This is the second video of the Speaker LeadGen Project where I’m going to help a few speakers build their lead-generation systems to get a consistent stream of gigs coming in.
In the last video, I talked about how I filled my schedule last year.
In this video, I’m going to show you how we’re going to go about getting 70 gigs and the things you need to do to fill up your calendar.
Now I want to point out that I’m not going to go over things like your website, and all the marketing materials you need. I’ve done that multiple times in programs like PLATFORM and the SpeakPro Academy.
I’m going to strictly focus on the systems that get you on stages.
So let me walk you through the process of how we’re going to fill up this year’s schedule and then I’ll walk you through the process of filling up your schedule.
In the last video I mentioned our Adwords campaign.
We used the Adwords campaign to get several gigs and then it went on to the Referral Engine.
If I were starting out and I didn’t have the right website then I would have used a different system like Cold Calling or Sending Emails. So it all depends on where you’re at on in your speaking business…but let me tell you what we’re going to do.
So how will I book 6 gigs a month? About 1.5 gigs a week?
First, we will do more testing with the Adwords campaign. We’re going to put in a couple grand a month for Adwords so that alone will get at least 3-4 gigs a month.
I’ll also hire a sales team. The sales team will be contacting past clients and be on the lookout for other events. They’re going to use the email system I’ve had set up for awhile and combine it with a Cold Call system.
Now I want to point something out that very few people realize.
First, I want to point out that I’m hiring people.
If you don’t invest in your speaking business then you’re going to be stuck where you are. So many speakers are in the mindset of ‘I don’t want to spend any money’ that they don’t think about how much money they can make.
The key to building any business is leverage.
You can get leverage by hiring someone, you can get leverage by investing in information that tells you what to do so you don’t make mistakes,…you can get leverage through several things. But the key is to get leverage.
Think about how much easier it would be if you wanted to set up a Cold Call system and I just told you how to set it up?
You could take the time to figure it out yourself…figure out who to call, what to say, how to make the calls faster…you could figure it out yourself and maybe a month or two later, you could have it down.
Or, I could just tell you exactly what to do and you get it all down in a day. Which is better?
It’s important that you truly understand leverage.
Another point I want to make on leverage is this…
If you’ve seen the movie, The Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith, then you might remember a part of the movie where Will Smith is making cold calls and he does something interesting….
Will Smith knows that he needs to make more calls than other people. And he says that he didn’t drink to much water at his desk because going to the bathroom all the time took away from the number of people he could call.
He also said that he didn’t hang up the phone, pick it back up, and then dial another number. Instead, he just pressed to dial-tone down and immediately made the next call. By doing little things like that, he was able to make more calls throughout the day and this allowed him to get more deals.
So what does that have to do with anything? It’s all leverage.
If you set up your Cold Call system and you could make 100 calls a day, but I can make 200 a day, then who do you think is going to get booked faster?
If you know how to do little things that leverage your success then you’ll book more gigs at a faster rate.
How do most speakers make cold calls?
They pick up the phone, find a number, and call the person. They might know what to say, might not…but after awhile, they hang up the phone and call the next person. If the person doesn’t answer, then they leave a voicemail.
All of that takes time.
I have my sales team use systems where they don’t need to hang up and redial a number…they don’t even need to leave a voicemail because it’s done automatically if someone doesn’t answer.
So where it might take someone 10 minutes to get through 3 phone calls, we’ve already gone through 20 calls.
That’s what leverage is all about. Little things matter.
So what we’re going to do is use Adwords more and I’ll bring in a sales team to contact previous clients and future clients.
While they’re doing that, I’ll be implementing my Referral Engine which books several gigs all by itself.
Now there’s one thing I want to point out…
None of this actually matters to your speaking business.
And the reason I’m saying that is because you have to build your speaking business from where you are, not where I’m at.
Maybe you don’t have any gigs lined up…so you can’t even use the Referral Engine. Or maybe your website isn’t ready for Adwords so you can’t use that either.
So maybe you have to start with a Cold Call System or an Email Sequence.
What you have to do is you have to learn how to master the system that’s going to get a consistent number of speaking gigs for you.
You have to know exactly what to say to someone that’s going to get them to hire you…not just a random speaker.
What do you do when you’re call someone and they don’t answer? Do you leave a voicemail? Do you have a system in place that automatically leaves a voicemail so you can immediately go on to the next person?
When do you follow-up with people? What do you say when you follow up?
Do you record the number of people you contact every day? Do you record the number of people that contact you? Do you review it so you can improve your system?
All of this matters.
And yes, it’s work.
Even something like a Cold Call system isn’t all that simple if you want to master it.
So let me pick a system and I’ll walk you through how to set it up and everything.
The system I want to pick is Direct Mail.
So lets say that I’m going to build a Direct Mail system…and the benefit of this system is that you can set it up and get tons of leads coming in.
There are basically 3 ways to do direct mail.
1. Do everything yourself
2. Hire someone to do everything
3. Combination of doing it yourself and hiring
I recommend the third option and let me tell you why…
A company that’s good at direct mail is good at little things like the design, getting people to open it, getting the mail to reach a person’s place, and those types of things. But what they’re not good at is knowing your audience.
They don’t know what meeting planners are looking for in a speaker.
And the key to direct mail comes down to two things: Your list, and your copy.
If you have a great list of meeting planners who hire speakers, but you have horrible copy, then you’ve just wasted your money because nobody’s going to call you.
So you can hire someone to do direct mail for you, but they don’t understand a meeting planner like you do. You know what meeting planners look for when they’re hiring speakers…or at least you should know.
So what’s the first thing you should do to build out this lead-generation system?
First, you want to think about your budget and the campaign you want. If you have a good budget then you can make a really fancy mailing. If you don’t have a budget then you might just want to send postcards.
Now you need to think about how many mailings are you going to send out and when you’re going to send them? You can send out 4 mailings…one every 3 months.
So lets say you’ve decided to send out 4 mailings, one every 3 months.
Now you want to design the postcard…and get the copywriting to be really good.
Think of something that will capture their attention…something like “Meeting Planners Hire This Speaker To Get Standing Ovations!” …
This does a couple of things…first, when a meeting planners sees this, they know it’s for them because they see the words ‘meeting planner’ on it.
Then it creates curiosity because it says ‘This Speaker’ and they’re wondering what speakers always gets a standing ovation?
Now you have something that tells them to watch a video on your website and give you a call.
Once you have all this built out, now you want to buy a list of meeting planners. And you usually want to leave this till the last minute because you want to get an up-to-date list. If you bought a list 6 months ago then that list isn’t as good as one that was updated yesterday.
So buy the list at the last moment.
Once you have the list, you mail off your postcards.
And now you record everything.
You have a spreadsheet where you record exactly how much you’ve spent on the campaign. You record all the costs. How much it cost to send it, get the postcard design…basically, anything you spent money on.
And then you record the amount of people who contact you.
So lets say you spent $1,000 and you got 2 people to hire you. You take that number and determine your customer acquisition cost…it’s the ‘campaign cost / customer acquired. So 1000 divided by 2. That means it costs you $500 to acquire a customer.
The key is to make sure your acquisition cost is lower than the lifetime value of that customer. So if you get $5,000 for each person who hires you, then spending $500 to get $5,000 is a no brainer.
And the reason you want to do all this is to make sure you’re making money.
All of this might seem like it’s a lot…and it is…that’s why speakers don’t get booked.
They’re not willing to put in the work to build a lead-generation system that works.
But imagine the power you have when you know…absolutely know…that if you spend $500, then you’ll get a gig for $5,000. Imagine the power you have when you know that at any second, you can turn on your lead-generation system and you get a specific amount of gigs.
If you want more gigs, you just amp up your lead-generation system.
I want you to realize something…
I want you to realize that it’s time to step up your game. If you say you want this to be a real business then treat it like a real business…stop treating your speaking business like a hobby.
You can build lead-generation systems that get a consistent stream of speaking gigs coming in…but you can’t be afraid to do the work. You can’t be afraid to get leverage, to invest in things that give you the knowledge to get it done faster.
You might not have known how to calculate your customer acquisition cost before listening to this…imagine what else you need to know.
You can figure this stuff out by yourself…but why spend a year when you can spend a month?
Right now, a lot of speakers associate pain with investing in a product.
They see it as “Oh no, I’m spending money” instead of “Ok, I’m going to grow my speaking business a hell of a lot faster by getting all this information in one place instead of searching for it for a couple of years.”
You have to get leverage.
Just like how Will Smith knew little things like drinking too much water and hanging up the phone caused him to not make as many calls. You have to know little things like that.
When you get your lead-generation systems working, you have something you can use for the rest of your life.
Earlier I mentioned that I’m going to help speakers with their lead-generation systems.
Basically…I’m going to help you build it all out and I’m going to help you get everything straight.
I’m going to show you how everything works together and how to consistently fill up your speaking schedule.
If you’re interested, then be on the lookout for the Speaker LeadGen Project.