no equity, no copyrights, nada. It really
hurt. What good was the new knowledge I had acquired without the product I helped to create? The only good
decision I had made was to not share
my speaking fee revenue with the guy.
Luckily, I was successful before the
agreement and that revenue was not
negotiable.
Moral of the Story
It took about two years to fully recreate
my product base and market positioning. Though I did lots of things right
away and had many minor successes in
the interim, it took a while to rebuild
momentum. When I wrote the book,
The Acorn Principle, and published the
audio series, articles and other products to support it, the response was
overwhelming. The book continues to
do well and has become a best-seller in
numerous markets.
I’m lucky that I was able to rebound
from my ill-fated business experience
and can share my hard-learned lesson with you. Before you make a major
business decision, separate your emotional desire to say “yes” from your
rational analysis of any proposed deal.
Heed warning flags and double check
your decisions. It could save you a small
fortune and many months of grief.
Jim Cathcart CPAE, CSP, is
founder and president of
Cathcart Institute, Inc. and a
past president of NSA (1988–
89). Jim is a member of the
exclusive Speakers Roundtable and the
co-author of the Professional Speaker
System™, used by top professionals to grow
their businesses. For more information, visit
www.cathcart.com.
RELEVANT RESOURCES
In today’s competitive workplace, it isn’t enough to speak like a pro.
You have to be a pro at everything you do, including Web site building,
blogging, social networking, and applying creative solutions to everyday issues.
Here are some little extras that go a long way.
Be in Five
Places at Once
Use tubeMogul (www.
tubemogul.com) to distribute your videos to
multiple video-host-ing sites all at once.
tubeMogul offers a
robust, no-cost version
of its service that compiles video-viewing data
from multiple sources.
—Donna Gunter (coach@
onlinebizu.com)
related to your topic.
Visit the U.s. census
Bureau (www.census.
gov) for demographic
information and incorporate all of your
resources into the presentation. A little prep
work goes a long way,
and your audience will
be impressed that you’re
“in the know.”
can right-click and auto-
matically capture all or
part of an email or Web
page to evernote. the
application is free, but
you can opt to upgrade
to the paid version with
more perks, including a
feature that automati-
cally recognizes hand-
writing and shapes.
— Tom Gray
—Samantha Cardwell-
Ward (Samantha.
Just Doodle It
if you need to schedule
an activity for a group
of people, use doodle
( www.doodle.ch) to find
out attendees’ availability. Best of all, the service
is free.
—Ian Griffin ( ian.griffin@
exec-comms.com)
Ward@wardspeaking.
com)
Check Your
Resources
if you’re going to speak
in a new city, do some
preliminary research
about new laws, cur-
rent stories, history, etc.,
Interruption
Insurance
At your next presentation, include a brightly
colored sheet of paper
with your hand outs.
Before you begin,
instruct audience to
wad it up into a ball. tell
them, “if anyone’s cell
phone goes off, throw
this at them.” Not only
will it bring a laugh, but
watch how many people start fumbling with
their phones to turn the
sound off.
—Elizabeth Fried
Get Organized
to organize disparate
tips, use everNote (www.
evernote.com)� an intuitive note management
application that allows
you to easily capture,
categorize and index
information in a seamless manner. it integrates with outlook and
internet explorer so you
These tips are courtesy of speakerNet News, published
by rebecca Morgan and ken Braly. To subscribe, visit
www.speakernetnews.com.
