Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Marketing Mix: Book Review of "PAID TO SPEAK" published by the National Speakers Association

PAID TO SPEAK is a virtual MBA in the business of speaking. From marketing to positioning to product development to platform skills, it's ALL in here. Well-organized, tightly edited, and with a logical flow from one part of the business to another, PAID TO SPEAK is also unique in that it tells it like it is. No sugar-coating. And no trying to fleece opportunity-seekers into believing the speaking business is a fast, easy, and glamorous way to make money. [It is NONE of the three!] 

Speaking professionally today is about thought-leadership, adding value to corporate, association, and entrepreneurial sectors, and understanding all the different ways that audiences and buyers want to access, use, and deploy your expertise. The book spans a wide range of business models, distribution methods, and revenue models. As it should - to reflect the current reality of many successful speakers (very few of whom have business models that look anything alike!) 

The key value in buying a copy of PAID TO SPEAK, dog-earing it, highlighting it, and taking notes in the margins... is that you will emerge from the experience with a wealth of information, some clear decisions to make, and a game plan to put it all together in a style and manner that suits your personality, your strengths, and your preferences. This is no "one size fits all" template for "THE" way to become successful. There are MANY paths up the mountain - and PAID TO SPEAK should be your personal handbook, guide, and reference to get you there miles ahead of the competition! 

Every consultant, expert, and professional services firm leader needs to establish their thought-leadership in order to stand out from the crowd and be heard above the noise. 

There's no room for the "Same-O Lame-O" dry boring MBA PhD guru guy or gal. Their days are over and their influence and impact are declining... daily... and dramatically. 

So that means that every day you wait to claim your place among the thought-leaders in your industry and in front of your target buyers, you're losing time AND money. 

Don't let that happen to you.

The good news is that independent research with over 200 buyers of professional services shows that at any given moment, between 52%-72% of them are willing to change professional services providers.

Across all service areas, more than 50% of purchasers could be considered Switchers, open to changing providers, ranging from 52% Switchers for Legal Services to 72% Switchers for Management Consulting. ("How Clients Buy" 2009-10 survey)

Additional research from the Wellesley Hills Group entitled "What's Working in Professional Services Lead Generation" surveyed over 700 firms and showed that the #1 source of leads is "Warm Calls to Existing Clients" - No surprise there. If you're great at what you do, the old adage applies - "your business comes from your business." 

The #1 source of NEW leads for NEW business for professional services firms, however, may surprise you: it is "Speaking at conferences, trade shows and seminars."

Put these two pieces of research together and the dramatic discovery you'll make is... 

You're never more than one good presentation away from generating new clients and new revenue.

So the question is... How successful are you at the #1 strategy of lead-generating speaking to drive credibility, visibility and revenue in your professional services practice? 

And do you do it "once in a while" with mixed results or has your professional services firm nailed down a process, a speaking "system" and a targeting methodology that consistently puts you in front of the right groups in the right rooms with the right people to say the right things in the right ways to reliably generate new revenue for your firm?

If yes, great - welcome to the 1% club. If not, we should talk. Call me at (610) 716-5984 or drop me an email (david@doitmarketing.com) and let's have a conversation about how you can do a better job of generating more leads, better clients and bigger revenues every time you stand up to speak. 

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Guest post by Steve Markman

Marketing mix: Your marketing and PR efforts should be in the forefront of your organization, given today's competitive climate and the uncertain economy. Standing out from the crowd, regardless of your organization's industry, is a huge challenge. How can you meet this challenge?

Many organizations have recognized the value of holding seminars at which their executives make presentations. The problem with these seminars is that, more often than not, the attendees are existing customers, clients or individuals who are already familiar with the firm.

Companies need to expose their expertise to prospective customers and clients. What is a proven method of accomplishing this objective? By speaking at public forums - at conferences, seminars and forums held by independent event organizations, associations, professional and industry trade groups, and academic institutions and think tanks - enormous exposure is created.

There is much evidence in the field of professional services marketing that speaking in public forums often results in new business, by providing increased awareness of your company in general and specific subject areas in particular, to an audience of your potential customers or clients. Presentations about industry trends or "how-to" talks can make a large impact on your audience.

Speaking opportunities for consulting firm principals, corporate executives and entrepreneurs represent a strong marketing, public relations, and business development tool for the following reasons:

    1.    Attendees get to learn about your firm's expertise firsthand and can interact directly with your speaker immediately before or after the presentation. An attendee asking for a business card can be the first step to obtaining a new client. The press in attendance also present opportunities for added exposure. 


    2.    Gaining increased visibility in vertical/industry sectors or broad-based areas that your firm has determined is in need of greater exposure. This can be an established line of business where your firm speaks from a position of strength and is known as a "go-to" firm for a particular area. Conversely, presentations can cover an area that is just getting off the ground or at an early stage in its development and needs some fast exposure to let your potential customers know about your newly offered products or services. 


    3.    Your company gains "advertising" by having its name and your executive speaker's name published in the agenda of thousands of brochures and promotional announcements mailed or e-mailed by event organizers.

What should your professional services firm be doing to get your executives and managers out on the speaking circuit? Take the following eight steps:

    1.    Decide which product or service area(s) your firm should be targeting for increased visibility. Make sure that you have executives in those areas committed to the idea of making public presentations. Some will resist the idea of taking time away from other business activities so make sure that you have their full support. 


    2.    Get the right speaker on board. Proposed speakers should be experienced executives and, preferably, experienced speakers. Small-to medium-sized organizations should nominate their CEO or other senior executive. Large organizations can also nominate staff at the director or manager level, depending on the criteria of the speaking opportunity. 


    3.    Speak to the right audience. Thoroughly research the events for which representatives of your firm can be proposed as speakers, as solo presenters or as panelists. There are so many events taking place on so many topics, frequently simultaneously, that you'll need to choose diligently in order to maximize the time and expense associated with speaking. Identify speaking engagements whose audience represents the customers and industries your organization wants to reach.


    4.    Develop a proactive speaker placement program. It's fine to evaluate unsolicited speaking opportunities. However, having someone dedicated to the task who will aggressively identify opportunities, develop relationships with event organizers and write and submit speaker proposals, should lead to an increase in the frequency of speaking engagements and thus increased visibility for the executives participating and the firm as a whole. 


    5.    Decide on the geographic area to target for speaking engagements - locally, regionally, nationally or even internationally. There are thousands of speaking opportunities held worldwide every year. 


    6.    Create high-impact presentations. Audiences want to get actionable information they can take back to their organizations. They don't want to hear that your firm is the leading firm in this or that subject area. A solid, informative presentation that covers applications or technologies and is not product or company specific will create instant credibility and obviate the need for a "sales pitch." A presentation that turns out to be a sales pitch will ensure low evaluations by the audience and a one-way ticket home from the conference organizer. The speaker who gives a sales pitch is duly noted and rarely invited back, oftentimes tainting the entire company in the eyes of the event organizer. 


    7.    Learn the process for submitting a speaker proposal to the event organizer - follow the format established by the organizer for writing a presentation abstract, submitting bios and speaker expertise, previous speaking experience information, and, of course, meeting the proposal deadline date. Make sure you tailor the abstract and the bio to each speaking opportunity so that they fit the objectives of the audience. 


    8.    Follow up continuously and persistently with the event organizer to help your company stay above the noise, since you will often be competing with several other companies for the same speaking slot.

By developing an effective speaker placement program for your organization, you will have taken a big step in meeting your marketing, PR, and business development objectives.

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Steve Markman is President of Markman Speaker Management (MSM) a Needham, Mass.- based speaker placement and conference development firm established in 1994.

As a speaker marketing expert and head honcho of an inbound marketing agency serving speakers, consultants, and thought-leading professionals, I often find myself with prospects who want to get involved in social media but - sadly - do not understand the intent, ideas, or influence factors that make social media an effective tactic in their overall marketing arsenal.

How can I put this? Ummm... well, they're idiots.

Relax... IDIOT is an acronym that stands for the 5 key misconceptions, faulty assumptions, and pillars of goofy thinking that prevent most thought-leading professionals (YOU perhaps??) from generating maximum results from your social media efforts.

Namely...

I: I, Me, My syndrome

D: Dumb it down

I: Information without invitation

O: Over-selling

T: Today vs. tomorrow focus

Let's take a look at each of these in a bit more detail:

I: I, Me, My syndrome. No, your social media postings do NOT need to be all about YOU. In fact, if all you talk about is YOU - your company, your book, your blog, your brand, your articles, your resources, your tools, your programs, your products, your services... people will ignore you, tune you out, and dismiss you for the self-centered idiot that you are. (Please remember - idiot is an acronym used throughout this post.)

Experts promote other experts. Experts are not insecure about shining the spotlight on others. Experts are curators and pointers-out-of-cool-things. Experts post book reviews BY other experts FOR yet other experts' books.

As long as YOU can be counted on to share interesting, relevant, valuable, sometimes even edgy content, guide your followers to the "good stuff" online, and position yourself as a reliable sherpa in your expertise, you'll get PLENTY of attention, love, and respect. Even MORE SO if you're not a mental weakling who is focused only on hyping your own crap.

Grow up. Step up. Be a real expert and learn once and for all - it's not about YOU.

D: Dumb it down This mistake comes from the fear that if you give away your VERY BEST ideas, strategies, tools, tactics, insights and other secret sauce (yes, the stuff you get paid BIG BUCKS for with your paying clients!) that you will somehow diminish the demand for your paid products and services.

So you "dumb it down." You post that second-rate article. You remove some detail from that tip sheet because you want people to buy your consulting services and not do it themselves. You post the video that only has 3 of your 10 key ideas because heck, if you gave all 10 ideas, they'd never hire you to keynote at the big industry conference - you've already "spilled the candy in the lobby."

Yep - you guessed it: You're an idiot.

The reality is - it works 180 degrees the other way. The ONLY way folks are going to pay you the big bucks is if they have a FIRSTHAND experience of your genius - if they feel it, taste it, touch it, and fully experience it. ONLY THEN will they want more. ONLY THEN will they share it with their colleagues. ONLY THEN will they call their boss over to look at your website or email them your link.

Do you want to be SHARED - or do you want to be SCARED? Your call - but you already know which answer will make you more money. Unless you're an idiot. 

I: Information without invitation  Social media sites are not a dumping ground for your old, outdated, crappy content from books you wrote in the 1980s or articles that you could never get published.

Even rock-solid, current, highly relevant information is NECESSARY but NOT SUFFICIENT to fuel your thought leadership platform and build your empire as an expert.

Here's a secret - the internet actually does NOT need more information posted on it. Not from you. Not from me. Not from anyone.

An effective social media campaign will share information of standalone value and then INVITE a two-way (or 5-way or 17-way) conversation around that information.

Ask questions, seek engagement, invite involvement. 

Offer value, seek opinions, spark conversation - and ask the most powerful question in sales AND leadership AND relationships: "What do you think?"

O: Over-selling One particularly idiotic individual told me that he wanted ALL his Facebook posts to have a hyperlink. Every. Single. One.

Hyperlink to where, you ask?

To HIS online store, HIS products, HIS books on amazon, HIS speaking page, HIS consulting page, HIS services overview. He said, "If you're not linking every Facebook post to a selling opportunity, you're just putting a lot of dead-end junk on Facebook and you'll never make any money." 

Wow - this guy is a WORLD-CLASS idiot.

Social media is not about posting "here's how to buy my crap" - it's not about creating an extra dozen or so sales pages for your products, services or programs.

If your goals are: Sell on Twitter. Sell on Facebook. Sell on LinkedIn. Sell on YouTube...

Your results will be: Unfollow. Unfriend. Unlink. Unsubscribe. You're done. Buh-bye. Idiot.

Lesson 1 for you to share with your idiots: Content comes before commerce.

Lesson 2 for you to share with your idiots: First you earn their attention. THEN you earn their money.

T: Today vs. tomorrow focus The final mistake is to think of social media in the same way that you might think of outbound sales activity.

Think about it: Cold calls. Email blasts. Direct mail. Do those things and the natural question to ask is - OK, how much did we sell?

You made 100 dials, you connected with 20 humans, you had 14 conversations, you qualified 5 serious prospects and then how much did you SELL TODAY?

You sent 10,000 postcards. Requests came back for 300 quotes. So how many widgets did you SELL TODAY?

Social media doesn't work that way. Social media is... well, social. It's about relationships and trust. Relationships and trust don't have an ON/OFF switch - they develop over time.

Transactions happen today from relationships you built last week, last month, and last year. The benefit of that - and the reason it's worth the "wait" is that social media gives you a permanent asset - TRUST.

Blog entries are forever. They continue to sell your expertise, your company, and your value day after day, week after week, year after year. LinkedIn recommendations are forever. People that wrote glowingly of you in 2002 are still "selling" for you and your reputation TODAY.

A voice mail? BEEP - gone. An email? ZAP - gone. A face to face meeting? DONE - bye. Those happen today and they're gone today. 

Sure, you have to sell today. You have to make your quota today. You have to feed your family today. But social media marketing helps you ensure that what you create ONCE today works and lasts and brings customers and clients to you for many years to come...

Not because you SOLD them like an IDIOT -- but because you built the trust and relationships that HELPED THEM BUY today, tomorrow and beyond!

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So... what do YOU think?

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

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...

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I have found 14 things that most of my clients (professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms) can turn to that will keep your e‐zines and blogs timely and fresh.

Here's the list for you - and please use the COMMENTS section below to add your own great ideas... 

1. How‐To Tips. Everybody loves to read “how to’s.” A very short pithy practical tip your reader can use that day. For example, say you were writing to employers interested in OSHA regulations. You may have an article like, 10 Tips You Can Use to Pass Your Safety Inspections.

2. Dialogue with the Reader, Soliciting Feedback and Participation. I love this; it works equally well for an ezine or blog. This allows two‐way communication with your reader. You get to build a real bond with your readers. Your readers can be your best source of material. Pose questions to your readers and promise to publish the answers. For example: In one of my e‐zines I asked my readers to tell me some of their success stories, involving giving out free information. I told them that if I used their information I would give them full credit in my e‐zine.

3. Tips from Friends and Colleagues. This gives you the opportunity to “be seen” as an unbiased source of information. I love to bring in experts covering all sorts of topics. Lets be honest: you and I don’t know everything. If you can bring in experts covering a wide range of topics you become a source of information that your reader can always look to. In one of my e‐zines my friend Paul Karasik gave a great networking tip from his new book “How to Market to High Net‐Worth Households”

4. Plugs for Friends and Clients’ books, e‐books, reports, products and services. Make extra money by creating affiliate relationships, or joint ventures. Becoming an affiliate for someone can be the easiest way to make money. All you do is promote their products for a commission. Alternatively, you can promote a friends product as a favor because you believe your readers would benefit from it. (I do this regularly with a lot of my NSA speaker buddies who offer excellent programs and products to the same target market that I serve. No money changes hands. Just love and referrals.) 

5. Reader Feedback and Contributions. This gives you a chance to create a buzz, controversy and argument. There have been times I have posted information, only to be inundated by readers telling me they agree, or disagree. Either way that is good. It means people are reading.

6. Upcoming Speaking Engagements, Seminars, and Tele‐conferences. If you do any public appearances, some of your readers will want to attend. This is your chance to let them know where you will be and what you will be doing. It is also a great way to meet some of your most loyal readers. Include links to Websites where the reader can register for the event. 

7. What I’ve Done Lately. Your readers will want to see what you have been working on; it is like reality TV. It gives them a sneak peak in to your life and lets prospective new clients see your work.

8. Recommended Vendors. Sometimes you come across a service provider that has helped you out, and you feel would be a godsend to your readers, why not return the favor and promote him in your e‐zine? A copywriter friend of mine recently had a problem with his computer, and a company called Rescue.com saved his bacon.  

9. Useful and Relevant Websites. While you are cruising the net, you may find a Website others don’t know about, that you find useful. Let the world know, get the word out. For example, this ezine marketing course may be exactly what you need to get your ezine marketing back on track!!

10. Mini Book Reviews. If you read a book that you feel may be valuable to your readers let them know, post a link to Amazon and make yourself a couple of bucks if they buy.

11. News Nuggets of Interest. Clip excerpts from industry trade journals that you believe may be relevant to your readers.

12. News About Your New Books. Let your readers know about any books you might be working on.

13. Plugs for Your Own Products. This is where you get a chance to plug your own products. You do not have to feel guilty about selling your products and professional services; your readers want to know what you have to offer. Look at it as a fair trade. You give your reader valuable information, and in return he rewards you by purchasing some of your products. It is totally win/win.

14. Quotations. Many people love to read quotes. A good quote can be inspirational. If you find one you like include it in your next issue.

That's it - so now you have no more excuses NOT to crank out terrific, value-rich ezines and blogs with a lot less effort than you thought.

Got more ideas? Share them in the COMMENTS area below.  

p.s. If you'd like some personalized help - and your very own customized email and phone outreach tools, social media scripts, a killer email signature file, a polished referral blurb and more, check out the Small Biz Outreach Action Packs.

A study conducted by Quiris discovered that people have an inner circle of 16 sources from whom they open e‐mails—that includes e‐zines they subscribe to, and their friends.

What does this mean to you? Simple: the competition is fierce.

You could be giving away free gold bars, but if no one reads any of your message how would anyone know about it? It is the age‐old question what came first—the chicken or the egg? The greatest message no one reads is no more effective than the worst message everyone reads. They have to read your message.

Your typical Internet user is overwhelmed with daily e‐mails, most of which they never read. Do you read all your e‐mail? 

People do not have the time to sit and read every single e‐mail they get. They read their e‐mail the way they read their normal mail, except now they have the power to use a delete button.

They quickly scan two very important lines on every e‐mail that will help them decide. They look at the “from” line, and the subject line.

Always use the same from line when emailing to your subscriber list. Your readers must get to know and trust you. Once you create a bond with your reader and gain their trust, you will make it into their inner circle.

Isn’t this how you decide which e‐mails you will read?

Your subject line is a different story; try to give your reader a reason to read your e‐mail. Offer him a benefit for reading your message. Let him know what is in it for him or her.

Tests show that if you include the readers’ first name in the subject line, you will get a noticeable bump in response.

Think of your subject line as a mini headline. One of my most successful subject lines from my e‐zine was “Do Question Headlines Work?” There was an avalanche of response to that simple subject line.

Michael Masterson has come up with a formula he uses when he writes headlines; it’s called the 4 U’s. Your headline must be useful, unique, ultra specific, and urgent. It is a nifty little checklist. The next time you are stumped for a headline, try the 4 U’s.

Here let me show you how it is done. Check the subject line for the 4U’s, for each U give it a score of 1‐4; 1 being lousy, 4 being excellent. When you’re done average out your score and see what you have. Anything lower than a 3 should probably be re‐written.

Here is a sample subject line from a small business marketing e‐zine:

8 ways to generate a ton of repeat business

Is it useful? Every businessperson or salesperson wants to know how to increase his or her referral business. Yes, it is useful, let’s give it a 4.

Is it unique? Well, not exactly so let’s give it a 2.

Is it ultra specific? You betcha, it tells you there are 8 ways, not a couple or a few but eight specific ways. So let’s give it a 4.

How about urgent? There really is no timeframe given so let’s rate this a 2. If you add these numbers up you get 12 divide that by 4 and you get 3. Not bad, but the real question is - how can YOU do even better?

In the comments section below -- Will you share your thoughts and insights into how YOU decide which emails to open and engage with? 

p.s. If you'd like some personalized help - and your very own customized marketing and sales toolkit PLUS an easy-to-implement small business marketing game plan with 1-on-1 guidance for 90 days, get all the details here.