In this talk, the speaker recounts a memorable moment at a Gartner symposium where he wore a ridiculous wig and filmed a short, on‑the‑spot “Roving Reporter” video. The clip unexpectedly went viral, illustrating the power of short video content in today’s social‑selling landscape. He explains how his organization has shifted from traditional solution selling to social selling, running training that revamps LinkedIn profiles and establishes a regular posting cadence. He emphasizes leading by example—mirroring his martial‑arts teaching style—by personally creating and sharing these videos at events. The approach has been adopted by colleagues in other regions, reinforcing the idea that bite‑sized, easily consumable soundbites can drive engagement and brand visibility.
Chapters
And so, we were at Gartner, I think, for the first one, and I was actually wearing an absolutely ridiculous wig. I think if we look at where we are today and how we as vendors engage with clients and prospects, more importantly, I guess, or at least as importantly, you know, in recent years, social selling's become a thing. I mean, solution selling is long dead. It doesn't really exist anymore. That. Social selling, on the other hand, is how do we engage with or potentially, um, curate content that's appropriate to our audience, and more importantly, how do we then engage with our audience or the people out there. And so within my organization, several times over the last few years, we've run social selling training courses, and it's amazing. You know, you see the team, they get on board, their LinkedIn profiles suddenly look beautiful and clean and sparkly and pristine, and they're all posting every couple of weeks, and sorry, a couple of times a week. And then over time, that sort of tapers off. And amongst that, we came to the realization that video is a very powerful medium. And so, you know, one of the things that for myself as a leader is I have a view of leading from the front, and maybe that's partially my martial arts side of it. I stand in the line with my students and I train with them. So that's, I kind of believe that leading from the front's an important way It's not a do as I say, it's a do as I do. And so, we were at Gartner, I think, for the first one, and I was actually wearing an absolutely ridiculous wig. Because we were— it was like, you know, at Gartner's symposium on the Gold Coast, they have this, like, a big night where everybody dresses up. And so, I just thought, you know, here we go, let's do something from here to engage with our customers. And it just went viral. It's like, okay, that was pretty interesting. Um, and so then whenever we've had a major marketing event of some kind that I've been going, usually just as I walk in, I'll stop in front of the main board and say, hey, it's the Roving Reporter here. Here I am today at the racecourse or Brisbane or wherever we are, and just give a brief rundown. And, um, I don't know, it just seems to have gone viral. Hashtag Roving Reporter. Um, so yes, and I'd say it's just been very popular. So much, so much so that And a couple of my colleagues in other geographies have not copied the roving reporter per se, but have taken to doing the same thing. Like, here we are at this event. And I think it's just, it's the power of the medium that we live in today. You know, everybody's looking for an easily consumable soundbite. And I think this seems to, amazingly seems to deliver it.
