Horses for courses

I went to a business lunch on Friday 16 April, 2004 (Commerce Queensland) where there were 3 different speakers. In between courses, we had those speeches of course and I thought of horses for courses.

None of the speakers were hoarse or coarse, of course. (Okay, I’m a clown. You’re just lucky I didn’t fit “force, morse, norse and sauce” in the paragraph. Ooooops, I just did!).

3 speakers – 3 vastly different styles

The speakers were all successful businesspeople. And they all spoke for 20 minutes about the secret of their success.

Speaker 1: an older gentleman, he spoke from the heart about the passion for his business. Very self-deprecating from the start.

Speaker 2: an Accountancy background, now the CEO of a firm. This was a very stilted speech read entirely from notes.

Speaker 3: just the facts. A player in a major corporation who was appointed CEO of the company. No fuss, no bother.

I enjoyed the first speaker. He was amusing. I found the second guy a little too serious, whilst the third speaker was enjoyable because of his no BS style.

And that’s all well and good. But the important thing was that all three- (3) speakers impart some terrific information.

No matter how it was packaged, what these guys had to say was worth listening to.

They aren’t professional speakers so haven’t devoted the time to learn all the ‘tricks’ of the trade. But that had substance.

And that’s critical when you are trying to provide information to people. Style/image/whatever does matter, but substance does too.

Provide quality information

If we can all provide quality information to our customers, clients and prospects then our businesses will grow. If we can deliver that information nicely packaged, then our businesses will grow more.

And that’s even better.