Public Speaking Pet Peeve: Selling from the Stage
Every time I go to an event, I have to shut off the part of my brain that I use with my clients. My job at a workshop is not to critique the speaker, but to experience and be present.
I’d be lying to you if I said that this was easy. That I didn’t have a continually tell my brain to “shut your pie hole and let me enjoy.”
But with some encouragement my brain quiets, and I’m able to take away what I need to from the speaker, be present at the event, and enjoy myself.
But then there are a few (ok…five) pet peeves that tick me off to the point of distraction because they are completely avoidable and would make for an infinitely better public speaking experience for the audience if they never ever happened again.
Here, in the first of a series of five posts, I will share with you those things that really get my goat when I listen to speakers. Please do me a solid favor for my own mental health and eradicate these five public speaking pet peeves from your next speech. My brain will thank you and your audience – well, they’ll love you for it.
Pet Peeve #1 – Selling from the stage
Speak-to-sell formulas have ruined the art of public speaking.
I’m over – absolutely over – promises of 6-figure speaking, selling-from-the-stage online courses, make money from your audience. It needs to STOP.
Public speaking is not about you. I repeat public speaking is not about you!
To show you why, let me dust off my Ph.D. and break out Aristotle to make my point. Back in the days of Greece, speaking was about advocacy. It was about expressing your opinion to make society better. It was about change. That’s why Aristotle spent his time pontificating and writing about rhetoric and persuasion. He wanted the world to be a better place through advocacy.
Fast forward to today and public speaking has become all about the Benjamins. Thanks for coming – now buy my shit. It’s more about what the speaker can get from the audience than what she can give.
Your audience is more than a bunch of open wallets, dying to buy from you while sitting in uncomfortable chairs.
Stop selling from the stage. Start focusing on the audience and how you can meaningful impact their lives.
You accomplish this – they will follow you to the ends of the Earth. The long term relationship is more valuable than the short term sale.
Case in point, I get clients from speaking gigs I did over a year ago. No, I didn’t walk away from the gig with my pockets lined in hundred dollar bills, but a year later I’m still seeing the dividends of someone who chose to opt into my tribe of rebels, loved the vibe, and chose to build a relationship with me.
Stop selling the audience and treat every speaking gig like a first date. The goal is to get a second date that leads to a long term relationship.
[Tweet “Your audience is more than open wallets, dying to buy from you after your presentation”]
Now that I've got that out of my system, stay tuned for next week! I'll be telling you about the public speaking pet peeve that loses your audience moments after you start speaking. You won't want to miss it!
WOW! Thank You for saying what my heart & brain keep telling me <3 I can't wait to hear the rest of your tips 🙂
You’re welcome! Honestly, audience hate this, and I feel like speakers don’t like selling like this. It’s hard to make the leap from giving to now buy my stuff!
Interesting point, I believe that is where many so called “natural salesmen and women” get it wrong. I believe that people who buy are better customers than people who are sold to. Usually people who are sold to become one-off buyers, whereas people who buyer do so because they have bought in to you.
Love the difference that you point out here Gordon! There’s a huge difference between buy in and buy now.
I think when people sell from the stage and use the psychological persuasion triggers that promote the buy now then people buy and whatever they bought ends up sitting on the shelf collecting dust or worse they regret the purchase. However, the buy-in people can be customers/clients/advocates for life.
I think about this often and 100% agree that the “speak-to-sell” model has ruined public speaking. I had a conversation with a friend the other day who is new to speaking. I told her instead of selling from the stage (its not comfortable for me I tried it in a low-risk free gig to see how it felt. Yuck) I focus on creating a valuable experience for the audience. The result? People end up asking me about programs, services and products. Simon Sinek writes about marketing manipulation in his book Start With Why. After I read that chapter everything clicked. I don’t like manipulating people. I like building trust.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Stacey. I’ve noticed the same thing for my speaking engagements as well. If you create a valuable experience for people, they’ll want to know more about what you do and take their relationship deeper with you.
I’ve had audience members become clients a year after they heard me speak. I love that Simon Sinek talks about manipulation. In October, I’m going to be breaking down commonly used persuasive techniques so people can defend themselves against the dark persuasive arts. No more manipulation!
[…] Selling from the stage makes the speech about the speaker not the audience. […]
I thought I was the ONLY one! I recall attending an expo, which was free. It was so hyped as being the best with a list of guarantees that i went just to test the ad. What’s crazy is that speakers were offering their products for exorbitant amounts of money: $5K, but by the end of their “speech” (there was absolutely no teaching, insight, or advocacy), the price had miraculously dropped to $200 (if attendees offered to by right now, of course). I recall asking one speaker, who later I found out was the platinum event sponsor, what is the best way to improve your public speaking. Do you know this FOOL of a man said, “Practice!” I was like, but you want us to pay you $99/month just to listen to you rattle off your stats and the market POTENTIAL? He even admitted that 90% of the people who sign up for his public speaking training program drop out because they are 1. not committed, 2. don’t have what it takes, etc. A salesman with integrity would discern that from the onset before STEALING from gullible people. He was such a pompous man he asked me to leave the lunch area so that he and his team could meet privately to talk over cheap sandwiches. ZERO customer service!
I utterly hate this type of sales. It is SELFISH in nature. To your point, public speaking is about ensuring the audience has what they need; what they paid or scheduled time to attend a conference to LEARN how to be a better speaker, but everyone (mostly males) was trying to corral the masses to the sign-up table. It’s like multilevel marketing in disguise. The goal is to make you their mule or get you so hyped about their product that you’ll run and sell that lie to other people. Meanwhile, they KNOW you can’t sell their lie and they KNOW that their product is worthless, but they inflate the cost to make it sound believable. This same speaker offered FREE access to an event in Vegas about five days out and shrugged like if you want it, you’ll make it happen. Half the people in the room did not have the financial wherewithal to book a ticket to Vegas on such short notice let alone get a room in an expensive hotel where they were hosting this must-do event. The “speaker” was calling our collective bluff and name-dropping like a damn groupie. I was livid. Selling from the stage is evil at it’s core. Thanks for this article!
Wow. I’m speechless. I’ve seen a lot of unscrupulous things in my industry. But that’s beyond anything I’ve heard before. I’m sorry you had to experience that and waste your time at that event. I understand why you’re so livid. I would be too!
A lot of sales people from the multilevel marketing industry have found their niche in public speaking. With the boom in tech and the push for entrepreneurship, salesmen have pitched a tent in business and technology. I believe some of it is driven by the fact that marketing and sales are now one force and salespeople, who have always been like independent contractors working on commission, want to make sure they remain relevant. Like other marketers, they don’t want their jobs to be condensed with others. The other type of public speaker is the established personality with books or other intellectual property. They attempt to build a sales team, of naive and gullible entrepreneurs, to sell and recruit. So while you think you’re their client, you’re actually working for them. They get a percent of your profit as a result of using their established platform; reputation, database, etc. as a springboard. They also get you to pay for their coaching, resources and tips. It’s ridiculous, but I’m now seeing conference fees in the $3K range for information that people like you blog about (and give better instruction) for FREE…
Whoa. I didn’t even know about these shady business models. It’s so against what public speaking is suppose to be about it. But I’m seeing more and more scammy practices like this one (and other). It makes me concerned about the health and the quality of the industry. Is it just becoming a bunch of snake oil salesman?
I do know there are speakers doing good work and using ethical practices. It’s important that we keep fighting the good fight and exposing practices like this one.
I agree. The only way to stop snake oil salespeople is to root them out or call them on the carpet! BTW, I hear that saying a lot. There’s no such thing as “snake oil,” is there?
[…] The best part is that the client attracting speech has none of that sleazy selling from the stage bs. […]