Talking About Your Shit...powerfully.

Talking About Your Shit...powerfully.

“They don’t care about you!”

How often has that been the mantra of content marketing and is it set in stone?
You have an opportunity to have a 1-2-1 with another business owner and talk about each other’s business and then you move on. “What benefits will I get from that conversation?” So ‘Yes’ we don’t care about the business owner more than we care about how the conversation will work for us.

Then, that same business owner stands up for a 20-minute slot which is more about him and general tips to help all businesses or a personal story.

Yesterday I was at a meeting where a man stood up and talked about ways to pay for goods without cash. He mentioned PayPal, Worldpay and one other but I cannot remember it because these services were not for me. I moved on.

After the round of pitches, we listened as he stood to do his 20-minute slot where he began with a date and the death of his wife at 32. I listened. He carried on with the story of how the devastation caused him to book a flight to New Zealand where they had always planned to visit together. But when he got to the airport in Auckland he decided it was the wrong thing to do and booked a flight straight back home. By the time he arrived back at Heathrow he had decided he needed the break and went straight to the booking office and bought a ticket back to New Zealand. He acknowledged his mind was not straight and his decisions illogical.

Over time he made connections with charities around his wife’s condition and made another illogical decision. He walked in off the street and promised to raise money for them by walking five marathons in five days.

The story stretched over those five days, the team of fellow networkers who joined him, the agony of the first and second days, the change on the third day and the final walk to the finish line to the welcome of over 100 fellow networkers from all over his country. He talked about the amount of money raised and the fact that he is now an ambassador for the charity.

Do you think we cared about him now? Do you think talking about his ‘shit’ made a difference? Well, I’m writing about it now so it made a difference to me. But let’s look at it from a business point of view. I have two to three contacts who are in the same line of business. I have listened to and switched off from their 40/60-second pitches because it wasn’t of use to me. If asked in the street I couldn’t remember their names or business details to pass on.

Do you think I remember the name of the man who told us all about his ‘shit time’? I remember his name, the name of his company and where he is located. That is the power of speaking (an audible business card) over a simple business card.

Ernie Boxall
www.ErnieSaid.info