210: Donna Cutting | Customer Service

Donna Cutting is a Keynote speaker in the area of customer service. She provides insight on how to engage your team members to create a red-carpet experience for customers. She leads a team of customer service experts in her company, Red Carpet Learning, and is the author of "501 Ways to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Your Customers".

Donna's speaking career grew from sharing her expertise and then reading Dottie Walter's book "Speak and Grow Rich".  Dottie Walters was a founding member of the National Speakers Association (NSA) and founder of the International Association of Speakers Bureaus (IASB), so the information was especially useful for Donna Cutting.

One of Donna Cutting's signature stories started from an anecdote about something her mother did - and grew from there. Donna explains more in the Podcast - and also provides her thoughts on what needs to be a part of stories to work best for speakers and how to make them relevant for each audience. She goes into depth explaining how she does research for the stories for presentations. 

She also wants speakers to know that audiences are looking for implemental ideas - the "how to" - rather than only strategy and theory. Go ahead and be inspirational, but provide practical takeaways. She echoes Lois Cramer's thoughts on this topic.

On Speaking for Free

Donna Cutting suggests the topic of speaking for free changes if your business is more than speaking. She explains very specifically on why she speaks for free and when. She also says that newer speakers need to speak for free to get experience.

Connect with Donna Cutting on her website, Red Carpet Learning, and on LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Check out her book, "501 Ways to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Your Customers" on Amazon.

Alan says, "Don't show up ... and throw up!" Find out what he means by listening to this Podcast!