Why You Should Grab Every Opportunity To Speak

Do you want to win more business?

Of course you do, everyone wants more clients.

Well, one of the most powerful ways of doing that is to run events.

You can learn more about it in the video here.

Why Should You Run Events?

The minute you stand in front of an audience, on a stage, straight away you are seen as being an expert.

When you are seen as being the expert, more people want to work with you.

You start to expose your message to people. You start to be seen as a thought leader. Just the act of speaking will help to encourage people to want to work with you.

But What If You Don’t Like Speaking?

Speaking in front of large crowds can be uncomfortable.

I’m an accountant. I’m an introvert. I’m not a natural speaker.

The first time I did a speaking gig, back in 1998, I was absolutely petrified.

But I found over the years that the more I did it the easier it became. This is true of anything in life, the more you do something, the better you become at it and the easier it gets.

Now, speaking is how I make my living, so it is possible to overcome that fear of speaking. Get out of your comfort zone and just do it because it’s such a powerful way of getting new clients.

3 Things You Must Do To Win Clients Through Speaking

#1 - Have A Goal

Have an objective that you want to achieve in that particular speaking session.

Your goal should NOT be to add value to your audience.

You read that right. Adding value should not be your goal, because giving value is an entry level thing you will need to do to even be in the speaking game. If you haven’t got something valuable worth saying, you shouldn’t be speaking at events.

Your goal, I suggest, should be to grow your audience by collecting contact details.

#2 - Collect Contact Details

If your goal is to collect contact details that’s great, but if not, this should still be something that you definitely do. It’s absolutely critical.

You want to make sure that everyone in the audience gives you their details.

You can encourage them to do that by offering them something of high value. That could be an ebook, a video, a free meeting and so on.

Give something away that is very valuable in return for the client’s contact details.

At every event I speak at, I put a flyer on every chair with a list of all the free resources I can give them. At the bottom is a tear off piece of paper which the prospects can put their contact details on. I always come away with 100 or more leads.

Create yourself a similar system for collecting contact details.

#3 - Follow Up

It’s easy to stand up in front of a room for a few minutes and deliver some content, but the real hard work starts afterwards.

You need to have a system for following up on the leads you gather during your speaking events.

This could be an automated system - I have a series of emails set up through MailChimp, my email marketing system, to send to prospects whose details I gather during these events. I create it in advance so that they go out automatically to new leads.

But for a bookkeeping or accounting firm, you may be offering a free meeting.

You must make sure you follow up and get those appointments booked in.

Create a system. Consider how you are going to contact those people and make sure you do it. You don’t want the prospect to forget about you and move on.

When you follow these 3 steps really well, every event you do will raise your profile as an expert, give you leads and, off the back of that, bring you lots of new business.

If you want to learn more about this topic, or more about value pricing, I run a free live online training session every month which you can attend and ask me questions. Click here to register and I will send you an invitation to the next session.

And if you would like to join a community of like-minded accounting professionals learning to price more effectively and confidently, you can join my Facebook Support Group here.

Wishing you every success on your pricing journey.

Mark Wickersham

Chartered Accountant, Public Speaker and Author of Amazon No.1 Best Seller, “Effective Pricing For Accountants”