So when I first came to NSA, I learned one of my favorite phrases. I invite you now to delightfully disengage from your conversations. That was from Gary Rifkin. It's the most polite way to say shut up. Thank you. So if you are ready to book more business, if you're ready to make more money, and if you want to see a Nobel Peace Prize for marketing and sales, it would go to our next presenter, Lois Creamer. Ladies and gentlemen, NSA on your feet for Lois Creamer. Thank you.

Thank you. I used to do sales programs for corporations and associations. I don't do that anymore. The only speaking I now do are people just like you. Let me tell you what happened. One time I was doing pre program work before I went in to speak to a corporate sales team and I was speaking to the gentleman who was a VP of sales who brought me in. And I go over a pre programmed questionnaire that I'm going to share with all of you. You're welcome.

And one of the questions is, is there anything going on that I should know about? And this was his reply. You may want to know that we laid off 25% of our sales team last week. You may want to know now. Going in with that knowledge changed everything for me in that program. Because when I was introduced, I didn't come out going, we just love sales, don't we everybody? I came out and I said, there has probably never been a time when you are more nervous, busier, crazed and wondering what your future is going to look like. And because you feel that way, that's why your managers brought me in to talk to you today. How do you think I was received when I came in? How do you think those leaders felt when I said that they liked me? They brought me back. They brought me back.

I have to share with you that I had a program in great PowerPoint for you and I dumped the whole thing about four days ago because I think things are changing. This is a very fluid situation. So I dumped the PowerPoint and I thought, let's talk about what's going on right now in the industry. Just like I wanted to be prepared to be in front of those salespeople. You need to be prepared to be in front of your buyers. And right now we've got things swirling in the atmosphere, like political stuff, people disagreeing, being disagreeable. We're worried about the economy, we're worried about the meetings, industry, all kinds of things we can worry about. Spending a lot of time worrying about these things is not going to make you money.

You need to shut out the noise and be about doing what you do. Because regardless of what's going on in the stratosphere, people need you. They need your message, they need your help, they need your ideas. And so today, we're going to talk a little bit about selling, and we're going to talk a little bit about some of the language we might be able to use in this situation where we find ourselves. Does that make sense to you? Are you upset that I don't have a PowerPoint? No. Good answer. Good answer. I don't want to create a controversy.

Well, maybe I do. Mike says it would be like you. It would be like me. The people who are bringing you in to their companies aren't really just buying a speech. You know what they're buying? They're buying outcomes. They're buying the transformation that you bring before you come in and after you bring. And that's how you sell your programs. Sell the outcome.