My bank no longer loans money to businesses. However they do offer coffee and cookies in their lobby. Fair trade wouldn’t you say?

Since the crash last Fall, businesses have been hurt by a lack of new lending from banks and the cutting of their existing credit lines. But, good old American ingenuity is filling the money gap with peer to peer lending (P2P). Sites such as Prosper (which I have used) offer high interest to lenders. Borrowers have no choice but to get the funds they need where they can (heck, its better than a payday loan!)

P2P loans are now about $3B and expect to double next year. At Prosper, the average investor makes about $3500 in loans at just over 9% interest (not bad, considering the average long term CD now pays 3%). The risk of not payment is still higher than normal. Even at these rates, borrowers still out number lenders.

What has been your experience wth P2P loans?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out Chris Brogan’s video review of my new book, BAM! See my favorite part of the review.

BTW, many people freaked out that Chris was driving and reviewing. Here is the making of the BAM! Video

“ almost every comment presumed I was soon to kill every other person on the road, I thought I’d show you how I shot it. Still, was it safe? I’ve probably done safer things than shoot a video while driving, but hopefully, you’ll get a better sense of what I saw and what controls I had while shooting it. If you’re still not pleased, it’s okay. I do lots of things you don’t like. I just don’t usually film them.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

This week on my radio show, we talk about a new leadership and management style that is beginning to gain popularity. This style has been made famous by online retailer Zappos- and there is no denying their success with the billion dollar sale to Amazon. This leader organization style is called- loosely coupled and highly aligned- and with all the internet tools that make it seamless to work together anywhere in the world- it seems to be gaining popularity.

We talk to a series of guest about what does this actually mean and how can you can implement this in your business.

Camille Preston, the founder of AIM leadership talked about her work with Zappos and what their success is based on:

1. A Clarity of Character in the leader (Tony Hsieh) is about being aligned with who you are and communicating this with your company. It must pervade the culture even if you are not in person.

2. Building Trust in a distributed workforce by having clear values.

3. Be adventurous and creative (from Zappos) and know where the (fewer) boundaries are.

Camille talks about what trust costs us both positively and negatively.

Ray Salemi, author of “Leading after a Layoff” talked about how easy it is for relationships to be destroyed over a long distance as a result of miscommunication. We never make up postive stories. He talks about when you should use email or when to pick up the phone.

John Dallas, the Chief Alignment Officer at Hillview Partners talked about the importance of being strategically aligned to a stated destination (but not having to agree all the time).

Jared Reynolds, Innovation Officer at Zenagen discussed how his company practices this style of management for a comfortable, but not lazy organization.

Listen now!

We all know how important networking is because it’s who you know not what you know. However, I am constantly amazed at three things:

1. People that think networking is handing out business cards is networking (its just handing out cards and not a real connection)
2. People that do not return an email after I have met them (it can’t just be attributed that they don’t want to know me, could it?)
3. People that I tell that I am a good prospect for them to sell something to me and never follow up with me.

In order to build a strong,vibrant network, we need to do it one person at a time. Four ways you can do it.

1. Introduce people you know to each other. I am constantly amazed about what Chris Brogan always does when I talk with him at conferences. Even before we get very far, he always introduces me to the people that he is with so we have a chance to make a connection (and he has instigated many relationships this way).

2. Contact people after you meet with them. I always send a follow up email to everyone I meet and include something about our meeting specific to them.

3. Return your emails and phone calls in a timely fashion. This means within 24 hours in this fast paced world. If you can’t do that, then ensure someone else does it for you or set the expectation on your outgoing voice mail or email that sometimes it takes 48-72 hours for you to return phone calls.

4. Respond to Facebook, blog posts and Twitter tweets. If you are involved in these social media tools then participate in them. When you get notified of comments on your Facebook or blog posts, reply to them. When someone metions you in a tweet or direct mails you, reply to them. When I am notified that someone is starting to follow me on Twitter, I send them a custom reply that includes their name and something about them.

What do you do to build relationships?

I am addicted to new shiny gadgets. So this chart from Scordit has helped me. Thanks to Brook Miller at Motivequest for sending it in.

John Exley at CEO

About a week back, I spoke at the annual Collegiate Entrepreneurs Conference in Chicago. Every year, 1500 college students that are interested in entrepreneurship flood the conference with more enthusiasm then you have every seen. I met the young superstar entrepreneurs  like John Exley, Matt Wilson, Jared O’Toole, and Michael Simmons.

After talking to the students for awhile, you realize that our future is safe with them. They realize that if they are going to have a strong future, they need to make a job for themselves throught starting a company and not depend on getting one. In the future, we need to build the one asset we all have control over- our personal brand that will make us profitable in the future.

Here are the superstars I met at the conference that you need to know:

Aliza Sherman (@Aliza Sherman) Hailing form rural Alaska, I finally got to meet Aliza in person (after only have met her on Second Life). She is a web pioneer on the web since 1987 and built her first community in 1992. She  started the first woman-owned Internet company – Cybergrrl, Inc. – and the first women’s Internet networking group – Webgrrls .

Wendy Piersall @eMom.  She is known for her expertise as an online publisher and social media marketing authority. She founded Sparkplugging Blog Network, and just sold it in the fall of 2009 to private investors. She is now working on Woo! Jr., a kids activities network.

Cali Lewis

Cali Lewis (@calilewis) I have been a big fan of Cali’s on from Geekbrief.tv since I love gadgets. But after I saw her in bed with Chris Brogan at Blogworld, I was hooked. You can learn alot from Cali on how to do videos and podcast right.

Becky McCray

Becky McCray (@BeckyMcCray) I met Becky for the first time at SOBCON.  She is an entrepreneur from a very small town in Oklahoma and owns a retail liquor store and cattle ranch. Becky also works with small businesses to maintain their web presence and help city governments with project management and grant writing. Full disclosure: We are writing a book together on what we can all learn from rural entrepreneurs.

Who is on your list?

When I went trick or treating when I was young, the biggest danger was that there would be razor blades in my candy. My parents inspected whatever I brought home before I opened anything.It was the rule of the holday.

So naturally, I got in the habit of inspecting my sons’ candy before after they came home last night. What I found was something truly scary.

One very entreprising entrepreneur who has a therapy business attached their business card (see photo) to every piece of candy they gave out. The tag line on the card was “helping you maximize your potential”.

On one hand,  we may congratulate this owner on being innovative. It’s a creative way to market their business. On the other hand, does this cross the line of nothing being free from advertising? I guess if you can advertise on the bottom of urinals, is this too far fetched?

What do you think?

There is still a lot of scary stuff out there even though the government says that the recession is over.

When I meet a new client, I always ask one question. What is keeping you up at nights?. If you ask farmers that question, they all say the same thing:  the weather. If you ask entrepreneurs, most of them will say paying their bills, or meeting payroll.

So in honor of Halloween, I interviewed a series of guests on my radio show about what truly scares you in business and what we can do about it?

I talked with Elizabeth Fournierof Cornerstone Funeral (The Green Reaper), Athena Mercouriou, Australian businesswoman and Feng Shui expert, Siamak Taghaddos, CEO of Grasshopper, and Patricia Rossi, America’s Etiquette Expert.

Listen Now!

What scared our guests in business?

1. People that don’t share their passion.

2. Not having control all the time.

3. People that don’t build relationships and still want to do business with you.

4. People that are afraid to move forward in business.

What our guests suggested how you can deal with your fears:

1. React with Action. Do something about your fears and stop just thinking.

2. Let go of the idea that you can control everything.

3. Stop listening to the evening news.

Listen now!

I have been a watch wearer since I was 13. Last year, when the batteries in all my watches died, I stopped wearing a watch. I joked that I would not wear a watch again until the recession was over since I did not want to know how long it was going to last.

Well, the news services reported this morning the economy grew at 3.5% in the third quarter(the best in 2 years) meaning that the recession is over! Shout it now: THE RECESSION IS OVER?

But is it? How much of the uptick has to do with government funded programs for cars and homes?

The recession isn’t over because:

1. There are no jobs: The jobless rate is still over 10% and in many states like Michigan, much more than that. Peoples bills keep mounting and they are losing their homes.

2. There is no credit: Despite what President Obama and the SBA say, there is little credit flowing to small businesses or people that want a mortgage for a home. We can’t hire people, invest in new infrastructure or get payables paid.

3. There is no consumer spending: Without jobs and credit, people are still not buying things. Christmas is forecasted to be a bust.

4. The stock market while up is still way down. Most of our portfolios are still down 30% from last year.

The government always reports things in arrears. The recession started before we knew it and now they say its over before it isn’t.

Do you think the recession is over?