Why The Speaker Lab?
I’ve been speaking for about 15 years through my business. I started to use it as a way to bring awareness to my company and the services that we provide. I never proactively sought out speaking engagements, they were simply coming to me.
I knew I wanted to do more speaking but wasn’t quite sure how I should go about making that happen. The real eye-opener for me was at one of the events I was speaking at. I asked them; so what made you hire me as opposed to my competitor to speak?
Their response was that the competitor had more zeros in their price than I did. That was a light bulb moment for me. It was around that time I received an email from Grant talking about how you can be a speaker or you could have a speaking business. That’s when the bells went off. I knew what I was doing wrong. I was a speaker, but I didn’t have a speaking business.
What were some of your A-HA’s and takeaways?
Clarity in my messaging and branding was a big one for me. For many years, I spoke directly to consumers about how to protect themselves from identity theft. One of the biggest things that I wanted to accomplish by joining The Speaker Lab Booked and Paid To Speak Elite program is how do I make the leap from speaking to the consumer side, to doing more of the corporate training?
Through working with all of the coaches in The Speaker Lab, I was able to finally do that. Today, I have a brand messaging that enables me to still be part of what I’ve always done for the past 15 years and have been recognized for while I also transition into this new area of my business.
Another big takeaway was the strategy for finding and managing my leads. Because, like I said before, I never proactively reached out to organizations for speaking gigs I didn’t know where to begin. By going through the step-by-step process that the Elite program teaches I was able to identify my first 50 leads which was a huge help.
Not only was I taught how to find leads but also how to manage my pipeline. It’s great to get on a call with a potential prospect, but what should one say on these calls? When do you follow up? How do you structure emails to open the door or get prospects on a phone call? All of this was a mystery to me. Today, I am doing all of that and more and it’s working!
Today, my new normal as a professional speaker is…
I put myself out there confidently. One of the things the program teaches is to contact people within your network and let them know what you are doing as a professional speaker. I was dedicated to following the program by design. I have reached out to several people within my network offering my new speaking programs and the response I have been getting has been fantastic! Just last week alone, I booked two paid gigs.
I also make working my pipeline a daily habit. It’s a part of my business systems and the more I work it the easier it gets.
The other thing I want to share, and this was a huge game changer for me, when people ask, what do you do? I tell them, I’m a speaker where before I always led with my business. If you don’t tell people up front that you’re a speaker, they tend to assume you should speak for free. It’s as if they’re doing you a favor by exposing you to your target market which in the end will benefit your business. That’s not what I wanted but because of the way I was positioning myself they assumed I’d speak for free.
Today, I make money by speaking. If you want me to speak, here’s my fee and here’s how I do it. I am a speaker and I can confidently say that! This alone made the investment in this program worth every penny.
Who would you recommend for The Speaker Lab Booked and Paid To Speak Elite program?
It’s ideal for really anyone who wants to get into speaking as a career. They’re all different types of speakers. That’s the thing that I love about The Speaker Lab: you have people talking to all different industries. And even though we’re all focusing on different areas, we still can help each other because we are all going through the same SPEAK framework. So, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who’s looking to expand from being a speaker to having a speaking business… absolutely sign up for the program. Don’t delay, it’ll be the best money you’ve ever spent. I’ve signed up for a lot of different consulting programs over the years and by far the rate of return on this one is the best. It’s the best money I’ve ever spent!