Speaker - November 2008

That is, there is always money—the lights are on, the mortgage is being paid, the advertising is being placed. The question is: How is it being allocated? Are you making a sufficient case for your value so that a true buyer is willing to allocate the funds for you? When someone tells you, “We don’t have budget,” he or she is not a real buyer or simply doesn’t want to spend the budget on you.

Choose Your Colleagues
Carefully

I’ve heard people state from the platform that the economy is horrible and to be blamed for poor business and lack of success. Many in the audience commiserate and applaud, but some of us know better. I’ve received my highest speaking fees ever in the last year as I’ve built my brand and stood my ground. So have others.

Are you listening to people who are negative and see an adverse economy and society all around? Or are you dealing with people who are optimists and see challenge and excitement wherever they look? I’ve attended chapter meetings where people talked about cutting back and finding bargains. The discussions should be about aggressively marketing expertise. No one grows a practice through cutbacks.

often there to provoke people and to make them think. If you want unconditional love, get a dog, not a microphone.

There is a huge demand for expertise today,

because a great deal of residual expertise has been down-sized and outsourced. Human resources no longer has much credibility or ability to effect organizational change.

Speakers who can impart pragmatic techniques are in great demand. The more diversified you are and the more you can provide in the three columns above—the more value you provide to the client. True buyers may not like to spend large amounts of money, but they detest sacrificing value. Therefore, the more options you provide, the harder it is to revert to a “bare bones” alternative.

If you view this business—and it is a business if your intent is to earn money in return for value— as a “gig” for which you are paid for being present and addressing a group, then you’ll work very hard for whatever money you earn, and will probably be telling the same stories at the same junctures until you’re too old to remember them.

But if you view this business as an opportunity to provide value to people who can improve their professional and personal lives, then you won’t be in the labor-intensive rut of charging based on being somewhere. You’ll be able to charge for helping others get somewhere.

Road
Worrier

I met a woman whose
husband was rarely
around, spending 220
days on the road to
speak 110 times for
$1,200 per session.
“Why doesn’t he
double his fee and
halve his schedule, so
he’d at least be home
more?” I asked.
“Oh, he could never
get that much!” she
said. If that’s what they
both believe, then
they’re right.

Focus on Your Real Value

Don’t be sidetracked by selling someone else’s product or your own self-published book in the back of the room. You’re not in the book business, or the audio business, or the T-shirt business.

Focus on your real value, which is meeting a buyer’s objectives—a true buyer. Don’t worry about “smile sheets” and what I’ve come to dread more than any other aspect of our work: the standing ovation. We’ve debased that worse than the currency. Who cares if you’re liked? We’re

Alan Weiss has 14 or so initials after his name. He’s written 32 books which appear in 9 languages. His newest is The Global Consultant (with Omar Kahn) from Wiley. Visit his blog for more contrarian views and fresh air advice at www.contrarianconsulting.com.