Recently I received an email survey from an organization from whom I have purchased their product before, and upon completing the survey I purchased more from them. However I would bet that was not their intention with sending the survey.

Thousand Hills Coffee is a brand of Rwandan coffee where part of the proceeds benefit school projects in the land where the coffee originates. I know the president of the company, and I like coffee, so I have been a customer. When I received a marketing survey from them, I completed it and then realized I hadn’t ordered from them in a while. That issue was remedied with another order placed and I was enjoying the coffee a few days later.

This got me thinking – as I market my company, maybe I should be thinking about reminding my existing customers rather than selling to them?

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This morning I participated in a dynamic discussion for the first meeting of likemind.chi. What is likemind you ask? I asked myself the same question when I heard about it, and this video by the founders of likemind explains it well.

And as I am the closest one to the meeting spot at Intelligencia Coffee on Randolph and Wabash, I was there late, however I was one of the last to leave. I met some interesting people and as we sipped our coffee, we exchanged ideas on branding, blogging and swag.

How I heard about this event is almost as interesting. The blog of one of my clients was mentioned on the PSFK blog. After finding this blog interesting, I started reading its feed and heard about Likemind, as it was started by one of the people of PSFK. A sequence of events that had a fantastic result.

And to think that people were meeting today all over the world with the same common goal.

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Tonight I am attending a meeting of the Circle of Progress. It evolved from a Chicago Meetup.com entrepreneur group, where the concept of attendees talking about what they did the last month and what you plan to do the next month became the focus of the meetings. Where many networking events for small business people tend to simply be card swap events, this meeting has depth to it that I have been seeking, and brings people back each month.

As I was thinking about my accomplishments and plans, I recalled this blog post about paying the price for success. It served as a check for my plans in the next 30 days and if they are directly related to the growth of my business. It is often easily to get wrapped up in something that is more time consuming that the reward for the time spent. Stepping back and taking a look at it in the context of the big picture is required. I view the Circle of Progress as one way to ensure I am doing all I can to grow my business.

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A couple of weeks back I posted about the abrupt shutdown of the ChicWIT email list and organization, as well as its parent organization, WorldWIT. I am now happy to write that a replacement list and organization has been formed to replace it, under a new moniker.

I just got the following email from Gigi Bozzano, who was the leader of ChicWIT, and it stated the following:

Warm greetings to all of my much missed friends!

I'm thrilled to let you know that I've started a new women's networking organization to replace the one that recently closed - guaranteed to be even more benefit for all of us women (and men)!

Called CW-Network (Chicago Women Network), it will feature moderated online discussion, networking events, educational opportunities, and as the group expands, discounts on services and products for members.

The site will be live by no later than mid-week next week so please watch your email box for instructions on how to sign up! Also, please forward this information on to your friends, colleagues, and any former members of the recently closed women's organization.

I'm looking forward to continuing the friendships and alliances that have already been formed and to establishing many, many new ones. Hopefully, you'll join us!! And...if you would like to contribute your ideas and suggestions please get in touch with me. CW-Network - Chicago Women Network - is for all of us!

Cheers...
Gigi Bozzano

That Web site mentioned will be at cw-network.org, and as of me writing this it is not live yet. Where it may take some time to ramp back up to the thousands of subscribers, it will be good to see this community, valuable to women and men in Chicagoland, back in action.

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Earlier I had posted about knowing who manages your domain names. I would like to build on this by adding being aware of solicitations that appear to be invoices for domain name renewals or services.

Recently the mail has increased with what appears to be an invoice for the renewal of a domain name or for Web site services such as search engine submissions. These usually come by US Mail, but are now starting to come by email. Where they look like an invoice, they are in actuality a solicitation, and further inspection will show small print to that effect. The hopes of these scam artists is to trick you into moving your domain name to them or to pay for services you may not want.

In that original post I said there is a big business around domain names. You can register domain names with any number of sources. My business Dunkirk Systems is a reseller of domain names, and all domain names are registered through ICANN-accredited domain name registrars. Asking a person or entity for their business is not deceptive or unethical itself, but it can be in the way it is executed.

If you receive such an invoice letter or email, verify who it is from. Contact whomever you have your domain names registered through to verify if the invoice is legitimate or not. If you do get a letter or have any questions, please post a comment here – I am more than willing to help!

Business • Domain Names • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink