Get involved. After all Woody Allen said

"80% of success is just turning up"

Yesterday I ran a full day's workshop in Birmingham and arrived back into Manchester tired at the end of a successful day.

I then had a choice. Do I go home or go the Professional Speakers meeting? Head said, 'go home' , heart said,' you're on the committee, you know you always enjoy it as everyone is so welcoming, so go'.

Heart won. I had a great time and picked up one gem from Steven Brewer of Train 2 who said 'From self-talk you create your self-image which in turn creates behavioural patterns'
so relevant for walking into that room full of strangers.

I am on the Pro-Manchester committe and attended a meeting today. I met Phil who I've known for a while. We have never really talked much other about committee matters but as we walked out he showed some interest in what we do. Who knows what might follow but we have moved a little closer to building a business relationship.

LEARNING FOR THE DAY

"If you don't go you'll never know"

NEW STUFF FROM KINTISH

Sue Tonks my associate has produced an advanced training course which we will be running from the Summer. Really excited about this. She is a far more experinced trainer than me ..hence I asked her for help.
Get involved but ask others along.

Don't be afraid to tell....then sell

If you don't simply sell products you must be selling a service or service with a product.
Everyone has knowledge to give away to show they know what they're talking about and that is great marketing.
Today I 'nipped down' from Manchester to Milton Keynes to do a no-fee 1.5 hour presentaion to a group of business development team of people who run and manage conference centres.
Why did I give up approximately 8 hours for free?
To market my expertise. These people will have some clients looking for speakers. The presentation seemed to go well and at the end my contact offered to promote my training and presentation skills.
In most areas...THE MORE YOU TELL, THE MORE YOU SELL
But make it useful, valuable and practical

Suppliers are as important as customers

"They " say clients are the most important group of people in any business. I can agree they are key, without them there is no business. However, if you don't have great suppliers and these include employees, then your business will not grow or run efficiently.
6 months ago I fell out with one of my suppliers. Things were going wrong, I was getting frustrated and I decided to change.

Oh, what a mistake. I went to no. 2 and things didn't seem to get any better . We then met someone at an exhibition and started to talk. But somehow or other I just wasn't 100% sure, there was something 'not quite right'. I suppose the final straw, and the reason I didn't do business with them was the language they used when writing to me.
"You will..." "Unless we..." "We cannot...until..." and this was before they got a signed order!

I swallowed my pride, put my big ego in the drawer and called my first supplier.
After all they are people I know , like and trust.