About the 50 Attraction Marketing And Networking Professionals Project

My name is Rob Christensen.

This project is for me a form of extreme education as I interview 50 Attraction Marketing and Networking Professionals, and the blog is a record of my journey.

When I moved to the United States from Australia, in 1999, times were good for a database professional. I put up my shingle as a consultant and over the next year and a half had two other clients referred to me by word of mouth through people I had worked with on my main gig. I had as much work as I could handle. Then I took a couple of years off to travel and pursue other interests. While I was gone the world shook in 2001, and after the fallout, I found it very difficult to re-establish my professional network connections. My former clients had all been hit hard as well. Staff had changed, people had moved on.

Over the years I have dabbled with direct sales and network marketing. For a time I enrolled in a Massage Therapy class for a change. I even handed out chili samples at a local grocery store to pay rent. Eventually I went back to the database world, and worked with my familiar strengths again.

I have always enjoyed meeting new people, and still do for the fun of it. Some of my family have been surprised when I have introduced them to somebody I have just met and they had thought we had known each other for years.

Talking to people about your business is a different matter, especially if you have just met. Some people can do it, and do it effectively where both people enjoy the experience whether or not any business is transacted. Others, not so much – Somehow when talking about business we can get weird, irritating or boring. How different it is when someone calls you because a friend told them that you could help. What changed? Well, for a start, they came to you on their terms and were referred by someone that they trust. They see you as a person of value to them instead of someone who wants to sell them something that isn’t even on their radar at the time.

I met Brian Schwartz in January 2009 while he was working on the first 50 Interviews book. I thought it was a great idea and thought about a few topics of interest to me, but I was working on other projects at the time. This was networking in action. Many months later I called Brian out of the blue, we met over coffee, and I signed on to write a book interviewing 50 Attraction Marketing and Networking Professionals. Not because I consider myself an expert, but because I want to learn, and I anticipate that after interviewing 50 people who have been successful in this arena, and pondering their answers to my questions, I will learn more in the process than I could even imagine at this point.

Having read books and listened to many presentations before, there seem to be some common themes, and some differences between what different people say is important or effective. Some advice I have found useful, other advice has almost ruined friendships. Some things work for some people with their style and personality, but don’t seem to work as well for others.

In the last year or so I have stumbled across some concepts that I wish I had found earlier.

…Or do I?

Perhaps I needed to make my mistakes and found them when I was ready for them. Maybe there are many more discoveries to be made that can build on strengths, and round out weaknesses.

The thing about a journey is that wherever you go, there you are. It is from where you are that you have to embark on the next leg of your journey.

What can be learned from a variety of people with real experience who have had success in networking and attraction marketing for their own business ventures?

Whether they be an employee for a brick and mortar business, an entrepreneur, CEO, consultant, small business owner, network marketing associate, non-profit volunteer, an online infopreneur or internet marketing specialist, they all have to work with people and connect with people at some level. Without people, there is no business. Even a database guy still needs to be able to work with people.

Dale Carnegie published a book in 1936 called “How to win friends and influence people” which has been called one of the greatest business books of all time with over 15 million sales, Mr Carnegie has certainly influenced people. Now there is someone I would have liked to sit down with for an hour and asked a bunch of questions.

I am curious…

• What would YOU have asked Dale Carnegie if you had the opportunity?
• Is there anyone alive today that you would like to talk with like that for an hour or so?

Some people have thought Dale Carnegie’s material is dated and obsolete in our fast paced technological society with its mega corporations and mass advertising… but is it?

According to Bob Burg in The Go-Giver (2007) the “Golden Rule of Business” is that “All Things being equal – people will do business with those they know, like and trust.”

With the advent of the social media phenomenon, are we finding out again that people still buy from those that they know, like and trust? It seems that some of the corporate casualties in the last decade may be because they have lost sight of this truth.

Stephen M. R. Covey recently wrote a book titled “The Speed Of Trust”. It appears that trust is beginning to be seen as a valuable commodity again. Something that needs to be fostered, protected and honored in business as well as in personal relationships. Something that is broken at our own peril.

I want to know what works for me and fits with my strengths and personality to be a person of value to others without having to be a clone with a plastic smile. I suspect that other people would like to see what fits with their own strengths and personalities and I invite you to come along on this journey with me.

Lets go down the rabbit hole together and see how far it goes…

Rob Christensen.

Rob can be found online at;
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