Susan’s note:

I included this post from RainToday.com as it applies to speakers, consultants and business folks.  I have been testing out this system as well when meeting with potential clients who are interested in speaking and marketing training.  It is all about connecting and relationships and by having a meeting with your team and the client makes a huge difference in them buying your services.  They feel very nurtured and trusting of your team effort and feel that you have their best interest at hand.  Interested to know about how I bundle Speaker Services services  Give me a call and let’s see what how we can assist you.  310-822-4922 PT.

Take it away Anne

A Perspective from Architecture & Engineering

By Anne Scarlett

Throughout the lead development process, business development professionals work very hard. You make contacts, nurture relationships, submit RFPs, all before you finally get a chance to interview with prospects.

By the time you get to that interview, you realize that all of the firms are fully qualified—especially in terms of project portfolios and proven performance track records. So what’s in question? Quite simply it’s the personalities and the “wow” factor. When considering how to showcase synergies and group dynamics, what’s better than giving your prospects an opportunity to truly “experience” working with you and your team?

Creating an interview “experience” is possible, even within the limited timeframe of a formal client interview. Think about it. As a service provider, your firm often facilitates sessions around project strategy, programming, and design charrettes. Why not dedicate a portion—or even all—of the interview to facilitate a dialogue? In other words, why not make your presentation truly interactive, rather than just saying it will be interactive?

Turn Prospects into Clients Deliver the Perfect Pitch: 9 Rules for Winning Clients 5 Ways to Win Business and Influence Decision Makers How to Make a Prospect Love You

Here’s how it’s done. (I’ve used this format myself, so I know it works.)

1. Prepare and submit an agenda in advance. Share your intentions to incorporate facilitation as part—or even all—of the presentation.
2. If the client requests specific points to be covered by each team, include those points within your agenda. Just make sure you allocate plenty of time for facilitation as well.
3. Prepare your firm’s top three messages that you want to emphasize to the client. Think: “If the client remembers nothing else from this interview, I hope they will remember this…”
4. Work out some potential talking points that you may want to cover during the facilitation, depending upon the direction it takes. Practice drafting out (in a simple format) your team’s process and/or diagrams to illustrate a point. You can always bring mini-sketches of these diagrams to refer to if you need to draw them in real time.
5. During your rehearsal, have someone serve in the prospects’ role while your team guides them through the interview. Preselect the facilitators and the scribes. Make it smooth and organized, yet be flexible and open to spontaneous shifts during the actual interview.
6. Make sure you have flip charts with a sticky back and multicolored markers. Bring at least one easel.

Sample Agenda

• Brief introduction of firm, team, and client. (Casual and quick).
• Brief summarization of your understanding of their project goals. (List these in real time. Ask if there are any additions or changes.)
• Identification of top three to five client challenges/issues for project. (This part is facilitated by you. It will require your ability to help guide the client through their priorities and get them talking immediately. In addition to stating the top three to five challenges, you may have to group items into buckets and/or create a parking lot. Document these on flip charts).
• Reflection by your team of how you would propose to tackle the identified challenges. Use relevant, real stories to support your proposed approach. Whenever it makes sense, tie their challenges back into the key messages that you mentioned during the introduction. Perhaps it will also include a representation of your process by drawing it out in a simple form.
• Presentation of initial design schemes, if required.
• Wrap up: Inquire if there are additional questions. And finally, repeat the top three messages that your firm wants to leave them with (the ones you started with at the beginning).

Reasons to Use This Format

• Your team shows off its ability to glean information from a client group and organize that information into something solid and real.
• Teammates demonstrate how they work with one another. Team dynamics can be quite telling.
• Your team exemplifies tremendous listening skills, making the prospect feel both heard and respected.
• Your prospect speaks out, so the overall experience will be fun and interesting. Don’t worry that those speaking aren’t decision makers. Those who have a less important voice will most certainly defer to those who have final say on projects.
• The overall experience is kinesthetic and engaging. It will be memorable and unique, and it will greatly differentiate your firm.

Reasons to Not Use This Format

• Your team is risk-averse and doesn’t like the idea of simply using talking points rather than a prepared presentation.
• Your team is unable to think on its feet, especially if the client throws a surprise curve ball.
• Your prospect is not willing to be led through an active dialogue—they simply want to “be pitched.” This needs to be determined as early in the process as possible, which is why you need to share your agenda/intentions in advance.
• Your prospect includes decision makers who will not be involved in the actual project. These people don’t care about the experience of working with your team.

If you have team members ready to show off their talents as professional design consultants—quite literally—then this is a great interview format to consider.

Anne Scarlett, President of Scarlett Consulting, provides marketing advisory services to the architecture/engineering/construction industry. She is a frequent public speaker and contributing author to multiple industry publications, including PSMJ’s AE Rainmaker. What’s the Scarlett Consulting difference? Clients receive hands-on attention. Find out more by calling 773-251-8132 or visiting www.annescarlett.com.

How to Create an Ecourse That Will Triple Your Prospect Conversions by  Donna Gunter, OnlineBiz.com

For years, I’ve been giving away a PDF ebook as my client attraction device to entice prospects to sign up for my list.  This strategy has served me well as a way to grow my list. However, what I’ve discovered during that time is that many people download my ebook and then never open it. So, as you might imagine, my rate of converting a customer prospect to a buyer isn’t as high as I’d like.

Just like the people who join my list, I, too, often don’t open a PDF ebook when I download it. What I have noticed, however, is that when I subscribe to an ecourse that someone is giving away as a client attraction device, I’m much more likely to pay attention to it, since I’m getting emails every day with new information in them.  And, all indications are that the conversion rate of prospect to customer is higher, as well, for this same reason.  Your mini-course helps you automatically build a relationship with subscribers and drive sales of your products and services.

Here’s how you can create your own client attraction ecourse to help you triple your conversion rate:

1.  Buy autoresponder system.  In order to create your email mini-course, you need to purchase an email marketing system that has autoresponder capability, which is the ability to pre-set emails to go out at a periodic interval when someone opts into a list.  My recommendation is GetMoreClientsAutoresponder.com.

2.  Determine your theme and catchy name. Your ecourse needs to have a theme or subject.  What is it that you want to teach your prospects?  Once you determine the theme, your ecourse needs to have a catchy title.  Typically, you’ll want to focus on solving a problem or the result someone receives by enrolling in your mini-course.

3.  Create content.  Your ecourse should consist of 8-12 emails.  The bulk of these emails need to contain valuable, actionable content that will help your prospect solve her problems.  In a couple of the emails, you can break up the content delivery by introducing your prospect to other resources you offer that will help them, as well.  In my new mini-course, I simply repurposed a number of articles I had already written, paring them down to 400-600 words each, in most cases.

4.  Add your soft sell.  Rather than hammering a prospect over the head with sales hype, I did three things in each of the followup emails.  First, I included a resource box at the end of the email with a link to the call to action I want my prospect to take or a postscript (P.S.) that included a link to the call to action.  Secondly, in the body of the email, I made a natural transition based on the content of the email to ask people to buy the product I wanted them to buy. Thirdly, at the end of each lesson, I added, “In our next lesson, we’ll talk about…” to keep the reader engaged and anxiously awaiting the next email.

5.  Format and upload your ecourse.  In order to best track your open rates of each segment of the ecourse, you’ll want to format each email as HTML.  This means that you’ll want to have a header designed and template created so that you can simple copy and paste the content into a properly formatted HTML template.  To increase the likelihood that your ecourse will reach its destination, also format a plain text version of each segment of the course, as well. Next, create a catchy subject line to entice your reader to open that email. Lastly, copy your ecourse into your autoresponder system and create the followup sequence.  Ideally, you want your prospect to receive one email from you for a 8-12 days.

6.  Design your opt-in box.  Your email marketing program should provide instructions on how to create an opt-in box for prospects to join your list.  Typically, all that you want to request of your prospects is a first name, last name, and email address.  Once you have created the opt-in box, copy the code you’ll need to add the opt-in box to your web site.

7.  Create a graphic.  To make your email mini-course more appealing, have a graphic designed that visually represents the ecourse.  I simply had a spiral book cover designed that contained my name and the name of my ecourse.

8.  Create your landing page.  To entice prospects to sign up for your ecourse, you’ll want to create a landing page that “sells” the mini-course.  In today’s world, you have to “sell” free just like you do something for a fee, so create a short list of the benefits that someone will receive by signing up for your course, and add the code for your opt-in box.  Since anyone opting in for my ecourse is also added to my ezine list, I make sure that all prospects know this at the time they sign up.

9.  Copy the course content to your web site.  To prevent your prospects from emailing you that they are missing some number of lessons in the ecourse, copy the content to your web site.  Then, at the bottom of each email lesson, you can add a note that if they have missed any of the lessons, they can read them on your site.  You can create one page for each lesson, or a couple of pages containing a few lessons.

10.  Track and measure. The only way to realize the success of your mini-course is to track and measure.  Create a simple spreadsheet with the open rates of each email and the unsubscribe rates. If you notice over time that many prospects are unsubscribing from your list when they receive a certain lesson, you need to review the content of that lesson and change it until your unsubscribe rate diminishes.  And, of course, you need to track how many sales result from your ecourse.

Create an email mini-course to help you establish a relationship with your prospects and lead them to taking the action you desire.  You’ll discover that a mini-course is the most effective way to convert a prospect into a paying customer.

How quickly do you think your audience evaluates you when you begin your speech or presentation? Do you think it takes 5 minutes? Perhaps 10?  Do you believe that your audience has the patience to wait until you finish to decide if they like you as a speaker?

The truth is that your audience will decide with your opening statement whether they want to listen to you or not. Thus, your opening statement is as important, if not more so, than everything that is to follow.

Often, we are so concerned with covering all the material possible in our presentation or speech that we forget or are even unaware of the value of our opening. If you want to be memorable in your audience’s eyes, then you must grab their attention with your opening remarks. Remember, they are not sitting there saying to themselves, “Let’s give this person 5 minutes to warm up!”

When I was still teaching Public Speaking at both the college and graduate school levels, I would fail any student who began his/her speech with the words, “Today, I am going to talk to you about…” Why?

1. As an audience, we know it is today! The word is redundant.

2. We know that it is you speaking and not someone else because we can see you standing there!

3. Explaining what you plan to talk about is the purpose of your speech or presentation. If you have an overhead slide with the name of your presentation on the title page, for example, they already know your subject. In most cases, however, those who have come to hear you speak have an idea about your topic anyway. That is why they are attending.

So instead of opening your delivery with the less than stellar words, “Today, I am going to talk to you about…” why not begin your delivery with a question, a joke (if it is relevant to your topic), an anecdote, a quote, or a brief story?

Questions are wonderful because they physically involve your audience: they must respond to you. Questions also give you a chance to breathe during the most difficult part of your presentation. (There is no doubt that breathlessness is a major problem for many presenters.)

Jokes are appropriate because they make your audience laugh, which relaxes them as well as you and makes them want to hear more. Their laughter also gives you a breather, again an important avenue in helping you control your nervousness.

Anecdotes, quotes, and brief stories are also valuable openers because your audience relates to them. Quotes bring recognition to your topic; and, everyone likes a good story or anecdote!

In all of these cases, you have set the stage for what is to follow. Your audience will want to hear more because you have already personalized yourself to them.

While your development is certainly the heart of your presentation or speech, your opening is the reason for your development. So the next time you are scheduled to speak, pay particular attention to your how you plan to begin your delivery, because once you capture your audience’s attention, it will be much easier to keep them centered on you throughout the rest of your presentation or speech.

The Voice Lady Nancy Daniels offers private, corporate and group workshops in voice and presentation skills as well as Voicing It!, the only video training program on voice improvement. Visit Voice Dynamic and watch Nancy as she describes Your Least Developed Tool!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nancy_Daniels

Today’s post is by Lisa Sasevich she is the The Queen of Sales Conversion

Lisa is best known for teaching coaches, trainers, healers, leaders and experts how to enjoy massive back-of-the-room paydays every time they speak. She is also passionate about providing service professionals with high impact, low cost marketing strategies for increasing conversion in seminars, workshops and any other presentation style sales opportunity.

Speaking comes in many forms and it’s not always to a live audience face-to-face. One of the ways I made 2008 my best financial year ever was through adding teleseminars to my speaking agenda. I was also blessed to learn from some industry experts how to use teleseminars to touch a lot of lives and make big bucks doing it.

So here are 3 ways that I made my valuable information pay by using tele-seminars in 2008…and that you can model going forward in 2009!

1) Do a one-time Free call to preview something you are offering

Whether it’s brand new or newly updated, it’s important to keep the word out about your offerings. A quick, easy and inexpensive way to generate interest and sales is to offer a Free call on the topic that your book, info product or tele-course covers. During the free call provide a lot of valuable information they can use right away and then offer them a limited time special on your product. Be sure to show them exactly where and how to purchase it online.

Rather than including the call-in number in the promotion of the free call, set it up so that people have to Opt-In (give their first name and email address) to get the call information.

By doing wide promotion of a free call and using an Opt-In system, you end up with a “bucket” of folks who have raised their hand and said, “I’m interested in that topic!”

The beauty of using the Opt-In and collecting the “bucket” or list of interested parties is that you now have a targeted list that you can market to over and over, plus you have their email so you can send them the audio replay of the live call too. (Be sure to record the call. I use www.audioacrobat.com for recording tele-classes and client calls. It’s great!)

This is important because only about 25% of people who Opt-In for a free call will attend live. You have an opportunity for the other 75% to hear your message if you’ve used an Opt-in and sent out the audio playback.

You’ll double or even triple your sales beyond what you did after the free call by providing this playback as well as a series of reminder emails that lead up to your special promotion ending. (I use www.invisiblecart.com to manage collecting my bucket of leads with an opt in, send them auto responders and let them purchase my offering.)

2) Use A Free or Paid Teleseminar Series to Create a Product

This is one of the quickest, least expensive and most effective ways I know for experts to get their message out while making money and creating a product they will be able to sell for years to come. It’s simple…

Announce a free or paid teleseminar series to your list (if you have one). If you don’t, invite all of your current and past clients and ask them to spread the word. You can invite prospective clients too!

- Run a 5-week teleseries and record it.
- Voila! You now have an information product you can package and sell over and over for years to come. You can turn your recordings into CDs, have the call transcribed, provide transcripts and create or include worksheets and handouts that support participants in applying the material.

Note: Some of the best handouts are items you use every day to make your business successful. This might include sample emails you use for promotional purposes, sample contracts that a person might need to get started, sample ads that have worked for you in the past.

3) Take an existing information product that you have and deliver it with a tele-series

This is what Suzanne and I did with our Get Started Speaking Program and it’s a beautiful model for both you and your clients. Here’s how it works…

- We did a small, local live event previewing our Get Started Speaking course. This is how we discovered how truly powerful the information we provide together is!
- We had a sound tech record and edit it.
- We packaged all the worksheets, got artwork and made it into a beautiful product.
- Rather than just selling the product online, we decided to offer it along with a 5-week telecourse.

We are shipping participants the Get Started Speaking product and providing them with instructions on which CDs and Worksheets they need to complete before teleclass #1, #2 and so on.

The time on the 5 week Live teleclass with us can be spent answering questions and doing live hot seats about the material that was covered in the worksheets and CDs. The participant gets the best of both worlds. They have a physical product they can keep in their success library and use over and over again for years, they get live individual coaching on the scheduled calls, they benefit from hearing the Q&A and Hot Seats of other participants and best of all, they actually open the box and work through the course because they know they have a live call to prepare for next week.

No more unopened products collecting dust on top of a file cabinet somewhere! You’re work actually gets put to use and makes a difference!

And isn’t that ultimately what we all want? To touch as many lives as possible while making a profit?

If you have info products in the form of books, CDs, DVDs, recorded classes, webinars, trainings, etc…I invite you to consider how you could use this model to revive something amazing. Of course, if it’s been out for a while, make sure to do the necessary updates.

I just did that with The Invisible Close. It’s been out for nearly 3 years so I just updated it with new order form samples, a new bonus chapter on converting sales from your website and beautiful new formatting. It looks so nice that I’m even shipping it now!

Sales conversion specialist Lisa Sasevich has x-ray vision for seeing the sales opportunities that exist in every company, and the creativity to convert them into gold! If you’re looking for simple, quick and easy ways to boost sales without spending a dime, get your FREE Sales Nuggets now at www.theinvisibleclose.com.

Known by many as “The Queen of Sales Conversion,” Lisa Sasevich has x-ray vision for seeing the sales opportunity in any situation and the creativity to turn it into gold.

You can learn more about Lisa’s work at www.TheInvisibleClose.com.

At the Speakers’ Summit08 I talked about Creating Info Products -take a look at this short video I created.

I will be using the video for selling the mp3 of the talk on the description page and I will make it available for folks who want to hire me for the presentation to their groups and I might put it in my e-zine as well as in the Speakers’ Summit08 description of my talk and I am sure that I will find other uses for it as well.

Here is a short list of info products that you could create which was part of my handout at the Summit.

TURN YOUR EXPERTISE INTO PROFITS

➢ Books
Published or Self-Published

➢ Mini-Books
Smaller versions of your book with cut-down content used as premiums

➢ E-Book- Compile related product information or instructions into an ebook. You could publish it in text, pdf, html format

➢ E-Book Of Reviews – Publish an ebook of stuff that’s related to your target audience that you could review like products, web sites, movies, etc

➢ Dictionary Of Terms-Publish a web directory or ebook dictionary of terms relating to your specific business industry or subject.

➢ Audio/MP3 Books

➢ Transcripts- Create an ebook of text transcripts of a related live event. It can be a seminar, speech, class, interview, etc.

➢ Article Compilation

➢ Blog Compilation

➢ Teleseminars – Expert Call Ins Set up a date and time when your customers can call up and talk directly with experts that are related to your industry

➢ Online Video-Allow customers to download or view a related how-to video or informative seminar right over the internet.

➢ Webinars over the internet

➢ Audio/MP3 Programs
Allow customers to download and listen to a recording of an expert that is being interviewed right over the internet

➢ Video Trainings- DVD’s/MP4’s

➢ Multi-Media Products
Combine Printed materials, video and CD’s

➢ Home-Study Courses
Multi-media product format designed to be a complete system in a box.

Today’s post is from Marcia Yudkin

Terminology greatly affects how people perceive value. Call something a “brochure” and no one will want to pay for it. Call it a “booklet” and it sounds small and insignificant, perhaps worth up to four or five dollars. Call your digital document an “ebook” and people instinctively compare it to tangible books and will pay no more than what they’d pay for something they can pick up at the bookstore. Indeed, according to Angela Adair-Hoy, co-owner of Booklocker.com, the magical price point for ebooks is just $8.95.

Consider these alternatives.

“Special report.” In the business world, people will spend much more money for timely business information or instruction when it’s called a “special report” than for an “e-book.” A dollar per page is not unusual — $4.00 or $5.00 for four pages, $97 for 90 to 100 pages.

My research turned up many even higher priced special reports, where the author already had impressive credentials, such as $195 for a 114-page report from usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s firm and $945 for a 245-page report on Russia’s aerospace industry from Jane’s, a well-known U.K. security and international affairs information company.

“Manual.” Contrary to what you might expect, packaging material in an old-fashioned three-ring binder or a copy-shop coil binding, sent through the mail can also increase the perceived value of information, compared with “e-books.”

This can go for as much as several hundred dollars when it’s up-to-date, advanced professional knowledge not available in bookstores, libraries or on the Web. Fancy packaging may even lower a manual’s perceived value because it counteracts the implicit exclusivity of such a purchase.

“Course.” Instead of calling the sections “chapters,” try calling them “lessons.” Presenting information as instructional material also raises its perceived value, because people are accustomed to paying much more for seminars and classes than for books.

A writer I know sells 120 pages of printed material, divided into eight lessons, as a $295 course. The price includes feedback from the instructor on assignments, which most purchasers do not get around to submitting. Likewise, copywriter Joe Vitale has charged as much as $1,500 for a limited-enrollment seminar consisting mainly of five e-mailed lessons.

So before jumping on the “ebook” bandwagon, ponder the alternatives!

Marcia Yudkin is the author of 11 books, including Persuading on Paper and Web Site Marketing Makeover. The above is adapted from her popular report, “Profiting from Booklets & Special Reports,” available from http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/?af=744801

I share the following Marketing Tip with you:
Market Yourself Through Public Speaking
Copyright © 2006, Marketing Maven, Wendy Maynard

I could not say it any better then the Marketing Maven.

Susan’s note: Speaking is the absolute best way I know how to grow your business and income. You do not have to be a professional speaker to speak. What you do need is to be passionate about what you speak about and be wiling to share information and inspire your audience and be wiling to be coached and go to workshops and keep on learning and getting better at what your practice.

Speaking to small or large audiences is a great way to create leads for your e-list, sell your products and to garner clients.

Last week I offered a Teleconference called Speakers’ Summit. I interviewed 9 experts on branding/media, communion, connection and content, info products, to Web 2.0, creating CD’s and I did one on the Business of Speaking take a look at it as it is offered as a home study course and you might just want to have it. There are 10 MP3′s and over 150 pages in handouts.

If you are ready to do an intensive and really want to play the game of speaking-check out the Speakers’ Bootcamp offered Aug 1-5 or again in March ’08. This is only for serious folks, 60 hours of interactive coaching with a saml group of 20.

BTW: Have you signed up for Speaker Services e-zine? Past issues are archived on the website from 1998-chock full of information.

Take it away Wendy…

A noteworthy way for you to get exposure and new customers is public speaking. As a small business owner, it is always a more powerful position to be in the front of the room than in the back. You further position yourself as an expert and reinforce the brand as YOU. People tend to perceive speakers as being more important than non-speakers.

Create a core talk that reinforces your specialty and practice it. Come up with a compelling title for your speech. Remember, your presentation isn’t a sales pitch; it’s a way to showcase your expertise. So, provide great, practical information that is helpful to your listeners.

Make the same speech in lengths of 30 minutes, 45 minutes and 90 minutes. This will be a talk you can use over and over again at many different types of events. Show confidence by using humor and letting your passion shine through!

During your speech, your audience gets an opportunity to meet you without obligation. They get a sense of your personality, style, and expertise. And, you get to showcase your expertise. The people who like your approach will either hire you or spread the word about your company.

Your audience is a goldmine of prospects, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to get their contact information. Be sure to pass around a sign-up sheet to collect the names of attendees. As an incentive for signing the sheet, offer them a free special report or a subscription to your ezine.

In every city, there are associations, service clubs, and support groups that are looking for speakers for their meetings. Check your telephone book and highlight some of these. You can start with smaller groups as practice.

After you feel comfortable with your speech, seek out larger groups who have members in your targeted audience. When you call, ask for the name of the person in charge of lining up speakers. Offer to speak for free and explain the ways in which your speech will benefit the group’s members. Be sure to mention the remarkable title you developed – it will help sell your presentation.

Once you begin to promote yourself as a speaker, groups will hear about you and you’ll find yourself getting requests, as well. After you begin to get more engagements and feel at ease with speaking, add more speaking topics. If a group liked your speech, you can contact them again and tell them you have new material and they may ask you to return to speak again.

Develop a speaker’s sheet that you can send to groups with your speech title and description. Create a page on your website that describes your expertise, background, and speaking style. Include testimonials if you have them. Hand out information to your audiences about you, your company, and your services. If you have information products, you can often offer these for sale for people to purchase at the event.

Public speaking is a powerful way to get new customers and leads, so be sure to incorporate it into your quiver of marketing techniques. You’ll find opportunities abound when you commit to getting yourself out there in the front of the room!

ACTION ITEM: What idea do you want to develop into your core talk? List three potential ideas right now. Then, come up with an attention-getting title. Show them to your existing customers and ask them which one is of the most value to them. Develop the winner into a speech of different lengths.

Wendy Maynard, the Marketing Maven, publishes REMARKABLE MARKETING, a weekly ezine for small business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and become more profitable, get your FREE TIPS now at http://www.gomarketingmaven.com/ezine.html

I am not sure I understand yet how to blog properly however, I am taking another shot at it today.

I just completed a week of 10 teleclasses Speakers’ Summit Teleconference and one of the the telesessions was with Michelle Price a brilliant internet marketing strategist who spoke to us about Web 2.0. She was at our Summit in Los Angeles in May and shared information and I have been processing what she taught us however, in the telesession the clouds lifted and I got it. Or at least I think I have!

So I see the jpg I uploaded today comes up when I come onto the blog.
Here’s another photo of me.

So this morning I continue to learn about blogging and I am being told that it is a good idea to do 20 posts before you market it. I am going to call a VA friend of mine and ask for help.

Welcome to Market Yourself as a Speaker blog. Dedicated to sharing information with business folk and authors who are interested in using speaking as a way to grow their business.

I am Susan Levin a marketing consultant for speakers and authors. I was one of the first 1500 people to have a website in 1994. I have assisted thousands of people with their speaking careers for the past 15 yrs.

www.speakerservices.com is my website which brings speakers and audiences together. Unlike a speaker bureau I do not take commissions however, I do charge a fee to be listed on our site and all the calls go directly to the speakers and they do their own bookings. I feel that given the opportunity to speak to a group of 10-100 is a blessing and a terrific way to attract business.

Speaking is a business and like any business it must be nutured.

In addition to the online directory I offer conferences, symposiums and summits plus video demo showcases.

I have a fantastic team of folks who I work with and I refer to them all the time.

Our E-Zine is archived on my website for the past 5-6 years. It offers great articles and tips and advice as well as leads.

Next time I will share some marketing tips with you.