Have you ever thought of using public speaking to attract potential clients and customers to your list? Well, maybe you should.
There are several reasons for business owners and independent contractors to consider public speaking, which lets people know who you are, what you do and what you have to sell. By a acquainting target audience with yourself, your and the services and products you offer, you can convert potential clients and customers in your audiences into actual clients and customers.
In today’s competitive marketplace, book marketing and advertising your products and services in traditional media is not enough. Every business with products and services like yours is out there screaming their message, leaving your message to get lost in the noise. In the intimate setting of public speaking, you have the group’s undivided attention and the ability to attract potential clients and customers in the audience to your list. In order to get yourself in front of a target audience in the first place, you could write an online press release to distribute to potential audiences.
Speaking in front of an audience of potential clients and customers, you can sell yourself, and sell your products and services. I do not mean hard sell. I mean subtle sell. Potential clients and customers do not want to feel like you came to take their money. However, they will accept the fact that the examples and professional knowledge you present may refer to your own experiences, services and products.
DO NOT run up and grab the microphone pressuring the group to buy something. That makes you look hungry! Potential clients and customers are turned off by hunger. Audiences perceive that, in desperation, hungry salespeople may make offers they cannot deliver. In the setting of a public speaking engagement, you want to offer helpful suggestions, and those suggestions should include a description of services and products that–oh, by the way– are the services and products your company offers. For example, if you are a caterer, you would be foolish to use examples of dishes from another caterer’s list. If you are an author with your own book on the table at the back of the room, why would you promote some other author’s book?
Always lead potential clients and customers delicately toward a purchase. Remember, they may not buy the day of your speaking engagement. Potential clients and customers may contact you later when they need your products and services. A purchase is a purchase! Don’t blow your future sale tomorrow or next month by being too pushy today. There is probably a place for pushy salespeople but not at a public speaking engagement where you are trying to attract potential clients and customers.
By standing in front of audiences and letting potential clients and customers get to know you, you can deliver your message as a consultant or business owner and, at the same time, persuade your target audience you are knowledgeable. People buy from people who know their subject. Give potential clients and customers some success stories. For example, if you are a nonprofit administrator, share with your audience how you brought in a million dollars of contributions last year and tell them your strategy for attracting those contributors. If the attendees have read your online press release, they will already know a few things about you. Use your internet press release as a fact sheet that you can follow in your talk. Writing a press releases is worth the effort.
You must develop an appearance of honesty and trustworthiness when you speak to potential clients and customers. Relax and slow down. Audiences don’t like fast-talkers. They have to work too hard to understand fully and may think the fast-talker is trying to hide something in all that fast talk. Move your eyes slowly around the room so that more than the folks at the front table see your facial expressions and get a sense of your sincerity. It is not a good idea to let your eyes dart around the room too fast. You may appear to be shifty. Do not grip the podium. It makes you look nervous. Not that nervous people are dishonest, but nervous people distract the audience. A distracted audience is not likely to buy your products and services.
Okay, your public speaking engagement is going well. The potential clients and customers know who you are. You appear to be knowledgeable, honest and trustworthy. But does the audience really connect with you and like you? Well, they’d better because people in a position to make a purchase, generally buy from people they like, if they have a choice, even if they have to pay more for the product or service. They will like you if you are not trying too hard to put on a show or using too many big words. Just be yourself.
At the back of the room, have plenty of business cards on hand, copies of your book for sale and perhaps a door prize. A great door prize is a signed copy of your book. Haven’t written a book? Maybe, you should.
