When LinkedIn launched, it was a social media site that encouraged people in the work world to connect with other known professionals for networking and career development.   People were categorized as either (1^st) which were direct connections, (2^nd) which is someone who knows someone you know or (3^rd) someone who knows someone that knows someone you know.   They tracked up to three degrees of separation between people.  In the early days of LI, someone with over 500 connections was considered to be a mover-and-shaker.  The site discouraged linking to people outside those known at work, school or social circles.  In turn, people were hesitant to link with people they didn’t know for fear that the site would be abused by salespeople and scammers. Continue reading →

Companies today compete furiously for market share.  We see brick-and-mortar retailers fighting for every sale and struggling to survive.  The Street announced that “Ailing department store operator Sears Holdings Inc. will shut down 63 more Sears and Kmart stores, the latest step as it hobbles to a likely bankruptcy.”[1] Restaurants are slogging it out with special offers, gimmicks and unique approaches that will attain and retain patrons.  The New York Times recently reported that “There are now more than 620,000 eating and drinking places in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the number of restaurants is growing at about twice the rate of the population.”[2] Competition is tough, and marketing research shows that businesses in most industries are spending increasingly larger budgets to reach potential customers and woo existing customers.  Clutch, a Washington, D.C.-based ratings and review firm, conducted a 2017 Small Business Digital Marketing Survey of 350 small business owners and managers (500 employees or less) in which 49% of entrepreneurs said they plan to spend more on digital marketing to boost sales and brand recognition this year over last year and 36% said they aim to boost their marketing budget by 11% to 30%.[3] They are doing it all.  PPC campaigns.  Social media ads.  Retargeting efforts.  Network commercials.  Seminars.  Webinars.  Video infomercials.  Presentations.  Mobile automated notifications.  Text ads.  The efforts are increasingly sophisticated and expensive.  You name it.  Businesses are doing it.  Creating it…. deploying it…. and measuring the effectiveness of it.  That’s a lot of time and money spent to cut through the noise and grab the audience’s attention with the hopes of driving sales and increasing repeat business. Continue reading →

Auyush Jain of Microsoft once said that “A single 10-minute presentation has the power to convert an idea into reality.”  That is perhaps why most companies that sell a product or service (something that is not a commodity) will use a “presentation” to explain their product or service to prospective customers.  This is especially true for high ticket items, complex services and B2B sales.  A typical presentation explains the product/service benefits and features as well as the company’s story and expertise.  In the “old days”, before computers and software applications, salespeople would work with marketing to create the presentation on either boards or in a flip book or binder.  In 1990, Microsoft revolutionized presentations with the launch of Powerpoint (which was invented in 1987 under a different name by a different company).  Suddenly, anyone with basic technical skills could use software found on most desktops to create a digital presentation.  Slides replaced boards and sheets.  A presentation could be emailed to anyone, anywhere, at a moment’s notice.  The use of presentations grew.  They were no longer just used for sales pitches.  Today, presentations are used for operational training, educational seminars, HR onboarding, and more. Continue reading →

Recently, CBS fired a legal executive in their organization over comments she posted on Facebook after the tragic incident in Las Vegas.  The executive, who is an attorney and was Vice President and Senior Counsel in Strategic Transactions at CBS, posted her comment just hours after the tragedy.   Without reposting what she said or opening the can of political worms related to her comment, suffice it to say that what she wrote was deemed by many to be emotionally-charged, callous and politically-volatile, and – of course — it quickly spread on social media and through online news outlets.  Shortly thereafter, the executive was fired from her job.  She had been employed by CBS for about a year.  A CBS spokesperson said that “Her views as expressed on social media are deeply unacceptable to all of us at CBS.” Continue reading →

Most people are familiar with the late Stephen Covey’s famous book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.   First published in 1988, the business / self-help book offered an approach to being more effective in achieving goals by aligning oneself to what Covey referenced as the “true north” principles.  He saw those seven principles as universal and timeless.  Later he added an eighth principle.  By far his best-known book, Covey’s Seven Habits have sold more than 25 million copies in 40 languages worldwide. The audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in U.S. publishing history to sell more than one million copies and has now sold over 1 ½ million audio copies to date.  More recently, Covey’s son wrote and published a simplified version of the book titled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens.  The Seven Habits philosophy lives on with Millennials and iGens. Continue reading →

Part 1 – Preparing to Speak

Forget heights, planes and confined spaces.  Snakes, spiders and frogs move over.  Most people’s biggest fear is talking in public.  Standing up and speaking in front of a group of strangers is downright paralyzing to a great many people.  Giving a speech.  Teaching a class.  Addressing a group at a social gathering.  For many, these are all scenarios that cause some people to complete freeze.  Perhaps that is why those who are particularly good at it can make a living doing it.  Gifted motivational speakers such as Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Zig Ziglar, Dr. Wayne Dyer and Jim Rohn earn seven figure salaries annually and their primary job is to speak in public. Continue reading →