Saturday, September 8, 2007

Day 198 - 09/06/2007

They should've called it a "serminar" as that's what it turned out to be.

My boss gave me a ticket to a Get Motivated seminar that touted speakers that would improve our business skills (e.g., sales, leadership, negotiations, etc.). I must've read it wrong because that's not what was provided.

The doors opened at 7a for an 8a start, but we (we being two of my colleagues and myself) didn't get there until 930a. We decided we weren't motivated enough to get up early fight traffic. We arrived in the middle of the best speaker of the day. Had I known he was the best, we would've turned around and headed into the office. As one of my colleagues said as we walked back to the car, "I would've spent the day writing code instead of being here!"

Unfortunately, the marketing department failed to notify the public that a lot of what was presented was faith-based. There were no cutting edge techniques, no secret words to use to close the sale, nothing new under the sun. What was included was a series of speakers touting how their faith caused them to become successful. Or a product that they're willing to sell to you for $6500 $6000 $950? Yes, in a matter of five minutes, the price was dropped over $5000. I felt like I was in some large-scale window sales presentation.

The moment of cheese came when Zig Ziglar (who I was actually looking forward to hearing) came on stage...with his daughter. They then went on to do a father-daughter interview that was completely scripted and the only motivational words of wisdom came from when they played Zig speaking at previous sessions!

I felt ripped off and I didn't even have to pay for the ticket!

It got to a point where I didn't even care about seeing Sugar Ray Leonard or Colin Powell speak. I just wanted to get out of there. And that's what we did. In the middle of one of the speakers, we all just up and left. We didn't care about having to disrupt the folks around us, we wanted out.

Out on the concourse, we compared our thoughts and pretty much each and every one of us felt the same way: cheated.

So, if you ever get the chance to go to one of these, pass on the opportunity (unless, of course, your boss is forcing you to go), you won't regret it.

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