GO WEST !!! Remember to be Humble

Go West! with Christine M. West, MS, CMHT

One of the most powerful lessons that I have ever learned as a business professional and especially as a speaker for hire is the power behind humbleness. I was reminded of this valuable lesson recently. This invisible power within humbleness was well illustrated recently at a conference that I was an attendee at.

One speaker, who I would rate as stupendous and presented exceptionally well, acted out some key behaviors for all of us to be reminded of. This presenter, who I will name for this article as Credible-Chris, understood the power behind humbleness. Credible-Chris provided value and maintained rapport with his audience because of the following:

1. He demonstrated topic expertise by providing substance, value and practicality.
2. His presentation naturally flowed and 90 minutes flew by fast.
3. He had excellent professional boundaries. When he was outside of his own expertise he identified what expert would be needed.
4. He promoted his services by “walking the talk” instead of behaving arrogantly and telling the audience of his greatness.
5. He involved his audience by engaging in activity that created awareness to identifying the problem to be solved and offering basic solution orientated strategies.
6. He spoke the language of the audience.
7. He gave creditability to ideas in his lecture that stemmed from a different originator.
8. He lived up who he said he was in his bio.
9. He indirectly sold his value proposition by demonstrating it.
10. (By the way his presentation was on Organizational Value, he clearly provided value.)

Another speaker at the conference that stood out for me acted professionally ridiculous. He was an excellent reminder of what NOT to do. I will name him Ridiculous-Ramon. Ridiculous-Ramon, made some very costly mistakes and obviously did NOT remember that GREATNESS comes from a state of being,NOT from a state of telling.


One of the saddest parts for Ridiculous-Ramon was claiming his expertise to be in Psychophysiology of Linguistics. That states he is a communication expert. His bio stated that he worked in the personal growth industry for the past 20 years. These are awesome credentials yet by not truly being able to communicate and engage your audience when you claim you can ------ is Pathetic for any professional.

The story gets worse. The list of mistakes was incredible. The following was my observation:

1. He did not take into account that others in the audience, such as me have an expertise that can validate the credibility of his message.
2. He forgot that I knew him prior to writing a book and I knew him as a salesman, not as a personal growth expert.
3. He lacked professional boundaries, integrity and ethics. He claimed a professional expertise that he did not have. When an audience participant asked who else has done research on what he claims is factual, he said he is the only person on the planet.

(Ridiculous-Ramon did not invent Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) Bandler and Grinder did or Neuro-Associative Conditioning Systems this was Anthony Robbins. Ridiculous-Ramon holds a Master of ART in Counseling not a PhD in Linguistics or Psychology or Sociology or even Anthropology) He created an application to teach the layman how to communicate easier and is using concepts from Anthony Robbins. Anthony Robbins work is based off of concepts in NLP, and NLP is based off of concepts of Social Learning Theory and Cognitive Learning Theory which are the work of Albert Bandura who is a Psychologist who expanded other psychological change theories.

Validity and Reliability of your message are very important claims to professionalism and holding credibility.

A concept is far more credible if you can share with you audience the building blocks of your concept as Credible-Chris did so eloquently.

4. He was arrogant and made the presentation a sales pitch of his greatness and all about him.

5. He was scheduled to lecture for 90 minutes and completed his lecture in 30 minutes. He asked the room moderator how much time he had after 30 minutes, then after 45 minutes, and then after 60 minutes…... This was painful to watch. Pacing is part of communication.

6. He had difficulty engaging with his audience, this skill is called rapport and is a major part of communication.

7. He lacked substance and did not tailor his material toward the industry he was speaking with and claimed his material would transform their specific industry culture. He provided no evidence of how or evidence of where he transformed a culture with this method before. He only gave examples on how to apply his concept to increase sales.

He knows a lot about sales because when I met him he was a sales professional five years ago. And by the way this was not a sales conference, it was a safety conference.

8. He put me on the spot by introducing me as a friend instead of as a professional colleague or acquaintance with a certain expertise. He asked me if he always walks his talk. I stated to the audience I need to be ethical and be honest. I said most of the time yet we are all human and are subject to human error. The audience actually for the first time started to laugh. Life did exist in this audience. Ridiculous-Ramon then grew defensive and illustrated that defense with his audience.

9. After the audience exited the room, Ridiculous-Ramon said to me “that was a tough audience, I could not get them engaged.” I replied “I noticed and least you did too something for you to think about” and I exited.

In conclusion, both speakers I learned something from. When I think about Credible-Chris he is an expert I would like to develop a professional relationship with. When I think of Ridiculous-Ramon, I smile, giggle out loud for a moment and Remember to Be Humble.

Genuinely,

Christine

Author: Christine M. West, TheBusinessMD, 2240 E. Tudor Rd. #976, Anchorage, Alaska, USA 99507. Phone 1-907-223-8403. Email: info@thebusinessmd.net, http://www.businessmd.net/ http://thebusinessmd.blogspot.com/ Christine West is an industrial organizational psychology practitioner and is in private practice as TheBusinessMD which helps organizations and individuals overcome fear and explore the power of change. Ms. West is also a Featured Columnist for the National Networker http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/

For more information, please visit Christine's TNNW Bio.

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GO WEST !!! Remember to be Humble

Small Actions – Big Results

Networking Success with Dr. Ivan Misner

Ivan's section is sponsored by qAlias.com

I was recently speaking to a friend of mine who is a partner in an international consulting and training company, when we discovered that we had a mutual acquaintance who is a bestselling author and fairly well-known speaker.

In our discussion, we found out that he had contacted each of us individually to see if there were any possibilities for some type of strategic alliance with our companies. We were both open to that possibility but couldn’t see any immediate and dramatic way our companies could link up with his and do any specific projects at that time.

We were both a bit amused to then discover that we were summarily “dropped” from his radar (no response to emails or other attempts to connect) after that.

We got the sense that he was looking for that one big alliance that would help his company soar to the next level. That realization started a conversation about the difference in the relationship between the third party mentioned above and two of us.

Ironically, we had the same type of phone call with each other just 18 months earlier. We had come basically to the same conclusion. There was nothing on a grand scale that we could do together at that moment. The difference, however, was the rest of the story.

You see, we agreed to stay in touch. . . and then we did. We connected several times over the year and we met in person as well. During that time, we gradually found some simple ways to help each other and gradually enhanced the relationship. This was a sharp contrast from the third party we had talked to individually. We both felt that when this person didn’t see any big payoff, we became persona non grata with him. On the other hand, the two of us found ways to help each other gradually and even to this day continue to build on our relationship.

We came to the conclusion that most people who are successful at networking and creating strong strategic alliances view the process as a series of small actions taken with many people to create a long-term positive growth for your company. The process is more of a marathon than a sprint. Throughout the race, you form alliances and help each other in what may seem little ways over the long haul—small actions over time really can create big results!

Here’s another real-life example of this scenario relating to two companies which both reached out to me and BNI to form a strategic alliance with us:

The first company, which shall remain nameless on the grounds that they like to slam folks they don’t approve of in the media, contacted me. With them, it was a case of “glad to meet you—let’s get married!” I really got the sense that they wanted to GIVE me the privilege of sharing my entire database of contacts with them based on who they were and how amazing it would be for me to even say I had stood in their shadow! Get the picture?

When I explained our corporate philosophy and my own personal belief system that deepening a business alliance and building a relationship with a partner business took time and effort before getting to the “let’s get married” stage, they abruptly ended the call and (I’m sure) moved on down their computer-generated list of businesses to call.

By contrast, here is how a second organization in the same business approached the same issue: The owner himself contacted me and started the conversation by asking what our corporate plans were. I shared with him what our overall goal for growth was over the next five years. The next statement from him was, “We want to help you achieve that!”

From there it went from “glad to meet you” to “let’s get to know each other better!” He then shared with me that he had ideas that could help us achieve our corporate goal and help our members do better business at the same time.

When I explained, as I had with company X, that our philosophy as a networking organization was one of mutual cooperation and that our belief was that anything that would really be of value to either of us would take time, he completely got it!

Our relationship has developed organically and we now have a strong strategic alliance with the organization based on getting to know each other and work with each other over time.

I’m not sure how company “X” is faring; I don’t hear so much about their program anymore! I wonder why, hmmm?

Looking back over two decades of building an international company, I can clearly see that no one person or company brought something to the table that launched my company to the next level. Instead, it was the cumulative effect of many people, many strategic alliances, and many well-nurtured relationships that gradually, over time, catapulted my business higher than ever imagined in the early days. Each contact, each opportunity to reach out to each other and each mutually-beneficial activity served as just one more spoke in the wheel as we rolled up the hill toward success!!

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Small Actions – Big Results