Membership in GREAT organizations

April 30, 2008

What groups do you belong to? Professional, community, school, etc??

Why do you belong to them? How long have you belonged to them?

What do they do for you? Do you participate or merely show up from time to time?

Obviously, you have thousands of organizations out there today that you can belong to. How do you choose?

I generally choose because of the leadership, the mission, the members that are involved. Ten years ago I joined an organization called eWomenNetwork because of it’s two founders, Sandra and Kym Yancey, who were just beginning this new organization that was only going to be on the web - I loved them as the leadership, believed in their mission to connect women all over the world by having a website where they could find one another sorted by their areas of interest or geography and I knew the membership would be great because it would be other terrific women.

After 10 years not only have I met an unbelievable group of women but the organization changed after a couple of years of being on the web when they continued to have women ask them if they could get together in person.

Fast forward - we have met in person hundreds of wonderful women at monthly meetings, spoken at different chapter meetings, attended the International Conference and Business EXPO (which if you are in Dallas July 10-13th you don’t want to miss this—remember your girls dorm in college and how fun that was?? Well, this is the downtown Hyatt Regency as a 4 day dormitory with fabulous women and it is legal to drink alcoholic beverages without getting expelled!:)),had the opportunity to speak for all of eWomens Managing Directors from Canada and the United States as well as do a conference breakout session - also, eWomen is the one who recommended me to speak in various cities for the Office Depot Success Strategies for Businesswomen Conferences, we joined another eWomen initiative the eWomenPublishing Network - learned how to create a book, have created a book, have published our book The Field Guide To Sales —and yes that is our book on the first page of the networking site!:) ***at our monthly meetings we also have sponsorship tables….this was us yesterday at our monthly meeting at Glen Eagles Country Club - contact Kym Glass - Managing Director, Plano if you would like to join us next month: kymglass@ewomennetwork.com

Has it been worth the time, the money, the effort?????????? YES a thousand times over!!! Can you say this about organizations that you belong to? If not, find a great new organization where you can volunteer, participate, learn, network, connect with other awesome people like yourself who share your drive and ambition….it is money in the bank when you do!!!!!$$$$$

Thought you might enjoy some of the points that I did from our monthly meeting last month when Sandra spoke on WORKING TOGETHER WORKS :

We love a down economy; everything is on sale!!

When you think no one cares about you – skip a payment.

Universe never shows up early or late….it is always right on time.

Believe what you see; see what you believe.

Don’t need to adopt others way but adapt in a way that honors yourself.

Your fortune is in the future because of follow-up.

People like people who smile.:)

-Sandra Yancey

Founder, eWomenNetwork

Author, Relationship Networking: The Art of Turning Contacts into Connections