An informal and lighthearted look at practical thoughts and ideas for making your life more fulfilling

Earlier today I gave a short radio interview on local radio station Original 106 FM. It was part of a piece on a business networking even taking place later this evening and the meeting host had invited me to join him for the interview because he knew I could be relied upon to speak well.

Speaking live on the radio is seen by some as a terrifying experience but it needn’t be so. Local radio can be a great way to get free publicity for you, your business or your projects so don’t turn down opportunities to speak on radio. Here are my three top tips for making the most of these opportunities and ensuring that you get invited back again.

1. Chat with the interviewer beforehand. Build a bit of rapport so that you get him or her on your side before the interview
2. Be clear about what you want to say and prepare concise answers to the questions which you have discussed beforehand. Radio presenters love interviewees who are interesting but concise. They hate yes no answers or people who go on interminably so stick to the point.
3. Sound enthusiastic and positive – Remember that the radio audience will be judging you based, not only on what you say, but also on the way that you say it

Modelling is built on the belief that “success is reproducible” If somebody else has been successful in a particular area or market or skill, then others can be too. Modelling is the process of analysing what that exemplar does that leads to their success and then adopting the same key behaviours, mind sets and beliefs ourselves.

What many people forget however is that as well as modelling others, we can self model. We can look at times when we have been particularly successful or effective in the past, in any context, and look at what we did, how we did it and what we were thinking and beleiving that allowed us to do it then.

So this weekend, take a little time to think about times in your past where you raised your game. What was going on? How did you behave? What did you beleive about yourself and others? How can you use those strategies today to help you be more influential, confident, effective and successful?

If you want to explore this further, why not post a comment now or contact me directly.

I am currently out in Spain visiting a dear friend who runs a B&B. The other evening we were discussing how she could improve her marketing and had an interesting debate about how traditional sales techniques sat with her own personal values and her intention to market her B&B to a wider audience.

Our discussion got me thinking. It is my current opinion that it is perfectly possible to combine commercial sales and marketing techniques with a spiritual and ethical approach. Yes we can all think of examples how people around the wortld have been manipulated using advertising and influencing methods but by same token, those same methods have been used to generate huge amounts of charitable aid. I seem to remember an Islamic proverb that says “Trust in Allah but tie up your camel”. Why not use the power of attraction and marketing together.

It seems to me that influencing techniques are not intrinsically good or bad. It is the intention of the person utilising these approaches that determines whether they are manipulative or not.

I would love to open up a debate on this topic and to collect examples of people or organisations who combine commerical sales and marketing techniques with a more spiritual approach. I´d love to hear your views – Please feel free to add a comment to this blog.

Enjoy your weekend

Namaste

Gavin