Since joining their Winter Park Chapter in February 1978, the Chapter has grown to 65 members and Toastmasters International has added 100,000 members and robust chapters in nearly every country.

Toastmasters International vision statement empowers people to achieve their full potential and realize their dreams. Through our member clubs, people throughout the world can improve their communication and leadership skills, and find the courage to change.

I joined to improve my public speaking skills but I stayed for 31 years because of the camaraderie and total pleasure I experienced from nurturing others to improve their communication skills. Lifetime friendships have evolved from my active participation in Winter Park Toastmasters. I met my CPA, travel agent, doctor, financial advisor and several business services-providers plus, many of my best social friends at the chapter.

My chapter has become my ‘learning laboratory’ where I have:

• Tested new speech material for my paid sales training seminars and workshops.
• Adapted skills from impromptu speaking venues to enhance my training techniques.
• Applied many communications tools to make my presentations more memorable.
• Acquired the confidence to communicate to 10 or 1,000 audience attendees.
• Learned how to apply humor to anchor my key presentation points.
• Expanded my vocabulary and broadened my appreciation of other languages.

How has my Toastmasters’ Training improved my phone-use skills? Every Toastmasters meeting agenda includes an impromptu speaking segment called Table Topics. During this portion of each meeting, members who aren’t scheduled to participate in the week’s meeting are called upon to speak extemporaneously. The meeting Table Topics Master calls on a member, who will stand and then be given a topic to speak about for 1 minute.

Now, 1 minute may not sound like a very long time but it can be quite daunting to converse on a topic one has had no opportunity to prepare, especially in front of a room full of members.

This impromptu speaking opportunity is excellent training for sales people who use the phone to cold call or who are conducting scheduled phone communications. Its excellent training that prepares one to think on their feet and to respond to the unexpected question or phone objection by the other phone party which often occurs during a phone conversation.

Toastmasters Membership is $95 annually, plus weekly chapter meeting dues and nominal fees for Toastmasters International Training Manuals. Weekly chapter attendees have the opportunity to polish their Table Topics skills where repeated practice leads to confidence and communications ease over time.

Whenever I have been exposed to sales training client sales people who lack communications skills or who shudder at the thought of using the phone to speak with strangers, I encourage them to attend a Toastmasters International chapter meeting in their vicinity.

Hands down, Toastmasters International training is the best investment to develop one’s communications skills. Once one becomes a chapter member, they will have the opportunity to learn, by doing, which is the most effective way to anchor their newly acquired learning skills.

Go to www.toastmasters.org to find a chapter and to participate in this wonderfully relevant and rewarding learning experience.

While you know me as author of this sales prospecting tips blog, you probably aren’t aware I’m also an eBay enthusiast and eBay Consignment Seller who achieved eBay Power Seller status in 2003-2007 by successfully mining a neglected niche market.

Like many eBay consignment sellers, after selling their miscellaneous household items, I was stumped with where to get inventory to fuel my weekly online auctions. Exhausting and frustrating visits to weekly garage sales and consignment shops annoyed me. My peers told me of their nightmare experiences with Drop Shippers. Nope, not for me!

FACT: Where can I get stuff to sell online? Is one of the most popular questions queried online Search Engines. Many of the unemployed, who once poked fun at eBay, are now giving it a serious second look as their day job, especially with Corporate America’s daily announcements of huge layoffs and hiring freezes.

Never one to let a challenge stump me, answering this question became my battle cry. One 2003 February Sunday, while sitting in church, the answer (answers) came to me.

The answers were sitting all around me. The answers were the retired seniors in my church family. Just suppose, I could figure out how to mine the real antiques and collectibles seniors stored in their attics, cellars and garages?  I bet some of them could even use the cash!

I did it and I was very successful at it! So, I wrote an ebook about my detailed marketing plan with all the fixings. Everything that worked for me, why it worked and, how to duplicate my success including free prospect list URLs and working forms are included in this 4 chapter ebook. I held nothing back!

The title of this week’s blog: Making “Real Money” on eBay is the title of the first reader review given my new ebook. I’m thrilled the reviewer saw fit to grade it 5 of 5 possible stars. Also, he placed it in the must-read category for anyone seeking to earn big bucks on eBay as a Consignment Seller.

This is the subject of this blog for these 3 reasons:

• The ebook is a near-perfect example of the marketing maxim: Find a Need and Fill It!
• My patriotic contribution for getting America’s Unemployed back to work.
• Unashamedly, I’d like to sell some ebooks at $18.95 each.

At hundreds of workshops I conducted around this country for 17 years, I always said: finding a need and filling it was the Number 1 Rule of Successful Marketing. Add the right timing of marketplace introduction, a product which solves a contentious problem; and, make it affordable. This is the secret sauce for a marketing success recipe.

Wouldn’t it be great if eBay once again became an American Success Story by putting Unemployed Americans back to work? Like the mythical, Phoenix bird rising from the ashes! What a hoot, if my little ebook had something to do with this happy ending.

To get your FREE Preview peek, downloadable to your PC, cell phone, smart phone, electronic ebook reader or PDA, go to: www.mobipocket.com and type: Gordie into the Search box at the top of the page.

It’s appropriately titled: How to Get Stuff* to Sell on eBay (*an Endless Supply of Real Antiques and Collectibles, NOT Drop Ship) and I think it does the Number 1 Rule of Marketing proud. Do you agree?