Think You Can Do It Alone? "Not so fast, my friend."
Why is it that NFL teams with the most talented players aren’t Super Bowl champions that year? Take the San Diego Chargers. Philip Rivers, the Quarterback, has the best individual stats (including accuracy leader in passes completed), so why aren’t they 9-0? The reason: football is not tennis, nor golf nor even basketball. It’s the ultimate TEAM sport. My favorite definition of TEAM is: a group of people with different skills and different tasks who work together to achieve a common goal. It’s not about individual talent; it’s about production on the field…or in the office.
When you present your products and services at a networking meeting, or a Chamber meeting, your goal is to have listeners in the audience approach you afterward for more information. Your presentation may SEEM to be a matter of your individual talent. But as Coach Lee Corso tells us on Saturday College Gameday, “Not so fast, my friend!” Those of us who have the most successful “pitches” don’t do it alone. Just as you can’t edit your own writing, most of us need help crafting our marketing pitch. I’m having the most exciting, rewarding experiences of my life helping craft these pitches for individuals. I “draw out” that which is already inside (the true definition of “educare,” the root word for “educate”).
Verbal communication is quite different from your website copy. Here are some tips for you, even before I become your speech coach:
1. Use short sentences—your audience is listening, not reading.
2. Right at the start, address a problem they have and how you are uniquely qualified to solve it.
3. Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em; tell ‘em; tell ‘em what you told them.
4. Follow the listener’s train of thought: answer the “yeah-buts” you see in their minds.
I can help with all of the above. I invite you to watch a 2-minute video on my website of my client talking about working with me. He is Dan Moriarty, TV and radio sports commentator and show host.
Before I went to Columbia University Teachers College for my Masters, I thought “those who can’t, teach.” Not true. Those who have spent 10,000 hours mastering something (thanks, Malcolm Gladwell) can now teach it. After having a training and speaking career of almost 40 years, my biggest thrill comes after reading my notes to the client and they say, “Did I say that?” And I smile, nod, and say, “Yes, you did.” And they grow a little taller right in front of my eyes. Goosebumps!