60 Second Presentation for Business Networkers - revisited!

Networkers, here you go!

1. Your name and business name
Tell us who you are and what you do.

2. Define your business purpose
Let the audience know 'what happens once your clients have benefitted from your service' - not the features of your service (accountant, book keeing, spreadsheet analysis etc) more 'we help businesses survive by making sure our customers have POMind and sucurity that their finances meet the requirements of the business'

3. How do you deliver your purpose?
We do that by providing book keeping, etc etc (services offered)

4. Get the audience agreeing with you
"When it comes to choosing an accountant you want a person who gives you sound advice, has your business interests high on their agenda and treats you as their number one client. (I challenge anyone not to agree with this)

.....and that is quite important when choosing this type of service isn't it.....

Isn't it - this is a technique that promotes a 'yes response' from a person. It called a tag question. Use them sparingly.

5. Get your testimonial in there.....
Some of our customers say that we are "x, y, z"
This is your opportunity to 'say what you want' about your business becuase it came from one of your customers. Truth prevails here.

6. Call to Action
Close by letting the audience know how to access you.

Happy networking!

Did watching England get you in a state??

So. Just like millions of others across the country I've 'endured' 90 minutes of England v Slovenia and what a roller-coaster ride of emotions it was.

The range of feelings experienced - remember 'Defoe scoring'..........to the thoughts that crossed your mind when Rooney was running off that 'knock'........to the moments leading up the Upsons last 'gasp' tackle...to the emotions you recall when the final whistle blew........

If you stop to think about one of those moments in detail and run the movie from a few moments before the event to a few moments after, you may even start to associate with the feelings you felt back at the time it happened as you concentrate on the 'film'.

By doing this, your mind generates visual 'data' in the form of images that in turn trigger a kinesthetic response (feeling) like what you have probably just witnessed.

'Tackling' states in business

Thinking about you and your current level of business for a moment and maybe your 'personal performance' in terms of your 'activity' or production levels, what 'frame of mind' would be the one that produced the most output in that situation? You may even think of your role and the varying activities you engage in daily and as you do that, notice how different 'states' would benefit different 'situations.'

Tools for better 'headers'

I think the question is, with 'tools for your head' available that assist a person in achieving different levels of feeling, can you imagine the context you hate most, yet having the feeling you want in that situation. What would that mean for you in terms of different outcomes?!?

Quick question: "Are you OK with that?"

If you are, great! If not, why not?

What would happen if you did something about it?

What? Just like England did ......?!?


The men out in South Africa made changes to their team in todays game which meant they progressed through to the next round. With a Sunday afternoon game 'beckon' -ing (did you think of David? You have now!) the country waits to see if we can 'progress further' in what some people are describing as 'the greatest show on earth'.

Come on England!

How to get your prospects to say 'YES'

As a business owner or ‘communicator’ you’re in the business of getting results and when you start to think about business situations you come into, contexts in which you communicate and the differing outcomes that can possibly occur you’ll soon realise that your thought processing and communication is geared towards an outcome that is generated by yourself or ’shared’ with another and your key objective is to ‘get agreement.’
There are numerous ways of ‘enhancing’ your personal communication to get agreement and before I share those with you there’s one thing I have to be clear about.

In any communication transaction there is an ‘intention’ and consideration has to be given to whether or not you consider your intention in ‘persuading another’ to be self fulfilment or shared winnings. Only you will know that but you know as well as I do that relationship building is built on shared outcomes that benefit all parties concerned.

Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move on.

Getting agreement is about getting people saying ‘yes’ and there are a number of ways to steer someone towards a ‘yes’ through language.

Know your outcome and ‘pre-frame’ your communication

Set the scene by outlining your ‘objectives’ and create an environment where you and the other person involved in the transaction are in agreement on what is to be achieved. YES number one.

‘Pace’ the listener using pacing statements

Pacing ‘current experience’ is very powerful. It is used to ‘get people in on the deal’ and engaged with you. Notice the following text and how you cannot disagree with it.

“You are reading this material, looking at the text on the page, considering how these tools might assist you….”

Subconsciously, as the reader you have ‘accepted’ or ‘YES’d’ three times by reading the above text. Agree?

Asking the right questions to get the right answers

People buy on ‘emotion’ and in the sales or relationship building process the ‘hot buttons’ of the prospect are to be identified and utilised to create the condition for the sale. By asking the following set of questions you can effectively create the right conditions by allowing the listener to highlight their situation and thought processing in relation to the context:

What is your priority? – Allows the listener to highlight their criteria

Why is that important? – Justifies their criteria

What would it mean for you if you had that? – Personalises the justification

What would the consequences be of not having that? – Creates the criteria to be avoided

How would that be a problem for you (not having that)? – Justifies the avoidance criteria

Once you have this set of information you now understand what the person wants, doesn’t want and what it means ‘globally’ (impact on the bigger picture) and ‘personally’ to the listener. Repeat back to the listener and confirm what they want or don’t want and how it impacts them to get them in agreement with you.

Use of suggestion to create ‘options’ – don’t ‘force’ communication

Suggestion statements are used to enable the listener to have an option yet the message contained within the sentence is clear. By giving people an option you don’t come across as pushy but ’suggestive’ giving the listener the option to make the right decision for themselves. Consider the following sentences:

“Commit to working with my company today” – forced

“Are you able to commit to working with my company today” – option given – “Are you able”

“Could you commit to working with my company today” – option given “Could you”

Embedded commands

As with the above sentences you can see that the message or ‘command’ contained within the text is ‘commit to working with my company today’. Let’s combine pacing statements with a command:

“We’ve discussed your situation, I’ve highlighted what we offer as a business, and how we can assist you in achieving your objectives, and as you think about what you might achieve by working with me, how our commitment to each other can move you and the business forward and by knowing now, that we have assisted companies in a similar situation to yours grow substantially by these services, I’d like to make it easy for you to be able to commit to working with my company, because commitment is what you want from a service provider like ours, isn’t it.”

Tag questions

Tag questions refer to questions ‘tagged’ onto sentences that create agreement. It’s quite interesting knowing that it is possible to create agreement using such tools like the one’s above isn’t it? And you can see that by using these patterns you can become more effective in your communication can’t you? So you will go on and use them, won’t you?

So. You’ve been introduced to some new skills, you’ve absorbed the information in the best way for you and thought many things about how and where these tools could be used. I’d like you to consider how easy it is to realise how these tools, if ‘over used’ and without ‘rapport’ and what are known as ‘calibration’ skills. I’d like to suggest that you learn further into how it is a combination of these tools that creates the conditions for successful use of these tools.

Bearing in mind a persons confidence levelsAs with all ‘things’ in life, especially honing your language skills, its about putting in practice, time and commitment. Practice saying your sentences with different voice tonality and speed and with ‘pauses’. Commit to utilising some of the patterns daily and you’ll soon see and increase in your personal performance, won’t you…..

Don't tell me what to do with my Social Media!

It's an absolute 'bunfight' out there in Social Media world right now.....

There seems to be a majority who understand the concept of it yet the 'contexts' that create the 'purpose' for usage seem to be the missing key to the door.

The majority know what to 'do with it' and those that are 'doing it', are not all doing it 'the same'. This is leading to conflicting messages as to 'what to do with it' and this causes uncertainty within communities who are looking to use it to develop a brand on either a business or personal level.

What first needs to be asked is 'what is twitter, LinkedIn et al?'

These amazing tools are so multifaceted that it is becoming a challenge on how best to use them to get your chosen result. We're dealing with a revolution that is in its infancy and defining the boundaries or 'contexts' in which this platform works are yet to be formed, tested and available to users.

What do I mean by the above? The functionality of the platforms, as either direct communication or one way broadcasting capability means that whatever your 'intention' for platform use (chat, advertising, one way dialogue, information sharing etc) then there is 'space' for that approach. Yes! That approach will attract a particular audience and it will be an audience that has, of its own accord, decided to be there, automated or otherwise.

Let's look at LinkedIn as an example. It's a message broadcasting tool, information sharing tool, phone book, prospect list, labour pool, supplier list and depending on how a person decides to use the tools defines the 'intention' behind tool usage. That same situation applies to businesses and how they use the tools to get what they want.

So. SM gurus, trainers and wannabes - stop telling me what I should do with my 'social media' because you may be unsure what my 'intention' is on the platforms, whether I am happy with my results and at the end of the day there is enough 'space' to do what I want with it!

Fish don't bite if there's no bait....

As a business owner, senior leader, sales person, account handler, relationship builder.....OK, 'everyone in business' - you've got to 'sell yourself' using communication.

It's unavoidable. It's necessary. It's challenging, yet it is achieveable. And guess what? The only person that can achieve your outcomes for you, is you.

I speak to a lot of relationship builders about their experience of not being able to 'go up and start conversations easily' and sales people who are so focused on getting 'what they want to say' out of their mouths in business winning scenarios that they forget to listen effectively. At the same time, Directors who are so focused on their own thoughts that they forget how they 'come across' to their peers and managers with busy work loads that in some cases, aren't as attentive as they could be to the real needs of their teams.

With many different types of employee, prospects and customers out there how important is it to have the ability to interact effectively, with all your focus on the person(s) you are interacting with, to ensure that your message is issued and received as it was intended to be. As we go about our business lives with heavy workloads, sometimes with stress and other challenging items around with us, not always do we pay attention to our own personal communication patterns and we often find blame in other things when we don't get what we want. Everyone knows that we 'get out' what we 'put in' and communication is no different!

See if you can do this as easy as is possible.

Now. If you were to think about the last meeting you were in, the last networking group you attended and ask yourself this simple question:

"When I think back to that time, if I were meeting me, shaking hands with me, looking at me, listening to what I normally talk about/like in this situation, and taking into account the outcome at the time, what words would I use to describe me?"


What words have you come up with?

Now. Think about 3 things you did well in that situation.

Then, think about 3 areas in which you can improve upon.

Question: How will you go about getting those things so you can be even better next time?

Finding the difference that makes the difference between your personal performance in communication settings will allow you to ensure that your results will change. But only if you act upon what you find out...

Changing the way you communicate and being able to analyse your performance in communication situations is a key skill. Developing yourself in this area means you become more 'attractive' to all those hungry fish out there.

So. Waders on, line cast and await your first bite....