As we celebrate our five year anniversary this month, I have been looking back over our first five years; the milestones that made a difference and have kept us growing over the years.
2006 - 2007 were banner years for TNNW. We experienced significant growth in our writing staff in terms of the quantity of articles we offered. What we lacked, though, in early 2006 were articles by bigger names in the networking world.
All that changed after an article was done on me in our local paper, which made it onto the web. Once there, it was picked up by Ron Sukenick, a speaker and author from Indianapolis, who noticed what I was doing and wanted to offer his help. He told me that he had friends and contacts and once worked with one of my networking heroes, Dr. Ivan Misner, when he was first building a national presence for BNI, an organization of which I was quite familiar being one of their former directors.
In August, 2006, Ron began his long-running column with us. That set off a "chain reaction" of sorts with the additions over the next several months of Heshie Segal and Donna Fisher, two other well-known networking speaker/authors. We were building credibility and respect with our audience.
One of my dreams came true in November, 2006 when I went with my friend Ruth Gatling (who would later become one of our writers) to North Jersey to hear Ivan Misner speak about his recently-released book, The 29% Solution. At the event, I spoke with my former BNI employer and friend, Mark Carmody, Executive Director of BNI Mid-Jersey/Pennsylvania, who insisted that I speak with Ivan about having him write for TNNW.
What resulted from that conversation was a dream come true (and much easier than I thought it would be); Ivan would write a regular column for us...Networking Success (now renamed this month to Network Like a Pro). In January, 2007, when we introduced his article, I wrote:"All through my life, like most people, I've been NetWorking. One of the biggest influences on my current thinkings and teachings in regard to NetWorking were inspired by the written works and and founder of Business NetWork Int'l. (BNI), Dr. Ivan Misner. In fact, for a while I was a Director for the organization and had quite a positive experience.
In my mind we made it to a totally new level, but we had way to much information to give to people in our regular monthly format. I remember one of our readers said at the time, "This is the longest friggin' newsletter I have ever read."
"When I started The National NetWorker, almost two years ago now, I said to myself that I would know that we have made it as a publication when Ivan recognizes TNNW as a viable source of NetWorking information and education. The good news is...
"...he does!"
In response to our growing monthly offerings we decided to go to the "weekly" format that we are known for today.
By the end of 2007 into the beginning of 2008, we had certainly reached the pinnacle of TNNW, version 1.0. I had introduced The Ten Laws of Relationship Capital to the world through my contributions to the book, The Emergence of the Relationship Economy and in my own ten part series in TNNW. We had great writers. We had momentum. We had a growing following on an international level.
But personal tragedy was about to challenge TNNW's status quo and threaten all the work we had begun...
...more next week.
All my best,
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