Blog 15 Dec 2020 The Mother Of All Speaker Sales Systems Over the last two years, we’ve been sharing the systems we discover that have allowed speakers to do things they previously thought were impossible: -Predict revenue from keynotes we haven’t… Shawn
Blog 08 Dec 2020 The Secret Of Successful Speaker Sales Campaigns One of the reasons I love this industry is that it's so easy to level the playing field. If we want to get more gigs or compete with speakers who… Shawn
Blog 01 Dec 2020 Sealing Leaks In Your Speaker Sales We’ve spent a lot of time showing speakers how to find, qualify and reach out to folks who can hire them to speak. Unfortunately, even after all that work, prospects… Shawn
Blog 24 Nov 2020 Stacking The Deck In Speaker Sales With Educational Marketing There’s a term in gambling called ‘stacking the deck.’ It’s when a player arranges playing cards in such a way as to guarantee themselves a winning hand, even when playing… Shawn
Blog 18 Nov 2020 Systemizing Live Polling And Surveys Into Speaker Sales In today’s world, audiences are looking for more from their speakers than just great stories or insightful points – they’re expecting to be taken on a journey that they get… Shawn
Blog 10 Nov 2020 The Speaker’s Sales Secret: A Committing To Consistency If you’re looking for something to set you apart from other speakers, no matter how long you’ve been speaking, whether you have best-selling books or an international brand, there’s one… Shawn
Blog 03 Nov 2020 The Biggest Myth In Speaking: ‘Niche To Get Rich’ One of the biggest myths in the professional speaking industry is the idea that you have to ‘niche to get rich’, also stated as ‘the riches are in the niches.’… Shawn
Blog 27 Oct 2020 Why Speakers Should Always Be Prospecting There’s a famous saying in sales, that salespeople should always be reciting their ABCs - ‘Always Be Closing’. Unfortunately, it leaves off the precursor to any sale – and… Shawn
Blog 20 Oct 2020 How Speakers Can Convert A Committee Every organization has a slightly different way of hiring a speaker, because every organization is unique and has unique challenges they need solved. However, something that is becoming more common… Shawn
Blog 13 Oct 2020 How To Prioritize Your Speakers Sales Outreach Tasks When we have too many things we could be doing to get in front of people who can hire us to speak, it’s easy to do none of them. How… Shawn
Blog 06 Oct 2020 Making Every Call A Success For Speaking Sales Taking initiative on your speaking business means taking the initiative on your revenue. That looks like researching prospects, reaching out to them and starting conversations rather than waiting for them… Shawn
Blog 29 Sep 2020 The Art Of Negotiating Speaker Payment Terms I was monitoring an online thread in a professional speaking group recently, and someone asked, “What are everyone’s payment terms?” That’s a smart question. The responses, however, weren’t. More than… Shawn
Blog 22 Sep 2020 Overcoming Objections In Speaker Sales If you’re taking the initiative on your speaking business and your sales, you’re going to run into objections. Objections in why someone should hire you, why they should pay you… Shawn
Blog 15 Sep 2020 Are You A Rainmaker Or A Rain Barrel In The Speaking Business? In the world of sales, there’s a coveted title called ‘rainmaker.’ These are the folks who make it rain sales, but there’s more to it than that. They’re the people… Shawn
Blog 08 Sep 2020 Making Clients Earn Your Keynote For many speakers, they approach reaching out to people with the mentality that they have to earn their way onto the stage. They have to earn their way into a… Shawn
Blog 01 Sep 2020 The Power Of A Name For Professional Speakers Most speakers are dedicated to ensuring folks know their name, thinking that’s going to be the secret to getting on more stages. By doing this, they miss one of the… Shawn
Blog 25 Aug 2020 A Speaker’s Guide To Handling Rude Prospects People buy from people, and when we’re dealing with folks organizing the types of events that bring in speakers, we need to understand that everyone has a lot going… Shawn
Blog 18 Aug 2020 Lose The Speaking Gig To Win It It’s scary to pick up the phone and speak to a stranger who didn’t expect your call. But what if it could be you who was qualifying them? What if… Shawn
Blog 11 Aug 2020 The Secret Of Speaker Selling: Eliciting Interest For more than a year, we’ve been focused on sales systems for speakers, because we’ve learned that unless we’re running a good business, we won’t have many chances to share… Shawn
Blog 04 Aug 2020 Setting Speaking Fees For A COVID-Era World Setting keynote fees has always been a tricky issue for speakers, because what we offer – expertise communicated professionally – is a service. To add to the difficulty in setting… Shawn
Blog 28 Jul 2020 The Importance Of Sales Objectives For Speakers If you’ve taken the monumental step of researching places to speak and reaching out to folks who may be able to hire you, you could still unwittingly set your speaking… Shawn
Blog 21 Jul 2020 The Speaker’s Sales Equation: Time vs. ROI While we’ve focused almost exclusively on sales systems in past podcasts and articles, the sheer amount of things we could be doing in sales – let alone in other areas… Shawn
Blog 14 Jul 2020 Systemizing Talks From Free To Fee Whether a speaker is just getting their business started or has been in business for decades, there will come a time when they’ll have to consider speaking for free. This… Shawn
Blog 07 Jul 2020 Controlling Credibility To Increase Speaker Sales If you’ve been following our work at Speaker Sales Systems over the last year, then you know we advocate taking the initiative on our speaking businesses – and that means… Shawn
Blog 30 Jun 2020 Unsticking A Stuck Speaking Proposal For professional speakers, the toughest part of a sales process is often not getting a conversation, or even talking about fees. Instead, the toughest part for many speakers is what… Shawn
Blog 23 Jun 2020 The Milestones That Might Be Killing Your Speaking Sales Speakers are great at using their career milestones when asked ‘what do you do?’ or ‘why should I hire you?’ They’ll rattle off things like number of speeches given, number… Shawn
Blog 16 Jun 2020 Why Speakers Who Want To Get Paid Quickly May Not Be Paid At All Speakers are beginning to realize that if they’re not filling their calendars with conversations with people who can say ‘Yes’, they’re guaranteeing their speaking calendars remain empty as well. There… Shawn
Blog 09 Jun 2020 Staying Positive In The Speaking Business When Results Are Negative Speakers who wait for the phone to ring and inbound inquiries to show up in their email accounts were living in a glass house - a house that was just… Shawn
Blog 02 Jun 2020 15 Things To Know About Maximizing Fees And Reducing Negotiations For Professional Speakers When someone decides to be a professional speaker, they rarely have experience running their own business, and ever fewer have insight into the business model of professional speaking. This means… Shawn
Blog 26 May 2020 The Key To Setting (And Getting) Great Virtual Speaking Fees As more and more speakers move to virtual presentations, the most common (and difficult) question that comes up is: What should my ‘virtual fee’ be? The answers to that question… Shawn
Blog 19 May 2020 The Secret To Profitable Speaking Proposals When we look at the most critical step of the sales process professional speakers engage in, there isn’t one – but there usually is only one document during the sales… Shawn
Blog 12 May 2020 Stop Losing Virtual Speaking Sales Many speakers are moving their live events to virtual platforms, and unfortunately are making the same mistakes (and some new ones) in using their systems to generate sales. Virtual platforms… Shawn
Blog 05 May 2020 The Secret To Efficient Outreach For Speaker Sales If you are a professional speaker who understands that in order for your business to be in your hands, then you’re a speaker who’s conducting outreach. Whether that looks like… Shawn
Blog 23 Apr 2020 Add Value Now So You Can Increase Speaking Sales Later In the world of sales, there’s an old saying that a salesperson should constantly be practicing their ‘ABCs’ – as in, ‘Always Be Closing.’ That might work in industries where… Shawn
Blog 21 Apr 2020 Guiding Them Into The Next Step Of The Sale Whether we are running a speaking business in a COVID-19 world where events are shut down, or whether we’re running a business when events are actively looking for speakers to… Shawn
Blog 14 Apr 2020 The Power Of Endless Speaking Prospects During the industry-wide shutdown of the events we planned on, speakers are falling into two main camps: 1. Those who are hunkering down, retracting and weathering out the storm while… Shawn
Blog 07 Apr 2020 Why Do Monthly Tasks Matter In The Speaking Business? For speakers, there’s no lack of things they can do to build their businesses, and the options can get overwhelming: Create and practice the keynote. Build the online course. Write… Shawn
Blog 24 Mar 2020 Why Speakers Should Stop Selling Speeches Stop Selling Your Keynote Speech If you’re reading this, you may never be a ‘celebrity speaker’ (unless you’re Bill Clinton - and if you are, what’s up, my man??). Yet,… Shawn
Blog 24 Mar 2020 Surviving Silence As A Speaker In the midst of an industry-wide shut-down, what can speakers do to ensure their businesses survive and be ready to ramp back up when live events that need speakers finally… Shawn
Blog 24 Mar 2020 Boosting Speaking Sales Through Brevity Speakers’ very skillset is often the same thing that kills their sales. What is the very thing that gets speakers paid and also prevents them getting gigs? They talk too… Shawn
Blog 18 Mar 2020 Sales Extinction Via Email Email. Bane of our lives and lifeline. But for professional speakers, email may be doing more harm for our business than good. Why is that, how do we choose which… Shawn
Blog 10 Mar 2020 Leveraging The Power Of The Phone There’s something that scares most people enough that it rates above ‘death’ as the #1 fear. And that’s presenting in front of other adults. Among those who can present in… Shawn
Blog 03 Mar 2020 The Cost Of NOT Tracking Conversion If you’ve taken the brave step to take control of your speaking business and are actually conducting outreach to folks who could hire you, congratulations. You’re in the top 1%… Shawn
Blog 21 Feb 2020 Maintaining Control (Of The Sales Process) At speaker sales systems, we’re all about systemizing success to increase our impact and income in the speaking business. But there’s something many speakers do along the way that destroys… Shawn
Blog 18 Feb 2020 A Professional Speaker’s Most Powerful Question Because we’re all about sales, we’re all about sales conversations. And as it’s said, “the one who controls the questions controls the conversation.” There are a lot of great questions… Shawn
Blog 12 Feb 2020 Customizing Talks To Covert Sales One of the most contentious issues among professional speakers is whether or not to customize their talks. Having discussed this with speakers in the past, I find we all tend… Shawn
Blog 30 Jan 2020 Value (And Sales) After The Speech Is Done While we’ve discussed the value of sticking around after a talk to generate more business, there’s something a lot of speakers could be doing to generate more revenue for their… Shawn
Blog 28 Jan 2020 Why Speakers Are Ethically Obligated To Sell After The Sale This week, we’re focusing on an important part of the selling process, and it’s what happens after the sale is made. If you offered your client something in the sales… Shawn
Blog 21 Jan 2020 Achieving Sales Through Assurance In the world of speaking, we’re asking event planners, executive directors, CEOs and business executives for thousands of dollars to solve specific problems they (and their people) face. Interestingly, we… Shawn
Blog 15 Jan 2020 The Magic Of Matching Challenges To Prospect Problems In part 1 of this series, we explored how important it is to stop seeing (and selling) yourself as a keynote speaker, author or consultant. Instead, we went over how… Shawn
Blog 07 Jan 2020 The Problem Professional Speakers Ignore We’ve shared it before, but it bears repeating: Stop selling speeches. Start selling solutions. We’ve covered why every professional speaker should stop selling speeches, but we’ve never dived into how… Shawn
Blog 02 Jan 2020 The Questions Speakers HAVE TO ASK On The Phone The biggest challenge speakers have is not killing it on the stage in front of thousands. For many, it’s having a 1:1 conversation with someone that’s never heard of them,… Shawn
Blog 27 Dec 2019 Breaking Free Of Three-Tiered Speaking Proposals There’s a myth in the speaking world about how to state fees to prospects that is taught by many coaches, you’re likely using it, and it’s forcing you to make… Shawn
Blog 17 Dec 2019 All About Speaker Budgets When it comes to running a speaking business, most speakers focus on the wrong questions: How to improve stories, concluding remarks, or stage presence – or the value of their… Shawn
Blog 10 Dec 2019 Self-Review For Speaker Sales It’s a fact – the best salespeople in the world, in any industry, don’t remain that way by resting on their laurels. One of the things we credit to our… Shawn
Blog 03 Dec 2019 Routing Around The RFP A method more and more organizations are using to select speakers is the 'RFP' (request for proposal) or 'call for speaker.' If you've ever taken time to submit one of… Shawn
Blog 26 Nov 2019 Selling Doesn’t Stop With The Speech A lot of speakers pride themselves on being able to be on an airplane an hour after they leave the stage and never think of that gig again. At Speaker… Shawn
Blog 19 Nov 2019 Why No One Cares About Your Experience Or Expertise There’s one thing that will make a meeting planner, executive director or CEO round-file a speaker, and one thing that prevents it. Unfortunately, it’s what speakers think they’re great at… Shawn
Blog 08 Nov 2019 LinkedIn Sales Systems For Speakers We’ve spoken many times about the value of omni-channel marketing. As a refresher, it’s the strategy of using electronic, print and other mediums to deliver your messaging through in order… Shawn
Blog 01 Nov 2019 Pipelines Aren’t Just For Plumbers If you’re judging the success of your speaking business by how many gigs you’re booking, you’re destined to living in feast or famine. You’re also running the business model that… Shawn
Blog 30 Oct 2019 What’s Killing Speaker Sales? There’s a time of year when it’s socially acceptable to watch movies about being killing one another – and we at Speaker Sales Systems find that strange because there’s a… Shawn
Blog 22 Oct 2019 How Speakers Lose The Sale Before They Speak If you’ve been following this series, then you’re getting great idea for generating more sales in your speaking business. Where did these lessons come from? They came from the money… Shawn
Blog 11 Oct 2019 Using Dynamite In The Speaking Business It’s bound to happen at some point – someone that a speaker is trying to contact will stop talking to them. This happens for a variety of reasons. Here are… Shawn
Blog 02 Oct 2019 Never Lose A Speaking Gig Again We’re leading this week’s content with a heck of a promise – if you implement what you learn here, you’ll never lose a speaking sale again. To deliver on that… Shawn
Blog 25 Sep 2019 The Sales Margin Most Speakers Ignore Want to know the one question that will shut up many speakers (and most entrepreneurs)? “How much did you keep from that last gig?” Whoa. It’s easy to remember what… Shawn
Blog 23 Sep 2019 Why The Best Speakers Free Themselves From Set Fees Wait - No fees? How do you make money? Hold on a minute - because there's a lesson here that will make you so much more money. Why would we not… Shawn
Blog 13 Sep 2019 Why Speakers Love To Waste Money On Lists If you’re a speaker and have money to spend, there are people happy to sell you a list of ‘prospects’ - or the search engines to do so. “Folks who… Shawn
Blog 04 Sep 2019 The Sales Intelligence Every Speaker Needs Reaching out to folks is scary - no doubt about it. You're an interruption in their schedule. You're time they didn't plan on spending, and on an issue they didn't… Shawn
Blog 03 Sep 2019 Why Speakers Fail At Finding Quality Clients One of the biggest challenges speakers have when they begin using systems to generate sales is not managing systems - it's managing prospects. And that's because not all speaking prospects… Lori Carrillo
Blog 30 Aug 2019 No-Cost Ways To Increase Speaking Fees Maybe you’re still waiting for that TEDx logo on your website or the New York Times Bestseller. That’s why you’re not making the high speaking fees you deserve, right? Wrong.… Shawn
Blog 16 Aug 2019 How To Get Others To Sell Your Speech What would it be like if you had an army of decision makers out there marketing for you? For most speakers, it takes decades to grow those relationships, and at… Shawn
Blog 08 Aug 2019 Professional Speaking – The Worst Business Model. Ever. Why Professional Speaking Is A Horrible Business Model Telling family members that we’re giving up steady pay to be professional speakers is always an anxiety-producing conversation. Why? Because professional speaking… Shawn
Blog 01 Aug 2019 Why Speakers Are Afraid Of Speaking As speakers dedicated to building a real business, we know storytelling is only a small portion of our jobs. “How I climbed Mount Everest on a pogo stick with one… Shawn
Blog 24 Jul 2019 Why Speakers Should Stop Selling Speeches Stop Selling Your Keynote Speech If you’re reading this, you may never be a ‘celebrity speaker’ (unless you’re Bill Clinton - and if you are, what’s up, my man??). Yet,… Shawn
Blog 18 Jul 2019 The Systems Of Million-Dollar Speakers If you are looking to grow your speaking business (and if you're not, you might have stumbled onto the wrong blog), then you should be looking at what million-dollar speakers… Shawn
Blog 10 Jul 2019 The Myth That Destroys Speaking Businesses If building a better speaking business is one of your goals, then you’re a marketer and a salesperson. As such, there’s a quote from legendary marketer and author Seth Godin… Shawn