Attended an IoD networking breakfast this morning. The speaker was Gary Outrageous, someone I have been looking forward to listening to. A professional hypnotic speaker, Gary has worked with some very large clients to help them break away from traditional and cultural business limitations, and do that little bit extra that it takes to beat the other guy.
He spoke for about half an hour, not long really, given that he is a very funny and charismatic speaker - I could have listened to him for hours. Anyhoo he gave us little hints and tips about how to get ahead of the other guy. His view is that most companies are ok, if a little bit crap, and so there’s no need to aim for excellence, when in fact if you manage to be good, every day, then that beats most.
And so he then followed with a few good hints and tips. My favourite was the “you to we” ratio. The idea here is that most companies spend all of their time talking about themselves, in promotional literature, presentations and meetings. This doesn’t particularly engage the client, does it? He suggest using at least three times more “you”s than “we”s in communication, to ensure that the client is thinking about what you are giving them (the what’s in it for me? point of view). A very useful concept that I will put in to practice forthwith!
All in all a very interesting speech, definitely worth getting up an hour early for. Be sure to head over to http://www.garyoutragreous.com/ to find out more and if you can, catch him live yourself sometime, it would definitely be a worthy investment. Also, check out his sales hypnosis CD or mp3 over at http://www.saleshypnosis.co.uk/. I’m heading over to buy it now and will let you know what I think.
