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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Pitch Perfect
Welcome to the latest edition of the Brand Stand. In this edition, we look at pitching essentials, invite you to a free webinar on crafting content to captivate your audience, and introduce you to two speakers in our growing community.
Your BrandRecently I was given a book, Key Person of Influence, by a good friend. In the book author Dan Priestly gives his process for anyone wanting to create the perfect pitch for greater influence in their industry.
I'm not giving a book review in this newsletter, however here are essentials elements to support your pitch, no matter who you’re pitching to, or to what end. These elements are the same for your next:
Start With Your Most Important Message First
This is not just for speaking or presentations it’s a rule of thumb every effective journalist, educator, marketer, and many salespeople know, and practice.Don’t leave the best till last, and as you might warm up in the process of developing your pitch, what you arrive at last in your process might need to go first in the final cut.
Give Benefits
Working with a client last week we realised as good as their copy was, all they were really giving were features. That is, the long list of inclusions weren’t letting the prospect know what was in this for them. It’s just like an app. The code that drives the app is the feature, the fact that you can get stock updates, timely reminders, or streamline your workflow are the benefits.
A simple exercise to get clearer on benefits is to ask yourself ‘which means?’ Let’s say you are an award winning architect. Great. What does that mean for your client? Let them know what you won the award for, and how that well regarded expertise is going to translate into less stress, more return on their investment property renovation or a more productive work environment.
Different Audience, Different Pitch
This is an easy trap to fall into: not adapting our message (or our energy level) to suit our audience. Giving the right people the wrong information doesn’t serve them or you. Adapt your pitch to suit the people you’re pitching to. You can still be truthful while speaking their language.
Can You Tweet It?
Tweeting is one of the best barometers we have for many of our business conversations right now. Especially as we often only have as long as 140 characters to grab someone’s attention. If you can sum any message up in a sentence you’ll have more likelihood of getting that message across with impact and precision.
Your People To help you hone your next pitch or presentation Phil Preston and I are inviting you to our next FREE half hour webinar for even greater presentability. This half hour of presentation power is titled Crafting Content to Captivate Your Audience.
Whether you present internally at meetings, externally to clients or at industry conferences, in the webinar you will receive invaluable insights on how to:
- Give structure to your presentations instead of leaving them to chance
- Create key points that connect your message with your audience - Produce the outcomes you and your organisation desire
When: Midday, Thursday August 9
Where: From your preferred computer
Your EventThe speaker, performer, presenter and MC gallery is growing, and soon we'll be unveiling a new name. Watch this space for new speakers including the President of National Speakers and CEO of Positive Persuasion, Margot Halbert.
Today we have two speakers for you to meet. The first is...
Chris Gray. Independent Property Expert
 Chris inspires individuals with the thought that to make real wealth you need to do the complete opposite to what everyone else is doing. At the age of 22 Chris Gray began his journey investing in real estate with a deposit of $35,000. By age 31, Chris had turned his initial deposit into a $3.5m property portfolio and left his full-time job as an accountant at Deloitte's for semi-retirement. Since then he has more than tripled his personal portfolio to well over $10m and now builds property portfolios for time-poor professionals through his Buyers Agency 'Empire', searching, negotiating and renovating on their behalf. Dr Norman Chorn: Future Strategy and Organisation Development Expert. Dr Norman Chorn builds powerful future strategies for organisations and individuals, and then designs effective organisations for implementation. Norman is highly sought after as a strategy consultant and speaker for major corporations and government organisations through Australia, NZ, UK and South Africa. 
He delivers keynotes at major conferences and is a visiting professor at several leading graduate schools of management in Australia and overseas. He is the successful author of Strategic Alignment, now in its 2nd edition.
His new book, The Living Organisation, is due for publication shortly.
Until next time keep giving your brand experience
   
E: info@mcme.com.au
P: +61 2 9331 8135 |
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Brand Stand: Trust Agents
Brand Stand
In this edition of the Brand Stand, we mine the value of being a trust agent, invite you to take up a super earlybird offer for presentability, and introduce you to one of our growing group of speakers, Julien Smith, the NY Times best selling author of the book Trust Agents.
Your Brand
Trust Agents is an incisive guide to increase your online footprint and earn your brand – and yourself – greater reputation and increased profits. Its high level theory backed with practical advice and clear action steps at the end of each chapter that will make a significant difference to your online reputation.
The book has original and entertaining case studies to further Chris and Julien’s case for being an authentic online authority, and back their message: become a trusted source, make yourself known online and keep adding value in the space. Whether that’s through blogging, conversing in forums, or adding to conversations with true value; eg. give twelve tweets of valuable, interesting information earn you the right to sell through one.
What resonates with me in the book is standing out with your humanity online (and face to face). As touchy feely as this might sound, it’s not.
The more we communicate through technology, the greater the need to show our humanness, both through the message and the medium (video, podcasts, webinars or behind a microphone at a podium).
Your message is then amplified by your personal style, as Phil and I teach in presentability.
Self aggrandising online (of off) never comes across well, and another of the big takeaways from the book is to back the confidence and authority you have in your space with humility.
The more we communicate through technology, the greater the need to show our humanness, both through the message and the medium (video, podcasts, webinars or behind a microphone at a podium).
Your message is then amplified by your personal style, as Phil and I teach in presentability.
Self aggrandising online (of off) never comes across well, and another of the big takeaways from the book is to back the confidence and authority you have in your space with humility.
Here is a précis of the other core principles from the book:
1. Stand out: whether it’s through service, innovation, commitment to creatively solving problems, being a stand out is vital in today’s increasingly crowded room.
2. Belong by speaking their language. This is not about being false, manipulative or misleading. It’s about finding out how your people talk and using the language that will mean the most to them.
3. The Archimedes Effect: using knowledge, power and time for competitive advantage. In other words, leverage. Along with authenticity, leverage might be one of today’s most heard words in business, but I believe they’re both used for good reasons: many of us want more of them.
4. Agent Zero: this is the power of networks tapped into by the person on the ground, out among the action. There’s unique evidence displayed in the book with Chris Brogan’s negotiations to work from a coffee shop to be among the technorati rather than holed away in a cubicle. Being out among a crowd of likeminded peers he could tap into collective knowledge that was up to date, all the while expanding his networks and giving greater results to the company we was working for at the time. The lesson? Keep widening your network.
5. Human artistry: this is one of the reasons I choose to work with speakers and what I value in training people in soft skills. With information, intellectual property and trust wielding the currency they now do, soft skills are essential in getting along with people and getting ahead in business. Delivering clear well communicated messages gives us all greater influence, no matter what the space.
6. Build an army to develop mass. Whether we’re crowd sourcing an idea or reesarching and contributing to forums we trust, we all now have the opportunity to get further faster when we collaborate online (and again, offline too).
To find out more about the book, check the reviews on your favourite business book portal. I buy mine from the Book Depositry.
Your People
Following our latest successful public program and webinars on How to Overcome Your Speaking Nerves, the next public presentability program is on in the Sydney CBD, Tuesday September 18.
Spaces have sold, however there is a super earlybird offer open until August 17.
“A very well structured, practical approach, and much learning experienced, drawing on lots of ‘real case studies’ and experiences."
Mark Lyster, Director, Net Balance Management Group
We’re also taking expressions of interests in other states for in-house presentability program tailored for your organisation or association.
Your Event
When I approached Julien Smith to be represented by MCME, he wrote 'btw, why me?’ I later learnt how smart this was in one of his blogs. Julien reminds us that if we know why people want to do business with us, we can amplify it (authentically, of course).
His street smarts, online savvy and international repute, combined with the fact that he’s a bestselling NY Times author who was chosen by Seth Godin to write The Flinch are all reasons why I recommend Julien as a stand out speaker for your next event.
Give your brand experience
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Bigger Questions
Recently I took a wealthy businessman out to lunch and he gave me similar advice about growing the business.'Want bigger results?,' he said, 'Ask yourself bigger questions. Know why you want the business to succeed and what you want to do with the money. Go for the goal beyond the goal and the how becomes incidental.'
So here are some bigger questions you might want to ask yourself:
Why me?
Julien Smith asked this when I approached him for representation. It's smart. If you know why people choose you, you can amplify it, as Julien says in his own blog. Ask why your clients, associates, colleagues and suppliers keep coming back to you. It's some of the fastest and most accurate market research you can do, and one of the best reasons for getting testimonials.
Why this?
Every time you get clearer on your purpose you gain greater clarity on what to stop doing and what to amp up to new levels. Staying on purpose helps you play to your strengths. Letting others know why this matters to you lays the ground for greater connection.
Why now?
Is what you have to offer relevant to the market? Or does it swing away from what everyone else is doing, buck the trend and carve a niche? Personally I prefer the second option. Whichever way you choose to go make it a conscious choice.
I'll be asking you more questions to ask of your clients, prospects, colleagues and yourself in coming posts. You're welcome to ask me your own here too.
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