Assisted Vision from The Network Manager Claire Lydia Ray, The Network Manager, established her business as a Virtual Office Manager in April 2007 and began to build her global network a few months later in response to small businesses wanting to expand their operations into places such as Spain, Portugal and Sydney, Australia. In order to inspire small businesses to use such a network, she had already begun by joining the Federation of Small Businesses in the Manchester and North Cheshire Region in May 2007 and then by visiting, as a substitute speaker, local BNI chapters. Now, she is a member of the UKAVA and numbers amongst the Powernetworkers at ecademy.com and is a member of the High Yellow Club amongst others.  Recently she joined WeCanDo.biz to find referral leads for her global network of Virtual Office Managers. She is developing a guide to networking based on her experience of 30 years in a variety of organisations and on a set of principles to which she has tried to live during her family, social and working life. "Grant me the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference." - Reinhold Nieburh

HOW TO START NETWORKING?  Are you hard to get along with? Does trouble follow you wherever you go? Do you easily become angry or are argumentative? Do you find it difficult to control jealousy? Or do you think that your ideas are more important than anyone else's?  Then you need to re-evaluate your personality before you can be a successful Networker.  Good Networks are built on trust and open communication.  For a Virtual Network this is more than important as you cannot look into someone's eyes to see if they are telling you the truth...but you can see and hear it in someone's words either written or spoken. I bought a book sometime ago on the advice of my aromatherapist, she said that I would find it a little different and I would love it or hate it, but it has been in my library since and from time to time I review its advice.  I was therefore uplifted to see that if we care for our hearts they will be full of JOY and LOVE.  LOVE is a quality against which there is no Law, says the Bible.  Probable Cause of Heart Attacks:            Squeezing all the JOY out of the heart in favour of money and position etc.,                      New Thought Pattern:                                I bring JOY back to the centre of my heart.  I express LOVE to all                                         an excerpt from "You can Heal Your Life" by Louise L Hay

How to develop a New Personality:  What are the qualities required for the Networking Personality?  First of all, all the above are related to selfish desires, only doing what pleases you, so to develop a NEW personality we are going to turn that on its head. The following 7 qualities are a part of a system of self-sacrificing, which means that you have got to forget about yourself for a while:  Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Kindness Goodness Faith  The greatest quality of all to develop is LOVE because all the others aforementioned are the result of the regular practice of this attribute. Put yourself on the back burner and start looking at ways of being open and sincerely interested in other projects where you might have the expertise to help and do it for FREE without any obligation.

Open and Honest Communication:  The truth about open and honest communication is that it isn't going to be easy if you haven't been practising LOVE.  Why?  Well, we need to know the definition of LOVE and how we can use this in a business setting. The definition of LOVE is nothing to do with a romantic feeling but is developed on a desire to do what is good towards all:  Love is kind and patient Love is never jealous, boastful, proud or rude Love isn't selfish or quick-tempered Love doesn't keep a record of all the wrongs that others do Love rejoices in the truth but not in lies Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful and trusting Love never fails whatever the situation The over-riding principle is: Treat others as you would want them to treat you... so, if you are open and honest then that is what you will get from others with whom you network.

How to write a successful Profile:  Your profile is about you and how you are perceived by the people who read it.  You have started on a journey to change your personality in order to network successfully.  1)  So write about that journey, even what was going wrong with your working life until you decided to make some changes to your personality.  What was life like when you were driven by ambition for instance?  What is your life like now?  Have you got a work / life balance, and has that improved the potential of your business?  Has your family and spiritual life improved so that you have JOY in your life again which inspires you to help others?  2)  Then tell them about your expertise and what project you are working on at the moment. Networking is beautiful when done with a complete heart.  It finds the people you need to make your project successful.  It reminds you about the person you once were.  SO GO FOR IT...!! with my LOVE!