• The Eight Second Ride…

The Eight Second Ride…

I was raised in Wyoming where they have a lot of… yes, you guessed it – Rodeos!  Every summer they have the fair and all the associated events, including the rodeo – about which my friends have recently been making a lot of Facebook posts. 

Walking the Shiatsu this morning, wondering why it took her so long to get through her daily, I started thinking about time management and how important each second is…

Then my mind drifted to the eight seconds that are allowed for those brave cowboys to make one of the toughest rides in the world; a qualified professional bull ride.  Can you imagine how strong, focused and compelling they must be in order to make that ride successful? 

Thoughts then flowed to some of the reading I’ve been doing lately about the brain, finding that eight seconds is also the maximum amount of time the “average” person can fully focus on something and not lose his concentration… 

More mind drifting – to what it must take, when we are communicating with someone else, to deliver a message that is strong, focused and compelling enough that we are heard?

Ok… by now, you know that my mind sometimes rambles in this creative flow of thought.  However, I do tend to “bring it all home” to something cohesive… and today it was the fact that I plan to go to a networking event tonight and I may actually have only 8 seconds to get a 30-second “commercial” communicated!  Well, actually, that 8 seconds is probably the time I need to make my “hook” happen and I have to hold on as a mean, tough animal (prospect) tries to throw me off.  How tight must my message be to hang on and be strong, focused and compelling?

Sometimes, that “hook’ is all you need – it is not necessary, at a networking event to close the deal!  You can use those eight seconds to “hold on” to the relationship you just started and take the meat of the conversation to a more personal level over breakfast or lunch.  I had a friend recently tell me that her “social” questions include: “Are you an early morning person or an afternoon person?” Once she has determined that – she discovers what they prefer to eat, which allows her to either offer to drop bagels and coffee by, or meet them somewhere for lunch.  No selling – just the perfect amount of interest in “who” the other person is to get her foot through the door – emotionally and literally!

I have never been a proponent of the “30-second commercial” or the “elevator pitch”… they are both outdated ideas from when that elevator ride really was three to five minutes long and you actually could engage in some meaningful conversation.  Technology has made everything move faster, including elevators and the need to make our marketing pitches more immediately relevant.   Like it or not, however, these succinct marketing messages (hooks) are necessary, and must sell more than your product or service and why you are unique or stand above your competition.  They are essential to building your brand, conveying who you are, what you offer and what promise you will be able to deliver on!   All that in SUCH a short span of time.

There is a ton of buzz about branding, but the short eight second take on that is that your brand is… the promises you make and keep to your customers.  If as a business you fail to focus on and meet those promises, your chance of staying on for the long ride is zero!  You are conveying to anyone who listens what he/she will get from your business and you must be able to deliver.

Eight-second short ride… simple message:  Clearly and concisely convey what you offer – knowing you can stand behind that offer. I know how difficult this process is… it pains even me!  So, research person that I am, I found a few goodies I could throw your way.

“I was riding up the Gherkin elevator with Will Harris, the marketing director at Nokia. I asked, ‘What if you could get dozens of user-generated videos for less than $1,000 each with www.mofilm.com?” He signed up before we reached the top floor and then Nokia went on to win the Cannes UGC competition with one of those videos.” – Jeffrey Merrihue, CEO, Accenture Marketing Sciences (London)

“The worst elevator pitch is one I hear frequently. It goes like this:  Prospect: ‘What is it that you do?’ Salesperson: ‘I represent XYZ Company.’ Stop! What does that do to help build the relationship we all need in sales? Describe not whom you represent but what you do to help people solve the problems they have. Why not answer with, ‘I help people solve the problems of living too long, becoming disabled, or dying too soon.’” – Robert D. Lowrey, Managing Partner, Northwestern Mutual

“The Best: We make print clickable. The Worst: We do anything and everything a company needs us to do as cheaply as possible.” – Andy and Julie Plata, Co-CEOs, OutputLinks, Inc., Graphic Communications World

Ok… I am going to go get ready for my eight second ride(s) tonight.  How about you?   I would love to have you share your “hook.”  Go ahead; hit me with your best shot and let’s see some comments here!

Contributing author:

Anna Weber

4-Dimensional Success

Always… encouraging to you take positive, life-altering actions that will provide you with long-term, sustainable benefit.

I encourage you to sign up for the RSS feed for my blog so you don’t miss a one of these informational articles and to find more rich content on my website, Vital Enterprises, LLC.

Jan Vitale

Vital Enterprises, LLC

Providing the tools to accelerate your growth in Network Marketing…

Who do you know, and how can you serve them?

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In a prior post about networking we discussed several misconceptions.  Bringing the concept down to it’s critical core – networking is really nothing much more than who you know and how you serve them.   The contacts or relationships you have almost take on that chicken or the egg thought process… you can’t network without having contacts, and for the most part, they won’t support you unless or until you have first been of service to them!

Networking is not just mingling…

Keep that in mind the next time you attend some event where you have hundreds of people and you think that just by mingling and making your way through the crowd that you can boast that you have “networked!”   Not so!  Unless you have made a concentrated effort to  build a relationship with at least a half-dozen of them, you can consider yourself having wasted a perfect opportunity to either enlarge or strengthen your network of contacts.  It is important that you a) connect with a certain number of people you already know and get to know them better, and b) tough your way through feeling intimidated by strangers and connect with a handful more people.

Focus on someone other than yourself…

When you focus on your own self-consciousness, for whatever reason, you are preventing yourself from meeting new people.  Everyone has their own story… what would it take for you to take the initiative and break the ice once in a while?

• Maybe the very person you seek to make more comfortable sees you as someone more distinguished and experienced, and wondering what they could possibly do for you!  Just by being friendly, you give them the opportunity to figure that out.
• Maybe the person you befriend has frightening fears… echoing loudly in their ears, preventing them from being the right person at the right time – for someone; perhaps that someone is you!
• Aside from making a new connection, your initiative can allow another person the comfort of telling someone of their interests… the end result of which will be their feeling better both about themselves – and – the networking process!

The action step(s) I am going to encourage you to take in this post include:

1. Make a list of your top five interests, hobbies or talents.
2. Research your local area to see if there are groups or organizations in support of these areas of interest.
3. Gather information about these groups and make a list of times and locations where the members meet.
4. Schedule attendance at one of these new groups each month, until you have attended each at least one time.

Create a more comfortable networking environment…

Not only will you be making connections with people whom it will be easier for you to talk to about shared interests, you will create an environment where you can practice your networking skills with more ease and comfort.  Your intent obviously will be just to connect and build relationships, with no pressure to “sell.”  After attending several of these events, you will begin to see the difference in networking, and don’t be surprised if you will have – along the way – found people who connected with you and actually approached you about serving them!

Even business owners have a personal life…

Although there is something to be said about networking for your niche market at organizational events common to their business needs, remember that even your clients  and prospects have a personal life and if you meet them on a common personal ground, the business angle may be easier to reveal as an “aside” – buffering you from that uncomfortable feeling that you are there to troll for prospects!

Thanks in advance for finding value in this post and the action step you were encouraged to take.   If you have questions or a particular issue that is bothersome, you may want to connect with my Business Coach, Anna Weber of 4-Dimensional Success – her coaching format helps to resolve many of the self-limiting beliefs we have that prevent us from reaching our peak potential.   She is open to receiving emails from you as a courtesy to me at AnnaWeber@4-DSuccess.com

Jan Vitale, building my business one relationship at a time.

Vital Enterprises, LLC

The One Minute Cure

An interesting book recently came to my attention, and although the author, Madison Cavanaugh, is not a physician, we do have a powerful information from an avid medical researcher with over 30 years of studying natural and wholistic approaches to healthy living and contributions to natural health magazines and publications. Whether there is more hype than validity in this book may remain to be seen; however, if we are to continue to empower ourselves relative to our personal health choices, it at least warrants a review.

Sufficiency of Blood Oxygen

From a purely scientific background, studies prove the body’s need for sufficient amounts of oxygen in the blood and cells in eradicating disease-stimulating microorganisms. The effectiveness is found only when oxygen is delivered not just to the lungs or bloodstream, but directly to the body’s cells and tissues. Over time, most of us do not get proper amounts of oxygen to our cells and tissues. Many things contribute to this deficiency, including poor air quality, over-cooked and over-processed foods, abuse of antibiotics and activities that naturally deplete our oxygen supply.

Oxygenation Therapy/ Bio-Oxidative Therapy

Many practitioners promote deep breathing to increase oxygen supply, but medical resources note that only 15% of the oxygen we inhale is absorbed into the bloodstream. We must find another way… Consider Oxygenation Therapy or Bio-Oxidative therapy. Oxygenation therapy serves to stimulate the movement of oxygen atoms from the bloodstream to the cells and tissues of the body – creating a healthier, oxygen rich environment… an environment in which the body destroys diseased cells. It is known that most bacteria, virus and fungus are extremely intolerant of oxygen. Additionally, healthier cells are then able to survive and in their increased multiplication, creates a naturally stronger immune system.

Make it a good read…

If you would like to know more about a scientifically supported therapy that supports a body where disease does not thrive, “The One Minute Cure” will be a good read.

The One-Minute Cure: The Secret to Healing Virtually All Diseases