Archive for the Getting Started Category
Speaking at Events: Hosting Your Own Client Gathering
One of the easiest ways to get started in your speaking career is to create your own opportunities by hosting an event yourself.
Unless event planning is your speciality you’ll probably want to keep things simple at this stage. Why not host a VIP gathering for your clients and their contacts?
Giving your event a VIP label will make your guests feel special and by allowing your clients to bring guests of their own their clients will feel special too. Meanwhile you’ll get to speak in front of an audience and grow your list at the same time.
When I first started in my speaking business I hosted a small gathering and spent $17 on nibbles and by presenting my offer made $795 in sales. The second event I ran I took it up a level, spent $350, invited more guests and made $10,000 in sales! If you keep it small and intimate there isn’t much planning involved either.
Let’s consider the process of hosting a client gathering:
- Guest list:
- How many people are you going to invite?
- Will you invite all of your clients or a selection of your best clients?
- How about inviting the clients who have signed up to your list but have never bought from you?
- Content:
- What are the solutions your guests are most in need of right now?
- How can your offer help them to find the answers?
- Will your presentation entertain or educate?
- Are you intending to invite guest speakers too?
- How about partnering with another speaker in a complementary niche and jointly hosting the event?
- Venue:
- Now you know the number of guests you’ll be inviting and the type of content you want to deliver, do you know where you can host your gathering?
- Your home can be great for small groups but not so good if you’re expecting a lot of guests. If you’re not comfortable inviting clients into your home, where could you hold your event instead?
- Are you going to offer chips and dips or a larger selection of food?
- Your ‘no brainer’ offer:
- It is important that you consider your audience when creating your offer. Think about the solutions you are presenting to your guests and ask yourself if what you are offering is going to compel them to take action.
- Invitations:
- How are you going to invite your guests?
- If you already have their mailing address you might like to create a personal invitation and mail it to them?
- We don’t hand write much these days but isn’t it lovely when you pick up your mail to find a hand written envelope addressed to you? It always makes me smile.
- You can invite your guests in an email if you really want to keep it simple or if you’re good with technology you might want to create a website invitation?
- However you decide to invite your guests, your copy should be compelling and state the benefits of attending your gathering.
Why not make a definite plan to hold a client gathering soon? They are a great opportunity to connect with lots of fantastic people in a great environment that you’ve brought together. Plus you’ll get another chance to show off your speaking skills in front of an audience which is always a bonus.
Have you held a client gathering? Please leave me a comment-I’d love to hear your ideas and whether there was a particular element of your event that made it successful?
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Or in other words, Happy Chinese New Year!
January 23rd marked the year of the dragon and with the dragon comes lots and lots of babies. Why? Because children born in dragon years are supposed to be particularly lucky.
In fact, in previous dragon years, countries like China and Hong Kong have experienced massive baby booms and I read in the paper the other day that makers of pre-natal and infant care services are already rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of all these new babies.
So what, you might be asking, has this got to do with you and your public speaking aspirations or business goals?
Well, as the dragon is the only mythical creature out of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, it is seen as the most auspicious out of all the animals and is the link between the imaginary world and the real world.
In other words, it really is a special year to bring into manifestation something you have long been dreaming of. Or to use the baby analogy – to give birth to something you deeply desire.
Now this doesn’t have to be a child (although that is my deepest wish for this dragon year!) it could be something professional or something personal.
So what project or dream do you most secretly yearn to realize this year?
If you’ve never spoken in public before, is it to speak in public for the first time? Or if you’ve been speaking in public a while now, is it time to take the step up and put on your own public speaking event?
Do you have a financial goal? Dragon years represent change and mobility and in terms of economy, tend to herald in better economic wealth. It’s an energetic year and a great year for entrepreneurship.
So is it time to leave your job and set up your own business? Giving birth can be to a new business or even just a new project. Or is now the year to create those products you’ve been talking about doing for years?! Perhaps this dragon year is when you really start to leverage your time and make some passive income.
Or would you like to manifest something more personal than that? To bring forth and co-create a deep and meaningful relationship?
To set sail on a round the world adventure?
Or like myself and Greg, is it to have children?
So this week, I invite you to think of one great dream you want to give birth to this dragon year and see come forth into its physical manifestation.
Keep in mind my advice from my new year blog post and really take a moment to connect with your deeper self. This means the goals and intentions come from the higher self and not your ego.
The Truth About Those New Year Goals
Now is the perfect time to set forth your intention into the world.
And if you’ve landed on this blog post and your goals are purely speaking related, know that there’s tons of resources on this blog to help you, anything from filling the room, writing your own copy, shooting your own videos and lots more speaking tips!
The Anatomy Of The Perfect Squeeze Page
How To Create A Professional Video Even Spielberg Would Be Proud Of
Sow the seed of your desire and know with dragon energy on your side, anything is possible.
I invite your comments, thoughts and dragon dreams below.
How to Fill a Room…
I recently got this comment from an extremely frustrated speaker:
“Dear Joey,
The more I listen to you talk about how successful your 1-day speaking events are, the more incapable I feel. You get hundreds of people in your room but when I recently ran a preview night for my 1-day workshop only 12 people turned up and only 3 people booked! Now my 1-day workshop is coming up early next month and I’m afraid NO-ONE is going to show up. Do I really have to go and do another preview night? How else do I fill this room other than market to my list?
I’m on the verge of giving up.
HELP!
In gratitude,
Susan”
Sound familiar?!
Knowing how to market your seminars and filling your rooms are such a common source of pain for us speakers, I thought I would share her email and my response:
Hi Susan,
First of all do not give up!
I hear stories like yours ALL the time. I’m not going to lie, filling the room is the hardest thing about speaking. Far harder than actually standing on stage delivering the content!
And before I share some seminar marketing strategies with you, let’s get things straight. I haven’t always put on huge events! It’s easy to forget that because I now have a fantastic team around me, that when I first started I was just like you. Remember, we all have to start somewhere.
In fact, I remember the very first event I put on – it was a client appreciation night in my own home – and I invited less than 20 people and most of them were friends and family! I was racked with nerves too but I made a few sales and I was over the moon!
You see, that small success gave me the confidence to go onto bigger and better things which ultimately led to me setting up my own business and putting on my own 1-day events and becoming who I am today.
So wherever you are right now is the perfect place for you! Give yourself permission to be small when you start out and that means setting realistic targets.
(Honestly, the amount of times I hear people who have NO list say they’re going to get 150 people + in a room in less than 4 weeks time. Yes that can happen, but it’s the exception to filling a room and not the rule!)
Now in terms of the practical advice, here are 8 key guidelines for filling a room:
- 12 Week Lead-in
Give yourself a 12 week lead-in for marketing your seminar. This means your sales page and promotional emails need to be prepared in advance of these 12 weeks. We’ve found anything between a 12-week to 8-week lead-in works best for our list.
TIP: A lot of people either book right at the beginning or right on the deadline so remember to angle your email copy to those people specifically. Offer earlybird bonuses for booking quickly and then angle your copy to the ‘fence sitters’ toward the end.
- Is Your Event A No-Brainer?
Make it a no-brainer to attend your preview night or workshop. Offer good quality free bonuses and make sure you deliver exceptional value – not a sales pitch. Make it such a feast that the only choice is to attend!
TIP: Use testimonials from happy clients as social proof.
- Hire A Copywriter
If you’re not a great copywriter, invest in someone to look over the copy for you. A few tweaks here and there could be all the difference between a 10% conversion or a 1% conversion on your sales page. The reason why copywriters can charge a lot of money is because of the money they make you!! Too often I see a great idea let down by weak copy. If you can’t afford a copywriter, then in your emails offer a clear message to market match, some clean bullets and at least 2 links to your registration page. Use of success stories also works well.
TIP: Don’t be too salesy in your emails. Coming from the heart will create a stronger connection in today’s email saturated market place.
- Is Your Niche Clear?
This is really important and something I talk about a lot – make sure the event has a clear niche and that you have a very clear message to market match! For example, our niche are small business owners, coaches, entreprenuers and our message is how to leverage your time through speaking so you stop trading time for money and start reaching more people. Not nailing the niche is one of the biggest reasons events don’t fill or why you don’t get great conversions.
TIP! If you don’t do anything else, just do this one!
- Seek JV Partners and Alliances
If you’ve only got a small list or even no list, I wouldn’t suggest going to the big promoters, but do find people who have approximately the same list size or a ‘step up’ from you. Offer them an incentive to send for you, for example a percentage of the ticket sales or if you do have a good-sized list, a reciprocal email for them.
TIP! Make sure you write the promotional emails for their list – basically you want to give them everything on the plate already done to make it as easy as possible for send out to their list.
- Set-Up An Affiliate Program
Set up an affiliate program and make it easy to join! Again, take away any effort to someone being an affiliate. Offer 50% or more on the front-end ticket price. If you are selling something at the event, your money will come on the back-end so you can afford to be generous on the front-end.
- Keep Building Your List
Keep focusing on building your list with new prospects! The more new prospects, the more people you can market to with news of your 1-day event. Social media is a great way to engage new people, or guest talk on other’s webinars, write value packed blogs like this one and have your squeeze page offering a relevant free gift like ours:
http://www.shiftspeakertraining.com/
When you are building your list, the idea is to offer a free gift to draw people in and start a relationship with them. So you don’t want to be marketing your event to these new prospect straight away but at some point, you do want to let them know you’re putting on a live event to give them the opportunity to see you in person!
- Social Media
If like Susan, you’re just putting on a preview night, then use social media to its fullest! Set up an event for it on Facebook and then invite your friends and ask them to share the link with as many people as possible. You might want to film a short video and post this too. You could even put on a free 60minute webinar in addition or as an alternative to get people into your 1-day.
TIP: If you are using social media, then remember to ‘seed’ your idea with status updates/tweets which are about your topic and invite interaction.
- Be Realistic!
Remember what I said at the beginning – keep your expectations realistic. If you’ve never put on an event before aiming for 20 people is a good start. Go up incrementally from that point on. Quality is always better than quantity in the beginning.
So, now you have some clear strategies for filling a room or getting people to attend your preview night. No-one ever said it was easy, but it doesn’t have to be that hard either!
If you’ve got any marketing seminar tips for how to fill a room, share them below or if you’re looking for JV partners, share that below too!
The Anatomy of The Perfect Squeeze Page
Today we’re talking about marketing and on the operating table I’ve placed a squeeze page (or lead capture page) for us to dissect. You must have heard the old internet marketing mantra that “the money is in the list” and the main role of a squeeze page is to build your list.
Here at Shift we prefer to call the list our ‘community’ because essentially it’s all about building a relationship between me and you. You may have joined our community via this blog, from one of my speaking engagements, or you may have opted-in to one of my squeeze pages.
Here are 2 examples of squeeze pages I use:
http://www.shiftspeakertraining.com/blueprint – This page offers a free chapter from our speaker blueprint and grows our Shift Speaker Training Community
http://www.shiftlifestyle.com/laws – This free gift is 7 video tips on lifestyle design and is designed to grow our Shift Lifestyle Community
Note they are entirely different communities, both with separate needs, frustrations, desires and wants and so have 2 completely different gifts.
Tip: Take the time to check them out yourself and if you haven’t already got your free gift, why not opt in so you can dissect the email sequences we use too!
Should You Use A Squeeze Page?
Squeeze pages are used by internet savvy business owners, solo-entrepreneurs and anyone with a free online product they want to give away in return for building a list. This online community then represents a readymade and targeted audience for your paid products and courses so it’s a must-have if you are serious about creating financial success.
Tip: As a speaker, I 100% recommend a squeeze page because when you build your community you can then promote your speaking gigs to them. Did you know most of our speaking gigs are filled by our own community? You see when you create a good relationship with your community, a relationship based on value, they will love the opportunity to see you live.
The Anatomy Of A Squeeze Page
There are three components every squeeze page should possess:
1. An powerful and alluring headline that gets the prospects attention, promises great benefit and forms a connection with the target audience;
2. The benefits are outlined in a bulleted-list with a strong and compelling description which incites the reader to complete the opt-in form
3. A call to action where the reader provides their contact data in response to your initial promise and the relationship building process can commence.
Tip: When you are creating your own squeeze page, the more targeted the audience the better your conversion rate will be. As a giveaway, you might choose a free report, an ebook, a series of video tips, an interview with an expert etc. All too often I see people giving away free products that have NOTHING to do with their ongoing products! Make sure there is a connection between your free giveaway and your paid products.
How You Create A Squeeze Page
Even though the general structure of a squeeze page is quite simple, the copy-writing to prepare the headline, benefit bullets and even the call to action can have a huge influence on the conversion rate. Therefore before actually making a squeeze page, stop and consider:
1. Who are your target audience
2. What problem are you attempting to solve for them and how you can reflect this in your headline
3. Create at least four benefits to be offered via the bullet points
4. The nature of your offer when creating the call to action.
Finally . . .
Two final points to consider as you create your first lead capture page:
• Though many early lead capture pages were “text-oriented” there is a growing trend to use a video (usually between the headline and last two sections) with the author adding a personal message that is often far more compelling. Video lead capture pages usually have higher conversion rates. As a speaker you should be experts at this!
• Good copy writing is an art form. Everyone should study multiple examples of lead pages targeting a variety of niches. Don’t be afraid to “borrow” ideas, especially from pages believed to have higher conversion rates.
• If in doubt, hire a copywriter!
So now you know how to create the perfect squeeze page, I hope to see you starting your very own community soon! If you have anything you want to add to this, please drop me a comment below.
Public Speaking: The Top 5 Benefits Of Speaking In Public
Erm. Hang on? Speak . . . speak in public you say?
Let me just swallow my fear and choke on my cornflakes. You want me to stand up in front of a group of strangers and talk to them? Like give them a presentation?!
Are you cuh-razy?
I can’t speak in public!
No, I am not crazy. In fact . . . I am about to offer you the fastest ticket to success you could ever imagine. You know Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the Golden Tickets . . . well speaking is YOUR golden ticket to success.
Look, I know for most people there might be a few fears to get over (although for the rare few there are none) . .. but let’s imagine you’re the norm and not the exception and you do have a bit of stuff around speaking in public. That’s ok. Maybe you have a lot of stuff around speaking in public! Because public speaking is (apparently) the number one fear that most people have.
Which is such a shame! There are so many benefits to becoming a speaker – for your business, your bank balance, for your lifestyle AND for your own personal confidence – I can’t even cover them all in one mere blog post so I’ve highlighted the top 5 for you!
Read on . . .
The Top Five Benefits Of Public Speaking
1. Increased Self Confidence
Once you have mastered speaking in front on an audience, whether it be in front of a crowd of ten or a crowd of thousands, your confidence levels will go through the roof. Through the roof ok? Do this, and you can do anything. Honest.
2. Reach More People
Do you have a vision which is close to your heart, a vision which could shape the world, a vision which could heal? Yes? Well stop holding onto it and start sharing it.
Does it make more sense to talk to one person at a time, or a roomful of people? Which method will spread your vision faster? Remember, a vision flies when you stand on stage. You give it wings.
Allow yourself to fly.
3. Make More Sales
Regardless of what you are selling - your ebook, your 3-day seminar, your coaching or your membership site, you will multiply your sales and in far LESS time when you speak to a hundred people as opposed to selling one on one.
This is a MASSIVE benefit of public speaking – the opportunity to make more sales in one sitting. It’s call leverage. And it can make you a lot of money. Fast.
4. Build Credibility
When you are on stage you become an authority in your field. People look up to you. Their opinion on you changes simply because you are standing on stage. Strange but true!
This credibility will open up more opportunities and earn you more recognition which in turn builds credibility and gets you more opportunities. It’s a winning cycle.
So time to get on it!
5. Make Big Money
I saved the best benefit for public speaking for last.
Public speaking is one of the easiest and best ways to make money. Big money. I’m not suggesting this will happen the first time round (although it can and it does all the time) but if you have researched your market, determined your niche, sent out a compelling message to this market, built a big-pack product and added tonnes of value to it, then why not?
Go On . . . Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway!
So, now you’ve seen the benefits of public speaking, why not go out there and stretch your comfort zone this week?
If you’ve never spoken at an event (but always secretly wanted to), is now the time to book your first one? It doesn’t have to be huge! A few people is as good as start as any. Or if you’ve only ever spoken to smaller audiences, could now be the time to step up to the next level? Or if you’ve spoken to large audiences, what could you do differently that will stretch you this week?
There’s always another step out there. This week could just be the week to take it. I dare you.
Growing A Business: How Speaking Can Grow Your Business
Did you know that speaking is the most powerful lead generation tool you can use to grow your business?
Number One Business Growth Strategy… Use This And Watch Your Profits Explode!
Speaking on stage is not just about turning up, making a speech and getting paid for it. This is old school. The kind of speaking I teach is how to set up a profitable speaking business. If you’re looking for one simple thing to do which will grow you business . . . look no further than speaking on your topic.
Give a 90-minute presentation full of valuable content (and believe me, you could be in ANY business!) and within this presentation include an irresistible offer for your audience to take the next step with you.
You can use speaking to generate new leads, bring in new clients or make more sales in an afternoon than you made all month! It’s not uncommon for some of my clients to add $100, $1,000 or even $10,000 to their income EVERY MONTH.
Start Small
If you’ve never spoken publicly before, a great way to start is to speak in front of just a handful of people. The confidence you will draw from this experience will allow you to get up in front of a bigger audience.
I’ve got many successful clients who decided they were going to learn how to present from stage precisely because they were so terrified of it. They knew if they didn’t overcome their fears it would hold them back from all the other opportunities life throws us.
From Painfully Shy Child To $130,000 In Ticket Sales In 3 Short Months
As a child I was incredibly shy. Like many other people, I had to work through my own issues about getting up on stage. It was about letting go of the past and stepping out of my comfort zone.
Once I had mastered that, I made over $130,000 in ticket sales in 3 short months and without even a database of my own!
I don’t say this to toot my own horn . . . I say this to show you what is possible when YOU use speaking on your topic to grow your business.
Go For It!
So now you know speaking on your topic is the single most powerful, the fastest and the most effective way to grow your business, why not plan your first presentation and get out there and see your sales soar? So right now, make a commitment to yourself that you will take some action. I look forward to seeing you on the platforms of the world.
How To Run a Successul Tradeshow or Exhibition
- Trade shows are tough gigs.
- There are lots of stalls and marketers already there who are competing for the attention of the attendees.
- Go round and build relationships with the other stall holders – they already have lists of people who you can market to in the form of a joint venture.
How to Get Speaking Gigs
- Who are your Target Market? – Describe them Demographically
- Where do these people gather in groups?
- Attend the functions you would like to speak at.
- Build a Relationship with the event promoter
How To Plan For Success . . . With Post-It Notes!
This week’s BTS tip comes from our CEO, Jo Harrison.
The 4 Key Questions To Ask Yourself When Creating Systems In Your Business
This week’s BTS tip come from the delightful Donna Powell -our very own General Manager.
- Systems are the foundations of your business.
- Everyone in your business needs to use the same system.
- Ask yourself what is your outcome, i.e., is it to save time?
- What are the steps you want your people to follow to achieve this outcome?
- What or who else needs to know this information?
In the Blueprint Chapter you will discover:
How to create a magnetic and attractive offer that has people leaping out of their seats to buy from you, without ever looking or feeling "sales-y"...
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