Funny stories

Author Anita Brock will be speaking at the North Richland Hills Library this evening, telling stories from her two travel books, Out, About and Around, and Mileage, Memories and Mishaps, plus some never published.

There are many anecdotes in her books to which I can relate, especially one about losing her "good" tweezers in her car. In her steering column, to be exact, after using them at a stop light (I can also relate to that). She tried to jar them free by speeding up and slamming on the brakes. That is so something I would try.

I have to admit, though, that having experienced 'squatty potties' in China, one of my favorite sections is her commentary on toilets around the world. In particular, she describes a situation in a hotel in Ephesus, Turkey. The toilet in their room was obviously intended to have a seat, but it was missing. She had to explain to the desk clerk, who spoke no English:

"I stood at the desk flapping my arms imitating a toilet seat going up and down…and watched the clerk's eyes glaze over in incomprehension. I know what he was probably thinking.

"This woman is chattering ninety miles a minute and the only word I understand is 'toilet.' She is gesturing like the men in orange vests on an airport runway. Is she telling me she wants to fly away and take the toilet?"

He followed me to the room. I showed him the toilet sans seat. He sighs. The glaze leaves his eyes and he chatters. I only understood the word 'toilet.' I think, as it turned out, he was telling me, "You ladies need a toilet seat. While you are at dinner I will have one attached."

He may have been saying, "I will have someone escort you to the airport."

Seriously. Funny stories.

Tonight, 7 – 8:30, at the North Richland Hills Library, 9015 Grand Avenue, North Richland Hills, TX, 76180-7901. Free admission and refreshments.

I promise you'll laugh.

Jeff Klein and better 30-second commercials than you've ever imagined

Jeff Klein has spoken to a couple of networking groups that I belong to, and every single time I learn so much! His talk at the Southlake Chamber Friday morning Leads group was about 30-second commercials, and his suggestions are amazingly simple yet amazingly astute.

His advice: First, make it about the listener. Duh. Since that's what I do all day in everything I write (and what I gently suggest to everyone I work for or work with), you might think that would have occurred to me already. Not so much, actually. Simply construct your commercial to focus on the people who are hearing it, not on yourself.

Secondly, ask for something specific. My favorite quote from his talk:

If you tell me who you're looking for, specifically, I probably know someone I can introduce you to. If you say, "I want to meet everyone you know," I can't help you.

And, finally, ask for one thing. Let people know you want to meet school principals or small business owners who want to start blogs or plumbers who work in Watauga. Whatever. A bonus — a really great bonus if you attend a number of networking functions or attend the same ones regularly — is that your 30-second commercial isn't the same every time. Think about all the commercials you've heard over and over, to the point where you really don't have to listen any more to know what they're about. Having something different to say each time will keep people listening longer!

At our meeting, Jeff helped a couple of people with their commercials.






Jeff also had a couple of great offers for us. His tele-seminar, "Networking Your Way to Success," a six week course for up to ten people, begins again on 9/30. He guarantees exponential results within 90 days of implementing the system he teaches in the course. Sign up here.

He's also conducting a 90-minute "30 Seconds to Success" workshop, which will continue the work he started in this talk. Everyone in the workshop will get detailed one-on-one help with their commercial. He's been kind enough to offer a special price for those of us at the meeting (or any other Southlake Chamber members). The workshop is normally $97, but we can sign up for $75. The 30-Seconds to Success workshop is scheduled for 10/23, and we need two more people to register for it. I myself actually won this workshop, so I'm really anxious to get two more people signed up!

Get in touch with Jeff, or contact me if you have any questions about any of this. I highly recommend his workshops, and he's a great speaker!

Thanks again, Jeff!

Jeff was great!

Jeff Klein was great this morning! I've heard him speak before, on this same subject, and I still learned a lot. He's a very organized speaker, presenting a lot of information in a short period, in a way that's easy to understand. If you can get him to talk to your organization, do it!

I'll be posting some video clips and sound bites from both Jeff and Erin Steed. Stay tuned!

Comparative complaint

Okay, I try not to get on my soapbox too often. I'm not actually the grammar police. But I have to say something about this. Lately, for no apparent reason, English-speaking people seem to have forgotten that our language actually has two ways of creating comparative (and superlative) forms. You create a comparative by adding "-er" or put "more" before the word. Here's the problem: you don't get to just pick whichever way you feel like doing it. There is a correct form, and there is an incorrect form! There's a veritable epidemic of otherwise intelligent people — particularly on broadcast news shows — using the "more" form for everything.

It is not EVER

• more happy
• more easy
• more cool
• more old
• more tall.

And by the same token, it's never

• moderner
• effectiver
• beautifuler
• expensiver
• intelligenter.
  

The rule of thumb is that one-syllable words, and two-syllable words that end with 'y,' use "-er." Other two-syllable words, and words of three syllables or longer, get "more." Got that?

And while we're at it, keep your quotation marks on the outside of your punctuation. For heaven's sake, it makes you look Canadian!

Who is your ideal customer?

Last summer, one of my networking groups, Northeast Tarrent Networking (or Net-Net) worked through the workbook for the great Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port and Tim Sanders. It's a step-by-step guide to getting as much business as you can handle. One of the first exercises the workbook has you do is to define who your ideal customer is. Which of your customers do you care most about, which do you most enjoy enjoy working with?

So who do you like? When you network they ask what kind of referrals you're looking for, what's your answer? Who's your ideal customer?

Special offer from Keener Financial Planning

My friend (and co-facilitator at our Southlake Leads group) Jean Keener announced today that her company, Keener Financial Planning, has a special offer for anyone who's beginning to put together their own financial plan. She'll do an overview for you, with a look at insurance, saving, how to start investing and more. This financial check-up is normally $540, but for the rest of the month the price is only $249.



Jean is smart and runs her business with scrupulous integrity. Give her a call!

Twitter for business

If you use Twitter for your business (and there are many, many reasons to), make sure you read the very informative article offered by Twitter itself on the subject, Twitter 101 for Business - A Special Guide. The article points out that the most immediate benefit is...well, its immediacy. A restaurant goer tweeted that her party was having to wait longer than they liked for a table, and within a few minute a restaurant staffer found her, apologized for the wait and offered her party a free appetizer. Imagine getting immediate feedback from your customers and being able to respond that quickly!

The article also points out how Twitter lets you build a relationship with your customers, one in which they feel like they have an effective way to give direct input. That kind of connection can be a potent tool for creating loyalty. The customer feels like they have a say in how you do business, in how they're treated. That's something you're not going to get from an ad, no matter how effective it is.

YourBusinessChannel expert Mark Shaw has some advice about how to tell if Twitter will be useful for you as a business tool: