“The Queen of the Business Lunch™” on Face Time
I guess everyone wants to know how I became “The Queen of the Business Lunch™” (a nickname my clients gave me). I’ll get to that in a minute. My book, “The Art of the Business Lunch: Building Relationships Between 12 and 2” has become a tremendously helpful guide for entrepreneurs and business professionals. And now, I want to help even more people through speaking engagements as well as endorsement deals.
I’ve been focused lately on helping businesses to build deeper, more caring relationships. Allowing others to really get to know you – even some of your vulnerabilities – is invaluable. My newest keynote presentation is titled, “B Face 2 Face 4 Success.” It’s spelled out like a text message because the very technology that was supposed to help us seems to have consumed us, instead!”
It’s apparent that creating new ways to generate quality face time is on everyone’s mind – from iPhone’s “FaceTime” software to American Airlines’ new business-class swivel seats for in-air face-to-face meetings as well as their offering air-to-ground calls on the new iPhone, to CISCO’s recent campaign: “Welcome to the human network.” Corporate America is going all-out to put us FACE to FACE with each other.
I can help companies drive the message home – whether that message is “Breakfast is the new lunch!” or “Take time to make face time,” or even “Connecting on a budget.” As a Business Relationship Expert, I show how to create the quality face time that can help individuals to achieve greater success and companies to connect more deeply with their customers and clients….even on a simple coffee date. Also, many people need help with how they are supposed to behave when they are – finally – face-to-face!
My colorful stories help people create more productive “face time” when out with their clients – from getting that first, all-important face-to-face meeting to building lasting relationships. The more people you know, the more people you can get to know. Everyone in your circle knows other people who may need your services or products. Successful professionals understand this and take mere networking or business meetings to a much higher, personal level.
Information about Business Lunch is IN DEMAND! Here I am featured in SERAI - a trend-setting Japanese magazine
I recently trademarked “The Queen of the Business Lunch™” since I’ve become so well-known by that nickname. If you are just getting to know me, you will appreciate that during my advertising sales career, I personally hosted more than 3,000 client lunches and saw my sales increase by more than 2,000%. I wrote my first book on the business lunch and building relationships to help other business professionals become more proficient at building productive business relationships, particularly by sharing a meal with their clients. I’m excited to share that the book was so popular that it is now available in twelve languages.
Now, I’ve taken the foundation of the principles in the book and expounded on them to apply to today’s tech-obsessed world, when a great business lunch isn’t always an option. There are many alternatives to a business lunch, especially for those who are on a seriously limited budget. I enjoy helping others to create quality face time regardless of their circumstances. Distance and limited money are no reason to stay behind your desk all day. Sometimes, we just need to get a bit more creative.
In “The Power of the Platform: Speakers on Life,” the newest anthology in “The Power of the Platform” series published by the Las Vegas Convention Speakers Bureau, I shared a story in about my friend, marketing consultant Phil Robertson. In discussing the importance of opening your home to clients, Phil shared, “Now that I think about it, I realize I’ve never lost a client who has been to my home for dinner!” Of course I was not surprised at all; candor and vulnerability can help your business associates to see you as a human being. Exposing your true self can help you to create even better business relationships that will, ultimately, pay even greater rewards – personally and professionally.
If you’d like information on bringing me in to speak to your organization or to inquire about endorsement opportunities, please e-mail me at Robin@RobinJay.com or call 702-460-1420.
Mad Men Returns; Time to Entertain Clients Again!
MAD MEN: Entertaining Clients is SO COOL!
Those of us who need a big, delicious fix of Don Draper and his entourage will finally get it when season 4 of MAD MEN premieres on AMC TV July 25th. Of course “The Queen of the Business Lunch™” will be watching to see how the development of the new start-up, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, progresses and how they go about romancing all the clients away from their former agency, Sterling Cooper. I anticipate that as the MAD MEN get busy romancing clients, there will be many business lunches and cocktails consumed over the course of the new season.
A visit to the MAD MEN website reveals everything you need to know about what has ALREADY happened on the show; there are few spoilers, if any. But, what you WILL find are recipes for 1960’s cocktails, blogs, fashions from the ’60′s, and even furniture from the era that gave birth to modern advertising. My background in advertising makes every scene that much more delightful, but my career as “The Queen of the Business Lunch™” makes me eat up every scene that has to do with socializing with clients.
In spite of the apparent “glamour” associated with the 3-martini “Power Lunch” and smoking cigarettes, be forewarned: it is NOT cool to get drunk in front of clients! Just ask Freddy Rumsen. Peggy Olson now occupies poor Freddy’s office and drinks from his private bar. It seems society expects us to be able to enjoy a drink or two, but that we should never let our liquor get the better of us. I can’t wait to see Peggy invited to join in on a client lunch. I think her character would bring a lot to “The Art of the Business Lunch”!
Client lunches are so much more sedate these days! Drinking in the middle of the day is typically frowned upon. Drinking in your office is almost never heard of. Yet we need to take our clients out to lunch and build solid relationships with them. We need to seize every opportunity for quality face time. Watch these MAD MEN get in trouble, as I’m SURE they will, and remind yourself that socializing with clients is as important as ever, but you need to take it easy.
MAD MEN is as tasty a treat as it gets. We now know so much more than we did back in the 1960′s. Too much booze will ruin your life, smoking is hazardous to your health, spanking your secretary on the bum will get you sued for sexual harassment, and we need to wear our seat belts. Perhaps our coming of age and today’s era of knowing better – and having better ways of networking - is just what makes this show so decadent.
Is Drinking for Business a Bad Idea?
The July edition of Entrepreneur features business bars
I’ve let most of my magazine subscriptions expire; I’m too busy writing to read articles other than those online anymore. But the ONE magazine I kept was my favorite: Entrepreneur. I remember the first time I read a copy, I thought to myself, “These are my people! This is the magazine for ME!”
I’m having second thoughts after seeing the July issue, however! As “The Queen of the Business Lunch™” I am often asked about drinking alcohol when out with clients. I caution my audiences to take it easy, to NEVER have more than one drink at lunch, two with dinner. I tell them to arrange for a taxi or other transportation if they are planning a bigger celebration and think they may drink more. AND – most importantly – I ALWAYS caution against getting drunk in front of clients. Sure, eating before drinking can help keep you from getting very drunk; a belly full of food is sure to slow the effects of alcohol – especially compared to drinking on an empty stomach.
I was STUNNED to read the advice in this issue of Entrepreneur Magazine with regard to drinking for business. Before my book, “The Art of the Business Lunch” was published, I came across a book called “Power Lunching” which, when – for strictly entertainment purposes, I read excerpts from it at my presentations, audience members guessed it was from the 1930′s. “Power Lunching” was actually published in 1983, although the advice it gave was horrifying. Foods and beverages were categorized as being either “Power” foods or “Wimp” foods, much along the line of “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche,” – quiche, of course, being a “W” for wimp food.
In E. Melvin Pinsel and Ligita Dienhart’s book, readers were told that for a power lunch, they should order a drink that would convey dominance, such as scotch, bourbon, gin martini, vodka martini, any whiskey served “neat” or with a simple mixer, or club soda. The authors warned that the following drinks would put you in the “wimp” category: whiskey sour or any drink served with fruit or vegetables, Perrier, Coke, Tab, 7-Up, or “any fancy mixed drink such as a daiquiri or Mai Tai or anything with an umbrella.”
While encouraging their readers that it’s okay to enjoy a round or two or THREE with your clients … even to go ONE MORE drink than your guests, they also warned about getting drunk. I don’t know how you can have two drinks before lunch and NOT get drunk! But I digress.
The point of this rant is that poor Melvin and Ligita wrote their book at the end of the ’70′s, before MADD had judges thrown off their benches for being too lenient toward drunk drivers and before public drunkenness, sexual harassment lawsuits, and women’s lib put an end to the social acceptance of all this craziness. Watching “Mad Men” on AMC is engaging because it is hard for most of us to remember that the work place ever really functioned as it does at Stirling Cooper, the fictitious ad agency that boasted bars in offices, “eye openers” for breakfast, and business executives heading out for nooners after 3-martini lunches.
So WHY is Entrepreneur touting bar meetings in 2010 and encouraging business executives to drink “power” drinks like scotch in order to discuss business? I don’t get it … and I could not be more disappointed. I think they were merely trying hard to be cutting-edge cool. And, I’m afraid an “influencer” like Entrepreneur might just encourage some young eager beavers who are not confident enough on their own to take the magazine’s advice and end up with a business mess or possibly a life disaster on their hands. Their cover story seems like a giant leap BACKWARD for progress.