What happens when you are in the middle of reading Eric Weiner’s “The Geography of Genius” while planning a speaker event with Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion? Well I’ll tell you; you begin to blur the boundaries.
The story spun by New York Times bestselling author Eric Weiner in his award winning book, “The Geography of Genius”, is more like a travelogue than a book. I truly felt like I was attending a presentation of Weiner’s journey from ancient Athens to modern day Silicon Valley. The idea that genius congregates and feeds off one another’s creativity and innovation is fascinating, especially when you are putting together an event to challenge the innovation and creativity of 150 small and middle market business owners.
Twice a year we bring in an outside speaker to challenge the thinking of the one hundred or so leaders that are part of TAB-BWI. The Alternative Board – Baltimore Washington is a peer advisory and coaching business and twice a year, in our Business Prosperity Series, we challenge our membership, and a few friends of friends, to think differently about their business.
Would genius be feed from one creative thinker – Marcus Sheridan – or would the membership politely sit and listen and retreat back to their offices without so much as a whimper?
Well, for 90 minutes, we carved out a geography where genius, or at least a closely related cousin (imitation), was front and center. How do you handle sales objections on your web site, how do you build trust in your online presence, how can you apply successful content marketing applications and create an inbound marketing program that will make you the Wikipedia of your industry?
Marcus Sheridan (genius) had the answers – and the participants of the TAB-BWI Business Prosperity Series were ready to implement (imitation).
Two lessons learned from this wonderful experience. One, put motivated, hungry, smart people in a room with a font of knowledge and watch them apply that knowledge to their business in the most creative ways. Two, lay off the heavy reading while planning the next speaker event!