Speakers - Are You Using This Strategy at Live Events

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Speakers, are you using this one strategy at live events? My name is Shelley Hitz. I, I am not only the author of over 40 books, but I'm a professional speaker and I travel around the country and even internationally and have been speaking professionally since 2007. And I continue to learn, I continue to grow as a speaker. But this last weekend I was speaking at a conference, Penn Con 2016, and there was something I noticed in the sessions that I attended because I'm a lifelong learner. I'm a lifelong learner. And so I was in some of the sessions of the other speakers and there was one mistake I saw many of the speakers making and I wanted to share this tip with you today. So I am just getting everything put away from my speaking engagement this last weekend and I wanted to share this one tip with you. When you're at a live speaking engagement, this is one of the number one one times to be growing your email subscriber list. You have your target audience right there with you. They're getting to know, like and trust you and when you're speaking with them, whether it's in person or even on a webinar. But I'm talking about live events. When you're speaking to them at a live event, you have an incredible opportunity to add them to your tribe, your audience. And one of the mistakes I saw speakers making this weekend is simply putting a link on their slides to sign up for their free gift. We all are busy. What happens typically when you come home from a conference, you know, you've been gone for several days or a week or whatever, and all of a sudden you're playing catch up, right? I mean, unless you really, really, really, really want that gift, you know, many times you may forget or you may never go to sign up. However, when I was doing some coaching for my speaking, one of the things my coach taught me is you need to have a sign up list. You need to have a clipboard. And I got a teal one because teal is part of my branding with author audience. But get a clipboard and then what you want to do is you want to have a list that you pass around at your event for your free gift, a name and email. But the biggest thing you want to include is this little blurb at the bottom. Let me tell you what my blurb says because this will give you permission to add them to your subscriber email list. This blurb at the bottom, don't forget this blurb, okay? The blurb says, in addition to your free ebook, because I'm giving them a free ebook for signing up to my list. You'll also be subscribed to receive my newsletter for authors. You are welcome to opt out at any time. I will never sell or share your name, email address, or other personal information ever. I promise. Period. Now, why do you want to have this little paragraph at the bottom? Well, I keep all of these. I then will add these names into my list. I'll send them the gift I promised. I'll follow up with them and send them what I promised. But then I keep the actual original page. If my email subscriber service ever questions me, if I have permission to add those emails to my list, I have proof. I have proof because I have the printed copy and I have the blurb here that they were fully aware when they were signing up to this list. They were also signing up to my subscriber list. So if you use something like this at a speaking engagement, don't forget the blurb at the bottom. So how many of you are doing this? Share some of the things that you're doing to capture email subscribe subscribers at your live events. Now, some people are using text services, so you can actually have people take out their cell phones, text something to a number. But honestly, I think you're going to get the most response when you simply pass around a clipboard, a paper and a pen and have people sign up. It's positive peer pressure. Everyone's signing up. They're really excited at the moment. They they are there with you live. So why not get them do that? The second option would definitely be to have them text something. I would not ever recommend just doing the link to have them sign up later because we all know we get busy and it ain't gonna happen later for most of those audience participants. So you can have that disclaimer anywhere. You just have to have that disclaimer somewhere on the sheet. And I also say, say, by the way, you're also signing up for my list when you sign up for the free gift. What I like to do is I like to put a 3D image of the gift that they're getting in color at the top of the page. It's a 3D color image of the gift that they're getting. Even if it's a digital gift, which most likely it is, have your disclaimer on there that they're Signing up for your list, they can opt out at any time and pass it around. Make sure you have your own clipboard. You can have a branded clipboard if you want. You know, you can get a fun logo or something on the back of your clipboard or make something really cool. But basically you're going to want to capture those email addresses if they unsubscribe. They were not part of my tribe to begin with. They were not one of my lifers anyways. But what you want to do is you want to have the greatest opportunity to capture as many people as you can to continue to be part of your audience, your tribe, your lifers and the best way, my speaking coach, Felicia Slattery, she's been doing this for decades. And the very, very best way is simply to have your clipboard and sign up sheet. Now, if you have a va, you, you could scan this and have them enter the names and emails for you. It does take a little bit more energy on the back end, but your email subscriber list is your number one asset in your business. If you're not using live events to build your subscriber list to the best potential you can, you're missing out on a huge, huge opportunity. The other thing I do is I send follow up emails specific to that list list that heard me in that specific location for different things when I speak in Colorado. I've spoken a couple times this year already at author events in Colorado. I can email them about my Colorado writing retreat. They already live here. I know they're from here. It was local people that were at those events. And so I can email those specific lists, follow up emails as well. So it's a great way to do it, but just take that extra little time and it will yield much better results. One other little tip for my signup list, I now have a template in Word. I'm all about systems, I'm all about templates. I'm all about let's work smarter, not harder. Amen. And so I have a Word template and I just simply change a couple things, change the image, change what they're getting and I can make these quick, quick, quick, quick. So create a template one time how you want to set it up. Have your little blurb about what they're signing up to and then you have a template you can use and you can change it for every single presentation that you give in minutes. I literally usually think about it and I'm like, oh, I need to do this. I'll change it real quick and then I'LL make sure I print it off and usually I'll just have it printed off when I go like to print it off at Staples, my handouts and stuff. I'll just get that printed off as well because it usually comes out looking better than my own printer. You may have a nice printer at home, so do it. Make sure you are gathering all the email subscribers you can when you're at live events, give a related gift to your topic, something that they're going to really want, something that they're going to want to sign up for, and then just pass the clipboard around. I just did this this weekend actually the last two engagements that I had and I've already had people signing up for Author Audience Academy that heard me at those events that I added to my list. I've already had opportunities for follow up for one on one coaching and other things and so make sure that you're taking the best advantage that you have when you are speaking for gathering your audience, gathering your tribe, and building what I believe is your number one asset in your business, your email subscriber list. Again, this is Shelly Hitz and I encourage you, if you have not already, to subscribe. Subscribe to my Facebook Live videos so that you can get notified when I'm live and I will see you next time. Buh. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.