credibility |ˌkredəˈbilitē|

The quality of being trusted and believed in. 

The Journey

As you begin to delve further into building your network the next important task is to create, nurture, and maintain your credibility. Once expectations form, your credibility stage begins. It is important to understand how vital this stage, if each party is confident of attaining fulfillment from the relationship, it will strengthen it. How is credibility attained? When appointments are kept, promises are acted upon, facts verified, and services rendered. Then and only then does credibility get whittled out in small, meager, diminutive portions.

Don’t Mess This Up

If there is any lesson concerning credibility it is knowing how to manage expectations. If there is any quicker way to throw away your hard work, it is to fail at living up to expectations. Expectations, whether explicit or implicit, must be kept because people remember when expectations are not met. They remember when a phone meeting was skipped or an email not sent.

Determining How Credible You Are

What people say about you when you are not there is a great indicator of how credible you are. People often turn to third-parties to get a second opinion about you so knowing what other people think is crucial to improving your network. People in your network want to know if you’re reliable and honest, they want to know if your products and services are effective. Basically, everyone wants someone they can count on in a crunch. If have been called upon in the midst of someone’s crisis multiple times then chances are you’re pretty damn credible. One of the defining factors of your credibility is repeat business. If someone uses you once it only establishes that they can navigate a phone book and the internet. If someone uses you repeatedly, it demonstrates your reliability, dependability, and integrity.

Fixing Up Your Credibility

If you have read this and found your credibility lacking then I suggest you immediately put a plan together to fix it. I suggest you start small. When expectations are created for you or by you, ensure you meet them with exceeding excitement. As you create a reputation of consistency you’ll find that your credibility will thrive.

What’s Next?

Continue building your network, next is profitability.

So I had attempted to install the new version of WordPress and something messed up during the installation and made me not be able to log into my account. Then I had to attend to a few projects so I had to set aside my blog for a little while. Tonight though I was able to restore from my backup and have the site back up and running now. Eric helped me get the database restored successfully. Thanks to all who dropped messages to me with your concerns, it was much appreciated.

If you didn’t get a chance to check out the Twebinar hosted by Chris Brogan then I have to say you missed out. It had plenty of corporate people talking about how they use social media and how it has actually affected their business. From service with their clients to how they dispel rumors from their competitors. It was a great event, the next few are coming up shortly. Make sure you register as space is limited. Not sure what a Twebinar is, here you go.

A twebinar is a webinar and Twitter mash-up where conversations take place in real-time before, during and after the webinar, on Twitter.

How Does a Twebinar Work?

It’s easy. Just follow the steps below:

1. Sign-up for a webinar on a topic that interests you.
2. On the day of the webinar, watch the presentation from your computer and receive information visually and verbally from the presenter(s).
3. During the webinar, a parallel conversation takes place as participants comment, ask questions, and/or discuss the webinar series on Twitter. Follow the webinar participants on Twitter and join the conversation.
4. Gather ideas and/or resources from a community of people with interests that are similar to yours.
5. The result? A twebinar.

This is definitely a must attend event! Don’t miss it next time.

So I’m into racing, mostly Indy, F1 and GT, and I am very excited that the Indy Car Series is starting today at 8PM ET. One thing I am sad to see is that Dario Franchitti is not racing this year, he moved over to NASCAR (yawn) probably because there is more money at the Sprint Cup. Plus he is the first European to be in the NASCAR series, since its inception. So I’m sure that was an obvious opportunity.

With a new season starting I am hoping to see some life from Danica Patrick as up to this point she is just bleeding money from the team and has yet to win a race. I think she has the skill but lacks the confidence to rise above the chaff and make a win. She was very close last year in one race and I have to say I was rooting for her to win but she made seemingly beginner mistakes at the last moment and lost the lead and fell out of the top standings.

I’m looking forward to Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves in this years series, I believe it will be a great season this year. I hope the Andretti Green Team can pull another series win, Dario did a great job last year.

Todd Cochrane and the team over at RawVoice created a new site called Podcast FAQ that helps the most basic user understand what podcasting is and how they can get started. The site offers a well rounded approach to education concerning podcasting.

This time writer Robert Elisberg writes a little bit more about GIMP in the Huffington Post, enjoy.

Robert J. Elisberg made mention of GIMP.tv in his article published in the Huffington Post. Please go read and comment.