Erik Vermeulen's blog

South African fast food outlet Wimpy treated the country to a free breakfast this morning. They announced on Twitter that their “Streaky Bacon Breakfast” will be free between 7am and 8am. It wasn’t long before Virgin Active, the health club chain ambushed the campaign – also on Twitter, only to prove that when you’re not a Social Media Marketing Virgin, the sky’s the limit.

I spoke at an insurance industry conference in Iran last week, and made an effort to meet with some of the companies that would be sending delegates to the conference the day before. I was astounded to see that one company really mean 30 minutes when they say 30 minutes in an extraordinary show of awesome customer service.

I’ve just returned from speaking at several conferences in Iran, a country where all my presentations were simulcast in Farsi as I only speak English and Afrikaans. What made the experience really compelling though was the realization that despite the possible difficulties presented by verbal exchanges, body language is universal. I made great connections both from the stage and from interactions with all the delegates after my presentations.

So here are some Top Tips to maintain a friendly demeanor in order to build relationships.

I've been thinking about this whole concept of sacrificing the self for the team for a couple of days, and then the article below landed in my inbox this morning.

For years team building practitioners and leaders have been proclaiming that there should be no "I" in TEAM. I think it's a concept that's fundamentally flawed and the breeding place for conflict and discontent.

Basic psychology is clear on this... people will do things for their own reasons and primarily for themselves before thinking of others. That's what Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is all about. It's also the foundation for Self-Actualization.

Leaving the "I" out of results, implies socialism - and that's why this article is so relevant...

I’ve been a global conference speaker and facilitator for over 15 years, and in the last year, the number of requests I get to present “Effective Speaking” classes has more than tripled. This tells me three things .. 1. A lot of people are still giving presentations, 2. Many more people are still having to listen to these presentations, and 3. In general, most presentations suck. It takes practice to give great presentations. Giving bad ones is far easier.

So the whole of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia have come to a virtual standstill while BlackBerry has a problem with their BIS servers. Let’s get real though – it’s not that major a problem.

It wasn’t long ago that all of our businesses survived without instantaneous global communication. Remember fax machines? Snail Mail? Pigeons? Messenger? New York still uses the largest “fleet” of messengers in the world.

On Twitter, my friend and attorney Paul Jacobson puts it in perspective, “I'm a little concerned about the anxiety level with the #BIS crash. It’s ok, really, the service will (probably) be restored. Go do some work.”

Realistically, if you’re a salesperson, consultant, trainer or speaker, there are only 8 weeks left of 2011 to make your target. That’s right! 8 weeks.

It’s also around this time of the year that companies start with countless excuses why they can’t sign off on the proposal, the deal, the training programme – and one of the popular ones when it comes to training is that employees are about to go on leave in December and therefore won’t remember the training lessons and content when they return in 2012.

That’s rubbish.

After spending 15 years on the global conference speaking circuit I've shared the platform with a variety of awesome speakers, bad speakers, arrogant speakers, and then some.

There are 3 things that I believe are important for a speaker to know - their topic is one, but I only rate it 3rd. The first is to know the audience, and the second, to know what makes the Event Organiser and guys paying your bill happy.

Here's how I keep Event Organisers happy.

Every once in a while I publish an e-mail newsletter, to people I've had contact with and folks in the eventing industry. And every month, 1 individual takes exception.

IT gurus tell me that we send 2 billion e-mails per second globally, and 1 guy throws a hissy fit over 1 e-mail. Instead of simply clicking the "unsubscribe" link, this becomes an e-mail to-and-fro that wastes both my time and theirs.

So now I'm publishing this post by my friend and Advertising Guru Sid Peimer. Here's how not to die from a Spam Attack....

There is really is nothing like a hot cup of perspective to help us all understand the current Petrol Price.

Just today, the oil price fell by $10 from $127 to $117, and yet I can guarantee that the pump price of petrol and diesel here in sunny South Africa will increase again this month.

Here’s some perspective on what we pay though.