The Art of Evangelism

Article from Harvard Business Review by Guy Kawasaki

Some pointers that I've got are:
1. About evangelism
2. Schmoozing
3. Public speaking
4. Social media

On About evangelism

• When you become an effective evangelist, you don't just promote your organisation - you set an example for other employees. You show that you are a passionate, engaged team member. You inspire your colleagues. And you demonstrate your leadership ability. Look around your office and you'll see evanglists everywhere - the EVP who regularly contributes to conference panels; the teammate who tweets about industry research; the executive assistant who puts photos of new products in her Pinterest feed. They are the kinds of leaders companies want in their ranks today. So you should develop the skills yo uneed to join the club. 
• In my experience, there are three ways to effective evangelize: old-fashioned schmoozing, public speaking, and social media.

On Schmoozing

• It's much easier to evangelize to people you already know or people who already know you. The process of building such social connections is what we call schmoozing. If you're hesitant about this, because you are shy or you consider it offensive or manipulative, you need to change your mind. Doing this helps you to discover what you can do for someone else, and is the key to building the extensive, long-lasting, and trusting relationships that will make people believe what you have to say about your organisation. 
• Get out - Schmoozing is contact sport. You can't do it from your cubical, so force yourself to walk around the office, visit different floors and corporate locations, attend trade shows, conventions, seminars, conferences, and cocktail receptions.
• Ask questions - Good schmoozers don't dominate the conversation. They initiate it and then shut up and listen.
• Unveil your passions - If you can talk only about your job, you're a boring person. Successful schmoozers are passionate about multiple and diverse interests. A benefit of those passions is that they provide additional ways to connect with people. 
• Follow up - Send an email or call within 24 hours of meeting someone. Few people ever follow up, so the ones who do distinguish themselves as worth knowing.
• Email effectively - Email is a key tool. Make sure to optimize your subject lines and keep your messages short and simple, resend unanswered emails as a nudge, and always respond within 48 hours. 
• Make it easy to get in touch - Many people who want to be great schmoozers fail because they don't print their cell numbers on their business cards or include contact information in the signature area of their emails. Don't create hurdles to connection.
• Do favours - I believe there's a karmic scoreboard that tracks what you do for people. If you want to be a world-class schmoozer, ensure that your number on that scoreboard is high.

On Public speaking

• Deliver quality content - It's much easier to give a great speech if you have something to communicate. If you don't have anything to say, decline the opportunity. If you don't want to decline, do some research and find something interesting to say. That is 80% of the battle.
• Omit the sales pitch - Don't spend your time promoting yourself and your organisation or denigrating the competition. The worst speech you can give is one that people can interpret as a sales pitch.
• Customise - Tailor the first three to five minutes of every speech you make to the audience you're addressing that day. This will demonstrate that you've done your homework and have made an effort to provide a valuable and special experience. Try to find a personal link to the audience.
• Focus on entertaining - Many speech coaches will disagree with this, but they probably don't speak 50 times a year, as I do. My theory is that the goal of a speech is to entertain. If people are entertained, you can slip in a few nuggets of information. But if your speech is dull, no amount of information will make it great.
• Tell stories - The best way to relax when giving a speech is to tell stories - about your youth, kids, customers, things you have read. When you tell a story, you lose yourself in the storytelling. Good speakers are good storytellers, great speakers tell stories that support their message. 
• Circulate in the audience beforehand - Heighten interest in your success by meeting your listeners before the speech. Talk to them. Let them make contact with you - especially people in the first few rows. Then, when your're onstage, you'll see their friendly faces and your confidence will soar.
• Control what you can - If you have a choice, speak at the beginning of an event and ask for a small room. A  just-seated audience is more apt to listen to you, laugh at your jokes, and follow along with your stories, and a packed room is a more emotional one. It is better to have 200 people in a 200 seat room, rather than 500 people in a 1,000 seat room. 

On Social Media

• Offer value - Good stuffs come in four forms: information (what happened?), analysis (what does it mean?), assistance (how do I do that?) and entertainment (what the hell?)
• Be interesting - Many people mistakenly assume that their followers want to read about a narrow band of subjects. To do so would be boring, which doesn't work on social media. You should think more broadly.
• Take chances - Social media favour the bold, so don't hesitate to express your feelings and agenda. Take strong stands on issues that affect you, your organisation and your customers. 
• Keep it brief - People make snap judgments and move along if you don't capture their interest quickly. 
• Be a mensch - A mensch is a kind and honorable person who does the right thing the right way. Share other people's posts, make positive and intelligent comments, and suggest resources and solutions. Especially when you're curating, every post should contain a link, which sends traffic to the source as an act of gratitude, enables readers to learn more, and increase your visibility and popularity with bloggers and websites.
• Add drama - Every post should contain 'eye candy' in the form of a photo, graphic, or a video. If you have more than four paragraphs, try to use a bulleted or numbered list. 
• Tempt with headlines - I find posts titled "How to...", "Top 10..." or "The Ultimate..." irresistible. These words say to me, This is going to be practical and useful.
• Use hashtags - Hastags connect posts from people all over the world and add structure to an otherwise unstructure ecosystem. When you add hashtag to a post, you are telling people the post is relevant to a shared topic.
• Stay active - Be active I mean three to 20 different posts a day. As long as your posts are good, you can share more than that. 

Yours,
Something Small Thinking Big