Stuck at a Plateau? Four Ways to Catapult Your Business

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.

Can’t Sell Your Way Out of a Paper Bag?

We are constantly working to try to make our phone
ring. We build websites, demo videos, write
articles, run mail campaigns, do free speeches,
etc., to get clients to our door.

But when they get there, do we close the sale
every time? How about 50% of the time?

Many speakers suffer from the inability to sell
themselves. They might not be clear on the value
they offer or have a hard time communicating it
when put on the spot.

Some speakers have a mental block around ‘sales’.
They’d much rather have someone else selling for
them because they lack confidence. But the bottom
line is that if you don’t know how to close the
deal, it’s going to be hard to train someone else
to do it for you.

You’ve probably heard me talk about using
attraction strategies to gain clients, but having
some sales skills will serve you well.

Here are a few quick tips that will help sharpen
your skills:

1. Write down some of the key ideas that you
would want to convey while talking to a client and
post them on your bulletin board for easy
reference.

2. Practice role playing with a friend or
colleague so that you’ll be less tongue tied when
a prospect calls.

3. Focus on building relationships rather than
‘selling’. By putting your thoughts on the needs
of the client, you’ll take them off ‘sales’.

4. Try to meet face-to-face with clients when
possible. It’s still the best way to build a
relationship and in today’s high tech world, we
might tend to forget.

5. Think beyond one speech. How can you help
your client reach their long term goals?

6. Keep track of your numbers. Knowing how often
you lose a sale and why will help you improve.

Want to know more on this subject? Join us for
our next teleclass on Wednesday, January 24, 2007
at 3pm Eastern called ‘How to Close More Business’
with guest expert Dan Seidman author of Sales
Autopsy. Here are the details
http://www.speakerlauncher.com/teleclass.sales.html

Happy Selling!

Laptop Dies, But Speaker Doesn’t

Imagine it’s three minutes until you go on stage
and your brand new laptop dies and takes your
slide show and presentation with it.

Then, you are introduced.

You walk onto the stage, close the laptop lid, and
say ‘apparently, we’ll be doing something
different today’.

That’s exactly what my client June Cline did last
week when her technology failed.

And you know what else happened? She changed up
her program on the fly and delivered an
awesome keynote.

What would you have done?

How much are you relying on technology or props in
your presentations?

This past weekend in Vancouver, the caliber of
keynote talent at the Canadian Speakers convention
was really high. But several speakers shone through
for me and for the most part they used two tools -
their voice and their bodies.

Now I’m not saying that anyone using technology
should stop. But I would ask ‘if the electricity
went off would you still be an effective speaker’?

How much of your presentation stays inside a
comfort zone?

And really the bottom line question is, ‘are you
getting all the work that you desire’? If so,
these questions may not be necessary.

If you aren’t 100% happy with your bookings, then
this exercise is for you:

1. List 3 things that you will do in 2007 to help
move your presentation to new heights.

2. Define 2 risks that you could take to move out
of your comfort zone.

3. Send 1 e-mail to a colleague or friend and ask
them to support you in your goals.

And if you’d like to work on your business over
the holidays, I’ve got a special holiday reading
offer just for you. Check it out.
http://www.thewealthyspeaker.com/system2.html

Are you a Member of the “Sales is Icky” Club?

I don’t know how to sell myself’,

‘I’m no good at sales’,

‘I’d much rather have someone else talk about me
than talk about myself’…..

All common things that I hear from speakers. Are
you a member of that club? If so, you can relax.

Selling yourself as a speaker doesn’t have to be a
burden. There is a way of going about it that
will allow you to approach the situation with more
confidence and less stress.

In ‘The Wealthy Speaker’, I call it ‘matching’.

When you pick up the phone to call on a
prospective client, you want to have two things in
mind.

1. Be clear on the value that you are offering
(have a bullet point list in front of you).

2. Be clear on what type of audience and client
is perfect for you.

Then, when you start dialing, you set the
intention that you are making a call to inquire
whether or not this client’s needs meet the value
and solutions that you offer.

When the client’s needs match your offering,
you’re in business. If they do not, you move on
to the next client.

Not taking rejection personally is tough for
speakers. But guess what, it ain’t about you!
Whatever you are offering may not be right for
this year, but may be perfect for another year, so
bow out gracefully and schedule a follow up.

In the book ‘Attracting Perfect Customers’, the
authors have you create the vision that you are a
lighthouse. The idea is that you stand tall in
the value and expertise that you offer.

When you’re on land shining your beam out to the
world, the clients that need your services (or
boats who need help getting safely to shore) will
follow the light. Well imagine if the lighthouse
sprouts arms and legs and starts running up and
down the beach yelling,’follow me everybody,
follow me!’ It smacks of desperation and the
value that you offer is diminished.

The bottom line is that when you approach a client
to see if your services match their needs, you are
not trying to ‘sell’ them something, but you are
allowing them to see if the value that you bring
to the table matches their needs.

Stand tall as the lighthouse! With some consistent
marketing, the clients who need you, will find
you. You’ll then be able to give up your
membership in the ‘sales is icky’ club.

Happy shining,

PS: To get your copy of ‘Attracting Perfect
Customers: The Power of Strategic Synchronicity’,
see our special offer here
http://www.speakerlauncher.com/tools.html

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