Make Marketing Suck Less

3 Reasons to Create Your Speech Like Your Next Best-Selling Product

Your speech is the keystone of your speaking business.

It showcases your expertise. It's the vehicle that produces results for your audience. It highlights your story and your passion.

It also does something else for you.

It's what gets you booked to speak.

Because you’re reading this post I know you want  to be speaking more. You want to build your speaking business.

It's important, then, to treat your speech like any other product in your business. In fact, I want you to start thinking about your speech like it is your next best selling product.

There are  three important reasons why you should shift from thinking about your speech as an art or  performance piece and start thinking about it as a product for your business.

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Last summer I spent my summer in the nerdiest rebel way possible. I wrote a book. I put it up on Amazon, and it's called Speak For Impact: Write a Speech That's Your Next Best Selling Product. This is a fairly unconventional public speaking book because it does not focus on the how-to's. It actually outlines a strategy for building a speech like a product so that you can be speaking more, you can be making a bigger difference, and you can be earning money.

#1 Shift from Thinking about You to Your Audience

The first important reason is that thinking about your speech like a product shifts the focus from you to your audience and to the people who will hire you to speak. As experts, it is very easy for us to get wrapped up in what we want to tell the audience. We are so passionate about our area of expertise and we want to share ALL THE THINGS.              

That, however,  is not what the audience needs from us. They need us to solve a very particular challenge for them. Sometimes that challenge doesn't directly relate to our speaking topic. Now, hear me out! Let's say you speak on social media and you think that the number one challenge you solve for the audience is finding the best social media platform for them. Because people are up at night worrying about “Do I have to be everywhere? Do I need to be on Facebook? , Do I need to be on Twitter? Do I need to be on Pinterest?”  Right?           

The fact is they are not. Your audience is most likely worried about “ How do I get more eyeballs on my business. I'm writing all this blog content and nobody seems to ever see it. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, and my business and my sales are just in the toilet. How do I become more visible?”  That's the challenge you actually solve for them, and the vehicle you use to do that is through your expertise, through social media. Think about what is the problem  that you need to solve. Because, typically, your specific area of expertise is not what your audience is angsting about most.  

This brings me to the second part of this point.  When you're selling your speech, when you're thinking about it like a product – think about who the true customer is for the speech. If you are getting paid to speak, your customer for that speech is the person who's going to hire you, the person who is going to write the check. The problem that they want solved for their organization could be different from the problem that your audience wants solved.                     

For instance, I have a client who talks about stress management, and her coping mechanisms for stress are way different than what people usually talk about. She uses no meditation, no exercise – she has a totally different approach. Her audience wants to stop feeling so overwhelmed, and she gives them techniques to do that, but , the people who hire her are not specifically concerned about stress.  These companies want to have employees who are more productive, who take less time off, who take fewer sick days, who have fewer conflicts in the workplace. That's the problem she solves for the organization, and she does it by reducing the stress of the employees.                          

Think about this as you create your next best selling product. How are you solving a problem or challenge for your audience, and for the person who's going to hire you to speak?              

#2 Focus on Selling Your Product (Your Speech)

Here is the second reason to shift from thinking of your speech just as a speech into thinking about it as your next best selling product.   This shift allows you to focus on the business of speaking, and most importantly, how are you going to sell this speech to organizations and conferences?                    

Now we just talked about who the real customer is. Beyond that, you have got to have a game plan for how you're going to market and sell this. If you create an amazing speech, but you don't know where or who you're pitching to, you don't have any process for sales or negotiation, and , you haven't even come up with your fee- you are going to find yourself  stalled out from actually being able to do what you love, which is speaking.                        

By thinking of your speech as a product, it will be natural to create a plan for how to pitch and sell that speech. If you need help with the pitching aspect, then I recommend pick up my Get The Gig Kickstart below, as that will help you get a good pitch going so you can send it out the door. 

                          

#3 Detach from Outcome & Learn How to Celebrate

Now that we have you pitching and thinking about how you're going to sell and market the speech, this brings us to the third reason why this shift in thinking is going to help you.

Thinking about your speech like a product allows you to detach from the speech itself. As speakers, our identity gets really wrapped up in speaking. When we are out there pitching, getting more visibility, getting feedback on our message, it can be so hard and demoralizing to be rejected.                   

When we send out a pitch and we get a no, or worse yet, we hear nothing, (which happens a lot for speakers,) it's too easy to think, “Uh, this isn't worth it. Nobody wants to hear me speak.” But if you're running your speaking like a business and your speech is a product, it allows you to detach. It allows you to look at the numbers and say, “Okay, for every 10 pitches I send out I know I'm going to get one yes. And I'm going to celebrate those nos. Yes, I got rejected! Because I know it's getting me closer to the yes.”                             

You also learn to realize that being rejected is not personal. It's simply that the product that you're selling wasn't the right fit for that organization. Or maybe it just wasn't a right fit right now for that organization. Being detached allows us to keep on with the business of pitching ourselves and putting ourselves out there. Celebrate those nos, as they are not about you and it's getting you closer to your next yes.                                  

Treating your speech like a product has so many benefits. You know that you're solving the right problem for your audience and for the customer who's going to buy your speech. You have a focus on sales and marketing so that you keep your pipeline filled. And it allows you to detach from the inevitable rejection that you face.

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Want to know more about the strategy behind writing a speech that works like a product?  Go to Amazon and pick up my book, Speak For Impact. It's only $0.99. You can get there by going to drmichellemazur.com/impact.   

As always, if you're interested in writing that next bestselling product and you do not want to lone wolf it, apply for a free Speak For Impact strategy session with me, and we can discuss an action plan for your speaking business and how I can help you get there. Go to drmichellemazur.com/speak.

Remember, your speech is the keystone to your speaking business. It allows you to speak more, grow your influence, and get paid to do it. Go out there and create your next best selling product.