The highlight of my current trip to New York is . . . Scott's Pizza Tour. Huh? A pizza tour? In the city of great museums, great theater, great music, great history, the highlight is a tour of pizzerias (and one restaurant supply store)? I'm not even a big pizza nut. But Scott Wiener's enthusiasm for pizza was awesome and contagious. While walking through Little Italy and Greenwich Village, we learned why some pizzas won't burn the roof of your mouth, how pizza originated, how it spread across America, and, well, another three hours of great information. When we met Scott he asked us where we were from, then immediatley asked us if we had eaten at a certain pizzeria on our city. He asked what else was good there, and why. Every question brought out his child-like enthusiasm: "Great question! You, see back in 1890, …" and he would launch into a telling story. He came prepared with a remote sensing oven thermometer (this oven is running at 700 degrees, but on a slow day may get up to 850), and plenty of visual aides, but without running through a dull PowerPoint presentation.
The lesson for business: enthusiasm is contagious. I remember a presentation I heard at a fastener distributor convention. It was about new performance standards for concrete anchor bolts. A real snoozer, right? Nope. The speaker really loved the topic, and he got the audience excited themselves.
Whatever you do, it's possible to find interesting information about history, applications, economics, colorful inventors, entrepreneurs and pioneers. If you are not enthusiastic about your business, maybe it's time to retire.