The April 2010 edition of SUCCESS magazine is now on the news stands and it features an article by Jim Cathcart, author of Relationship Selling, on page 20. The topic is UpServing; defined as increasing the satisfaction a customer feels from dealing with you. This is opposed to the concept of UpSelling which is about increasing the transaction a customer has with you. The difference can be profound.

Follow this link to the magazine so that you can read this and many other inspiring articles.

You will also find an assortment of videos streaming free from their site. One of them is my presentation on TSTN network addressing The Purpose of Selling. Take a few minutes and view it, then if you think it will have value in your next meeting play this short message for your team and discuss what it means for all of you to connect more strongly with your customers and prospects.

I look forward to staying connected with you and providing much future value through all of these media.

Jim Cathcart

by Jim Cathcart

I had the privilege of being interviewed by Audley Stephenson of Hard Court Lessons. The basketball theme makes this a very interesting site for exploring Leadership & Self Motivation. Take some time to listen to this session that revolves around my concept “The Acorn Principle.” I think you’ll enjoy the message and meeting Audley as well.

by Jim Cathcart

The 101 Leaders Institute “Prosperity Seminar Series” featured Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE on January 23, 2010 at the beautiful Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California. Her topic was Presentation Skills and she Wowed the audience, as expected!

The amazing Miss Fripp not only taught, but also practiced the techniques and strategies that have allowed her to reach the absolute top of the field of professional speaking. She is:

• Past President of the National Speakers Association and its first female president,
• a Certified Speaking Professional, CSP
• an inductee into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame, CPAE
• a Cavett Award winner
• a regular presenter on many of the most prestigious programs in the country
• and a speech & sales presentation trainer to celebrities, politicians, and corporate executives around the world.
• She has delivered thousands of speeches in every conceivable setting over a speaking career that spans more than thirty years.

Some of her key points, as remembered by the attendees, include:

Focus on what the audience will get, not on what you will tell them.

Reduce your “I” count, talk about them not about you.

Structure Frees you, it doesn’t “freeze” you. Organize your information into a logical flow.

Use your technology, don’t let it use you. Learn how to use PowerPoint and your other tools well.

The packed audience was engaged from beginning to end of this 3 hour program. Host Jim Cathcart, president of the 101 Leaders Institute and also a past president of the National Speakers Association, said, “I’ve known Patricia Fripp for over 30 years and, of the thousands of speakers I know NOBODY is a more dedicated student of their craft than Patricia. She is amazingly dedicated to learning: story telling, script writing, speech craft, stage techniques, choreography, voice control, writing techniques, comedy, acting and performance. There is no better presentation skills coach on Earth! And I defy you to prove me wrong.”

Fripp & Cathcart with Bob Hope's chief comedy writer, author Gene Perrett

Attendees at the Prosperity Seminar (the 4th in the 7 event annual series) included; screenwriters, business owners, executives, attorneys, CPAs, entrepreneurs, comedy writers, radio personalities, authors, professional speakers, consultants, civic leaders, students, hoteliers, and club managers.

The next seminar is scheduled for February 25th at Westlake Village Inn. The featured speaker is Don Hutson, coauthor of The One Minute Entrepreneur, one of the nation’s leading sales trainers. His topic is “Selling Value over Price”.

To enroll in the next seminar or the series of seven seminars click here.
Enroll Now!

Professional Speaker and Author of 15 books, including 2 international best sellers, Jim Cathcart, CSP, CPAE is available to collaborate with and coach you to your next big breakthrough.
Spend a day focusing on expanding your opportunities, leveraging your skills and increasing your confidence.

A few thousand dollars invested in strategy and coaching may generate hundreds of thousands or millions in payoffs for you.
Come with me and let’s discover how much more successful you could be.

Email jim@cathcart.com or call us at 800-222-4883

by Jim Cathcart

Remember the Kinks’ tune from the sixties, “Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon”? That’s what I was doing on January 10th. I know it’s not fair to all of God’s FROZEN people to rub it in, but the day was just so perfect that I had to blog about it. Maybe you can get some vicarious warmth by reading this. (Note: The photos are intentionally oversized so that you can get a feel for the images.)

I joined my friends, The Heartbreak Hiking Fools, for a 30 person sunrise hike up Bulldog Trail in Malibu Lakes. Chilly at first but glorious by the end.

Didn’t set a personal best but still had a vigorous workout for the 6 mile round trip to the mountain top. Then we had our traditional post-hike coffee & bagels in Westlake Village. Truly a great way to start the day. All the exercise dues were paid in full, so I could relax and enjoy the day.

After my shower I got on my Yamaha FJR1300 motorcycle and rode about 40 miles of Mulholland Highway and Malibu’s coast. Check out the surfers in the photo (they are the little dots on the ocean behind my bike.)

Then I got home and learned that my interviews with Meet The Giants had been published and were now available both free and as part of a subscription in their website. Here’s the link to check them out and sign up for their free interview recordings. (And a screen shot of their listings)

Meet The Giants

So, all in all, I’d have to say that I’m living a charmed life. God has blessed me in so many ways and I’m grateful, but I also want these blessings for you. You were born for a purpose and you have the ability to make this a better world. Please do all you can to share your gifts and to guide others in sharing theirs.

Thank you for your friendship.

In the Spirit of Growth,

Jim Cathcart

by Jim Cathcart

You’ve seen excellent presenters over the years who were able to move people to action even when their “argument” for doing so was weak. You’ve also seen people who had the right message at the right time but didn’t deliver it in the right way to produce results. The difference in the two is “presentation skills.” The ability to convincingly deliver a compelling message is a skill that can be learned…by you.

Come & spend the morning with the nation’s leading speech coach, Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE and me on Saturday, January 23, 2010 at Sherwood Country Club in Westlake Village, California. (Click here for directions)

“Miss Fripp” is the private coach to politicians, celebrities, business executives and world leaders. She travels the world helping people tell their stories and move their audiences to action. I’m bringing her to Ventura County in January for a 2 hour seminar on Presentation Skills that will blow you away! Come and join us.
The enrollment in this single event is just $199 and if you want to enroll in the entire year long series of Masters Level Seminars, it is only $795.

Click here to enroll. You’ll be VERY impressed with the value of this seminar.

Here is one of Patricia’s articles I know you’ll enjoy.

The 10 Biggest Traps to Avoid When You Speak:
How to Turn Dull into Dynamic! (1085 words)

By Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

Whenever you open your mouth, whether your audience is one person or a thousand, you want to get a specific message across. Maybe you want your opinions heard at meetings, or perhaps you are giving a formal presentation, internally or externally. Possibly your sales team needs to improve its customer communication, or you’re in a position to help your CEO design an important speech.

Anyone who sets out to present, persuade, and propel with the spoken word faces 10 major pitfalls.

1. UNCLEAR THINKING. If you can’t describe what you are talking about in one sentence, you may be guilty of fuzzy focus or trying to cover too many topics. Your listeners will probably be confused too, and their attention will soon wander. Whether you are improving your own skills or helping someone else to create a presentation, the biggest (and most difficult) challenge is to start with a one-sentence premise or objective.

2. NO CLEAR STRUCTURE. Make it easy for people to follow what you are saying. They’ll remember it better–and you will too as you deliver your information and ideas. If you waffle, ramble, or never get to the point, your listeners will tune out. Start with a strong opening related to your premise; state your premise; list the rationales or “Points of Wisdom” that support your premise, supporting each with examples: stories, statistics, metaphors, and case histories. Review what you’ve covered, take questions if appropriate, and then use a strong close.

3. NO MEMORABLE STORIES. People rarely remember your exact words. Instead, they remember the mental images that your words inspire. Support your key points with vivid, relevant stories. Help your listeners “make the movie” in their heads by using memorable characters, engaging situations, dialogue, suspense, drama, and humor. In fact, if you can open with a highly visual image, dramatic or amusing (but not a joke!), that supports your premise, you’ve got them hooked. Then tie your closing back to your opening scene. They’ll never forget it.

4. NO EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. The most powerful communication combines both intellectual and emotional connections. Intellectual means appealing to educated self-interest with data and reasoned arguments. Emotional comes from engaging the listeners’ imaginations, involving them in your illustrative stories by frequently using the word “you” and by answering their unspoken question, “What’s in this for me?” Use what I call a “high I/You ratio.” For example: Not “I’m going to talk to you about telecommunications,” but “You’re going to learn the latest trends in telecommunications.” Not, “I want to tell you about Bobby Lewis,” but “Come with me to Oklahoma City. Let me introduce you to my friend, proud father Bobby Lewis.” You’ve pulled the listener into the story.

5. WRONG LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION. Are you providing the big picture and generalities, a sort of pep talk, when your listeners are hungry for details, facts, and specific how-to’s? Or are you drowning them in data when they need to position themselves with an overview and find out why they should care? Get on the same wave length with your listeners. My friend Dr. David Palmer, a Silicon Valley negotiations expert, refers to “fat” and “skinny” words and phrases. Fat words describe the big picture, goals, ideals, outcomes. Skinny words are minute details and specific who, what, when, and how. In general, senior management needs fat words. Middle management requires medium words. Technical staff and consumer hot line users are hungry for skinny words. Feed them all according to their appetites.

6. NO PAUSES. Good music and good communication both contain changes of pace, pauses, and full rests. This is when listeners think about what has just been said. If you rush on at full speed to crowd in as much information as possible, chances are you’ve left your listeners back at the station. It’s okay to talk quickly, but pause whenever you say something profound or proactive or you ask a rhetorical question. This gives the audience a chance to think about what you’ve said and to internalize it.

7. IRRITATING NON-WORDS. Hmm–ah–er–you know what I mean–. One speaker I heard began each new thought with “Now!” as he scanned his notes to figure out what came next. This might be okay occasionally, but not every 30 seconds. Record yourself to check for similar bad verbal habits. Then keep taping yourself redelivering the same material until such audience-aggravators have vanished.

8. STEPPING ON YOUR PUNCH WORDS. The most important word in a sentence is the punch-word. Usually, it’s the final word: “Take my wife–PLEASE.” But if you drop your voice and then add, “Right?” or “See?!” you’ve killed the impact of your message. (To discover if you do this, use the tape-recording test described above.) Don’t sabotage your best shots.

9. MISUSING TECHNOLOGY. Without a doubt, audio/visual has added showbiz impact to business and professional speakers’ presentations. However, just because it is available, doesn’t mean we have to use it! Timid speakers who simply narrate flip chart images, slides, videos, overheads, or view-graphs can rarely be passionate and effective. Any visual aid takes the attention away from you. Even the best PowerPoint(r) images will not connect you emotionally. Use strong stories instead if at all possible. Never repeat what is on the visuals. If you do, one of you is redundant. Make technology a support to your message, not a crutch. The trap is that information presented through technology tends to be about the speaker and the speaker’s organization, while communication should be about the AUDIENCE. One executive I was asked to coach had 60 PowerPoint slides–58 about his company and 2 about the prospective client. We halved the number and reversed the ratio!

10. NOT HAVING A STRONG OPENING AND CLOSING. Engage your audience immediately with a powerful, relevant opening that has a high I/You factor. It can be dramatic, thought-provoking, or even amusing, but never, never open with a joke (unless you are a humorist with original materials! Get your listeners hooked immediately with a taste of what is to follow. And never close by asking for questions. Yes, take questions if appropriate, but then go on to deliver your dynamic closing, preferably one that ties back into your opening theme. Last words linger. As with a great musical, you want your audience walking out afterwards humming the tunes.

When you can avoid these 10 common pitfalls, you’re free to focus on your message and your audience, making you a more dynamic, powerful, and persuasive communicator.

Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE
Sales Presentation Trainer,
Keynote Speaker, Executive Speech Coach

527 Hugo Street, San Francisco, CA 94122
(800)634-3035, (415)753-6556, Fax (415)753-0914
PFripp@fripp.com, www.fripp.com

A final note from Jim Cathcart:

Learn the techniques of the Top Professionals:I’ve been a professional speaker since 1974 and have delivered over 2,700 paid speeches and seminars around the world. It has also been my privilege to personally know and work with folks like: Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Earl Nightingale, W. Clement Stone, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Og Mandino, Cavett Robert, Bill Gove, and Dr. Kenneth McFarland. I’ve been hired by: Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitley and Tom Hopkins to deliver speeches to their audiences. And I’ve sat in the audience of literally thousands of presentations by the best speakers on earth.

You can do what they do. I’m not saying you can be the kind of speaker that these giants are but you can definitely learn their techniques and strategies to become the most powerful speaker you can be. These Hall of Fame professional speakers have shared their methods with me and my colleagues and now you can learn them too. Come see and learn from Patricia Fripp and then stay connected with me.
Let me be your speaking mentor. Have me in your corner to coach you on the presentations that will make a big difference in your world. None of us is as good as we could be.
Let’s discover just how much better you could be. Click here for more on how this works.

Sonya, Jim Jr., Jim Sr., Paula, Jason, Santa & Amber

by Jim Cathcart

Our family would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

No matter what faith you embrace, this is a special time of year. Our family is Christian so the most appropriate greeting we can offer you is Merry Christmas. We sincerely hope that this Season of Holy Days is filled with happiness and peace for you and your family.

Here’s an idea to enhance the Holidays: Don’t keep score of anything (except sports of course.)

One of the great sources of frustration and tension is missed expectations. You wanted one outcome and got another. Far too often family members, employers, coworkers and friends silently “keep score” in their head and measure whether others are doing what they expected and hoped they would do. This leads to resentment and hard feelings.

Resolve that this year you will not keep score on anyone, not even yourself. Just savor the Season, enjoy the time with those you care about, take their greeting cards and messages to heart, appreciate their gifts and understand their errors or oversights. Decide today that you will be immune to hurt feelings this year.

Look for ways to personally be an enhancer of everyone else’s experience. Offer all the genuine compliments you can, sincerely thank people for all that they do, take time to fix problems yourself instead of just pointing them out to others. Start a wave of giving actions that go out to everyone you know and don’t know.  A compliment that is felt but not expressed is useless, let your compliments out for the world to see.

Be a force for good.

Thank you for all that you do to make this world a better place.

Dr. Terry Paulson, faculty member of 101 Leaders Institute and author of The Optimism Advantage, said the following were the “keepers” he captured while witnessing the astoundingly good presentation by Giovanni Livera on December 3rd at the Westlake Village Inn.

“No Change…No Change.

When someone says “NO” it doesn’t necessarily mean “NO” unless you believe it….Find a new way to ask.

Make your ceiling your floor. Get on top of your potential and reset to a higher level.

Reset fast. Make your New Year tomorrow!

See it in your imagination and write it down.

Be a creator and collector of experiences.

Someday is not a day of the week.”

I would add to that, “When you write your goals & dreams on paper, they are no longer just in your head. They are now in the world and will start to become a reality!”

Giovanni wowed us all with his joy, creativity, magic, wisdom and caring attitude. It’s impossible not to like this guy! Take a look at these video clips on Gio’s own website to see some of the wonderful ideas and amazing performances he shared with us. Click on the banner that reads “See Video Now!”

Gio is just one of over a dozen faculty members of 101 Leaders Institute. We are bringing a Hall of Fame Professional Speaker & Best Selling Author here to the 101 corridor seven times a year. To attend these great sessions and stay tuned to our news be sure to follow both http://Cathcart.com and http://www.101leaders.com.

The next presenter is the remarkable presentation skills coach and Hall of Fame Professional Speaker Patricia Fripp. She’ll be here January 23rd, 2010 from 9am to noon. Don’t miss her seminar.

by Jim Cathcart

My colleague Ed Oakley, author of Enlightened Leadership, interviewed me on the subject of my upcoming book “Relationship Intelligence®”. The video of this interview is just under 15 minutes long and posted on Ed’s site for easy access.

Here is the link to the video: Relationship Intelligence®

This would be a good video to show at an upcoming business meeting or to distribute via email to your team before your next discussion about sales, marketing or customer retention.

The message is focused on how All Relationships are, or could be, Assets.

Have your colleagues view it on their own time and then talk with you about the key points. Now is also a good time for you to use this message in your personal life. Think about this:

• Your life consists of many relationships
• The quality of those relationships determines the quality of your life experience
• By becoming more Conscious, Intentional and Focused on giving value to others you will draw more rewards, benefits and opportunities to yourself
• Now is a GREAT time to “Up-Serve” those with whom you are connected
• Look for ways to GIVE value to everyone in your world

Have fun with this and when I can help, please contact me. I’m eager to bring you more value every week.

by Jim Cathcart

I just got off the phone/computer from one the most enjoyable calls I’ve ever made.

Stephanie Charl Schule, a colleague of mine in Hannover, Germany invited me to address a meeting of the folks who are involved in iLearningGlobal.tv there. It was 5pm for them and 8am for me. So I was able to make the call from my computer by simply plugging in an external microphone and using the built in camera on the screen.

As my regular readers know, I’m one of the founding faculty of iLearningGlobal.tv and many of my training videos are featured on their website worldwide. When Steffi contacted me she said that I had many followers in Germany and she’d like to have me address their meeting via Skype call.

Her husband, Paul-Martin Schule, called me and confirmed our connection and the next thing I knew I was looking at Steffi in front of her computer screen with a large screen in the background showing ME! They had a meeting room with about 60 people in attendance and she had it set up to show me on a large screen while she interviewed me. We also took questions and comments from the audience. The sound quality of the connection was excellent.

Here is what the video looked like to them:

Steffi had sent me an outline of probable questions that she would ask me and I sent her my replies to each, so that she could translate the answers into German in advance of the meeting.

During the meeting as I answered each question and told short stories to illustrate, I would pause occasionally so that she could do a live translation for those who didn’t speak English. It really worked. The audience broke into applause on a number of occasions and seemed to truly connect with my message.

At the end of the event we took a little diversion when she asked me how I kept myself motivated. I showed her my guitar, one of two that I keep in my office. Then she asked me to play it. I played a piece of a song and she said the audience wanted more. So I played and sang my own song, Riding Free, plus a John Denver and a Neil Diamond song. They sang along with me, from the other side of the world! That produced much applause and laughter on both sides of the ocean. Great fun!

I asked her to turn the computer around so that I could see the audience and when she did, they gave me a standing ovation! It truly touched my heart. What a wonderful way to connect with people and a perfect way to start this day. By the way, today is the birth date of Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association. NSA members nationwide are encouraged to spend this day coaching and training others to become better communicators. Tonight I’ll be speaking as keynoter for the 75th anniversary banquet of the Toastmasters International Ventura California club. Thanks for following my blog and please let me know when I can be of service to you.