Telesummit Speaker Invitation -- a Bad (but Typical!) Example...

Have you ever heard of a telesummit or a virtual conference? Maybe you have attended one or maybe you've even been invited to speak on a telesummit. Well, I have been around this kind of industry now for just about 10 years and I've been invited to speak and I've spoken on probably a dozen telesummits over the years and I've declined a lot more. And I'll tell you why I decline to speak on telesummits most of the time. Because the telesummit industry, the way that most of it is done, is very disingenuous. It's not really trying to serve the audience, but it's primarily trying to build the email list of the host. If you've ever taken any training about building an email list, okay, almost certainly you will come across the strategy of, well, just host a telesummit. A telesummit is basically, if I were hosting one, I would be inviting 20 to 40 speakers to guest speak on my telesummit. But I'm going to require them, all 20 to 40 of them, to email their email list at least two times. With solo promo emails, it's what it's technically called, a solo promo email is an email that is only about the telesummit and I'm going to require the 20 to 40 speakers to each have at least 5,000 people on their email list before they're allowed to speak on the telesummit. So you can see from these requirements that the host is not thinking, gosh, I really care so much about the audience that I want to bring the best speakers and I really want to bless them no matter what. And I want it to be a great win for the host or for the speakers. No, they're primarily thinking of themselves and their own email list. It's out of fear, out of desperation, out of greed, out of desire for power that these telesummit strategies are typically taught and implement it. So I received. But that's not always the case. There really are telescopic speakers. I want to give a shout out to Kristen Morrison. She does the pet business conference. She does. You know, she and others have invited me to speak because they actually think that I have something of value to contribute and whether or not I have a 5,000 person email list and can send two solo promo emails or whatever they said. No, no, your expertise is the audience I think would really benefit from your expertise in particular. That's why I'm inviting you. And yes, if you promote it, then I'd be grateful, but it's not required. And Kristin Morrison, for example, she had me, I spoke there. And she has continued to sell or to redo the telesummit as recordings in ongoing years, which is great because she believes in the product, you see, and she might even sell the telesummit recordings. I believe she does. But most people don't do that. Most people just want the speakers. They just want to use the speaker's audience to build their own list. And so I received one of those invitations just today. Was it today? Yesterday. Anyway, and I want to read it to you. And I'm not going to reveal the person's name because. And the person's name doesn't even matter because you're going to get this kind of invitation when you start to get more visible. Okay? So watch out for this kind of thing. So the email, first of all was sent by, not by the host herself, but was sent by the host's VA virtual assistant. So immediately that's a red flag for me. If I care enough to create a conference or create a summit. And I thoughtfully am inviting people, I'm not going to have an assistant do it. I'm going to do it myself. That's the minimum amount of respect for the guest speaker to reach out to them yourself to say, hey, I like your work, maybe even mention, I really like that you recently wrote about this or you recently spoke about that. And I would be honored to have your presence in my virtual conference in my telesummit. You know, it should be that kind of feeling rather than just having a VA blast out a templated invitation to 100, 200, 500 speakers who have a Facebook page of this many followers. It's ridiculous and it's disrespectful, but it's what's happening in the telesummit industry. Okay, so this is what the VA wrote to me. The host's intention for this event is focuses on empowering attendees with easy to apply and life changing. So first of all, you know, it's presumed to say that the focus is really to empower the attendees. So get that in mind. That's the focus. Right, Let me keep going. With life changing, easy to apply and life changing tools and strategies to reach their dreams of financial independence, time freedom and emotional fulfillment in their business and and in their life. I'm like, wow, that's a tall order. That's a lot of material to cover. And I bet each speaker gets a really good amount of time to really go into such life changing advice. Right? Okay, now the email continues. She's hosting this online summit of experts who can provide valuable insight in the field of online business. And she would be honored to include and feature you in the field of online business. But I thought you just talked about time, freedom, emotional fulfillment in business and life. Why suddenly focus on the online business? Okay, she'd be honored to include and feature you. Include and feature you. What's the difference between include you and feature you? There's no difference. It's just a disingenuous kind of. Let's put that word in because it sounds cool as an expert speaker on this panel versus a normal speaker. Is there an expert speaker and a normal speaker? I don't know. It's so. Okay, let's keep going with the email. Participation would consist of one 20 minute pre recorded video interview via Zoom which will launch on such and such date. This requires no travel on your end and can be performed whenever you are available between now and August 5th. Okay, I'm receiving this. I received it yesterday. I received this on September 24. So the interview would have been done by August 5. So already the VA, her, she, the host or the VA didn't even care enough to check these emails to make sure that they changed the date. I just am so amazed. This person is, you know, has so little care. And what's ironic, this host, when I go to her Facebook page, the COVID image is you matter and it's about. The core message is about you mattering. I'm like, well, obviously even as a potential referral source, even as a peer of yours, I don't even matter, let alone your audience. I mean it's like it blows my mind how people can care so little except building their list. Like how can you be So I just, I'd literally, maybe I'm so far from that world now, I just, I just literally do not understand anymore. It's so much greed and so much lack of caring for people and for their audience. Anyway, so first of all, a 20 minute interview and you want me, so you want me to change the audience's life in 20 minutes. Do you really care about your audience? Do you really care about me? Okay, so let me, let me keep going. In this email, she continues on. We would like to feature a for sale item of your choice at the end of your interview as a thank you for your participation and to really create a win win in cross exposure and making a difference for our audience. Sounds good. But listen, you want me in 20 minutes to not only change your audience's life but also sell something in 20 minutes. You gotta be effing kidding me. In 20 minutes. Maybe I'll give a tip or two. That might be interesting, but to then sell something as well. So Basically these are 20 minute sales messages that the audience is going to be receiving. And you want me to promote this to my audience to say, hey everybody, join this great telesummit. Because by the way, you're spending getting like 40 different 20 minute sales messages. I would have to not care about my audience. I would have to only care about, well, what if I get in my 20 minutes in the month I can share my message for 15 minutes with the audience to change their life and in five minutes I'm going to sell them and I might reach new audiences. I don't care about my own audience getting lied to and deceived and joining this person's email list and probably going to get sold again and again by her and her partners. I used to do this, so I shouldn't say I don't get it because I used to do stuff like this. So I do get it. It was because I wasn't breathing, okay? Literally and metaphorically in my life, I wasn't breathing. So I didn't get into my heart and say, how is this really affecting people? Or do I just care about my fear of not having enough of a livelihood and my greed of having more money and more power in my life? It's just, it's amazing. It's amazing. And some of you are watching this and you're flabbergasted because you don't get these kinds of invitations. You're like, wow, this behind the scenes stuff, I mean, this is what's happening in the online marketing world and this is what you are. The people you're learning from. Most of the people you're learning from in the online marketing world are doing this kind of stuff behind the scenes and this kind of callousness, in my opinion, not caring about their audience. Right? So let me continue on with her email. We ask that each speaker send two solo emails to their list. 5000 list minimum required and promote on social media to celebrate this incredible series of sales messages. I mean, I'm just amazed. I'm just, I just am amazed. I'm just, I don't know what to say. I really. But this exact template is being taught by telesummit speakers all around the world teaching their people. This is how you run a telesummit. You send these templated messages to you know speakers whom you don't care about, you don't care about their audience. You don't even care about your audience. But it will build. Your audience, will build the numbers, you know, and you could sell. Then you'll make some sales, you'll make some money. Who cares about the people? And that's really the key message here is marketing that doesn't care. It doesn't care about the audience. It doesn't even care about your peers and let alone your peers audience. Okay, this is what's going on. And anyway, I think that's the end of the email and maybe that's the end of this video as well. I just plead, I plead on behalf of humanity that please care in your marketing. Please do not look at your audience as somebody, as just numbers to use to benefit your own bottom line, because there's enough of that out in the world and we need you to care. And of course, the fact that you're watching this means that you care more than most people and you will stand out because you care more than most people. But show your audience that they care and be very. Have a strong stance of no. When somebody approaches you with this kind of marketing, whether you're a consumer of it, you don't stand for it. And when you're approached, do this kind of marketing for your people or for other people, don't stand for it to say, no, I'm not going to. I'm not going to, you know, and you don't have to criticize the person. Like, I just didn't respond to this email. I just didn't respond because it doesn't. I'm not going to dignify the response. Right. I'm just not even going to dignify that behavior. And yeah, so anyway, if you care enough, your audience will find you to be special and you're going to stand out. So that's the bottom line. Thanks. For those who were able to join me for this live video, Natasha and Jana, Karen and Diane, Captain and Miriam, thank you so much. And until the next video. And Stacy, thank you for joining as well. I wish you genuine sense of fulfillment. But when you are doing your marketing because you care and the audience gets that real sense that you care, be well.