Speaker to help business community achieve leverage

Registration deadline is Thursday

COLUMBIA BASIN — Leverage and astonishment are keywords for a guest speaker arriving in town next month.

On May 4, Darby Checketts delivers two presentations at Big Bend Community College's Wallenstien Theater.

A morning session from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. is entitled "Leverage for Leadership in Business and Success in Life," while an afternoon session from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. addresses "Customer Astonishment: The Commitment to World-Class Customer Care."

Each session is $45, plus the cost of Checketts' recently published books, "Leverage: How To Create Your Own 'Tipping Points' in Business and in Life," and "Customer Astonishment: 10 Secrets to World-Class Customer Care."

Both events may be attended for $80 plus $20 for two books. Teams of five or more may attend one session at a cost of $40 per person plus the option to buy a book, or both sessions at a cost of $75 per person plus the option to buy the books.

For his leverage session, Checketts pointed to ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, who once said, "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I could lift the world."

Checketts recommends the leverage session for anybody, including 12-year-olds, although he acknowledges the most likely attendees are people with a business focus.

"I like to teach people life is about be, do, achieve," he said. "Who do you need to be so you are prepared to do the things you know you need to do in order to achieve whatever you set out to do?"

One must have firm footing in life to have the right leverage to make the things happen he or she feels is important, Checketts added.

The customer astonishment session is about raising the bar beyond traditional customer service using a system he developed over 14 years.

"Let's go to another place where wow is almost guaranteed," Checketts said. "Unless you create that wow experience with your customers, customer loyalty is in question. Whatever businesses, communities, colleges or other associations like to think about their successes, the ultimate success for all of them … the ultimate crowning achievement in any business is customer loyalty, I do believe that."

Checketts shares an overview of the 10 secrets in his book at the session, which he recommends for professionals and managers looking to put themselves on the map as world class.

Point of contact and longtime Checketts friend Myrna Lea Houston called the speaker a master communicator, and said it's an exciting opportunity to bring him to Moses Lake.

"(Audience members are) going to hear a lot of 'Aha's, paradigm shifts, change in the way they look at things — certainly a change in the way they look at the customer and change of how they view service," she said.

Checketts hopes his audience leaves uplifted and possessing more possibilities and opportunities than they walked in with, and depart with practical, conceptual tools to use when they return to work.

"What Myrna Houston and Darby Checketts are bringing to Moses Lake is for real," he said. "This is about things that make a difference, principles and concepts I had literally taught to over 300 clients around the globe for a period of 21 years now. We're sharing the best of what we've learned. Archimedes was right. If we have people walk out that day feeling like 'I'm a little bit more of a world-lifter,' then we've succeeded."

For more information, visit www.DarbyChecketts.com. To attend the event, contact Myrna Lea Houston at 509-765-3650 or e-mail MyrnaLeaHouston@aol.com. Deadline to register is Thursday.