Roger Savy delivers high-energy, motivational talk
On June 27, 2018, Wine Women members and guests gathered at Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards in Sonoma for one in a series of career advancement workshops. Wine Women’s leadership seems to be keen on breaking the wine ‘bubble’ that we in the industry can easily get into, and has over the course of years invited speakers with refreshingly diverse backgrounds.
Roger Savy, our speaker for that night, comes from real estate business – he is the Director of Business Development and trainer for Pinnacle Capital Mortgage. He has also trained in clinical technology and has worked in local and international marketing and sales for thirty years. Roger is a coach, motivational speaker, and sales trainer but that’s not how he introduced himself. “I get people unstuck and when people are unstuck they suddenly realize they’ve got options. Clarity sets them free and they go ahead and thrive, and that makes me feel good.”
Between the introduction and the workshop title “Developing Natural Personal Power by Creating a Constructive Tension” our expectations for the evening were set very high.
During the course of the evening, Roger challenged us to do something new within the next 72 hours, played Mozart, summarized 340 books in five questions and repeated some of his mantras so many times that I can still hear them in my head several days later.
“Roger was a very exciting performer and motivator. He had a tremendous energy and he evoked people to remember his message”, said Lynda Paulson, one of the workshop participants, at the end of the event. Lynda is a public speaking coach and sales trainer with Success Strategies, so I wanted to hear her opinion. “He wants to disturb and stimulate people to get out of their box and do something different, like create relationships with people who are already in their lives”.
Relationship-building was indeed one of the central topics of the talk. “The machines are coming!” Roger repeated emphatically to then ask what we can do that’s “so intensely human” that will prevent us from being replaced by a machine. Well, these human things are empathy, caring and relationships.
Alison Kilmer, the founder of UppercaseTea, found this ‘digging deeper in the human side” of business a welcome reminder. “I’ve always been concerned that I’m a little too soft and I really appreciated the data, the statistics [in Roger’s presentation] as a validation that tapping into people’s feelings and emotions and being empathetic is a smart way to go”.
As a very practical advice, Roger suggested that each of us makes a list of people who have either entrusted us with money in the past or have been great advocates or ambassadors for our business. The maximum amount of people that one could have a meaningful relationship with at any one time in life is 150, and it is known as the Dunbar number. Once the list is done (even 20 people is a good start!), all we have to do is to spend half an hour each morning to contact six people on the list by either calling, texting, emailing them or sending personalized notes. “Do it for 90 to 120 days and watch what comes back at you,” urged Roger. “This is the beginning of developing your natural power.”
Julie Schreiber, owner of Chez Julies Wine Consulting, is sad that in her last job she worked so many hours (80+!) a week that she never had time for that personal connection. “Now I’m doing just that – trying to connect with people I have not seen in person since last summer.” Connecting with 150 people “is important either because you want to sell something or get a new job but also because you just want to improve your life outside of the narrow box. It’s really great, empowering thinking. And it only takes half hour a day.”
While I personally haven’t quite followed Roger’s advice to incorporate the new learnings within 72 hours after the discussion, I’m still proud to have beaten the law of diminishing intentions. 96 hours after the workshop, I’ve implemented my intention to resume writing for Wine Women’s blog. And I’ve learned a couple new names while compiling the list of books / authors that Roger mentioned in his talk. So if you’ve missed the event or want to explore the topics in more detail, here’s the list for further reading:
- Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, by Seth Godin
- Start with Why, by Simon Sinek
- Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation, by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
- Personal Styles & Effective Performance, by David W. Merrill, Roger H. Reid
- The Compound Effect, by Darren Hardy
Please learn something new today and revel in what Roger Savy says about women: “Their minds are more open, they are prepared to try, they have less of an ego, and they ask questions that come from the heart. I’m also acutely aware in general of their higher IQ.”
