groups - it takes less thought and work up-front than starting a discussion, and groups provide an easy way to get your fellow professionals' take on an article or blog post... or to gain additional reputation for your take. Post a couple of articles a week that catches your interest while browsing the Web, the newsletters you get, your RSS reader, your Facebook feed, or Twitter. Now that managers can add RSS feeds to their groups, suggest they include your favorite news source or your own brilliant blog.

4. Involve your coworkers. You've invested a lot of time building up professional trust with your coworkers, both past and present. Invite four (or more) coworkers with whom you usually discuss your favorite professional interests to join you in the broader collaboration in your LinkedIn group.

5. Learn about your fellow LinkedIn members. LinkedIn groups are unique because they're special contexts within the world's largest professional network. Take full advantage of that by clicking through to the profiles of fellow members, sparking conversations about what they're working on, and as relationships develop - inviting them to become connections.

LinkedIn groups are powerful ways to get noticed and enrich your professional network in these difficult economic times. One of their favorite success stories is this one from the Wall Street Journal blog.

Oprius

If you are like me, you have the best intentions for keeping in touch with your family, friends, customers and prospects. But it seems like someone always slips "through the cracks". In the past, I've designed my own systems to keep in contact. However, they get complicated as my contact list grows. I've tried using some systems that are way too large and complicated and expensive for my small business and I've wasted way too much time trying to figure how to adjust them to fit me.

Well, for the past 6 months, I have been using a contact management system that is really great! It's easy to learn and to use. It handles all of my contacts (no limits), my calendar, phone calls, tasks, e-mail, and plans (campaigns). It connects all of these features to my contact so that when I open his file I can see everything that I've done with this contact and everything that I plan to do with the contact in the future.

It's a really cool application not only designed for small businesses but priced for small businesses as well. You can even try it for 30 days for free before submitting your credit card information.

Here's the link to see what it looks like: OPRIUS