10 Reasons why you may not be getting any speaking
engagements from your speaker profile on online speaker
directories...
and what you can do to reverse your results
Please Note: Andrea no
longer promotes speakers, but will advocate for a speaker
on request
David Ogilvy, the famous advertising agency executive, said
"The quickest way to kill a mediocre product is to make
people aware of it." So if you feel your speaker profile
isn't generating any paying speaking engagements it may not
be the fault of the web site or the marketing effort. It
may be because your speaker profile doesn't represent your
best efforts. Let's look at some possible obstacles to see
if there might be some truth to this theory...
1.
You aren't appearing regularly on national television and
radio.
Meeting and event planners
look for speakers who are "drawing cards" - experts who
have achieved celebrity status - to increase attendance at
their meetings. My primary practice was conducting
positioning and visibility campaigns for speakers,
specialists and consultants. If you aren't a
celebrity expert... I can mentor you to
become one.
2.
You don't have a best selling book or CD or DVD.
To have doors open for you
as an author, you can hire me to help you write, even
ghostwrite, a
report or booklet pertaining to your
expertise. Sometimes it takes as little as two weeks to
produce a publication that will capture the public's
attention. I can also help you generate a
buzz through various channels
of distribution.
3.
You haven't provided all the information that was requested
on the speaker data sheet.
Meeting
planners look for specific information from speakers. If
they don't see it on your speaker profile, they skip over
you to someone else who does. Hire me to help you
write and refine your speaker data so it meets the criteria
set by meeting planners. Or you many want to purchase my
report: The Speaker's Kit: Materials that You Need to
Promote Yourself as a Professional
Speaker.
4.
You haven't provided any information for your speaker
profile.
There
are some speakers who have requested a profile but haven't
sent me the information so I can post it. What do I tell a
meeting planner who asks why there is no info posted for a
speaker? That it's impossible to get information from a
speaker? Meeting planners don't want to work with difficult
speakers. It's your job to help meeting planners, not the
other way around.
5.
You haven't provided a photo of yourself and photo of your
book covers.
Meeting
planners want to see that you have a recent, professional
photo of yourself as a speaker and want to see that you
have been published. They want to know that you have a
wealth of information and wisdom to impart to their group.
6. You don't identify by name the organizations you would
like to have hire you to speak.
I
marketed my speaker directory in such a way that those
organizations have a way to find you and reach you. When
you don't identify those specific organizations you miss
out on targeted marketing. So make an effort, do your
homework, and tell me to whom you want to speak in the
future.
7.
Your lecture and seminar titles are either not
understandable or not exciting.
Very generic and cutesy
titles don't work well. People need to grasp what your
presentation is about right away and they need to find your
topic exciting and irresistible. One speaker has a keynote
address called Untying the
Knot. Not only did I not
understand what the content of his speech was, nor could
meeting planners, but he couldn't explain it either... and
it wasn't about camp or marine knots. In a
short phone consult I can probably help you
create a far better title that excites audiences and
meeting planners.
8.
Your lecture and seminar titles are for a very small,
limited or low-income people who are not
organized
in visible groups.
Sometimes you may need to
change the focus of your presentation or change the target
audience to be able to speak for payment. Low-income people
usually do not organize themselves into state-wide,
regional or national organizations. They do not have money
to hire you. But others who work with these people do. In
a short phone consult I can help you
determine better and more lucrative audiences for your
presentations.
9.
You have few, if any credentials, and none that can be
documented.
Since Oprah's
uncomfortable discovery of the truth about the book, A
Million Little Pieces, people have been more cautious about
hiring speakers with dubious or inflated qualifications.
You need to be able to document your background. If you
don't have a doctorate, don't imply that you do. Be honest
about who you are. If you're a high school dropout, that's
no crime and it might actually lend more credibility to
your topic. (Remember that ABC News anchor Peter Jennings
dropped out in Grade 10. That lack of education didn't stop
him from success in a field and career that demands
intelligence.) If you don't have advanced academic degrees,
be honest about what you do have. Maybe it's on-the-job
experience, maybe it's an AHA moment - an epiphany -
following a tragedy or major life event. Acknowledge and
list what qualifications and successes you do have. I can
interview you and write a more winning narrative biography
you can use.
10.
You aren't using the resources the web site offers: speaker
forum, articles, tip sheets, reports, services.
I've provided these
affordable services and resources, a la carte, on this web
site so you have access to them without having to hire me
at $15,000 or more a month through my primary company,
Andrea Reynolds International.
Some of these resources cost as little as $2.00
for tips on how to attract meeting planners to
your online speaker profile. If you don't
avail yourself of these resources, how do you expect to
get noticed and get paying engagements?
Do you think that your profile here should generate as much
income-producing work as if you had paid thousands a month
for my marketing services? Passivity doesn't generate
business,
effort does. I can't do my part if
you won't do yours.
I strongly urge you to read every single
article on my web site and
read every book I wrote for
experts. There are so many
things you can do to build your speaker platform; and
with quite a few of you, I see little or no effort made.
It's far more exciting for me to market someone who I
see is doing everything possible to further his or her
speaking career. I won't work with dabblers and
dilettantes. I will
work with
professionals who share the same work ethic I do.
For any assistance in making your speaker profile work for
you, as listed above... Send Email to Andrea
Reynolds