dougmcisaac.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Aren’t you tired of people using at the number of friends they have on Facebook or followers they have on Twitter to justify their experience or value as a social media “expert”?

Listen, do you really want to know how easy it is to get 5,000 friends on Facebook. Here’s the “secret” that’s been used and is still being touted by some of the so called Facebook gurus:

1. Send blind friend requests 30-40 people a day. Why is 30 -40 the secret number you ask? It’s because Facebook realized that real people don’t friend 100+ people in a day.  So they will ban your account if you send too many.
2. 30 – 40% of them will accept your requests.
3. In 4-6 month’s you’ll have 5,000 friends.
4. Or if you’re really “smart” you’ll go to Odesk or Elance and hire someone for $2 an hour to do it for you. You figure 1-2 hours a day for 180 days $320 – $640 to make yourself an expert.

Wow wasn’t that easy.

Here’s the deal, social media is not about the number of connections it’s about the quality of those connections. Now let me explain the dos and don’ts of friend requests.

Don’t send Blind Friend Requests

A blind friend request is any friend request sent without a reason why you are want to be their friend. I have 59 friend requests waiting right. 50 of them are blind friend requests. Several of those friend requests are from people who have social media consultant, strategist or expert in their profile…really. Is this what they teach their clients? The friend request is your first impression and we never get a chance to make another first impression.

Do send real Friend Requests

When you send a friend request you should take the time to explain why you want to be connected. If you aren’t willing to take 30 seconds to say why you want to be connected then you obviously don’t care about the connection.

When I send a friend request it’s because I met someone in person or read a good comment or post of there’s. There is usually a reason, you should have a reason as well. You should tell them the reason in the friend request:

“Dave it was nice meeting you, I look forward working together in the future…”

“Becky I couldn’t agree more on your comment on Jonathan’s post today. I think you’re someone I need to follow.”

Here’s a great friend request from Nancy Bain. Nancy “gets it” She listens, she learns and she passes her knowledge on to her clients. She’s someone worth paying attention to as well.

Nancy’s request was sent after a webinar I did with my friend and business partner Jonathan Rivera, the Real-TechGuy. She had a reason to listen to me and she told me what that was. That’s how a friend request should be sent.

When I was at Tony Robbin’s Unleash the Power Within™ seminar in 2002 he talked about Jim Rohn and the effect that he had on his life. For those that don’t know, Tony went to a Jim Rohn seminar when he was 17 and started working for him immediately after that. In Tony’s book’s he talks about being very successful at a young age and then losing it all.

He was successful when he was running an office for Jim, but lost it all when he allowed his ego to get in the way. He ended up destroying his business by allowing himself to go down a negative spiral and chasing away his customers and employees. He ultimately ended up in a little one bedroom apartment working as a janitor and feeling sorry for himself until a friend came and drug him out of the house.

After hearing about Jim I went online to see what I could find out about him.  I found his email list and signed up, I bought a couple of his books and cd series and amazingly I found a seminar only a couple of hours away in Big Sky, Montana that he was supposed to be speaking at and the tickets were only $300.  I think the seminar was called, “Secrets of the Mountain.” I immediately signed up and also bought a ticket for my girlfriend. She kept asking me what the seminar was all about and my only answer was Jim Rohn was going to speaking so we needed to go.

The day the weekend seminar was starting we loaded up and headed to Big Sky. When we got there we noticed that the event was at a pretty small guest ranch and it didn’t seem too crowded. As we were getting checked in we chatted with a nice gentleman named Jim, no not that Jim, but he had worked for that Jim. Over the course of several conversations I found out that this was Jim Britt, the guy that pulled Tony Robbins out of his apartment. I was beginning to get impressed with this event.

Then we got checked in and headed down to the first session. That’s when we found out there were only 25-30 people there. Which I thought was going to be pretty cool. Then I found out that there were going to be several speakers over the weekend in addition to Jim. That was fine and to be honest it was one of the best groups of speakers I’ve ever heard.

That night we ended up at dinner sitting across from Jim Rohn and listened to him and Bill Bailey swap stories. My girlfriend was in Mary Kay. Jim and Bill had worked with Mary Kay Ash, I believe when they were all with Earl Schoef so they talked about her for a while. Then they talked about all sorts of things and I just soaked it up. In fact after dinner we sat in the bar and listened to them swap stories for hours. It was really a great time.

Saturday morning we started our sessions and found that Jim was speaking Sunday morning. I wish I could remember all of the speakers names, but I can tell you it was an amazing line up and that it began to seem like my girlfriend and I were the only people who weren’t speaking, but I didn’t care it was great stuff. I took pages and pages of notes and I noticed that Jim Rohn was actively listening, taking notes and learning from every speaker. I see that as one of the hallmarks of his greatness. He didn’t let any opportunity to learn pass him by. He always had his journal and he was always taking notes.

He also spent a great deal of time answering questions that people were peppering him with. He calmly paid attention to everyone and gave everyone the attention that they craved. I learned many lessons from watching him that weekend.

Saturday night was a repeat of Friday with a kicker. My girlfriend had gone into town and grabbed a birthday card for me because it was my birthday. She had all of the people sign it including Jim Rohn and Bill Bailey. It was an amazing gift. We then sat around and swapped stories for hours again.

As a side note by Saturday night I had come to realize that we had lucked out in getting a ticket to this event. The wealth of knowledge at the small event was unbelievable. Most of the crowd were multi-millionaires and many of them were professional public speakers who charged thousands for an appearance. In fact my girlfriend kept asking me how I found the event. It was a blessing.

Sunday morning Jim spoke and I took dozens of pages of notes. His wisdom and delivery were unparalleled. I’ll never forget one of the things he said “This stuff is hard work; listen to what I say, but don’t watch me too close” But I can tell you from watching him over the previous day and a half that you could learn a lot from simply watching Jim “too close.” He was truly a man who walked his talk.

In Yesterday’s post I mentioned Warren Buffet and how he overcame his fear of public speaking. Here’s an interview he did on FoxNews. In it he talks about why he took the Dale Carnegie Public Speaking course and what he did to continue to overcome his fear of speaking.

I’m going through the Dale Carnegie Immersion program this month and will be sharing my experience. But before we dig into what I’m learning in this seminar, I want to share with you my experience with Dale Carnegie over the last 23 years. This is the second post in the series.

When I was younger nothing scared me more than having to speak in front of a group, it terrified me. One of the ironies of my fear is that I was a musician and had been playing saxophone and bassoon both with groups and as a soloist since I was in 4^th grade. I had played in front of tens of thousands of people over the years and I was more nervous to tell them my name and what I was playing than I was to actually play. I would break out in a sweat and would forget what I was supposed to say, but when I started playing everything was OK.

I would do everything but skip class to keep from having to speak. When I thought my turn was coming up I would break out in a sweat. Then when I was called in front of the room I would be sweating, my hands would be shaking and I would be reading my notes without looking up.  Then I would rush back to my seat as soon as humanly possible.

Shortly after my introduction to Dale Carnegie through “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” I bought his book “The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking.”  This book opened my eyes. I learned that I was far from alone and that millions, if not billions of people were afraid of speaking. I read story after story of people who had overcome their fear and I learned why I was afraid of speaking in public

I wasn’t really afraid of speaking I was afraid of failing while speaking in public. So many of the issues I had in the past were because I wasn’t prepared properly, was speaking on subjects that I had not earned the right to speak about and I simply didn’t have enough practice. It was the equivalent of trying to play a symphony without really knowing the notes.

Two things Dale said really resonated with me: you have to predetermine your mind to success and you have to seize every opportunity to practice. I took action on his advice. I wasn’t able to call up a local University and offer to teach a course like Warren Buffet was able to do, but I did the closest thing that I could and became a waiter. I figured as a waiter I would have to practice speaking every day.

I’m glad I took action, but had no idea hard it would be for me. I laugh when I think back on my first days as a waiter at the Upper Crust restaurant in Braintree Massachusetts. I would be standing in back and the host or hostess would tell me I had a table. I would have to mentally prepare myself before I would go up to my tables for weeks and it was months before I could deliver something as simple as the specials without sweating and not reading my notes.

My next big step towards improving my speaking skills was to get involved with Shaklee, a network marketing company. Though today I’m not a fan of network marketing and may share my reasons in another post, I took advantage of the learning that was available and learned a great deal through my experience.

While with Shaklee I sought out every opportunity to speak in front of groups. I would speak in front anybody that would let me talk. I was speaking 10-15 times a month on top of working as a waiter at nights. I did opportunity meetings for 1-3 people, I did nutritional talks in front of rooms full of wrestlers, I did training sessions for groups of 8-10 people and eventually I was speaking in front of groups as large as 300 people and even shared a stage with Robert Cialidini, the author of “Influence.”

By taking action and seizing every opportunity to practice, I was able to overcome my fear of public speaking. Now almost 20 years later, I still occasionally find myself getting nervous when I’m going to be speaking. But because of the principles that I learned from Dale Carnegie I’ve been able to increase my skills and by increasing my skills, I’ve learned to deliver talks in front of groups of all sizes without fear.

I’m going through the Dale Carnegie Immersion program this month and will be sharing my experience. But before we dig into what I’m learning in this seminar, I want to share with you my experience with Dale Carnegie over the last 23 years ago. This is my first introduction:

I was 19 years old and had just moved from Billings, MT where I had lived since I was 2 years old to Massachusetts to live with my Dad who I barely knew. I had managed to get myself in a little bit of trouble with credit already and living with my Dad was a way for me to earn money to pay things off and get back into college.

Shortly after I moved out to my Dad’s my half brother Danny moved back from California where he had been living since he left the Army a year or so earlier. Danny was jealous of me spending time with Dad because he had been raised by Dad alone his entire life. This caused us to have an uneasy relationship. That relationship was not able to grow into a real brother relationship because my brother Danny died a couple of months later in a crazy, stupid accident.

Danny’s death was very tough on my Dad. Dad had raised Danny by himself since he was just a baby. He had a very rough grieving process and needed time alone to grieve.  I went through my own grieving process as well. I was 19 years old. I had just lost a brother who I didn’t really know.  I was used to being surrounded by friends and family. Suddenly I knew no one and the one person who I had expected to lean on needed me to support him. I was more alone than I had ever been in my life.

To help me get through this period I dove into books searching for an answer. I read all sorts of self-help books that mostly came across as fluff to me.  Then I found Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.”  It was my first introduction to his work and I was amazed at the way Dale uses stories to explain his principles. It made everything make sense to me and I went out and used what I learned.

Learning to live in “day tight compartments” alone had an immediate impact on my life. I had been spending a lot of time alone and doing what people do when they are alone “thinking.” It wasn’t good, positive productive thinking. It was a negative spiral of self pity that only built upon itself.

Following the principles in the book enabled me to step back and honestly take stock of my life.  I had been fuming over the past and the things that I could not control. Following Dale’s advice I learned to focus on what I could control and to take action on what I could control without worrying about things that I couldn’t control. Once I started focusing on what I could control, my attitude changed and I quickly pulled myself back up and turned my life around.

Over the last 23 years I’ve read my Dale books a dozen times and always have a copy nearby during good times and during times of turmoil. While I’ve read and learned from many other great teachers in the subsequent years, I will always remember Dale Carnegie’s books for helping a lonely 19 year old put his feet under himself and move forward with his life.

Tomorrow I will share more about my journey with Dale Carnegie