Ep. 266 DO THEY KNOW?

Hey there, Mark Brown. Do they know?

Do they know? Do they even. Do they know? I don't know.

First of all, who are they and do they know? It's your responsibility.

Let's find out.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time, stage time, stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas, let's dive right in.

Hey there, Marc Brown. I always go back to the wisdom of Fripp, Patricia Fripp. Wisdom. If you don't know her. The first female president of nsa, our friend, our mentor and our co author for our book Deliver Unforgettable Presentations. And Mark, this is your idea. And the first thing I thought of is something that Patricia says so eloquently. It is not their job to know how they can engage in your services. Something like that. It's not the audience's job to know how else they can use you. What other ways could you help them? If we're an expert, it shouldn't just be the speech. There could be. Well, Mark, let's kind of go down what else it could be. But more importantly, how can we let them know without overwhelming them, without alienating them, without turning them off? You know, so whatever your expertise is, maybe you're a trainer, maybe you have online courses. So maybe it's a live training for the company or a group of individuals from the association that you're speaking to. Maybe it's an online course, maybe it's one on one coaching. You and I do that. We even do duo coaching, which.

That's right, that's right. And you mentioned that it could be a webinar because sometimes, you know, I've no, I, I have done webinars for clients before. I could didn't do a speech, but they paid for a webinar because he said, okay, we can't get him this time or he gave a live talk this time. We have to do, didn't see him and we can't bring him back, but we can pay for a webinar and they can plan that as well. So you got an opportunity, you said, we got a training, you got a webinar additional workshop. And let's get talk about it for a second, Darren. I mean very often we meet speakers Who I want to be a keynote speaker and that's great. But what if, what if you coupled that keynote with a workshop or a breakout session at conferences? I've done that. I don't want to be known solely as the opening keynote or the closing keynote. There have been times I've done a keynote which led to a packed house for the workshop after my keynote. Darren, you've done the same thing, keynotes and workshops. And they realize the workshop is a deep, it's a deeper dive, there's more interaction and sometimes someone who engages you may not realize as good as you are as a keynote or a presenter, you'd be really great conducting a workshop afterwards.

Exactly. Yeah. It allows you to go deeper, as Patricia says. Also the keynote is the. Is a higher level of abstraction and it tends to be more inspirational, more entertaining as opposed to the training where we go and show the how tos. So it's very different. And again it goes back to us. Do they know, does the event planner know how to. How they could engage in your services? Again, if you're an expert now, maybe you're not a trainer and that's okay, but maybe you have an online course, maybe like us, you have a podcast that you can let them know about. When we just sponsored the Toastmasters International convention, there was our convention booth, we were having one on one conversations and we led them to hey, come join us for this training on Saturday. We rented a meeting room and that allowed us to engage and show more votes value of what we do and how they could engage in us. We have stage time university, so here's a way they could stay connected to us, get coaching from us and go through our, through our step by step courses. So it gave them a plethora of ideas. That's a big word for me. That's a big word.

Darren is that. Darren said plethora. I'm impressed.

Note the date. Super quick side note, if you're listening to this and it doesn't sound as high quality as normal, I'm on the road. It was an unexpected trip. So we're recording this from the road. Mark is in his office. But if you hear a difference in quality, we just want you to understand why you hear that difference. And we felt it was more important to get the content out there than to be perfect. So we love feedback, we love hearing, getting feedback, especially when it's true and honest and helpful and you know, we want that. However, on this one, please don't blame my audio quality on Mark or on our podcast. And if you want. No more. We just did an episode. Well, we did episode 265, which is when life happens, what do you do? How do you handle that? When life happens and you're a speaker and there's a death in the family, there's a tragedy, you get Covid. So if you haven't listened to that episode 265, please go check that out. But I wanted to get that little disclaimer in. But this is about, do they know? It is our responsibility to let them know. So, Mark, my first thought is, we need to let them know, right? During the, let's say, pitch meeting, when you're talking and they're engaging in you, they're considering a few speakers. Let them know, because that could be a big differentiator. If you're a breakout session and a keynote, and maybe you charge more, maybe you don't, that's your call. But if you let them know, that might just be the. The opening that they need now. They realize, ooh, we don't have to pay as much for the second session, or we don't. Maybe we don't have to pay at all. I know I'm willing to do it for no extra charge because it allows me to not just be inspirational, but then show how I can train them to get them to engage our university. Come to one of our workshops.

And Darren, you mentioned that for a moment there, I began to think, or try to think as a meeting planner would. And the point you made just now about being a keynote speaker and a breakout session presenter, think about this. They're considering, I'm going to hire Darren for this. I'm going to hire Jimmy for that. They're now thinking, oh, if one person can provide both services, not only am I not paying a second fee, I'm not paying a second airfare, a second hotel, a second conference fee, a second ground, a second F and B food and beverage. They're thinking about the budget, and I can get that for at least half off or maybe even more off. It would make sense to hire the individual who is more versatile, who can add value and really serve my clientele. To my bosses, I look good, I'm under budget, I have surplus. And that is really a benefit for the meeting planner as well. That's one more way you can serve them. By offering to do more than one or perform more than one service at an event, you're not only serving the attendees, you're really serving the meeting planner. And when you make them look good, chances are they'll call you back.

Yeah, and you may not look at this as marketing, but that's exactly what it is. It's differentiating you, it's adding more value. And by the way, so one is in the pre call when they're still deciding when maybe call it a promotional call or a pitch call when you're pitching your services. And a next place that we can let them know how else we can serve them is right in the contract. Whether we verbalize it or not, we offer our books right in the contract. Hey, if you'd like a book for everyone which allows you to tap into another budget, it also allows you to show more credibility. And it's often that I've had some of the bigger conventions and conferences asking me about books, but sometimes I would say maybe half the time they don't even think of that at that point. So as Patricia says, again, it's our responsibility to let them know how else they can use us.

And it's funny because I'm going to a client overseas next week and when we pitched them, we pointed out they could also have a book for each attendee at the event and they said, oh, that's a great idea. And they chose to get the books as well. Had we not let them know, it wouldn't have crossed their mind, wouldn't be on the radar. And the book is important now. Darren, you also mentioned Stage Time University for some presenters. They could be part of a community or they're building a community perhaps in their niche. They could be someone, for example, who talks to parents or moms and they're building a community with moms. And they speak to women's groups. Let them know, join our community, get involved, participate. We want to hear your voice. And they realize there's value beyond the presentation, there's value beyond the workshop. I can actually be involved in a community of like minded people. We can help each other. Bing, I'm in. And many people do that through Facebook or LinkedIn groups. But that's another option that you can let people know. You can be a part of a like minded community that we can grow together. We can serve each other, we can, we can help each other. And very often because we want to be a part of something. We're humans, we want community. It's a very, very good option. But again, unless we tell them, they'll never know. You'll never know. Yeah.

And I know our friends and fellow keynote speakers like Ron Carr, Dr. Jeff McGee, they are consultants as well. So they need to let people know in the before meeting during their presentation. Mark, so let's, let's talk about that in your presentation. Are you planting seeds? Are you planting seeds as content? So that's the key. Not just, but planting sees seeds as content. For example, at one of our workshops we had somebody come up on stage and we were coaching them. And Mark, I just did this in a presentation last week in California and I used the example of the gentleman we had who sat in front of the casket and delivered a prayer to his uncle and how it was very poignant. And then later on he walked across the stage and went somewhere else and then talked about honoring his, honoring his uncle's memory. And his uncle loved picnics. So he came back and stood in the same spot and spread out a picnic blanket about having a picnic to honor their uncle. Well, the problem was, and I asked the audience, you see the problem? And some of them picked up on it right away. Some of them, I had to point out that the casket was where he had the picnic. And so even though the audience might not have known what was happening, they might have felt uncomfortable and not even known why. Well, it was our job to create awareness to this presenter that he had to create two different scenes. Well, when I use that as content and an example that I have workshops and I do coaching. So if we use examples from our clients, from our courses, from our one on one consulting within our presentation, the people who are looking for a coach or looking for a consultant, they're going to pick up on that. But it's content. So it's not just pitching, but it's using an example on how I help someone else.

And the wisdom behind that, Darren, is this truth for many emerging speakers, they may not realize this. Their organizations, individuals, groups, corporations, they don't like you to quote, unquote, sell from stage, get up and pitch your book, your course or your idea. But if, as Darren says, if in the course, no pun intended, of your delivery of your presentation, you make it known. And I don't make a big deal this, but I in a presentation, I'll say I often tell my coaching clients when we get together one on one about this, I often tell my coaching clients, I'm telling the audience. I accept coaching clients. It's not deliberately used as a strategy just to sell them. It does come out naturally in the course of my presentations because I do coach quite a bit. And when they hear what I tell my coaching clients. I spoke at a National Speakers association meeting some time ago and that came out in my presentation. And three People approached me afterwards about coaching. I wasn't selling coaching from the stage. I mentioned I work with my coaching clients. I tell them this particular technique. I talked about it, I was teaching a technique, but I said my coaching clients three words that got their attention. It can be that simple and it's no hard sell. I say again, meeting planners don't want they, they frown on selling from the stage. Blatantly, openly meet back in the room, go get my book. You don't need to do that. And I've seen some presenters actually quote their book and show the book. Not to say you can bite in the back, but they mentioned the book and the quotation or the example and they leave it there and then somebody comes, hey, do you have any of your books I saw you mentioned earlier? Oh, sure I do. They're asking me for the book. I'm not selling them the book, but it's one more way to let them know what else is available, what else I offer and ways I can add value to my presence and my time with them.

Yeah, and I've never had an event planner come up to me and say, why did you use that coaching client example? You've never said that. And that's another great point too, Mark. Depending now, by the way, you can't just mention coaching clients and expect people will come up to you.

Exactly.

The audience. But you can still help people while planting that seed and the right people will come to you if you show the true value. Another simple idea talking about booksmark is I like the idea of reading a line from your book and asking before I do that I might ask who came the farthest or who's a first time attendee. I use the example from the book, literally hold it up and read it from the book. I might have the page bookmarked or something. So quick, easy access. But there's the introducer can tell you the audience you have a book. They're not always focused yet and they might be thinking blah, blah, blah.

Right.

But when you hold up a book, it's very visible and then you give it away to a first timer. Or I've had people that I've met in the hallway who have a, a tough or difficult challenge that everyone in the audience can relate to or know. So sometimes I'll single them out and I'll give them the book and then I'll let the audience know what the challenge was. Of course, if it's okay with the person, I'm not going to make them uncomfortable and then I'll Get a round of applause for them. Again, no one's ever been offended, but I'm letting people know what the book is about or how the book can help them or where it ties into my keynote. Very important.

It has to connect in some way. It has to be relevant, organic. Yes. It shouldn't seem like, oh, I found a way to work my book in so I can sell it. Look, and Darren made a key point here. He says you may make a mention of the book and nobody, you know, ask about coaching or what other book and that's fine. But those who truly are interested will at least have the conversation. And the goal is not to sell them something immediately, but at least have the conversation. And very often, you know, a question like, yeah, well, how could I possibly help you with that? You know, how can I help you with that? Be very, be very honest and very conversational and see where that leads. But I'm thankful that when you mentioned that you can see it in your presentation that you have more to offer as well, you mentioned in the pre event call that you'd be helpful for letting planner know what else you may offer. And sometimes they'll say that's nice or maybe next time. It doesn't hurt at times to have, have a post event conversation just to kind of, you know, recap what went well, what could we do better? And sometimes in that second call as you kind of review would be dependent on what happened. You can remind them of what else you have to offer. And we have to be sensitive because very often meeting planners are overwhelmed. They've got to make a decision on somebody right away. They're thinking about budget or meals, food and beverage or accommodations, registrations, a lot's going on in their heads. Afterwards you may have a little bit more leeway to recap what went well. Had I known so and so, maybe I could do something else for you down the road and just let again plant the seed gently and kindly, but at least let them know what helps. What else or what more? I prefer the word more. What more you may have to offer. And sometimes you may not. We may miss an opportunity, but somebody approaches us, hey, you know, I like a program, you know, do you have any books, any courses, any videos I can look at? And when they ask the question, it's an open door for you because you are leading, they are. So I guess what I'm saying is as far as attendees are concerned, not necessarily the meeting planner, but there are times attendees will come forward and ask, hey, do you have any videos online on YouTube or Vimeo. I could look, I look at. Be prepared for when those questions come. Almost anticipate when they come. What will I say if somebody asks these questions? I can recall last year in Bahamas, we were at your booth, Darren, or at your table in the Bahamas and people were buying books from us, which is really cool. Somebody asked about can I see a video somewhere? Can I, can I see. Mark, you work with youth. Do you have any video of you talking to schools? I got an email this week with that question. Is there any video of you talking to kids in schools? Because they may have seen me as a corporate keynoter, but in my conversation I mentioned my talks to youth. Sharing what else you offer can lead to questions from attendees and meeting planners and even individuals who work on a technical team. I mean we were in. Was it Miami, Darren, where the guy was on the. On a big. He was on the. He was doing lights, had this big device. I crane. It was a crane inside a ballroom. Really cool guy. And you had a really good talk with him about what, what our offerings. And he's a technical person, not involved in the staging or the planning. But you never know who make up and say, you know, that was good. I may know somebody who could use your program. What else do you have to offer? Do you do webinars? Be prepared for the question and give answers that gives them a reason to talk to you at least one more time. You may not want to sell immediately, but what you do want is the next conversation.

Yeah. Another idea to our friend. Chad Hymas is a legend at this unbelievable motivational inspirational speaker hall of fame speaker. He offers a video series as a follow up to the keynote to get them to apply what they learned in their work. So he customizes it for each of his clients. But for him, that's a huge back end that offers this as a supplement to his keynote. Because think about it. I mean Mark, just like when you and I are, well, when you're going to Australia, but our, our client, that book deliver unforgettable presentations is like the logical next step, right? And learn from us. So I believe, as Fripp says, it's not only our responsibility to let them know, but it's our responsibility to make sure they understand that sometimes a speech is just going to open the door. But if they don't do anything with it, then the door becomes closed. So we need to not only open the door, but think about this. What's your next step after your keynote? At the beginning, when I started my career and didn't have a book yet. Back in the 90s I pushed the Judy Carter book because I knew that I could open the idea that people could learn to be funnier. So I gave them that logical next step. Now if I'm talking about humor, I would talk about my humor boot camp where we take two days and we train people in a comedy club. So think of what is your keynote? What is that next step? And it's our job to make them aware. Now we can't give them a list of everything, but depending on your keynote there is a best next step. Now it might be different when you're doing the pre call before your keynote. You might have another idea at the end and another way we talked about in the middle of your presentation at the end. Talk a dot a game changer in terms of letting people know, getting feedback. If you're not familiar with taka dot, check out takadot.com we have an episode on it in where we sat down with the owner and in my opinion that's one of the biggest game changers recently to the speaking business as well as AI. I don't want to discount AI, that's huge industry. But talk a dot is the game changer meaning asking for feedback. And during the asking of the feedback which we can get to the event planner, there is a question in the feedback. Are you an event planner? Do you plan events? It's a very subtle way to ask for referrals. And then there's the custom question if you have the pro level, which I do, where you can say, hey, would you like a one on one conversation? In that one on one conversation we can do whatever we want. We want to help the people, but let them know about the best next step for them. Someone might want a one on one conversation. In that conversation I might say, hey, you really need stage time University. That'd be an affordable way to get feedback. If they're serious and they have a big speech coming up, I might say, hey, your best next step would be one on one coaching with Mark or with Mark and me. Depending on the event and the client and the budget the person has, it might be to come to one of our workshops. Mark I just spoke at NSA Las Vegas last week and there's a couple people that our workshop Unforgettable presentations to literally walk them through the keynote that they want to create. Well, it could go through stagetime University but more directly to have us hold their hand and walk them through that. Unforgettable Presentations is coming up a Virtual workshop. So we need to talk. A DOT is a great way near the end of the presentation to not only get feedback, but let people know how else they can engage in your expertise in your services.

And the key is you need to have. We encourage you to have that conversation. These techniques and tools we just kind of mentioned to you are means whereby you can get that. You can get that conversation started and keep it going. But just to kind of recap real quickly, Darren, so many options. And we could, you could do a workshop training, online course, a podcast, you could provide coaching, a webinar, maybe you could do, even become a consultant for them. And I didn't mention this one. I have a couple of clients who are new. One of them mentions that she goes and speaks at retreats that people have. And again, if you're in a certain niche and you know people who hold retreats and you may be a perfect retreat facilitator, that's some one more way you can serve the audience. I mean, she has spoken in Africa and. But now she's doing a retreat this weekend. That's wonderful news. Already, even though she's emerging, she's aware that my offerings are not limited or restricted to. And in my particular case, I can be doing a keynote for a corporation or an association. And in conversation they find out, wait, you also talk to junior senior high school kids? Yeah, I've talked about a million kids in the last 30 years. Oh, really? And I've gotten calls from people who said they referred me because they heard about me. And then it's a matter of just almost snowballs. But unless they know what you have to offer and I just give you a huge list of options, maybe you could, but never thought about it. Maybe you wanted to, but you were maybe not so sure. Think about what more you can offer to add value and give greater value and think about tools like talk. A DOT will give you an opportunity right there to invite them to engage with you, tell you what they think of your presentation, but also find out in what other ways you can serve them. The key is you have to make sure they know what they understand and clearly see the ways that you can add value. Because if somebody asks you, do they know you don't want to say no, you want to give more positive answer to that question.

Yeah, we're so close to ourselves that we can't understand. It's hard to step back and say, what do I need to create awareness about? So, Mark, I don't. This is maybe not a Darrenism, but an Idea. We need a verbal link tree conversation. A verbal link tree conversation. If you're not familiar, it's a, it's a link that sends you out to all the different ways that they could learn from you. So what are they, what are the other ways they could learn? That's link tree. So but we need to not just give them everything, have the appropriate next step or have that one on one conversation where what are your challenges? How can I help you? And then my final thought for this is mark in talk a dot or in the middle of my presentation, depending on the client. I send my clipboards around, which sounds like old school, but some of my audiences are older and the clipboard is where they send sign up for my newsletter which has a QR code on it for the younger viewers. But some of my audiences, they prefer to just write out their email and look, I've done both. I still, my older audiences, I still get way more percentage of my audience when I pass the clipboard, much larger percentage. Now here's what I'm saying. I offer my top 10 speaking mistakes. When I'm speaking about speaking, I tell them it's free, there's no charge and I will put you on my newsletter list. If you don't want it, feel free to opt off. So it's a very low risk way to get them on my newsletter list. Your number one asset is your list. It has served me. It's how I get people to know about my other services. So I send out a newsletter and here are my workshops, here's stagetime University, here's my one on one coaching. So I show them in my newsletter ways that we can engage and help in a format that works for them. And some people choose all of the above. They join stage time and they come to our workshops. So the newsletter list, my number one asset is the best way that you can let them know how you do it. Because now sometimes I do it through talk a dot if I'm not passing clipboards. But now I stay top of mind. Each week they get it. Even if they don't open it, even if they don't open my newsletter, I'm staying top of mind. Even if they read the subject line stage time or be a sponge. Like I'm staying top of mind because six months from now you might have somebody who sees you and loves you and then six months later their spouse says, hey, you know, our company's looking for great speaker on quote unquote your topic.

Right.

Do you know any? Oh yeah, we saw this great one six months ago. I don't remember what their name was, but they were awesome. I love them, but I don't remember what their name was. But if we're staying in front of them, even if it's once a month, they're more likely to engage us. And even if they don't know, they might reach out to us or through our contact form and say, hey, do you know someone that does this? Or do you do something like this, have a course, do a training, do consulting. So that's kind of the the plan of how you can do before, during and after. Let them know how else they can engage you.

And the key is whatever service you add could always bring greater value to your audience. Here's my challenge to really think about what you really have to offer beyond your presentation and ask yourself, in what other ways could I serve my audiences beyond my presentation? And then ask yourself, do they know?

See you next week.

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