Relationship Marketing Agency

What does Being Human Mean?

by Mari-Lyn on January 31, 2012

I was speaking with Christine and Rhonda today as we were talking about my company name Heart@Work, how did I come up with it..I could of went with Kindness@Work, except, Heart is about my heart in how I share and be in business. I started out in the Kindness business.

Giving Kindness

Christine always thought that she would like to teach a class about being human, there is more to life than texting back and forth to your friends, or communicating strictly via e-mail or leaving voice mail messages. There are key words and actions like compassion, truth, kindness, sincerity, honesty being open ..

Coretta Scott King says:

“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members … a heart of grace and a soul ..”

“There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens.”

We all have connections online and offline who we chat with, not all these people are true friends they are social connections. For example we have family, friends and acquaintances. We need to concern ourselves with how long we have been friends, how frequent do we interact with another person, how close are we to the other person, how much self-disclosure do we offer another person.

How are we sincere with the people we interact with? Recently, I was at a networking event and a person was literally putting down another person..my mouth dropped along with other people who were there..I would say, a great amount of grace and sincerity can take you a long distance. “Sincerity was first celebrated as an artistic and social ideal.” it’s the virtue of one who speaks truly about his or her own feelings, thoughts, desires. Sincere expression carries risks to the speaker, since the ordinary screens used in everyday life are opened to the outside world. At the same time, we expect our friends, our lovers, our leaders “to be sincere”.

In your relationships whether they are at work, online, at home or if you are out networking, we all need to take care of each other. And this means we have these terms of endearment to our behavior and what we say to people. As Oprah, says “When we know better, we need to do better.”

We all need each other’s support and help so let’s give ourselves these virtue and our fellow people of who we engage with.

About being Human:

You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
“There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

Mari-Lyn Harris

Tagged as: connections, heartatwork, Relationships

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Is Word of Mouth Working for You?

by Mari-Lyn on January 23, 2012

in Relationships

Word of Mouth usually happens when we experience something wonderful the we want to share it, or if we want to help others by sharing a product or service that will help someone.

WOM

WOM marketing campaigns happen if we get a gift or item we can use. Some companies will ask for reviewers to write about their products and services. Most often you don’t have to return the items, just keep using them. IT uses this analogy often. If you have ever gone to a conference, you get a bag, filled with product brochures and as you go along you pick up promotional items, like pens, USB ports, T-shirts, paperclip holders and the like.

Word of Mouth can either work for you or against you. “Social talk generates more than 3.3 billion brand impressions each day.” Can you you believe this? Each day! (According to Keller & Libai 2009)

What does make us talk about others?

Accessibility..it’s about what and who brings things to our attention..the suggestions come to us, as we want to be brilliant, sharp, intelligent so we share information. Who wants to be boring? We talk about things because we want to seem to be interesting.

For example:

You start talking about a conference, the trinkets you got some of the highlights that you liked or some of the presenters you didn’t like or what you didn’t agree with.

Valentines Day is coming up what are you chatting up about this day…the romance, chocolates, the flowers you got, or the specials you have heard about…on and on it goes.

You tried a great beer or wine, you start sharing this, or you discovered a great restaurant and you tell everyone you know about it..

Are samples or product giveaways really effective?

Giveaways might generate reciprocity or a positive affect, it is easier for people to learn about your product and share. Take for example food samples, I knew that when I sampled my pies, people would buy one. It was that 5 minute bite the converted them, following up with them, they said, “It was so delicious that they would share their experience with it with their friends.” The 5 minute test, was a way for me to convert samplers into buyers..and then get them to talk about their experience.

Some products get a great deal of buzz, “How do they do this?” or maybe the question should be “Why do companies use WOM to test their products?”

WOM is used quite often to test products, they get the buzz going, they can analyze their ROI the feedback from people will tell the company, whether this is going to work or not. It’s important as if affects diffusion and sales, as a result WOM campaigns have become a standard part of many companies’ marketing plans. The giveaways are more effective to create the buzz of the product..over long term it really depends upon the experience of people.

A Study by *Jonah Berger is the James G. Campbell Jr. Assistant Professor of Marketing , and Eric M. Schwartz is a doctoral student in Marketing , the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. it was published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Oct 2011. You can read the whole report, here.

Tagged as: Relationships, social net

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Shifting to Collaboration

March 4, 2011 Follow Your Own Road

Are you feeling overwhelmed, not leaving enough time for you for you to enjoy your life? You know who you are, ready, willing and want to grow to the next level. How do you do this when you are already so busy? It’s called collaborating. We need to shift our mind-set, shift of how we [...]