Make Marketing Suck Less for Expertise-Driven Solo Businesses

I'm sure you've been there.

You're watching a speaker, taking notes, you're enjoying it, having an "Aha," moment or two, and then wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, the sales pitch comes.

And it feels awkward.

You feel awkward, like you should buy even though you just met this person, and they want you to spend $1,295 for their latest and greatest program.

And it feels icky for you, it feels high-pressured. Like you’re being SOLD a bill of goods

And while some people buy, that's not you. (Or maybe it is you; we've all fallen for this once or twice.)

But more importantly, that's not the kind of speaker you want to be.

Yes, you want to speak to market your business, to get clients and customers; it's part of how you're getting paid.

But you don't have to be that guy on the stage, you don't have to speak to sell.

You can speak to convert instead.

Find out what makes a speech that converts a better way to turn audience members into clients on this episode of the Rebel Speaker Podcast.

Confession. I fell for the speak-to-sell lie.

When I was first starting my business and struggling to get my feet underneath me, my coach at the time recommended that I look into a certain speak-to-sell course.

It was from one of the biggest names in the industry and it cost about a thousand bucks.

At that time, I was not ready to make that type of investment, so my coach gave me a copy of her own speak-to-sell talk.

I decided to test it out at my Toastmasters club. Now, the content part of it rocked. It was super. It felt great.

But when I got to the part about asking for the sale, I chickened out.

I totally chickened out. I couldn't do it. I couldn't ask for the sale even among friends, even among people I knew.

This was just practice. I couldn't do it.

The reason why, it's because it didn't feel like me.

It wasn't the kind of person that I wanted to be. It wasn't the kind of business that I wanted to run.

I didn't want to be the person who was telling people to run to the back of the room because it's only a limited time offer. I just couldn't do that sleaze.

And, yet, these big speak-to-sell courses make promises of five-figure speaking gigs and six-figure businesses, all from speaking.

For most of us, that's the wrong strategy.

There is a better way to get clients into your business and we're going to discussing it on episode 74 of the rebel speaking podcast.

Over the summer I’ve been working with speakers who want to use speaking to promote their business.

They’ve been out there speaking. It's been fun, the audience loves them, the organizers who booked them to speak loved them.

It all goes really well, and then nothing happens.

No leads, no sales, maybe a few new opt-ins to their email list, but it feels like the audience forgot them as soon as they left the room, and they're not sure why.

The good news is that it has nothing to do with them or their business or what they sell.  

It has everything to do with the speech because it’s the reason potential clients are running away.

If you are speaking for your business and want to increase the number of people that come into your business from speaking, keep on reading.

There are three reasons why your speech might be chasing clients away.

Tune in and find out on the Rebel Speaker Podcast

To make speaking work for your business, you’ve got to dedicate one very limited resource to it.

TIME!

With all of your millions of things to do, how do you fit speaking into the mix?

How do you create time & focus to get the pitching, the writing and the practicing done?

You start by listening to my guest, Jessica Abel, the author of the book Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You’re Drowning in Your Daily Life.

Jessica’s mission is to help creatives get the work into the world. Yes as a speaker, you are most definitely a creative.

During this interview, we discuss:

• The real reason you're not getting your speaking work done (and it’s got nothing to do with procrastination)
• Why “idea debt” holds your back from making progress
• One action to take right now to make speaking a priority tomorrow
• How to get back to taking action when life has gotten in the way.

Having a message that matters to the audience and to the people who hire speakers is the reason why you get booked to speak.

How well you're able to market your speaking depends on the message.

How well your pitches are received, and responded to, depends on your message.

How do you create a message that matters to the audience, and to the people who hire speakers?

You start by speaking for impact.

When I work with clients, I walk them through a step by step process for creating that message that matters. I call this process, "Speak for Impact." I've been using it for the past five years with my clients, and I've seen great results.

From doubling their speaking fees, negotiating their highest speaking fee yet, speaking all over the United States, getting clients, and booking more speaking gigs.

I am going to share the three steps of this process with you today because I know it works.

A lot of attention is given to how to book speaking gigs.

I've talked about it on the Rebel Speaker podcast and here on the blog.

There are whole courses devoted to how to market yourself as a speaker. There are even people who will offer to do the marketing work for you.

There's so much to do that it can make your head spin. It feels rather overwhelming. All that work and where should you begin?

Here's the Rebel truth:  All of that marketing work, all of that energy, time, and money invested in video production, and pitching, and one sheets is meaningless if you don't have your message nailed.

The marketing isn't what gets you gigs. The marketing isn't what helps you reach more people or make a bigger difference.

The message is.

How do you go about finding that all important message?

Let me hook you up with the three must-have messaging pieces, so that you can book your next speaking gig on this episode of the Rebel Speaker podcast.

You've got an itch to make a difference to more people, to get your expertise, your message, your story in front of more people, and you know that speaking is one of the best ways to make it happen.

And, bonus, you love it.

There's just one tiny problem: getting speaking opportunities.

You can't make your impact if you don't get on stage, right?

You've done exactly what the experts have told you to do.

Why is it that you’re struggling to book speaking gigs?

Marketing is tactics, pure and simple. You put a plan in place and you work the plan consistently, and you get results.

Messaging, on the other hand, is the thought leadership. It's the positioning. It's a deep understanding of who you serve with your speech.

We skip to marketing ourselves and pitching for speaking gigs because, frankly, it's a whole lot easier than getting messy with our message.

There are three tell-tale signs that your message is not working for the people who would book you to speak. Find out on this episode of the Rebel Speaker Podcast.

To have a slide deck or to not have a slide deck?

That is the question, or at least it is for many of the clients that I work with and many of the speakers in The Rebel Speaker Facebook group.

Speakers write this great signature talk, and then they start wondering, "Should I have visuals?"

Because they've been in that presentation where you're looking at the speaker and you're looking at the slides, and you think, "What version of eyeball hell is this?"

For speakers, it's really important to have great slides with a great design if you choose to have visuals. It's what makes you a pro.

Today my guest is Adam Tratt, and he knows all about great presentation design. He's the co-founder and CEO of Haiku Deck, an app for creating flawlessly beautiful presentations on iPad or the web. Haiku Deck has been ranked the number one productivity app in iTunes and 50 markets around the world.

We discuss:

• The four design principles that every speaker should know about (and how #3 is the easiest to mess up)
• How Haiku Deck makes designing a presentation deck a breeze
• What Sir Mix A Lot has to do with designing a great an app (he likes big apps and he cannot lie)

Whether someone is looking to hire you as a speaker or to hire you to do work for them, one of the first places they'll go is your website.

When they land on your website, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to hire you.

I've seen far too many speaker websites that don't include enough information for people to make a decision about taking the next step and contacting you to speak.

Then when there’s not enough information?

The person who was interested in hiring your clicks away never to darken your door again.

Let's make it easy for people to hire you to speak with these 5 website tweaks.

I'm not one for following the rules.

In fact, if everyone is following a trend, if everyone is telling me I should do something I am more likely to say, "No way," and buck the trend.

For instance everyone in business is saying courses and memberships sites are the way to scale your business. Screw that.

I'm doubling down on one-on-one work. It's what I love to do and what gets the best results for clients.

With speaking, I'm always throwing out the tried and true tips to experiment and to create a better experience for the audience.

Except, there is this one rule that I particularly love and it doesn't even come from speaking.

It’s one rule that produces great results.

Results like your message getting remembered, audiences members turning into clients, booking more speaking, and creating the impact you want to create in the world.

Tune in to the Rebel Speaker Podcast to find out what this rule is and how to use it in your speaking.