by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
The three E’s are a staple of the Dale Carnegie Training system and Olivia Kimball, a senior training consultant at the company, explained them to the Commercial Real Estate Women of Jacksonville luncheon last month at the Jacksonville Marriott.
“The first ‘E’ is to enjoy,” she said. “I want you to sit back and enjoy my presentation.
“The second ‘E’ is to evaluate. I want you to evaluate yourself and where you are today. Where are you in your careers, businesses and life? Where do you want to be in your careers, businesses and life? And then I want you to evaluate some of the ideas I’m going to share with you to get from the ‘as is’ to the ‘should be.’
“The third ‘E’ is that I hope you are energized when you leave here today to take that step to get closer to your ‘should be’.”
Kimball shared tips with the group to help build their business dealt with networking.
“Be aware of opportunities because networking can happen anytime,” she said. “There are a lot of possibilities.”
When you are in a networking environment, don’t start selling right away.
“People do business with people they like, so you have to get to know them first,” she said. “Be early and be close to the door to meet people.”
Kimball explained how you need to get out of your comfort zone to get ahead.
She shared a memory technique to help the crowd remember things to talk about with people they meet.
“I want you to visualize something,” she said. “When you visualize something, you form an impression. Visualize a huge business card with your name and company on it. On top of the business card is a huge A-frame house. On top of the house is a long dog with a work glove on its tail. The glove is holding on to an old biplane and in the propeller of the biplane is a tennis racket. Woven into the racket is an envelope with a wedding invitation. On top of the wedding invitation is a blinking light. What this is and what it stands for is conversations starters.”
Kimball gave the crowd ideas to start a conversation in a networking situation.
She said when you visualize the business card; you remember to introduce yourself when you first start the conversation. The A-frame house represents where a person lives, so you can ask them where they live. The long dog reminds you to ask how long they have lived there.
“Or you can visualize a person walking a dog with children,” she said. “The long dog can represent anything you want. It’s just an idea for conversation starters.”
The work glove reminds you to ask where they work. The biplane reminds you to ask about recent travels. The tennis racket represents sports or hobbies. The wedding invitation represents big events happening in their life. And the light bulb represents listening for ideas based on the conversation.
“People love to talk about themselves,” she said. “Asking these questions help you find out things you may have in common. When you have things in common, it starts a bond to take the conversation further.”
Other tips she shared were to always shake with a firm handshake, look the person in the eye and say their name several times during the conversation.