Relationship marketing thank you

Thank you. The new web 2.0 phase? I hope so. Thank you.

There’s a great article about the power of saying saying thank you over at Famous Bloggers, Content is not King, Relationship is.

Content IS NOT king

Contrary to popular belief, blogging isn’t a newspaper or encyclopedia and content IS NOT king anymore. At least not the content most people are describing when they use this phrase. What is king now?

Relationship.

If you want to build a sustainable blog, no matter the niche, you’ve got to build relationship. This throws people off because relationship, just like in the real world, takes time.

Given that Web 2.0 is about social interaction and participation, it would make sense that people concentrate on relationship marketing. But, so many people are merely interested in traffic and forget about the importance of relationships to keep people coming back to check on you and your movements. Specifically, they forget about the conversion from traffic to sales when relationships and mutual respect are formed.

Many years ago when I first started blogging, I developed a relationship with Nicole from It’s all about writing. A lovely woman, we clicked. Why? Because she followed up on the developing relationship by engaging in a two way discussion. She cared past traffic; she cared about me as a person. It made a HUGE difference to my introduction to a professional blogging life…and I became her fan for life.

Another woman who has held a blogging relationship well is Opal from Celebrate Life. She had a two year blogging hiatus but I often thought of her and wondered what she was doing, was all well for her and her child and was her business doing okay. That is the type of relationship we all need to create for loyal following and lasting impression.

Are you all aware of the marvellous Jackie and Sparkplug from People You Need to Know? There’s a couple who understand relationship marketing and have made a business out of it. Jackie consistently follows up comments, tweets and enters beyond the written into the social and personal. I have throughly enjoyed getting to know how Jackie and Sparkplug work and if I was in Atlanta I would employ them to be on my marketing team.

To those bloggers mentioned, people I have never met, THANK YOU for making the world a better place merely by recognising the importance of relationships and using them as your blogging platform. I stumble you all regularly, my little secret Santa gift to you to say thank you for being in my online life.

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Training Video: How we teach children the cycle of violence

The Cycle of Violence is a pattern of behaviour that occurs in many relationships. Mother/daughter, husband/wife, father/son, mother/children, etc (here’s a handout for you: Children learn the cycle of violence from parents). It is an insidious and vicious pattern of behaviour that refuses to use the communication strategies of emotional intelligence, relying instead upon family members reacting through behaviours rather than clearly identifying and calmly stating their case.

How do children learn this cycle of violence though? Watch my five minute demonstration and be shocked at just how easy it is to teach this awful and dysfunctional cycle to our babies:

 

Domestic violence is a child protection concern. If you are in a domestic violent relationship there is a way out, no blame, no judgments.  Ring a free counselling service in your area now and ask them to put you in touch with a free domestic violence help agency. You may be able to put up with the violence but your babies, and even your pets, cannot.

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How to make yourself feel better at any given moment

Feeling FacesWant to know how to change from feeling CRAP to feeling great? With practice it’s easy.

  1. Get emotionally intelligent. Get to know the feelings words that describe how you feel. If you always say you feel crap what does that really mean. Does it mean you feel like a big brown soppy dog turd on the footpath or does it mean you are feeling really down, like crying, lacking motivation and thinking bad thoughts all the time? Here’s some more reading about getting emotionally intelligent. If you’re really serious about change, then try this short article too: Emotional Intelligence 101.
  2. Practice, practice, practice, using clear communication to firstly identify your feeling,  secondly give your feeling a proper feeling name (crap isn’t a proper feeling, actually, it’s a piece of excrement….yuk….I don’t want to feel like crap!)  and thirdly verbalise exactly how you are feeling. There are degrees of feeling and it is the emotionally intelligent person who understands those degrees. Even crap comes with degrees: runny crap, hard crap, wormy crap, smelly crap – if you are smart then you’ll describe exactly what sort of crap you feel like! Here’s some more reading about using clear communication to express how you really feel.
  3. Possibly the most important step in moving from crap to helpful manure that encourages growth and big fat blooms is to

    purposely move yourself up the emotional scale whenever you recognise that you are feeling more lowly than you need to.

    Yes, it is possible to change your emotional set point and to make yourself feel better in any moment.  Here’s the scale of emotional guidance (you’re aiming for being in number one spot):

  1. Joy, knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love, appreciation
  2. Passion
  3. Enthusiasm, eagerness, happiness
  4. Positive expectation, belief
  5. Optimism
  6. Hopefulness
  7. Contentment
  8. Boredom
  9. Pessimism
  10. Frustration, irritation, impatience
  11. Overwhelment
  12. Disappointment
  13. Doubt
  14. Worry
  15. Blame
  16. Discouragement
  17. Anger
  18. Revenge
  19. Hatred, rage
  20. Jealousy
  21. Insecurity, guilt, unworthiness
  22. Fear, grief, depression, despair, powerlessness.

While these labels are merely words, it is the feelings associated with the words on the higher end of the scale that have the ability to change our lives for the better. When you consciously reach for a higher feeling, your immediate state of feeling is improved.

Having a sample of happy memories to recall helps to move the focus away when you become aware of a lower scale feeling. If you are feeling angry for example, consciously think of a time when….[insert own positive thought...]

Are you happy to stay at the bottom of the emotional intelligence class? I didn’t think so. Here’s what you’ve got to do:

Step 1: Get emotionally intelligent

Step 2: Use clear communication – I feel….when you…..because…..

Step 3: Move yourself up the emotional scale whenever you recognise that you are feeling more lowly than you need to.

Want to learn more about feelings? Here’s two FREE resources for you:

A poster of Feeling Faces

List of feeling words

Emotional Guidance Scale from: E & J Hicks, 2008. Manifest your desires. Hay House:Sydney
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Kids and Sign

Everyone has different preferred learning styles, including kids. Hearing is just one way of receiving new information. What about seeing and doing?

Speaking only covers auditory learning, neglecting both visual and kinaesthetic styles. Why not aid your child’s language development and incorporate signs into your speech. Your child will then hear AND see the words, and when they learn the signs they will feel them as well.

Signing with speech is an aural, visual and kinaesthetic hat trick for language development!

Where to start:

The Auslan Signbank is a great resource where you can look up signs. Begin with basic signs like, stop, go, more, please, thank you, eat, drink and finished. Once you’ve incorporated these into your everyday communications, try looking up some specific to your child’s interests (eg, dog, truck, car, big, fast etc).

Your local library should also have some basic Auslan books. Go…do the Helen Keller and talk with your hands!

Stick to Auslan rather than baby sign and your child will not only benefit from visual and kinaesthetic input – they will be bilingual, too!

This is a guest post by a wonderful young woman who is dedicated to ensuring the world integrates learning by seeing, feeling and hearing all the good that life has to offer. She wishes to remain anonymous.
My gratitude to her is not anonymous.
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Worker resources: FREE handouts for social science client work

Many requests from social workers, psychologists and teachers for FREE client handouts (bibliotherapy) and training resources has resulted in a reprint of some of my most useful handouts.

Although copyright belongs to Imaginif, you are free to print and use these articles as client handouts or in training sessions with staff or other participants. Please always remember to acknowledge Imaginif with a link back to this website.

Handouts for client work

(copyright 2008 Imaginif www.imaginif.com.au)

Affects of childhood trauma
Anger Volcano

Art Therapy with Collage and Story Telling
Childhood night fears
Children learn the cycle of violence from parents
Co and counter dependency
Conversation about self harm
Counselling friends
Effect of trauma on secure attachment
Emotional Intelligence and feeling words
How to change in two easy steps
How to debrief a friend
Issues in traumatised children with attachment problems
Learning ability in traumatised children
Private parts and what to call them
Say no to hang man
STAR problem Solving Model
Ten steps to counselling children
Use correct body part names
What can I do to help foster children who steal and lie
What is a personal practice model
When to teach protective behaviours
Why does my foster child hoard and steal?

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