The Systems Of Million-Dollar Speakers

If you are looking to grow your speaking business (and if you’re not, you might have stumbled onto the wrong blog), then you should be looking at what million-dollar speakers are doing. At Influence conferences spanning a decade, I’ve spent time asking them this question:

“What is the one thing you’ve done in the last year, tactically, that has made the biggest difference in your business?”

Their answers were always the same: Create Content, Deliver Content, and Close Deals. Most even mentioned how they actually only do those three things in all aspects of their lives, and have even realized the half hour they were doing laundry means they could’ve been making $30,000… so they created a system and learned to outsource that, too.

In order for speakers to ever turn anything over to anyone else in our speaking business, systems have to be in place. If we’re years away from outsourcing tasks, systems allow us to know now what’s working and what isn’t.

How does a million-dollar speaker utilize systems?

These top speakers systemize selling, marketing and operations so they can focus on growing their expertise and reaching the people who can pay for it.

While most speakers feel like they should get their content onto social media outlets, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, we are learning more and more that social selling isn’t just posting content on these sites, but instead looks like the actual marketing that we are producing and putting on these platforms. Since blasting emails isn’t a reliable way to convert speaking gigs, it’s vital to understand the importance of a multi-channel communication approach. Million-dollar speakers are known for utilizing every communication channel and revenue stream available to them: Passive revenue and active revenue, and ensuring they’re sending emails and making phone calls, sending letters, etc.

Hope is NOT a Strategy

If you speak at a conference and rely on someone in that audience to hire you for your next engagement, that’s using hope as a business strategy. Hoping does not generate predictable revenue. 

Speakers have to move from hope to predictable processes in the way they approach their business and the results they generate. Using a methodical strategy can help drive business and revenue, which is why we recommend utilizing a Customer Relationship Management Software/Database to manage your systems for you. 

What is a CRM?

A Customer Relationship Software/Database, or CRM for short, is something many speakers invest in but few utilize. A CRM is designed to handle both marketing and sales, booking events, and can facilitate tracking interactions, outbound calls and email templates. 

Some experienced speakers have not invested in a CRM, and while they may be profitable most years, they all experience feast-or-famine in the speaking side of their businesses. 

What About A Spreadsheet – Can’t I Use That Instead?

Spreadsheets are designed to track and report numbers, not to create tasks that build relationships. Customer Relationship Management Databases are designed to not only build relationships through creating tasks, but they allow speakers to build the strongest relationships possible with potential clients.  

Do This Now

-With any speaking engagement, be sure to connect with your first point of contact on LinkedIn. This could be an association director, meeting planner, event coordinator or even the Director of Learning and Training. 

-As part of your contract, require prospects offer 2-3  referrals upon successful completion of your talk (we’ve only had this turned down a few times in hundreds of gigs). When you follow up after the speaking engagement, have a list of a few names of people they can connect you with on LinkedIn – because you’ve already looked through their contacts for other potential prospects. If they know these folks well, send them an email script to forward and ask for them to provide personal introductions. If they don’t know that connection well enough, ask if it’s okay if you mention them as a shared contact. 

-Immediately following your speaking engagement, as everyone is still clapping, track down the lead decision maker and ask them to talk about the experience of having you speak to their people. You can make this video on your smartphone, tablet or even a handheld camera. Now you have a leverageable product to use in your future marketing efforts.

The common denominator in all those action items? They can be built into systems. 

For more information, https://www.shoshinconsulting.com/

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