Got Credibility?

August 20th, 2007 by jane

I can’t tell you how often I read a speaker’s
bio and think to myself ‘what has this person
done?’  They often leave out some of the most
important pieces of their history.

Is your bio telling the reader (your
prospective client) why they should hire you?

Is your bio full of information that is
’speaker’ related or ‘expert’ related?

Here’s an example of a ’speaker related’ bio:

George Smith is a professional speaker who
presents to corporations all over the world
on the topic of time management.  His
powerful stories and useful tips give his
audiences tools that they can use on a daily
basis.

(Note - George is fictional).

Here’s an example of an ‘expert bio’ (see the
full bio on page 45 of ‘The Wealthy
Speaker’).

Along with his bestselling book ‘Getting Time
on Your Side’, George Smith’s time management
tools have been used throughout corporate
America for more than a decade helping
executives become more productive.  His
weekly column ‘There’s Always Time’ has been
running in business publications in dozens of
cities for the past seven years.  George was
voted Entrepreneur of the Year by the Montana
Business Magazine.

Now maybe you haven’t secured a weekly
column (yet), but here are a few tips to consider
when reviewing your bio:

1.  Does it have a powerful opening line that
catches the reader’s attention?  Or will they
yawn and go back to watching videos on
YouTube?

2.  Does your bio tell the reader what you
did before you became a speaker and how it
relates to your expertise?

3.  Does your bio talk about your current
work with clients, past experience, books,
publications and awards?

4.  Does your bio show the reader that you
are, hands down, the expert that they need?

Now, here’s a sidebar…. if you haven’t done
anything of note, you may be in trouble and
you may need to delay your speaking career. I
would definitely not recommend ‘fudging’ on
your bio!

The bio (and the introduction) are often
overlooked marketing pieces.  I hope you’ll
use these tips to take yours to new heights.

ps:  The Diary of a Killer Keynote DVD with
Joe Calloway is flying off the shelves and
we’ve ordered more!  Click here to see what
the buzz is all about
http://www.speakerlauncher.com/killerkeynoteDVD.html

And thank you to those of you who have
responded already!

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So You Think You Can Speak?

August 9th, 2007 by jane

Have you ever watched that reality show
‘So You Think You Can Dance’?  I have
only seen it a few times but what
occured to me while watching was that
the speaking industry isn’t all that
different.

Many times a dancer would be under the
impression that they were incredibly
talented when in fact, they might have
been just average. Sometimes….they
were downright bad.

Which category would you put yourself
into?
__Incredibly talented
__Above Average
__Average
__Downright bad

Seriously, I’m sure none of you would
say downright bad, but the reality of
this industry is that you need to
constantly sharpen your skills.

Some speakers who are booked 100 times
per year at $10,000 per gig still get
help with their content and presentation
skills.

Even Joe Calloway, who many of you
admire, continues to learn and grow
every day of his career.

Because Joe is so talented, he was
chosen to be the 1st subject of my new
DVD series entitled:  The Killer Keynote
Diaries:  How to Develop and Deliver a
Keynote that Blows Them Away.

If you were at the National Speakers
Association Convention in Phoenix, you
might remember Joe’s ‘Let it Go’ speech.
That speech has had resounding impact.

On the DVD, you get the live
presentation as well as an interview
with Joe on what made it so powerful.

We’ll talk about…. opening, stories,
humor, timing, engaging the audience,
corporate clients, taking risks and much
much more.

You’ll be inspired to take your speech
to a new place and perhaps the next
survey you take about talent, you’ll
move up a rung.

This DVD is available starting today.
Click here to get your copy.

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

(You may have to cut and paste this
link).

In the speaking industry, we can’t just
hope that we might have talent.  We have
to move towards greatness every single
day and this is a step in the right
direction.

Happy Speaking!

ps:  If you’ve already purchased any
Wealthy Speaker product - check out the
special pricing available to you.

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

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Is your website getting you booked?

July 18th, 2007 by jane

Recently I was working with a
speaker whose website was about 6
years old. It had evolved and
changed over the years and had a
ton of information and many
options for the visitor.

But even though he was getting
huge amounts of traffic, the
website wasn’t working. He wasn’t
getting booked for speeches or
selling product.

Why? His buyers were getting
confused. There were too many
options and as I once heard it said
‘a confused buyer never buys’.

Many of us have arrived at this
same place, myself included.
My old site wasn’t as streamlined
as I wanted so I started from
scratch and it seems to be working.

Is your site working the way you
want it to? Is it getting you booked?

If not, you might be confusing your
buyers and you should map out the
exact process and outcomes that you
desire.

Here are 3 quick checks for your
website:

1. Is it focused? Can your buyers
tell within 15 seconds what it is
you do? If you list more than 3
topics, I suspect they are confused.

2. Your ‘promise’ should be clear
letting your buyers know the value
and outcomes right up front.

3. Are you positioning as an
expert or a speaker? Remember
Brian Palmer’s quote from my book
‘The Wealthy Speaker’ he said
‘clients no longer want to hire
speakers, they want to hire smart
people who happen to speak’,

4. There should be a call to
action - what steps do you want
them to take?

As technology becomes more complex,
every once in a while, we need to
stop and regroup to ensure that
we’re not confusing our customers.

Happy booking!

ps: Watch for my brand new
product ‘Diary of a Killer Keynote:
How to Develop and Deliver a
Keynote that Blows Them Away’ with
Joe Calloway.

I believe this DVD will be one of
most helpful tools that I ever produced
and I can’t wait.

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Are you turning your clients off with your voice message?

May 31st, 2007 by jane

I’m in the middle of a move of home and
office, so here’s a quick, bite size,
tip for you….

I returned a call to a speaker last week
and got his voice mail. What I heard
was disturbing.

‘Thank you for calling me, Joe Speaker,
I can help make your meeting memorable
cause I’m a really great speaker…..
blah, blah, blah, blah.’

I had to listen to 3 minutes of a sales
pitch before leaving my message! Yuck!

My question to you is this, when you are
putting your outbound message on your
office voice mail, are you setting
yourself up as an expert, or a speaker?

What are your clients hearing?

Remember what Brian Palmer of National
Speakers Bureau said in ‘The Wealthy
Speaker’, ‘clients no longer want to
hire speakers, they want to hire smart
people who happen to speak’.

Everything you do should be focused on
the value you deliver to your clients.
How you do it and the delivery channel
(in this case speaking) is secondary.

Personally, I like a voice mail to be
short and sweet - I don’t have time to
listen to 3 minutes of hoopla - and
chances are your clients don’t either.

Happy weekend everyone!

ps: If you want to know more about
positioning as an expert, pick up your
copy of ‘The Wealthy Speaker’ today,
here’s the link.
http://www.speakerlauncher.com/tools.html

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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 there any fresh ideas out there?

March 21st, 2007 by jane

I was asked to be interviewed this past January
for the Voices of Experience CD series for
National Speakers Association.

During the interview, I talked about a couple of
my clients who were doing some fresh things in
their speech and in their marketing. (Like Scott
Klososky who bought the cow on stage and Steve
Little who has a cool, interactive website).

From this conversation, ‘The Fresh Idea
Challenge’ was born.

I was actually nervous to announce the contest
because I thought so many ideas would come pouring
in that I’d have a hard time handling them. Not!

Let’s just say I was underwhelmed by the
response and it got me thinking…..

1. Either people are afraid to share their fresh
ideas (perhaps others might ‘adopt’ them) or….

2. There are no fresh ideas.

I cannot imagine that it’s #2. In fact, I know
that speakers are some of the most creative people
on the planet so I’m putting out the challenge
again and the winning ideas will be posted on my
website and broadcast on the summer edition of
Voices of Experience.

Here’s what you should do if you have a fresh idea
in the area of marketing (things that worked to
get you booked with clients) or platform (things
that worked from the stage that the audience and
client loved).

Write a 1 paragraph description of the idea and
a 1 paragraph description of the results and
send it to jane@speakerlauncher.com

We know that in our industry ideas are shared and
recycled and reworked - that’s part of the
industry. What we are seeking here is something
that we may not have heard before or new twists on
old ideas.

Your name will be used along with the idea but if
you got the idea from someone else (even if you
put your own spin on it) please credit them as
well.

We’ll keep you posted.

ps: My book ‘The Wealthy Speaker’ was a
complilation of ideas that I gathered from my 18
years with the National Speakers Association.
From the minute I arrived at my first convention
in Washington DC, to last month in Denver, I’ve
been learning. I owe everything I know to NSA’ers
including the likes of Thom Winninger, Mark
Sanborn, Joe Calloway, Kris Young, Mark
LeBlanc…. I could go on for hours. The
spirit of sharing is NSA. Let’s not let fear get
in our way.

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Part I: Are You Ready to Hire?

January 17th, 2007 by jane

One of the most common things I hear from
professional speakers is that they are not
interested in marketing themselves. They’d like
to hire someone to do it for them. For those of
you who have tried to hire, and failed, you know
that this is easier said than done. Let’s face
it - hiring, in any industry, is a crap shoot.

Here are a few questions to determine whether you
are ready to hire a marketing person to help build
your speaking business:

1. Are you losing business because you don’t have
time (or desire) to fill your business pipeline or
follow up leads?

2. Have you ‘worked’ the business yourself for at
least a year and know how to get bookings (and can
train someone else to do this)?

3. Can you afford to pay a base salary plus
commission? (Most good marketing people will not
work for straight commission).

4. Can you afford to make a mistake in hiring? (Or
will a bad choice put your business in jeopardy?)

If you can answer ‘yes’ to most of these questions
then you are ready to take the next step.

Go to Step 2 - Don’t Make a Mistake When Hiring
Go to Step 3 - Let’s Find you That Marketing
Person

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Part II: Don’t Make a Mistake When Hiring

January 17th, 2007 by jane

One of the biggest mistakes speakers make
when hiring is not getting clear on their needs
until AFTER they have hired.

Hopefully you have fully assessed whether you
are ready to hire or not after the last Inside
Track Tip: Are You Ready to Hire?

The hiring process has 5 steps:
1) Are you ready?
2) What should this person do for me?
3) How much should I pay them?
4) Where will I find them?
5) How should we get started?

We’ll cover #2 and #3 here today, and #4 and #5 in
the next part.

At this point we need to get clear on what
tasks we want this person to perform for us.
Remember back to April’s Tip: Focus to Earn More
we talked about the $10/hour jobs vs. the
$150/hour jobs?

Well it’s the $10 jobs that you should be farming
out to an admin person. But be clear that this is
not the same as the “sales and marketing” role.

Here is the long list of possible job tasks -
separated into 3 categories 1) Getting Speaking
Engagements 2) Administrative duties and 3)
Personal Assistant:

1) Getting speaking engagements:
prospecting
cold calling/telemarketing
marketing to and working with bureaus
developing or updating marketing materials
proposal writing
sending out marketing materials or e-mail
proposals
closing deals (overcoming objections, etc)
meeting with clients
mass marketing - mailings or e-mails
showcase events
following up leads from gigs
new product development

2) Admin duties:
Booking travel
Generating invoices/Bookkeeping
Schedule management
Gig logistics
Product fulfillment (shipping)
Database management
Newsletter management
Web site management
Managing other businesses
interests/investments, etc.

3) Personal Assistant
Picking up dry cleaning
Feeding the fish
Keeping you organized
Arranging family trips, etc.

JOB DESCRIPTION: Choose your requirements
from the list above and then design the job
description.

Note: As stated in the last tip, if you don’t know
how to sell yourself, you may not be ready to
hire.

SALARY: If your job description includes tasks
from all 3 areas, then you’ll want to consider
offering a base salary (for the admin and/or
personal assistant work) plus commission for the
marketing work. You may get creative and offer an
admin only person a bonus when you meet quotas.

One combo that seems to be successful is the
“business manager” role that encompasses all 3
areas and pays salary plus commission. You and
your business manager will grow the business
together along with both of your incomes.

WHO IS RIGHT?: Now that you have a job
description, make a list of the qualities that the
person doing this job would possess and then make
a list of the values of the person you’d work best
with. (You’ll notice that the people you surround
yourself with often have similar values to your
own).

NEXT STEP: Once you are clear on what you need
and what that perfect person looks like, in two
weeks I’ll provide some ideas on how to find that
perfect person. In the meantime, continue to
visualize yourself finding that perfect person. It
is possible!

Part III:  Let’s Find You That Perfect Staff Person

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Part III: Finding That Perfect Staff Person

January 17th, 2007 by jane

In Part I of this series we talked about whether
or not you were ready to hire.

In Part II we covered how much to pay and the job
description.

Now we delve into actually looking for this
person. Some of the things that should go on your
list of traits of a marketing person should be:
Honest
Loyal
Detail Oriented
Sales Skills
Relationship Builder
“Gets” what you do
Able to persevere

If you are checking behavioral styles, you might
go for someone with a Driver and Interpersonal
combination.

Now that you have the vision of the person in
mind, here are some places to look….

1. Your inner circle - put out a notice of the
type of person you are looking for to everyone you
know in your business and personal life.

2. If you attend a church ask around there.

3. Your audience - often someone who comes to
talk to you after a presentation might be a
candidate. You might even mention it from the
platform if you can turn it into a relevant story.

4. Virtual Assistant - they are popping up every
day on-line - and there are several who specialize
in coaches and professional speakers.

5. Speaker Management companies - it’s getting
more and more common for 1 person or office to
manage several speakers. Ask around at your
NSA or CAPS Chapter to see who is in your area.
The biggest problem that these companies face is
that they cannot take all the speakers that
approach
them so it’s hard to get your foot in the door.

6. Advertising - locally or on a www.Monster.com
type website will probably get you a fair
response.
Make sure you mention that you are a professional
speaker - people are intrigued by our industry.
You’ll have to weed through a stack of applicants,
but it could be worth it if you find that perfect
person.

Keep in mind the principle “hire slow, fire fast”.
Take your time. Be prepared to spend a lot of time
training this person. (This is why it’s so
important for you to know how to book speaking
business). Do not bring them in, leave them
alone, and expect them to start booking business
for you. That, most likely, won’t happen. Have
them come out to several of your speeches, read
your books, watch your videos. Let them listen to
you sell and role play prior to picking up the
phone.
Have a training agenda.

Hiring is like a marriage and the stats might even
be similar (50+% failure rate). So take your
time, visualize the perfect person coming into
your business and give them the training and tools
to be successful.

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

January 15th, 2007 by jane

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!

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