Thursday, January 20, 2011

How to Improve Speaking Engagement Results

Speaking engagements are some of the best ways to initiate and solidify prospective client relationships, yet many professionals don’t use this opportunity effectively.
 
Whether you are invited to speak at an event or you are planning one yourself, it’s important to understand how to get the most out of your presentation and prepare.
 
It’s too often that I see professionals deliver an educational presentation to a qualified group and come back to their office empty handed - meaning no prospects, no business cards, no attendee contact information. In light of this common pitfall, here is a quick guide to improving event results below.
 
When you are invited to speak or you are organizing your own seminars follow these four steps:

1. Treat this as an opportunity to establish thought leadership, educate and build rapport. Remember that not everyone is ready to buy now, some attendees are just learning about the subject matter, some are interviewing service providers to get more information and only few are ready to buy now or once they find a service provider they like.
    
2. Have a next step option for everyone: offer to follow up with resources of interest, subscribe to your newsletter, join or follow you on a social network and, for those that are ready,  to schedule a consultation call or in-person meeting.
    
3. Follow up - don’t expect attendees to reach out to you, they rarely do. Having a strategy to collect attendee contact information is key, thefore, think about what resources you want to offer to attendees and how to make it available after the presentation, so that you have another chance to initiate contact.
    
4. Stay in touch and deliver value: send e-newsletters or relevant updates to everyone that heard you speak, and stay in touch. Otherwise, you’ve just prepared your prospects to hire your competitors. There is a rule of seven touches that we will discuss in more detail in our next post, that is essential to converting more prospects into clients, so stay tuned!

 
Remember, not everyone is ready to buy when you are ready to sell, therefore, having a strategy to stay in front of your prospects ensures that they will retain you and not your competitor when they are ready to move forward.
 
If you want to further improve your speaking engagement results or you are at the stage where you are just considering incorporating speaking engagements into your business development strategy, contact us today!