I have a weird sense of humor... it's a gift from my father that I treasure. On April Fools Day this year I published my last ever post in LinkedIn with the gracious permission of Professor Neil Rackham... and some thought it was for real. This month I was published in Sales Mastery Magazine with this satirical piece on Artificial Intelligence Dark Social creating sales career apocalypse.
According to Professor Diculous, “By linking all social platforms together through APIs and metadata tags, dark social can power AI cyber-selling.” When asked what it will mean for the selling profession, Diculous responded, “All the elements are now in place and I predict 65% of inside sales roles with be replaced by AI Cyber Sellers (AICS) by 2018. Many sales people will have to turn to burger-flipping to make a living.”
The second generation robot will become a complete AI salesbot, travelling to customers using a Google Car to deliver Challenger insights. The bot will effectively build rapport during presentations where the audience is handicapped by PDSP (Physically Disengaged by Social Platforms), which is spreading at epidemic proportions.
I then interviewed Professor Harold Diculous (Rodney Marks) on camera and I'm currently publishing a series of 14 satirical videos on social selling here.
Any time that you have to stand in front of an audience and deliver... take some deep breaths to slow your heart-rate before you stand up; then walk calmly to the podium, look them in eye and smile... grin like an idiot – it's liberating. Deliver your opening few sentences from memory. Know your content and avoid endless boring slides. Here is a great video by Don McMillan on how NOT to use PowerPoint.
If you want to get the audience in the right frame of mind, especially when running internal meetings, consider playing a video to help them to unfold their arms and lighten-up. Whenever I run training courses I open with this, announcing that "it's business time." Lots of laughs... especially from the ladies... even when I present in America.
There are many funny and inspiring videos on my website so feel free to browse here to then go to YouTube and source your own ice-breakers for meetings. And finally, here is the award winning poem from my last ever post in LinkedIn:
All that is told is not Twitter,
All blogs in LinkedIn are not lost;
The told that is true does not wither,
Deep beet roots are not reached by the frost.
From the likes in social we'll be woken,
A goat from the thickets shall spring;
Reviews and shares shall be spoken,
The crownless again shall be king.
Picture above is Sir Les Patterson, Australian cultural attache.
If you valued this article, please hit the ‘like' and ‘share’ buttons below. This article was originally published in LinkedIn here where you can comment. Also follow the award winning LinkedIn blog here or visit Tony’s leadership blog at his keynote speaker website: www.TonyHughes.com.au.
Main image photo by Flickr: Dai Zaobab - Spinning buugeng