Somehow there exists the stereotypical notion that gregarious, extroverted people make for the best salespeople.

Mind you, there is nothing wrong with being gregarious or extroverted, but I would argue that success as a salesperson is determined more by another trait, that of being curious.

I am talking about a mindset where one is excited to learn new things, which includes a genuine (appropriate of course) interest about other people.

In our interactions with others, we can usually sense whether someone is pretending to be interested in what we do or not.  It’s hard to fake it.  We might call such people self-centered, pompous, egotistical, insincere or elitist . . . not good adjectives for a salesperson.

Conversely, when someone shows genuine interest in what we do, we can pick up on that as well.  And we tend to think positively about such people.  We might say there are friendly, unassuming, understanding or appreciative.

We also might say that person is a good listener.

Bingo.  I think that’s one of the best compliments anyone can receive.  You can’t be genuinely curious without also being a good listener.

It’s relatively easy to show interest within our inner circle of family, friends and co-workers, but successful marketers and salespersons need to have that same level of genuine interest when meeting people they have never met before.

One of my marketing & sales “gurus,” Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing, has a phrase he uses when talking about sales attitude.  His mantra is, “It’s not about me, it’s about you.”

And I add to that, “Everyone, yes, everyone has an interesting story to tell.”

(And let’s be honest here. This isn’t really something new.  The essence of what Robert and I are talking about was first made popular by Dale Carnegie in his 1936 book, “How to Win Friends & Influence People.”  We’ve both just added our own modern-day experiences to that formula.)

Here’s a practical example of how I apply my “stay curious” philosophy:

Do you like to attend networking events?  When I ask this at seminars or panels, there usually are not a lot of hands that get raised.  Most people don’t like networking events because 1) they fear having to interact with a whole bunch of strangers and 2) they dread that they’ll have to “perform” and recite their elevator speech with false excitement, ad nauseum.

I approach networking events totally differently.

Instead of thinking of it as being like a dreaded fraternity or sorority rush party where one is judged, I consider such events more like going to the library and having to choose between a whole table full of new interesting titles to read.

And with that attitude, what does being gregarious or outgoing have to do with choosing an exciting book?

In fact, I posit that introverted folks may actually do better at networking events, because they might be best suited to let others do most of the talking.  The important thing is to be genuinely curious while listening.

Don’t worry, the opportunity will arise soon enough where you can talk about what you do.  And by that time in the conversation, you can probably talk about yourself in a more relaxed manner than having to spout out a canned elevator speech.  The end result is that when you hand out your card while ending the conversation, people will likely ascribe to you the positive, not negative, adjectives I mentioned above.

Call to action for this month:

Try to find a new networking group to attend.  Make it a point to meet several people you don’t know and make it a point to get them to talk about themselves first.  Ask questions so that you hear from them “their interesting story.”  After getting their card, be sure to follow-up within the next few days by email and LinkedIn.

Trust me, if you do this right, you may not have an immediate customer, but you will have one more person in your network,  Who knows, that person may eventually become a client or refer you to someone.

And it will happen because you are genuinely curious.

Next time, I’ll write about the importance of applying that same curiosity to expanding your tech knowledge.

David Ryan heads the marketing activities at Chesapeake Systems www.chesa.com, a value-added reseller and media systems solutions provider & integrator based out of Baltimore.  David began his career in media production and then gravitated to media sales and marketing a dozen years ago. He can be reached at dryan@chesa.com

Then join us at Chesapeake Systems on Tues., Jan. 31 from 6p – 8:30p for

“Tuesday TuneUp.”  Click here to find out more and register.

"The Church" 801 W. 33rd St., Baltimore

Food and beverage provided.

Plus seminar-”ettes” on tips for best ways to manipulate photos with your iPad.

Contact me with any questions.  See you there!

Chesapeake is a value-added reseller representing a variety of manufacturers (including Apple), and it is a systems integration firm that works primarily with media-centric clients to help devise solutions for their post-production, digital asset management and digital storage challenges.  Chesapeake likes to say, “Creative IT for the Creative Professional.”

I mention above that I have mixed emotions because while I am very excited about this new opportunity, I will certainly miss the camraderie with my colleagues at Video Labs . . . and most importantly, working with the many clients and contacts I have had the privilege to serve and meet over the past five years.

My last day at Video Labs will be Friday, Nov. 11, and I will begin my new situation at Chesapeake Systems shortly thereafter.

I am working closely with Video Labs CEO Mike Weiss (to whom I am grateful for the many opportunities for growth and learning I have had at VL) to ensure a smooth transition of my client accounts to my talented sales colleagues, Valerie Yoscak and David Tierney.  If you have any questions about your account after the 11th, please contact Mike Weiss directly at  sales@videolabs.net or 301-217-0000.

I have not yet decided how best to transform this website,  DavidRyanMediaSolutions.com, but it will be kept online for the foreseeable future.  I am talking over possible re-design ideas with my good friend and web designer/developer, Leslye Reaves, and I’ll keep you updated.

Oh, and “Mindy the Cat,” our loyal “spokes-feline” for this website, and sponsor of the “Mindy Discount” has asked if she could take a sabbatical in order to explore other career options . . . ones perhaps less demanding of her having to deal with the pressures of being an internet star.  I of course said, “Sure,” and I said I would work things out with her agent.

Mindy the Cat ponders her future opportunities

My email at Chesapeake Systems will be: dryan@chesa.com and the main office number is 410-243-1023.  My cell will remain 301-717-3747.

Again, it has been a pleasure to be of service.  And for those of you who may have need of Chesapeake’s services, I trust we’ll be working together again very soon.

Regardless, I look forward to staying in touch.

Best regards – David Ryan

Can you figure out what my Halloween costume is?  

First five who email me with the correct answer (email me at dryan@videolabs.net) get $20 off their next order >$250.

I will post answer here at 3p.  Happy Halloween! – David

UPDATE: The answer is: ”Netbook” — Thanks for playing!

During this drawn-out recession, I have had the opportunity to counsel over a dozen people within my media “network” who have been searching for new employment.  When I have my first conversation with someone who is “looking,” they usually already know that I work in sales, so I off-handedly ask them, “Do you have any interest in sales?”

The answers have been most interesting.  From production experts, engineers to senior managers, the typical answer is, “Uh, well, David, you know, my expertise really is in production,” or “I consider myself more of a behind-the-scenes type,” or “I tend to concentrate on the technical side of things,” and so forth.

Then I smile and reply that my question really was a trick.

Igo on to explain that any interviewer worth their salt is probably going to ask that question.  The most effective way to answer is to take a moment to pause in deep thought, then look the interviewer straight in the eye and answer, “Hmmm, isn’t everyone a salesperson?”

Bingo.  You can then steer the conversation wherever you like from there, whether you want to work in sales or not, but you have said the magic words that assure the interviewer you have a mature understanding of your role as a media professional.

In 1999, I attended an industry conference in Los Angeles.  At the time, I was in production management for a DC-based media company, but one of the workshops on Sales and Marketing that I participated in really resonated with me.

The session was led by Keith Hatschek, at that time a marketing expert based out of San Francisco.  Keith has since gravitated toward his first love, the music field, and he is now a professor of music management at the university level.

Keith’s session that day changed my outlook on business.  He asked the simple question that is the title of this article, “Is everyone on your team thinking like a salesperson?”

At that time, I regarded the internal workings of a media company as a dichotomy.  There was Production . . . and then there was Sales; it was just a given fact of business that the two sides would always chafe against each other.  I mean, as a production manager, I liked my sales counterparts, but in our professional roles, it seemed to me that we were suppose to act more like a checks and balances rather than as a cooperative team.

But Keith got me questioning that assumption.

He really hit home by instructing us to try something new.   He said, “When you get back to the office next week, call in your receptionist and say that you are giving him or her a new additional title, the title of “Vice President of First Impressions.”

He paused and let us think about that.  He then said, “And then I want you to continue that process with the rest of your staff, creatively changing their title accordingly.”

Upon my return to the office, I gave it a try, and it indeed had an impact.  I noticed fellow production and administrative support team members becoming more sympathetic and engaged in the company’s sales activities.

In fact, it became a turning point for me: I started to steer my career path away from production and toward sales and marketing.

OK, here’s this month’s “Call to Action:” Over the next few weeks, look around your work environment and ask whether everyone is thinking like a salesperson.  If not, why not?  And if so, what’s making that work?

I invite you to share your observations with me at dryan@videolabs.net I will of course keep all correspondence confidential, but I would like to do a follow-up column to this at some point.  Be assured, I will contact you for permission before including anything you share with me.

Til next time, “Stay Strong!”

(If you enjoyed reading this article, you might want to also read my article, “What is the Difference Between Sales & Marketing?” — fyi, that one is a .pdf download)

So it was about a year ago that I arrived at work and opened a new email that said,

“Are you the David Ryan who was on assignment with the Doctor Who team in 1983 that produced The Awakening story?”

I smiled.  With the age of the internet, I knew it was just a matter of time before they found me.

Let me digress.

Back in the 80’s, when I was working at the Denver PBS affiliate, KRMA-TV, I produced a documentary on the then exponentially growing popularity in America of the campy BBC TV sci-fi series, Doctor Who, which at the time was being aired primarily by PBS stations.  Aficionados of the series will recall that actor Tom Baker played the Doctor at that time.

Now, if you are not familiar with Doctor Who, the overarching storyline is about the adventures of a human-looking alien of the Time Lord race, known as the Doctor.  Time Lords have the ability to travel through the fourth dimension.  It turns out that the Doctor is sort of a renegade Time Lord and his time vehicle (aka a TARDIS) is in the shape of an old British police call box (that defies normal physics by being spacious with many passageways and rooms on the inside).

The Doctor and his companions constantly stumble upon crisis situations where they are called upon to intervene for good – not in a typical comic book super-hero manner, rather more in a quirky, almost geeky fashion.   And oh yeah, Time Lords don’t die, they just regenerate into a new body when the time comes.  (How convenient for carrying the series forward as lead actors change.  The series began in 1963.)

My producing that documentary about the series back in 1982 came about through a series of coincidences.  At the Denver PBS station, I was among the corral of on-air pledge drive hosts.  I had a knack (ok, zaniness) for successfully soliciting pledges during the PBS lineup of children’s programs and weekend special programming, shows like Doctor Who.

Pledges from the fans of the Doctor Who series turned out to be numerous, and the station figured they could further capitalize on the interest by having me produce a documentary exploring in more depth the appeal of the series and selling the resulting program to fellow PBS affiliates.

My crew and I went to Chicago to videotape at a Doctor Who conference attended by hundreds of fans (aka “Whovians”).  We also met and taped interviews with the show’s BBC producer at that time, John Nathan-Turner, and stars, writers and other personnel connected with the series who had “crossed the pond” to attend the convention.

The folks from the BBC were naturally very supportive of our documentary, both at the convention and in the months afterwards.  The program ended up being a big success, with lots of airplay here in the States.

Well, for a PBS television dude like me back then, having an “in” at the BBC was very valuable.  I had always dreamed of getting an opportunity to spend time at the BBC.  So I took advantage of the connections I had made with the Doctor Who team, and eventually producer John Nathan-Turner helped get me approved for one of the BBC’s professional exchange programs.

I was granted a leave of absence from my Denver station and was off to London for four months of observation of the production activities of Doctor Who.  Too cool!

I was also fortunate that a college friend and her husband had a house in London with an extra room located four blocks from the Doctor Who office and the nearby BBC Studios in Shepards Bush.  Excellent!

The Doctor Who team, for both the series and for the particular two-part program, “The Awakening,” (featuring Peter Davison as the 5th Doctor) to which I was assigned, couldn’t have been nicer.   John Nathan-Turner also arranged for me to have pretty much carte blanche within the BBC — and coolest of all, he allowed me to take photos of whatever I wanted pertaining to my activities with the Doctor Who series.

The Awakening - studio

And boy, did I take photos . . . predominantly color slides, because I knew they would be the best format at the time for giving presentations of my trip when I returned home to the States.  (Remember, this was well before digital photography, and making presentations projecting 35mm slides was state of the art at the time.)

When I got back to Denver, I indeed gave a number of presentations about my experiences to my colleagues at the PBS station and to various television industry trade groups.

And then I packed away those slides, along with the rest of my memorabilia from that summer experience, and proceeded on with my career, which included moving to the DC/Baltimore area.  Yes, I did remain in touch with several of the contacts I had made over in England.

The powerful reach of the appeal of the Doctor Who series was certainly made apparent to me one day in the mid-90’s when I was directing a satellite videoconference for a government agency in DC.  There in a TV control room deep inside a government building, one of the crew members hired along with me for the event, Al Faison (great guy and superb multi-talented tech dude and director himself, by the way), came up to me and asked, “Are you the David Ryan who worked with Doctor Who in the ‘80’s?”  Imagine my surprise.  Turns out he was (and remains) an avid “Whovian,” and he had read an interview in a fan magazine with John Nathan-Turner where my time spent with the series had been mentioned in passing.

Fast-forward another 15 years, (during which time I had further encounters with die-hard “Whovians,” including several here at Video Labs),  to the winter of 2010 when I started thinking that I probably ought to digitize  those slides I had in my possession.  So I began the tedious process of scanning.  Yeah, I had in the back of my mind that given the power of the internet and the on-going interest of the series, someone likely would track me down and ask if I had any memorabilia from the series — even though John Nathan-Turner had by now passed away and my contact with anyone from the 1983 production team had pretty much dropped off.

So then arrived that email last summer from a researcher for producer Chris Chapman of Dene Films in Newcastle, England.  Then Chris communicated with me directly.  Turns out the BBC has over the past few years been releasing episodes of Doctor Who on DVD, and The Awakening was now in line (or as they say in England, in the “queue.”)

Independent production companies, like Dene Films, are engaged by the BBC to produce the background special features to these DVD releases.  And sure enough, Chris and his team had run across production notes from the series indicating that a “Yank” named David Ryan from Denver had been allowed to take production stills.  Good ‘ole Google.  They typed in my name, “producer” and “Denver” and came up with my DavidRyanMediaSolutions.com website.

Chris asked whether I might still have any of those slides.  Needless to say, he was thrilled when I replied that I did, and after negotiations, I employed Dropbox uploads to send him a bunch of the photos I had taken those many years ago.

The result is a superb DVD.

Chris and his team deftly integrated my slides in to his background special features that contain interviews with the actors and production personnel connected with The Awakening, including director Michael Morris, who had been so gracious allowing me to tag along beside him back in 1983.

Yeah, it was gratifying seeing my old slides being put to such good use.

The DVD Chris sent me is a PAL version packaged with a second DVD of a story titled, “The Gunfighters,” featuring the original Doctor, portrayed by William Hartnell.  As far as I can tell by searching on the internet, The Awakening DVD is also available in NTSC as a single DVD release via Amazon and other online distributors.

After a hiatus of several years, Doctor Who is back in production today with Matt Smith playing the 11th Doctor and can be seen on BBC America and various PBS stations, including Maryland Public Television.  Storylines and production values have been enhanced many times over from when I was observing the series in the 80′s.  No longer can it be described as “campy” or “charming tounge-in-cheek” sci-fi.  No matter, I think it is great, and I have started watching it again after many years absence.  I highly recommend that you do too.

And oh yeah, lesson to keep in mind, keep those old photos.

Your comments are most welcomed.

Follow me on Twitter for more media news and info and exclusive steep, quick-turn discounts on our media replication and mutlimedia services.

Sure, it’s all positive, and I am most grateful to those who made those sincere comments.

But how about you?  Has your experience with me been favorable? 

I invite you to complete a quick 4-question survey.  You can certainly keep it anonymous.  Even if you do, you’ll see that you will still be able to get $20 off your next order for completing the survey.

As always, I appreciate the opportunity to be of service. – David  240-268-3504  dcryan7@videolabs.net

Follow me on Twitter for more media news & info you can use & exclusive short-term steep discounts.

As the quantity of my writing has expanded of late to include numerous blog articles, eNewsletters, magazine columns and eBooks, I am finding that I am drawing upon a new muse to further inspire my writing.

And it’s fitting to mention this as we near Fathers Day.  My new muse is my deceased father, John E. Ryan.

You may well ask why didn’t he influence me more when I was struggling with writing during my youth?  Well, it certainly wasn’t from his lack of trying.  My dad was a GE engineer through and through.  He would provide me with constructive criticism my writing, just as he would strive to receive concise and clear reports from his staff at GE.

My dad – with jacket on above – always encouraged his GE team to write clearly

But like any kid, I would roll my eyes, just as I did when he tried to get me to enunciate better,  use proper grammar, stand up straighter and practice my cello more.

When the Reader’s Digest arrived each month, my mother and father would test my brothers and me on the meaning of the words in the monthly vocabulary section.   Any words we didn’t know would be posted one at a time on a chalk board in our bathroom throughout the month.  (Believe it or not, I recall one of the words actually did show up on my SAT test).

But unlike Rick Sebak and Susanne Stahley (both mentioned in Part 1), I never became a true “bookworm.”  I think that really made a difference.   Both my parents and I read, but not incessantly.  So I just didn’t develop a strong appreciation for good writing.  Reading was ok, but I felt I was going to do just fine, thank you, with my hard work and engaging personality.

Fortunately, the schools today seem to have put a much stronger emphasis on reading and helping kids realize that it’s cool, and that it can be fun.  The schools seem to have also developed a concerted effort to teach writing skills throughout all the subjects, not just in English class.  I see how this has benefited my now graduating daughter, who, like her mother, is a very good writer.

But I digress.

You ask, “How is my dad inspiring me now to be a better writer?”  Answer: He is instilling me with a new-found passion to learn.

I may not have the technical aptitude that my father had, but as I have migrated into media sales and marketing over the past decade, my desire to be a better-informed salesperson has driven me to voraciously pursue improving my technical knowledge.  It just makes sense to do so.  It allows me to ”add value” to my sales equation, putting me several steps ahead of my competition.

As brilliant as my dad was in engineering, he also had a real knack in making science accessible  to the young and layperson alike.  He was an excellent teacher.

My dad could be a rather stiff engineer at times, but he also had a fun side to him, most notably evident when he played music.  He played violin, viola and bass superbly.

My Dad – playing bass above – had a blast with his music

And I saw that same flash of fun shining from his eyes whenever he got the opportunity to explain a scientific principle.  For example, I remember his enthusiasm while driving me to school on his way to work asking me if I knew why this or that was happening.  Like, “Hmmm, I wonder why there is fog on the road today, but not yesterday?”  He made his explanations so interesting and understandable that even a sleepy teenager in the passenger seat took notice.

Fast forward several decades.

It was a sad to witness my dad slowly lose alertness in his elderly years.  I remember vividly as he turned to me a few days before he was to go into a nursing home.  He said in his engineer matter-of-fact tone, “I know I am failing.  I tried to diagram a transistor this morning, and I couldn’t do it.”

My daughter, me and my father at his nursing home

My father passed away in Oct. 2000.

Rick Sebak and my wife Susanne inspired me to read more and to improve my writing.

I now also draw upon my father to add a pinch of passion and curiosity to the recipe.

So, if you feel you aren’t a good writer, or just don’t enjoy writing, I invite you to look around and find a muse or muses to inspire you.  They are there, you just have to open your eyes.

Oh, and Happy Fathers Day.

I welcome your comments below.

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If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy reading Susanne Stahley’s blog post on “Sharpen your Sentences.”

You might get by being a good salesperson without good writing skills, but marketing is  different.  It’s a more diffuse activity that requires succinct communication presented in a creative manner.

And what’s more, you have to enjoy writing, and look forward to it.  I know, that’s asking a lot for many folks.  But it’s a critical mindset.  If you don’t enjoy writing, you will find any seemingly rational reason to procrastinate.   And avoiding marketing will make your business anemic.

Here’s how I make it fun for me.  I jot down ideas and drafts of paragraphs throughout the week.  Then I finalize the blog on a weekend morning while sipping my coffee.  It’s turned out to be  one of my most enjoyable times of my week.

Also, if you enjoy writing, guess what, chances are it will infuse your writing.  I can’t tell you how many readers have said to me, “You seem to have a lot of fun writing, don’t you?”

It wasn’t always that way for me.  I struggled with writing throughout my youth.  Somehow I got excellent grades in high school.  I guess it was through just plain ‘ole hard work and a gregarious  personality.

But in college, the jig was up, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized all the criticism from my professors about my writing was valid, and that my quick dismissal of them being academic snobs was immature and totally incorrect.

Where did things go wrong?

Well, you could blame it some on the ever-changing way of teaching grammar as I grew up in the 60′s and 70′s.  Just as there was ”new Math” being introduced, it seemed that every year in my school (a top notch public school no less) there was some ”new” way to to teach English grammar.  The result was that many of my peers and I somehow fell through the cracks in learning the basics of good writing.

It wasn’t really until I studied Latin in college that I finally gained a good grasp of grammar.

What’s most ironic is that after muddling through college, I went on to get a graduate degree in Communications.  Sure enough, the professors finally put their foot down and made me take a  ”remedial” writing course.  So I got better, and I actually did pretty well in some journalism courses.  But my real love was in television production, and I felt I could succeed in the field with my “superb” organizational and leadership skills . . . and leave the writing to others.

Wrong.

It wasn’t until my second job as a producer and director at the South Carolina Educational TV Network that I realized the power of good writing.

I was teamed on several projects with producer/writer Rick Sebak, yeah, that now renowned WQED Pittsburgh-based PBS producer who has brought us many great documentaries about the quirky, wacky and intriguing side of our culture.

When I worked with Rick at SCETV, it was like a light bulb went on.

David Ryan and Rick Sebak in 1985

Rick and I became good buddies, and I soon learned that part of the secret ingredient to his success as a writer was that he had always been an insatiable reader.   He had his own book review spot on our station’s art program that I directed, and his enthusiasm for the written word was infectious.

I knew I couldn’t be as good as Rick, but seeing the confidence and influence Rick derived from his writing skills, not to mention the sheer pleasure, I made a commitment to improve my own writing.

I read more (Hemmingway became my favorite author), and I kept working on my writing, starting at first with the modest goal of improving my memos at work.

The years passed on, and I remained diligent in improving my writing.  A stint at hosting my own cultural magazine series at KRMA in Denver was another great learning environment.  Fortunately, my good friend and executive producer Kaye Lavine, (of whom I have written before) provided me with excellent candid constructive criticism.

And then there was my admiration of the clear yet creative journalistic writing skills of my sister-in-law, Jackie Ryan, (now a VP of marketing and strategic planning at a hospital and subsidiaries in Georgia) and Patrick Pexton, now ombudsman of the Washington Post.

But I’d have to say that the biggest influence on my writing after Rick Sebak was my future wife, Susanne Stahley, whom I first met in an editing room in DC.  She was a producer from LA at the time, and I had been assigned to off-line edit her PBS documentary pilot on Native Americans.

I had worked with a lot of producers by then, and so was rather ho-hum about first drafts.  But when Susanne handed me her first draft, I could tell within the first paragraph that this was different.  Not only was it well-written, it had a unique voice.

Susanne had an MA in English, and like Rick Sebak, had been an incessant reader all her life.

Susanne Stahley

In working with Susanne, I realized that while I had improved to being a decent journeyman business writer, there was much, much more room to grow.  One poignant lesson that I learned from her (and author William Zinsser of “On Writing Well,” – a book given to me by a former boss) is that there is no shame in editing your copy over and over.  “Relax, it’s ok,” she said.

Some twenty years later, I am still learning to be a better writer from Susanne.  She is now a producer for Maryland Public Television and our discussions have advanced from lively exhortations trying to get me to stop writing in the passive voice . . . to more sophisticated discussions on how to develop my own style.

Click here to continue on reading Part 2 of this article, where I talk about my latest writing muse.

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