Call it serendipity. That moment when you are working on one project and you discover something huge that applies directly to another part of your business. While working on my third business video, it became immediately clear why most businesses fail within five years: they confuse “intention” with “result”.

Video allows small businesses to directly compete with large businesses. It gives you a chance to reach potential customers anywhere and at any time in the world. Think of your videos as an “international sales team” that works night and day telling people about your business (attribution to John Locke) The key is that you must produce a video that engages, entertains, and enriches your intended audience. Oh, that’s the hard part – YouTube has millions of examples of bad video.

My second video (Never Make This Video Mistake) was an abject failure. My intention was to drive eBook sales (a result, not an intention). Was it professional? Yes. 60 – 90 seconds in length? Yes. Was it fun, engaging, entertaining, and enriching for my intended audience? No! In this case: Failure = producing the video based on my results (eBook sales) rather than the intention to have fun, inform, entertain, and enrich my viewers. With video, two out of three equals “fail”.

I had no clue as to why my video didn’t work until I started reading Steve Stockman’s book: How To Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck (examples from his website). A business video designed around a desired result has a 99.9% chance for failure. I count myself lucky to have learned this lesson only after producing two business videos and 100+ hours of production!

Stockman explains that a clear “intent” is what guides the making of a successful video (what to shoot, why you are shooting it, what to cut, etc.) whereas “result” is what happens AFTER the video is produced. There are so many possible creative ways to explore a subject that without a specific intent, you have no clear path for making decisions along the way that your viewers will appreciate and rave about!

A business plan helps you identify your intention: whom you will serve, what problem does your product and/service address, and how you will serve them well through your business. Without this clarity, you end up falling prey to making business decisions based on desired results.

Using Stockman’s advice, my third video project starts with a clear intent: Use humor to show how a lack of understanding of golf etiquette produces the same chaos and frustration that a conference call leader faces when conference call etiquette is not established.

If, like me, you didn’t go to film school, and you are thinking about or are producing videos for your business, I highly recommend reading Stockman’s book – even if you’ve hired a professional to produce the video! He’s made the complex simple and gives business people a step-by-step approach to shooting video that will engage and entertain your potential customers.

Now comes the hard part: How will you apply this concept in your business or video?

Please add comments, stories, and video examples so others can benefit.

Byron

PS: Thank you Steve Stockman for writing your book and to my niece Lisa for giving it to me as a Christmas present!

I’m part of the Chief Learning Officer Group on LinkedIn. Ann asked a great question: ”Does any one have recommendations for a sales coaching organization that has experience specifically around coaching millienials?”
Here was my response:
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Ann: I love questions around coaching!

1. Millennials generally have strong tech skills yet lack communication (phone/conference call/face2face/web) and relationship skills with people they don’t know. Their collaborative approach to sales works. What are you looking to accomplish specifically with your team?

2. Hiring a coach is vastly different than hiring a consulting or training company. Consultants are hired for expertise and for a specific deliverable. Training is designed to deliver training to a minimum standard for the entire group. Coaching is designed to support an individual to achieve peak performance. You can not achieve peak performance unless you have an excellent coach/client fit. While I’m a great coach, I’m not the right coach for every person.

3. When talking with a coaching organization, you want to find out if they are coaching around a specific training they developed/deliver. If they “coach” around their training program, then you will find their coaching is usually centered around “accountability” coaching. Millennials often equate accountability coaching with parenting. Coaching focused on accountability, while useful, is not aimed at peak performance – it is aimed a forcing commitments to be kept (not a bad thing!). Realize that if you hire a coaching organization that is offering a program, the program is primary in that individuals are required to “adapt” to the work with the program.

4. If a coaching organization does not offer a program other than focusing completely on the individual to work with their strengths, behaviors, and values to achieve individual peak performance – you probably have found one of the best coaching organizations available. Here, the individual is primary and the coach’s role is to adapt to the individual. If you want peak performance, look for complete focus on the individual where the coach adapts to the needs of the individual.

5. You will have one major issue to consider when hiring a coach for your team: the fiduciary relationship and how you will handle coach/individual confidentiality. If the company pays for the individual to be coached, the coach has a fiduciary responsibility to the company. The level of confidentiality that exists between individual, coach, and company must be determined as well. Generally, clients do best when they can be completely candid with their coach and not worry about anyone hearing what they discuss. Yet, if you are hiring and paying a coach to work with your team, you’ll need to decide what level of confidentiality you will allow between the three parties.

Hope this has been useful in helping you determine what you need to support your Millennials to boost their sales. You are welcome to contact me with more questions any time. My contact information is on my profile and best way to reach me is by phone.
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If you are considering working with a coach and have questions about the process, please leave a comment here or call me. Hiring the right coach is essential and as stated above, one size does not fit all. Thanks in advance for sharing this post.

The total amount of time we spent on conference calls in 2010 is stunning. Here’s a quick view of the numbers, the problem, and a simple solution for any person, business, or organization to stop wasting valuable time and resources. It is time to stamp out lame conference calls!

Get your copy today!

Lead Great Meetings Averts Intergalactic War over Lame Conference Calls! Get your copy today!

Whether you are leading meetings, doing sales calls, or even interacting with a friends or family, sooner or later you will encounter someone who is a constant complainer. One of the characteristics of an effective leader is their ability to handle perpetual whiners without putting the other person down.

In our book, No More Lame Conference Calls – The 6 Principles You Need to Lead Great Meetings, we outline a simple way to deal with this issue. The technique is to use the word “Pause.”

Regardless of the setting, “Pause” is a powerful word that can help you keep difficult situations under control, especially when someone on your meeting becomes angry.

For example, assume that one of the people on your conference is whining about your company’s lack of support and your boss is sitting in on the call. The way you handle this situation can determine whether you step up to the next level in your company or become stuck in a nowhere job.

Here’s how to use “pause.”

“John, could I ask you to pause for a moment please? If I understand you correctly, you are unhappy with the level of the company’s support of the sales team. Is that correct?”

Assuming that John says, “Yes,” then ask, “John, could you recommend a single step that we can take to fix this situation?”

This is known as a “pattern interrupt” and is an effective way to break a tense situation.

“Pause” is a polite way to stop the rant. More importantly, by asking John to come up with a solution, the onus is now on him to offer a solution rather than just complaining.

“Pause” is also particularly effective with windbags. Here’s what to say:

“John, would you please pause for a moment and sum up your point in a single sentence?”

Or if Mary has wondered off on a tangent, you could bring her back to the point by saying,

“Mary will you pause for a moment. We were discussing what our Twitter marketing strategy should be. Do you have anything to add to that specific topic?”

CAVEAT: When using “pause,” keep your voice and your tone neutral. Any anger or frustration that you may have about the person or the situation must not show in your voice when you say, “pause.” Failure to follow this guideline can create hostility and derail what you hope to achieve.

Whether you’re leading a meeting in a face-to-face environment or on a conference call, using “Pause” is one of the best ways to improve the effectiveness of your meetings.

Posted by Bernice Ross, LeadGreatMeetings.com

Do you need more tips on being an effective leader? If so, check out our Let Me At It! Leadership Training Program designed specifically for people who lead conference calls. This program helps you integrate the Six Principles of leading powerful meetings from No More Lame Conference Calls with  a 3-5 minute audio tip, five days a week, for eight weeks. Don’t settle for lame when you can be playing at the top of your game!

Recall the last meeting you attended. Were you distracted with emails and text messages or were you highly engaged? Were you dreading the meeting or did you arrive energized and looking forward to it?

Sadly, most leaders don’t know how to effectively engage their participants because there has never been a clear model for leading meetings before now.

Businesses have two main meeting leadership problems: 1) precious few highly skilled meeting leaders to model after, and 2) without a simple model, “trial and error” is a slow, painful, and wasteful process. This means most business people are wasting a huge amount of time and resources trying to figure out how to lead effective meetings. Despite the enormous cost, everyone accepts this situation as status quo.

It is time to get rid of the status quo. It is time to get out of the comfort zone and learn how to engage your participants before they even show up at your meeting. It is time to join the growing number of professionals that can’t stand poorly run meetings and are willing to do something about it.

Welcome to the Meeting Leadership Revolution!