The other day as I pulled up to the doctors office for my checkup, I noticed a pharmaceutical company sales representatives getting a few items out of the trunk of his car.  He grabbed a few boxes and went inside the doctors office.  He was parked right in front of the door.  In fact, outside of the handicapped parking spaces, he had the best parking space in the lot.  It really irritated me to see a young sales representative, in apparently good health, taking the best parking space.  It irritated me to the point that when I finally got with the doctor, I complained.

Perhaps you are a consultant, a writer, a singer, or own a small business. In each of these endeavors, and certainly in others, you want to make sure you take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way to market yourself and get your name out front. Now-a-days, there are thousands of on-line social networking sites that you can take advantage of. For instance, a lot of colleagues of mine have Facebook and My Space pages. In addition to those, they take advantage of business networking sites like LinkedIn.So there are many opportunities to put your name out there. But the big question is can you pass the Google test? 

A few years ago I had just finished a sales call at one of my major accounts, and while on my way back to the airport, my cell phone emitted an unfamiliar, high pitched tone.  Heck, I thought it was broke, having never heard the tone before. So, I ignored it and shoved the phone back into my pocket.  When going through airport security, it went off again.  And again, I ignored it and tossed it in my laptop bag and proceeded through the metal detectors.  When I got to the other side, it went off again.  Now it was getting irritating.  I pulled the phone out of my computer back, looked at it, and muttered a little too loudly,  "What's wrong with this thing?"