Confidence is an essential factor when it comes to speaking in the corporate world. Flourishing speakers in this field must emanate confidence and self-assurance through networking, marketing, and even in casual conversations.

The most important thing in the corporate speaking business is building connections. Remember, “ABC”, which stands for Always Be Collecting. This means that you must constantly build your database. The bigger your database the more speaking opportunities you are making for yourself. Your database is never too large.

Corporate speaking has been one of the most profitable enterprises when it comes to the industry of public speaking. However, it can be a daunting industry because you are speaking in front of highly professional and intelligent people.

At some point in your career, you will find yourself entering this arena and you might like it because you can make a very good living as a speaker. The problem though is how to get a spot at these corporate speaking events.

It can be difficult at first but once you get those first few bookings at corporate events, with a good presentation, you can get booked again and again and raise your fees as you improve.

To get more bookings in this arena, you must be aggressive with your marketing. Don’t just rely on your fliers, posters, or your paid advertisements to do the majority of the work. You must get out there and network.

This is the total opposite of just waiting for the phone to ring, hoping some group or company calls to avail your speaking services. Dynamic marketing is the secret and is probably the best way to get speaking engagements in this niche.

Nothing is going to happen for you if you are just sitting at home and thinking someone owes you a chance to speak just because you have a college degree or a certain skills. You have to grab the bull by its horns and be aggressive with your marketing.

Building a large database by collecting information and referrals is only done through proactive networking. Get out there and join speaking clubs, groups, or parties. Speak with people, share stories and most importantly share contact information while casually disclosing what you can do and how you can help.

Remember – Serve others first when you are building your corporate speaking career and more doors will be open for you.  Think about how you can help the meeting planner, or the agency, or the executive that might hire you.  When you approach people with this attitude you’ll be amazed at how helpful they become.

Please tell us what you think about building a corporate speaking career?

Here is an awesome interview with Joan Stewart and James Malinchak on making Big Money in the college speaking market.  You will get some of James’ best listings for the college market along with his #1 tip for building a speaking career.

This interview is going to give you some major insights into building your career:

Save Your Seat for this Event Today – http://www.CollegeSpeakingSuccess.com/SaveMySeat

What are you doing to market your speaking business? Leave a comment:

“I am Excited to Announce The

Latest Celebrity That Will Be

At My December Boot Camp!

Go Here to See Who It Is – CLICK HERE“

Today we announce the winner of the Guess Who contest, here is what they won…

• Two (2) Tickets to This Decembers Boot Camp (value $9994)
• My Big Money Speaker Home Study Course (value $997)
• My College Speaking Success Home Study Course (value $997)
• Two (2) VIP Tickets For This Boot Camp (value priceless)
• And You Will Get Your Picture With This Emmy Winning Actor at My Event! (value more-than-priceless)

If you are working towards becoming a motivational speaker it is IMPERATIVE that you listen to this interview!

Writing a book is so important that I am speaking with Rick at his event Author 101 this fall.

If you would like information about this event just click the image below.

Here is the interview:

Have you written a book? Share the title here.  Are you thinking about writing a book? What is it going to be about?  Leave a comment:

How To Write A Speech in 5 Minutes Or Less

Imagine this scenario…

When you are working towards becoming a motivational speaker you will absolutely run into this situation.

Things get busy, you are working hard, maybe falling asleep at your desk…Then someone catches you off-guard and tells you that you are needed to speak in just a few minutes from now? You don’t have anything prepared except your ability, flair, and finesse.

Would you chicken out and come up with excuses not to speak? Or will you grab the opportunity to get another marketing exposure, get paid and deliver a great speech?

As a speaker you should try to have formulated methods on how to create speeches quickly.

Let me share to you my personal techniques on how to make a speech in 5 minutes or less. Maybe you can use it when last minute situations happen to you.

Firstly, you should get an idea about the audience and their disposition in order to come up with a topic and approach.

Investigate, as much as you can, into who the audience is; what type of people are they? Are they business people, students, or educators? Next, you want to try and anticipate the mood and disposition of the audience. Are they having motivational problems? Are they frustrated with current economy?

Once you know who you are talking to, you can decide your topic and the approach of delivering your speech. Will you be funny, enthusiastic or will you be sober and insightful? What ever it will be, make sure it will be appropriate. This process will just take you a few seconds to deliberate. Or you could just ask the person who proposed you to speak. Usually, audience info and speech topic is given to you straight away.

Now to the exciting part… Making your speech.

Each speaker has his or her own method. Some, if not most, are doing it instinctively. If you still don’t have the knack of making a 5-minute speech, let me share to you a basic trick to develop it. You can implement this and you can build from it and then you will have your own style.

Fundamentally, you must know how to outline your speech. Here is a formula that can make it easy for you.

1. Make a catchy, attention-grabbing introduction.

Start with a quote, amazing fact,statistic, joke, or controversial statement; whatever it is make it interesting. You want to do something unusual and different, so be creative.

After a brief self-introduction, summarize to the audience what you’re going to be speaking to them about. Some sort of like a preview.

2. Make key points

Making three points is adequate. In fact, people tend to remember three points easily. But you can go more than that. Just make sure to be clear.

3. Rephrase your points, quotes, anecdotes, or stories to support your points

Rephrases your points, tell stories, quotes, anecdotes, or provide lessons that are relevant to your point. You can go on and on with these as long as it stays interesting and informative.

4. Wrap it up

Conclude your speech. Maybe, you can give a story that can support all of your points. In the process, you should be summarizing the content of your speech in a notable way.

That’s it. That’s the formula for creating a speech in 5 minutes or less. Once you know the basics you’ll be able to create a great speech anytime any place.

Do you have a technique for preparing your presentations?  Leave a comment:

Poll 10 sales managers about selling and most will tell you that selling is a process, not a one-time event.  We all know that in order to sell more, we must be really good at building relationships and establishing credibility.  When motivational speaking you are going to be in a position to influence peoples lives in a positive way and sell product.

One way to establish credibility for your product or service is to use case studies, testimonials, and white papers to show, as James would say, “TRACKABLE RESULTS.” Third party (social proof) information is a good starting point, but don’t stop there.

A prospect who gets involved in your presentation is more likely to understand the benefits your product or service will provide them. The odds of making a sale to a customer who is daydreaming through a boring presentation are slim to none…and slim is out of town!

Your presentation must not only educate the customer on the benefits of your product or service, but it must get them to take an active role as opposed to sitting on their thumbs watching and listening to you. Just as the car shopper is the one that gets to take the wheel during a test drive, to ‘see for themselves’ the benefits of an awesome car, you should give your customer the wheel to engage them in your presentation!

When your prospect is engaged, they’ll learn more about the quality and benefits of your product or service and will be ready to make a buying decision sooner. A great way to get your prospects involved is by having them, ‘Do the Math’ during the sales process.

We’ve often heard prospects say, “I’ll believe it when I see it” right? I’m going to share a technique that will not only engage them, but will also keep them focused on the results your product or service will deliver to them!

What happens if you do a poor job educating your prospects…or worse yet, you confuse them?

1) They sit silently, afraid to speak up and ask questions, and decide they need to educate themselves about your product or service after you leave (without closing the sale of course)

2) They start asking you questions, putting you on the defensive, thus taking control of the sales situation

Needless to say, a confused prospect is very unlikely to invest in your product or service.

OK, with that said, let’s move onto the technique. Right after you discover what the hot buttons are of your prospect, say something like, “Before we go on, let’s take a look at this Return on Investment (ROI) Calculation sheet (you can call it what you want).

Let’s do some quick math to see how my product or service is going to benefit you and ensure we’re on the same page.” Then hand them the sheet and a pen or pencil and let the games begin! If you signed up for our  $1 Inner Circle Promotion – Here is how you break it down:

Return on Investment Calculation

Step ONE:

Write down three of the best ideas you got out of this month’s newsletter

1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________

Step TWO:

Circle the idea above that you are going to implement immediately.

Step THREE

How much money is that idea going to generate next month?_____________

OR

How much money is that idea going to save you next month?_____________

If the idea will ‘continue to pay dividends’ every month…__________X 12 =

The annual value of that idea to you…….. = _____________________

By showing the prospect the results they can expect to achieve by using your product or service, they will clearly see their investment is well worth it!

You have now positioned your product/service ahead of other alternatives in quality and performance, but that’s only half of your objective. Make sure and apply these numbers to their situation. Do this by continuing to ask specific questions that will get a “yes” response:

• “Can you see how my ______ is going to save you money on your _____ every month?” (yes)
• “Can you see how my _______ is going to increase your sales each and every month?” (yes)

That’s it, piece of cake, right?

GOOD SELLING!

What are you doing to close sales?  Leave a comment…