Appreciation Marketing – Measure Time in Deeds, Not in Minutes

How do you measure time?  Do you count the minutes, and hours, that you spend in your networking relationships?  Perhaps you should measure your time spent in networking partnerships in deeds instead of minutes or hours.  After all, aren’t deeds more important than minutes?

Entering into networking partnerships is a form of Appreciation Marketing.  We are marketing ourselves and our businesses, and we should show our appreciation for others.  That is what we discuss here each and every week, isn’t it?  Well, it should be Appreciation Marketing; otherwise we are just looking to get what we can for ourselves.

How about the time that we spend in marketing through networking?  I’ll bet that you spend lots of minutes, hours, and even more in this effort every week, if not everyday.  How do you measure that time?  Perhaps you record the time spent in each meeting, each project, maybe each telephone call.  Maybe you should not record time in this manner; maybe you should just count the deeds that you perform in the interest of others.

When we undertake making Appreciation Marketing our guidelines for our networking, we determine that we will try to assist others in improving their business, in improving the lives of others, and in making everyone else’s success become a reality.  We do this by our encouragement, by our gratitude for their business and efforts towards us, and by advising them in how they can improve themselves and their lives.

This takes a toll in time from our own lives and businesses.  However, we must not look at the time spent; we must look at the deeds that we perform.  We also must look toward performing more and more of these deeds than we routinely do perform.  Whatever the number that we perform, it is never enough.  There is always another deed that we should be completing for someone that can help them.  Being a giver is a never ending lifestyle.

Don’t misunderstand; I do not mean that we should start keeping score on the deeds that we perform for anyone.  If you are doing that, stop immediately.  That is not what we should be doing.  Karma doesn’t work like that, anyway.  What you do for someone will not be repaid by something from them; it will come back to you from somewhere that you don’t even suspect or even expect.  The deeds that we do for others should not show in a tally system or count listing of any sort.  Just do for others, and the result will flow for all.

So, stop keeping track of the time that you spend in helping others and trying to make the lives of others better.  When you stop, you will find that there is so much more time to do so much more.  You will be surprised by how much more that you can accomplish.  Remember, there is always someone else that needs your helping hand or your kind thought or gesture.

As you go through your day, try to look for more opportunities to make others feel your gratitude or experience your assistance to them.  Then, see if you don’t feel better by not tracking the time spent doing this.  Afterwards, you can let me know how this makes you feel by leaving me your comments, or you can email me at Jim@SOC4Now.com, or you can call me at 360-314-8691.  Let’s see if we can start keeping time in deeds done, but let’s don’t keep score on the number of good deeds that we do for others.  That’s not good karma.