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I was fortunate enough to be one of the guests on Jacki Mitchell’s Taking Care of Business radio program. It is an award winning program that looks at many different aspects of business and what you need to do to stay ahead of the curve.
We were talking about Exhibiting and business in general. Naturally I think it is worth listening to!
You can hear the full show here
Let me know what you think.
Did someone leave the oven on?
We are absolutely baking down here in Melbourne with forecasts of over 40o C (100o F) for the next few days.
Most places in Melbourne are not built for such weather so the heat builds up and everyone melts.
The thing most talked about for the next few days will be how hot it is!
So What?
The reality is that we can do nothing about the weather (working against global warming aside) yet it will be the focus of most of our attention.
All we can do is dress cool, work some where cool, keep hydrated or head to the cinemas for a movie marathon.
Too often we are distracted by things we can do nothing about and we waste time and resources rather than focussing on what we CAN do something about.
So what CAN you do today to move you in the direction of your dreams?
I am Spreading The Love for Valentines Day Special
I believe (and the research backs it up) that the best, easiest and most effective way to get leads is from Exhibiting.
So I am spreading the love with a Valentines day special on the Exhibit Like A Pro 12 Disc pack. You get almost $3,000 worth of value and up until Valentines Day you save almost $500 off the RRP.
One of our clients has said they increased their QUALIFIED leads by
533% using this approach (that meant and extra $150,000 to their bottom line)
Find out more detail by going to the product page here.
Happy Valentines!
OK so I am a little early. My theory is that it is never too early to feel the love!
While some may describe the day as a celebration that florists, greeting card companies and chocolate companies make a fortune out of, a quick look at Wikipedia shows that it was around well before they took advantage.
So what does this all have to do with today’s email?
Well as part of my 2014 Valentine’s Day celebrations I wanted to share some love with you and say thank you for reading my newsletters and being part of my world.
So a HUGE THANK YOU to you!
For those who are looking to increased leads in your business, I have another gift for you.
The Centre for Exhibition Industry Research has shown the most cost effective way to get leads is via Exhibiting and Sponsoring business events.
My experience is that most businesses have yet to master the art of Exhibiting.
I want to help you take your exhibiting to the next level and be able to Exhibit Like A Pro. So here is what I am doing, until Valentines Day I am offering you an insane discount (its over 60%). They do say love makes you crazy!
Find out the detail by going to the product page here.
Happy Valentines!
Last week I was on radio talking about mentoring and some of the techniques to get better results. One of the questions that came up from a listener was “What are the best attributes to have to effect lasting change in a business?”
There are Four Key elements that you need and you can find out more about them here.
The common theme is element is part of your Attitude and not a specific skillset. Having the right attitude or an attitude that serves you, your customer and your business well can be challenging.
One person who knows all about Attitude is Justin Herald. His business is not only based on Attitude but it is also called Attitude.
To celebrate my new website (now with extra attitude!) I have 5 tickets to give away to see Justin Herald speak at a breakfast in Melbourne this Wednesday 13th November. (Yes, it’s true – I am the MC!)
The first five people to email the Event Organiser (Mary Tan mary.t@planaheadevents.com.au) get a complimentary ticket to the breakfast.
Good luck and don’t forget to check out the new website and check your own attitude. Is it serving you, your customer and your business? If not, change it.
I was in Melbourne recently to audition for the lead role in an animated film (that’s a different story) and I saw Mario the busker above. In fact, I originally thought someone was playing the Nintendo game with the volume really loud. Click here for a couple of minutes of Mario at work.
It was an amazing bit of busking that applied the same elements of success that a clever exhibiting booth would have.
Now I am not sure how good a guitar player the person was, but that didn’t matter. After a couple of minutes I realised that they were playing the same 5-7 minute piece and then just kept repeating it.
This is why it was so good:
Next time you are setting up your Expo Booth, consider some of these principles and go for your Customers Sweet Spot.
In my role as MC I get to meet a lot of really cool people, and not just the celebrities!
Last week Samuel Johnson was the final speaker at the plenary session. He is a man on a mission and he is really focussed.
I have met many business people who get to a point where they ask, “What’s it for?” Their quest was to “make it” but what does that mean?
What is life for, why are they working hard, what counts, what is merely noise and why should I get out of bed today?
There are young people who experience the same thing and I suspect it is a contributing factor to a lot of the depression that people suffer.
Sam is crystal clear on what he is doing. He is living for his sister. She has terminal breast cancer and when he asked her “What legacy can I leave for you?” (expecting her to say go bungee jumping or jump out of a plane) she said to him, “I want you to ride around Australia on a unicycle and raise over a million dollars for cancer research.”
So that is what he has been doing. He is 2/3rds of the way there in distance and has raised over $800,000 to date.
He has also been spreading the message about breast cancer awareness. From his presentations and challenges along the cycle route to selling merchandise, including my favourite bumper sticker
I urge you to find out more about what Sam is doing by heading to www.LoveYourSister.org where you can discover some of the challenges, buy some merchandise or donate to the cause.
Sam is crystal clear on what he is doing this for and has some key strategies to get it done.
What about you Dear-Reader? Do you know what life is for? How you live your day is how you live your life so find your why and get cracking!
At the recent TEDxMelbourne event, I had a chat with the convenor and production manager about what it was that made a TED or TEDx presentation really stand out. We came up with a list of a few different things.
It occurred to me that ALL presenters may get some benefit from these ideas. Now the TED style (18 mins or less) is a very distinct style of presentation but the underlying core elements will remain the same.
Check out the video and let me know what you think. Have I missed anything?
I was fortunate enough to be the Master of Ceremonies for TEDxMelbourne yesterday.
It was a great day. The theme was City2.0 With unprecedented urbanisation, how do we prepare for the cities of the future.
Unlike the usual TEDx event, we were streaming some of the feed from the New York event for 90 minutes. Now the technology was all sorted but with a big demand for the feed we knew that they may have been issues.
So we planned for it not to work. We also planned for our back up plan not to work. The event was too important to leave to chance so we had to assume that IT WILL NOT WORK.
When the time came, the stream was fantastic and then after about an hour it started to have buffering issues from the USA. As MC I was up and down as it worked, didn’t work, worked, didn’t. Finally we killed the stream and went with our back up plan (which ended up getting a better response).
What about with what you do Dear-Reader? Do you have a backup plan? Maybe even a back up for your back up? Whether it is a plan for the school holidays, a presentation to your boss or even a TEDxMelbourne presentation to 500 people, you need to plan for when it WILL NOT work.
Power Up Your Property
As you may know, I am a big fan of property investment. Wifey and I have been fortunate enough to purchase several properties over the years and continue to grown our financial nest egg.
One of the reasons I am so keen to invest is that for my generation, we will not have a pension. It is not that I will not be eligible for it, it is that there will not be enough workers or a big enough tax base to pay retiree’s a pension. Rather than wait for someone else to do something about it, Wifey and I have taken the situation into our own hands and are building our own “pension base”.
I am fortunate in that I have a formal education in finance. In all honesty, I don’t use most of it. The education that has had the most impact on me is the self education I have gained since leaving university.
When I speak with my friends and those who ask about investing, I am constantly asked, “Why property?”
The answer is simple and it is one word – LEVERAGE.
With property, I can get excellent leverage on my finances. That is, with a 20% deposit, I can buy a house. Most other investments I would either need to pay for in full or only be able to finance 50%.
Also, I am lazy. I am not interested in watching stock markets on a daily basis to calculate buy and/or sell regardless of whether it is shares, options, managed funds or some other investment vehicle. Having said that, we do have some shares but again they are buy and hold shares.
The other thing with property is that I like the security it offers. Even if the house burns to nothing, I still have the land it was on. That land holds the majority of the value of the entire property. I have seen too many companies lose 100% of their value and I would hate to be
caught (again!)
So why should you care what I invest in?
Well part of the fun of investing in property is looking at how you can increase the value of that property. Whether you want to increase the value of it just before you sell, just before you move in, just before you look for additional finance or just because you want to know what renovations or refurbishments will give you the best bang for your buck.
It is not uncommon for investors to spend a few thousand dollars on a place and add three to five times the value to the property. From carports to new bathrooms to a quick n dirty paint job – so many things are possible.
How would you like to add thousands of dollars to the value of your property?
Whether you want to draw down on your mortgage for a holiday/new car or if you want to maximise your potential for further finance or even if you simply want to get a higher sale figure when you sell, there are some very simple things you can do to add this value.
I have teamed up with Katerina Kapellaki, one of Australia’s best interior designers, to present a series of seminars on how to Power Up Your Property. We are starting with an introduction session in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and will then follow that with a two day intensive for those that are serious about Powering Up Your Property.
I would love to see you at one of these sessions. You can find out more detail and book using the relevant links below. Whether you are new intro property, an old time developer or somewhere in the middle, this is the kind of session that will pay for itself time and time again.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Melbourne Session – Tuesday 17th September
Sydney Session – Wed 18th September
Brisbane Session – Thursday 19th September
Today I am off to consult with an Exhibiting client to help them Get More from their next expo. The key focus for me will be their Strategy. Too often people approach exhibiting without a decent strategy.
Truth be told, most people approach business, work, marriage, parenting and many others areas of life without a well thought out strategy.
Your strategy will drive your Tactics, these will drive your Operational decisions which, in turn, dictate your success. Yet people will often say they are “too busy” to take time out to create or work on their strategy.
So what is your Strategy for Success (regardless of how you measure it)? Let me know if you need some help.
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(Image: www.ArtGalleryOfBallarat.com.au)
During the course of the weekend, Wifey and I did a road trip to Ballarat. A cruisy two hour drive. Serendipitously we ended up at the art gallery and were delighted by an exhibition of works by Robert Clinch. His works were stunning.
We were thrilled to see some of the detail in his studies for the final pieces, tickled by the play on words of the names of his pieces and impressed by the way the gallery had displayed them to highlight their features.
Frequently, as the title of the exhibition and the piece above convey, they celebrated the common things in life. The simple act of playing a trombone, a truck being loaded at the docks, the monolithical creation of a warehouse and paper planes.
What are the seemingly ordinary and common things in your life you wish to celebrate? The writing a letter to a friend, maybe taking a dog for a walk or even the simple joy of rain pouring down making magical music. Sometimes it is not just the extraordinary that needs to be celebrated but the average, everyday, mundane and seeming boring things that make life worthwhile.
If you need a sound track for the celebration of the mundane then click here for the original piece of music titled “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copland and click here for the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version.
What will you celebrate with a Fanfare for the Common Man (and woman)?
With my Executive Mentoring clients, there is a common complaint that their teams don’t listen to them and they can’t understand why.
My experience has shown that your team are more likely to listen to you if you listen to them first. The basic rule of communication is “You have two ears and one mouth, use them in that ratio.”
What about your team and your colleagues,
do you listen to them?
You don’t have to agree with them but do you listen to them. Again I am not talking about just hearing them but actually listening to them. I KNOW it feels like it takes more effort but the reality is, with more clarity in your communication there is a reduced need for repeat communication so it actually saves time.
So do you communicate both ways?
PS DON’T FORGET this Thursday 20th June at 4pm Australian Eastern Standard Time I will be running a 45 minute session on 5 Keys to Get the Response You Want.
It is all around the art of communication – both speaking and listening. Numbers are filling fast so find out more details and register here.
Too often when you want to be heard, people are in their own heads, on their phone, or simply hearing without listening to you. Communication is so important in this day an age but sometimes the act of speaking with presence can be a challenge.
How can you have Presence at your next meeting, when talking with your friends or when you truly need to communicate and be heard? Shouting doesn’t work (ask any parent) but there are some great techniques that do help.
If you want to be heard, on Thursday 20th June at 4pm Australian Eastern Standard Time I will be running a 45 minute session on 5 Keys to Get the Response You Want.
As my regular readers, I also want to give you the chance to bring any questions you have about communication to the session to give you a boost.
You also get access to the recording if you can’t make it at that time (but it is better if you can be there).
As they say in the classics “How much would you expect to pay?”
The answer – nothing! It is my gift to you, regardless of where you are in the world.
Numbers are limited so click here to Register Now
A client asked me to have a look at their banner designs for an upcoming trade show. They were nice looking designs but they were nothing special. Too often we forget that our banners and our signage is not about us. They are about our clients and our prospects.
Here are a few thoughts for you on signage.
For example, here is one of my banners from the Exhibiting and Sponsorship Institute at a recent event that we sponsored.
Notice our brand and website are at the top followed by three statements that are easy to read from a distance. These statement are ones that our prospects can relate to and also desire.
This banner is usually going to be on stage when we speak, so we are more likely to have the bottom half read but see how here the final statement is almost hidden behind the table (it was the least important of the three so that is why we put it there)
So Friends how is your signage?
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Warwick Merry – The Get More Guy, is your high energy, results focused, action oriented, no holds barred tour de force Master MC, keynote speaker and Exhibiting Specialist. He ensures your attendees Get More from your event. His MC work is like insurance for your event. It guarantees things will run smoothly and on time. As a speaker, he is like a dose of Berocca – a bubbling, burst of
healthy, sustainable energy for your attendees. If you need a burst of inspiration, cogitation and celebration at your next event you MUST book The Get More Guy, Warwick Merry.
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