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Profit From the Best Marketing Wisdom
by Burt Dubin
"90% of success is showing up."
 Those words, attributed to Woody Allen, pack a lot of speaking success savvy. I showed up last week when Stan Rapp and Tom Collins, who write on marketing, give a presentation.
All eyes and ears, I scanned their street smarts. Satisfied, I compared their marketing wisdom with my front-line findings as a professional speaker and mentor to other professional speakers. I captured some correlations between my work and theirs. I put what I confirmed into five categories. Here they are:
1. Love your audience
Nothing beats this. Love them, care about them, and empathize with them -- all in addition to sharing your mastery of your topic or issue. Help your audience feel better. Give them hope.
People today, regardless of their station in life, are inundated with negativity from special interests, from society's underbelly, from wild-eyed radicals with nothing to lose, from downsizings and mergers, from inhumane unprincipled acts in defiance of decency – and callous disregard for valid interests.
Through your understanding, your presence and your positive ideas, you have a chance to affect the attitudes and self-sense of all in your audiences.
This, in turn, impacts productivity, sales and profits. That's one way you make a difference as a professional speaker – the difference your clients yearn for.
2. Deliver extra value
Sweeten the deal with unexpected extras. Go the extra mile every which way. Do more than is expected, more than is required. Do more than any professional speaker in their right mind would do!
Dazzle decision-makers with surprising extras. Make yourself absolutely unforgettable. Here's how you do this: Pay resolute attention to every possible detail. Amaze your audience with extra research, extra handouts, extra participation, extra customizing.
3. Build long-term relationships
Let your first program with each client signal the start of an enduring connection. From the first contact, enter their world.
See the world through their eyes. Guide them to make more of themselves, to do more for their customers, their peers and their employees. Make yourself invaluable by the depth and scope of your insights. Touch their hearts and minds and lives.
4. Reinvent yourself continually
Leverage your assets and your skills. Keep pushing the envelope. Whatever you do, do it better tomorrow. Practice everlasting enhancement of what you deliver. Here's a role model for you:
I met Bob Pike in 1984. Then he was a one-man business. He was already the undisputed authority, the #1 person at training the trainer. He offered his one program in the USA only.
Every year since then I've watched Bob persistently leverage his assets and skills. He continues to reinvent himself. Within 13 years, he had a staff of juniors, a newsletter, a product catalog -- and an array of different programs presented worldwide.
How about you? How old are you to be in 13 years? Start reinventing yourself now. In 13 years I may write about you! Make 13 (or any other number you choose) your lucky number.
5. Rapp & Collins 3 Commandments
I. Do more than enough.
II. Make a passionate commitment to your clients.
III. Find unique solutions.
This theme is repeated throughout their book:
"Have a passion for caring and daring."
Here's a set of 7 actions. Take these actions starting now. Make your career – and your speaking profits – soar!
1. Love your audience.
2. Deliver extra value.
3. Build long-term relationships.
4. Reinvent yourself continually.
5. Do more, far more, than enough.
6. Make an all-out, full-bore commitment to your clients.
7. Have a passion for caring and daring.
Beyond Maximarketing by Rapp and Collins is published by McGraw Hill, NY. ISBN 0-070051343-0.
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