Have you cleared the land for your empire?

June 19th, 2008 by jane

A few months ago, I wrote an eTip about supporting
your empire with everything you do… from focus,
to developing speeches, writing, products, etc.

When analyzed, it often turns out that our
activities are not moving us towards our financial
goals.

Here’s that tip again in case you missed it:
http://tinyurl.com/5hn3lf

But before you build your empire, you’ve got to
clear the land.

So what does that mean?

Making space (or room) in your business for your
new empire is the key to building something
profitable and long term.

It’s impossible to move forward, while hanging on
to the past.

- Some of you may need to stop speaking at low
fees.  Especially those who work for low paying
seminar companies which are calendar eaters.

- Perhaps you’ll need to pick a lane and drop
some of the programs that you’ve been doing that
don’t serve the empire.  When you create a new
business using all of your old materials, you’re
really not moving forward.  Let ‘em go!

Remember Greg’s story from The Wealthy Speaker
(page 36)?  He narrowed from several training
topics to being an expert on leadership.  His
company became much more profitable yet he worked
less.  Now that’s building an empire!

- I imagine that many of you have alot of ‘busy’
stuff in your schedule - things that take time
but don’t necessarily create revenue. Farm them
out or drop them!

- Get over your need to have a calendar that looks
full, and start concentrating on high pay off
revenue activities.  That might mean increasing
your fee if you have been hesitating.

So the question is….

What do you need to let go of to clear the land
and make room for your empire?

Take action….

Make a list of all of the activities that eat up
your time and then get to work making it shorter!

I hope you will take action today to start
clearing the land!

Happy empire building!

PS:  In building my own empire, I have resolved to
let go of giving my time away for free.  When I
look back at my 2007-08 calendar, my 30 minute
sample coaching sessions have eaten up a large
chunk of my time.  So I’ve developed a new
plan!  Check it out here:
http://www.speakerlauncher.com/coaching.html

If you’re interested in coaching with me, I’ll
honor my previous rate card until June 30, 2008.
(those rates are no longer posted, but can be
quoted to you in person).  Drop me a line!

   Closed

Are You Supporting Your Empire?

December 13th, 2007 by jane

The year 2008 is nearly upon us and it is an
opportunity for us to evaluate and
strategize.

One of the mantras that my clients create
during our work together is ’support the
empire’.

Sounds like something straight out of Star
Wars, doesn’t it?

But really what it means is supporting the
lane that you’ve chosen with every new idea,
product or speech that you develop.  You may
not consider your business an empire, but I
think it’s a great word to help us all think
bigger.

I can’t tell you how often I’m talking to a
client who has an idea for a new product or
speech that has absolutely nothing to do with
the growth of their business.  It takes them
off focus and usually does not get the
attention it needs to get off the ground.

I use an umbrella for a visual of the empire.
Here’s a sample so that you can see how it
looks:

http://www.speakerlauncher.com/umbrella.html

At the top of your umbrella on the outside,
write a label that best describes your lane
or your expertise.  This is the title of your
empire and should be very broad.

Some examples might be sales, leadership,
teams, attitude, etc.

Next step, while keeping an eye on the
empire, in the middle of the umbrella, write
down the topics that you deliver that support
the empire.

You may drop some topics in this exercise,
the fewer the better because clients don’t
believe that you are an expert in 10
completely different topics anyway.  For
example on the sales front you might have:
Sales leadership, closing skills, and
negotiating topics.

Finally, falling underneath the umbrella,
like rain would drip off the sides, write
down your distribution channels (revenue
streams).  Again with the sales example, you
might list keynotes, workshops & training,
coaching, consulting, and teleclasses as your
product mix.

When you’re finished, you should be able
to see anything that doesn’t fit and remove
it.

And moving into 2008, when you have an idea
for a new product or revenue stream, you can
look at your umbrella and ask yourself this
key question:

Is this idea going to support the empire??

http://www.speakerlauncher.com/umbrella.html

Happy holidays everyone!  Until 2008.

   Closed

Are you running your business, or is it running you?

September 11th, 2007 by jane

I’m getting married this weekend. Right now,
aside from being excited, I’m especially
grateful for the benefits of being an
entrepreneur.

From the start of my business more than
6 years ago, I decided that I was going to do
things based on what was perfect for me. It
helped that I had just gone through a class
given by the authors of ‘Attracting Your
Perfect Customers’.

http://www.perfectcustomers.com/?af=929

What I learned from Jan & Stacy was that it
was okay to set your business up according to
what you desire. I thought ‘Really? I can
ask for what I want?? What a concept!’

They said that your perfect clients will not
only understand, they’ll appreciate it. So I
decided I would only do coaching between the
hours of 11am and 3pm and that I would take
every Friday off. I was also determined to
keep it simple. When my book came out I
hired a fulfillment house to handle all
product orders without my involvement.

Right now, as I leave for 2 weeks vacation,
without a worry, I am happy to report that my
plan is working!

So let’s check to see how well you’re running
your business - here are a few questions:

What does your perfect day look like? How
often do you have a perfect day?

How often are you bending over backwards to
accomodate clients and put yourself into a
win-lose situation?

How well do you have your business set up to
run without you? Do you need to put support
people in place?

How many services do you offer that you don’t
enjoy?

Do you sometimes negotiate your fees and feel
bad about it later?

How often does business get in the way of
down time or vacations?

If you’re not running your business the way
you want, it may be time to make some
changes. Otherwise, what’s the point of
being an entrepreneur?

I hope that while I’m away on my honeymoon
(without phones or computers you’ll be
analyzing your business and deciding to make
some changes. Or maybe you’ll pat yourself
on the back knowing that you are running your
business exactly the way you like!

All the best,

ps: If you’d like to pick up a copy of
Attracting Your Perfect Customers or take the
Attraction Class - here is the link:
http://www.perfectcustomers.com/?af=929

   Closed

Stuck at a Plateau? Four Ways to Catapult Your Business

April 23rd, 2007 by jane

Speakers aren’t supposed to need help.  They are the people everyone else goes to for help.  But let’s face it, every once in a while, you get stuck.  It’s inevitable. 
 
No one can blame you if you’ve hit a rough patch after working like a dog for 5, 12 or even 20 years.   This business is mentally, emotionally and physically demanding.  The travel alone would knock the stuffing out of most people, so it’s natural for peaks and valleys to occur. 
 
Here are some signs that you might be stuck.
 
1.     Your business hasn’t grown in the past 12 months.
2.     Your speech has not changed in the last 12 months.
3.     Your spin-off rates have dropped.
4.     Your level of enthusiasm for the business or your speech has tapered off.
5.     Even if business is still coming in, all you can think about is doing something different or taking a break.
 
Do any of those sound familiar?   
 
So how do you go about getting unstuck? 
 
Step 1: Diagnose the Problem.  Stop doing what you are doing and take time to sit down and truly assess where you are.  Allow yourself to get quiet and really listen and observe.  Many speakers simply don’t want to say the words out loud, “I’m going through a hard time.”
 
If you have staff, ask for their input.  They can often see things that you can’t and may give you a bird’s eye view of your business.  Ask yourself these questions: What is really going on in my business?   What is it that I am not seeing?
 
We also need to acknowledge that when a personal crisis like divorce or family illness takes place, we might have to put the business on the side burner temporarily.  Only you know where your priority needs to be.  One of my clients who was going through a divorce found himself getting the best ratings and standing ovations of his career.  He had learned to channel his emotional turmoil into passion on the platform and it worked like a charm.
 
Every bump in the road that we hit may be an opportunity to catapult to the next level. 
 
 
Step 2: Focus.  In my experience, one common issue leads to a speaker struggling – lack of focus.  Typically it’s a lack of focus around their expertise or they may not have “picked a lane” yet.  Some of the speakers who have the hardest time with this are those who have been around awhile.  The key is understanding that what worked in the marketplace 10 years ago does not work today.
 
Ten years ago you could have six or seven topics and people would book you because you were a good speaker.  Not any more. And although being a generalist might pay the bills initially, you will be no further ahead five years down the road.  You will not be the recognized expert on any subject.  Your fees will also suffer because clients don’t pay high fees for generalists – they pay high fees for experts.
 
There is no room for fear when it comes to getting focused around your expertise.  You have to be able to wean yourself away from business that is no longer in your lane or you will be stuck being a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. 
 
Brian Palmer of National Speakers Bureau says, “clients no longer want to hire speakers, they want to hire smart people, who happen to speak”.
 
Step 3:  Recognize Boredom.  When you can do your speech in your sleep or have the potential to start “phoning it in,” you could be bored.  If you’ve been delivering the same material for any length of time, this is a potential hazard for you.
 
Like Madonna (the pop star, not the religious figure), speakers have to continually reinvent themselves.  We need to grow with our speech and discover new material.  Our careers may have us changing lanes several times or developing a new on-ramp to our existing lane.
 
I find writing is one of the best ways to stay plugged into our business and develop new material.  When I’m continually in an “investigative” mode, it forces me to examine and re-examine my material.
 
So what can you do to light a spark under your speech?
 
1.     Refocus on the audience.  Engage with them in new ways.  Do your pre-gig work differently.  Meet with the key decision makers, executives or Boards of Directors for a pre-session at no charge.  If you wouldn’t normally stay for an awards dinner, then stay. Go back to the basics.  Challenge yourself to look at every speech as your first ever.  What did you do back then that you no longer do?
2.     Take any story you’ve been telling for more than 24 months and either change it or throw it out.  Make it more exciting and challenging for you to tell or, better yet, throw it out.
3.     Write an article on a new area that pertains to your lane.  Find something that interests you, but that you don’t know much about.
4.     Listen to the market.  What have they been consistently requesting of you that you haven’t delivered?
5.     Bring in an expert.  Mark Sanborn used a presentations coach several years ago when he got stuck in a rut, and still uses things he learned from that coach today.  If you need help, ask around and find a coach who has your required expertise and clicks with you.
6.     Take time off.  If you need some time to recharge your batteries then take it.  A burnt out speaker is no good for anyone, especially the client.  Like Nike says, just do it!
 
Joe Calloway says he’s an expert on ruts.  He is continually finding new ways to re-invent himself.  Joe says “if you’re not doing something that scares the pants off you in your speech, then you probably won’t get out of the rut – you’re just tweaking.  The key to creating value for the client is getting better on the platform.  We want them to say ‘we’ve never seen that before’ or ‘that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!’”
 
Recently, I saw a speaker that I’d heard 15 years ago.  He was funny, charming, captivating and the audience liked him, but he told the same stories I’d heard back then.  I found it to be quite incongruent with his message of business innovation.  Today’s audiences are sophisticated and expect more of you.  Challenge yourself to be fresh and innovative.
 
Even speakers who talk about their own life experiences (such as climbing Mt. Everest or winning at the Olympics) can find new language and ways to spin the story.  They can also find new ways to make it about the audience and not themselves.  Art Berg, who passed away in 2002, was a great example.  His own personal story of moving from a paralyzing automobile accident to becoming hugely successful in many areas of life was indeed unique to him.  Despite that he found a way to make the audience – even though they weren’t in wheelchairs – believe that they too could achieve the impossible in their own lives.  He made it about them, and not himself.
 
Step 4: Create a Vision.  While you are stuck in a rut is the perfect time to develop your five-year vision.  Allow yourself to think big and write down everything that you want in your life five years from now.  Rich Fettke, who was my personal coach for several years, taught me how to do this and I’ve marveled every time a new vision comes to fruition.  Duh!  Maybe Napoleon Hill was onto something with that “what you believe you can achieve” thing?
 
Think about how a month in your life looks five years from now.  How many speaking engagements do you deliver?  Who is in that perfect audience?  How much are you paid?  What is the impact of your message?  How much do you travel?  What do you do in your free time?  How do your home and office look and who is in them?  Where do you and your family vacation?  Be very clear and specific.  Focusing on what you want as opposed to what you do not want is the fastest way out of a rut.
 
Bottom Line.  When you walk the hallways of an NSA convention, allow yourself to be real and tell the truth about what’s going on in your business.  The more real and vulnerable you are, the more you will model that for others and soon we’ll all be checking our egos and puffed up chests at the door.
 
If you can be honest about recognizing where you are in your business, re-energize your material and focus on where you want to go, you’ll be on the way to catapulting your business and taking it to entirely new heights.

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Are You Taking Advantage of Your eStatus?

November 16th, 2006 by jane

Are you taking advantage of your eStatus?

My friend Tina, a fellow entrepreneur, had a rough
week. She had not received a large contract that
she was counting on. Her business is new and she
has been working her butt off for months.

After her disappointing call, she decided to take
the next day off and during her day of pampering
and yoga she had an epiphany. She realized that
she had been so focused on the business, that she
was forgetting to enjoy the fact that she was an
entrepreneur living her dream. No more 9 to 5, no
more 30 minute commute, no more crazy boss, no
more wearing pantyhose.

Tina was taking her eStatus (entrepreneur status)
for granted.

Have you ever lost yourself in your business and
forgotten to smell the roses of being self
employed??

Sure, there are some headaches and
responsibilities that come along with your own
business BUT the payoffs are most gratifying.

For me, it comes in the form of Fridays. I take
most Friday’s off. That’s how I remind myself
that I’m running my business, not the other way
around.

Here are a few questions to see if you are taking
advantage of your eStatus:

1. What does your perfect business day look like?
How often are you having them?

2. How many ‘goof off’ days will you take this
year? Shep Hyken calls them ‘work free’ days and
where his goal used to be to speak 100 times per
year, now his goal is 150 ‘work free’ days per
year.

3. How often are you taking advantage of the fact
that you work for yourself? This might come in
the form of scheduling a massage in the middle of
a workday, or doing something spontaneous with
your loved ones. My Dad is turning 80 this year
and when he called on a weekday afternoon to go
for maple syrup in the country, I said ’sure’.

We can work ‘in’ our business, we can work ‘on’
our business, or we can simply take time ‘away’
from our business. Chances are, the break will do
us good!

Happy Break!

ps: Something new and exciting is brewing with
The Wealthy Speaker system…. check it out!

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Where the Heck is My Harvest?

October 18th, 2006 by jane

The speaking industry is somewhat similar to farming.

We plant seeds, we fertilize (some more than others , we weed out the wrong clients, and then we see the harvest. Imagine the farmer walking out into the field the day after planting seeds and saying “hey, where the heck are my crops?” Ridiculous right? But many speakers, plant one or two seeds - or sometimes no seeds at all - and expect the phone to miraculously start ringing. The speakers who have their phones ringing have been planting seeds for years by giving speeches (and getting spin off) and by doing marketing, or some combination of the two. Are you expecting a full harvest without planting the seeds? Or would you like to increase your harvest? If so, here are a few steps:

1. Check that your soil is rich and ready. This means, making sure that you are prepared to go to market. That your speech is awesome and your marketing materials are ready, effective, and clearly spell out the value that you offer.

2. Plan your crops. Map out your 1 year marketing calendar. Use a 12 month board and plan to ‘touch’ your clients in some fashion (e-mail, direct mail, articles, etc.) at least 4 times per year. You may also plan to target a specific group.

3. Plant the seeds. Once you have mapped out your calendar, start touching clients on a regular basis and following up with phone calls. It’s all about timing. When the client is ready with a need, you will have communicated with them several times and if your services match their need, they’ll call on you.

4. Weed the crops. Don’t be hesitant about taking people off of your list. If they never book speakers, or will never use your services, then save the marketing dollars for someone who is a better fit. The more honed your list, the better. 5. Consistency = Harvest You should see some results of planting within a few months, but once you have a couple of years of seed planting under your belt, you should start to see things popping up more consistently. There might be a point when you can stop marketing, or you might have to keep it going for years. (Seriously take a look at your speech if you aren’t getting good amounts of business by year 3.)

One of my clients just hit pay dirt (7 bookings) with a mailing he did 2 years ago, so it can take time! Being out there speaking is a great way to build momentum - and plant seeds. If you aren’t getting 2-3 spin off from each engagement, then get some help with your speech. Check out our newest CD of the teleclass done recently with the brilliant Patricia Fripp for some excellent speech tips. http://www.speakerlauncher.com/individual.html

Happy Harvest!

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How Will You Rev up Your Fall Calendar?

July 1st, 2006 by jane

It’s almost half way through the year, and the
summer is a great time to reflect and prepare for
the fall.

We want to take some time off to regenerate, but
we also want to use the time to tweak the business
and ensure we are on track to reach our goals for
the year.

Here are a few ideas to help you move into the
summer and from here we’ll build a ‘Summer Action
List’:

MARKETING

Have you assessed whether or not your marketing
materials are working? The best way to know for
sure is if prospects see them and book you because
of them. Here are some items to consider:

Is your website working? Is it getting hits and
closing business?

Are your print materials working? Are they
focused and effectively showing why you are
unique?

Is your video closing the deal? If not, it’s back
to the drawing board.

Choose 2 things from the marketing section and add
them to your Summer Action List.

SPEECH

If you have read ‘The Wealthy Speaker’, you know
that in my opinion, your speech is your #1 form of
marketing. So here are some things to consider
over the summer.

Is your speech getting you 2-3 spin off nearly
every time?

Are there areas in your speech that need work
like humor, storytelling, cutting edge content,
etc?

Is your speech good, but your topic lacks focus?
ie: you’re all over the place.

Have you signed up for a program, workshop, or
enlisted the help of someone to work on your
speech?

Choose 2 things relating to your speech to work on
and add them to your Summer Action List.

RELATIONSHIPS

Who have you been putting off making contact with?

Are there past clients that you haven’t done a
great job at staying connected with?

Are you ready to talk to speaker’s bureaus?

Have you been doing a good enough job of cold
calling or making sure that your pipeline is
consistently full?

Is there a supplier, or mentor, or colleague that
you need to talk to?

Building relationships is one of the most
important parts of our business. Choose 2
items to place onto your Summer Action List.

FINAL STEP

Now you should have at least 6 things to work on
this summer. Overwhelming yourself with 101
things to do during the holidays is unrealistic.
Take a couple of weeks to unwind, then start
plugging away at your Summer Action List.

You will be certain to feel satisfied at the end
of the summer and more importantly, to rev up your
fall speaking calendar!

Happy booking!

Jane Atkinson
Speaker Launcher
519-951-6934
http://www.SpeakerLauncher.com

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