All speakers have a problem. Speakers want to know how to market themselves so they can get on stages and make money. The problem is…how do you do that? How do you get a company to pay you $10,000 or more to speak on stage for 60 minutes?
One of the things I’ve mastered is getting booked on corporate stages.
I mastered it because in the beginning, I wasn’t booking anything. I knew I was good but nobody was hiring me and my schedule looked like a ghost town.
And I know what it feels like to want to want to be on stages so badly and to know you’re good, but to nothing is actually happening. You’re just hoping someone’s going to find your website and call you. You’re just hoping someone’s going to see that video you put up and call you. But it never comes.
And you’re not exactly sure what to do because all the advice you read about online or in Facebook groups is just theory. Everyone acts like they’re booking gigs but very few people are. And the ones that are, don’t reveal what they’re doing because they’re actually doing it rather than hanging out in groups all day teaching it.
In this video, I’m going to show you how to market yourself as a speaker. I’m going to show you the steps you need to take today, tomorrow, and the next day to start getting that phone ringing, the emails coming in, and getting on stages.
It’s not hard, it’s just a matter of having the right knowledge and doing something with it.
Everyone seems to be looking for the magic pill that’s going to instantly fill up their schedule. They’re looking for the 3-step formula…but there is none.
I’m going to tell you the actions you need to take to fill up your schedule and get booked and from that moment on, it’s just a matter of whether or not you do it.
So if you want to market yourself as a speaker then you need to master 3 things:
Image
Visibility
Growth
You need to build your image in a way that instantly influences people to hire you. If you want to charge $10,000 then you have to look like a $10,000 speaker.
Most speakers actually don’t do this first part right.
They want to get straight to the part of, “Tell me how to get booked” and they don’t realize that this is how you get booked.
It’s kind of like an author who wants to sell his book saying, “Look, I don’t want to learn how to design the book cover, I don’t care about editing the book, I don’t care about what it looks like…I wrote the book and I just want people to buy the thing.”
It doesn’t work like that.
If you neglect the image then you just won’t get booked…it’s that plain and simple.
You also need to become visible to the right people. If you’re talking to the wrong people then you can’t get hired as a speaker.
And the last stage is growth. This is where you get the publicity, you have a referral engine, you build the products, and you have multiple revenue streams. The growth stage is where you start charging more for gigs and really getting things rolling.
So lets break these down, one by one…
First is the image stage.
When you’re creating your image, you want to create what I call the ‘Prestige Experience.’ This is where you create the look, the image, of a pro.
Now some speakers listening to this might be saying, “My image is pretty good. I have a website, I have videos, I have the marketing kit.”
But let me give you a wake up call…if you’re not getting booked, you don’t have the right image.
I’ve had a client who was paying around $20,000 to have me at their event tell me that when they saw my videos and website and everything that they almost didn’t contact me because they thought I would charge too much. And they were already spending around $20,000 so they thought I charged a lot more.
That’s the power of image.
Out of all the speakers who look at the Speaking Lifestyle videos, I only came across one speaker who had a great image but still wasn’t getting as many gigs as he wanted and he’s a memory champion.
He had the TV footage, he had the nice website, he had a lot of really good stuff but still wasn’t getting booked. His problem wasn’t image, it was visibility to the right people.
But that’s just one speaker out of many.
If you’re watching this then I can’t tell you how important your image is and how much you need to create this ‘Prestige Experience.’
Now part of that image is the way you describe yourself.
Most speakers start off wrong because they describe what they do wrong.
You have to describe yourself and your topic in a way that matches the market you want to get hired for.
So most speakers listening to this would like to get paid speaking gigs in the corporate market. Now let me ask you this…which speaker would a company hire for their event…the speaker who talks about leadership or the speaker who talks about bullying?
Obviously, they’re going to hire the speaker who talks about leadership because it’s a message to market match. It’s not that the topic of bullying isn’t important, it’s just that it’s not something the corporate market is looking for. If you’re talking about bullying then you go to middle schools.
Now I’m sure you easily knew the difference between those two.
But what I’m getting at is that you need to know the difference between what you speak about and why the market hires speakers.
I want you all to go to Les Brown’s website right now. It’s LesBrown.com and click on the tab that says, ‘Meeting Planners’…you see, Les Brown gets it. And he obviously does or he wouldn’t be as successful.
What Les Brown gets is that he knows the difference between what he talks about and what clients hire speakers for.
You can say that you talk about changing lives, and helping people visualize their success…that’s great and all…but if you want to book corporate speaking gigs then they’re more focused on the experience you’re going to create at the event.
Les Brown immediately says, “When you need your event to be a success, you need to rely on a speaker to meet your need.”
He goes on to talk about how they have the responsibility of making the event a success and he’s basically going after the fear emotion in every event planner. Every event planner is terrified of hiring the wrong speaker who’s going to be boring on stage.
As you read the text on Les’ website, you’ll notice that he’s addressing the corporate event planner who’s looking for the best keynote speaker imaginable. He’s not saying, “I change people’s lives and your audience will be forever changed.”
He focuses on the corporate event planner who’s really just looking for an entertaining keynote speaker.
You have to know how to build your image by knowing who you’re building it for.
A lot of speakers build their marketing materials for everyone. They confuse ‘getting paid speaking gigs’ with ‘using speaking to grow your business.’
If you want to get paid speaking gigs then all of your marketing has to talk to one person…the person who’s job it is to plan the company event. They work for the company and they’re just looking for a really engaging speaker.
If you want to use speaking as a tool for getting more clients for maybe coaching, or whatever you’re doing, then you have to build your marketing materials differently. You’re more focused on an internet marketing business model rather than a ‘keynote speaker’ business model.
These are little details that allow you to get booked on stages or not get booked and wonder why nobody is emailing you and calling to hire you.
Like I said earlier, most speakers are so focused on ‘I want someone to hire me. Tell me the things I need to do to get the paid gigs’ that they forget…this is the stuff that gets them hired.
I remember this lady in the seminar market who’s really successful asked me about getting paid speaking gigs. She knew I was booking all these paid gigs and she was really good at working with speakers in the seminar market so she asked me what to do to get speakers in the corporate market.
She was asking about the marketing. Like what specific activities will get a company to say, “Hey, we will pay you $10,000 to have you come in for 60 minutes.” Like maybe there’s a website she can post the speakers onto that will get them gigs…or maybe she can find events and contact the people in charge.
But what I told her is that almost everything is in the marketing materials. The speaker website, the videos, the copywriting.
You can make a million calls to all the right people who hire speakers for company events and not one of them will pay you if your marketing materials suck.
But you can make just 100 calls and get a few gigs if your marketing materials are on point.
It’s not the cold calling that made it work. It’s the marketing materials that made it work. It’s the image.
Now there are several things that influence people to hire you as a speaker when you’re building your image.
But the one thing I want to focus on are your video testimonials.
Watch this real quick.
Now what does that do?
Video testimonials demonstrate that you walk the walk. They show that other people love what you do and when you have so many people talking about you, they can’t help but be influenced by it.
When you go to Amazon and you want to buy a book, you look at the reviews. If there are tons of reviews and most of them are good then you’re more likely to buy the book. But if it has 2 out of 5 stars then you’re guaranteed not to buy it.
If you don’t have video testimonials then you’re losing out on speaking gigs.
All selling revolves around proof that what you offer actually works.
Look at infomercials and really successful ones like p90x. P90X didn’t start being successful until they showed the proof. They showed the abs that people were getting by using it. They showed the pounds everyone was losing. They showed the proof.
Proactive has made over a billion dollars with their infomercials by showing proof. They have the before and after pictures. Here’s the picture where your face looks like a volcano, and here’s the after picture where your face looks like silk.
As a speaker, your video testimonials are the before and after shots.
Now you want to have more than just video testimonials. You want video footage of you speaking, you want the logos of companies, things like that…but I’m talking about video testimonials because it’s the easiest thing you can get…even if you’ve never spoken on a single stage in your life.
You can literally go out right now and get some testimonials. Go ask your mom, ask your friends, ask anyone to say something great about you.
A coaching client of mine owns a business and has around 20-25 employees. I told him to go around to all those employees and get video testimonials from them and he instantly has more proof than other speakers.
Whatever you do, it’s important that you don’t make excuses about why you have to wait till later to get them. If you don’t get video testimonials either today or tomorrow then you’re not serious about building your speaking business…it’s that simple.
If you say you really want to get paid speaking gigs, and you know that having video testimonials will help, and you still don’t get some today or tomorrow then you’re not serious.
The only way you’re going to grow your speaking business is if you have specialized knowledge and if you implement that knowledge very fast.
Don’t say, “Oh yea, I know I should have testimonials. I’ll make sure to get them next time.” NO…get them now, the very second you stop listening to this.
If you get into the habit of waiting to do things then you’ll never get things done. You’ll wonder why you’re not booking speaking engagements and 6 months from now, you’re going to be in the same spot as you are today.
I want you to take a look at your actions. Look at the things you did yesterday. Look at the things you did today. Now be honest with yourself, could you have done more? Could you have done more to grow your speaking business?
Were you just messing around? Were you on Facebook too much? Were you watching youtube videos? Did you do everything except the things that actually build your speaking business?
There are literally just two things you need to do if you want to really grow. Number one, you get specialized knowledge. And number two, you implement that knowledge. That’s it.
I really wish someone had made a site like the Speaking Lifestyle blog or the https://speakinglifestyle.com/relationship-day/. There’s so much information there about what to do that it’s not even funny. And yet, despite all that information, despite every free video on the Speaking Lifestyle site, there are still speakers out there who mess around.
There are still speakers out there who don’t open the emails to watch the video. What do they do instead? They say, “Oh I’ll watch it later.” And later never comes. Then another email, and they maybe open it or not.
What they don’t realize is that those aren’t emails….this isn’t a video…this is your life. This is your speaking business. What they don’t realize is that when you implement this stuff, you get gigs. When you do this stuff, you get booked.
But they don’t see that email, that video, the PLATFORM members area, they don’t see it as the VERY thing that’s going to make their dream come true. Instead, they see it as an email. They see it as a video, They see PLATFORM as $348 a year…Oh God forbid if you have to pay for information that’s going to help your business.
It’s important that you learn to get past what something is and see it for what it can be.
When you get an email from me, I guarantee you that email can change your life…but only if you let it.
If you don’t click on it, if you don’t watch it, and if you don’t implement it, then it’s going to do nothing for you. But if you click on the emails. If you watch the videos. If you do what the videos tell you…you’re life is going to change.
You’re going to be the one speaking on stages. You’re going to be the one who’s doing what they love to do for a living rather than complaining about their job.
Look…
It’s crucial that you get this stuff.
It’s crucial that you don’t just say, “Get me booked on a stage.” Instead, focus on doing the right type of marketing that’s going to make it happen.
Your image is what makes it happen.
How many phone calls do you think Tony Robbins has to make to get a paid speaking engagement?
Lets say there’s a company event, and lets say they have a big budget, how many phone calls will Tony Robbins have to make to get them to pay him?
Just one. Maybe two…max!
Why? Because he built a huge image. If Tony Robbins calls and says, “Hey I notice you’re having an event, I want to speak at the event.” Then you can just about guarantee that company is going to say yes and then it’s just a matter of details like pricing and all that.
But in just one call, or maybe two, he could book speaking engagements.
Now how many calls do you think you have to make to get booked? It’s definitely more than one call.
The bigger your image, the easier it is to get hired.
So if your image is great, instead of you having to contact 1,000 people to get one gig, you just have to contact 100 people.
Build your image and you’ll build your business.
The next step to building your speaking business is Visibility.
You have to be seen by the right people.
What do you think would happen if Tony Robbins called the janitor at the company and asked to get booked? And even said he would speak for free? Do you think he would get booked? Of course not…he’s talking to the wrong person.
If you’re talking to the wrong people and you’re being seen by the wrong people, or by nobody, then you’re not going to get booked.
Luckily, this is the easiest thing in the world to fix.
This is just about using normal marketing methods like sending emails, calling people, Google Adwords, Twitter…that type of stuff.
But what most speakers do is they look for the new thing. The new marketing method. That magic pill that’s going to instantly get them booked on a gazillion stages. Most speakers want to work for an hour a day and think they’re going to fill up their schedule.
Or worse, they expect other people to just ‘find’ them and contact them.
You have to learn how to increase your visibility with the right people.
Now at the beginning of your speaking career, you’re going to be contacting a lot of people yourself. But what you want to move towards is getting most of your paid speaking gigs through referrals.
Nothing can beat referrals because they’ve seen you speak at another conference and they know first hand that you’re good. You don’t have to send them to your website, you don’t have to persuade them, they just know first hand that you’re going to be great.
The problem is that most speakers leave this to chance.
They don’t have a way for them to get referrals. Maybe they ask for it, maybe they don’t, but they don’t really have a way to get it.
Getting referrals is like a separate business in itself.
You don’t just ask for it, you do several things that guarantee it.
I call it your referral engine.
If I were to ask speakers how they book speaking gigs right now, they would say word of mouth. But they don’t have a system for getting that word of mouth working. And if you don’t know how your anxious dating avoidant works then you’re not getting any gigs.
Hotmail grew their email service based on word of mouth. But they had a system for it and it was very simple. At the bottom of every email that was sent out, it said something like, “Sent from hotmail. Get your free email account here.”
So if you were to ask someone who worked at Hotmail, “How do you guys use word of mouth to grow?” Then they could have easily told you about that email signature at the bottom.
But if you ask a speaker how they use word of mouth to grow then they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. They’ll say something like, “What do you mean? I just ask for a referral.”
And those are the same speakers who are struggling to get them.
In the https://speakinglifestyle.com/ihappy-dating-site/, I go over my entire referral engine in week 8. There are certain things you do that make it work and just asking for gigs isn’t enough.
The point I’m getting at is that the best visibility you’re going to get is through your referrals so you need to master it.
But in the beginning, you have to master other marketing techniques.
And then there’s the growth phase.
The growth phase is where your business explodes. It’s like all that hard work, all those rough days, they finally come together and you’re like, “Oooooh…so that’s how it all fits together.” And you just book speaking gigs a lot easier.
This is where you get the publicity so you can charge more. This is where you hire people, you create products if you want, you upsell into workshops and trainings.
The growth phase cycles back to your image phase because you’re now building your image in a way that allows you to charge more and run things more smoothly.
When you get publicity, you’re growing your image as a speaker.
Now very rarely does publicity actually book you the speaking gigs…but what it does it is funnels back into your image phase and instead of charging $5,000….you can now charge $10,000. Instead of charging $10,000…you can now charge a million.
The more known you are, the more you can charge. That’s obviously why celebrities can charge so much even if they suck as speakers. It has nothing to do with their speaking skills…it’s just a matter of image and the prestige they have.
Look…
Anyone can build a speaking business. It’s just a matter of how bad you want it. How much specialized knowledge can you get? And do you just say you’re going to do something or do you actually do it?
If you want details about the speaking industry, and I mean some serious details that will help you become a more business-savvy speaker, then I suggest you date night bucket list.
It’s only $348 for the entire year and we keep uploading new information every month to show you what I’m currently doing in my business, what other speakers are doing, and what you need to do.
I was reading an article about Warren Buffett.
They interviewed Charlie Munger, he’s Warren Buffett’s partner and he said something interesting…he said that Warren Buffett is reading all the time. He said that he’s constantly educating himself and that’s why he’s so rich.
If you’re not constantly educating yourself as a speaker about the speaking business…then you’re always going to wonder why you’re not getting booked.
What’s funny is that a lot of speakers have written me saying they would join PLATFORM and they’re going to do it later. What they don’t realize is that they’re doing the same things they’ve always done, they’re not taking action…they’re putting things off until later.
And the only way to make this speaking business work is if you get into the habit of doing things now.
I just got done doing a gig for $12,000 for a 60 minute presentation. I want to point out to you that I don’t need the $348 a year that I get from people who join PLATFORM. But what I do need is to know that you’re ready to make things happen. I need you to be in the mindset of ‘let’s make this work’ rather than…’Oh I’m thinking about being a speaker. Oh I’ve always wanted to get paid gigs.”
I need you to be thinking, “Ok I’ve had enough. I’m going to make this work no matter what. I don’t care if I have to wake up at 5 in the morning and go to sleep at midnight. I’m going to make this happen and I know that in order for me to do that, I need to know what actions to take.”
That’s the mindset I need people to be in when they join PLATFORM.
$348 isn’t going to change my life. But it will change yours…you have no idea.
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