Every professional conference speaker needs an opening parable to introduce themselves and their key note speech to the financial advisor conference.
The opening parable is a true storey about a tough time that the financial advisor conference speaker had gone through where they used inspiration and motivation to triumph in the end.
The financial advisor conference speaker becomes more real to the financial advisor audience because they get that the financial advisor conference speaker has been there just like them.
It’s 3:05pm on Saturday, September 6, 2008 and Laura and I are on flight to Las Vegas to present How To Thrive In A Recession to the Pro-Seminars National Conference in Las Vegas September 8 – 10.
Hear and you forget; see and you remember; do and you understand. ~ Confucius
I’m taking this opportunity to type set my opening parable to hear, see, understand, integrate and associate myself to delivering the opening parable.
I was two years into my first real job in 1977 working for an aluminum window manufacturing company where I worked in the factory and drove a delivery truck.
At the time, the British Columbia construction industry was in a recession and I really wanted to do something to get ahead.
One boring weekend I decided to make up a sample window screen and I went selling window screens door to door.
At coffee time on Monday morning the manager and the rest of the staff were talking about their weekend exploits in the local pick up joint and out at the drag strip. I announced that I had gone out selling window screens and everyone started laughing.
The manger asked me if I sold anything.
“Twenty two orders” I replied.
The manager said “that is amazing”. What was even more amazing it was February and who buys window screens in February.
The manager told me “there might be a sales opportunity selling windows in the spring”.
The next day I took a window price list and order forms out on my deliveries.
As I was unloading the windows at a building site, the building contractor from next door came over and started to ask me about the windows. Having worked in the factory, I knew the windows inside out and took him through the features and benefits from the head to the sill.
The builder said he wanted me to write up an order for the house that he was building and we both used the price list and wrote the order on the hood of truck.
The builder then introduced me to the rest of the builders in the subdivision.
I got back to the window factory at 6pm and the manager was on the loading dock pulling his hair out because I was supposed to back at ten thirty in the morning.
“Where the %^$#% were you” he cried and I explained that I was selling windows.
“How much did you sell?”
I sold eight house orders which were more than the sales representative had sold all month. I went on to be the number one residential sales person in the company.
The moral of the story is that the business is out there even in a recession and all you have to do is ask.
International Values and Behavioral Analyst, Business Coach, Speaker and Author
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