Don’t Buy a $2000 Speaker Marketing Course Unless You KNOW This
The promise is a big, fancy speaking career with your name in lights.
You'll book gigs, paid speaking gigs, even if you don't have a clue who to contact or what to say.
Buy this course, and you'll be on your way.
And that all sounds amazing.
It's the dream: Making a big difference in the world, being on stage, and getting paid to do it. But, there's one tiny problem.
I've spent a lot of time with speakers in my Speak for Impact Strategy Sessions who've invested big money into speaker marketing courses, with the big promise of getting paid to speak and booking gigs.
And a few weeks into the course, they find themselves stuck.
And since it's a course or a membership program that hundreds of people are a part of, the office hour calls are jam-packed with questions, or the Facebook group is a never-ending question fest, and they end up staying stuck because they can't get access to help on the calls.
I believe that many of these programs that are being offered could deliver on the promises of landing speaking gigs, and getting paid, and being that speaker who makes a huge difference in the world if, and only if, you're at a point in your speaking journey where this course will benefit you.
And before we get into it, I want to say it's not your fault that you got stuck.
If you're one of these speakers I'm talking about who invested in some big, fancy speaker marketing course, and you weren't able to complete it, it's not your fault.
You were most likely not at the right spot in your speaking journey to take full advantage of that program.
So before you invest in that slick speaker marketing course that costs $1,000, $1,500, or even $3,000, you need to have one thing nailed before you can get the results that are promised.
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Get Your This Straight Before Investing in a Speaker Marketing Course
So what's that one thing you want nailed before you invest in any marketing for your speaking business? You message.
Here's the Rebel truth: Marketing is easy.
It's a system that you implement, that you take action on daily.
What is difficult about marketing is developing your message.
[Tweet “Speaker Marketing is easy. It's getting your message right that's the hard part.”]
And not just speaker marketing, it also applies to Facebook marketing, email marketing.
If you don't know what to say or what you're selling, it's hard to market it.
And it's what's going to keep you stuck when you're trying to market yourself as a speaker because all the marketing in the world won't help you if you don't know what you're selling.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Your speech is the product you're selling.
This product is based on an idea.
Your message describes that idea in a way that makes other people want to hear about it, but not only that, makes other people want to act on it and hire you.
Here are three questions to ask yourself before you start marketing.
If you can't answer one of these three questions, you know it's not the time to start on your speaker marketing journey because you still have to get your message nailed.
Who is the Audience?
As a speaker, you need to know who your audience is. A speaker without an audience is like a bicyclist without a bike. It doesn't make sense.
You can't be a speaker without knowing who the audience is because that is who you're defining your marketing message for.
That's who you're marketing to. You're also marketing to the organizers who serve that audience. So if you're not sure who you want to serve in your speaking, working on marketing is not the right next move for you.
What is the Message?
In one sentence, describe what your message is.
What problem does it solve?
What is the result your audience achieves and what makes you the one to deliver it?
Or to think about it in another way, why is it unique? Why is it different from all the other speakers who are out there?
I know that's a pretty big job for one sentence, or even two sentences, to do, but if you're working on marketing, that is how crisp you have to be with your message.
You have to understand the problem it solves, what the result the audience will achieve, and why you're the one to give it. When you understand those three components and have it written in a succinct sentence, then you are ready to take your message to the world.
Does the Audience Want That Message?
Every day, entrepreneurs and business owners are creating products that they're not sure people want.
And they've never validated to see if the product that they're creating is a fit for the market or the audience that they want to serve.
Speakers do this all the time. They create speeches in a vacuum, and they're not sure why the audience would actually want the product.
They've created a speech that no one actually wants to hear, and they're not going to benefit from.
Make sure that your audience is interested in your market. You need to validate the product market fit. And there's a lot of different ways to do this.
You can do this with your social media. Take parts of your speech and put it on Facebook and see how people react, and if those people are in your target audience. Write blog posts about it. Guest post. Podcast about it.
Do guest podcast interviews, and use your talking points and see if people are resonating with it.
Because if you don't have product-market fit, if your audience doesn't need your speech, no amount of marketing is going to get you speaking gigs and get you paid to speak.
[Tweet “Does your audience really need your speech?”]
If you don't have your message nailed, if you can't answer these three questions, or you're struggling to figure out who your audience is, what is your message, and how to relay that convincingly in a sentence or two, and if you don't know if your audience wants your message, then it's not time to invest in speaker marketing.
Instead, what I would suggest is to hop on the phone with me for a Speak for Impact Strategy Session. Messaging is my jam, and I would love to help you with yours, to figure out who your audience is and what they need from you, and how to validate that. And give you a few options for how you and I can work together so you don't create your message in a vacuum.
And if you want more information about how to get on the phone with me, go to DrMichelleMazur.com/speak.
Remember, marketing is the easy part of your speaking journey.
You get a plan in place, and you implement it, but you have to have a solid message because finding speaking gigs and getting booked to speak will always be a struggle if you don't know what you stand for as a speaker.
