September 2005 | Vol. 23, No. 9

President’s Message

by George L. Berdejo, BA RVT FSVU

Eliminating the Scarcity Mentality

Greetings fellow SVU members,

Welcome back from what I hope was an enjoyable, but restful, “long” Labor Day weekend. As you read this message many of you will have returned to work and will be preparing your end of year plans.

With this communication, I want to thank you for a job well done so far this year. Thanks to your commitment to the Society, the 2005 SVU Annual Conference in Chicago was a grand success. SVU, in conjunction with SVS, also sponsored a very successful RPVI Exam Review Course in Chicago prior to the annual conference. Based on the excellent attendance and positive reviews of that course and on the demand for additional courses, SVU has planned a second SVU/SVS RPVI Exam Review Course in Chicago, this one on Oct. 28-30 at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare Hotel at O’Hare International Airport. The course brochure has been mailed to all SVU members, SVS members and others. The course information is also posted on the SVU website, including an online registration form. An article about the course was posted in the August e-Spectrum newsletter and will be in this and in the October online newsletters as well. Please pass the word about this Review Course to your physician directors and vascular interpreters who plan to take the RPVI Exam to be offered by ARDMS starting in January 2006.

For the third year in a row, SVU is again participating with five other ultrasound organizations to promote Medical Ultrasound Awareness Month (MUAM) in October. There is an article on MAUM in this newsletter. A detailed MAUM promotion kit is posted on the SVU website home page. Please share this information with your co-workers and with your hospital/office administrators and let’s raise the level of interest and visibility for those of us in the ultrasound profession.

This year’s SVU Current Issues Conference in Arlington, VA, will take place on November 4-5. This will be an excellent opportunity to get current information on the latest regulatory and legislative issues affecting the vascular ultrasound profession. The conference is filled with information and strategies on how to navigate your way through the complex network of federal government agencies and federal legislation that impacts the vascular ultrasound profession. It will offer direct access to several expert speakers via generous amounts of time for Q&A. I urge you to notify your lab or hospital billing / reimbursement personnel about this very important and information packed meeting. This two-day conference will also be of value to vascular technologists/sonographers, physicians and lab medical directors involved in vascular ultrasound.

As we enter the “home stretch” for calendar year 2005, I want to remind you all of our membership recruitment theme, “Each One, Reach One” and our new member goal for this year. Thanks to your help, we have recruited 565 new members so far this year. As of August 30 this puts us 98 new members ahead of last year’s record pace when we had a total of 680 new members. Thank you to everyone who has done his/her part in this year’s membership recruitment campaign. However, there is still much work to be done in order to reach our goal of 1,400 new members this year. I am reaching out to those members who have yet to reach their quota of one new member and I am asking you to do your part as a member of the SVU team to further the SVU Vision and to help us meet our new member goal. As a team we can get this done. Thanks!

Eliminating the Scarcity Mentality ¹

Let’s throw out our “nets” for a big end of year “catch”! In order for us to reach our new member goal, we will have to increase our current network of contacts and expand our sphere of influence. You build a network based on connections. Each person in our network represents a knot in our net. The bigger our net is, the bigger our catch will be.

Question: How can we best reach out to those around us and get them interested in joining the SVU team?

Answer: By taking an interest in them!

Invest Your investment in others will lead to “Ultimate Permission” in their lives. We must be able to penetrate all “layers of permission” and gain entry, at the highest level, into the careers of those around us.

Example: If I did not know you but called you today and left a message with an investment tip you might be reluctant to take or return my call. However, if that tip yielded millions of dollars you would be more likely to take my call tomorrow. If I repeated that pattern of positive giving, you would take my all every time. I have just earned “Ultimate Permission”.

Giving knowledge in a positive way breaks through all layers of permission. Become a wealth of knowledge and a resource for those around you by making a commitment to plan to give away all you have learned. This is the basis for mentoring. I often refer to it as the selfless promotion of growth of another person. Of course every investment you make will cost you your time, your talents and sometimes your treasures. But with every investment, you must first give in order to receive the benefit.

Your Network is your “Net Worth”

A network is two or more people tied by relationship and focused on the same vision. You will accomplish more in the next three months developing a sincere interest in three people, than you ever will in the next three years trying to get three people interested in you. Invest in three people with an attitude that says, “I want nothing in return”. Fulfill their dreams, help them reach their goals, and they will get interested in your dreams. You just started your network and you are on your way to realizing your Vision.

To build a network you will need to do four things well:

1. Be friendly (4 things I asked myself)
   • Do I greet people cheerfully?
   • Do I set an example of friendliness?
   • Do I observe a “no unfriendly” rule?
   • Do I develop a friendly mindset each day and try to express that through actions and words?

When you are friendly you will connect with those around you.

2. Be relevant
• You must identify, understand and connect with the interests, needs and wants of others
• The more relevant you are, the more people will like you

How do you become more relevant?

• Establish contact – reach out to them before they reach out to you; cultivate relationships
• Identify mutual interests – build a rapport
• Know what they value
• Create opportunities
3. Show empathy (let them know you feel, have felt and have been and learn what they feel and where they are)
• Share your experience with them; exhort, encourage and edify
4. Keep it real

• Be consistent – let what you say be how you live. Set the example by modeling the way.

In closing, I ask that you each incorporate into your end of year plans some time to focus on our membership recruitment theme, “Each One, Reach One”. Remember, every investment requires that we give of ourselves before reaping a return. Let’s pour ourselves out into the people around us. Once again, I thank you for your efforts on behalf of the SVU in the advancing of SVU’s Strategic Plan, Vision 2005. Together, I believe that we can make it happen.

Thanks for your continued support of SVU.

¹http://www.healinghealthcareassoc.org/documents/abundance-vs-scarcity.pdf