Here is a fun activity for the chapter to try. Everyone close your eyes for 20 secs, Now try and remember the name of everyone in your chapter. Shouldn’t be too hard, most of them are here in the room!
Ok, who couldn’t remember everybody?
If you couldn’t remember everybody, it could be old age or that they haven’t, by repetition, originality, or both, imprinted themselves in your brain strongly enough that you can recall them immediately.
“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.” (Zig Ziglar).
Learning or teaching by repetition is why we repeat the basics in our Weekly Sales Presentations every week. As an example, some of us old fogies in the room learnt the times tables by rote… 2 x 2 is 4 2 x 3 is 6 etc.
What are the basics?
We all know these. Our name, our business, our position in the business, where we operate from (plus if appropriate a nearby landmark), and our category in the chapter.
Saying “you know who I am” doesn’t suffice because there will be visitors or newbies who can’t recall who you are.
Add the extras
Stories and examples convince. A recent Education Moment talked about features and benefits. Keep the benefits your business brings to your clients in front of members.
For instance, “I keep my clients out of jail” is a great benefit an accountant offers that gets attention. Coupling a benefit with a story works: “Recently I took over a client that had been threatened with jail time… using my experience with the IRD I was able to sort out the mess they were in”.
It’s a soap opera, keep them coming back for more! A continuing or evolving story that develops over weeks and leaves them wanting more is how a soap opera keeps us hooked. A theme or story over a few weeks is very powerful.. ten tips over ten weeks.. or how a client project is progressing.
Plan, Prepare and Practise
It’s very tempting to leave preparing your Weekly Presentation until the last second. And to be fair, sometimes off the cuff works. But it doesn’t work as well as when you consistently plan, prepare and then practise so that your message is on point and appears off the cuff and natural but you know exactly what you are going to say, what you want and what you are trying to achieve.
Memory Hook?
They’ve gone out of fashion but a good one still works well to the point where the chapter will say it for you.
Examples I can think of are: “We think safety first, second and third” and “Signs, signs of all kind”.
What a great way to stay top of mind. If you don’t have one, try and think of a good one.
Be the expert
If you are in BNI, you should be good at what you do, so claim it. Be the expert in your profession, we are naturally modest in NZ about how good we are but clients want the best.
Specific Referral Request
Absolutely the key to a great Weekly Presentation is a specific referral request. It’s not “anyone with a spine” but “I would like a referral to Michael Smith, who is the Human Resources Manager at Widget Industries as I’m an expert at prevention of back injuries that cause excess sick days”.
Summary
Your Weekly Presentation isn’t a chore to get through, it’s an opportunity to hone your business offering, improve your presentation skills, and … get referrals.
1 comment
This is true indeed
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