Ben RidlerHello, I thought I better follow up my last blog with a report on some of the speakers I've seen over the last few weeks as promised in my last Blog.

Sales and Marketing Summit – New Orleans

The summit is run by Verne Harnish and Gazelles. Verne also runs a growth summit which I attended in Sydney earlier this year and which is in the US later in the year. This includes his Rockefeller Habits workshop which many of you will have attended. I love the format of various speakers over a couple of days and we are hoping to host one on ourselves next year.

Here is my top speaker and a report on the Chet Holmes incident. I'll follow up with some more thoughts on other speakers from this and other events at a later date...

My favourite Speaker was...

David Meerman Scott – David speaks on online marketing, social media and the new era we are in. David is refreshingly upfront, speaks common sense and made his points clearly and compellingly. He also shares examples of what's worked and what hasn't, which were entertainiing and interesting.

Given that most speakers on these topics speak tech and jargon and put most of us to sleep, or are evangelistic and not in touch with reality, David was just who I needed to hear this week. He even said you don't have to twitter or blog if it's not you, thank you David. We all need to understand these mediums though. The big aha moment for me was when David asked people to put their hand up if they have made a buying decision for their business using the yellow pages or other paper directory in the last 3 months, got about 5% of people who put their hand up. Then he asked if you had responded to an ad in mainstream media such as tv radio or magazines to put your hand up, a similar number (5 to 10%), then the same for newspapers, direct mail, email marketing. Then he asked who has made a purchase for their business in the last 3 months after initiating a contact on Google, nearly every hand went up. That's when it really hit home, just how much power one company has in directing business. Scary. I haven't read David's books yet, but based on the presentation he gave I don't think you could go wrong with them.

The Chet Holmes Incident

The most talked about speaker was Chet Holmes, both before the event due to the big build up Verne gave him, and after he spoke due to the incident that had such an impact on so many. Personally I got 1 very good idea from the presentation that I will use, which is all I ever ask of a presenter. Overall I found that most of the sales strategies and tactics were old style traditional hard sell style and not from the new era of consultative selling that sales has evolved to. I am also always suspicious of any self proclaimed guru who starts a presentation showing a video of themselves doing Karate, tells you repeatedly how wonderful they are and quotes numbers throughout that are completely impossible to believe with nothing to validate them. But that's just me and my opinion, many people think that Guru's have the answer to all of our problems. These people are happy to overlook the obvious exaggerations and outrageous claims that these guys always make.

So what was it that set Chet Holmes up as the dinner conversation for the whole event? It was his close. For the last 23 minutes of his 3 or 4 hour talk (depending when you start it from) he turned into a real live infomercial, the whole, but wait there's more, sign up to day and you also get the steak knives, first 5 also get the bonus blah, stocks are limited, money back guarantee...

So What? Here's the thing. People paid good money to go and see speakers and get educated, Chet did not have permission to turn into an infomercial, he didn't ask for permission and he didn't give people the chance to change the channel. It was like getting tricked into attending a hard sell seminar for time shares that you had paid to attend, and that is why people reacted. Personally I saw it coming and it confirmed the impression he had made on me earlier in the speech. I have heard that his book is great, and I'm sure it is, and I am confident that if you apply his processes they will work. Most processes do if you apply them. For me the learning is all about permission, I've been to more seminars, events, summits, EO universities and other learning events than most, and the Chet Holmes incident will stand out for the conversations it created and the passionate reaction it invoked. EO'ers are always a witty and funny bunch and the ones I was with definitely made the most of this one with some hilarious and very entertaining dinner time conversations, Adam Robinson's description of being violated will always stick with me, as will Paul O'Kelly's irish wit in describing the great injustice he suffered. There were many others.

So the lesson is Permission, this doesn't just apply on line. The next time your about to go Chet Holmes on someone, make sure that you've got permission, better yet, read SPIN SELLING and ask them questions instead.

I'll follow up with more on some other speakers later, as I'm sure there will be some people who want to have a go at me for this comment. I think Gazelles summit's are great, there will always be some speakers that are just who you need to hear at the time and some who don't agree with your thinking. Thats how it is, there are 10 opinions on everything.

Anyway, please remember, don't go Chet Holmes on anyone unless you have asked permission first.

Kia Kaha

Ben