I first met Meri Aaron Walker in 2003 here in Austin, TX, at the World Future Society where I was talking aoubt Buying Facilitation™. Meri had spoken at the previous meeting about being an independent management consultant in the fast-blooming “Free Agent Nation,” and came to hear me speak; she claims she’s been a fan  ever since.

Meri Aaron is known as “The Virtual Meeting Coach” and a social media evangelist, using free media and virtual meeting tools to strengthen local and distance relationships. She is also the co-author of Teamwork is An Individual Skill: Getting Your Work Done When Sharing Responsibility (Berret Kohler, 2001) and speaks about collaboration with business and government leaders and at universities across North America and Europe in diverse industries such as real estate, healthcare, long-term care, and technology companies.

She told me to tell you this: “These days, Meri Aaron blogs as “The Virtual Meeting Coach” and trains clients face-to-face and online through her company, Virtual Meeting Startup. Her popular short course, 21 Sure-Fire Ways To Build Trust Working With Others Online, is available free at VirtualMeetingStartup.com.” What I’d like to say, on my own, is that Meri Aaron (she has two names also!) is smart, witty, demanding, clear, and she ‘gets it.’

Watch the video we made together. Two cool Dudettes sharing brilliance. A bit of caution from my ego-self. This was the first time using my new camera and the lighting is way off. Between my odd-looking eyes that seem to be all over the place (I hate seeing myself on that video!) and my focus on systems and change, that I forgot to say that in my new book I’m actually writing about change in the sales industry: buyers don’t buy until their status quo is willing to change and buys-in to doing something new – hence the focus in my new book Dirty Little Secrets on how buyers change so they can choose your solution.

Please watch this video with these caveats, and then go to read some chapters of the book and see that indeed, my ideas, skills, concepts, and models about change are placed in the sales field throughout the whole book. And in real life, my eyes are really pretty.