Building a Personal Brand
(Follow the Good, Avoid the
Bad, and Prepare for the Ugly)
Bill Peeper, CEO (retired),
Orlando, Orange County
Convention and Visitors Bureau
Building Your Personal Brand
• Learn from the good CVB executives, the
bad, and prepare for the Ugly
• Know the external success factors friends to grow and the foes to know
What We Did & Why & Why You
Should Care
DMAI Education Committee Support
Interviewed Twenty Two CVB Executives
Divided into “more” versus “less” successful
Six Small CVBs – less than $2 million budget
Six Medium CVBs – $2-10 million budgets
Six Large CVBs – more than $10 million
Four Internationals – not categorized
Plus talked to: National Hotel Sales Executives
Meeting Planner Executives
Managing Destination Marketing
Organizations: The Tasks, Roles and
Responsibilities of the Convention and Visitors
Bureau Executive
Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
Chapter 2: Historical Foundations of the CVB Industry
Chapter 3: Importance of Mission in Aligning Everyone
Chapter 4: Governance
Chapter 5: Selling the Community
Chapter 6: Selling the Destination
Chapter 7: Managing the CVB Operation
Chapter 8: Managing the Marketing of the Destination
Chapter 9: Creating and Sustaining a Strong CVB Culture
Chapter 10: Communicating CVB Value
Chapter 11: Developing the CVB Executive
Chapter 12: Future Challenges for the CVB Executive
Personal Branding
(Wikipedia)
Personal branding is the process whereby
people and their careers are marked as
brands. It has been noted that while
previous self-help management
techniques were about self-improvement,
the personal branding concept suggests
instead that success comes from selfpackaging. The term is thought to have
been first used and discussed in an 1997
article by Tom Peters.
Why Having a Personal Brand is
Important to You
• Because my Hartford guy said so
• Everything that you say, do, and write
reflects on your personal brand and your
CVB and vice versa – that is, a CVB
executive that is branded as successful is
known as part of a successful CVB
• Successful CVBs result from the effective
practice of management
The CVB Executive’s Job
Imagine a job where you are hired and evaluated by one
group of people and funded by another. The group
evaluating you sees your work responsibilities as
properly focused on short-run, industry-specific results
because members of the group are themselves
evaluated on those results. But the group funding you
sees your work responsibilities as focused on long-term,
community-wide results as members of this group are
evaluated that way. To make this job more challenging,
imagine that neither group understands the perspective
of the other. The members of each group are
preoccupied with pressing issues in their own jobs and
tend to be ignorant of or indifferent to the other group
needs, wants, and political realities.
The CVB Executive’s Job
Finally, just to make this job virtually impossible, imagine
that the task for which you are hired and evaluated is to
sell an intangible product that is subjectively measured
and over which you have no control with respect to
pricing, quality, or quantity. And even if you persuade a
customer to buy the product, the organization that owns
or controls it may not want to sell it to the customer on
the terms the customer wants. In that situation you will
have to sell the product owner on the customer after you
have sold the customer on the product just to meet the
goals for which you will be evaluated!
What We Plan to DO?
Any questions you’d like us to answer?
Lessons learned from comparing the
Successful with the Less Successful CVB
Executives (Good vs. Bad)
A visit to customers and hotel partners
A peek into the future
The Good
Top Ten Things We
Learned from Successful
CVB Executives
The Good
1. Successful CVB Executives
engage their boards in
developing clear focused
mission statements. (They know
why CVBs were created and stick to their
knitting.)
The Good: A Successful
Executive Speaks
“If you ain’t booking the
business, the rest of it is
irrelevant because you aren’t
going to be there anyway.”
Small Market CVB Executive
The Good
2. Successful CVB Executives
make sure that everything they
write, say, and do is aligned
with the mission.
The Good: A Successful
Executive Speaks
“I think the mission statement is
used to a great degree. It doesn't
mean that we didn’t steer away
from it sometimes to our
advantage, but to a great degree
the mission and the
accomplishments went hand in
hand, people were pushed by the
mission, and I think that had a
great deal to do with our success.”
Large Market CVB Executive
The Good
3. Successful CVB Executives
don’t take trust and board
support for granted. (They keep
their boards engaged and demand formal
measurable evaluations for both them and
the CVB annually.)
The Good: A Successful
Executive Speaks
“My contract requires an annual review.
It also says if I am not given one it
means I am doing a satisfactory job
and I send a memo to the
compensation committee to remind
them of that. I also try to meet with
each board member at least once a
year to sit in their environment to hear
their concerns, questions, or
suggestions.”
Large Market CVB Executive
The Good
4. Successful CVB Executives
are communication fanatics.
They work hard to constantly communicate
their mission and activities to all
stakeholders (e.g., industry, members,
employees, media, funders, community &
especially board)).
The Good: A Successful
Executive Speaks
“I would say I spend 35% of the time out
of my office with customers and 65%
with stakeholders, hoteliers, board
members, restaurateurs, people who
are involved in the community that can
help move us forward…We like to keep
visibility locally at a peak level.”
Small Market CVB Executive
The Good
5. Successful CVB Executives
spend time with those that can
influence allocation of critical
resources (When they can’t be with
the ones they love, they love the ones
they’re with).
The Good: A Successful
Executive Speaks
“Running a convention and visitor’s bureau is
every bit as complex as running any private
sector entity. You have everybody grabbing
at you and everybody thinks they own you,
your leaders, your members, your
customers, your funding sources. And you
know what? You need to be able to make
each of them feel as though they do. I really
think there’s a mastery to that. You have to
enjoy doing that.”
Large Market CVB Executive
The Good
6. Successful CVB Executives
systematically identify key
stakeholders and seek ways to
engage them in their mission
driven activities.
The Good: A Successful
Executive Speaks
“ I try to spend a good deal of my time out of
the office either seeing hoteliers face-to-face
or attending meetings where I’m going to see
them. Also, I want to be out in the community
or talking to groups to get the word out
about the importance of this industry. I really
try to spend a good deal of time out of the
office. That's the most productive time for
me, because that’s where you’re swaying
opinion or reinforcing the importance of this
industry.”
Small Market CVB Executive
The Good
7. Successful CVB Executives
gladly spend time and energy
building trust with all
stakeholders. (They are known for
candor, openness, transparency, and
specificity in their answers. They avoid
secrets and surprises.)
The Good: A Successful
Executive Speaks
“…you need people to trust you, that you’re headed in
the right direction. Trust that you’re open about
where the money is spent. Trust that there is
influence other than my personal preference on
performance measures. People know that our
performance measures get set by the board and get
debated there and so forth….trust is maybe the
greatest asset a bureau can have. Because, and I’ve
heard this, they say even when we don’t think what
you’re doing is the right thing, we still trust the
bureau. But that’s not always there. It’s so easy to
lose the trust.”
Middle Market CVB Executive
The Good
8. Successful CVB Executives
seek out ways to measure
everything that can show their
CVB effectiveness to all
stakeholders. (They can prove what they
do and how well they do it so even the press
believes.)
The Good: A Successful Executive
Speaks
“We identified each of these things as to
what we were going to be doing. We
talked about how we were tracking our
efforts to deliver more in the market
place in a number of arenas…We had
very specific “here’s our measures and
here's where we are trying to move
them” statements.”
Large Market CVB Executive
The Good
9. Successful CVB Executives
set measurable goals for
everyone that works in their
CVBs and hold each team
member accountable for goal
achievement.
The Good: An Executive
Speaks
“I guess setting goals is a logical thing. We’re a very
performance driven bureau. We’ve got about 74
different key performance issues. That’s in part
because of accountability. We have very high
expectations. All measures are transparent. When
we wanted to set up the incentive program, we
became more focused on setting goals because you
want them to motivate people to achieve them.
There can be a stretch factor. We get some healthy
debate on setting our goals, but we’re pretty focused
on where we want to get to at the end of the year.”
International CVB Executive
The Good
10. Successful executives have a
passionate commitment to a
destination vision that
inspires all inside and outside
the CVB.
The Good: A Successful Executive
Speaks
“Good business leaders create a
vision, articulate the vision,
passionately own the vision, and
relentlessly drive it to completion.”
Jack Welch, Former Chairman, General Electric
The Bad
The Top Ten Things that Less
Successful Executives Did
that Helped Make Them Less
Successful.
The Bad
1. They think they own the job.
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“I think that the lessons I learned is
understanding the value of the
position. You really don’t own the
business. It’s not your business.
There’s a tendency over time to
forget about that and that’s a
lesson that I’ll never again
underestimate.”
Middle Market CVB Executive
The Bad
2. They don’t listen to the board
members that tell them they
need to do something that they
don’t want to do. (After all, they
are the professionals and you shouldn't
try this at home.)
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“You really have to have the approach of
being a rookie. When you’re a rookie,
everything’s open. You do everything.
When you become a veteran, you no
longer have a rookie mentality. You
don’t want to do things anymore. I think
you always have to have a rookie
viewpoint.”
Middle Market CVB Executive
The Bad
3. They tend to stake out their
own positions and defend them
instead of realizing their role is
to mediate conflicting
stakeholder’s views.
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“ A big big issue out there today is people are really
not listening. I would have liked to have listened
better when the message is, “this isn’t working.”
Your tendency is to defend it - that it is working
because you have a lot of anecdotal evidence and
you have a lot of third party evidence, you have a lot
of quantitative evidence and think that you are right.
It takes a real headiness and ability to not try to
defend what you’ve done. If major leaders are saying
it ain’t working, it’d be better for me to understand
that point of view and investigate it for its virtue
versus trying to defend what we have done.”
Middle Market CVB Executive
The Bad
4. They think they are doing a
good job by their own
standards – they forget to make
sure that their board agrees
with the metrics.
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“I always looked at the business side of things – if I’m
pulling in the numbers, if I’m bringing in the money,
then why would anybody mess with me? I don’t
have to kiss anybody’s ass on top of that – that
should be sufficient. I would focus on that aspect of
it and not be as open to some things they were
asking and they were coming to me asking dumb
stuff. They were stupid things and I kind of
shrugged them off. Looking back, would that have
been so bad to do? No. It wouldn’t have hurt to play
a little more ball and to work a little bit overtime to let
that Mayor know that I could be your guy too, in
essence, which I didn’t.”
Small Market CVB Executive
The Bad
5. They don’t believe in research
or numbers or goal setting .
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“We’re so goofy. We can look at numbers and see
whether hotel occupancy or whatever compare with
some others. We are so different because we are so
far from everybody – the next place is another
country. We’ve got different kinds of markets. We
don’t do many group tours because we’re so far
away. Plus our average daily rate is so much higher
than most places in this part of the country. I get
very critical of statistics. It’s so hard to get apples
vs. apples when we’re comparing us against
somebody else.”
Middle Market CVB Executive
The Bad
6. They are too busy selling to
talk to other stakeholders.
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“The stakeholders that got the most amount of my time
were the ones that I described earlier – my
customers and members. The ones that got the
least amount of my time, or deserved the least
amount of my time were all the governmental people.
I’m not trying to lump all the government activity
together. There were some, however, that was just
wasteful and others that were positive and
important. Clearly, that’s why collectively they
probably got the least amount of my time. They were
consistent – they only held meetings during the day,
and we used to do our real work at night.”
Middle Market CVB Executive
The Bad
7. They are unwilling to accept
much responsibility for their
destination stakeholders not
“getting it”.
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“They (the politicals) don’t understand what we
do and they don’t want to understand it. It’s
hard talking economics to a bunch of
housewife activists who got elected to the
council. I don’t mean to be critical. That’s
how they get elected to city council. They’re
only concerned about the alleys, the garbage
collection and the pot holes and stuff in their
neighborhoods and that’s it. Working with
them was very very difficult.”
Middle Market CVB Executive
The Bad
8. They didn’t like to evaluate
their own employees or take
the time to do goal setting.
The Bad: Two Less
Successful Executives Speak
“The thing I didn’t like the most is doing
evaluations of employees. That was a
real chore.”
Small Market CVB Executive
“In a perfect world I would have gotten
rid of personnel and the political end of
it. I would have preferred to spend my
time wooing customers.”
Large Market CVB Executive
The Bad
9. They don't feel collaboration
with other industry partners is
necessary
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“There was always too much territorial –
there’s another word - where everybody
wanted to protect their pot. There was
too much parochialism of all of the
CVBs.”
Large Market CVB Executive
The Bad
10. They have the answers and
there is nothing left to learn.
The Bad: A Less Successful
Executive Speaks
“I had seven people reporting to me because
there was nobody there who had ever had
been in a major league city before. Other
than the folks who had been there forever,
none had even been in a convention bureau.
They didn’t know the business and I had to
teach them the business and at the same
time do my own work.”
Large Market CVB Executive
Eight Roles of Management
We asked all our interviewees to give us a
self-assessment of how they viewed the
various roles of a CVB manager
How Interviewed CVB Executives Ranked the
Eight Management Roles of Quinn
Role
Successful
Broker
Producer
Director
Innovator
Mentor
Facilitator
Coordinator
Monitor
1 (6.2)
2 (5.9)
2 (5.9)
4 (5.6)
5 (5.45)
6 (5.4)
7 (4.6)
8 (4.2)
Less
Successful
4 (5.87)
1 (6.3)
2 (6.2)
3 (5.9)
5 (5.8)
8 (5.3)
6 (5.5)
7 (5.34)
Quinn’s 8 Roles of a Manager
• Director – shows leadership by creating and getting others to buy
into a vision about why the organization exists, setting goals to
accomplish its vision, and organizing its resources to get all that
needs to be done.
• Producer – shows he or she is personally productive, self motivated
to perform, and committed to creating a work environment that is
productive for self and employees.
• Broker – shows his or her social skills and ability to present and
negotiate buy in with both employees and other parts of the
organization to accomplish goals and implement ideas.
• Innovator - shows he or she can lead change. Here the manager
envisions change and shows a focus on better ways of doing things
to successfully adapt and respond to the dynamics of the external
environment. In playing this role, the manager encourages
employee creativity and innovation, accepts need for and
successfully manages change and transitions.
Quinn’s 8 Roles of a Manager
• Mentor – shows he or she is caring and sympathetic while being
helpful, considerate, sensitive, open, approachable, and fair to
others. This manager communicates to employees that they are
important resources that deserved to be understood, heard, valued,
and developed.
• Facilitator – shows he or she understands the importance of teams
and knows how to build the proper dynamics in a work group that
facilities teams working well. Knows how to balance the task (what
the team has to do) and group maintenance (how the groups will do
it) roles.
• Monitor – oversees or supervises the people and the processes
that help them perform effectively.
• Coordinator – decides how to plan and organize the work
relationships of employees, work groups, or organizational units to
make sure the work flows smoothly and that activities are carried out
with minimal friction. It is getting the right people in the right place at
the right time with the right resources to get the job done effectively.
…preparing for the Ugly!
Who are your industry partners ?
…preparing for the Ugly!
Who are your industry partners ?
If you asked your industry partners what
they think of CVBs what do you think they
would say?
…preparing for the Ugly!
Who are your industry partners ?
If you asked your industry partners what
they think of CVBs, what would they
would say?
If you asked them to tell you what your value
added is to them, what would they say?
…preparing for the Ugly!
Who are your industry partners ?
If you asked your industry partners what
they think of CVBs, what would they say?
If you asked them to tell you what your value
added is to them, what would they say?
How do you validate what your value added
is to them?
The Ugly: A Hotel Sales Executive
Speaks
“CVBs are not very helpful. If you listen to
our GMs they will often express frustration
about how the accountability of CVBs is not
where it needs to be. They feel they can say
that because they are paying very substantial
dues. When you’re paying that kind of
money you want to know that it’s going to
something that helps you. You want a
return.”
The Ugly: A Hotel Sales Executive
Speaks
“CVBs are only good for city wides. I think their
primary role is to sell the city wide business into the
convention center. Whether it’s the bureau or the
convention center doesn’t make any difference. I’ve
seen unbelievable duplication of sales efforts, and
that is bad. I’ve seen the bureau and the convention
center assign people to handle the big accounts. It
seems that everyone wants to chase the big
conventions. We hoteliers don’t need more big
conventions; we need more conventions to fill up
more dates. We need to have business while big
shows are tearing down and setting up as those are
death for hotels.”
The Ugly: A Hotel Sales Executive
Speaks
“They do not have the technology to
keep up with my needs.”
The Ugly: A Hotel Sales
Executive Speaks
“We would prefer to refer to a
destination’s marketing information
rather than create it. One of the first
questions I ask a CVB when I visit to
see how the hotels are doing is, “Who’s
handling your online marketing?” Too
often the answer I get is ‘No one.’ Right
now many of us in the hotel industry
feel that we have to sell the destination
as well as our hotels.”
The Ugly: A Hotel Sales Executive
Speaks
“CVBs need to demonstrate their valueadded to the industry they serve.”
The Ugly: A Hotel Executive
Speaks
“CVBs need to find a better answer to their
funding needs than what they are doing
today. Losing the bed tax is a very real
possibility. This is a tough time to be a
bureau executive. The first one that truly
reinvents himself will be very successful. If
they keep on going the way they are now
going, obsolescence is down the road. No
one is going to pay the kind of money that is
now being paid in dues just for PR. There
must be a return that can be shown.”
More ugly stuff
Who are your customers?
More ugly stuff
Who are your customers?
If you asked your customers what they think
of CVBs, what would they say?
More ugly stuff
Who are your customers?
If you asked your customers what they think
of CVBs what would they say?
If you asked them to tell you what your value
added is to them, what would they say?
More ugly stuff
Who are your customers?
If you asked your customers what they think
of CVBs, what would they say?
If you asked them to tell you what your value
added is to them, what would they say?
How do you validate what your value added
is to them?
The Ugly: A National Meeting
Planner Speaks
“CVBs are inconsistent and I can’t count
on them.”
The Ugly: A National Meeting
Planner Speaks
“All meeting planners are doing more
with less. If a bureau isn’t helping
them, they won’t use them.”
The Ugly: A National Meeting
Planner Speaks
“If I can get what I need from 3rd party
intermediaries, then I don’t need a
CVB.”
Still more ugly stuff
Who are your other stakeholders?
Still more ugly stuff
Who are your other stakeholders?
If you asked your other stakeholders what
they think of CVBs, what would they say?
Still more ugly stuff
Who are your other stakeholders?
If you asked your other stakeholders what
they think of CVBs, what would they say?
If you asked them to tell you what your value
added is to them, what would they say?
Still more ugly stuff
Who are your other stakeholders?
If you asked your other stakeholders what
they think of CVBs, what would they say?
If you asked them to tell you what your value
added is to them, what would they say?
How do you validate what your value added
is to them?
Beware. It could really get ugly
• If the hoteliers and meeting planners
don’t see our value, how do we ever
convince other stakeholders (funders)
of our value?
• If we lose support, it gets uglier.
• Remember: Your funders are looking
for money and guess where they are
looking?
• Others may offer competing models for
at least some of what you do
What Can We Do?
• What action steps do you take to respond
to the comments of your members,
customers, and community? How do we
grow our friends and know our foes?
• National? State? Local?
Bill and Bob’s Ideas
• From our debate, (AND FOR YOUR
DEBATE) we have several thoughts to
share
Possible Optional Models for
Future
1. Outsource/RFP
2. Franchise
* National Consolidation Approach – Private
* National Network Approach – Co-op
3. Leisure Traveler Only
4. Status Quo
Suggested Actions to Consider and
Discuss
A collaborative approach to achieve
integrated action
• At the international association level
• At the state and regional association
level
• At the local CVB level
National Level
Action Steps - Hotels
• Organize an ongoing, two-way
discussion with the national hotel sales
community to include collaboration
with state/regional associations and
local CVBs.
National Level
Action Steps: Meeting planners
• Survey customers – do we know what they really
want or think?
• Develop among ALL CVBs an understanding of the
benefits from collaboration.
• Implement industry-wide promotion of CVBs aimed
at meeting professionals.
• Study impact of intermediaries and other threats to
current business model to create proactive
strategies.
National Level
Action Steps – Travel & Tourism
• Expand collaboration and efforts with TIA’s National
lobbying efforts to promote tourism funding
• Promote DMAI Web Portal that includes all CVBs
(and/or coordinate with TIA and/or
www.OfficialTravelGuide.com).
• Implement industry-wide promotion of CVBs aimed at
tourism professionals.
• Create ROI tourism metric for CVBs
• Initiate discussions with State Travel Directors to
explore collaborations
National Level
Action Steps - Other stakeholders
• Strengthen communications with National
League of Cities/National Association of
Counties/Council of Mayors
• Collaborate with TIA and others to
promote community awareness of
tourism/CVB value
• Explore liaison with National Economic
Development Council
State/Regional Level
Action Steps:
• Promote collective action at both
national and regional levels (e.g. invite
hotels and other stakeholders to speak
at annual meetings; be part of DMAI
discussions initiative)
• Collect & Share data on state/regional
customers that could be used for
promotional efforts in collaboration
with DMAI
Local CVB
Action steps: Hotel Stakeholders
• Participate in national DMAI hotel/CVB
discussions – (DMAI webinars or ?)
• Initiate a two-way communication
process to promote mutual
understanding with local hoteliers.
(Periodically survey hoteliers to ask
what they want and need from you. You
may find out less is more!)
Local CVB
Action Steps: Meeting Planners
• Commit to performance standards and
enforce them internally: no bureau is
better than the worst the customer
deals with. We sink or swim together.
• Get DMAP Accreditation
Local CVB
Action Steps: Travel & Tourism
• Use national metrics
• Discuss state-wide tourism ROI models
and build one acceptable to all
What’s the answer?
• Keep this discussion going
• Learn more about what others are
considering to do that impacts us (E.G.,
DMAI’s Future Study).
• Encourage DMAI to expand its efforts
to lead these collaborations at the
national level
A Parting Thought
The status quo is
not sustainable.
We will change or
be changed!
Book info:
Managing Destination Marketing
Organizations
By Robert Ford & William Peeper
www.managingdestinationmarketingorganizations.com
Let’s
Take a
Twenty
Minute
Break
Diagnostic questionnaire to Identify the
Friends to Grow & Foes to Know
Mission Congruence
1. Degree to which the organization/group’s mission
focuses on same goal as CVB’s mission.
2. Degree to which the organization/group has a role in
advancing interests of the tourism industry.
3. Degree to which the organization/group has a role in
advancing the economic development of the destination.
4. Degree to which the organization/group has a role in
advancing the attractiveness of the destination.
5. Degree to which the organization/group has a role in
promoting the destination brand.
Stakeholder Management Strategies
by Stakeholder Category
Category Resource
Number Influence
1
High
Mission
Congruence
Supportive
CVB
Focus
High
2
Low
Supportive
Low
3
High
Neutral
High
4
Low
Neutral
Low
5
High
Competitive
High
6
Low
Competitive
Low
Friends to Grow, Foes to Know
Ability to influence allocation of critical resources
6. Degree to which the organization/group has members
that are well connected to, influential community leaders.
7. Degree to which the organization/group has access to
CVB funders.
8. Degree to which the organization/group has broad based
community support for its activities and programs.
9. Degree to which the organization/group has power and
influence over funding for the funders.
10. Degree to which the group/organization can establish
supporting linkages to already existing programs and
activities of the funders.
Identifying Friends to Grow and
Foes to Know
Ability to
Influence
Allocation of
Critical
Resources
Mission
Congruence
supportive
neutral
conflicting
direct / high
Spend time and
energy to
nurture these
allies
Identify ways to
move from
neutral to
supportive
Actively seek
ways to co-op
and align
missions. Seek
win-wins.
indirect / low
Spend time and
help when
possible
Periodically
monitor and
track their
activities and
influence levels
Show courtesy
and
consideration,
spend some time
in finding ways
to preempt any
attacks
How’d you SWOT?
• Your scores or how you “SWOTed”
yourself
• Comparing your management style scores
Scoring the Role Survey
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•
•
Director - add #’s 3, 4, 25, 31, 35/5 = ?
Producer – add #’s 13, 24, 29, 33/4 = ?
Coordinator -add #’s 11, 23, 26, 36/4 = ?
Monitor – add #’s 7, 8, 15, 22, 27/5 = ?
Mentor – add #’s 10, 16, 18, 19, 32/5 = ?
Facilitator – add #’s 9, 12, 14, 21, 30/5 = ?
Innovator – add #’s 1, 5, 17, 28/4 = ?
Broker – add #’s 2, 6, 20, 34/4 = ?
Friends to Grow and Foes to Know
Any examples of how you
influenced friends, deflected
foes, and changed neutrals
to friends?