Funny motivational speaker and funny emcee Bob Garner “WOWS” another client at their annual National Convention.

Bob reads minds and gets the audience laughing and involved. Bob was the kick-off speaker, as well as the emcee for the “Spirit Contest,” and then delivered an empowering keynote to wrap it all up.

The result: “Bob Garner astounded our audience… A standing ovation!” Check it out.

If you’re looking for an entertaining motivational speaker who actually has something to say; if you’re looking for a funny emcee who can keep your event moving and energized; if you’re looking for a speaker who will deliver the “WOW” factor, then you need Bob Garner. Go to http://www.bobgarner.com .

Please take a moment to watch and share this video from Heaven Can Wait Equine Sanctuary for Healing and Learning.

This group saves abused and abandoned race horses and their offspring, as well as other horses, donkeys, and mules. How some people treat these animals for work or sport is disgusting and criminal and Heaven Can Wait is trying to help these creatures live a peaceful and loving life.

She also provides programs for cancer victims and survivors, children with learning disabilities, autism, and more.  As you can imagine, the cost to treat, rehabilitate, house, and care for these abused and abandoned horses is HUGE!

If you love animals; if you love horses; if you watch or participate in horse racing, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to http://www.heavencanwait.us or at the very least, share this video on Facebook, Twitter or on your blog.

I have been working with sales reps in a variety of industries for nearly 30 years. Generally speaking, they’re a congenial group of outgoing people who understand that they are essentially entrepreneurs – they’re in charge of their own success. Additionally, they are “thick-skinned” due to the heavy amount of rejection that they receive from customers. Even though customers can make them angry (that’s part of the game), from my research what also makes them angry is the treatment they receive from their own company. (You know, that same company that shouts “We need teamwork” at sales meetings.) Here are the 4 top ways a company can anger its sales reps – which reduces morale, teamwork, and profits – and how to stop doing that.

1) Don’t Pay Them on Time: There is no excuse for companies to not pay their reps on time. You expect your customers to pay their bills on time. The rest of the employees and those in the C-suite also expect to be paid on time. So, why would anyone think that you should not pay those who are “bringing home the bacon” for the entire company to be paid on time? How to stop it: Ask reps if they’re having problems being paid and fix the problem. Again, there is no excuse.

2) Mess With Their Territory: Some sales managers love to sit around and rearrange territories like it was their own personal serfdom. True, sometimes adjustments are needed if some reps aren’t pulling their load; however, oftentimes, it is just done to “shake things up,” which is ridiculous. Since all sales are based on relationships, you can’t develop a relationship if you keep changing the players. How to stop it: With the exception of a low performing sales rep – let your reps alone to build their relationships.

3) Give Them Little or No Support: A sales reps goes out and does his/her job and then transfers responsibility to fulfill or maintain the order/customer, as they are supposed to do. However, when support fails at their job, who gets the blame? The sales reps. Who loses the sale? The sales reps. Who doesn’t hit their numbers? The sales reps – due to no fault of their own. As many reps have told me, “Why do they drive teamwork down our throats, yet put up with the lack of teamwork from everyone else and do little about it?” How to stop it: Talk to your reps and find the “weak links” in the support chain and fix it. Again, no excuses.

4) Smother with Paperwork: Bottom line: When you add a lot of paperwork to a reps job, you slow them down. I have seen some of the paperwork that reps had to complete and much of it makes no sense. Not to mention, when the person who gets that paperwork – an employee who is not commissioned based – loses it, then everything has to be resent, etc. Wasted time equals wasted sales, which equals low productivity and profits. The sales team is the blood that makes the heart of the company pump, and when you clog the flow to the heart of the company with reams of unnecessary paperwork, you kill the company. How to stop it: Find ways to reduce the paperwork, so that reps can do what they are hired to do – sell, not fill out tons of paperwork.

These are the top 4 ways you can anger your reps and the beginning steps that sales managers and other executives can take to stop it.

As a funny motivational speaker who speaks to companies on performance and productivity, I have, as mentioned, spoken to hundreds of reps and these are the issues that frustrate them the most. For more ideas on improving sales, performance and company-wide productivity, visit my funny motivational speaker blog.

©2011 Bob Garner. All Rights Reserved. You may use this article, but you must use my byline and author resource.

Setting out to succeed with your own business requires managing your time well. If not done properly, not only will you waste time and not efficiently achieve your goals, but you may also find yourself losing clients, money, and/or possibly even the business, itself.

Here are three simple steps you could take in order to manage your time more effectively.

Step One: Develop a Plan of Action

You need to know what you want to accomplish and the time frame in which you want it accomplished. Developing an overall plan of action will aid you in achieving your goal. So, begin by writing down your primary goal and then writing down what steps you need to take in order to realize that goal. It sounds so simple, but most people don’t do this and become distracted and waste an inordinate amount of time. So, do not make the mistake of disregarding this important point.

Step Two: Develop a List for Each Step

Take each step and compose a list of smaller steps you may need to take in order to achieve each step. (Think of them as sub-steps.) This will help you tackle each step correctly and systematically. Additionally, you won’t forget or overlook something important and then have to go back and fix what you missed. You don’t want to overlook this, because fixing a mistake can cost you time, as well as money.

Step Three: Complete Each Activity

Finally, when focusing on managing your time, you’ll want to make sure and complete each step – and all the sub-steps. Set aside some time each day to review your plan and your steps. Examine what you did or didn’t do and make adjustments. Don’t be too hard on yourself – everything takes time. Remember that even if you only complete one or two steps a day, each accomplishment brings you closer to achieving your goal.

Keep in mind that your goal is about improving some aspect of your life – financial, physical, emotional, etc. And as long as your goal does not harm another living being – or creature – then it is a worthwhile goal and one in which you should make all attempts to achieve.

Successful entrepreneurs understand the importance of managing their time and follow a system that aids them in achieving their goals as quickly and efficiently as possible. They also understand the importance of actually “doing the work” to complete each step along the path to their goal. By following the above three steps, you will use your time wisely, cut down on distractions and time wasters, and systematically move closer to achieving your goal.

As a successful entrepreneur for nearly 30 years, I know these steps work. You can find other ideas to help you build your business and achieve goals on my funny motivational speaker blog . If you’re looking for a funny motivational speaker who actually has something to say, you can also check out my motivational speaking site.

©2011 Bob Garner. All Rights Reserved. You may use this article, but you must use my byline and author resource.

As a funny motivational speaker, I oftentimes wrap up a sales conference, which means that I have to sit through other presenters before I go on. At a recent sales meeting,  the Director of Sales was the last speaker before me and he was going talk about teamwork and how important that is to the overall success of the company. After presenting some valuable information on how all the reps needed to work together as a team,  he moved into speaking about the new sales incentive program and turned to a large flip chart and flipped the front page over. On this large chart was a picture of a race track and a bunch of horses. In place of the horses heads were pictures of the sales rep’s faces. Each horse was at different points on the track and the Director of Sales stated that each sales reps was responsible for hitting a specific goal and that depending on where the horse (sales rep) was on the track would determine who was closest to winning a cash prize.

My jaw hit the floor! Was this the same guy who just a moment ago talked about teamwork? You know, let’s all work together and help each other out… Well, any thoughts about teamwork flew out the proverbial window. (I mean when was the last time you saw a horse race where all the horses worked together?)

A sales incentive program, an employee incentive program or another incentive program for another group within your company, can either be productive or counter-productive. In my opinion, the race horse idea is definitely counter productive and is a good example of a close-ended incentive program. A close-ended incentive program has a specific number of winners and will leave the rest feeling demoralized. Many will give up or not even start the program, because they don’t feel that they could win.

An open-ended incentive program rewards everyone who reaches the goal, as well as everyone else who didn’t. The following are 6 steps that you can use to create an open-ended sales incentive program, employee incentive program or any incentive program for any group where you want a team approach to achieving a goal. I call it the 6 D’s:

1) Define the goal. What do you want to accomplish? (Make more sales,  improve safety, heighten customer service?) Don’t make the goal to complicated and eliminate as many obstacles to success as possible.

2) Decide if the program should be set-up for individuals or groups. Groups always seem to work better; however, it depends on what the goal is and how many people will be participating

3) Determine the prize. Will it be cash, gifts, or how about a company wide event where all can attend and have fun and the winners receive something nice, but not “over the top?”

4) Develop a system of measurement. How will you measure involvement and any improvement? Is you sales incentive program just for a certain level of sales reps or is everyone involved? Does your employee incentive program just focus on one or two departments or is it company wide?

Make sure that everyone who is participating knows the rules ahead of time and that all agree the goal and the system of measurement is realistic. Allowing for participation in the overall decision process is not only effective for morale, but also insures that everyone is in agreement, before the program begins, that the goal is a valuable one, the rules are fair, and the prize is worthwhile.

5) Declare a start date. Let your team know that the incentive program will be starting about a week or two before the actual start date and get people excited about participating. This also gives participants time to develop ideas and strategies.

6) Dedicate your time to help everyone. Get other leaders at your company involved and have them provide encouragement to all and keep everyone motivated. Don’t make this a “you’re on your own approach” by those in the C-suite. Leaders are supposed to provide encouragement and guidance not stand back with their arms crossed waiting to see how the teams will perform. If it’s a sales incentive program then there needs to be more involvement from leaders in other departments. If it’s an employee incentive program, then all department heads need to be involved.

If everyone will be rewarded and the prizes for the actual winners are not to outrageous, not only will everyone have fun, but also the teams will know that no matter who actually “wins,” the goal will be reached, and that you, as well as others in the C-suite, have noticed what everyone has accomplished – and that all of you are grateful for their hard work and dedication to achieving the goal.

Sales incentive programs and employee incentive programs are a great way to achieve goals, but you have to not only be careful as to what program you choose, you also need to be mindful of how it will be perceived by those actually having to do the work. The 6 D’s, will help you create an open-ended incentive program that will allow you to achieve an important goal, as well as increase morale.

Any incentive program is about achieving goals in a fun way. Unlike horse racing where only one horse is the big winner, unless you want to foster negative competition and bad feelings when the program is over, leave the horse racing to the race horses and let everyone who participates in your program be a winner.

Showing a 10-12% increase in employee productivity is just one result that you can expect when you conduct an employee incentive program correctly. My funny motivational speaker testimonial will prove to you it can be done, as will my other funny keynote speaker videos for sales incentive programs.

©2011 Bob Garner. All Rights Reserved. You may use this article, but you must use my byline and author resource.

Have you ever had a problem that you just couldn’t work out? It kept bothering you and you just didn’t know what to do. It felt like the problem was engulfing your thinking and you couldn’t get it out of your mind. You thought constantly about your problem and talked to others about it. You were in pain and were suffering. It felt like your problem was destroying your life.

Finally, you couldn’t take it any more and decided you needed a break, so you sat down to watch your favorite television program. For the next hour or so, you were completely transfixed by what you were watching. Then, when you turned off the television, your problem popped back into your mind and you started worrying again. Does that sound familiar?

Now, I have one question. While you were watching your television program, where did your problem go? It didn’t go anywhere. You made a choice to not be upset about the problem – at that time – because you were thinking about something else. What does that tell you? It tells you that you had a choice as to whether or not to be disturbed. It also clearly showed you that your problem really had no power over you, except the power that you gave it.

When you give a  problem the power to disturb you, the problem controls you. By not being willing to allow it to control you – you control the problem and, in short, take back your power. You can learn to control your problems in two ways.

Firstly, you can begin to control a problem by observing it. Albert Einstein once said that you can never solve a problem on the level it was created. In other words, you have to get “above” your problem and you do that – like a scientist would view a problem – through observing it.

Observe your problem without getting your emotions involved. Look at it as an outsider might view it. Ask yourself, “What is the main issue of this problem?” “Why am I disturbed by this?” “Why do I need to feel this way?” See yourself as separate from your problem, because you are.

Remember, your problem is only an experience that you are having – it is not who you are. Understanding this allows you to ask questions such as, “What can I learn about myself from this experience?” or “What can this experience teach me?” The answers will allow you to discover more about yourself and aid you in diminishing not only this problem, but also future problems, as well.

Secondly, oftentimes, through the correct observation of your problem, an amazing thing occurs – you are given an answer via your intuition. Many of the conflicting feelings you have over a problem are due to thinking that you have a choice. You think, “If I do this, this will happen and if I do that, that will happen.” Actually, neither is necessarily correct. There are a lot of outside variables that come into play – with regard to any decision – of which you have no control.

Instead, through observation – unclouded by emotions – your intuition is given access to your conscious mind. Understanding that your intuition is a combination of your past experiences, combined with current information, blended with that Divine Spark – that special something – you need to let it “come through” and then, you need to listen to it.

As the actor Alan Alda once said, “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful…”

If you’re tired of allowing problems to control your life, try these two steps. Discover the power of being in control of your problems, as opposed to your problems controlling you.

Bob Garner is a funny motivational speaker who actually has something to say. With clients worldwide, Bob is recognized as an entertaining motivational speaker, as well as an author and syndicated writer.

©2011 Bob Garner. All Rights Reserved. You may use this article, but you must use my byline and author resource.

A young man stood at the entrance of a dark and gloomy cave which was believed to harbor treasures that would provide abundance to anyone who dared to enter.  It had been said for thousands of year that this treasure existed, yet there was no scientific proof that – even if there were a treasure in the cave – this treasure could actually do what was believed it could do – provide abundance. The only requirement to enter the cave was to give up your old way of thinking and old ways of doing things and plunge into the darkness and experience the treasure.

The young man thought about it for a while. He wondered, “Could I give up my old ways?” He was fearful, yet he decided that he wanted to change his life and took the step to enter the emptiness and darkness of the cave. He walked in … and found the treasure that he was seeking.

The cave is a metaphor for the darkness … the emptiness one must face in order to change one’s life. The giving up of old ways of thinking and old ways of doing things represents letting go, creating a vacuum for new experiences in your life. What stops people from entering the cave and realizing the treasure that awaits them in the form of a new life is their unwillingness to let go of their old ways.

You have to get rid of something, before something better can come along. If you want to have more abundance, then you need to discard of all your clutter and things that are stopping you from achieving your abundance. If you want more satisfying relationships, then you need to discontinue unsatisfying relationships. If you want more opportunities in business and life, then you need to rid yourself of poor work ethics, unsupportive people and negative situations.

People don’t want to abandon their current beliefs, thoughts, and actions, because those things actually make them feel safe – even though they also inwardly make them feel miserable and incomplete. But remember – before you can have something new, you have to rid yourself of the old.

The emptiness – that vacuum – will fill up. But with what? This is the crucial point where you must think and act correctly, because this is where the change happens. For example, if you believe that just by dumping your old abusive boyfriend that you will find a new wonderful, non-abusive boyfriend, you are mistaken. Why? Because you haven’t changed the “true void” that the vacuum will fill, which is you and the way you think. You will move from one bad relationship to the next, because the only vacuum you have created is for another bad relationship.

However, should you begin to work on yourself and start to change from one who always needs a relationship; one who only feels complete only when they have someone in their life; one who feels it is their job to fix, take care, or change another person to one who is happy with being alone; one who is content to work on improving themselves mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially, and one who no longer has the desire to rescue or change anyone – then the old boyfriend will disappear and a new and improved version will have the opportunity to enter!

It’s about creating a void, then choosing to fill it correctly. The reason why you don’t realize abundance in your life is because you are still attached to your old ways and old way of thinking.

The great teacher and author Joseph Campbell once said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Do you have the courage to walk into the cave of emptiness and let go of your “old”? Do you have the courage to be empty? Should you walk into that cave, you won’t really find emptiness; instead, you will find the treasure that you seek.

Bob Garner is recognized as a funny motivational speaker who actually has something to say. As a successful entrepreneur for nearly 30 years, Bob combines solid business principles with psychological and spiritual insights and speaks to the audiences of Fortune 1000 corporations at meetings and events, worldwide. When companies look for a fun motivational speaker who can also deliver a message, they turn to Bob Garner. To listen to Bob deliver this article via his free spiritual podcasts go to http://www.bobgarneraudio.com/.

©2011Bob Garner. All Rights Reserved. You may use this article, but you must include my byline and my resource box.

Do you know someone who has had a near-death experience (NDE)? Many of those who have had a NDE stated seeing a tunnel with bright lights and deceased family members coming to greet them.

Many scientists play NDE events down, proposing that they are due to a lack of oxygen to the brain and usually happen just before someone loses consciousness. They point to fighter pilots who experience the same phenomena when they become unconscious due to flight acceleration, as well as the lack of being able to reproduce the near-death experience in a controlled setting.

While understanding the position of these scientists, I have always been intrigued by the stories I have heard from others about their NDEs. As a mentalist, I have studied psychology and the paranormal and have always hoped for some explanation about NDE events.  Therefore, I was stunned when I read the book, “The ESP Enigma” by Diane Hennacy Powell, MD, where she reports on a controlled experiment on NDE.

Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist who conducted an experiment – with permission – on a patient who was going to have a brain operation. Under very close observation, the operation involved lowering the patient’s body temperature to 60 degrees. Her heart and breathing stopped and her brain waves stopped on the EEG. Clinically speaking, she was “brain dead.”

Additionally, to perform the operation to remove a life threatening aneurysm from the patient’s brain – which was successful – all of the blood had to be drained from her head.  Unclinically speaking – she was dead.

When she regained consciousness after the operation, she spoke of her experience and related seeing a tunnel, bright lights and her deceased family members coming to meet her.

She also reported what was said and done by the operating staff during her operation, even though her eyes were taped shut and she wore earplugs specially molded to her ears to prevent her hearing anything subconsciously. (This is referred to as an out-of-body experience or OBE.)

No heartbeat; no breathing; brain dead and no blood in her head, yet she experienced something amazing. And since she was able to relate what was going on in the operating room when she was “brain dead,” this provides an argument against scientists who feel that people experience NDEs immediately before losing consciousness. It also, in my opinion, provides an argument for those who have experienced OBEs while not being dead.

With no blood in the head and no brain waves, this patient experienced her deceased relatives coming to meet her.  It couldn’t have been in her imagination, because she didn’t have one at the time of her operation – because she was brain dead. Fascinating.

If you want to read more, pick up “The ESP Enigma – The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena.” It’s an eye-opening book and filled with well-dcoumented information.

If you have stories of your own NDE or OBE, send them along to me or comment below.

According to the book, “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation,” by psychologist Robert Provine, laughter is all about creating social interaction – social bonding. Most meetings provide dry speaker after dry speaker and leave the networking and social interaction aspects of the event to the cocktail hour, dinner or an exhibit area. By following this format, you leave behind a crucial component to creating social interaction – laughter. That is one reason why having a funny motivational speaker at your meeting can help you boost networking and social interaction at your event – laughter increases bonding.

A reason that laughter creates a unique opportunity to bond is because our desire to laugh is primal. Evidence suggests that the mechanism to laugh is located in the brain stem, which controls other basic functions. When a group of people laugh together, you are tapping that primal behavior and providing an outlet for not only a release of that function, but also a way for a group of people to act as a cohesive unit, which is also a basic desire of humans.

Using a funny motivational speaker during a meeting aids event planners and meeting planners in not only providing a primal and powerful outlet for social interaction during a meeting, but also encouraging further networking and social interaction after the meeting at cocktail receptions, dinner, etc.  Audience members now have something in common and a topic, beyond the reason for attending the meeting, about which to speak.