Salesmanship without Tears

With the recorded Women’s Enterprise Network interview that I mentioned yesterday now behind me and the panel I’m on at the 2008 COSE Small Business Conference coming up tomorrow, I’ve suddenly realized that public speaking works a lot better for me as a way of promoting my company than does networking at receptions or buttonholing people in elevators.

I’ve become convinced over the last few months that there’s very little point in trying to promote a business through ill-fitting means. If I can’t sell my enterprise naturally and enthusiastically, no one’s going to believe me anyway, so I figure I might as well stick to the tactics that I enjoy and that make me feel I am, and appear to be, a confident champion of my business.     

I’ve been a public speaker and performer since the age of six and even though I do get stage fright – sometimes badly – I would Always. Much. rather address a roomful of strangers from a podium or stage than have to engage each one of them in cocktail chitchat, or worse, persuade them in 30 relentless seconds that my business is better than the best thing they ever imagined, including a bathtubful of hot fudge.  

Some people are really really good at light chatter and/or sales pitches and manage to be likable, persuasive or both while doing them. I don’t think I’m one of them. I love deep discussions with people I know and respect. I thoroughly enjoy bantering with the witty. But put me in a situation where I feel required to inflict myself and my spiel on the innocent, or exchange bland pleasantries with people I don’t know and will likely never see again and I feel as if I turn into a one-person sitcom of awkward artifice and embarrassed misery. 

Mary Tyler Moore, without the laughs.

Delivering a talk or participating in a debate is entirely different and makes me feel like a much more worthwhile human being. Here I have a topic to explore and an audience that has gathered on purpose to hear about it – I can joke around or drive home a point without feeling guilty, because what I have to say is at least part of why my audience has come to listen.     

So what forms of lobbying for Geniocity.com am I best at? 1) Writing, of course. I’m a career journalist. 2)  “Interviewing” the people I’m conversing with – I’m experienced at this as a reporter and it should work better, whenever I’m with someone I would like to have support my business, for me to ask good questions and listen, rather than rattle on nervously about myself and what I do. 3) Addressing a crowd; agreeing to guest talks, panels, interviews by other people and the like will get me and my company’s name in front of the public in ways I can be proud of. 

So my message here is that I believe you have to go with your gut about how you communicate best. Yes, I do practice being effective in the scenarios I like least – that’s just sensible self-preservation and eventually, I may even get good at it, if not happy with it. But I know what my strengths are and from now on, I intend to play to them as much as possible and not feel guilty for turning down an occasional promotional opportunity that might advance Geniocity’s name, but would make me want to gnaw my own arm off to escape.