Canada According to Christine

Has the cat got your tongue, or do you really have a backbone?

Daily I read posts from Canadians and people from all around the world. What is the matter with us here in Canada?!!! We have become all wishy-washy with no integrity or desire to stand out from the crowd and be true blue dyed- in- the wool Canadians.

To me being a Canadian is standing up for my rights and the rights of others. It is allowing all people to worship how, where or what they may. It is having integrity by being honest and true to my word. It is standing up for what I believe in as a stalwart Canadian. It is being a good parent and teaching my children right from wrong and to respect their elders and to work hard for their living, and not depend on hand-outs from their parents or the government. Being a Canadian is not resorting to the

use of profanity when I disagree with something.

What do I believe in?

I believe that when people immigrate to Canada, they should be required to learn our language and conform to our standards of dress and culture. They can worship how and what they want in their own homes and churches, but do not try to force us to change our laws and standards to suit your religious beliefs or cultural standards. If immigrants want to come here, then they should be willing to conform to our societal structure, or not come here at all.

"Tit for Tat". If I was to go to their country there would be severe consequences for not conforming to their dress and learning their language.

I have nothing against turbans, but wear them in your church and in your home. I have nothing against jabib, but wear them at your own church and your own home. Don't think you can try to force us to change our laws so you can wear your turbans in our local constabulary or while pledging allegiance to our country. Equality means that everyone has to show their face, not that one person can cover their face while the rest show theirs. This is ludicrist! It is also attacking womens' rights in this country.

We need more people to stand up and speak out! If someone disagrees with me for speaking my mind, that's ok. I am a true blue dyed- in -the wool Canadian. I was born and raised in Alberta. I learned how to work hard for what I have and I expect all people to do the same.

That said, there are many Canadians who are taking advantage of those who are hard working. They are on welfare, even though they are healthy and able to work. It is my humble opinion that these people should be giving community service in return for their welfare cheques. There should not be anything just handed over for free. It should all be earned.

Now I agree that there are those who are genuinely in need of assistance, because they cannot work to earn their own living. We definitely should help these people. Single Moms have a huge challenge trying to work and raise children at the same time. In this case we should have daycare subsidies instead of full welfare cheques. The Moms could work and relax knowing that their children will be ok while they are at work. There is a solution.

Politics according to Christine:

Doesn't anyone in this country study their history? Voting for NDP, Liberal, or Independents is one step away from Communism. Read the history around what happened in Russia and Germany. The people were complacent and not wanting to ruffle any feathers, and look what happened to them.

We think that this will not happen to us, but if we keep on living our lives in complacency, we will end up not only like the Germans and Russians in Hitler's reign, but many other nations in the world have ended up in a similar position, and it is still happening in many countries. People just want to live their lives quietly without any war or stress. They want peace.

Peace and freedom are not free. We have to defend it and if necessary fight for it to the death. There are some things with which we will not put up.

I love what two Australian Prime Ministers have done. They have guts!

They stated that "immigrants have come there for freedom of religion and freedom from oppression and this country (Australia) was founded on Judeo Christian principles and we will not change." They also stated that the people who came to this country (Australia) could exercise the freedom they sought for when they came there by leaving and going back to their country of origin if they don't like living  under their societal structure. And we need to have the same attitude here in Canada.

I believe I am one of the silent majority who has decided to speak up and speak out. Who else is out there of like mind? Let's hear reasoned discourse from you.

I'm Christine Till and I have grown a backbone!

www.marketingmentress.com

Are you Social...Really!??

Social media is not about posting and blasting information; it is about listening!

How often have you connected with someone new on LinkedIn and sent them a short message thanking them for linking up with you, only to receive a blast back with a long piece of sales copy? How did that make you feel?

In all my sales training, the one key element my teachers stressed was to listen twice as much as I speak. Many people think that they have to be a good "talker" in order to be a good salesperson. 

Not so.

Dale Carnegie in "How To Win Friends and Influence People" shared a story where he had a lengthy conversation with a woman about her recent travels. They were at a party where he did not know anyone but the person who invited him. H

e simply asked questions and kept  her talking. When the evening ended, the woman he had been listening to about her travels said, "You are the best conversationalist I have ever met." All he did was keep her talking about herself through questions. He hardly said anything...just asked questions.

Hint-Hint.

This has been a long learning process for me, finding ways I can ask questions and steer the conversation to where I can learn whether they would be interested in what I have or not. If I can see that they are not interested, or what I have will not apply to them, I never talk about business...just about them and all that they can do.

This simple technique works wonders for me:

F - O - R - M

Family - Occupation - Recreation - Message

First I ask about their family. Then about their occupation. Then I ask what they like to do when they are not working, for fun. By this time usually they ask me what I do. I keep it short and bring the conversation back to them, always keeping the focus on them and what I can do to help them in some way.

It is never all about me. It is always all about "them".

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

780-904-9557

Sign up for the latest LinkedIn Secrets:

LinkedIn 202 - The secrets of the Groups

October 15 at 6pm MDT

https://li202groupsecrets.eventbrite.ca

LinkedIn 303 - Putting it all Together

October 22 at 6pm MDT

http://puttingitalltogether1.eventbrite.ca

The Call to Action

So there you are, living your life the way you have always been taught…living the “Rut-race”…travelling the same path day in and day out, and now you are 55+.  The work is familiar to you and you really do enjoy it, even though you are getting a little tired, but you tell yourself you only have a few more years and you can RETIRE!  So that is what you motivate yourself with every day as you get up and go to work. –Until one day when you walk into work and are handed a “pink slip”, voila, you are magically out of work.  The cushy job you had and thought would continue working at until your official retirement at age 65 has now de-materialized!

Now what?

You check your bank accounts and investments, and realize that you just don’t have the savings and investments you need to live the rest of your life with any kind of lifestyle close to what you have become accustomed.  You are 10, or so, years short of your financial goals.  The Employment Insurance will only last you about 5 or 6 months.  

Then what do you do?

-But you are still vibrant and full of life!  You are intelligent!  You have no signs of dementia…perhaps a few aches and pains showing up slightly, but nothing serious.  You are active and exercise

regularly.  You still look and feel great!  Why don’t they want you?  Oh yes, you shed more than a few tears!

Even though you feel dejected and rejected, you go out and search for another job and send out hundreds of resume’s…only to find that nobody wants you!   “Are they discriminating against me?” you ask.  -Or is it my age group?  -But wait!  You receive a job offer!  Wooppee!  Someone really wants you!  The excitement wells up in you and your heart pounds as you open the email!  Everything is just what you were looking for, until you read the last line.  Sadly, they are only offering you a little above minimum wage.  

What do you do?  

If you accept this offer, you know that you will not even have enough to pay your essential bills, let alone food.  The offer isn’t much above the amount of your EI cheque.  Do you swallow your pride and accept this “new offer” or do you dig your heels in and start your own business?

News Flash!  

You are not necessarily being discriminated against!  Businesses are only making a business decision.  If they can hire two people who are half your age and pay them both what you were receiving, it is only economics.  The businesses know that they will be sacrificing some wisdom and experience by hiring someone younger, but they will only be paying them ½ of what they were paying you.  To the businesses, it is worth the sacrifice.  It’s simply business economics.

Here you have all this wisdom, experience, knowledge, great health and energy.  How can you use all this to be of service in the world?  So, you decide to start your own business while you are on EI.  Don’t tell anyone, because you might just be making an income!  Sadly, you don’t make any income, and your EI runs out.  How do you get your little business to start paying you?

Read the next post for “The Rest of the Story”.

Christine Stringam Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

LI: /christinetill

FB: /christinetill

TTR: @mktgmentress

780-904-9557 Mobile

When You Think You Can't, Somewhere...

Exhausted beyond comprehension and ready to quit, a saint came into my life.

We were living on a farm east of Red Deer, Alberta in the district of Joffre. We had sold property in Northern Alberta and put everything into building a house on this new piece of property, had run out of money, and were trying to work our real estate business to cover living expenses.

I seldom saw my children awake. I was in the office early in the morning calling "For Sale By Owners" or showing properties and holding open houses in the evenings and on weekends. I was top listing agent in our office and had lots of properties to show. I was never the best "closer" in the world, so I figured that if I had most of the inventory that other realtors would have to come to me for product. It worked like a charm!

However, when I was at home, the work just began. I was up late canning and preserving food from our garden to feed our family through the long winters. I was doing all the work that did not get done when I was at work. I was living on less than 4 hours of sleep at night most nights. Sometimes I even pulled all-nighters working to get ahead of my work.

I felt burnt out with this sinking feeling that I was going to have a nervous break-down. Me...the perpetual cheerful person of the family, and my office!

One Sunday I was sitting in the hallway at church with one of my, not so reverent, children trying to teach them what it meant to be reverent, when a girlfriend came up to me. She asked me if I was ok? It shocked me to have her ask me that, but I was at the end of my rope, so I just blurted out..."I feel like I'm going to have a nervous breakdown!"

My girlfriend quickly asked if she could chat with me for a bit because she had something very important to share about this revelation.  She was my friend and I welcomed a sympathetic ear. So she pulled up a chair beside me and began sharing her story.

I had no idea that her husband was a counsellor with Community Services. She shared that her husband had told her many times, that as he counselled with many people who had nervous breakdowns, he had discovered that virtually every time someone had a nervous or mental breakdown, at some point, they had made a mental decision to "give up".

Then she told me that once a person has a nervous breakdown, they never ever completely regain their original strength and acuity of mind. Once they have given up the first time, it becomes easier and easier to have a breakdown again and again. They end up on medications that keep them in a dazed mind-frame for the rest of their lives.

When she told me that, I was in shock!

She shared with me some key things that people need to practice on a regular basis to keep themselves mentally strong and able to rise above any level of stress in their lives.

Know what that was?

"You were given this life because you were strong enough to live it!"

Rise up to your challenges. Face them head on. Be honest. Be true to yourself. Practice integrity in all you do. Remember that you can do anything you put your mind to. You can choose to have a nervous breakdown or you can choose to be a person of strength. It is all up to you.

Stop blaming life and other people for your challenges in life. We are all given "hic-ups" along the road of life. What we end up with at the other end of life depends on how we choose to deal with them.

We Choose!

I choose to be a woman of strength. What about you?

-And, No, I never did have that nervous breakdown. I never will!

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

marketingmentress@gmail.com

www.marketingmentress.com

LinkedIn: /christinetill

Facebook: /christinetill

Twitter:  @mktgmentress

1-780-904-9557

Is it all about the relationships?

Did you know that you can get 80% of your business through LinkedIn?

When it comes to online marketing, people seem to think that it is all about blasting people over and over again.  Talk about feeling like you are being slapped in the face!

I remember when faxing was going strong, "blasting" was the view people had then. People got angry and turned off their fax machines because of wasting paper.

With email there is no paper involved. So, when emailing took over from the faxing programs, people appreciated an email much more than a fax, because now they could just "delete".

Today if the message being sent is too long, or it does not grab our attention immediately with its subject line, we automatically hit "delete". Have you found yourself doing this too?

The challenge with faxing and emailing is that these are both based on the principle of quantity, not quality.

In sales, numbers DO count, but...how about if you could control those numbers and build more solid relationships instead?

Here's what I mean.

When we blast a message out to people, we need to have thousands of addresses/emails/fax numbers in our list. The ROI is maybe 1/2%.

Let's take that further.

Back in the "snail mail" days when we used flyers sent via the post office, the ROI was as high as 1%.

When we took the flyers and personally delivered them into the hands of the business owners, or prospective customer and built some rapport with them, the numbers went to 10 or 20% ROI.

As we take time to build relationships with people through educating , informing and entertaining them, the numbers get even better.

LinkedIn published these statistics in February of 2015. The percentage of B2B leads generated through each social network:

·         LinkedIn - 80.33 percent

·        Twitter - 12.73 percent

·         Facebook - 6.73 percent

·         Google+ - 0.21 percent

·         B2B leads are most likely to convert between 1 and 4 pm.

·         1 in 3 posts that triggered engagement had a question mark in it.

·         The update posts that performed the best had 248 characters.

First Place : 62% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn to be effective!

It is all about the relationships.

Looking for help with your LinkedIn?

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

marketingmentress@gmail.com

www.marketingmentress.com

780-904-9557

LinkedIn: /christinetill

Facebook:/christinetill

Twitter: @mktgmentress

Do you have a bag on your head?

Would you connect with someone on LinkedIn if you did not know them?

How would you feel about friending someone who never answered their door?

Let's say a friend of yours tells you about this wonderful person who lives on your block in town, and that you should reach out and befriend them, because they have some awesome service that you really need and want. So you go up to their door, and knock. You have a bag over your head because you are shy and self-conscious. You get no response, but you know someone is home because you can see through a little peek hole in the corner of your bag, shadows moving inside, and hear music playing. So you knock again...still no response...a third time...same response.

What do you do now?

You go back to the friend who suggested this new friend possibility for you, and they suggest you go reach out to someone else this time,  This time you remove the bag and they respond by answering the door and inviting you inside. You discover what things you have in common and can help each other with, and set a time to meet more formally.

Sound familiar?

How do you think the first person felt about you? Why do you think they would not answer their door?

This is real life. This is how most of us would respond in real life. Am I correct?

Let's take this to building relationships online.

Say that someone sends you a connection request on LinkedIn. They do not have a headshot, or they have a logo, or a baby picture, or one with their spouse, or their favourite car, or a nice vacation spot. How do you feel when you receive a request to link up with these people?

Did you know that hiding your picture is not going to save you from online goblins? All someone needs to steal your identity is your full name and birthdate. That is all they need to build a solid profile on you. They can steal your house, your car, your bank accounts, your credit. I know because I had someone try to do it to me.

Here's the straight goods.

The more active you are online and the more connections you have, the less likely your profile/identity will be stolen. When you have a lot of friends who know you well online, they will know immediately when you start doing strange things online that are not in keeping with how they know you. When they see strange things happening with your online presence, they will probably do like I do...phone you and ask why you are "stuck in Scotland and in need of funds."

The more you try to hide from people online and still try to do business, the more you risk identity theft and phishing challenges.

Here's the shtick.

-If you are online to build relationships with people you want to know and do business with, they are also looking for the same thing. When we try to hide by not using a professional headshot, it sends a message to everyone that we are trying to hide something from them. They will be hesitant to connect with you and even more hesitant to do business with you.

We are now living in the "Age of Connectivity".

You would not go to your neighbour with a bag over your head trying to build a relationship with them for business. The same applies online.

We need to be just a tiny bit transparent online, in order to build those relationships where people will get to know, like and trust you. If you are like most people in business, you also want to do business with people you know, like and trust.

Bottom line is use a professional headshot.

-And never put your birthdate on any of your profiles. If you do, put the wrong one.

Need some help with your LinkedIn?

Contact:
Christine Till
The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress
www.marketingmentress.com
marketingmentress@gmail.com
1-780-904-9557

What Does the Industrialization Age Have to do with You?

Many years ago our world witnessed the dawning of  the age of industrialization.

Are we stuck there?

By the time of the second world war, our world had fully embraced the industrial age. Many factories were built to produce a myriad of products to supply our civilization. We were manufacturing everything from ammunition and guns to household items that we used on an everyday basis.

With this new industrialization rose a huge need for workers...people who could stand in the assembly lines or work in the offices pushing paper. There was a tremendous shortage of workers at that time. How were all these factories going to get the workers they needed to keep up with the demand for their products?

Enter the public school system!

 The Public School System was not really designed to educate; it was designed to train up people to be obedient, to take orders, and follow instructions. Receiving an education and a degree ensured people that they would have a regular job for the next 40 years, with the same company.

Today, we still have schools training people and teaching them to get degrees, but what do these degrees really mean? No longer are they providing jobs for people like they did in the past. The average time people today stay in one job is 4.5 years.

We are educating many thousands of young people today, who cannot find employment once they have graduated.  Our world today has changed. The way we used to do things no longer works.  There are more and more people, young and old, starting their own businesses, but with a 90% failure rate in business start-ups today, what do we need to do to affect positive change?

The age we live in now is the age of connectivity. We are connected more than we ever have been in the past. The internet and online systems have shrunk our world and brought us close to our fellow beings on the other side of the world from us.

 "Truly we are a global village." (Marshall McLuhan)

Relationships are being built online by the tens of thousands of people every minute of the day. How is this affecting our lives as we know them? Do you feel overwhelmed with all the things that are coming at you? Are you feeling challenged with 'feeling small' in a strange world?

We need to embrace it! If you want to be successful today, get connected both online and offline.

Many people are hesitant about getting connected online, if we don't, we stand to lose our businesses for sure. If you are not connected, it is just a matter of time before your business or charity will die.

Here's the big secret to being connected...We build the relationships online and real business gets done offline.

Get connected! Learn how.

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

marketingmentress@gmail.com

www.marketingmentress.com

780-904-9557