Speaker - June 2017

SPEAKER’S TOOLKIT
Speakers share their best strategies
game-Changing Success Strategies

SUCCESS: Know your Secret Sauce
BeCKy DAVIS | Within four
years of speaking profes-
sionally, Becky Davis
learned her greatest
strength is leveraging rela-
tionships. In her first year, she tried to do
everything and be everywhere. But, that
all changed in the second year. “I took
the Gallup Strengths Finder and learned
my No. 1 strength is building relation-
ships. This was my a-ha moment,” Davis
says. “Since that time, my business has
really grown.”
Davis builds relationships by creating
genuine connections with a goal to
serve, support or help her
clients. “I nurtured one
relationship, in particular, by
figuring out how I could sup-
port my client. When I discov-
ered she was part of a huge annual
conference that’s in its 15th year, I
realized I needed to be in that room.”
Davis followed up, nurtured the rela-
tionship and, a result, has spoken several
times at their events. In addition, she has
generated a good amount of spin-off
business from that one relationship.

Marquesa Pettway, CSP, helps create virtual business models with a signature system for Speakerpreneurs™. Visit www.MLPSpeak.com.

Implementing one smart success trategy can accelerate your speaking business to an unbe- lievable level. Here, three speakers shared their strategies for achieving winning results.

S TRATEG Y: Master the Keynote
LOu HeCKLeR, CSP, CPAe,
CAVe T T AwARD ReCIPIeNT

Good keynote speakers,
according to Heckler
need to shift from drilling
down their content to prompting their
audiences to think differently. “I made
this transition 15 years ago,” Heckler
says. “It was hard because, and I say
this without arrogance, you know too
much information. You feel you need
to tell your audiences everything.”
Heckler spent 19 years on an
adjunct faculty and conducted semi-
nars. Then, he made the distinction
between teaching skills and encourag-
ing people to think for themselves.

“You want to be better at this topic?

Do these five things,” Heckler says.

“That’s skill building. The keynote is
a different animal.” In Heckler’s
estimation, a keynote should not
teach skills; it should make people
think in a different way.”
After your training, you want your
audiences to say, “He/she did the heavy
lifting for us. Let’s do exactly what we
have in our notes because this seems
like a great process.”
After your keynote, if your speaking
was provocative and really helped
change their thinking, you’ll hear,
“Oh boy! I have a million thoughts.

Let’s share this information with other people in our organization, and then create a new reality for ourselves.”

BEST PRACTICE: Pick a Lane
LISA RyAN | After 13
years as a speaker,
Ryan realized her
career had no real
focus. She spoke to HR
She eventually realized that
manufacturing was
her niche.

“I can weld—and I have the burns to prove it,” Ryan says. “I can relate to people in the industry.

It’s almost like the gates of heaven have opened and the angels are singing. People are returning my emails. They're calling me back.

They’re booking me for keynotes. I
have four keynotes booked this Janu-
ary, which has never happened before.”
Ryan’s message resonates with her
personally. “It wasn't about choosing a
topic that's going to make me the most
money. It was more of what I’ve experi-
enced and love, and then finding that
target market,” Ryan says. “It makes
my heart sing when I'm in a plant and
I’m seeing how things are made. It’s
just everything about it. I love this
industry and so I found my home.”