Speaker Sales Systems

We're often asked how we come up with our sales systems at such a rapid pace - we've shared more than 70 systems in these podcasts alone. In this episode, we're walking listeners through the exact steps we take each week to assess the challenges we encountered and how to build or modify a system so that challenge is never encountered again. It's the mother of all sales systems!

Many salespeople and nearly all speakers are giving up too early or simply annoying their prospects with poorly-timed and selfish messaging. In this Speaker Sales Systems podcast, we're sharing the three elements to ensure you build into every outbound sales campaign to ensure you're providing value and getting on more stages.

If you're taking the time to qualify speaking prospects, you know how much is hurts when we lose the gig because we didn't keep in touch. Those 'leaks' cost us stages and revenue, and we're sealing them in this week's Speaker Sales Systems podcast!

Selecting a speaker comes with an almost unlimited amount of options for conference organizers, which is why they'll often choose a speaker a friend or colleague recommends instead of the one prepared to deliver more value. But what if we could answer all their concerns before they ever came up in a sales conversation? That's what we're addressing this week so we can stack the deck so both we and our clients win!

In the 21st century, speakers are expected to not just talk at their audiences, but rather walk with them on a journey of change. That means engaging audiences in ways that keep them attentive while providing insights. Speakers that can do this are always in high demand, and the technology exists to make it easier than ever. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over why live polling and surveys are the future of audience engagement and how to use them during you talk. Most importantly, we share how to leverage the data we gather into future speaking sales!

There's a secret all great salespeople and business leaders know about that costs little and is under-utilized by almost everyone - and it's consistency. Specifically, consistency in our outreach. This week, we're going over the impact that consistency can have in a speaking business and how to make sure it's scheduled and managed intelligently. It's the difference maker in controlling your business' success and revenue, making it a skill speakers have to learn!

While many speaking coaches will advocate why all speakers should 'nice to get rich', it's a strategy that limits scalability and open a speaker up to industry downturns. In this podcast, we walk through how to break out of the padded prison of only speaking within one industry and how to diversity target industries to capitalize on growth and shield against industry downturns. 

While 'Always Be Closing' is a famous saying in the world of sales, it can't happen without prospects to sell to! In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we're going over why speakers should 'Always Be Prospecting', how to find speaking prospects, where to make time to add new ones into our pipelines each week, and of course the value having a lot of prospects gives us as entrepreneurs!

Every organization selects their speaker in a different way, but one way that is becoming more common is the use of a committee. A committee that the speaker never gets to talk to or win over. While that might stop many speakers cold or force them to simply submit their information and hope for the best, we realized there was a system we could use to ensure we converted the committee and positioned ourselves better than any other speaker they'd be considering. It's all here in this episode of Speaker Sales Systems!

If you're dedicating time to reach out to people who can hire you, then you should know that not all outreach tasks are created equally. Yet, they all need to be done - the calls, emails and social media messages that drive sales. In this week's podcast, we dive into how to rack and stack your daily outreach tasks to ensure you're driving every prospect towards hiring you to be on their stage!

Call reluctance is something all salespeople face, but we've seen it especially endemic in the business of speaking. We discovered it comes from considering calls as only having two outcomes- make the sale or get rejected. After 8,000+ sales calls, we learned there's a way to ensure we make every conversation or voicemail a way for us to get closer to getting the gig and it's all here in the only podcast for professional speaking sales!

While many speakers are focused on getting booked, the most successful speakers know that getting paid is just as important. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we dive into the payment term negotiation ladder and show speakers how to ensure they're getting paid sooner while achieving maximum value for their clients. 

In you're taking the initiative in your speaking business and reaching to people who can hire you to speak, you will encounter objections. For most speakers, they kill the chance to make an impact or an income from that gig. However, we realized that salespeople have been dealing with objections for years and have a way of overcoming them. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over our most commonly-heard objections and how we ensure we never lose a deal for the same objection again!

Speaking sales, like any sales, has rainmakers and rain barrels. The first take the initiative on their revenue and the second passively accept whatever comes along. What many speakers don't know is that being a rainmaker is not a secret, and it is also an active state. A speaker who stops doing rainmaker things will revert back to being a rain barrel. In this podcast, we differentiate between the two and tell listeners how to ensure they become - and remain - rainmakers with their speaker sales. 

There's a difference between the way a busy speaker and a desperate speaker approach sales. The busy speaker makes their potential clients 'earn' their talk, ensuring there's a fit for budget, availability and audience before sending a proposal. A desperate speaker does the opposite, and rarely gets the gigs they pursue. In this episode, we deconstruct the mentality behind making all of our prospects 'earn' their way into our pipeline, proposals and even to get on their stages.

While most speakers are focused on ensuring folks know their name, the best salespeople approach it differently. There's another name that simultaneously unlocks the name of decision makers, potential budgets, decision making process and timeline - the names of the speakers an organization has hired in the past! In this episode, we reveal how to find those important names and how to use them in your speaking sales conversations!

If you conduct enough outreach, eventually you'll run into rude people. They're a part of sales, but don't have to shut down your chances of speaking. In this week's Speaker Sales Systems episode, we're walking through the different types of rude prospects a speaker is likely to encounter and what to do with each of them to redirect and salvage the sale. 

For many speakers, their biggest challenge isn't their expertise - it's their sales conversations! This week, we dive into one of the most powerful techniques we can use when reaching out to the folks who can hire us. It seems contradictory, but by losing the sale before we ever pick up the phone, we're better positioned to win it. 

If you've every heard someone tell you, "Send me info about your talk/topic and we'll keep it on file," then you were likely missing a key element of getting someone excited about your talk: You didn't elicit their interest. So how do we discover EXACTLY what a decision maker needs a speaker to deliver at their event, and how do we connect our talk to that specific outcome? We answer it all in this week's Speaker Sales Systems podcast!

COVID-19 not only changed businesses and the events industry, it also changed the way people buy speakers' services. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over what we've learned needs to happen before, during and after sales conversations to ensure we maximize our fees and the impact we can have with a live or virtual audience in a COVID world. 

For many speakers, taking the time to reach out to event planners who can hire them only to be told 'not now' is a depressing event. But it doesn't have to be. In this episode of speaker sales systems, we reveal the magic of secondary call objectives for speakers. Even if a conversation doesn't end with a proposal, speakers can still move the sale forward if they know what objectives they're shooting for. 

As business owners, we'll never have enough time in the day to get it all done. So how do we know what tasks will yield sales in our speaking business the fastest? How do we know what content to create, or what to outsource - or how? There's a simple equation that answers all those questions, and more!

Whether you're just beginning in your speaking business or have been on the stage for decades, eventually you'll either ask or offer a 'free' speech. It's not hard to turn a free opportunity into a paid one - but it's also easy to speak for free without ever being paid. In this episode, we reveal the system we use to ensure ALL of our 'free' talks have the highest chance of producing a fee in the future. 

If we're taking the initiative in our speaking business and reaching out to folks who haven't heard of us, we have a barrier to cross: We aren't showing up with the credibility a referral or an experience seeing us speak will bring. In this week's episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over the credibility elements we can control and how to begin gathering them so that when a decision maker visits our website, credibility is immediately established.

If you're ever had (what you thought) was a great conversation and sent your speaking proposal to an event planner and then waited ... and waited ... and waited, then you're not alone. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over the things we ensure we do before we even send a proposal to ensure it doesn't get stuck, and even go over our favorite ways to 'unstick' a proposal if it's slipped past its due date.

In our 50th episode, we're celebrating this milestone by laying out the milestones that many speakers love using in their sales conversations that may actually be killing their sales - instead of helping them. We dive into the top speaker career milestones we hear and debunk them - and share when they ARE appropriate in speaker sales conversations. 

While speakers always have their own speaking proposals, they're often too eager to sign the client's speaking agreement without understanding why the agreement exists - or how it may end up killing the deal down the road. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over the good, bad and ugly of client speaking proposals, what to watch out for, and what to revise!

For professional speakers taking control of their business, there will be periods of time when we can't reach decision makers, aren't being asked for proposals and aren't getting booked - even the busiest among us aren't closing deals every day. What do we do to maintain our mindset and keep reaching out when we aren't seeing results? That's the topic of this week's Speaker Sales Systems podcast!

Few professional speakers enter the world of speaking with experience in running a business - and that means they have to learn the hard way. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we are revealing all the lessons we learned about maximizing fees and reducing negotiations, all so we can make a bigger impact for our audiences and a larger income for ourselves. It's possible to reduce negotiations while maximizing what you get paid, and we're telling you how!

For many speakers transitioning into more virtual talks, the toughest decision they'll make is not their lighting scheme, home studio setup or even their sound quality - it's what they charge for delivering their expertise virtually. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over the questions a speaker needs to ask before setting virtual fees to ensure they can ask for - and receive - the right compensation for their expertise.

Many speaker put all their effort into their talk and little into their sales process - a problem we're turning around each and evert week! In this episode, we're going over the critical errors many speakers are making in their proposals, including force majeure clauses and what language needs to be present if your live event goes virtual - all to ensure you make the impact and income you got into the business of speaking to achieve!

In a COVID-19 world, many speakers are moving their talks from live formats to virtual ones, but are missing out on all the sales they could be making with a virtual platform! In this week's podcast, we're covering the things a speaker can do before, during and after their virtual  events to leverage the unique functionality of most platforms to increase their speaking sales! 

If you're conducting outreach across various channels - calls, emails, social media, etc., it can get emotionally exhausting to accomplish different types of tasks within a single day. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over our batching process to ensure we get more done and get better sales results from it. 

If you're a professional speaker, you need to be aware of the next step in any sale - and how to guide your prospects on how to get there. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we reveal our favorite ways of doing just that, what they sound like, and how to be prepared for objections along the way.

For professional speakers, expertise should never trump revenue - meaning that if you can add value to a prospect now to pave the way for sales in the future, you should! In this special episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we're revealing the campaign we're using in the midst of the events industry shutdown to add value to our prospects and clients and ensure they're successful in the future so we can be their first choice for future keynotes!

For many speakers, business is at a standstill - but that doesn't mean they should hit pause on their future. There's one thing all speakers can do in good times and bad to prepare for future success, and that's find more people who can use their expertise. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we're revealing exactly why mosts speakers don't prospect, what makes a good prospect and how to find an endless supply of them. 

Many speakers spend their days busy, but don't get much done. In this episode, we're covering why many speakers don't have monthly tasks in place for their business, which tasks should be front and center each month, and how to increase sales and push your pipeline forward. When strategy and tactics become confused, neither get done!

When the events industry experiences a massive change, what can speakers do to ensure their businesses survive (and even thrive)? In this episode of speaker sales systems, we're going over the speaking myth that kept many speakers from building their pipelines, and now that inbound leads can't be depended upon, what speakers can do to take back control or their sales and their businesses. 

Professional speakers often lose sales for the same reason they're great on stage - they love talking about themselves! In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems podcast, we're going over the difference in language between a talk and a sales conversation (Hint: The difference is Brevity!)

If you're a modern communicator and a professional speaker, it's easy to fall into the trap of relying on email to communicate with prospects - but it's exactly what will make your sales disappear. In this episode of speaker sales systems, we go over WHY speakers tend to revert to email, what it costs them, and what to do differently to showcase their vocal talents - and get the gig!

Speakers can handle an audience of thousands but buckle when asked to talk to an audience of one. In this week's podcast, we're going over the fears that keep speakers from using the most powerful tool in their sales arsenal and what to do to overcome that fear - and get more gigs!

In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we're going over an often-overlooked area in any salesperson's business model - the numbers they should be tracking. If you're NOT tracking your conversion metrics across some key areas, you're setting yourself - and your speaking business - up for failure. Learn what to track and what to do with what you learn in this episode!

Many speakers do everything that's asked of them by an event planner and still don't get the gig. It's not always because a better speaker was chosen instead - rather, it's often because they gave up control of the selling process. In this episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we go over the warning signs that the selling process is about to be relinquished and some solid insight into how to maintain it - and get the gig!

The person who controls the conversation controls the sale, and that's why the best salespeople are adept at using a particular kind of question to drive a sale forward. In this episode, we explore the most powerful type of question and some examples of how we use it to get more impact for audiences and more income for our speaking businesses.

Many speakers wonder what can set them apart from 'name-brand' speakers and don't want to wait decades to have the bestselling book or inbound leads. Something that sets all speakers apart - who are willing to do it - are customizations. In this week's S3 podcast, we go over how to leverage a customized talk into the sales process and close more keynotes!

If your speaking client doesn't purchase value-adds like books, breakouts or articles and you learn that those things could help them achieve their goals, you're ethically obligated to offer them again. How do we do this? In this episode, we cover the pre-event brief, a critical element of any speaker's sales systems. Learn how we use this process to ensure every even is better than the last and offer speaking clients every opportunity to achieve their outcomes.

If you're not taking advantage of after-event value adds, you may be leaving money on the table your speaking business could be reclaiming. In this podcast, we go over the value adds we offer to clients, including teaching you about a follow-up course we customize to every member of our audiences. Value doesn't end when you leave the stage, unless you want it to!

Asking event organizers for thousands of dollars is a big ask, especially if they've never heard of you or your brand. We discovered that there's a missing element in many sales conversations that makes the difference between moving forward or backwards in the sale. In this special episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we're diving into the psychology of assurance.

In this extra-packed episode of Speaker Sales Systems, we're linking every one of the challenges we hear events addressing with a keynote as the solution, and explaining how we do it. Here are the challenges most often heard as topics of focus for events: Uncertainty about the future Monitoring performance Regulation and compliance Exploding amount of data Embracing change Coping With Market Competition Keeping Up With Market Transformations Building a Corporate Brand Hiring New Employees Founding New Departments Retaining Top Talent Embracing Diversity At Work Improving Communication Motivating Employees Landing New Business/increasing sales Retaining Customers (customer loyalty) Identifying New Sales Channels Solving Productivity Problems Keeping Up to Speed With Innovations Efficiency Automating Business Processes Risk management

If you're still touting yourself to prospects as a 'leadership' or 'motivational' speaker and wondering why you're being passed over again and again, wonder no more! In this episode of the only podcast focused on speaker sales, we dive deep into the art of asking about prospect challenges, building a bridge between our expertise and the solutions they need, and driving the sales conversation forward.

If you're conducting outreach on speaking prospects, there's plenty of information that can only be obtained by talking to a person. In this episode, we go over the 8 questions we've earned to ask to maximize our chances of getting the gig - and sharing our message from the stage.