Sorry, It Is PowerPoint Time Again

Sorry, but I just have to get it out of my system.

At the chamber event that I wrote about here, both breakout sessions I went to had the speakers using PowerPoint.

At the first, the speaker SAT in front of his laptop and when it was time for him to speak he would twist his body around to somewhat face the audience. He stayed seated. On a scale of 1 - 10, the presentation material was a 4, and the presentation style was a 4. The only reason I give it such a "high" score is that there was a second presenter who did stand and face the audience for her part.

At the second, two men who are professionals within the community, gave the most boring presentation I have experienced in the last couple years. The slides were all bullet points of text which they read to us as they faced the screen with their backs to us. One a scale of 1 - 10, this presentation didn't even make it to a 1 in either category.

Need I say more?

Yes, I have to.

Lose PowerPoint. Talk with your audience. If you must use PowerPoint to feel like you are giving a REAL presentation, then use the software to show illustrations and images of what you are saying. It should be a backdrop, not a fence.

There got that off my chest.

Packed Week

Okay, this is Saturday morning and I am glad I made it through the week. Not only was every day packed to the gills, but I had a meeting or event every night.

I have several reasons to write quite a few thank you notes this weekend, which feels like a chore, right now, but I will actually love doing it when I get into it!

Wednesday afternoon, I attended a Toledo Chamber of Commerce function in downtown Toledo. BNI was a Silver Sponsor of the event and as such, received tickets they could give away. John Meyer, Co-executive Director of Team Ohio offered those tickets to all the Assistant BNI Directors and also asked them to invite a member from one of the chapters they oversee.

I invited DJ Deiter, from the Silver Dollar Chapter in Bowling Green, Ohio. Now, I have to tell you that I was not looking forward to spending these four hours in this manner. It had nothing to do with DJ, in fact he was the one reason that it was palatable. He is smart and we know each other pretty well, as he had just stepped off the leadership team of his chapter after a year.

There were several outbreak sessions listed in the brochure and many had the title, "To Be Announced." That was telling me that this was all a crap shoot.

Okay, I'll make this short.

I did meeting some interesting people.

I did connect with people I have met in the past who could be helpful.

I did sit through two rather ordinary (read boring, bad PowerPoint) sessions.

But this is all about me.

DJ actually went to three sessions. He is a financial planner for Modern Woodmen of America. The extra one he went to was about 401(k) planning and he went out of curiosity to find out what was being said. There were only three people in the audience for this session. One of those asked a lot of questions. DJ shared that he had introduced himself to this person and as a result had an appointment with this person to see if he could help sort out all these questions.

That was shared with me as we were walking out.

Duh! I realized that my attitude was all about me. "What was I going to get?????"

Double Duh! My attitude would have been a heck of a lot better if I had gotten out of my own way and just thought about others.

Hit me!

What a Difference a Day Can Make

This past weekend Steve and I had the pleasure of walking early both mornings of the weekend. One day we took our yellow Lab, Gable, with us and the next day we took the two Springers, Dillon and Owen. (They really should be called Dumb and Dumber.)

What a difference between the two days.

Both days we went to the same park and traveled the same path.

Gable is now 13 years old -- a fine dog. While, as far as I'm concerned, he is still very handsome, he is getting slower. I think the hearing and eyesight are not what they used to be either. During our walk we saw about 20 - 25 deer, some very close. Gable could have cared less. And the deer just stood their ground not running away.

Owen and Dillon are seven years old. But you'd think they were still little puppies. The whole time they were walking they were pulling on the leash. I think my one arm is a couple inches longer than it used to be. Owen always makes noises, too. I liken him to the Little Engine that could. He just keeps chugging and panting along. We only saw about five deer, and those were at a distance. I'm sure that any that were around were scared away by Owen's noises.

So what's this got to do with networking.

Well, as I was being pulled along on Sunday, I thought about how some people are like Owen and Dillon when they go to a networking event. They scare people away. And then there are the calm attendees, like Gable, who people like to be around.

That's all. After all, my brain was on "weekend."

Rules for Success

Does your networking group work for you?

Really, the question should be, "Do you work for your networking group?"

You see, we all join such groups hoping that they will be the magic bullet to more sales. Right?





And then we sit back and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And then we quit, because, "That type of networking group doesn't work for me."

Here are six thoughts about how to work for your networking group.

1. Set aside 30 minutes each week to create a specific referral request for yourself for next week and to work on fulfilling your members' requests from this week.

2. Schedule the above 30 minutes into your calendar as an appointment with yourself.

3. During the 30 minutes, make at least three calls on behalf of a member or members.

4. When you meet with members outside the regular meeting time, help them to tell you what they need in a more detailed manner than they have time for in the meeting.

5. Pick one request from a member each week to try to fulfill even if you don't think you can. Ask everyone you talk to, if they can help you to make the proper connection.

6. Review the notes you've taken during the meetings. A request from three weeks ago may now be one you can help with because you've met someone since then who can assist with the very request.

Networking groups are not an easy way to more business. They are a focused way to more business. And on the way to helping others be more successful, you'll find success yourself.

How much effort do you put into your networking group?

Useless Information?

The other day I was talking with a friend who is a master at networking. The conversation turned to data bases or really, the ability to use information.

I loved the concept that he presented.

When he gets a "lead," (he is in the construction world) he enters it into his system, even if he knows that his company would never want to do the work.

Why would he clutter his system with unusable information?

Well, he doesn't look at it as useless information. He looks at it as information he can feed to his referral sources.

And here's how he does it.

The information is entered into his system along with the date. When he knows that he is going to meet with one of his referral sources, he prints a list of all the leads he has realized since the last time they met. Simple, but mighty.

Of course, his list includes the prospects that are being actively being worked by his company. It also contains those that are not helpful to him, but may in fact be very interesting his friend. Of course, they have to strategize as to how they will help each other, but at least they have a platform to begin.

I love this technique because it is so simple. A lot of times I meet with people who ask for my time. Sometimes I don't even enter them into my Outlook. Now, I will, knowing that I could help someone else. Of course, I'll have to figure out how to sort my Outlook by date. (That may take a consultation with my son, Greg.)

What networking hint do you have that could be as easy as this?

Masters Evening, Part III

I have written before about how we use a question at our events to get people mixing with each other. There is just one question per event, so that everyone is answering the same question, but of course, the answers are very unique.

At the Masters event, the committee took it one step farther and printed name tags that had space for people names (of course!) and then farther down near the bottom they printed the words,

"I am a master of_________________."

Each attendee had to finish that statement. It made for some great conversation. It gave us a window into each person's personality.

Bravo to the committee taking an old idea and making it even better.


How would you make name tags work to spark conversation?

Masters Evening, Part II

The Masters of Sales book is a compendium of short articles written by those who have something to say about sales and selling. At our celebration last week, three of the authors presented to the audience.

Now, I've been to a few events where the keynote presenter bored the heck out of me or gave me so much fluff, that the minute I walked out, I didn't remember any of it.

In my opinion, these talks were different.

Each of us (yes, I am included in this) gave three stories about our sales career where the incident taught us a lesson, as we told stories about how we were shy, stupid or boring, I saw heads shaking in the audience. I think that because we were "real" we allowed the guests to be there with us. I had several people come up to me later to tell me that they couldn't believe how much we were describing something they had done in their sales career.

Linda Macedonio, Executive Director of BNI, Rhode Island, SE Massachusetts and Maine; Deanna Tucci Schmitt, Executive Director of BNI Western Pennsylvania and I had planned for several weeks via conference calls what we were going to say. We tried to come up with a central theme, but just couldn't seem to do that. Magically, it happened that evening as Linda first talked about being shy, then Deanna talked about a stupid move on her part and then I bragged about how boring I was when I made presentations to prospects. So there we had it on the fly, shy, stupid and boring.

We had fun and I think our audience did too.

What story would you like to tell an audience about your career?