If you want to make big money speaking, there are a lot of things you must have in place. And I will be sharing a bunch of them with you here for free.
But I want to share one strategy with that make or break your speaking career fast if you ignore it…
Never Confuse Your Market.
This is a big one. When I first started speaking, I really thought I could speak on leadership, customer service, sales and marketing among many other topics.
After all, I had some knowledge on many topics because I was reading the books!
That’s crazzzzzzzy!
Listen, I know you are smart. You have been around. And over the years, you’ve accumulated great knowledge. But that doesn’t mean you have to teach everything you know. How can you?
The fastest way to lose your credibility and be a struggler in this business is to offer a menu of topics you can talk about. There will always be the temptation to try.
Does that mean you are not qualified to speak on other topics? No! Does that mean you should never offer other topics? No!
But you should never confuse your market by coming to the front door with a bunch of stuff. Instead, use them as your back end.
And that too requires different strategies. I say this because even then, you should not overwhelm your market with too many choices that are not directly related to your front end. I’m sure I’ll be touching more on that point later.
You should see me smiling!
I never forgot one guy who came to speak at my local speaker chapter’s association. His advice for us was to offer a cafeteria menu style in order to stay booked. And he meant right up front.
It’s like you are looking for a heart surgeon and the first one says, “I can do the heart surgery, foot surgery, examine your eyes, and deliver your baby, too. When do you want to schedule your heart surgery?” I bet you’d run away and start looking for a true expert.”
Well, come to think of it, there was something about the speaker I mentioned above that hinted he wasn’t doing all that great in his business. Interesting… Isn’t it?
You know, I don’t have all the answers. That longtime speaker may have a good point. But I just couldn’t see his point. And I’m saying this based on solid evidence. I know there’s a better way than his way if you want to make big money speaking.
I’ll share it with you in the next post.
