The Other Side Of The Table

It's not often that I find myself with time on my hands.
But the last few days have been interesting for precisely that reason.
The other day, I found myself at the mercy (in a nice way) of four old friends.
They originally got together and set up their own company.
They're currently in the process of refreshing their agency credentials.
And I guess they see me as some kind of expert on the subject.
But, you know what they say about experts...
Anyway, the thing that struck me, as they talked through their creds, was how strange it felt to be seeing things from the clients' point-of-view.
I was reminded of something that Colin Lloyd at KLP told me a good fifteen years ago.
Make sure you have a beginning, a middle and an end.
More importantly, keep those three factors as close together as possible.
If you really must talk about yourself, then make sure you tell a story.
Explain you uniqueness, and your viewpoint, through the work you do.
And please, keep it under ten slides.
Otherwise, you might as well say, "Well, enough about me, let's talk about me some more."
Sure, they'll sit through your credentials.
But if they've taken the meeting, chances are, there's a bunch of other things they'd rather be talking about.