Are You a Professional Speaker? You are to Me!

Are you like Cavett?

One of my favorite National Speaker Association “Voices of Experience” (VOE) tracks from the last year was on Cavett Robert and the impact he had on NSA’s organization and membership. You’ve probably heard the same track where everyone has such wonderful things to say about him. There are two thoughts that cross my mind as I recall it…

First, Cavett always sat in the front-row at every presentation he attended and took notes. He would always learn something from whoever was presenting and perhaps most importantly, he’d make a point of meeting the speaker afterward to tell them how he thought that they were the best speaker he’d heard! He didn’t stop paying compliments to those that gave presentations, he’d also tell people that he was having regular conversations with how they should become professional speakers (Legend has it that he’d even say the same to garbage men!) So do you act like Cavett? Who have you told that they speak great and that they should become a professional speaker? I know that my life changed dramatically the day Tim Durkin said something similar to me!

Second, I mentioned that everyone on the VOE had such wonderful things to say about Cavett. Who doesn’t like to hear good things about themselves? I only hope that they shared the same thoughts with him when he was still with us. November 14th is a reminder day for all members of NSA to remember Cavett. I say we celebrate the entire month by telling those we enjoy why they are special people in our lives. Who knows, maybe they’ll want to become members of NSA as well!

Visit our "Affiliates" page to learn how you can become certified with Pathos (www.PathosLeadershipGroup.com). The benefit to speakers, coaches or trainers is that you can compliment your A+ material with the breadth of ours (See all we have to offer on the Training page of the website).

Sam Palazzolo, CPLP
President & Chief Influence Officer
Pathos Leadership Group

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone - Influential Sales and the Economy

Paula Cole asked a few years ago, and it bears repeating during this tough economic period..."Where have all the cowboys gone?" This past weekend, I met one that is worth telling you about.

On Sunday afternoon, my wife and family decided to have a little "family day" that consisted of us going to a few open houses and then visiting a couple of car dealerships. My kids initially resisted, but later loved tearing through the open homes (Sorry realtors!) We like to do this because it is a great learning experience to share with our kids what's really important. We always do a debrief after each home and discuss what they liked, what they didn't like, what we have at our current house, etc.

The highlight of the day was when we went to a few car dealerships. Here in Texas, because of the labor "blue" laws, dealerships can only be open one of the two weekend days. If they're open on Saturday, they must be closed on Sunday and vice-versa. Most chose this pattern, but a few like to "swim upstream" and close on Saturday to be open on Sunday. We chose to visit the ones that were open on Saturday and close on Sunday. Even though I worked in the car business for nearly 16 years, my wife summed it up when she explained to our oldest daughter when she asked "Why are we going there, they look closed?" My wife answered in her usually honest way by saying "This way we won't be bothered by any pushy salesperson!"

That's when we met him...The Cowboy! We visited the Park Place Lexus dealership in Grapevine, Texas expecting to be all alone, browsing the hundreds of new/used vehicles un-bothered. To our surprise, there was one lonely salesperson there to greet us. Now he was not pushy or obstructive to our mission, and many dealers post "inventory takers" at their lots on Sundays. That is to say, many Ford, Chrysler, GM, Hundai, Kia dealers. Here was a Lexus dealership doing the same! I was shocked, amazed and simultaneously horrified by our encounter.

How bad is the economy that a salesperson at the cream of the crop Lexus dealer in the country has to have "inventory takers" on the lot on a Sunday? This dealership won the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award and the State of Texas Quality Award "equivalent" for goodness sake! Our salesperson, David greeted us with a great smile and was dressed casually for the Sunday (Except for the $7,500 watch he was sporting!) He was doing the same thing that other "less than" dealerships have to do to get sales leads.

Here's the bottom line...He was there so that he could sell a car or two in the coming week. He was missing the football games so that he could build his sales leads for the coming week. Was he successful? From the look of his portfolio notepad with all the names he had written down, he was getting the leads. Will they all buy from him? Who knows! But don't miss the point, he was working just as hard, if not harder, to do his job.


What do you do that others won't or aren't willing to do so that you can be the best in your position? Do you want to sell more, even in this economy? Here's an offer for you...The week of November 17th we'll be hosting an "Influential Sales" webinar series. You can read about it at http://www.pathosleadershipgroup.com/. We'll be discussing how you can get the "Influential Edge" to compete and win in today's tough economy. I want you to be a part of this webinar! Send me an email at sp@pathosleadershipgroup.com and I'll invite you to a complimentary overview, or "test drive" on how we perform our webinars for maximum impact!


Sam Palazzolo
President & Chief Influence Officer @ Pathos Leadership Group - Home of the Influential Edge!
Visit us at www.PathosLeadershipGroup.com