October 2019
ELECTRIC IMPULSE COMMUNICATIONS
 NEWSLETTER
HERBIE'S HINTS (named after my dad!)

 My dad was the first to admit that he was not a great “salesman." Especially if he was trying to sell or promote himself. So I think it would be with his blessing that I am taking over his column this month to promote our Halloween Media Boot Camp on October 29 at 1pm.

Our Halloween Boot Camp & Video Session will transform media opportunities into Treats instead of scary Tricks. The only thing scary will be the spiders hanging from the ceiling. 
 
Seating limited to the chairs we can fit. $159/text me a photo and pay $80.

You are going to have one or all of these media opportunities in your career.

Prepare now :  
 
* a radio interview
* a TV guest or host
* a podcast guest or host
* YouTube videos
* a Facebook video 
* an Instagram posting 
* or a TED TALK
 
Your job is to be ready. This Boot Camp will get you ready because media opportunities should be a TREAT not a TRICK.

Call, text or email to reserve your seat.
ASK LESLIE
Stay on Your Cutting Edge
There are a couple of valuable lessons in this less than 2 minute video. First, approach a challenge from the perspective of what you can do rather than what you can’t do. Second, start small because you can always go bigger. It is more of a challenge to reduce your visual or verbal volume than to increase it. Third, continue to assess your audience.

It is less about what you think of your effectiveness and more about what your audience thinks of your effectiveness. How do you know? Keep observing the observable, measurable evidence you gather from focusing on them rather than focusing inwards on yourself. Even when the audience is a horse.
Lessons Learned from having the honor to speak at the International Elastomer Conference
1. Break Through the Invisible Fence
One of my 50 Rules of Communication is to break through the invisible fence between the speaker and the audience. When you walk into any speaking venue you usually see the speaker at the front of the room and the attendees milling around their seats or the food. It’s as though there is an invisible fence between the speaker and the audience and both are afraid to crash through the fence.

Lesson Learned:  Maybe they paid their admission and maybe their company paid for it. Either way they chose to attend. The time before the speaker speaks would be a great time to talk to the speaker and get answers to your specific questions. Also for a speaker it is a good time to talk to attendees and get information that could help you personalize your comments. Whether you are the speaker or audience member crash through the invisible fence before the event begins.
2. Listen More Than You Talk
At the conclusion of every speaker, a line forms of attendees who want to talk to the speaker. One would think they would want to extract every ounce of information that they could get from this speaker, a speaker who they probably will hear from or talk to only once in their life. A woman waited patiently in line to talk to me after the 3 hour workshop.

Lesson Learned:  When this woman had my attention, she spent ten minutes telling me about her situation. Not really asking, just telling. I was curious as to how long she could go on until she ran out of steam. She didn’t run out of steam. I would try to interject an idea but I soon realized she had little interest in listening. Do you talk more than you listen when you could benefit from a resource?
3. Just Say Yes Even When You Pay For It
One of my mantras to my coaching clients is to Just Say Yes: say yes to any opportunity to be in the spotlight. Good things happen when you are in the spotlight. A room may be full of 500 or 50 attendees. Often volunteers are requested. As an attendee say Yes to any opportunity to volunteer.

Lesson Learned:  I reward volunteers with chocolate, gift cards and prizes. Actually, the real reward to being a volunteer is the knowledge they gain by “doing” by implementing a lesson just learned. As an attendee you can take notes all day long. It is not the same as “doing." It is also not about succeeding or failing in front of others. Others respect you just for having the courage to volunteer. The next time you attend a seminar or workshop say YES when the speaker asks for volunteers.
4. Rules May Be Broken
I arrived 90 minutes before my session. I moderated a panel for one hour, conducted a workshop for three hours, and then stayed 90 minutes for the post workshop reception. That is six hours of being “on." I went to retrieve my car from valet and the woman wouldn’t give it to me. At that moment all I could think of was how very tired I was and how close I was to being able to drive home from Cleveland yet my impending departure was being snatched from me. The desk valet said she had rules to follow. I felt a meltdown coming.

Lesson Learned:  Rather than melting I stopped and asked for a manager. I could have argued with the desk person who thought she was doing her job. Instead, quickly a valet manager and a Hilton manager appeared on the scene. They had the option and power to not follow the rules. They apologized, escorted me to my car, and made plans for the next day to go more smoothly for me. Do you call in the appropriate people to solve problems?
5. Plan Ahead
At the conclusion of the four hour workshop, a photo was taken. A photographer had been present through-out the workshop taking random photos. The photo at the conclusion was different. It was staged. In order for this photo to be staged a lot of planning had to have been done way in advance. Whether it is a photo, an introduction or a speech, the good ones don’t just happen.

Lesson Learned:  Days, weeks or months of planning go into seemingly simple projects. The art is in hiding the art and you as the audience don’t see the work behind the curtain. It had been arranged to have the escalators stopped, both ways up and down. The attendees were then positioned on both escalators. This photo will last for decades. This photo shows the width and breadth of diversity in the ages, backgrounds, even height of the women of rubber. Do you plan for big moments or think you can just wing it?
Leslie in Person
October 17 - Medical Office - doctors & staff
October 22 - Sixth District Educational Compact

Forum 360 with Leslie as Moderator
Upcoming Shows:  
Non Traditional Fatherhood with guest Mark Welfley; week of October 27.
Upcoming shows will feature Andre Thornton and the Akron Public Schools student board members.

Watch/ Listen to Forum 360:
Western Reserve Public Media, PBS-TV, PBS Fusion Channels 45 & 49 (Time Warner channel 993) - Mondays at 8 pm and Saturdays at 5:00 pm. After the show airs, you can download it here.
WONE FM 97.5 Sunday 6 am
For online streaming go to  http://wone.net/  and click Listen Live. 
WAKR AM 1590 Sunday, 5:00 pm, Monday 12:30 am For online streaming go to http://akronnewsnow.com/  and click Listen Live.
We know Benji lives by his own rules. So it should not have surprised me –but it did – to find him posed on a table on one of our recent outings. We had gone to Szalay’s Farm and Market in the valley. I left Benji and Natcha with Moshe while I went to purchase yet more stuff for my Halloween themed Media Boot Camp.

As I returned I saw Benji happily posed on the table. Natcha was on the ground like a normal dog. Not Benji. He was perched on the table happily overseeing those that passed and scaring off any dogs that came too close to his kingdom.

The funny thing was that usually when I leave Benji with Moshe he acts so abandoned, waiting for me to return. When he succeeded in staying on his perch, he was fine. No fussing or whining at all.

There is a saying to meet people where they are rather than where we are, on any issue. Here is a visual of what meeting someone where they are, looks like.
December 5 from 5pm - 7pm 
          Give the gift of a video session to someone you care about – it’s an experience and a great gift!

You will have the choice to present your own material, recite a paragraph of a famous speech, be a TV guest, or conduct an interview. We will Video and immediately play back what we recorded.

Seating is limited so that everyone will have the opportunity to be recorded and learn in real time.

Next Year’s Schedule of Events
We are currently working on our schedule of events for next year. If there is a topic you would like covered or an event you would like to see us conduct, please let us know.


*Email us at  [email protected]  for further information or to RSVP to one of our events.

     
Ask me about my 10 in 10! 
Electric Impulse Communications
330.668.6569
http://electricimpulse.com
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