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by Burt Dubin

A touch of background first:   A successful, journeyman level public speaker, serving associations and corporations, I routinely received fees of $3000 to $5000-6000 for 1 to 3 hours of programs. I got 1 or 2 bookings a week.   This was in the late 1980’s.

Active in my Chapter of the USA National Speakers Association, I watched the revolving door of aspiring public speakers come and go every month.  

Also active at the national level, I was dismayed to see that a full third of the NSA membership changed every year. As a skilled researcher I had cracked the code.  The secrets of getting a gig or two every week were no secret to me.  I was doing it.

Now to the action and the outcomes:

I said to myself, I can change this tragic loss of talent. I can show my fellow speakers how to do what I do. And as a marketer, I knew I had to stand out from all others.  Had to be unique and unduplicable.

Here’s what I did. Here’s what I do.  You can do it too:

Action 1:
I market the outcome of my services for public speakers and trainers, not the services themselves. I market success in the business of public speaking. Nobody else did that.  Today, 14 years after launch, nobody else does that.

Market the outcomes of your
speaking/training services, and
not the speaking/training itself. 

Action 2:
I give a money back Warranty of success. In writing.  With teeth. The first few years, I gave back some money. Since 1995 nobody has legitimately requested their money back.

Give a real  personal satisfaction
money-back warranty.  

Action 3:
Do exhaustive research.  Spare no expense. Make yourself the very best on earth at public speaking and training. Do more that is required.  Do more than is expected.  Do more that anyone in their right mind would do.

Be the best, the very best
at public speaking and training. 

Action 4:
Stimulate referrals.   Let your clients or customers know they are rewarded for referring folks who invest in what you offer.   Give appropriate gifts, depending on the size of the ticket.  My Inner Circle Gold Membership is $7000 to $10,000. I give a choice of gifts.  $500 in cash. $600 to their favorite charity in their name.  $700 in products.

Reward referrals generously.

Action 5:
Treat people right.  Be there for them long after the sale.  Care about each client. You’ve heard this before: “People don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care!”

Let the Golden Rule govern your attitudes,
your thoughts, your words and your actions.

Action 6:
Don’t sell.  Instead, market.  What’s the difference?  This: Selling is persuading someone to buy your public speaking services. Marketing is creating conditions under which the buyer is attracted to your public speaking services and decides on their own motion to engage you. How do you do that?    PR. Advertising. Word-of-mouth.   In the words of Walt Disney, 

Do what you do so well that people can’t resist
coming back for more and telling
their friends to do the same.

Action 7:
Have resolute integrity.

Be impeccable in all you represent.

________

These 7 stratagems are some of the methods I use to move myself from unknown journeyman public speaker to respected, successful, well known creator and marketer of the Speaking Success System.

Adapt these principles.  Adopt these principles. Own these principles.

The success you create will be your own. You can have it if you want it.  And you’ve got to want it enough to have it.

________

Burt Dubin may be reached at www.speakingsuccess.com or +800-321-1225, or, from overseas, 928-753-7546.  Or you can E-mail Burt at burt@BurtDubin.com. For a free subscription to Burt’s Speaking Biz Strategies Letter, send an e-mail to Burt with a one-word message, Subscribe.

by Burt Dubin

How to collect even higher speaking fees by creating alliances with sponsors…

Can you believe that a perfectly simple, marvelous, easy-to- implement marketing idea can be largely ignored by the community of professional speakers?

Can you imagine having an organization with deep pockets of cash promoting your programs at their expense, building your name and fame in markets you want to penetrate?

Can you picture this cash-rich sponsor sending along a logistics person-on the speaking tour they’ve set up for you-(Be still, my beating heart!) to handle all the physical details like room set-up for you.

And, of course, you may as well fantasize your sponsor then doing all the advance publicity to be sure you address a packed house. Well, hold on to your hat because all the above is true. It’s real. It’s happening now for 2 speakers. They are-in alphabetical order-Michael Chatman and Barb Schwarz, CSP. This article is due to their generously revealing how they do it.

What is a sponsor:
A Sponsor is a group, a company, any cash-generating, profit- making entity that can benefit from exposure to your target market. Sponsor needs you because they want to market to the same folks you target. When you work together you create a triple win. The third winner is your target market. If your target market is schools and their students, logical sponsors include retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers. They get their name and logo on your handouts. They get great PR. They are the good guys. Remember the firms that place soft drink, snack and candy machines in the schools, suppliers of uniforms for school athletic teams. Purveyors of the foods served in the school cafeteria.

I share these insights anecdotally. I do not pretend to have access to any wisdom beyond my own experience. What I say here is true for me. You alone can decide whether it is true for you. And this may not be all there is. It’s simply what I get here and now:

Photographers who do class pictures, school ring vendors. Every entity that makes money from providing equipment, supplies, consumables to the school. If you address sales professionals, cellular phone companies, computer companies, vendors of everything salespeople buy are potential sponsors.

If you speak to real estate agents, title companies, escrow companies, mortgage companies, etc., are appropriate sponsors.

In any industry or trade group that buys from a group of vendors, any member of that group-including vendors presently frozen out by trade custom or long-time habits-is a prospective sponsor of your programs.

Your sponsor, or sponsors, use funds from their advertising or promotion budgets, funds already committed to be spent somewhere, to advertise and promote attendance at your programs.

How do sponsors benefit from promoting you:
Exposure of their products and their company before the program starts through the publicity created by any of the interested parties.

Sponsor can do a Pre-program presentation. You can sometimes, depending on the venue, give Sponsor table top display space in the back of the room. Sometimes you can arrange for sponsor to have a booth. Sponsor name and logo may go on all printed materials, including any tickets, book covers, albums, bumper stickers, your letterhead.

In media interviews you always mention sponsor’s name. Sponsor’s representatives can sit down in front and you can introduce them during program. Sponsor’s customer goodwill and loyalty is enhanced. Sponsor may get more direct business because they sponsored you.

Is there to be signage at this program? Arrange that each sponsor have the exclusive sign for their type product. If sponsor markets a soft drink and refreshments are to be served, you arrange that sponsor is to have exclusive pourage rights with no other soft drink to be made available.

There may be $ generated from your product sales-and you need to agree in front whether you get all this or whether sponsor shares. You can create a data base of attendees or of key influencers for later follow-up.

Burt Dubin may be reached at www.speakingsuccess.com or +800-321-1225, or, from overseas, 928-753-7546.  Or you can E-mail Burt at burt@BurtDubin.com. For a free subscription to Burt’s Speaking Biz Strategies Letter, send an e-mail to Burt with a one-word message, Subscribe.

by Burt Dubin

How to generate a relentless flow of inquiries for your professional 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.

Burt Dubin may be reached at www.speakingsuccess.com or +800-321-1225, or, from overseas, 928-753-7546.  Or you can E-mail Burt at burt@BurtDubin.com. For a free subscription to Burt’s Speaking Biz Strategies Letter, send an e-mail to Burt with a one-word message, Subscribe.