An Open Letter to
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Harris Gaffin
Owner, Harrisfromparis.com Clover, South Carolina USA |
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My purpose in writing is to tell you that I have decided to launch a new online training workshop series.
The workshop will be live and will take place every week. It will be called, "How To Tell Your Story" and its purpose is to train start-ups, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and sole proprietors effective communication skills. In other words, how to tell your story. Ever since I first started my career in the 1970s as a feature photojournalist, writing and photographing about offbeat small business owners and entrepreneurs, I have been thinking and dreaming about the possibility of starting a training series to help them tell and sell their story. This has never been done before. Usually, teachers are not actively doing the things they are teaching others to do. The reason for this is that teachers are required to take all kinds of teaching courses. If they are already successful at their profession, they often wonder, “Why do I need to take courses in something I already know how to do?” So in the field of communications, for example, most teachers are teaching, and are not actively working in the field of communications. What compounds this problem is that to be a teacher, you need a degree in your field of expertise. So Microsoft creator Bill Gates could not teach a course in computers and Olympic star Michael Phelps could not teach a degree course in swimming. That's crazy. In a college course, students must spend a fortune to study. And almost no teenager, in fact, can afford to earn enough from their jobs with their limited experience and skills. It requires parental savings, expensive government loans, a very heavy burden all around. However, thanks to the internet, so many new options have arrived. And so much training can now take place for free. But because it is free, there are many imposters offering often worthless advice. Then again, those same opportunities are available to professionals who can get the word out although you need to setup an infrastructure with lots of self-promotion. And as the competition gets more and more intense, you need more and more experts to guide you through the maze of promoting your own business. I’ve been lucky in that most of the communication skills needed today are the same skills needed back when. Namely, good writing, photography, and more and more, video production. If you check around my website, you’ll see that I’ve been involved in all these skills professionally almost all of my life. So now I would like to continue to create with my lifelong training of writing, speaking, photography and video. But much of the work I have done in the past has not only been creating feature stories but also producing training films and manuals for clients. I am launching my own training series and this is the first of many courses. For example, the workshop on video production is complete and is now being prepared in course form. There’s a photography workshop scheduled for release in a few months. But this first one will be launched in just a few weeks. It starts with the basics: writing and speaking. The purpose is to make sure that you have a very clear message about who you are, what you offer and why your goods and services should be the first choice of those who seeking what you are offering. I am very proud of this workshop because it has achieved wonderful results for those who have attended. In the past, I have given workshops in Sweden, Japan, China, Indonesia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and last year, I gave over 20 workshop in the United States throughout Los Angeles County. Those workshops were presented live and in person. This new series will also be presented live though I’ll be presenting them from my studio over the internet. My hope, therefore, is that we can find enough startup entrepreneurs, small business owners and sole proprietors willing to take a chance on us by taking this course. This would make it unnecessary to get a masters degree and teach in a university. It would also put you in a position to customize the training to your particular needs. We decided to put these hopes to the test. I am delighted to say that the first responses to our testing have been favorable beyond our most extravagant expectations. As a result, we are scheduling our first training launch at the beginning of January, 2017. |
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ABOUT THE WEBINAR The workshop is set up so that each student can work on their own project. Many of you will indeed have one that you can’t wait to get started. We will be working on helping you communicate effectively. But there’s a lot more and they all work together. You start by announcing your project goals. That is what you will be working on throughout the workshop. If you have trouble stating your goals, don’t worry. That’s what this workshop is all about, helping you write it and speak it. In English. I will then give about a 10 minute lecture. That’s very very short for a workshop but I strongly believe that you learn better by doing than by sitting and listening. So I have worked on this until I have made the communications skills that I want you to learn as simple and as easy to understand as possible. It may seem like a little information but wait until you try to do it. I can assure you it takes practice. I’ll be there to help you and so will the other people attending. Next, I will give you your first assignment. Write down and memorize your message ending. What you want the listener to do after they have heard your two line explanation of your business. Again, this takes practice. And support. Remember, selling is a lot about confidence and establishing a relationship so we will be covering speaking skills, interpersonal skills and of course English skills. The first hour of the workshop will be dedicated to helping you prepare the beginning, middle and end of a two minute presentation which you will deliver to the group in English. I have been a speaking trainer for many years and my method has helped build confidence to even the most shy students. Imagine the beginning of a sporting event. Ever notice how the professional athletes warm up? They toss or kick a the ball and you never see them worry how accurate they are. They are so relaxed. that’s how I train my students to be. We’re here to practice. And mistakes are not mistakes. they are guidelines to getting it right. Too much to the left or too much too the right. You’re talking too much or too little. So you get advice and adjust your technique. This is how you will develop presentation and communications skills in this workshop. So the workshop has two parts. Three parts actually. In the first part, I’ll provide learning techniques. On the second part, you’ll use those techniques to add to preparing a two minute message. that will cover the first hour. In the second hour, students will take turns delivering their message and then we’ll evaluate each talk, reviewing what parts of your message worked best and what parts could be improved to be better understood. I’ll provide my feedback and so will other students. My experience has been that by providing you with a very comfortable and friendly atmosphere, you will be able to test new techniques without any fear of making a “mistake.” don’t think of mistakes as bad. Think of mistakes as “practice.” You want to practice and test what works and what doesn’t. And I’m there to inspire you with this online communications training. |
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MY OFFER There’s no need to pay anything now. That can come later. What we hope will be an exciting adventure in improving your communications skills, especially your English communications skills. So the first step is simply to let me know that if you were to take my online training workshop, when would be the most convenient times for you. It will take place in your time zone. so by filling out this survey, I’ll be able to learn which time are the most convenient for the most amount of people. I will then let know when the workshop schedule has been finalized and at that time you are invited to pay and join. Sincerely, Harris Gaffin Harris from Paris |
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