Rule #1.  Don’t be a generalist.

The more specific you can be about what you do and who you do it to, the easier it is for people to see where you/your company can fit into their lives.  Be a graphic designer who specializes in rebranding.  Be a printer who specializes in travel brochures.  The more specific you are, the more people can understand you and the more easily they will be able to develop a relationship with you.

Rule #2.  Define your target.

My friends know I’m a Gaga fan. And so they forward me articles that they see about her. Last week there was a story about how she fell off her high shoes in an airport.  The week before stories about her behavior at our local baseball games were all over the news.

Gaga walks a very fine line. Outrageous but not crass. Wearing a Yankee’s jersey over black lace undies was outrageous. Flipping the bird to cameras at a game was crass. Her very high shoes are outrageous. But when she can’t balance on them, then she has pushed her own envelope too far.

A couple of days ago I put up a Facebook page for my Solomon Island Eclectus parrot, Justin. (Justin Eclectus, if you want to check it out). He already has 122 friends and more show up every day.  They have names like Anna Pigeon, Arby Macaw, Elvis Eclectus (close cousin), Cosmo Talks, Pepper Mint and Happy Socks (who has 2600+ friends, btw).  Some of Justin’s Facebook friends don’t speak English. Some of his friends don’t even write English. Some are birds, like him. Some are people who own birds.

I woke up today with laryngitis.  It’s been coming on for a day or so.

Never in my whole career have I been so dependent on my voice for my livelihood. My voice has always been an extra…I am a persuasive speaker and have good presentation skills.  But my voice has never been the whole enchilada!  But now, in this incarnation of my life, it is.  And today I don’t have one.

Actually, obsessed with Gaga is probably more like it.  Not only have I downloaded her onto my iTunes, I even made her my ring tone.  A few of my friends joke that I have nothing on my iPod later than 1985. That’s not true.  But the truth is that the vast majority of my music, like many of us of a certain age, is from my youth.  And those more recent tunes...well, I hear something I like and I usually download one, maybe two tunes.  But with Gaga, I’ve downloaded quite a bunch.

I gave a presentation last week about Personal Branding. Many of you were there. It turned out to be a great morning. Lots of learning, good discussion and good networking and for those of you who missed it, I'm hoping to repeat it.

A number of people told me my last post about loneliness felt sad. In truth, I wrote it a long time ago, way before the site was up. I had met a number of people at that time who like me, made recent transitions away from the corporate world and that was how they were feeling.  I was feeling that way too, so I wrote about it.

I’ve been doing a lot of networking lately. It is probably the best way for me to generate clients. And that is true for many business people, especially those who are just starting out.

I am delighted to see you here.