Jason Jennings visit

Jason Jennings was kind enough to come by the new office for a talk about his new book 'Hit The Ground Running'. As a way to welcome him, all of the agents decided to wear blue shirts, apparently. We're not a creatively dressed bunch. In addition to being a talented writer, Jason has got a great radio voice, and he loves to use it to tell fascinating tales. I kept expecting him to end one with "...and now you know...the rest of the story."

Knordstrum Knowledge

2/27/06 Knordstrum Knowledge

A cool thing about this job is that you get to learn so much. I'm a big reader, so I've been able to learn quite a bit from all the books our speakers have written. When I first started at Premiere, I was given a copy of "The Nordstrum Way" by Robert Spector. (http://www.premierespeakers.com/robert_spector) In reading it, I learned about not just existing in your job, but really enjoying the process of customer service and accepting the challenge of trying to make your client's thrilled with their experience. The next month after reading the book, my sales doubled. Part of that was just a new guy learning more about his company, his clients, and his speakers, but a big part was also learning the craft of serving my clients. The thing is that if you actually taking what you learn and put it into practice- whether its from speakers and writers, or your mentor down the hall- you will get better at what you do.

Blog 1

1/6/06

Today begins my quest to be voted best Premiere Blog of 2006. Yeah, I'm sure Jeremy, Shawn and the rest will try to pander to you with silly 'real' life stories with some sort of weak tie-in to business, but not me. I'm all about hard-hitting, useful information applicable to every day business. On that note, I'd like to discuss the worst date put downs I've ever had. I'm not taking about being put down to go out on a date (...although I had some good ones in college. One girl I'd asked to go out, even though I hadn't seen her for 6 months. She said she'd love to, she just had to OK it with her boyfriend first. Another girl I asked out, but she said she had to rearrange the furniture in her dorm room…even though it was Valentines Day.) I'm talking about what we agents go through all too often- being turned down for event dates by clients. Here are some of the best 'event' date turn-downs I've ever received:

- "It came down between a former US Vice-President and Vern Troyer (aka "Mini Me"), and we just couldn't decide."

- "We're going to do a laundry facilities tour instead."

- "We took the $10,000 we were going to spend on a speaker, and gave it to our attendees to go gambling."

Feel free to email me with the best turn-downs you've given, and they may end up in a future blog.