EPILOGUE
,NOW THAT you’ve read the book (few people start with or skip to the Epilogue), I thought it would be useful to reflect on some major factors in building a seven-figure practice. Because if this book is dog-eared, heavily highlighted, and carrying self-stick tabs on most pages, where do you begin?!
If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.
If you’re a beginning speaker, consider the following major elements and actions. (If you’re a veteran, then move on to the next section, though this one may still be of value to you!)
ALAN’S ACCELERATORS FOR NEW SPEAKERS
1. Determine your basic value proposition. That is, how will the buyer and his or her organization be improved once you walk away?
2. Identify your buyer. Who can write a check for that value? It is never a meeting planner or a speakers’ bureau; these are merely middlemen. (If you’re running public workshops, the buyers are audience members, but this is not recommended for new speakers with no brand or following.)
3. Create gravity that attracts buyers to you. Become a center of expertise and a thought leader. Options include
• Being interviewed
• Blogging
• Speaking at events with buyers and recommenders, even for free
• Creating a newsletter (electronic or hard copy)
• Teaching part-time at a local college
• Creating teleconferences and podcasts
• Participating on panels
• Creating position papers on your key subjects
4. Reach out to key buyers. Options include
• Tell everyone you know of the value that you’re providing, and ask for referrals.
• Network at events such as fund-raisers, awards ceremonies, and political events.
• Do pro bono work for nonprofits to meet people and get references.
• Assume leadership positions in trade and professional associations.
5. Create three or four speeches within your area of expertise that are about 60 percent complete. Save another 30 percent to be tailored to a prospect’s individual needs, and use the final 10 percent as the mood strikes you on the day of the session.
6. Adopt a pricing strategy of a minimum of $3,500 to $5,000 for a keynote of up to 90 minutes (including anything shorter).
7. Build a Web site that is a credibility site, not a sales site. Use it for your value proposition, typical client results, testimonials, biography, position papers, products, and so forth. Web sites are organic, in that you can start with something simple and build from there. Never have anything “under construction.”
8. Use e-mail with a domain name (e.g., [email protected]), not a generic server (AOL, Yahoo!, gmail, and so on). Use a complete signature file, with name, all contact information, and your value proposition.
9. Create high-quality letterhead, envelopes, labels, and business cards. Leave your photo off them!
10. Adopt power language. Shamelessly promote. Develop and manifest the mental set that says, “I have tremendous value, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t provide you with the opportunity to avail yourself of that value.”
11. If you listen to anyone for advice, make absolutely sure that this person has done what you intend to do (e.g., has been delivering keynotes to the corporate market for several years for significant fees). Otherwise, move along. Quickly.
12. Treat bureaus as gravy if they’re interested, but never pay them to market you. They should make their money only from their commission for having placed you. Treat meeting planners as leverage points to get you to the real economic buyers. Never waste your time with intermediaries.
13. Never despair. This business is about rejection. Those who succeed are resilient.
14. Ignore audience feedback, “smile sheets,” and dreadful, tepid standing ovations. Focus on your buyer’s objectives and his or her satisfaction.
ALAN’S ACCELERATORS FOR VETERAN SPEAKERS
1. Reexamine your brand and your value proposition for contemporary impact and differentiation. (What? You don’t have a brand? Then develop one. Remember, if you’ve developed effective intellectual property, the ultimate brand is your name.)
2. Create processes, not events. Include pre- and post-speech value, so that instead of a $10,000 talk, you have a $35,000 project.
3. Utilize advanced technology. Take your capabilities to Webcasts, forums, chat rooms, and remote help.
4. Write a commercially published book. The gold standard in this profession is a major publisher agreeing that you are, indeed, a center of expertise. If you already have one or more, it’s time to write another.
5. Periodically and intensively mine your referral sources. This is a chronic shortcoming of veteran speakers, even though they should have a great contact list. Three times a year, at least, ask your contacts to introduce you to new buyers. This is the platinum standard in the profession.
6. If you haven’t done so in the past two years, update your Web site and your blog. Technology is changing too fast not to be current.
7. Create more sophisticated products. Use combinations of text, video, audio, and Web access to educate and improve your clients, independent of whether or not you appear on-site.
8. Adopt a “wholesale/retail” philosophy. If you’ve been successful in corporate settings with a single buyer (wholesale), and you have a strong brand and word-of-mouth support, begin offering sessions directly to the public (retail).
9. Go global. Create alliances in other countries where you can bring insights and ideas that will be valuable locally.
10. Raise your fees. Your keynote fee should be a minimum of $12,000 if you’re simply doing single events. You should be able to charge up to $25,000 as a noncelebrity expert.
11. Reassess your relationships with bureaus. Demand a commission maximum of 25 percent, cease paying for any marketing, and demand that you be paid in advance, with nothing held in escrow.
12. Improve your payment terms. Require full payment from clients to hold the date, and make the money nonrefundable, although the date may be postponed and rescheduled with no penalty.
ALAN’S ADVICE FOR BUREAUS
1. Make your income from booking speakers, not from charging them for your marketing or advice. That should be part of your commission charges.
2. Abandon arbitrary fee ranges and allow the speaker to negotiate based on client needs. You’ll both be getting larger pieces of the larger pie.
3. STOP dealing with meeting planners, who are paid to conserve funds and have no clue about strategy or additional value. Deal directly with executive buyers.
4. Understand that the speaker is the talent and that the business is the speaker’s client, not yours. Clients and speakers can readily exist without bureaus, but bureaus can’t exist without both. Treat speakers as talent, not as “hired hands.”
5. End “meat markets” such as “showcases” that generate money for you but don’t attract real buyers and that position speakers as performing seals.
6. Take on fewer speakers and focus more on promoting top talent instead of creating huge “used car lots.” There are speakers who are not good enough to be represented. Why would you represent anyone whose fee is under $5,000?
7. Be reasonable about “spin-off” business. If you want ethical conduct, practice ethical conduct. Expect to get additional business that develops from an engagement at which you’ve placed a speaker, but with a declining commission each year thereafter.
8. Exhibit some trust. Telling speakers that they can provide only materials that have been scrubbed of their own contact information is tantamount to saying, “We’ll represent you, but we don’t trust you.” Then why should you be trusted?
9. Stop watching “demo videos” for 60 seconds to determine whether a speaker is good or not. How would you like to be judged that way? (And stop charging to “review” demo videos.)
10. End escrow accounts. The statement, “We’re keeping your money until you deliver, because otherwise how can we be sure you’ll be there?” is classically stupid. How do we know YOU’LL be there?