The Situation of the Difficult Speaker
speaking portion. It’s not simple to run a professional speaking business. Some people think that speaking is simple. How difficult could it be when everyone here is able to speak? Many speakers who make this assumption swiftly move from honing their profession to selling it are doomed to failure. If you’re hired to give a speech, the speech itself is your product. No amount of effective marketing or selling will be able to outsell a subpar offering that no one wants or likes. The good news is that investing a little more time and energy into your program doesn’t cost anything. Even a coach won’t put you into debt. Just make sure it’s a coach—not just another backseat driver—who genuinely knows how to give a good speech.
You want to play big, right? After that, make a better product.
The market for trainers and speakers is incredibly competitive. The number of options is too many for meeting organizers. To stand out and build longevity in this industry, being excellent enough is no longer sufficient. You’d better be fantastic. Authentic. Relevant. And in high demand. You require a speech that will keep people talking.
The remainder. The majority of us choose to become speakers because we enjoy speaking. Most speaking businesses fail or never get off the ground because of the “everything else” component. Most of us enjoy writing speeches; selling them, finding clients, coming up with catchy taglines, writing books, generating promotional materials, and developing internal procedures to keep everything running smoothly are less enjoyable. Like many business owners or owners of small practices, the majority of us do not start this firm with a sizable bankroll. We’re attempting to run on a very small budget and let the expansion of the firm pay for itself. If I had hired a costly marketing firm to develop and pitch my brand, I would have likely overcome many obstacles much sooner. Well done if you have a lot of money to put into this company. The rest of us should read this piece.
We spend a lot of time as professional speakers “figuring out” a business that has no clear direction and making difficult decisions. Every company strategy is different, and the more you understand about how other companies operate, the more perplexing it becomes. Figuring out how to truly generate money in a profession that is already challenging is made extremely tough by the smoke and mirrors of this industry (where speakers’ claims are considerably bigger than their realities).
I won’t go into everything I’ve discovered about selling, marketing, etc. today. Yuck again. Boring. Aren’t there already a lot more articles like that? Find those now. I simply want to present a different viewpoint to you today. I’ve always thought that getting a new set of glasses to change how you see your business is far more beneficial than finding 27 online suggestions.
The following perspective change has worked wonders for my own business:
Hack on a high budget.
Sounds cheesy? Nope. In actuality, it is quite logical. Take a look at what the people with enormous budgets are doing and use their ideas.
I’m not referring to other speakers, please note.
Neither of them.
None at all.
DO NOT use your rivals as a template. This contest is over. And even if their strategies are sound, they will continue to make you play small. Aim higher.
Visit the TRUE industry powerhouses. those who don’t work in your sector. large brands. the ones that we are all familiar with. the millionaire YouTubers. the bloggers that are mentioned in every email exchange. the wildly popular videos. drinks that we all purchase. The Super Bowl ads that are discussed all year long. the podcasts that people consume while traveling by train. books that we all read. The television shows and movies that we adore.
We spend way too much time studying each other as public speakers. It makes much more sense to look outside of our own industry and study the companies who invest millions of dollars into figuring out how to draw in customers, sell to them, and keep them interested and talking. And imitate THEM.
The key is to step outside of your comfort zone and adopt the strategies used by high-profile corporations.
Just one, after which you’re on your own.
Numerous presenters I’ve coached on how to create a message that sells frequently fail for three reasons, according to my observations.
They don’t sound seductive enough when they speak.
They fail to convey enough freshness in their content.
The buyer’s language is not one they speak.
The words you use matter, whether they are in your marketing, speech, or names for programs or books you write. Most speakers only use passable words. Just okay doesn’t outperform your rivals, either.
Go bigger rather than simply browsing the internet to see what other speakers are doing.
Magazine covers are one example.
Every year, we start my Story Crafting Camp (www.StoryCraftingCamp.com, a corporate storytelling retreat) with an exercise where we design the “magazine cover” for our company on an 11×14 sheet of white paper. The objective is to produce something appealing on one page that speaks the buyer’s language, makes you sound sexy, and sounds new. To put it simply, this is what you would put on the cover of your magazine to entice readers to pick it up as they walk by in the supermarket. Then, we consider how actual magazine covers achieve this. the big-budget participants.
Oprah Magazine, for instance. They are skilled at pitching Oprah, the day’s “Secret,” and grabbing your attention by inquiring as to whether you are living on emptiness. Excellent illustration of utilizing all three views. If your company (I’m thinking training businesses here) isn’t predicated on you being the face of the company, you might instead take a look at what Forbes magazine is doing.
The point is that these major players are investing millions of dollars to learn how to talk in a way that appeals to your hurts, desires, and emotions in order to stand out from the competition. Same ideas apply in different industries. COPIED THEM
Following this exercise, we often continue utilizing my Story Formula to develop our brand story in our camps.
You’re all set. How to become a Big Budget Hacker quickly. There are a lot more.
Go ahead and start playing big right now. I’m hoping the best for you.
Need some speaker coaching or presentation skills? Enroll in StoryImpactAcademy.com