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Who’s Selling You?
s you endeavor to increase
your annual speaking
revenue and ponder the
thousands of ideas and
opinions from other NSA
members on how to get
more bookings, vend more products and
generate more revenue, two things are
inevitable: You need a first-class product
and an end user for the product.
Those alone, however, will not guarantee your success or your income
level. As you speculate about creating
annual revenues in excess of $1 million
as a professional speaker, it is possible
to accomplish this without consulting,
coaching, webinars, or utilizing every
technological thingamabob invented,
including Twitter and Facebook. That is
not to say that multiple revenue streams
or social media are bad. It is only to put
forth an idea that makes it possible to
earn a lot of money annually with the
accent on “Speakers” in the National
Speakers Association.
If your business still isn’t growing
after having a first-class product and
an end user, what are you missing?
Common practice is to first hire an office
assistant or marketing person. Given
a choice between an organized assistant, an excellent marketing person or
a skilled sales professional, who should
you select? Who do you believe has the
most potential to increase your bookings? Perhaps an even more imperative
question would be in what order do you
hire one of these three people to help
grow your business?
While marketing is important, and
the most obvious choice would be to
have someone manage your office, the
most overlooked component of your
business is the need for a professional,
passionate and driven salesperson who
can sell you to the end user. The type
of person you require is out there, but
you must be willing to offer excellent
compensation that guarantees both of
you success in achieving your desired
results. After employing that person,
leave him or her alone to sell you and
not perform other duties which take
time away from what this individual
was hired to do—sell you.
Outside of answering incoming telephone calls and delivering outstanding
customer service, the complete focus
should be on booking you. This may
require you to perform the administrative duties and implement your own
marketing plan. And remember—
marketing is not sales! Your website, one sheet
and social media don’t sell you—they
promote you.
Regardless of your revenue goals, it
takes time, numerous attempts, and the
ability to develop a solid client relationship. It takes a rigorous, focused effort to
be successful at getting bookings. It takes
a knowledgeable salesperson to follow
up on every lead that your marketing
plan has generated. Your business needs
someone who can be an order maker, not
an order taker. It may ease your work
burden to hire an office manager, or a
marketing person who can design and
implement a plan to generate leads, but
inevitably your increased revenue will be
an end result of someone selling you.
Steve Gilliland, CSP
recipient of Toastmasters International Golden Gavel Award
“
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Steve Gilliland, CSP, has attained seven-fi gure
revenues annually since 2008 exclusively from
speaking and sales from his books, CDs and
DVDs. He was the closing speaker on the main
platform at the 2011 Million-Dollar Round
Table in Atlanta. His best-selling book, Enjoy
The Ride™, was on the publisher’s best-seller
list for fi ve consecutive years. Visit stevegillil-and.com and impactstore.com.
