Beyond Infinity.

Saturday, 8/8/2015

As usual, witty TM Ahmad began the meeting with his sense of humor, telling us to not answer our phones unless it’s from our mother.

TM Ahmad addressing the audience. 

President and TM Pravena delivering her presidential opening.

After that, our President, TM Pravena, delivered her presidential opening. She welcomed our special guests today, CC, CL Eddie Lai, CC, CL Justin Ong, and CC, CL Thiiban. She then shared with us the special infinity symbol that represents our theme for today: 

Beyond Infinity

Then, dashing TM Bryan enlivened the crowd by initiating a thunderous applause and described in detail the history of Toastmasters Club. He then asked everyone to answer this question as they introduced themselves: if you could have an unlimited supply of anything, what would it be? Answers ranged from money, love, free education, time, to positive energy, opportunities, justice and ........ girlfriends.

 

TM Bryan as Toastmaster of the Morning (TOM)

TM Edward Boey was our Table Topics Master (TTM) of the day. As TTM, he asked for volunteers and we had our first volunteer from our very own club, TM Yi-Jia, sharing with us the hardest decision that she has ever made in her life. She explained how choosing her degree was possibly one of the hardest decisions she’s ever made. Rather than finding a solution to her problem, she came to terms with the fact that she doesn’t need to have one. 

Next, it was our second speaker and guest Simon who volunteered after much encouragement from TM Jack. He spoke about how he would make friends with a stranger.

TM Yi-Jia delivering her Table Topics speech.

Our second volunteer and guest,  Simon! 

Our third speaker and guest, Daniel, talked about how he wouldn’t want to live up to an infinite lifespan if he was the only one with the immortality to live. He shared about the scary moments of his mother’s last few years and seeing friends pass away. Fourth speaker and fellow guest Cheong Min shared with us her story about working at Starbucks and how she had learned a lot of things about coffee and customer service. 

Here is our third volunteer and guest,  Daniel. 

And here is guest Cheong Min speaking about her amazing experience at Starbucks! 

Lastly, we had our senior who has always been the backbone our club, TM Jack Ying, sharing with us the weirdest thing he has ever done, quite philosophically – scolding people on stage while people were still cheering for him. 

TM Jack Ying. (Love that stance, Jack!) 

Then we had really experienced Toastmaster, Eddie Lai, evaluating the Table Topics speeches. It was a really detailed and well-elaborated evaluation by Eddie. Thank you, Eddie.

TM and Table Topics evaluator, Eddie Lai.

After the break, it was poise TM Denise Th’ng’s turn to give her speech, “Better than Nothing”. She talked about going to the gym and working out. In her speech, she shared with everyone the purpose of working out. True, some of us are looking to improve our health, while some of us go for the emotional aspect of looking sexy or muscular! In order to make a change, you need to change your mindset – start small, which is better than nothing. Also, we loved how she incorporated some humor in her speech by complaining about our body part – the lower stomach: “Like, why are you even there! You are like a muffin from last year.” Great speech, Denise!

TM Denise delivering her speech. 

Our second speaker, TM James Kan, began with a really humorous opening. He talked about how he had his “first night”. Then, how he had “multiple nights” and how his “right hand” became his best friend! It was a series of jokes for dirty-minded individuals. He also shared his experience on online gaming where he defeated the online Filipino players. He then shared about asking a gamer girl whom he knew online to meet up with him. When they did meet up, he talked about how he had to drive her back and he drove really fast that he got the both of them into a car accident (oh dear!). She then left him, and he was left crying all alone in his car.

TM James Kan. 

Next, we had our very special guest, TM Thiiban, from Taylors Sri Hatamas Toastmasters Club teaching sales persons to make their sales, with his speech titled “Chase the Purchase”. He started off with an interesting act, writing a few words up on the board in capital - “DRAMA” and “CLOSE”. These would be acronyms to remember by while making sales. He shared how he sold 200 hoodies at his college in just 2 weeks. Here are some of his tips for aspiring sales persons/ marketers:

·       Only sell items that people need.

·       Engage in sales with them, and have an authentic conversation with your customer.

·       Let another person share your back-story with their friends or clients, as it will make you seem far more credible and believable.

·       Demonstrate your product whenever it is possible.

·       Hand out free gifts as it obeys the law of reciprocity; it makes customers feel obliged to give back.

·       Use arithmetic; show how the long-term benefit will be worth it for the cost.

·       Avoid words like “deal”, “buy”, and “purchase”. Instead, replace them with “own” as it sounds more positive and elicit positive emotions.

·       Sell benefits instead of features.

·       Assure your customer. For most people, the toughest problem is about parting with your money. You can confirm this by identifying with the customer, saying this: “I am an avid buyer myself, I do understand that, but the problem is money does reflect the quality.”

·       Question your customer with a series of “yes” question, which motivates the buyer to say, “Yes” to the purchase later on.

·       A way to deal with time lag is to give them an alternate choice. Such as, “why don't we meet next Tuesday, or Friday?” This way, they will have to engage with you and choose another time to meet up. (Essentially, they are still delaying the sales, but they have a timing for it)

·       Close the deal by allowing the customers to make small commitments which build them up to the purchase. “If you were to buy, what color do you think you would choose?” Also, share with them stories and testimonies from other customers.

Wow, we've sure learned plenty from TM Thiiban! 

We moved on to the evaluation session which was led by our general evaluator, TM Justin Ong. 

The first evaluation for the projected speeches was then done by our special guest again, TM Eddie Lai, who gave his humble feedback on our persuasive speaker TM Denise Th’ng’s speech. 

TM Bryan Wong’s turn to evaluate TM James’ speech came next. In his evaluation, he commented on how James Kan was absolutely entertaining with his catchy intro. 

Finally, TM Jack Ying evaluated TM Thiiban’s speech. In his evaluation, he applauded Thiiban for giving us a long and detailed sales pitch training. 

It was a joy listening to the evaluators’ comments and feedbacks, as well as them humbly and helpfully providing suggestions on rooms for improvement. Thank you, fellow evaluators! 

And of course, what is a meeting without an Awards Ceremony to reward our speakers for their tremendous courage, effort and passion to speak? 

For today’s Award Ceremony, the Best Table Topics speaker was awarded to TM Jack Ying, whilst TM Denise Th’ng won Best Speaker for the projected speeches. For the Best Evaluator award, it falls once again, to our dear TM Jack. He must be tired of winning! 

All handshakes ...

... and smiles! 

A job well done to our winners!

Today's meeting ended on a really positive note and vibe. We took away a lot of things to learn and experience to add to our already infinite amount of memories. 

We'd like to say a huge Thank You to everyone who was present today. 

And to our dear readers, 

thank you for reading! 

From the perspective of VPPR, Vincent Sar. Edited by Secretary, Woh Yi-Jia. Pictures by TM Edward Boey.

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Today's guests and their respective clubs:

Eddie Lai

Air Products Toastmasters Club at Bangsar South Horizon Tower 2A (Opposite Menara TM)

2^nd Wednesday – 5:30 pm

4^th Wednesday – 11:30 am

Thiiban

Taylor’s Sri Hatamas Toastmasters Club at Taylor’s Sri Hatamas Campus

Every Thursday – 4:30 pm

Justin Ong

Tan Chong Segambut Toastmasters Club at Tan Chong Factory

2^nd Wednesday & 4^th Wednesday – 5 pm

MII Toastmasters Club at Jalan Semantan 1

2^nd Tuesday and 4^th Tuesday – 7 pm