Keen to join the brave new world of social networking? Enjoy connecting with friends and family through Facebook but not sure how to make the move into online business networking?

“Multiply Your Business Connections Through Social Media” is an evening workshop, led by social media consultant Kelly Rigotti. The seminar will give you the opportunity to multiply your business connections through social media. Learn the basics of tested and emerging social networks such as Twitter and Google+, and how you can use them to expand your online network. Apply the golden rule of face-to-face networking, “Give, receive, then give again” to make a powerful impact online as well.

Register Now! This seminar is free for WWNG members, and 20 euros for non-members.

Date: Wednesday 23rd November

Place: Grenoble Ecole de Management

Time: 18h45 to 21h00

Speaker: Kelly Rigotti

Have a friend or acquaintance who is interested in learning more about social networking? Why not forward this invitation to them?

Congratulations to the newly elected 2011-2012 Board of the WWNG:

• Mickey Farrance, President
• Franςoise Lerond, Vice President
• Michelle Onofrey, Secretary
• Mireille Derain, Treasurer
• Lotte Peeters, Programs Chair

We are pleased to welcome our brand-new Board member, Mireille Derain – who brings to the Board a fearless approach to accounting.

And on behalf of myself and the entire Board I’d like to say “thank you” to outgoing Board member Helen Perrin-Gouron, whose own fearless approach to accounting AND banking kept our accounts straight through the present (and even earned us a bit of interest!)

At the WWNG Annual General Meeting, we also did a bit of brainstorming about how to best use the money in our accounts for the most benefit of our membership.  The new Board will be meeting shortly to establish the association’s goals for the coming year (July 2011-June 2012). If you have a suggestion for a goal or objective for next year, or for anything you’d like to see our association do, please email us at wwngrenoble@gmail.com.

Note that we have 2 more social events planned through the summer (after our wonderful family picnic on 25 June!): an aperitif at La Table Rond on Friday 29 July, and a wellness day on Sunday 4 September.  I, and the new WWNG Board, hope to see you at one or more of them!

Happy networking,

Mickey Farrance

This past month the WWNG had two notable events: the regular monthly meeting, and the Professional Development Seminar “Essentials of Successful Negotiation.”

Why notable?

The program for our May monthly meeting was developed and presented by Amy Cannata (Waterfall Wellness) – we made name tags. If you think that doesn’t sound very interesting – maybe there is a side of Amy you haven’t seen yet.

The introduce-yourself excerises that Amy conducted, using different plays on everyone’s names and interests, and a bingo-card treasure hunt had everyone laughing – and even more, remembering each other better when it can time to pass leads. 

I think we have broken our all-time record for leads passed in a single meeting: 68 leads passed among 22 [laughing] women. That’s an average of 3 leads per person!

Wow.

And on Saturday May 28, Ellen François-Jacobs facilitated a day-long Seminar in which we covered the basic theory behind successful negotiation, and then put it into practice using role plays from case studies.  And if you think that doesn’t sound very interesting, maybe you have never taken a workshop with Ellen! Amid the fun and laughter, she conveyed some very useful take-aways, 2 of which I’ll share here: prepare yourself well, and know your BATNA.*

In passing, I’ll mention that whenever the WWNG gets together, networking happens. Without even really trying very hard, we managed to pass 17 leads.

So May has been a notable month as we bring our “academic” year to a close. We’ll be celebrating our accomplishments and looking forward to next year’s activity when we get together in June for the Annual General Meeting and the spring/summer Social.

Happy networking,

Mickey “Networking in France” Farrance
(thanks to Amy!)

*BATNA = best alternative to negotiated agreement. Your Plan B if you need to walk away from a negotiation.

Are you thinking of setting up your own business? Or have you already started down the road to being your own boss? Join us for this evening WWNG Professional Seminar and start learning about what you need to know to navigate the road ahead.

We have assembled a panel of self-employed women (French, American, and English) who will offer their advice and experience and answer your questions* about legal and tax issues, finance, marketing, and using web resources.

Register today – this Professional Seminar is 30€ for non-members, and free for WWNG members. It is open to all, but places are limited so don’t delay.  (And please forward this information to anyone you know who may be interested in this topic.)

*When you have registered, you’ll be solicited to send in your specific questions in advance.

When:     Wednesday 20 April 2011, 6:30 – 9 pm

Where:    Grenoble Ecole de Management

For more information, contact wwng.program@gmail.com.

The WWNG Professional Enrichment Program (PEP) did it again!

There were 23 of us at in the PEP this year. And what a Seminar…with 3 modules back-to-back in an all-day program, we worked, laughed, and shared quite a lot.

First, we identified values and talents. We have some incredibly talented, experienced, and generous women in our association.

Then we individually developed concrete goals and objectives, and many of the PEP participants agreed to share progress on them at the next WWNG meeting. Not only is it immensely helpful to actually write down those long and short-term goals, but accountability is a great motivator to help us meet them. So – be accountable to your fellow WWNG members, and tell us how you’re progressing when next we meet! Get support — and help, if you need it – from all of us.

And to finish off a long day, we heard some really good progress on those 30-second introductions. I’m really looking forward to hearing them again at our next meeting.

If you are a graduate of the WWNG PEP(2011 or earlier), bring your best 30-second intro to the February monthly meeting. Our program of the evening on the topic of career sustainability will be presented by Nathalie Reynaud, and I expect it will be an excellent follow-on to our PEP work.

And of course, whenever WWNG members get together, networking happens. Though we didn’t specifically set up the event for networking, we managed to pass 30 leads anyway. Amazing.

A big thank you to Lotte Peeters and the Program Team for coordinating the logistics, and to Véronique Rostas, Françoise Lerond, and Karine Gerentet for facilitating the workshop modules.

Happy networking!

Mickey Farrance

The WNNG got 2011 off to an inspired, imaginative start!

Where do creative people get their ideas from? NaTasha Shastan Bertrand shared some of those secrets with us at the January monthly meeting.

There’s nothing I like more than good advice that’s easy to follow. NaTasha gave us both.

Creativity likes to be fed, watered, fertilized. And then it produces results, like big, red, crunchy, tart, juicy apples.

So water and fertilize your apple trees, pile apples into your barrels, share them with your friends!

(If you’d like to know more, contact a WWNG member or join us.)

We can apply creativity to leads generation too. At January’s meeting, 29 of us passed 35 leads. That’s almost 1.5 per attendee. Nice!

And here’s a heads-up about next month. Following the Professional Development Program on February 5, we’ll be hosting Nathalie Reynaud Decoster at the monthly WWNG meeting on February 17. She’ll be addressing sustainable careers – how to keep your professional skills relevant and marketable throughout your working life.

Creative, and sustainable – that’s what a career should be. Why not yours?

Happy networking!

Mickey Farrance

Happy New Year!

Have you made your “new year’s resolutions” yet?

Here’s one I recommend: “I will take my networking skills to a new level this year, and see results that help me advance my career.”

It’s an easy one to accomplish – if you are already a member of the WWNG, you have a great on-going opportunity to learn and practice your networking skills.

WWNG members can take two immediate actions to achieve that resolution. Get your new year started right:

• come to the monthly meeting on Thursday, 20 January
• sign up for the 2011 Professional Enrichment Program on 5 February

If you are not a member, well, your new year’s resolution might include joining the WWNG…

The WWNG Board has a few resolutions for this year too. One of them is to continue to fine-tune the WWNG Seminar series to maximize benefit to members.

To do that, we’ve asked for member input to this survey. Feedback will help us insure that WWNG continues to provide programs that match our members’ needs. (If you are not a member but would like to give us your input about WWNG programs, feel free to complete a survey and let us know your thoughts.)

Have a healthy and happy start to 2011!

Mickey Farrance

The WWNG winter/holiday social in early December was a super success. Thanks are due to Sara Freitas-Maltaverne (SFM Traduction) for hosting the 30 or so WWNG members (and guests) who showed up bearing fabulous food and drink.

Our December regular monthly meeting was excellent also.  Claire Cudrey of Cézame Connexions spoke about the experience of growing her business (pre-sales qualification for biotechnology products and services) over the past 5 years.  Congratulations to Cézame Connections, recently re-located into an office in downtown Grenoble and now with its first employee!

Claire shared quite a bit of useful information, including how she has learned to price her services and how she has changed her client targeting.  Among other things, we learned that tech start-ups in France can often take a fairly long time (5-10 years) to mature, that is, to be ready to commit resources to non-technical functions such as marketing, sales, and communications.  Claire’s observation was confirmed by many other business owners in the audience.  (Entrepreneurs – take note.  If you are selling or planning to sell these kinds of services to young companies, you may find it…challenging.)

And participation in the “holiday leads – giving and receiving” campaign we kicked off last month seems to have produced a killer result:  55 leads passed among 18 members and guests attending.  That’s an average of 3 leads per attendee.  Wow!

To the recipients: I hope all your leads prove to be fruitful.  To the givers: thank you for your generous support for your fellow WWNG members.  If you were both – well done.  What a great way to finish up 2010!

Happy holidays to everyone – see you in the New Year.

Mickey Farrance

As we start heading into the holiday season, we’ll soon be thinking about gifts – giving, and receiving. So in this post I like to talk a bit about leads – giving, and receiving.

First, I’ll share some figures:

• For the entire subscription year of 2009-10, we averaged 1.8 leads per person attending each monthly meeting.
• At the October meeting, 27 of us passed 75 leads – an average of 2.8 leads per person.
• At the November meeting, there were 22 of us, and we passed a total of 67 leads. That’s an incredible average of 3 leads per person!

That is an impressive amount of business being passed in our group. Well done!

Of course a focus on quantity isn’t enough. The quality of a lead is very important. One quality lead is better than a fistful of inappropriate or inapplicable ones.

So how do we focus on quantity AND quality? Here are a few suggestions:

• Get to know your fellow WWNG members. Each one. Who is she, what is her business, profession, strength? What is she looking for? Listen to the 30 second presentations carefully, and spend some time checking out the Member Directory.
• Help your fellow WWNG members get to know you. Explain yourself clearly in your 30 second presentation. Keep your entry in the Member Directory up-to-date.

As we all know, opportunities for leads can appear at any time. Talking to clients, customers, friends, acquaintances, colleagues – you never know when someone you’re chatting with may express the need for, or offer, a resource that someone in the WWNG can help with or use.

Wouldn’t it be great to whip out a WWNG member’s business card and hand it to the person who’s just expressed the need for, say, a translator? Social media marketing expertise? French lessons? A music teacher? An administrative assistant? And so on…

Whenever you refer someone to a fellow WWNG member, no matter how that exchange takes place, that’s the time to record the important information on a lead card.

We’ve just had a large supply of WWNG leads cards printed. At the next meeting, take a handful of them and keep them in your briefcase, purse or wallet. Every single time you make a contact for a WWNG member, record it, and of course contact that member right away by email or phone. That’s the moment a lead is passed. Enjoy the feeling of having helped someone with something they’ve asked for!

Bring the completed leads cards to the meeting, and you can proudly present your leads for the month as a fait accompli. What a nice holiday gift to give! And if we all do the same, what a nice holiday gift we’ll all receive.

Happy holiday networking!

Mickey Farrance