Make Marketing Suck Less

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.

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.