When Sage Meets WOLF

By: Pete Machalek Tagged With:

A few years ago, Dean had an opportunity to see a senior VP at Best Buy speak. Her name was Julie Gilbert, and she was presenting to a group of women who were participating in a leadership development program that Julie had created called WOLF (WOmen’s Leadership Forum).

Ever since then, Dean has used Julie as a shining example of powerful presenting in our presentations and training workshops. He’s talked about her as an amazingly inspiring speaker who is able to fill a stage and maintain the attention of everyone in the room, not by being outsize and larger than life, but by being authentic, true to herself and her ideals, and absolutely passionate about her convictions.

I’ve been wanting to see her in action since the first time he told me about her, and every time he’s mentioned her since, my curiosity has grown. Could she really be as good as he says she is? Dean has, for me, always been the closest thing to really embodying the qualities we speak about. So if he’s this excited about somebody else, they’ve got to be good.

Dean and I were invited out to Boston the week of August 18 to speak at this year’s WOLF conference, a gathering of 3,000 women (and a few men) from within and without Best Buy who are all actively participated in the WOLF program.

We were excited to have been selected as speakers. Our presentation was called “You Had Me At Hello: How to Generate Powerful Connections At Will,” which was a carefully chosen topic for this group, designed to fit what we understood the heart of WOLF’s mission to be.

As it turns out, the topic was indeed a great fit. And I think I learned the first evening we were out there why we were such a good fit.

It’s because Julie Gilbert truly is a living demonstration of what we talk about.

Julie makes the most powerful connections with audiences I’ve ever seen, and she does it with absolute authenticity and deeply felt emotions that are clear expressions of her convictions. She is passionate and caring, true to herself, and utterly focused on what she wants for other people.

Julie has taken on the mission to have women be who they authentically are, to have them pursue their dreams regardless of the circumstances that surround them. She’s all about authentic, full-tilt expression, and she’s all about interpersonal connection based on authentic appreciation.

I was absolutely blown away by her in that opening presentation. She spoke for an hour to 3,000 excited participants from a huge stage. Despite the scope of the scenario, despite the glitziness of the setting, despite the number of people in the audience and the bright lights and all the potential distractions, she clearly made a connection with absolutely everyone in the auditorium. The emotion was palpable, not only because Julie herself clearly felt and expressed it, but because she was connected to everyone in there, and they felt it too. Julie connected us all emotionally, and she brought us where she wanted us to go. Where we needed to go for that conference to go the way it was designed to go.

Dean had to leave the opening session early to handle a hotel issue, so when I met up with him after it was over, he asked me how it went. I told him that I was ready to write Julie Gilbert in as a presidential candidate. Dean laughed, because he remembered thinking the same thing after the first time he saw her.

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Acting Class Builds Professional Confidence At Best Buy’s WOLF Conference

By: Pete Machalek Tagged With: ,

“I never realized an acting class could be so helpful to me as a Best Buy professional.” Bestbuysagepresence

This August in Boston, SagePresence had the privilege of speaking and workshopping for professional women at Best Buy’s fifth annual women’s leadership conference.

Best Buy’s WOLF program (the Women’s Leadership Forum) honors and fosters the development of its professional women with speakers, development workshops and networking events.

Pete Machalek and I delivered three back to back runs of “YOU HAD ME AT HELLO – Developing Powerful Connections at Will” in order to help these professionals master instant connections with customers and staff with our system of rapid relationship building. The “room tone” was positive and we were told we created a buzz!

We were prepared, and our content is well-tested, but the real surprise came in our evening event which was a less conventional business event – an IMPROVISATIONAL ACTING workshop.

WOLF had designed the day for “serious learning,” which included our powerful connections workshop, but their evening plans placed fun and personal expression at the forefront. It was Wolf’s Pamela Punt who had the insight to provide expression workshops as evening electives.

Initially Pete and I had our corporate trainer hats on and were emphasizing learning over entertainment, which caused us concern. To our pleasant surprise, the idea was not only successful, but it contained unexpected outcomes including confidence building.

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The women who signed up for our class reported that it took a degree of personal conviction and self-discipline just to step through the doors of the class, let alone onto our stage and in front of a film director and our cameras. We were glad to have participants at all since it had been a full day already, and we were competing with networking events, dinners, and evening parties.

The women reported initial “fight or flight” reactions. When we turned on the cameras, they reported fear. But when we called “action” the fear went away and they began their scenes.

We worked improvisationally, to help participants discovered that they can indeed act natural and comfortable on command, under observation, and even with some nervousness – just like operating in a business environment when you need to be yourself despite pressure and high stakes. That was the connection we were trying to make.

Our approach was to guide these corporate performers to rely on the same skills a person uses when just being themselves – you know, talking off the top of your head, responding in the moment, and maneuvering with some balance of authenticity and agenda in the hope of finding a win-win for everyone involved.

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In the first round, we had people just act out a scene with no goals other than to exist in a specific scene with a setting and a situation. Once they were comfortable in the scene environment, we began increasing the pressure of observation, moving cameras around and getting right in the actor’s faces.

At first, they’d report a “paralysis” that would set in under observation. But after a little while, they discovered their ability to block it out and perform comfortably under observation pressure.

This was the kind of learning we were hoping for – learning that you can increase your ability to be normal and calm even when someone is watching you and scrutinizing you. These women were learning fast, and gaining confidence and comfort in the exact situation that made their skin crawl moments before. They were becoming desensitized to being in the spotlight!

As we moved forward in the program, we increased the heat by adding contradictory emotional goals to introduce challenge and conflict. We used to call this “scene boxing” in the old days, where two actors duke out their opposing goals in the scene. It makes acting more likelife, where you not only exist but you try to accomplish something, which may or may not agree with the environment around you.

When we played the footage back, the women’s faces lit up. They had no idea they could be so comfortable in such a previously uncomfortable setting. In fact, the acting allowed them to step beyond their normal expressive boundaries.

Some reported excitement in seeing themselves expressing more freely. “My friends told me I needed to get out of my shell, and this really did it for me,” reported one participant, who left aglow with a new lease on life.

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It’s been a while since we’ve directly applied an acting program for corporate purposes, and it’s brand new to have used a straight acting class as a corporate confidence-builder. Obviously, our professional programs are derivative of acting, writing and storytelling skills, which makes them close cousins to our original acting workshops, and we’ve always known that acting practice can bring confidence.

We have always adapted performance skills into something more like corporate training or public speaking classes rather than doing it straight up like we did Thursday night. We were thrilled and surprised that the approach could build so much self-knowledge, free expression, and confidence applicable to the business setting.

Each participant encouraged us to continue this sort of programming for business use. And as long as there are innovative players like Julie Gilbert and Pamela Punt of Best Buy, we will.

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Thank You, Steven Schussler

By: Dean Hyers

Sschussler2

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of hearing Steven talk at the Twin Cities’ Entrepreneurs monthly meeting.

His talk was a gift.  Heck, his life is a gift…to all of us dreamers who are out there every day working to transform ether into reality.

But for me–his talk is exactly what I needed.

Okay…first I need to take a moment in the confessional.

As part of the SagePresence crew, I represent 1/3 of the Twin Cities’ most requested trainers in the area of networking.  That means I’ve stood up in front of hundreds–no…thousands of people now and preached the gospel of how to turn networking pain into networking pleasure.  How to not only get more out of the experience AND enjoy it at the same time.

Now for the confession.  That doesn’t mean I always feel like getting out there and doing it.  Last Thursday, that was certainly the case.

I’d had a long, rough day.  I was tired.  I was grumpy.  I was feeling wrung out.

I had, however, made a promise to my partner, Pete, that I would cover for him at the TCE meeting and talk a little bit about our (then) upcoming Be Connected to Effective Networking event.  And, of course, I’d made a promise to myself…to do the things I need to do to help our business grow and thrive.

I didn’t want to go to the event, but I did.  And I decided to put our own teaching in practice and find something to appreciate in the experience.

That was, as it turns out, quite easy.  As soon as I got into the room, the vibe was infectious.  It was a no-brainer to appreciate these folks–who were putting it on the line every day in the name of dream harvesting.  By the time Jim got up to introduce me for my small pitch, I was feeling pretty pumped.  And it obviously made a difference because a number of people asked me later about the event and then signed up.

Yet, the “thing” inside of me was still there.  Appreciation and connection had helped me to not let it reduce or undo my presence, but it didn’t make it go away.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.

Then Steven got up to speak.

If you’ve never heard Steven Schussler speak, the first thing I am going to say is find an event featuring him and get in the room.  Period.

That said, it’s not his speaking, per se (though he’s very good), that makes listening to him such a treat.  It’s his sharing.  Of his journey.  Of his failures along the way.  Of his vulnerability.

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how they “made it”.  And I’ve heard a lot of people give lip service to the “hard times”.  Whenever I listen to them, however, I usually feel like a loser because the hard times and struggles–internal as well as external–I’m experiencing must be far more dire by comparison.  And that means I must be kind of pathetic and kind of a failure because my dream chase is pretty much tearing my world apart piece by piece.  It’s nearly squashing me.

When I listen to those people, my experience isn’t, “Oh!  I can do this!”  It’s “Oh…I am fooling myself.”

That wasn’t the case after I Steven’s talk.  Yes, he was entertaining.  Yes, he was passionate.  Yes, he had great stories and advice.

Most important, he was candid.  As he walked us through the events leading to the launches of both Jukebox Saturday Night and Rainforest Cafe, he told us things–heck!  Celebrated them!–that I have rarely heard another entrepreneur even admit.

First off was that when he was starting Jukebox, he lost his house.  He was forced to live over the club until he was in a position to get a new place.

Second, that he almost lost his house and contended with his share of threats to turn off his electric, gas, and phone as he was launching Rainforest.  And in this case, the stakes were doubled, since he converted his house into the prototype for the restaurant!  According to Steven, the DEA once raided the place because he had the largest residential electric bill in the state of Minnesota.  You can imagine what they tought he was growing there.

My point is that he opened himself up to be completely vulnerable in sharing that information.

And the result was nothing short of inspirational.  And credible.

It’s obvious that the guy’s very successful–financially as well as personally and creatively.  It was the first time, however, that I’d experienced someone in his position opening up about the real-life struggles along the way.  Things that make the rest of us think we’re kinda dumb or kinda crazy for the stuff we put ourselves and our families through as we play Don Quixote.

That was what had been bothering me as I walked into the room that night.  Personally, I am maintaining as the SagePresence and screenwriting rockets fire their boosters to break out of the atmosphere.  But it’s rarely easy.  And the wolves…if they’re not right outside the door, I constantly hear them somewhere in the distance.  It’s one of the most difficult and tiring aspects of the entreprener’s journey.  And it doesn’t feel very fun after awhile.

In fact, it feels more-than-a-little discouraging.

But Steven gave me a whole new perspective on those old wolves.  I would even go so far as to say he gave me a new appreciation for them.

All of a sudden I realized that the problems he was talking about–the ones that I could relate to so well–were not signs of my impending failure or of my fooling myself.  They were signs of my impending success.  Or at least the possibility of it.

These difficulties were badges of honor, the likes of which I now knew were not unique to me.

Gosh, that made me feel a whole lot better.  About myself.  About my journey.

Viva la vulnerability!  It truly is the path to real strength.  And real inspiration.

And thank you, Steven Schussler.  Your generosity has made the path of this screenwriter/professional speaker a little clearer and seem a little more doable.  And that makes all the difference.

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What Exactly Does SagePresence Do For People, Anyway?

By: Pete Machalek Tagged With: , ,

As partners in a still-young company, Dean and Bill and I find ourselves again in the midst of a conversation about what exactly it is we do for people. After seven years in business, on top of another two years of operating a screen-acting training program, we know we’ve helped a tremendous number of people and organizations, but the question remains: What exactly is it that we do for people?

It’s tough to nail down because it’s so darn unique. Everybody knows that plumbers fix your pipes and bookkeepers maintain your financial information. And everybody also knows that filmmakers… well, make films, right? So what’s that got to do with helping professionals and businesses?

Well, a lot, actually.

Filmmakers don’t just make films, we make films that speak to audiences and make a difference for them. So we understand the process of designing messages that connect with audiences in a meaningful way. Which means that we can not only design messages for clients, but we can teach them how to create their own messages that speak meaningfully to their audiences. We can direct them to deliver their message from the heart, which allows them to reach the heart of the people they speak to.

So, clearly, presentation and public speaking represent a big part of what we can help with. And since Dean and Bill are both powerful public speakers themselves, it seems like a natural niche for us to rest in. We encourage entrepreneurs, consultants, and professionals of all stripes to build their careers by representing their areas of expertise to audiences. We work with professionals at every level who are asked to speak at company meetings and conferences. And we help sales and non-sales professionals alike win jobs and new business in sales pitches and interview situations.

This last one led us to realize that people don’t require a large audience to feel the need for more stage presence. Many of us (me included) feel “on the spot” when a handful of people are listening, or if only a single decision-maker is focusing on us. So it’s not just formal presentations and public speaking events we help with, we also help people win others over in sales conversations, speaking with the boss, interviewing for a job, serving customers, and networking with strangers.

This is why we call our flagship program “One Day to Greater Influence.” It’s not just about public speaking. It’s not just about sales. It’s not just about persuasion. It’s about connecting with people on a meaningful level, speaking their language, and honoring your message by delivering it with the power it deserves.

I’ve been thinking a lot about influence lately, and a movie-inspired metaphor has popped into my head about the nature of influence. So many movies — “A Christmas Carol,” “Our Town,” and “Ghost” to name just a few — portray the afterlife as being conscious of the living world but being completely unable to influence anyone or anything in it. So it’s occurred to me that a measurement for how alive you are (Dean would probably call it “livingness”) is how much you influence people and things in the world. I know that when I compare my life when I was a corporate drone, when I was spending all my time in front of a computer, with my life now when I’m spending all of my time talking to people face-to-face or over the phone, I can recognize a vast qualitative difference. And by the same token, when I compare my moments in conversation when I’m just chatting versus trying to make a difference for the other person, I feel an enormous difference in how alive I feel. And when I think about some historical influencers — John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi — I recognize that if you have so much “livingness” when you’re alive that you go on influencing people after you’re gone, that you can achieve a kind of immortality, and that, in a sense, you can be more influential than those people who choose to just stay at their desk and keep to themselves.

So I guess that’s an argument that SagePresence gives people more life (or livingness). But maybe that’s just a bit too abstract to be easily communicated in a marketing statement. So let’s go back to Influence.

Part of the reason Influence has been at the core of how we talk about ourselves is that we believe it’s what everyone wants, whether they know it or not. But we recently took a survey from our clients, asking them what they were after in working with us, and what they actually got from working with us. We got several useful answers, but the biggest a-ha we got from people was that they wanted — and got — more confidence from their work with us. They wanted to be more confident in their ability to represent themselves, their ideas, their wares, their offering, their products and services.

This was a great a-ha for me in particular, because (a) Watching people unfold in our programs to truly be able to represent themselves with power has always been one of my favorite things about what we in SagePresence get to experience, and (b) I’ve always mentally vaulted from confidence to influence because I’ve wanted to reach out to both underconfident people who can’t get out of their shell far enough to influence them, as well as overconfident people who are so much about exhaling all over people that they are accidentally pushing them away and failing to influence them in the way they want.

So clearly we’ve been appealing more to the former category of underconfident people, people who consider themselves introverted and shy. We provide answers to them that they love and can apply in their lives and at work that truly make a difference for them. We love working with them, and I’m sure there are a lot of them out there.

And that’s where we’ve landed — for now, at least. I can confidently say that confidence is the thing. SagePresence brings confidence to you in all of your interactions and presentations.

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SagePresence Pitch Training Pays Off: NWSG Screenwriter Gets Optioned!

By: Dean Hyers Tagged With: , ,

“Betty Ryan and Carinn Mammen had their script, ‘The Guy’s Girl’ optioned by Ruthe Rosaler, Head of Production at Empire Entertainment. This is their first option.”

Wow.

I spend much of my day in front of the same computer screen I am writing from now.  That certainly is not a complaint because that means I am among those fortunate enough to chase my dream every day.  The downside of being a screenwriter, however, is that you have to wait months and months–and more often years and years–to see what kind of impact your work makes on people.

The rest of the time you just write–and cross your fingers.

One of the reasons I love my SagePresence life is every time I step into an event, someone walks up to me and tells me how our teaching transformed their life for the better.  How they got the job or the promotion.  How they started the business.  How they stood up for a cause.  How they were inspired to follow their heart and now had the tools and the presence to make the journey possible.

I’ll let you in on a little secret…many days, it’s the most gratifying part of my day.  Even over the writing.  Because there’s nothing like seeing someone else succeed.  And there’s really nothing like feeling like you were even a small part of that success.

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A couple of months ago, Dean and I were in Seattle to speak to the Northwest Screenwriters Guild.  We had a great time, the NWSG folks had a great time, and we feel like we really made an impact.  Everything was great.

Until this news, and suddenly “great” was taken to a whole new level.  I will turn it over to NWSG member Betty Ryan now, as the story is best told through her wonderful words:

“In December 2007, my writing partner Carinn called me and said, “My husband
wants to hypnotize me into liking football…let’s write about that.” I said,
“That’s brilliant!”

“In May of 2008, Bill True & Dean Hyers gave the
Northwest Screenwriters Guild an amazing presentation by SagePresence, helping
us with pitching. Afterwards, they held a pitching competition and using the art
of “appreciation” that Bill & Dean had taught us, I won! Not only did they
help me improve my pitch, the feedback they gave me helped my writing partner
and I with a final rewrite as well. They really LISTENED and told me what was
lacking in my story.
“The grand prize for the pitching competition was a
ticket to The Great American PitchFest. I went to the GAPF, met with Empire
Entertainment, and gave them the same pitch I had told Bill & Dean just a
couple weeks earlier…but this time I added what Bill and Dean told me was
missing.

“Last week my partner and I were optioned by Empire
Entertainment. We couldn’t be more excited.

“Thanks so much to
SagePresence and Bill & Dean. Without them, we would be
nothing!

“Betty Kim (& Carinn Michele) : )”

I remember a conversation I had with NWSG President Aadip Desai a few weeks before Dean and I headed to Seattle.  A month or so earlier, I’d suggested that we do the pitch competition as a way to get people to take their pitches to the next level–simulate at least a measure the the “high stakes” pressure they would feel in Hollywood.

Aadip was worried that no one would participate, to which I responded that Dean and I would simply have to come up with prizes that would sufficiently entice them.  And so I made a number of phone calls, and suddenly The Great American Pitchfest, Movie Magic screenwriting software, and the Austin Film Festival were on as sponsors.

Anyway, in the conversation in question, Aadip was marveling at how far above-and-beyond we were going for them.

“Why would you do this for people you really don’t even know?”

“It’s simple,” I told him.  “This isn’t just another business for us SagePresence guys.  It’s another calling.  And we’re obligated to do whatever we can to set the stage for the people with whom we interact as well as we can, so they have the best chance to succeed.”

Well, I have to tell you…it’s sweet when it all works.  When you can be a part of helping talented people reach their potential.

Congratulations, Betty and Carinn!

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