| Subtle
Marketing Strategies
for Professional
Public Speakers
by Burt Dubin
How
to generate a relentless flow of inquiries for
your public speaking
services
Most wanna-be speakers and too many working professional
speakers struggle, sweat, and suffer. For these folks,
getting each speaker booking is like getting a root canal
job. How do I know? That was me in '83. Smile and dial. Smile
and dial. Smile and dial. It was no fun. I wondered if I'd
ever make it in public
speaking.
This doesn't have to be. You don't have to struggle, sweat,
and suffer. You don't have to roll that stone up the hill
every morning. As Dan Kennedy told me, you don't have to be
a pest. You can make yourself a welcome guest. You can make
your phone ring.
For me, this started at my first National Speakers Association
Convention in 1984. There, in a General Session, I heard speaker,
Joseph J. Charbonneau, CSP, CPAE say magic words. They burned
into my consciousness. "If you want to be a master, study
what the masters have done before you. Learn to do what they
have done and have the guts to do it -and you will be a master,
too."
From the depths of my being-from my longing to make a difference,
my thirst for public speaking success,
and my hunger to get my speaking career into orbit-I listened
to these words of wisdom. I studied the masters. I drank deep
at their wells of wisdom. And I took action.
Here's one lick of the ice cream cone. Here's a sample of
my findings. Here's some of what I did to savor success. Along
the way I discovered my potential for public
speaking. You can make this discovery for yourself. Here.
Now. In this article.
1. Adjust your attitude:
You remember the emphasis on the attitude of a spacecraft
as it returned to Earth's atmosphere. If the attitude was
not right, the spacecraft would burn up upon reentry as
would the astronauts inside. This would never do. Here's
your attitude adjustment:
You're a marketer first, an expert next, a speaker last.
2. Choose your niche:
There's no point in being a fine marketer until you have
expertise to offer. And your expertise has gotta be in a
specific niche. A niche where folks with cash in their jeans
recognize your value and are willing to invest in what you
alone know.
Here's how to select your niche:
Identify the topic or issue in which you're willing
to do endless and ongoing research for a market with the
means to pay you.
3. Recognize your legacy:
Your legacy is your heart message. It is what you feel
deep in your bones. It's the core wisdom you want to leave
behind when you depart from this plane.
Here's what to do with your legacy:
Blend it with your nuts and bolts expertise. This tapestry
makes you unforgettable, gets you asked back.
4. Decide how you will market:
Anybody can do outbound. I did it for years. Earned and
received mid 4-figure fees. Then I wised up. Out of every
10 speakers who are hired by decision-makers, only 1 direct-market
their way in. Get this! 1 out of 10. That's all.
I prefer to be among the 9 in 10 who are invited to speak.
Here's my take on how best to get yourself invited to speak:
Be recognized as an expert. Do this by writing articles,
columns, newsletters, books. Download my FREE article "How
To Write Articles Editors Love and Readers Treasure."
Do what it tells you to do.
5. Take the bit in your teeth:
Be relentless. Incorrigible. Get a bulldog blood transfusion.
I'm not kidding. (I'm the world's only Certified Transfusiologist.)
My clients get their bulldog blood transfusion from me over
the phone lines!
6. Surrender to your purpose:
There's no substitute for this. Surrender to your purpose
as you do to your lover. This spirit of giving, of giving
from your essence, of giving unstintingly and without reserve
produces magical results.
7. Don't go it alone:
Get yourself a guide, someone who's been down this rocky
and magnificent path before. Someone like- someone like-well...someone
like...me.
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