August 11th, 2010
I found myself in an interesting situation today where my skills as a business speaker and keynote speaker were going to be very valuable. I had a small but powerful and influential audience. I needed to touch them emotionally. I needed to make several important points that they would agree with and take seriously. I needed to be respected by them and taken seriously. I needed them to alter their position on a major issue.
I attempted to listen and understand before I sought to be understood. Thank you Stephen Covey for that valuable and timeless lesson. I told them briefly what I was going to teach and show them. I attempted to teach and show. I told them what I thought I had just showed them and taught them.
I had some great help in this presentation, so that I was one of a group working on the issue at hand. I tried to use as little time and as few words as possible to make the points and effect the changes.
It is interesting to think about how much time, effort and preparation over many years a keynote speaker takes to create a “keynote speech” that takes only a minute and makes a substantial difference.
Sometimes the less said, the better.
Tags: keynote speaker, keynote speech, preparation, stephen covey
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August 4th, 2010
A keynote speaker asks if you love work or hate work.
It is typical for people to have a love-hate relationship with their workplace, their co-workers and superiors. If the people running the organization are paying attention, they can use this to improve the business weekly.
Take employee comments seriously. If they compliment you and tell you things that they love about work, try to find a way to do more of the same. If they tell you something they hate or bring up a problem, take this very seriously. Use the problem to find some root causes, expose some weaknesses, uncover some sloppiness. Then do something about it. Create an initiative, a training exercise or a new protocol. Measure results. Reexamine the process and measure results again.
If you do this correctly, employees can love to work at your place of business, even if there are things they hate about it, because you try to address what they hate and make it less hateful.
Do you love to work where you work, or do you hate it?
Tags: employees, training excercise, workplace violence
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July 4th, 2010
I was reading a few profiles of people who bill themselves as a keynote speaker and was struck by how tirelessly some of them work on their businesses.
It brought to mind one of my current theories, which is that many of us are addicted to exhaustion. We seem to thrive on over-working ourselves, depriving ourselves of rest, relaxation and sleep. Exhaustion has a certain feel to it. One can become addicted to it as easily as one can become addicted to a sugar rush-crash, a caffeine buzz or a nicotine head. I am sure exhaustion has a whole chain of physiological actions that we can become chemically addicted to, just like we can become addicted to carbohydrate overload.
I realize that our worlds are fast paced and on a 24-7-365 schedule. I also appreciate the lift one gets from a tall cup of coffee on a morning when you are tired from working too many hours, too many days in a row.
Sometimes I push myself until I just can’t take any more before lying down. But isn’t that a little crazy? On the days when I rest when I am tired, rather than pushing on, I feel much better, think more clearly and get a lot more done. I am also easier to live with for my loved ones.
Maybe an addiction to exhaustion is just that: an addiction to something destructive, like any other destructive addiction. Or maybe it is just us fooling ourselves into thinking we are being super productive.
So maybe the next chance I have to work as a keynote speaker, I’ll use “addiction to exhaustion” as my topic.
Tags: addiction, exhaustion, keynote speaker
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June 18th, 2010
I have been thinking of submitting an essay to This I Believe dot org for a while. So here it is:
This I Believe
I believe I’ll have a nap now
By Tron Jordheim
In the quiet moments that I steal from the events of the day, the responsibilities of career, the joy of family and the stress of the news, I contemplate the things I believe. When I find a way to sneak into a forest to stand below a grand oak tree and feel the wind on my face, I feel many things. I know that love rules out over selfishness and evil. I know that there is nothing more wonderful than nature. I remember the miracles of my life and the people who touched me along the way. Then I think of the challenges at hand: to keep one’s joy in the face of all that would squash it; to laugh when threatened and harassed; to gain prosperity through collaboration and not through domination; to feel young and alive in spite of the weight of the world.
It all seems rather tedious and exhausting. I would rather spend my day laughing with my wife and playing with my children, with a few breaks to toss a ball for my dogs. And I plan to do all of these things for at least a little while today. But in the mean time, there are bosses who expect a high rate of return, bills that need to be paid, nest eggs that need some careful attention and people who depend on me to feed their children. There are street battles raging closer by than I care to know. The haves and have-nots are fighting all around me as I strive to stay out of their way.
It takes a great deal of energy to feel as if one is living just another lovely day in paradise. I tire from the people and events that strain at my view of this beautiful world. I know I can maintain my joy and contribute to my fullest if I can just get a little rest. It feels like time to find a comfortable spot to recline for a while. I believe I’ll have a nap now.
Tron Jordheim is a business speaker, executive, writer and family guy.
Tags: believe, nature
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May 15th, 2010
A business speaker needs to write books to get the information that people could use out to people. I am working on a new title about sales culture.
I could have picked many titles for this book. I could have chosen a challenging title like: “So you think your company’s sales culture is good?” I could have picked a brusque attention getter like “Hey, your company’s sales culture sucks!” I could have picked something a little more academic sounding such as “Stimulating a 2 percent improvement in bottom line corporate profits through the institution of sales culture enhancements”. I could have picked a title that boasted: “I quintupled the revenue of my company by creating a sales culture…and so could you!”
Any one of these might express my feelings about the value of a good sales culture and about my opinion of most companies’ current sales and customer service practice.
But why did I choose the title I did?
Tags: books, bottom line, business speaker, revenue, sales culture
Posted in Management, business speaker, marketing, personal growth, sales | Comments Off
