Coaching our Guests, both new and existing how to either learn or perfect their skill working on television and to successfully tell their story and present their product is an extremely fulfilling role for me at HSN. Training and Development was one of my first passions many years ago, and it's just like learning to ride a bike, "once a trainer, always a trainer". You never forget how to do it if you have the ability, skill and knowledge. It does take very specialized set of skill; experience doing it certainly helps, but there's so much more. It takes in-depth knowledge of professional sales, understanding the psychology of the adult learner and psychology of the customer, mastering the 4 steps to successful training (1. Preparation, 2. Presentation, 3. Performance trial, 4. Follow through). Plus it requires powerful communication skills, strong motivational skills and the desire and personal drive to impart knowledge to help others succeed. Teaching someone who has a great story and great product how to bring that to the television screen requires so much more than the skill required to do it in a brick and mortar store environment--why? The single more important task at hand is for me to teach our guests is how to look at a camera lens and translate that inanimate object (the camera) into a real person. Sounds easy, well it's not or everyone would be great at it and it takes lot's of preparation, practice, presentation time and follow up from their coach to succeed at it. Even as a show host of over 20 years, that was the single most difficult part for me to learn initially working on television. It was just learning how to "be myself" and conveying and communicate my sincere, heartfelt message to a camera. It took at least the first 5 years on camera to become reasonably good at it, and even to this day I am learning methods, tricks and new skills for improving the technique. Teaching "new comers" to the world of electronic retailing and television is no different, except now, i have the first hand experience to help new guests avoid the pitfalls I experienced at the beginning of my early television career. There truly is nothing like meeting one of our guests for the first time, hearing their story and helping them bring out their true, inner self to "craft" a high quality sincere presentation bring it to just "you" --just one very special person on the other side of the television. It never fails, after the first time on air it never ceases to amaze me how many new guests will often say that was so much fun but, "Oh My Gosh", how can anyone do that for 2 to 3 hours at a time? END.