I was a speaker/sponsor at an event last week. I was scheduled to give a breakout talk, my favorite because I know the people in the room have come to hear my topic or see me. The event was meant to be 100+ people and was a great fit for my market.
The room ended up being about half of the expected size and all of the breakout speakers were moved to the main stage. This created a much different dynamic and a brilliant opportunity to learn. That is, for people who are committed to seeing every thing as an opportunity to learn. I’ve highlighted some lessons here.
1) Own Everything
One of the keys to growing my business has been making decisions, and then making them the best damn decisions I could’ve ever made. In other words, I spend very little time in regret. Regret energy diminishes absolutely everything, period.
Now, those of us who were sponsors paid a chunk of change for our sponsorship, flew team members out, shipped booth materials, etc. It was no small commitment. Was it disappointing for the room to be smaller? Sure. Was it a problem? Not on your life.
When we spend time analyzing what’s wrong with the situation, we diminish our power. When we can take in that new information, like the number update, and immediately look for the upside of the new scenario, we remain powerful in the midst of any circumstance. If someone were to choose to focus on lack, that energy wouldn’t not be attractive to new clients or prospects. (I witnessed some of this at the event). This doesn’t mean you make it a habit of ignoring numbers, but it does mean whatever situation you create or attract, own it!
Every single one of us was brought to that situation for a reason, and it is in each of our individual responsibility is to determine what that reason is and own it. The sooner that happens, the sooner a great result can appear. I found lots to be grateful for and I know the time invested will be profitable.
2) Maintain Certainty
Now, I have to admit that though I believe fully in abundance I was a little concerned when my host made the decision to put all the speakers on the main stage. I know and respect her, and she had decided this approach was a win-win. I could definitely see her point of view about how this would serve both sponsors and herself since I know her and her love of collaboration, but I was still a little skeptical. That was a lot of stage time for her to give up. Would she have enough ownership of the event for people to fall in love with her and choose to work with her? Those were my projected doubts.
Now, here is what I believe. I believe that when we have a point of view about how something is going to go and we see the clear vision for its unfoldment, it is completely doable. Almost a done deal. If we hold on to that vision with complete certainty. Given I was worried, I started to notice at the beginning of the event that my concern probably wasn’t helping her vision so I gave it up. I just joined her in knowing it was all perfect and being completely relaxed about the whole thing. And guess what? That relaxed energy was contagious. She didn’t cram the event full of her own content – in fact it was very light. But the content she had was lasered and spoke directly to what her audience needed.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching her relaxed certainty win over the room. Might have been different than my event would be, but it didn’t matter. She believed herself and maintained certainty and it completely worked. I loved it!
3) Pitch Me, Baby
I’ve wanted for awhile to write an article about pitching and I decided it fits right here.
With all of the speakers moving to the main stage at the event, there were quite a few “pitches” that happened. My talk was first, so I chose to “pitch free,” in other words I offered a free resource in exchange for attendee’s contact information. This was consistent with my brand and my current business goals, as well as a great way to warm up the crowd and be generous with my host.
The variety of speakers throughout the weekend varied their offers from free to paid, and our host of course offered a paid program. We could watch people in the room shift in their seats at the sight of the offer, and the host even addressed this as a conversation from stage about people becoming judgmental about offers.
Here’s what I say. “Pitch Me, Baby!”
I remember the first time I was in an event where an offer was made. I didn’t expect it and I was surprised by the magnitude of it, but I wasn’t upset. Why would I be upset at the person who I had fallen in love with, the person who hosted the whole show, giving me an opportunity to get more of him?
And, by the way, after spending a full 24 hours certain that it wasn’t for me, I did eventually buy the offer. And it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And I’ve said yes or no to dozens of offers that have been made to me from stages ever since. I LOVE it. I so appreciate that people are willing to put themselves on the wing and offer that which lights them up, which means the world to them, carefully crafted as an opportunity for me. I’ve always instinctively appreciated this. Now that I also make my own offers, I love it even more. If you DON’T love it, look deep within because it’s costing you.
- If you are uncomfortable with being sold to you will be uncomfortable selling. If you don’t look forward to exploring different opportunities for service, you are going to repel people who would like to explore you!
- Your issue with offers reflects your own inability to make a decision. If you get upset when someone makes on offer, it simply means you don’t trust yourself to make a clear yes or no decision, and you’re projecting that frustration back onto the person making an offer. If you knew how to make clear yes or no decisions, you would have no issue hearing the offer and choosing quickly and moving on. The offense is always within.
So what do you do? Buy something. Put yourself in a scenario to receive an offer, and take it. Take a bold action and invest in something based on your gut feel. Then go back to the first two insights – maintain certainty and own your result. And look forward to the next decision!