Turn Your Audience into Clients with a Client Attracting Speech (Selling from the Stage NOT Included)
There’s got to be a better way than selling from the stage, right?
We know that many speak-to-sell formulas deploy manipulative persuasive triggers aimed at shutting down an audience’s ability to think and rationalize so that they buy-buy-buy instead.
But what’s a speaker to do?
Trust me there’s a better way to get clients and customers.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away I wrote a post about how to turn your speech into a product. In that post, I outlined two ways speakers can get paid: paid speaking and client attracting speeches.
Being a paid professional speaker is the goal. It’s the gold standard. If you’re doing it, high five to you. You’ve arrived.
However, if you’re just starting out or you’re speaking regularly for little or no money, there is a way to get clients. There is a way to make free speaking gigs profitable. You can do it with ZERO selling from the stage.
The better way is the client attracting speech.
The client attracting speech is about having a system, so let me explain what you need in place to make it work.
Before we dive into how to do this in your speaking, let’s talk about how a client attracting system works in your business.
Table of Contents
How do you get clients?
I wanted to call this section. “Funnel, funnel, who’s got a Funnel?”
But then I realized that not many people know what a funnel, but they do know HOW clients find them (or how I hope they do).
Personally, I hate the word funnel. It sounds like some Internet dude bro marketing ploy to part you from your money.
I prefer to think of a funnel as relationship building. A way for a cold audience who doesn’t know you from Adam to slowly warm up to you.
It’s a system that works in the background of your business. Most websites (including this one) have a system for turning readers into clients and friends. It's a combination of giving insanely useful content than building a relationship before asking for the sale.
But did you know you can use this exact same strategy as a speaker?
This illustration below shows you how it works.
What results can you get from a client attracting speech system?
Your funnel for speaking doesn’t begin with a blog post. It begins with your speech that is aligned with your business model.
There’s no faster way to warm up a cold audience, then by giving a remarkable speech. You blow back the hair of your audience, and they want more of what you have to offer.
You deliver the speech, and during the call-to-action where speak-to-sell formulas tell you to sell, sell, sell – instead you give, give, give.
You make an offer of a gift that takes your audience deeper into your speaking topic. To get the gift, they opt-in with their email address.
Then the relationship sequence goes down pretty much the same way as would on your website.
How One Free Speech Turned into $4K
Recently, I spoke at Tara Gentile’s Quiet Power Strategy summit.
The BIG IDEA of my speech was to Get the Speech – Get the Gig. At the end of the speech, I told the audience about a 5-day challenge I was running that would help them “Get the Speech – Get the Gig.”
They opted in with their email address, got the five-days of challenge emails, got an offer of The Rebel Speaker Bootcamp, got more value through blog posts and the BIG IDEA workshop I hosted.
This funnel took a free speaking gig and turned it into a $4000 gig with no sleazy selling from the stage (and that’s my results so far…I’m still developing relationships with the people I met there).
See how seamless that was? My speech was in complete alignment with my opt-in which leads easily into my offer of the Bootcamp.
How do you turn your audience into clients with no selling from the stage?
It takes big-picture strategy to pull this off and a certain type of business owner. The kind of strategy that I only see a few speakers employing when they create their signature talk.
This type of system works best for entrepreneurs and speakers who have a business, have sold their products and services successfully, and are confident in their area of expertise.
If that’s you then, here’s what the system requires:
- A signature talk that is aligned with your business model
- An offer that takes the audience deeper into your area of expertise
- An email management system (I highly recommend ConvertKit for ease of use and setup)
- An email sequence that builds your relationship with your audience after they opt-in
Want to figure out how to begin to set up that system? Grab this blueprint that helps you set up the system behind your client attracting speech.
Be warned that in this strategy it takes longer to see audience members turn into clients and customers than in the “run to the back of the room, you’ll never get this deal again” type speech. I didn’t walk off the stage at Quiet Power Strategy Summit with the audience throwing dollar bills at me (but I did earn this revenue within 3-weeks of the event)
Client attracting speeches are a better way to speak. When you’re on the stage, you can give, feel confident, and make the audience the center of your presentation.
The audience gets to enjoy the speech. They don’t have to brace themselves for the inevitable pitch but can soak up the value and make an informed (and low-risk) decision about wanting to continue the relationship.
It’s a way for you to get paid to speak. It’s a way for your audience to get to know you and make a rational decision to do business with you.
It’s a win-win all around until…
….until we get organizers of conferences to pay their speakers.
What an amazing article! Michelle, thank you so much for writing this. I especially loved how you explained the difference between giving and selling.
Thank you Matija! It’s feels so much better to give and develop a relationship than to sell to people that you just met!
“…until we get organizers of conferences to pay their speakers.” Oy vey. The dirty secret of the conference industry. I really think that we as speakers contribute to that by continuing to take unpaid gigs “for exposure.” Especially at events that don’t allow any kind of an offer – even the kind you’re talking about. The more of us who say no and demand the same basic fees that the caterers, AV people, marketing people and the rest get, the better off we’ll be!
I agree and I want to see organizers pay their speakers (that’s next week’s blog post).
I fear that speakers won’t ban together and start saying no to speaking for exposure. I feel that there is almost an air of desperation around landing speaking gigs that people not only speak for free but they PAY to speak at certain events. I know of a coach who charges $50K for a spot on her stage. That practice needs to end.
Yes, the “pay to play” events definitely target the more desperate and inexperienced among speakers. National Speaker Association members seem to band together around fighting the no-fee conference gig, but that’s only a small part of the speaking population. All we can do is keep educating our peeps, Michelle! Looking forward to your next post on this. I’ve also written about it several times, and we can’t say it too much.
Michelle, how is the best way to get the audience to opt-in after the talk? For example, invite them to write their email address on a list at the back, send them to your website and hope the remember to opt-in, etc. Thanks!
There’s lots of different ways.
Leadpages has a text option so you can tell people to take out their phone, text a word to a number, and Leadpages guides them through the optin.
You can go low tech (good for small crowds) where you ask people for their cards and you’ll send them the opt-in. If you do it that way, you need to tell people that if they don’t want to be subscribed in your email list to mark their business card and you won’t add them.
You can guide them back to your website.
You can have a form for them to fill out and then you (or preferably your VA) can send them the optin.
Lots of options.
Thanks!