This morning's speaking at my Professional Consultant's Association of CNY meeting was David Goldsmith of Metamatrix Consulting. This isn't a guy who's going places; he's already there. I knew we were in for a good presentation because we actually had double the number of people who usually attend one of our meetings, and that was fantastic.

I first met David just over 5 years ago when he was leading the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce's training and education committee. He was a dynamic leader back then, as I was a part of the committee until I started hitting the road for my paycheck, and when I got back, he had turned over the reins to someone else.

Anyway, he began his presentation by telling us how he actually sat down and decided what he wanted to have for his career. He determined that he wanted to establish great credibility for himself and his business so that he could become an international consultant and speaker, and that's exactly what he's done. If you check out his site, you'll see something about the National Speaker's Association and how he now leads the largest group in the nation by setting up its first virtual chapter.

He talked about how he was able to do some of these things by doing some things early on in his career that he knew would look good later on. He earned scholarships and degrees in ways that no one else had ever done. He's been a professor at NYU college, which cost him money out of his pocket to do, but has earned him lots of prestige and money on the back end. He has written lots of articles and made them available on his website for publishers to use in periodicals around the world, having been published more than 500 times. He has written a number of books, and actually had agents reach out to him instead of the other way around. And he literally hobnobs with Fortune 500 CEOs on a regular basis.

He also has one unique selling proposition that makes him stand out from the crowd. His voice mail says that no matter when someone calls, and no matter from where, he will call them back within 3 hours. I have to admit that I'm not sure I'd want to try to stick with that one. Earlier this year I worked with a client based in the United Arab Emirates, which was 9 hours ahead of my time zone. A couple of times I did stay up until very early in the morning (8AM my time) so that I could communicate with my contact on a very important point, but if I'd had to do that on a consistent basis I think I'd have worn myself out.

Still, that was a major point I took away from the presentation, along with the idea of building credibility, which is something I strive to do on a daily basis. He also gave me one great recommendation, something I'm going to implement as soon as possible, but I'm keeping that one to myself for now.

This is another guy I hope to be when I officially grow up; great presentation.