INSPIRATION
The MLM Toastmaster In 2012, Area 71 Governor TM Sathish visited the previous company that I worked for – McDermott in Chennai. AG Sathish conducted a demonstration meeting to showcase the benefits of Toastmasters for our management. The impressive speakers convinced the company leaders to start a corporate club. Due to my exuberant attitude and age, I was nominated as the Charter President. Then the task of finding twenty members fell to me, and I canvassed the idea to all my colleagues. With sheer dedication, I managed to find 20 members to start the Corporate Club called McDermott Toastmasters on January 11, 2013. After starting the club, I was entrusted with a bigger challenge. The management asked me to double the club strength. I grabbed every opportunity to talk about toastmasters and its huge benefits. Soon, I became a “dreaded” figure called the “MLM Toastmaster”. MLM means Multi-Level Marketing and is a concept where the salesman not only sells the product, but also recruits other people to become “sellers” for the product. As I talked to others, I realized that there were a lot of misconceptions about “Toastmasters”. One person asked me, “What kind of bread do you use for the toast?” and yet another asked interestedly, “Which wine do you use as toastmaster?” I decided to clear the misconceptions through a demo meeting. As I wrote invitations, I classified the people into three categories: First, the people who were not interested at all
TM Jothinathan, CC, CL TM Jothinathan is the backbone of the Smedley Toastmasters club and served the club as VP Education for the term 2014-2015.
He
motivated all the club members to complete their educational goals and
achieve
contributed
club to
the
points
that
President’s
Distinguished Status in 2014-2015. TM Jothinathan has completed his CC and CL manuals, and is working towards his ACB manual this year. He increased the club strength last year by over 10 members and still continues to bring at least one
Second, the people who showed interest, but were too busy
guest to every meeting. His efforts
Thirdly were the people who were extremely interested
every toastmaster who has ever
I abandoned the first category of people—people with no interest. And the third category of extremely interested people had already joined the club.
are applauded and commended by visited the Smedley Toastmasters Club.
I invited people from the second category to the demo meeting – people who showed interest, but were too busy. I hoped to persuade them to join Toastmasters too despite their busy schedule.
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