36 If I Have to Tell You ONE MORE TIME
37 If You Keep Making That Face it Might Freeze That Way
39 Pride Comes Before the Fall
41 Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch
Achieving Success
48 Put Money Away for a Rainy Day
50 If You Have Lemons Make Lemonade
The spoken word is the most powerful tool we have as human beings. Unfortunately most people are not as effective as they could be and as a result they do not achieve the level of success they desire and deserve.
There is no magical formula to speaking or selling, just a lot of simple rules and techniques that when effectively put together lead to amazing results.
This book is for those of you who want to achieve a higher level of success and are looking for some common sense reminders, new ideas, and techniques.
Based on my work with thousands of classroom seminar attendees, speakers, and coaching clients, common issues began to surface and resulted in the following pages.
Starting with Keeping On Track, moving on to Speaking and Selling Skills, and ending with Achieving Success, this is a framework for achieving.
This is the Next Step in your development NOT your FINAL Step. Many sections of this book may leave you wanting more and that is the intent. Use this to help you identify the areas of your career where you need more skills and refinement.
Whether you are a Corporate Executive, a Sales and Marketing Professional, an Educator, or a Speaker, continual skills development is essential.
As you continue your development, seek out the support and guidance you need to:
Achieve Everything You Can.
In my early 20s I saw an ad in the paper for an advertising executive that would be responsible for selling radio commercial ad space to local businesses. I thought, “That sounds interesting!” So, without calling or even developing my resume, I drove over to the address after 5:00pm because I hoped the receptionist would be gone. She was, and I walked straight into the boss’s office.
To say he was initially startled is an understatement. Still, I figured, “If he’s hiring a salesperson, I’m sure he’ll appreciate how proactive I am in trying to sell him.” As he sat behind his desk, I looked directly at him and said, “I’ve come for the radio advertising sales job and I’m the best person for it.” He actually sat back, relaxed, and smiled with anticipation and appreciation as he asked, “Okay, so tell me why are you the best person for this position?”
Whoops! I was stuck. I guess maybe I didn’t expect to get that far but I certainly hadn’t properly prepared to answer that question. Instead of asking him questions about the position or selling him on the results he could achieve by bringing me in, I said, “Uh…uh… because I think I’ll do the best job.” That was it. He frowned and politely asked me to leave. I did.
I left, but not without carrying the following tremendous lesson with me: Always be prepared to communicate clearly and effectively. In other words, when it comes to speaking, “Don’t get ready; stay ready.”
If you fast-forwarded 6 years after that incident, you would see me standing on stage being crowned as the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking. Later you’d see me win 3 Salesperson of the Year awards for a division of McGraw-Hill and you’d witness me selling products and programs in more than 100 countries. But here’s the key; I’m still the same person. You know, from my past, that there’s nothing special about me and neither speaking nor selling is an innate skill I possessed.
So what made the difference from that fateful day in 1993 to the success I continue to experience today? It’s understanding the processes behind how to communicate with impact and influence and nobody ties that up as beautifully as Mark Vickers in his book, “Speaking is Selling.”
What sets “Speaking is Selling” apart from other resources is its perfect blend of motivation and practicality. As a result, it doesn’t just inspire you, it actually shows you step by step how to use speaking and selling to get what you want in life.
What good is a diamond nobody can see? What good is a great idea that you can’t get across. I’ve seen so many people let their ideas and dreams die because they couldn’t communicate them well enough to get buy-in from anyone. The sad part is most people think they can wait and wait and wait to polish their idea before bringing it to the world. But here’s the problem. If they wait, someone else will beat them to the punch and then they’ll be forced to listen to their own idea from someone else’s lips.
“Speaking is Selling” is the solution to this problem. It’s more than just a book, it’s a life-changing experience. When you follow the 51 tips in “Speaking is Selling,” you’ll find yourself rapidly moving closer and closer to your goals and achieving success beyond what you ever imagined.
The day I was thrown out of that boss’s office for not being prepared was symbolic. It’s about