Make it count...
I had a call from a former client recently inviting me to speak at her Businesswomen's Networking Group. She had seen me deliver a twenty minute presentation four years before. The audience was a group of aspiring business women about to complete their business studies degrees at Cambridge Anglia Ruskin University. My client commented that my recommendations about "Buying Cycles" had had a profound effect on her - positively influencing the way she did her marketing. I was, of course, flattered that my presentation had such an impact; the problem was I couldn't remember the presentation or the key message which she had taken away from it.
The presentation was on Monday morning after a fashion show on Saturday night, with all the clearing up on the Sunday. I had been working around the clock to produce a huge fashion show in Cambridge for Teenage Cancer Trust, which was the culmination of two years work and had been a huge success, raising £25,000 for a new cancer unit for teenagers at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge.
Networking and business is something I'm pretty comfortable with, the presentation would have been written and learned in advance, so I guess I was on autopilot, promptly forgetting all about it. Still I can't find the speech or the notes for it.
So, in true Co-Active Coaching style... what's the learning?
1. When given the opportunity to share expertise, make it count. It is generally understood that people sometimes take away only two key points from a training course. This is why, incidentally, to maximise results from training, follow-up coaching is such a great idea and a really positive investment, but I digress...
2. My Dad once said that we are influenced by everyone we meet. That chat you have at the coffee machine tomorrow morning could change someone's life... Be willing to share; however disposable your thoughts may be to you, to another it could something they carry with them always.
3. I could have refused the booking... "I'll be too tired"... but then my message would not have reached my client (and she perhaps would never have become a client!) So, no matter what your self-limiting beliefs say... if you have something that will make a positive difference to people, don't hold back. Don't let "too tired", "too scared to do public speaking", "no-one will listen to me"... stop you. Just do it!
What action will I take from this?
No matter how short the presentation, keep the notes and file them carefully - in four years time you might want to look back and find out the exact words that counted. http://www.coachyou.co.uk
By Jill C McCulloch
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