The Winner Often Loses

Have you ever met an aggressive sales person who pushes and pushes as hard as they can to make the sale, hopefully wearing down their customer enough that they finally give in? Chances are, your reaction to that sales person was not very favorable.  Even if you did give in to that initial purchase, you probably never wanted to deal with that salesperson ever again. You stopped taking their calls. You blocked their email address. And you may even have told others to "watch out" for this salesperson in the future. In the end, the salesperson may have won a sale, but they lost your future business.

A Taste of My Own Medicine

Have you ever watched a video of yourself giving a presentation?  I suggest this to my public speaking students at Central Wyoming College.  There is really no better way to evaluate and improve your public speaking than by being your own critic.  This is advice that I have recently realized is easier said than done.

My talk from TEDxJacksonHole was recently posted online, and it has been somewhat unsettling to watch myself perform such a personal speech on the internet.  It was actually easier for me to deliver the speech in front of  a live audience of 500 people than it has been watching it online.  Check it out for yourself, and let me know what you think.  (Be kind)

The Most Inspiring Marketing Medium

"A speech is a solemn responsibility.  The man who makes a bad thirty-minute speech to two hundred people wastes only a half-hour of his own time.  But he wastes one hundred hours of the audience's time - more than four days - which should be a hanging offense."

                                                                                                       - Jenkin Lloyd Jones

Steve Jobs - A man who understood the power of
public speaking for business better than most.

We all have to speak in public at sometime in our lives.  Most of us have to do it almost every day in the form of sales calls, staff meetings, and presentations.  As someone who has studied and taught public speaking for many years, I cringe whenever I listen to a speaker who has not prepared for and practiced the skill of public speaking before they stand in front of an audience.  Not only does it show a lack of respect for the audience, it exhibits a complete loss of opportunity.

More than every other form of marketing or sales, the opportunity to prepare and deliver a speech for a specific audience gives you the chance to share your idea and your perspective in a way that is specifically tailored for the people receiving it (e.g. customers, potential donors, board of directors, etc.).  It is not just a captive audience, it is an engaged audience that is in the room specifically to hear what you have to say.  Magazines, newspapers, radio, internet, and social media all rely on chance that a viewer is interested in your message at the exact time that they see or hear it.  Public speaking audiences typically know the topic of a presentation and have committed to listening prior to hearing even the first word.  Furthermore, with traditional marketing your audience must become immediately engaged with your message, or they will turn the page, change the station, or click another link.  Nearly 100% of a public speaking audience stays listening attentively to the speaker for the entire speech.

TEDxJacksonHole - Speech Making in the EXTREME

One of the most rewarding projects I have been involved with over the past year has been TEDxJacksonHole. The success of each sold-out event has been gratifying, thought the most rewarding aspect of my participation in TEDxJacksonHole has definitely been in working with and coaching each of the speakers. 

In my role as Speaker Coordinator, I witnessed the development of each TEDx talk from the first nomination, though speech writing, rehearsal, and finally the live performance. Coaching each speaker though the process has been both challenging and enlightening for me.  For many speakers, it is an emotional roller coaster that dips from moments of tearful frustration to the height of jubilation when they nail the speech in front of the sold out audience.  Each of the speakers brought 100% of their commitment, passion, and enthusiasm to the event, and for that, I thank them.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to showcase some of the great speeches from TEDxJacksonHole on SalesIsTheNewMarketing.com.  Visit frequently, and mark you calendars for the weekend of October 5th for our next TEDxJacksonHole event at the Center for the Arts.

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Kevin "KAL" Kallaugher was a complete joy to work with for TEDxJacksonHole EXTREME.  He brought a level of professionalism with him that has been unmatched by any other speaker at either event.  Both funny and inspirational, Kevin made an immediate connection with the audience as he shared a subject and perspective that many people rarely consider.