#047: How to Use Public Speaking to Land B2B Writing Clients

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey everyone, thank you for joining me for episode 47 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. You can find detailed show notes of this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 47 so I often talk about prospecting for clients as being fairly similar to assembling a diversified investment portfolio. You know, there are countless strategies available when it comes to prospecting, just like there is with investing. And I'm certainly not a serious investor by any means, but I know a little bit about it and I know that even though there are many strategies with investing that are been consistently proven to deliver results, when of course, when he's appropriately and consistently, there's no such thing as a one size fits all portfolio strategy. Same thing with prospecting, right? With portfolios, gross stocks, dividend paying stocks, corporate bonds of all types, municipal bonds, small cap stocks, there's options and all kinds of derivatives. The list goes on. Same thing with prospecting. It's actually overwhelming the number of options you have. And the number of options paralyzes a lot of freelance writers. They're not really sure where to start, what to do, and you know, it really boils down to figuring out the right mix for you. And in that process, I find that there are many different prospecting strategies that freelance writers rarely consider. Many of them just kind of flock to the old standbys. We've talked about some of these in previous episodes. We've talked about some kind of more unconventional approaches. But today we're going to be talking about a prospecting strategy that I haven't addressed in a long time, and that's public speaking or delivering talks to groups and organizations. Now, I haven't done this myself, okay, I'll be honest, but I have. But I've done it for my training and coaching business, not for my freelance writing business. So what I wanted to do, rather than, you know, give you some best practices, that just comes from kind of a different world. I wanted to bring in a colleague who has done this to drum up writing clients and has done, has done it well and it is doing well with it and has a lot of experience with what works and doesn't work. And it's none other than my colleague Steve Sloan White. You know many of you know Steve. I co wrote the Wealthy Freelancer with him and Pete Savage, another friend and colleague of mine. And I've known Steve a long time. He's actually an excellent speaker. And in this interview, Steve was gracious enough to share quite a few tips, tricks and strategies with us. We're going to be talking about really the essence of the strategy, what he likes about this particular type of self promotion, what have been some of the biggest benefits to him and his writing business, who the strategy is best suited for, what are the steps to using the strategy successfully, and if this is resonating with you, this is something you'd like to try, where and how you can get started. So this is going to be a really fun interview.

I think you're going to get a.

Lot out of it. And listen, if the idea of speaking in public scares you, give this interview a listen. Anyway, I think you might change your mind about giving this a try once you're done listening to Steve. So let's get right to it. All right, Steve, welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. It's great to have you here.

Well, thank you, Ed. Thanks for inviting me.

It's been, you know, I've been meaning to have you here for a long time and I had a couple of people tell me, hey, you should have Steve on. And I said, steve who? Nah, just kidding.

Well, it's about time, Ed.

It's about time. So it's thanks for coming on. And you know, we're speaking here on about a topic that comes up quite frequently. And I don't think this is really a strategy that a lot of business writers think to use, but it's been a very effective strategy for you and you're the perfect person to give us some insight on this. And it's using public speaking to land B2B writing clients. So I couldn't think of anyone else to really speak on the subject that's as qualified as you are who's also a fellow writer.

Yeah, and I've used speaking for many years to promote my business. It's my favorite business building technique is public speaking, but I fell into it by accident. Actually, it was many, many years ago and it never dawned on me to do any speaking to promote my business. I was promoting my business in other ways. And then one day I got an invitation to speak at a one day marketing event and they wanted me to speak for one hour on copywriting. And I said sure. And I was all nervous, of course, and there were going to be. This is Kind of a corporate marketing conference. So there's marketing managers, marketing directors in the audience. And frankly, I was a little intimidated and put together the best presentation I could. And I was, you know, I had all the different things to be nervous, I'm embarrassed to say. I was nervous about being unable to connect my computer to the PowerPoint projector at the conference because I didn't know how to do that. That's how green I was. But I went and did the presentation and it went very, very well. And as soon as the presentation was over, my hour was up. I had about 5, 10 marketing directors come up to me afterwards, ask me additional questions. And I was answering the questions about copywriting and this and that, and I looked and they were actually lining up to ask me questions. And I thought, man, it doesn't get any better than this. I've got potential clients lining up in front of me to talk to me. And I got a couple of new clients in that event and a lot of leads and a lot of buzz. And that's when it first dawned on me, you know, this could be a good strategy for promoting my business and landing clients. I mean, it's going to line up in front of me.

What do you think that is? Why do you think things change when you're up there and you're done speaking and you have a line of people waiting to talk to you who could be potential clients?

Well, as you know and as you teach ed, clients will hire you as a copy or when they get to know you, when they get to know like and TR you, as the saying goes, right? And what we do to promote our copywriting business, we spend a lot of time trying to get people to know like and trust us to get well known to our target audience, that we send out letters and emails and do all kinds of promotional stuff. But when you're speaking and you are on a stage and your target audience is in the audience looking right at you, you get that know like and trust thing happening instantly. They see you, they get to hear from you, they instantly get to know who you are and what you do, and they can appreciate and get a taste of your expertise immediately. And they're all ears and all eyes, you know what I mean? They're in the audience looking at you. Very powerful situation. So in an audience like that first speaking gig, I had 50 people in my audience. I became well known as a copywriting expert to those 50 marketing directors in an hour at that event. If I had tried to do that in some other ways in all the different ways that I market myself, it would be more of a process. It would take a little bit longer. In this case, it was almost instantaneous. In fact, I think Bob Bly told me many years ago, even before I started speaking, that it's almost impossible to not get a new client at a speaking event. I'm here to tell you that it is possible because I've had speaking events and didn't get any clients. But it is an extremely good way to get yourself known almost instantly to a room full of potential clients.

You know, it's almost. As I'm listening to you, one thing that kind of came to mind is that I think we're looking for ways to connect with people at that level. We've become such a desensitized society in terms of. Right. You know, we don't. We don't pick up the phone anymore. We email. Actually, we don't even email. We text in. It's. Everything is depersonalized. Right. So. But we're not wired that way. I mean, I think we're wired to really connect with people physically. You know, they're present with somebody else and get to see them, hear them shake their hand. So maybe in a way, it's kind of like what we're secretly yearning for, you know, in terms of connecting with others.

That's right. And that's why people go to events to begin with. That's why they go to chapter meetings of their associations, that's why they go to workshops and conferences, is to have that human connection. The problem is for. And I'm going to speak about writers in general, and me specifically, is that we tend to be a little shy and introverted. I think a lot of writers are. I am. I'm very shy by nature. I'm very introverted. So the idea of going to one of these, a conference or a meeting or a workshop and schmoozing and working the room and walking up and introducing myself to strangers, I just couldn't do that. Just not my personality. But even a shy, introverted person, it was some practice. And some techniques can go up on. Go in front of a group and do a presentation or do a little talk on their topic of expertise. You know, you can do that and you get that. That connection with a lot of people very quickly.

You know, you're so right about that. Years ago, first time I saw Bob Bly speak, he says he was talking about how he's such an introvert and. But he was doing so well on stage, and somebody called him on that. And he said, oh, yeah, well, if I'm speaking, I'm on fire. You know, I'm present up here. I'm not nervous at all. But you know, put me in that other situation, right. Having to schmooze in, I just melt. I can't do it.

Yes. And the thing is that speakers attract people. So if you just spoke on your topic and then you walk off the platform and people are going to come up to you and talk to you so you don't have to go to them. Right. So it's an introvert's dream, really. And it's counterintuitive. You'd think that shy and introverted people would not be very good speakers, but the truth is a lot of great speakers are introverts. And also, you don't have to be a great speaker to make this technique work, by the way. You simply have to know how to do a presentation, which is something that you can learn.

So, you know, you've mentioned quite a few of them, but is there anything else that we haven't talked about in terms of some of the big benefits to you into your business from, from, from public speaking, since you've been doing it as a writer? Any other things that have come out of this that you felt, gosh, this is just no other way to have gotten something like this?

Well, lead generation, people in the audience become interested in working with you because they see you on stage. Now maybe that's an unfair advantage for you on stage, but I mean, I'm sure we've all had the experience where we've seen someone on stage speaking about their topic and we just assume they're an expert. Right. Especially if they deliver their content well. So people want to work with the speaker to such an extent where it goes a little insane. I did a presentation in Atlanta, in fact, Ed, last year, and I did a two hour talk on copywriting to a room full of dentists. Okay, that had to be exciting, interesting. I didn't know that dentists would be interested in copywriting, but they're a group that's very interested in marketing and copywriting, whatever they can do to build their business right now. And I had the same thing after I was done. A crowd of people after me afterwards wanted to give me business cards and talk to me about copywriting and show me their ad that they wrote and things like that. And then the next day I was getting into a taxi in front of the hotel to go to the airport and someone was running towards the taxi and actually stopped the Taxi. And it was a dentist wanting to stop me and give me his business card before I left for the airport. He stopped the taxi. That's a little extreme. But when you're in the audience and you listen to someone speak on a topic and they're good, and you like what you're hearing and you get a sense of who they're like, you get a sense. If you're going to like working with this person, it builds a desire to want to work with that person. If you're looking for a copywriter and you hear a copywriter on stage speaking, and you like what they're saying, and they seem like a nice person and you want to work with them, right? It's a dynamic that really that happens.

You bring up something very important. A lot of people think that likability equals being an extrovert or, you know, a salesperson, that kind of thing. I disagree with that completely. What I found is likability is just being transparent, being yourself, and doing other things that have nothing to do with having a certain personality. And I think when you get up there, I've seen the same thing. I've seen introverts present very, very useful information, present it clearly and really just command the room. Right? Because what they're about in their personality really came through.

Oh, you're absolutely right. In fact, that's the key to speaking in general that I learned is don't try to be like anybody else. Don't try to be like a speaker that you know and like, be yourself. If you be yourself, you really can't go wrong. Even if things go wrong on stage, even if you forget something, if you just be yourself, you're going to be fine and the audience is going to stay with you. What an audience doesn't like is when someone seems. It seems like the speaker's faking it and trying to be something that they're not, trying to be more motivational than they would normally be, for example. Or, you know, just be yourself. You know, be your flawed, ordinary self and you'll get a better reaction.

So we're going to talk a little bit about maybe some steps that you can look for or implement to do this successfully. Before we get to that, I'm curious because I know there's listeners right now who are thinking, okay, this sounds really interesting. I like the potential results. You've already addressed one of my big concerns, which is I'm more introverted. This scares the heck out of me, the idea of getting up there. But is there a certain. Any other Attributes or any other situations that would point to someone really trying this. Who is this best suited for? I guess that's really what I'm getting to.

Well, I think, honestly, I think everyone should try it to see if this is a business building strategy that can work for you. Like I said, when I started using speaking, I never dreamed that I'd be speaking. I was a shy introvert and I stutter sometimes. So I'm always nervous about stuttering on stage and the idea of me speaking just scared me, you know. But I tried it and I. And it started and I saw the results and I realized that being on stage isn't nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. And it started working for me. So I would encourage anyone to at least try it and see if it's a business building strategy that can work for you regardless of whether you think, you know, I could never go on stage, I could never speak in front of an audience. I would just die if I did that. You don't know until you try it. Really, you don't. So try it and see if it works for you. And if it does work for you, it could be a fantastic business building.

Strategy for you, you know, And I found for me personally that there's been some benefits that I never expected. You know, just personal and professional growth. Because this is a skill to me. I kind of joked with my wife that this is like knowing a lot about wine, you know, that's a skill you can take with you anywhere. Right. I don't know why I equate it to that, but it's great to go to a restaurant and be able to order wine for the table. You know, that's a great skill to have. And I think speaking is a great skill to have because you can use that in any professional in many different situations. So to me it's very portable and very versatile.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Let's talk about some steps to using the strategy successfully. So if I'm listening and I'm going, okay, you got me, I agree with you, this makes perfect sense. But how do I go about this? You know, where do I start?

Well, when I started with this technique, I spoke at a major one day conference to a big audience and I made a very big leap because I just, I just happened to get an invitation to do that kind of session. But if I was to start all over again, I wouldn't make such a big leap. I'd go small. Steps I would take. You know, what I would recommend is to take a look at your geographical area and see what associations and business meetings and events are in your area. For example, if you live near a business center, a major business center like Atlanta, of course, there are probably a lot of chapter meetings of national associations that meet there on a regular basis. You know, the, the monthly meeting of the local American marketing association, the monthly meeting of the local sales and marketing association and chamber of commerce and meetings like that, where it's small, it's local, it's not as intimidating. And they're always looking for speakers. They're always looking for someone to come, you know, to come in one evening for their. For their monthly, monthly meeting and speak on a particular topic of interest to their audience. So I would start there with the smaller groups before I would try to get into a big conference or something like that. Another way to start small is to take a look and watch out for conferences and events and workshops that are coming to your area that are likely to have an audience that has your potential prospects in it. And see if they have any panels. A lot of conferences don't have a speaker for every session. Sometimes they'll have a panel where they have three, four, five people speaking on a particular topic. And usually they only speak for about five minutes and then answer some questions, each participant on the panel. Speaking on a panel is a very, very easy thing to do. It's a nice way to dip your toe into the water of speaking because it's not that intimidating. You know, you usually have to Prepare maybe a 5 or 10 minute presentation, answer questions from the audience, and that's it. It's a nice way to get started. I'm speaking on a panel next week, for example, so there's a lot of these panels around with conferences and meetings. So try that. So start small, push yourself a little bit. Start locally, obviously, and that's a great way to start. And one more thing, Ed, and this is a little counterintuitive. Don't worry about where you speak. Don't worry that you're at least at the start. Don't worry that your local chamber of commerce probably just has a bunch of very small business people there, and they don't. There's no clients for you there. If you get a chance to speak on your topic of expertise, which is probably copywriting at the local chamber of commerce, just do it. First of all, you never know when you're going to run into a prospect. You don't know who's in that audience, who could, who could hire you or refer you. And secondly, it's great practice.

Yeah, I know if it were me, I would feel a lot less nervous knowing that, you know, there's probably not a good prospect for me here. Therefore it's okay to mess up.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. So this is all part of starting small with speaking and taking some small steps towards it before you go in and do a big, you know, two hour evening keynote for, in front of 1500 people at a conference. Right? Yeah. You don't want to start there, you don't want to mess up there. You know, mess up small, learn as you go and then build up from there. You know, a lot of people that I've talked to that have, have tried speaking to build their business, it's almost unanimous in that they're, they're surprised that they're able to do it, they're surprised how quickly they become a good speaker and they're surprised at how well it builds their business.

So I had a couple of follow up questions in on these steps. One is if I'm going, if I'm going to start with local associations and organizations and I used to be part of one where I would volunteer. I was a board member. And I remember one of the things that we were very particular about is we would not accept speakers who were, for lack of a better word, vendors. So, right. This is a marketing association and we wanted for all of our events, practitioners. So a VP of marketing of a certain company or somebody who's actually doing something and can, can talk about a specific case study. We wouldn't, we didn't want a copywriter like myself up there talking about, you know, copywriting or copywriting skills or content writing, you know, what do you say to, how do you handle that if you come across that objection.

Yeah, you do come across that every so often where a conference only wants their members speaking. For example, an association only wants their members speaking. They want their members to bring in, like you said, a case study. So something that they've worked on, work they've done with a client, they want to present it. I've gone to many marketing conferences that are just like that. It's one case study presentation after another. What I do is when I approach an event planner of a conference or the programming director of a local association or something like that. I never position myself or introduce myself as a copywriter. I always say I'm a copywriting expert, I'm a copywriting expert and I have this great presentation that you might be interested on. How to write copy that sells without Being slimy. And that's my presentation, and I'll position myself that way. You know, I'm a copywriting expert. Here's my topic. Here's why my topic would be of interest to your audience, of high interest to your audience, because they'll want to know that this is the reason why. And here's why I should be the one presenting this topic to your group. I have this experience and that experience. I have this to share and that to share, and I present it that way. And sometimes that works.

And do you do it? Do you do this via email or phone? What do you think is best?

Well, usually what I do. Let me just walk you through the steps. Excuse me, Ed. First thing I'll do is find out who the contact is. And usually they have something in their title that says event planner, program director, educational director, something like that. They have to do with event planning or education for that association or conference. So I find out who that is. I just go on the Internet site and just poke about and find out. Sometimes I'll phone and find out. They usually have something on the website about speakers. Then what I'll do is I'll send an introductory email and I'll say. And I'll say, you know, I'm introducing myself. I'm a copywriting expert and a speaker, and I do this topic. And here's the topic. Here's why it would be of interest to your target audience, here's why it would be of high interest to them, and here's why I am the best person to teach this to your audience. I just send that nice email and then I'll follow up with a phone call a couple of days later. That's really my strategy. Send an email, follow up two business days later. Usually the reaction I get is pretty good, depending on the popularity of the conference. If it's a big conference, they may have a more formal system on how they select speakers. But if they're a smaller conference or a local association, they tend to be more informal. They'll send me an email back or phone me, and it usually starts the conversation. So that's 80% of the speaking gigs I get that I'm not invited to, that I go after. I get that way. There's a couple other techniques I've used, though, to get speaking engaged. Can I share them with you?

Oh, absolutely. Please do.

One technique that works well is if I want to speak at a particular conference, let's say it's a marketing conference and they're already underway and they have Some of the speakers selected and things like this, I will go through their agenda and see which topics are going to be presented as a panel. Now, if they have a topic, let's say it's on marketing communications, and they have three panelists picked, and they're already promoting that. One of those panelists are probably the moderator. Okay. And sometimes they're even called moderator. I'll find out who that is. I'll contact the moderator, and I'll say, hey, I notice you're doing a panel. I speak on this topic. If one of your panelists can't show up for any reason, I'd be happy to step in. And that's worked for me on a few occasions. In fact, sometimes what'll happen is that they'll say, well, why don't you just join us on the panel? We'll have four panelists instead of three, so it doesn't hurt to ask. So I'll do that sometimes. And that can be a side doorway into speaking at a conference and getting on a panel is talking to the moderator. Keep in mind that the person moderating a panel probably has never done it before or hasn't done it very often. They're probably nervous. They're worried about speakers backing out or canceling. And if you present yourself as someone who can be a backup, they're happy to talk to you.

I like the idea of. Because I've heard of the backup strategy before, but always with a presentation. I like the idea of backup panelists. That's really cool.

Yeah. Because probably about a third of the time, they'll just invite you as part of the. Be part of the panel. They'll just add you to the panel. And I've had that many times. You can also present yourself to the event planner of the entire conference or workshop or the association as a backup speaker. That can work. It doesn't work as often as being a backup panelist.

Not only that, but if you get called at the last minute, if it were to work, it only works if you have something already prepared with a. With a panel. Being a panelist. Right. That's something you can. You don't need as much preparation.

You can put it together pretty quickly. You can improvise. And a lot of panels are primarily Q and A. So, yeah, it's much easier to step in at the last minute.

Okay.

So that can work very well.

So you mentioned another one, or did we cover those in terms of unusual strategies?

Yeah, there's a couple of other things that I've. There's one Technique. I've never done that. For whatever reason. I just. I've always meant to try it to see if it's going to work, but I've never tried it yet. And you can actually buy your way into a speaking gate. A lot of conferences and events will have a sponsorship program where you could be a sponsor. And sometimes the sponsorship package will include having a booth or a table where you can set things up, or they give you a session. You can have a speaking session where you can present a session on a particular topic. Right. I've seen that happen in many conferences. So you can buy your way in sometimes. These sponsorships can be pretty expensive, but I've seen them as low as $1500. And I've always thought of trying it because I thought $1,500 to speak in front of a group of my target audience. I mean, just landing one client will get that money back tenfold. So that's another technique, sponsorship. So take a look at it very carefully. Consider that to see if it's. If it makes sense to you. Sometimes you can buy your way in as a speaker that way.

Now, I have a question about kind of shifting gears a little bit on you, but coming up with topics. Because I have heard from some speakers who, they have kind of a few keynotes already in the bag that they can reuse over and over, maybe alter slightly. I've talked to others who might have one like that, but most of what they create is custom. What are your thoughts on that? Especially when you're starting out, is it a good idea to develop maybe two or three different presentation ideas that you can use when you're pitching?

It's good to. I would start with two presentation ideas, one primary one, one secondary one, just to start. But you know what, the best way to put a topic together is. Leverage what you already have. If you're a B2B copywriter and let's say you created a special. Well, I'll use you as an example, ed. You have B2B launcher right now on your website, you have a special offer for your pricing guide. Pricing toolkit.

Yep.

Is that right? Okay, well, there you already have content there that you're offering as a lead generator on your website. That. That toolkit. Pricing toolkit. Well, there's yours. Your speaking topic, right? You already have that content created. So you create a speaking topic around pricing based on your toolkit, and you pull the information from there. You make some slides. Boom, you have a presentation. Okay? So use what you already have. Use the content you've already developed. I've seen people develop a presentation out of an article they've written. I mean, they've worked hard on developing the content for five steps to doing X or writing X in an article that becomes a presentation. So use what you already have, have one primary topic, have a second topic, but it must be associated with what you do. Obviously, it has to position yourself the way you want to be positioned. And in most cases, for most of the listeners, I suspect you want to be positioned as a go to person for B2B copy. Right. In B2B writing. So make sure that your topic positions yourself that way. So don't have a topic of six social media strategies that build your business have the topic really should be six strategies for writing writing posts and tweets that build your business. You want the topic to position you as an expert in the writing part. So when they think so when they hear the topic or see the topic in the promotional materials, they automatically associate it with you as an expert at what you do. That's very important.

I like that. I like that. But yeah, there's no. I'm a big believer in recycling and repurposing. You know, you probably have more than you realize. Start looking in your files, see what you can, you know, repurpose into a presentation. And look, if you have a blog, which posts were the most popular, the most best received, you know, where did you get the most feedback? And there's this problem. Those are clues that you're on to something there. In terms of. I'm curious as to how event planners perceive that strategy. So if you got a couple of, you know, ideas or topics or presentations already, you know, kind of created, do they really care that you've presented this before? Does. Does that kind of thing ever matter?

No, no, I've never come across it mattering. In fact, if anything, because I speak so much on copywriting, I get invited back for the same topic. I'm speaking again to that same group of dentists this year on the same topic because you get associated with the topic. That's good. That's a good thing. You want to be associated with your area of expertise. If you're a B2B copywriter, you want event planners to think, we need someone to speak about writing emails and websites. Let's talk to Ed, because he speaks on that. And you want to be pigeonholed in a sense in that way. So event planners actually react to that very positively.

Yeah, and I think it's different from, let's say, an article or A blog post. Right. It's going to live online and they don't want to see the same thing over and over again. And then now in their own publication. This is an experience, right. That's live. So it's very different. And I can see why it really wouldn't matter. But I was just curious. So in terms of kind of moving into a different area here, let's say that I'm new. I love this idea and this makes perfect sense, but is there anything I can do to start working on my skills? I mean, what would be other than just getting out there and speaking? Any kind of basic pointers out there for people who are just now doing this for the first time to maybe calm the nerves and do a decent job, even the first time around?

Sure. Well, the way that I tend to do things, I'm the kind of person who just jumps in and just does it and see what happens. And that strategy has worked well for me in the past and sometimes it hasn't. But you know, sometimes you just jump in small with being a speaker on a panel or a local group and just go for it, see what happens. Another organization or an organization that can help you build your speaking skills that I know that's helped a lot of people is Toastmasters. Toastmasters is like a self help group for people who want to build their speaking skills. And you go into, you know, I had been to a couple of Toastmasters meetings a few years ago and you know, it's a very, and they have a very defined program and you start small and go up and you do your first two minute presentation in front of a group and they critique it and they teach you some good solid speaking skills and you get practice as well. So that can help you reduce the jitters. When you first do a real speaking gig is Toastmasters. Another thing that I do is when I got my first speaking gig at that marketing convention, I, I was so nervous. I just did a lot of practicing on my own. I just speaking out loud, you know, going through my presentation over and over and over and over and over again. You know, I just rehearsed it to death. And that helped me build a lot of confidence. Looking back, I didn't have to rehearse it that much because once I did the presentation, it would end up being completely different than what I rehearsed because the audience is different. You kind of, you know, you, you know, you go with the flow of the audience. But rehearsing helps calm the jitters, right? Yeah. You know, so rehearsing Helps. And one final thing. We already talked about this, Ed, but I just wanted to reinforce it. Just be yourself. Just go up there and you have, you know, you present your material as best you can and be yourself. Chances are, you know, you know, you know more about B2B copywriting and B2B writing than most of the audience members. So you're an expert on the topic in their eyes. So just share what you know, you know. And I appreciate it.

I heard somebody use the best analogy the other day when it comes to that. Right. About, you know, we, we all think we're going to get up there and we're speaking to a group of experts, copywriting experts, and that's not the case. They may know a little bit about copywriting. They might all be marketers, but the analogy he used is like, you know, it's like you're in sixth grade and they're in third or fourth grade, right. You remember back in grade school, right, you looked up to the sixth graders and you were in second or third grade and they look so big, right? And it's just, it's the same thing. You know, you, you get up there and you talk about a topic that you know well and you will know more about that. You know more about that topic than most of the audience.

That's true. In fact, I've never run into a situation where it was obvious that I didn't know more about the topic of copywriting than the audience knew. You know more because you've created a presentation to begin with, and simply by creating a presentation, you end up learning more, but you know more. And I want to reinforce this idea that if you're speaking in front of a group of marketing managers or directors, that they might know more about copywriting. They don't. Marketing directors have to go a mile wide and an inch deep, right. With their knowledge. So they got to know a little bit about everything. So they'll know a little bit about copywriting, but you know a lot about it, right?

Yeah.

So you know more than they do. And they'll hang on to every word you say.

And I couldn't agree with you more about Toastmasters, by the way. So I. My story was in. Two things happened to me around 1999. I decided I wanted to shift gears in my sales career and wanted to go into a type of selling that required much more presentations, doing more presentations in front of executives. And I had also been the best man at a really good friend's wedding. And even though it was a one minute speech, I Was so nervous I could barely do it. Even with an index card. Right. With the whole thing written right there. And I told myself those two things. I said, never, never again. I went to Toastmasters and I was there for a year. And let me tell you, the difference was night and day. I'm not saying that I was an expert coming out of there, but the confidence, the skills that I was able to gain, I mean, it's. It was. I would recommend it highly. And here's what I would say. Not every group, there's a bunch of chapters. If you live in a large metro area, there's probably hundreds or at least dozens of chapters. Go visit a few of them and get a feel for each group. Each group has a different personality because of the people. And I don't think it costs anything to be at a meeting. Just check them out and then join the one that you like the most, that feels the best to you, and that's going to be the one that's going to help you.

Great. That's very good advice. I wish I had got some experience with the Toastmasters group before I did my first big speaking gig many years ago. I would have been less nervous.

You wouldn't have needed as much antiperspirant, huh?

Yeah, yeah, because I was really uptight.

Well, you know, you'll still be a little nervous. I think it's very common. Right. But I mean, I couldn't even deliver a presentation. I was choking up so bad. Any parting thoughts before we wrap things up?

Yeah. The one advice that I would give people when they're doing a presentation is to be very, very clear about how they describe what they do. Don't have a convoluted elevator speech. Keep it very short and simple. If you're a copywriter who specializes in writing websites for health care companies, say that. I'm a copywriter. I specialize in writing websites for writing websites for healthcare companies. And keep it very, very simple because you want the audience to remember what you do and be very clear about what you do. If they're confused or if you add too many things to what you do, they won't remember it. So be very clear and simple and short.

Steve, this is really great. Very useful, very practical. And, you know, I will tell you, I've never tried this to get copywriting clients. I've used it in my coaching and my training business, but I've never done this. However, I know you and many others have had great success with this. So I encourage you guys, if this is resonating with you to just jump into it. And like Steve said, start small, start local. You don't have to go big. I think in fact, if you tell yourself you're going to go big, you won't do it. So start small and just see where it takes you. So thanks for coming on and listen to work. Where can people find out more about you? You're always working on new things and you know, where can I send folks to learn more about what you're up to?

Well, the best place to send folks to is my Copywriting Training center because I do a lot of teaching of copywriting and you can find out more about that@copywritingtrainingcenter.com awesome copywriting center.

TrainingCenter.com will include a link in the show notes. Again, Steve, thanks for coming on the show today. I appreciate you sharing all that with us.

It's my pleasure, Ed. Thank you.

Well folks, there you have it. What did I tell you? It's going to be a great show and that was absolutely wonderful information. I certainly learned a few things that I really wasn't aware of and hadn't really thought of. And you know what? I really believe that public speaking, as I mentioned in the interview, is way up there with some of those other core life skills that I think most people should learn. There's so many benefits to developing competency. I'm not talking about mastery. I'm just talking about becoming competent as a speaker. So many additional benefits that many people don't even think about until they start doing it. And one of them being increased self confidence. That's been huge for me and it's one of those things that I wasn't necessarily looking for, but it's really permeated me to different areas of my life, not just the act of public speaking. So this is something that you think is is you'd like to pursue Again. Toastmasters is a great place to start. Just get started. Just get started somewhere. You can grab the details shown us for this episode@b2b launcher.com Episode 47 and if you enjoyed the episode, you know what I'm going to tell you. I'd be very, very grateful if you share shared it with friends. The easiest way to do that is to use any of the social media sharing buttons that you see on the Show Notes page or go to b2b launcher.com love. Also, it would mean a lot to me if you're getting value from the show. If you decided to give the show a quick rating or review on itunes, many of you have done that already. Believe me, I read all of them. Means the world to me. Thank you so very much. The easiest way to do that, if you haven't done so already, is to go to b2b launcher.com forward/itunes. So that brings us to the end of the episode. This has been Ed Gandia. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you have an awesome day. The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher dot com.