How to REALLY use LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the largest professional (online) network in the world. The majority has 3 questions: “What’s in it for me?”, “I have a profile, now what?” and “How to get more results without spending a lot of time?”

Probably the best way to answer these questions is the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn“! Together with Jan Vermeiren, I wrote the second edition of this international bestseller.

With this book you will learn:

• 10 powerful ways to find new customers, employees or a new job
• 42 tips to make your profile stand out
• 11 strategies to apply LinkedIn at an organizational level
• 31 answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
• 30 lesser-known functions and opportunities
• Plus 53 new pages, including extra tips and timesaving tools

Discover also the free “Video & Tools Library”! It has a vast collection of how-to-videos and extra tools, including several Genius Shortcuts.

“How to REALLY use LinkedIn” is available in English, Dutch, French and Spanish. For more info check out www.how-to-really-use-linkedin.com

What most people don’t know (yet), is that Jan and I decided to

give away

1 million books

for FREE!

Why?

To actively stimulate the economy! Too many people are looking for new customers, new employees or a new job. They are hardly using LinkedIn, because they don’t know the platform well enough!

At the same time, we are raising 1 million dollar for charity! Check out our website www.how-to-really-use-linkedin.com for more info. And remember to download the book for FREE as well! (English and Dutch versions!)

To your success!

Give a Day, Get a Night

You all know that contribution is one of my top priorities (if you didn’t, look at my logo 🙂 ). Now the lovely people from Sage Hospitality Resources have come up with a brilliant idea: Give a Day, Get a Night.

Oh, by the way, Sage is one of the leading hotel management and business development companies with strong partnerships with Marriot, Hilton and Starwood, in case you didn’t know them…

So, what is “Give a Day, Get a Night” all about? When you GIVE 8 hours of community service to a registered 501(c)3 non profit organization (USA), you’ll GET a complimentary night stay or 50% discount on hotel rooms at all 53 Sage hotels across the USA.

At the check-in you simply  show a letter from a registered non-profit organisation that proves you have undertaken 8 hours of voluntary work. This entitles you to 50% off the published price of any night in the hotel or when available a complimentary room.

Personally, I am convinced that this initiative is building a lot of goodwill and positive branding, which is an excellent approach in these challenging times for the hotel business. Andyes, I’d Give a Day if I where in the USA. Probably even a couple…

I wish more (business) people would step up and support charities in such a positive way. So, what would you do? What campaign do you have in mind? Let us know!

Go Bananas!

Showing up and helping people in need, stepping up for charities and giving back to society in general are very important for Tonia and me.

In 2008 I have dedicated about 10% of my time to contribute to these initiatives.

Our main charity projects is Go Bananas. Our goal was to find a way to help Kevin Allen, the Banana Man, with his amazing goal of providing 1,000,000 meals for the forgotten orphans in Zululand, South Africa. We decided to step up and set ourselves an ambitious goal of 10%, which is a whopping 100,000 meals.

As most of you already know we created a challenge for ourselves to walk 100 km (60 miles) in 1 day. Supporters could sponsor us for every km we walked. We also found a number of corporate sponsors and presented several banana deals.

With additional help and events, we received more money. We finally calculated the new total and we are so happy!

We gave € 6,417 to Banana Appeal in total!

This means that we surpassed our ambitious goal and more children will be fed thanks to all our sponsors and supporters. This eye-wathering result made us realize how great we have it in our own life. Not only do we have a roof over our head, but also plenty of food, drinks and even a car. We go on holidays and enjoy time with friends and family. I feel so grateful every day! Do you too?

Coming back to Go Bananas, we enrolled to participate in a radio quiz Quizt’t on Radio 2. This Thursday 26th March, we’ll be headed to the studios in Ghent with several supporters. So, if you are willing to support us, you are most welcome to join us too! We need at least 20 supporters! Mail me and I’ll send you the details. The winner of the quiz takes € 1,000, which would be a great start for 2009!

Of course, we are still accepting gifts for Go Bananas as well. This year will be a special year and I’ll be back with updates and plans for 2009 later.

In the meantime, think about your own actions to step up and give back to society and charities. Now would be a great time to take that extra step! And if you can’t choose which one, give me a call, we always welcome extra support for Go Bananas!

Have a great week,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker & Life Coach

Go Bananas!

Actions speak louder than words!

Hoe ver zou jij gaan om een kind te redden?
De meesten onder ons zouden tot het einde van de wereld gaan én terug om een geliefde te redden.
Maar hoe ver zou JIJ gaan om een wanhopig kind te redden?

Wij stappen alvast 100km voor de Banana Man! Doe zoals onze huidige sponsors en doneer een bedrag per afgelegde kilometer. Gewoon een bedrag naar keuze storten mag uiteraard ook!

Vandaag werd de nieuwe website van Go Bananas gelanceerd. Binnenkort volgen nog updates…

Stay tuned,

Bert Verdonck
Create, Connect & Contribute

New Year’s Resolution

Today is the first day of the rest of my life, so I decided to create a New Year’s Resolution. What will be different this time? Few people make resolutions on their own, with no one else around, reported to no one else. From that point of view, resolutions are more of a social convention than an act of goal-setting.

People make resolutions to shore up a shortcoming in their lives, character, careers or businesses. Resolutions are not nearly as powerful as goals since goals ideally represent movement towards some positive, desirable outcome.

In contrast to wishes, dreams, and fantasies, resolutions are not totally useless gestures. If you make resolutions for fun, go ahead and keep doing it! Who says you can’t have fun?

Anyone can be so easily and quickly diverted these days that it is possible to arrive at work, and by noon, have no active connection with what you’ve identified as being important in your life. Even if you are among the lucky few who make some significant progress on some of your resolutions, you probably could have achieved them in multiples had you turned them into formal goals.

So, coming back to my Resolution, I am bound to succeed, because I maintain a relative simplicity and recognize that progressing a step at a time will result in spectacular achievement.

I turned my personal Resolution into goals and it looks like this:
This year I will become the most successful lifehacker in Belgium. I also commit to more sports, at least twice a week and spend more time with my friends and family. Finally, I am stepping up by giving away 10% of my profit to charity.

In 365 days, it will be time to review my Resolution and see how I performed. Now, you know what I am up to and I would like to ask for your involvement too! How? Can you keep me accountable for my resolution? And take the necessary steps to keep me motivated and committed? That would be fantastic! Maybe something to put in your Resolution 😉

Feel free to share your Resolution as well…

Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker

Cash funds dreams!

Ok, it might surprise you, but money wasn’t that important to me in the past. I earned a nice income, sometimes a bit less than anticipated (being independent has disadvantages as well 😉 ) , but always (just) enough.

Since my Power-sabbatical last year, my point of view changed. Why?

I used to believe that I was doing great! Assuming that I earned a “100”, I gave away about a “10” to charity . I still had more than enough with my “90”. Now, instead of giving away the “10”, I spend invest it in myself (and others). Why? To learn, grow and increase my income to “200”, so I can give away “100” instead of “10”! I learned that Cash funds dreams! You can give away a lot more if you have a lot…Of course, I am also dreaming of travelling the world and some other stuff. So I’ll be even happier! 😉

We all know the “Law of Attraction”, right? If you settle for a “100”, that’s exactly what you are going to get…

So, I have set a new standard for myself and I am keeping myself accountable for reaching it!

What about you? What’s your standard?

How are you going to reach it?

Enjoy every day,

Bert Verdonck

Network Creator