TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Success despite itself
The only toll-free number in press materials for an upcoming "Get Motivated" seminar featuring well-known speaker and author Zig Ziglar, led to a recording which said "the number you have dialed is invalid or blocked from your area code."Ziglar, a Yazoo City, Miss.-raised business enhancement expert, would likely recoil to learn of the problem. Traveling between engagements, he was unavailable for comment.
Honolulu's Feb. 12 seminar on success, wealth, achievement, etc. is not being staged by his Texas-based company, but by Florida-based Life Win Business Seminars.
The eight speakers include sales guru Tom Hopkins and Peter Lowe, who will speak on "How to Accelerate Your Business and Personal Success."
The two Hawaii speakers on the bill are University of Hawaii Football Coach June Jones, whose topic is "How to Build a Winning Team," and independent television producer/host Emme Tomimbang on "How to Perfect Your Communication Skills."
The miscue to the media notwithstanding, the correct reservations number got to enough people that the all-day event was moved from the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel to the larger Neal Blaisdell Center. Sheraton's Hawaii Ballroom can hold 2,600 but reservations exceeded capacity.
"I think (bookings) are up to more than 4,000 now," Lowe said. The reason may be found in ticket prices: $225 per person at the door, but with an advance reservation, $49 for a entire party of 10 -- $4.90 per person.
From Honolulu Ziglar travels to Maui to address the Hawaii Christian Leaders 2002 event at the Hyatt Regency the next day. That week-long conference is being staged by Oklahoma-based Harrison International and Lowe will speak there as well.
"I believe what (Bob Harrison) does is so important for Christian businesspeople," he said.
Ziglar has traveled to Hawaii at least a dozen times, often with his wife "when they can spend a few days relaxing," said his assistant Laurie Majors. Not this time, though; he'll hurry back to Texas to spend Valentine's Day with his wife, Jean, who his audiences know by reference. "When I'm talking about her, I call her the redhead," he said during a recent radio broadcast.
His books are not all about breaking sales and business records. While some of his 17 titles are, "See You at the Top" and "Over the Top," others are about a different type of success as evidenced by other titles, "Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World" and "Courtship after Marriage."
Expertise in the latter seems to cause his deep-voiced Southern drawl to break into an audible smile in the third reference to Jean Ziglar. "When I'm talking to her, I call her sugar baby."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com