Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

CEO Speaking is Your Best Weapon

The most successful motivational speakers, corporate executives, and professional services firm principals become recognized thought leaders in their areas of expertise because they deploy three powerful tools every time they speak – Clarity, Expertise, and Openness:

Clarity: In any speaking situation, clarity indicates power, confidence, and capability. Less is more. Convey a few points powerfully. Focus your message and like a laser beam, it will cut through even the most steely buyer you’re likely to encounter.

Expertise: Expertise has replaced dollars as your marketing investment. Those who share the most value win. Actionable, specific, do-this-now strategies and tactics are the coin of the realm. This goes beyond “educating your prospects” and even goes so far as “setting the buying criteria” or helping them do it themselves if they so choose.

Openness: Openness is about collaboration. Marketing is no longer someone yelling through a megaphone. It’s a person-to-person conversation. Forget about being the source of all information to your clients. Your new job is to open the possibilities, ask great questions, and then serve as a filter, lens, and curator. Openness means that every time you speak, you do it WITH them, you don’t do it TO them!

Mastering this kind of CEO Speaking will pay off in helping you attract, engage, and win more clients - NOW more than ever!

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach on the front lines of the meltdown economy, I'm seeing firsthand and through my clients that marketing has become even more challenging because – now more than ever – your buyers are lazy, busy, and befuddled.

See if some of these characteristics ring true with YOUR prospects and buyers over the last few months:

Lazy: Your buyers do not look forward to being marketed and sold to. The old standards of good, cheap, and fast have been replaced with the new “Web 2.0” standard of perfect, free, and now. Instant gratification, easy to buy, and effortless to install are the new watchwords for marketing and sales success. The expert at hand is the expert who gets hired.

Busy: Buyers have a million things on their plate besides researching the best options for products, services, vendors, partners, and trusted advisors. You need to become the obvious choice, the smartest choice, and the least risky choice – all in the span of a very short amount of time to be heard above their (internal and external) noise.

Befuddled: Buyers are overwhelmed with information, choices, data, specs, features, benefits, and marketing hype. It can be hard to separate the best service providers from the best marketers – and rarely are they one and the same. Your buyers have been burned, disappointed, and let down by slick marketers in the past.

So what can you do?

You won’t win them over with sizzle so your only choice is to convey TWO things with the utmost clarity and conviction:

1. We understand what you’re up against

2. We can fix it

That's marketing in a nutshell, folks! Agree? Disagree? Comments? Fire away down in the COMMENTS section and I'd love to hear from YOU...

The Challenge

Too often, professional services firms:

• Do marketing “by accident” or don’t do outbound marketing effectively
• Hope that “prospects will call us when they need us”
• Never know where their next lead is coming from
• Don’t market using their best asset – thought leadership
• Throw too many dollars into a “marketing black hole”

The Opportunity

Independent research with over 700 professional services firms proves that the #1 source of new business is “Making warm calls to existing clients” – and #2 and #3 are “Speaking at conferences and trade shows” and “Running our own seminars and events” yet if yours is like the majority of firms, you haven’t yet cracked the code on how to make this work for YOUR people to attract YOUR clients.

More research shows that 52-72% of B2B professional services BUYERS are willing to switch to new service providers across a spectrum of specialties. (Wellesley Hills Group, 2009 What’s Working in Lead Generation professional services market study)

Meaning: You’re always ONE good presentation away from closing new business.

The Payoff

Professional services firms and thought leaders within large companies can often do a MUCH better job in the following areas:

• Design and deliver a client-magnet presentation

• Generate leads without being salesy

• Use Before-During-After marketing to stay top of mind

• Maximize profits on a shoestring marketing budget

• Generate more leads, better prospects and bigger sales using irresistible offers and high-integrity techniques

...and in my experience working with clients like this, it does NOT take huge amounts of work; small, targeted shifts in your packaging, promotion, messaging, and followup makes all the difference (which we usually nail down over the course of 1 or 2 days together and then the floodgates open!)

Last Word: Marketing Skills vs. Presentation Skills

A decent presentation built for marketing and sales results will outperform a brilliant presentation built for a “standing ovation” or praise from your local Toastmaster’s club or high marks from a presentation skills coach.

Bottom line: I don’t care if you become a great speaker. I do very much care that you become a good speaker who consistently generates more leads, better prospects, and bigger sales each time you present in front of a roomful of potential buyers.

What do you think? Fire off some thoughts, comments, or questions in the COMMENTS section below. Let's talk about this one...

"We often talk about ourselves as if we have permanent genetic flaws that can never be altered."
-- Marshall Goldsmith

This snippet from America's preeminent executive coach (and founding director of the Alliance for Strategic Leadership) speaks volumes about where most people are today, and where they COULD BE.

My wife was on the phone a while back with a friend who runs a video production business. She asked him, "So, Ron - do YOU have the sales gene?" Turns out that neither one of them believed they had "the sales gene." Problem is, HE was in sales and my wife wasn't!

Guess how robust his sales are?

Exactly.

Although I'm a marketing speaker and not a sales trainer, I can tell you that this mindset WILL hurt your bottom line.  

And the term "gene" - as in the creativity gene, the leadership gene, the money-making gene, the happiness gene - is as FLEETING in reality as it sounds BIOLOGICALLY PERMANENT when we talk about it!

Thomas Watson, Jr. of IBM weighed in on this issue when talking about excellence (or the 'excellence gene' as we might call it in this context):

"If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work."

Try this version on for size: If you want to achieve X (sales, dating, marketing, whatever), as of this second, start believing that you DO possess that gene -- and then ACT on that fact!

Marketing speakers and marketing consultants are famous for packing in "over 100 strategies you can use immediately" and "97 secrets" or "51 immutable laws" of this and that.

Problem is - those numbers are too high. You don't need 100, you can't implement 97, and you'll never get a handle on 51.

You need 3-4 max. Three strategies. Or four tactics. Used with focus, momentum, and consistency...

Less is truly more. Here's Picasso's take on it:
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You must always work not just within, but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.

-- Pablo Picasso
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If any one thing characterizes the time in which we live, it is the tendency to strive and to overreach and to want more, more, more, now, now, now.

The problem with multi-tasking and this go-go-go pattern of life and work is that there is no room for mastery, for ease, for “strength in reserve.”

• If you want to get more done, work more slowly.
• If you want it faster, develop a singular focus.
• If you want to get better, do less.

My advice for both emerging and experienced professional speakers is to "invest in the relationship" with meeting planners and conference producers. What do I mean by that and why is it important for your success?

Invest in the relationship with meeting planners means it’s not always about the money. Most good conference producers and meeting planners consider themselves in the speaker marketing business, the speaker visibility business, the speaker credibility business. When I spent a year working "on the other side of the desk," I was thrilled to work with some incredibly accomplished and successful speakers – CSP’s, CPAE’s – because they SAW that fact.

The company I worked with had 350,000 subscribers and sent out over 10 million emails a month. If you were one of my speakers, that’s the scope and scale of reach you got from us. Your topic, your credentials, your website. 700,000 eyeballs. Do the math. (And see my note at the end of this post if you'd like to get in on this yourself!)

Today, as a speaker marketing coach, many of my professional speaker clients ask me "How do I establish visibility and credibility with my target market?" THIS is precisely one of the best ways!!

Don’t get me wrong – our speakers got paid – but it was a lot less than you might get for a corporate keynote. I know that and you know that. Put your ego in the back seat for a minute. Be willing to invest in the relationship Because if you do a great job the first time, meeting planners and association executives are often in a position to…

a. Raise your base fee

b. Revenue share with you

c. Publish your articles in hardcopy publications, websites, and blogs

d. Publish and distribute your manuals, training guides and e-learning tools

e. Promote you any way they can

For example, I had speakers start doing audio conferences for $500, and then gradually, as the relationship evolved, move up to getting over $40,000 in royalties and revenue share in a single year from our various projects together. On the other hand, if as speakers we ask for all that up front, we won’t get it.

My advice to you at the beginning of any relationship with a meeting planner or event producer is Recognize the marketing/PR value, and let the relationship develop. To adapt a favorite saying, “Do what their audience loves and the money will follow.”

NOTE: You can find a whole lot more of these "information publishing companies" that produce audio conferences, webinars, live events, and niche hardcopy and online newsletters by visiting their professional association, the Specialty Information Publishers Association (SIPA). Perhaps one or more of these companies would make the perfect partner for YOU to expand your thought leadership platform - and get known, get booked, and get slightly famous!

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If you're an emerging or established professional speaker and it's time raise your marketing game, it's not too late to join the Speaker Profit Blueprint program...  everything has been recorded and transcribed for you and our live sessions continue through May 4, 2010. Contact me to see if joining this program might be a fit for your speaking/consulting/coaching business and your specific goals.

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As a marketing speaker, I'm often asked the question if I'm also a "motivational speaker" and my answer is no. Although I do admire motivational speakers and topics - and HAVE trafficked in a bit of leadership thinking and writing.

Here's an oldie but goodies from the archives: 

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There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you
damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human
duty, the duty to take the consequences.
-- P. J. O'Rourke

As a leader, I will expose you to the options and the
likely consequences of those options.
-- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

The Leadership 22

Leadership means...
* Exposing people to options
* Getting along with people
* Being a dealer in hope
* Sales (products, services, ideas, values)
* Teaching, mentoring, guiding
* Be the example
* Results, not talk
* Bringing sides together
* Being a dispenser of enthusiasm
* Solving problems
* Blazing the trail and leaving a path
* Producing more leaders
* Showing average people how to do the work of superior people
* Character and integrity
* Putting first things first
* The capacity to translate vision into reality
* Finding a parade and getting in front of it
* Your switch is never turned off
* The ability to communicate something people want
* Action, not position
* Backbone, wishbone, funny bone
* Doing the right things at the right time for the right reasons

What do YOU think? What would you ADD? Leave a comment below and share your opinion...

Guest column by Lisa Sasevich

As a marketing speaker, during presentations I often have the occasion to mention other people. You have those opportunities every day too. You may do this through a success story one of your clients enjoyed or by sharing a quick anecdote.

In either case, mentioning other people can bring great rewards. Here are three categories of people to mention in your sales presentations, why you should do it and how it benefits you and your audience:

1. Your Mentors
When you mention your mentors, you establish the value of having a mentor. When you're on stage, your audience sees you as a role model. You inspire them. If even you have a mentor, the prospect would think, it must be worthwhile. Thus, by mentioning your mentor, you demonstrate that having one is worth the investment. And that subtly encourages prospects to consider more closely the possibility of having you as theirs.

When you mention your mentor, you also show your vulnerability. I've written before about the power of vulnerability and transparency for establishing a connection with your audience. You're saying to them, "Yes, I have accomplished a lot, but here I am. I'm just like you."

When you're being transparent and sharing your own growth, you're also establishing the credibility that you are an action-taking, decision-making person who invests in growth...just like you'll be recommending to them.

2. Your Clients
Success stories remind us all that we are capable. Success stories, before and after stories involving your clients, are particularly powerful because they clearly authenticate the transformative value of what you're offering. So, when you talk about the success of your clients, not only are you establishing your credibility as an expert who is showing people how to get results, but you're expanding what the prospects think they might be capable of. They're sitting there thinking: "If her client had that result, I could too!"

When you mention your clients, you also give them exposure. That's wonderful for your clients, who are grateful, and it also lets prospects know that you might be mentioning them in later talks.

By sharing the stories of your clients, you may even create a little healthy competition among new clients for success. Whenever I step into a new mentorship relationship, I always have that little thought, "I want to be the biggest success story they have!".... Don't you?

3. Other Experts
Some people don't want to mention other experts because they think it diminishes them, when the opposite is actually true. When you mention those high-level people, not only are you giving credit where credit is due, but you associate yourself and uplevel yourself with them. For instance, if you say that, "Dan Kennedy says that the fastest way to grow your business is to go on the road and speak," it puts you and Dan on the same level.

However...Don't Forget Yourself!
When you're mentioning others in your presentation, don't go overboard and exclude your own stories. They are powerful, too, for conveying your authenticity, vulnerability, and establishing your credibility. But beyond that, they create a feeling of connectedness with your audience by bringing you into intimate contact with everyone who's listening. As I've written before, that's powerful!

So, mention your mentors and other experts, share the stories of your clients along with your own, and, like your new clients, you'll find results beyond what you thought was possible too!

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Sales-from-the-podium expert Lisa Sasevich has x-ray vision for seeing the sales opportunities that exist in every company, and the creativity to convert them into gold! If you're looking for simple, quick and easy ways to boost sales without spending a dime, get your FREE Sales Nuggets now at http://www.theinvisibleclose.com/

With so many other conferences being cancelled, cuts in travel budgets and staff reductions, we must do what is best for our institutions during this period where generating revenue and reduction in spending has become a top priority. We apologize for the inconvenience and will be keeping the AMMC ( http://artmuseummembership.org/ ) website live with updates on next steps.

We will also be posting the program, with the speaker's information, so that you can contact the person directly with your questions. We will continue to think of other ideas on how the website can be utilized.

Thank you!

The AMMC Advisory Committee
http://artmuseummembership.org/
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My take on this -- please re-read this sentence and look at the crazy backwards logic of it: we must do what is best for our institutions during this period where generating revenue and reduction in spending has become a top priority.

Hellloooooooo.... Isn't that THE #1 reason to have the conference - to HELP your members "generate revenue and reduce spending" while increasing ROI, serving THEIR customers better, and innovating with agility and new skills to combat the outside conditions that no one can control?

This is scary thinking, folks... I'm fully aware of economic reality, but this pretzel logic just makes me want to shout from the rooftops -- YOU NEED MEETINGS NOW MORE THAN EVER!!!!!

Good luck trying to figure out where to go from here ON YOUR OWN.

-- David