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Important Networking Follow-Ups: How to Get Those Job Leads Calling When you leave a networking event, you may be buzzing at the prospects offered by all of those new contacts you made, but soon, the cold reality sets in. How will you be able to convert those contacts you made over a glass of wine into valuable business opportunities for you? Successful networking is all in the follow-up. If you’re looking for a job, following up is all the more crucial. Without touching base after a networking event, you become just another face in the crowd of job hunting hopefuls. The first important rule for following-up with networking contacts is to lay the foundations for the follow-up during the initial meeting. At networking events, there can be a lot of empty promises thrown around. Use that first meeting to convey the message that you haven’t gotten caught up in “networking fever” but instead that you are very serious about exploring the job opportunity that you’re discussing with your new contact. Ask the contact when would be a good time to follow-up with them, and then reiterate the information back to them at the end of your conversation: “I look forward to speaking with you Friday at 2 p.m.” If they don’t give you a specific time, then suggest one to them. This rule holds true even if your contact is giving you a lead on a job not with them but with another contact of their own. Let them know you appreciate the information by saying, “Thanks. I will plan on calling Mary on Monday afternoon at 1 p.m.” Not only will this convey your seriousness about the opportunity presented to you, but it may also get you some handy inside information, as the contact may reply, “Oh, no, Mary will be out of town until Thursday – call her then.” The next important rule to networking follow-ups is to follow up with EVERY lead a contact gives you. If a contact suggests that you call someone whom you know won’t really be able to help you in your job search, call him or her anyway. Otherwise, when your contact finds out you aren’t taking their advice, they may just decide not to give you any more the future and any business person can tell you that you never know from whom the most valuable lead will come some day. Keep the lines of communication open by giving any and all suggestions a whirl. Last but not least, do the actual following-up. Follow up with your contact exactly when you said you would, and in the exact manner you said you would (phone, email, letter, etc). If for some reason you can’t make contact at the arranged time, keep trying. If you haven’t made arrangements for a follow-up with a contact, then the rule of thumb is to follow-up with them as soon as possible after meeting them. Try to at least send an email or letter the next day saying what a pleasure it was to meet and that you look forward to talking more in the future, and then say in that note when you plan to follow-up with your contact by phone. Then, of course, stick to that new follow-up obligation. Even if the promises made by a contact while networking don’t pan out for you on the job front, don’t cross them off of your contact list. Keep them in the loop about your job search and your career goals. While they may not have been able to make if happen for you this time, you never know what they might be able to do for you in the future. Your most promising business contact may be someone you already know.

Great Free Gift Idea – How to Get Official Presidential Greetings for a Loved One Are you ready for the most official gift idea ever proposed? Do you know someone who enjoys collecting authentic autographs and memorabilia? Or perhaps you know someone who has a good sense of humor and enjoys a gag gift on those special occasions? If this is the case, you may be interested in a great free gift idea—procuring an official presidential greeting for a loved one. Here is the run-down on how you can get a hold of this awesome gift idea. Believe it or not, getting an official presidential greeting is easier than you might think. Did You Know that the White House Offers Free Greetings? It is true—the White house offers free greetings for those very special occasions. These free greetings are official and recognized by the White House and the Office of the President. However, you should know that there are numerous restrictions to procuring these free presidential greetings. Unfortunately, the White House is not currently able to fulfill all the requests for official presidential greetings at this time. However, if you are truly interested in landing a free and very official presidential greeting for a loved one, it is worth giving it a try. As the old saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. How to Make Your Request for an Official Presidential Greeting How can you go about making an official request for an official presidential greeting? There are several ways you can request a presidential greeting directly from the White House. There are several ways to make your official request. There are three basic routes for requesting an official presidential greeting from the White House. You can make your official request for a presidential greeting through fax, by postal mail, or by filling out an online email form. Although no one method appears to be considerable more effective than any other, some successful recipients of an official presidential greeting swear that you are more likely to receive a response if you put in your official request through postal mail or fax. However, this may just be a hunch, because it seems that it may seem harder to ignore a written request rather than a virtual email request. As with anything important, you will want to make your request for an official presidential greeting way ahead of time. For instance, if you want to request an official presidential wedding greeting, you will want to make your request well ahead of time. What Kind of Official Presidential Greetings is You Allowed to Request? Although there is no set guideline about what kind of greetings you can request, there are many standard issue presidential greetings. These include birthday greetings, 50th wedding anniversary and higher, births, Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, scouting awards and others. Official Guidelines for Requesting Your Greetings For the official guidelines on how to request official presidential greetings from the White House, check out the official White House website. There you will find the official guidelines on how to request greetings from the White House, as well as how to extend an official invitation to the White House. In general, here are some things to keep in mind. The White House will only send out official greetings to U.S. citizens. You must provide the following information: name of the honoree, address of the honoree, form of address, date of birth, birthday, wedding or anniversary, and the requestor's name and daytime phone number. Be aware that the numbers of requests you can make are limited on a per day basis. Requests for multiple institutional requests must be make by fax or mail on official letterhead. When can you expect your official presidential greeting? In general, greetings will be mailed in approximately 14 days prior to the event that is being recognized by the greeting.

Web Hosting - Do It Yourself Administration, Things to Consider The choice of whether or not to try to administer your own web site brings with it a host, pun intended, of issues. For most web site owners, the primary focus is naturally on creating, maintaining and enhancing the site. That often is just part of managing an entire business, for which the web site is just the means to an end. That implies there will be little interest in or time left over for technical administration like database maintenance (tuning, space management, security, bug fixes), establishing and maintaining backups to ensure they're successful and usable, email administration, disk space management, applying operating system fixes for bugs and security, and other tasks. But cost is always a factor in any business. Paying for technical help can burden the budget of a new and struggling business. Consulting fees can range from a few dollars an hour to over $100. On the lower end, the poor skill level and quality of work will make it not worth even that small amount. On the higher end, you can quickly rack up expenses that will bust your business. Permanent employees are usually somewhere in the middle of that range when you add up salary, employment taxes and more. Often, server and/or web site administration can be paid for as part of the web hosting package. That cost is usually lower than independent contracting help, but those staff are usually tasked with maintaining dozens if not hundreds of servers and sites. They can, therefore, give very little individual attention to yours. Often, novice web site owners are intimidated by some of the technical requirements for server or site administration. But, as with anything, a little familiarity can show that the knowledge required is more modest than one might expect. Administration in many cases involves fairly elementary, and frequently repetitive, tasks. These can be learned easily. Using a test site or a free hosting service is a good way to practice and learn without risk or cost, other than time invested. Once that initial hurdle is jumped over, administration can be done quickly and some even find it interesting. It allows the site owner to exercise additional control over the total product, and there's satisfaction in being able to say 'I did that' even if you prefer not to do it forever. That real-life learning experience also allows the site owner to better judge any consultants or staff that are hired. It's much easier to judge if someone is providing you with an accurate assessment of a problem if you've solved it yourself. Any time-estimate they provide to fix it can also be better calculated if you've had to do it yourself. Every web site relies on a variety of factors, usually unseen, in order to continue to function properly. But the fact is that they misbehave from time to time. Deciding whether to tackle those problems yourself depends on your available time and skill set, and what it will require to get things back on track. In other words, it's a standard cost-benefit analysis that everyone has to undertake every day in life.