What is your business card selling?

OK! Here is it! Networking Secrets is a FREE video training that I am offering on Professional Networking and here is one example of what you will learn.

What is your business card selling?

I have looked at thousands of business cards. Read hundeds of articles and looked at the research on business cards and their useage. But this aspect comes under very little scrutiny yet I believe it is one of the most important ideas you will use.

If you are in business for yourself you have to decide what you are selling. I know, you are shaking your head right now. Of course you know what you are selling. Really? Because here is what I know and learned from one of my mentors, Steve Siebold, professional speaker; you choose to see celebrity or product.

What does that mean? Let's use this example. I know a guy, Gabi, who sells office supplies with a catch. He will deliver them for free and keep your office stocked up so you never run out and he will only charge you when he comes back to inventory your stock.

So? What is he selling? Of course you are saying, office supplies with service. But NO!!! Gabi is selling GABI! He is actually selling himself and what he sells, what he brings to the deal. There are hundreds of office supply places. Even many who deliver. Probably a few that offer the same service as Gabi. So what makes him unique? HIM!

It is Gabi Karoli that Gabi is selling. So? What should be on his business card? His photo along with his basic info. All Realtors are selling themselves! PHOTO! Now if I am the owner of XYZ Real Estate and barely involved in the actual selling then my company is who should be on the card and not my picture.

If I am selling the Amazing Misting Chair for sun tanning in 90+ degree heat, them my Misting Chair(tm) should be prominent on my business card.

So, now tell me again, what is YOUR business card selling?

I am Steve Sapato and I train Professional Networking. Please drop me a note if you want to learn more about my FREE video training on Networking Secrets coming out this month.

Mental Prosperity

Your elevator speech and why everyone else’s has got it WRONG!

When I hear what professionals coach their people on how to make, craft, and develop their one minute business speech that we have come to know as their ‘elevator speech’, I am stymied as to their motivation. They share with you that you need to be succinct in your speech, that you need to tell them exactly what you do within one minute. And they tell you that if you can share that with them in under a minute that you will be more successful in your selling, marketing and/or career.

They bring in professionals and semi-celebrities that you see on TV or commercials and those people come in like lightning rods shooting off their excitement and energy and drawing you to them so you can see how your life will change once you can speak like them. And we all ooooh and aaah over them and build up their egos because we are told that is what we should emulate.
But now take a deep breath and ask yourself this question…

When I want or need something who do I want helping me to find, get it or achieve it?

So imagine this, you have decided that you need a new refrigerator. Who do you want to help you buy that new refrigerator? Do you want the person who comes up to you and starts telling you all about this really nifty refrigerator, all of it’s bells and whistles, all of the features , functions and their benefits? I know!! It sounds like that is who you might want, right?

But it’s not.

You really want the person who is going to walk up to you and be interested in you. Someone who asks about you. Someone who seems to care – about you. Because that first person? That refrigerator? It was $5,000. And it turns out, your budget is $1800. And that laser sighted ice cube shooter that will put ice in your glass from across the room? You only want ice cubes and water from the door. And that flashy stainless steal finish won’t match your mahogany textured fronts that you already have on your other appliances.

This next person asks you all of these questions because they care about getting you something you want and need and can afford. They show an interest in you. And isn’t that what you really want?

Now whether it is a refrigerator, a car or something in your business, you want to work with someone who cares about you and your business.

Isn’t that what you want to portray to potential clients? Isn’t that what you want them to know about your business, is that you will care about theirs? And if you want to do business with someone who cares about you and your business isn’t that what you expect other people in business to want also?

Now allow me to share a recent experience at a networking group. We were told to rotate and share our one minute speech about our business. And each time someone said, ‘tell me what you do’ I simply reacted with, ‘may I ask you a couple of questions?’ and they said, of course.
I asked them why they were here, what they wanted out of the group, and a few other succinct questions. At the end I simply said, ‘well, I teach people how to do all of that and be more successful in business.’ And each one said, ‘Really?’ and then two out of three of them asked for my business card without me offering it.

You see, instead of telling someone all about you or your business when you don’t even know if you can be of service in any way shape or form makes no sense. Instead take that time to ask five vital questions that tell you in one minute if they should make an appointment with you to help them with their business. And then your success depends upon what you learn about their business during the next few appointments.

I am Steve Sapato, business and management coach, humorist and professional speaker.
steve@steveapato.com
Learn To Win School of Success

Are you a boring Keynote Speaker?

Have you been forced to sit in on a graduation or awards ceremony recently?

 I say forced but it is not that you were forced as much as once you agree to attend one of these events you can’t very well get up in the middle of one of those horribly boring speeches and leave.

And I wonder who hires (hire being a very loose term here) these speakers and whether they explained to their speaker the purpose of their speech. Because for the most part, it does not seem like they understand why they are speaking or what they are trying to accomplish.

So tell me, what is the purpose of YOUR keynote address?

 I recently had the displeasure of sitting in on a ceremony celebrating the intelligence of thirteen and fourteen year old students where the keynote speaker was an exceptional woman. Accolades, awards, a lifetime of successful academic achievement. She certainly had a lot of advice to offer to these young people even if she was two generations away from them societally and probably could not relate to their upcoming challenges in today's realm of fast paced high tech jump on the Jetson Car lifestyle.

 So now I ask again, what was the purpose of her keynote address?

 It appeared from how she started that it was to uplift and motivate the teenagers to believing they could succeed, that they had a bright and exciting future, that they could change the world if they applied themselves and found the right niche for their talents.

But that was the first paragraph. After that first paragraph of rhetoric she dissolved into talking about her achievements, where she got awards, who she went to work for and how many awards she received in her line of work.

She didn’t make it generic so the English students could see their future, or the art students, or the athletic students, or the math students.

It was her telling about her scientific (if I even remember what she was prattling on about) achievements in her field of biology I think it was.
But I am sure I wasn’t able to pay enough attention to even remember.

For she was not trying to encourage all of the four hundred plus attendees or their families to go to the next level of success as much as she appeared to be telling her own accolades about her long past successes and awards.

 And I ask again, what is the purpose of your keynote?

Is it trying to instill great power into the hearts of your audience? Is it trying to talk and relate to them? Is it trying to inspire? Is it trying to inform?

 As a professional speaker, college speech instructor, and speaking coach I try to help my students understand that the primary purpose of your speech is your audience.

If you have been hired to give a speech one of your first questions should be, what is the purpose of my speech?

For that is why you are being hired. That is your goal to achieve that purpose. If it’s to inspire then be inspirational. If it’s to motivate then be motivational. If it’s to inform then guess what? YES! Be informative.

 But above all, never ever never be boring. Never be self-serving. Never put yourself before your audience. Always accomplish what you were being brought to do and be an amazing speaker that if they don’t ever remember your name, they will always remember your message.

 After your life is over your will be judged not by how many people remember your name or how many plaques have your name upon them but you will be judged by how you treated others and certainly by how you changed one person’s life with your message.

 It is the most wonderful thing you will ever do.

You can reach me at steve@stevesapato.com or favorite this blog and comment. I would love to hear from you.