Why You Shouldn't Believe Everything You Hear
I did a speech on Friday last week to 150 guys and gals from the Beenleigh Yatala Chamber of Commerce about 60 kms up the road from the office. Beenleigh was famous for its beautiful rum for over 100 years.
This very vibrant and energetic group of local businesspeople meet every month or so to eat breakfast, listen to a speaker and generally shoot the breeze.
It would have been the biggest and the best Chamber of Commerce I've ever spoken to.
Took A Risk On An Unknown
I was a bit of a fill-in as the speaker. I think the organiser (Lindsey) took a bit of a risk by getting in someone she'd never heard of before (me) to give the speech.
It's a lot of pressure for the organiser - the speaker can very easily completely destroy the morning and with only 1 meeting a month that can impact on your membership numbers if it happens too many times in a row.
Some Nice Positive Feedback
Lindsey was kind enough to provide some feedback today where she said I did okay. And whilst I believe Lindsey, I'm always a little hesitant to believe positive feedback.
You see, when I was the marketing manager of a large hospital we ran a survey in our Emergency Department.
One of the questions was "How did you hear of our Emergency Department?"
Something like 12% heard of us through our TV........... unfortunately we'd never ever run a TV ad!
People lie. Click play on the clip below for more.
Cheers
Brendon
[ comments ]
Years ago I applied for a promotion along with 7 other fellows I worked with. The lady doing the selection did not know we knew each other, we all worked in different offices, but met each other every day. Well, she selected one of the other fellows for the job and called me up to tell me she was sorry and she wished she could have hired me ... I was "such a strong second-placer".
Can you guess what happened at lunch when we met to congratulate the chap who got the job? Yep, she had called each and every other non-selectee and gave him the exact same speach, we were _all_ in second place, head and shoulders above the other six "also rans".
Travel hopefully, be polite, but believe very little that you hear.
Hope you are well.
Yep, it's far mor eimportant to see what they do rather than what they say they'll do.
I've blogged before I think about the worst speaker I have ever heard - he was simply appalling. I asked for feedback from the 30 or so business people in the audience and they all said he was good (I was managing the speaker and it was the first time I heard him).
Thank goodness another speaker anager was in the audience and when I spoke with her she said "Oh my god Brendon! Are you going to tell him how awful he is...or do you want me to?!"
People don't like telling you what you don't want to hear.