If you have a powerful message, you’ll want to expand your reach by creating products as well as by being the keynote speaker.  After all, noteveryone will remember every word you said on the platform.

That’s why a book, a DVD or a program for participants to take home can help to reinforce your main message.

These days, we all have the tools to do this fairly easily. This means that many others are creating products and not all of them are worthwhile. So make sure your product contains serious content rather than just fluff and that way, you’ll guarantee yourself not only repeat sales but repeat speaking engagements.  It’s so important to provide real value to your buyers.

While I don’t recommend pitching from the platform during a paid speaking engagement, some speakers do make it a condition of their agreement to be allowed to sell their materials at the back of the room. They hire someone to handle the orders and make a discrete pitch during their speech.

Others pre sell their books or DVD’s in bulk at a discount to the meeting planner who’s hired them. Still others put on events open to the public and sell their programs and products there.

The products you can create are only limited by your imagination. What would you yourself buy?  When you have the answer to that question, you have the concept of the product you’ll find easiest to sell.  Some of the possibilities are DVD’s, books, e-books, online programs, manuals and so on.

You’ll note that it will be the most successful people in your audience who will purchase the products.

You need to have a merchant credit card account which is fairly easy to set up. Talk to your bank about this. As long as you keep the dollar number low, you should be approved quickly. Merchants would go out of business if they could no longer depend on the impulse buy. You need to take advantage of that impulse as well.  It will significantly increase your income.

If you sell from your website, you’ll need to have e-commerce set up there.

From something as simple as a recorded phone call, you can have MP3 and CD’s made and packaged on demand at the website www.kunaki.com and later sell them to your audience.

For some speakers, product sales represent a major part of their income.  What products will you create? How will you position and sell them? Who will benefit from them?

Start with something simple and once that’s become successful, move on to a higher priced product or program.

It’s great insurance for a rainy day!

I know how it feels to work as hard as you can and still spin your wheels, not getting the returns you have every right to expect. In my case, with hindsight, I can see I was doing a lot of things the wrong way. It wasn’t until I changed my mode of operation that my business really began to take off. And that, believe me, is a great feeling.

This happens to professional speakers, more often than not. In most cases, they’re on a steep learning curve. I know I was. And I spent a lot of time dreaming about my future rather than actually doing anything to make it happen.

A top real estate seminar leader told author and business leader Michael Masterson that the same people kept signing up for his programs and then took more advanced and expensive programs.  He found it disturbing that they came back over and over again and he believed it was because they were way more invested in the “dream” of becoming rich than actually creating a solid business plan to bring the dream in for a landing. I think he’s right and I think they’re spending way too long in the preparation phase. Some people never graduate from that! Here are ten guidelines that I personally find useful for keeping me on track:

1.         Get clarity.

2.         Identify what holds you back.

3.         Compensate for your limitations.

4.         Maximize your strengths.

5.         Make new attainable goals.

6.         Construct a plan to put them in action.

7.         Evaluate and modify on a weekly basis.

8.         Get a good team around you.

9.         Find a mentor/cheerleader to keep you accountable.

10.       Spend the majority of your marketing and selling your services.

Let me assure you that you’re good enough and you know enough to provide value right now, just as you are. So go get out there and make 2012 YOUR year.

In other words, what do you stand for? Tom Stoyan is known as Canada’s Sales Coach. Suzanne Sherkin is known as the expert on Essential Conversations. What is your personal logo?

Think about it. What do you want to be known for? Can you sum it up in a few words? Once you can, it nails down your positioning. By positioning I mean where you stand as a brand in the marketplace. How can you stand out in a crowd of wannabe speakers? How can you be truly memorable?

For example, Tom Stoyan uses Canada’s Sales Coach as his umbrella. That umbrella stretches over everything that he does. If something doesn’t fit under the umbrella’s theme, it gets left out.

Your umbrella is based on your core message.  What is that message?What do you have to say to the world?  That core message defines your positioning and your positioning defines your audience.  Once you’re clear on your message, you know exactly who would benefit from hearing it.

Give your core message some serious thought. I hate to see speakers with a list of topics as long as your arm and as diverse as the population of New York City!

You need to stand for something, you need to own a certain category the same way Larina Kase owns the theme of confidence, the way top copywriter, Joe Vitale, owns the name Mr. Fire.

Chris Widener knew he couldn’t compete with the big name speakers out there such as Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitely and so on. He also knew that he really wanted to be one of that group. So Chris crafted a really great (and highly risky) plan to create a relationship with these top speakers and to position himself as exemplifying The Next Generation of Great Speakers.

It worked out brilliantly. Check out Chris’s website at www.madeforsuccess.com to see for yourself.  In the past couple of years, Chris has become a columnist for Success Magazine. If you’d like to find out more about his brilliant plan, go purchase my book, The Six Figure Speaker where North America’s top speakers share their success secrets with you.

Now back to you. What is it that you own? Not necessarily that you’re the only person speaking on that topic (if that’s the case, it’s a pretty unpopular topic!). It’s that you have your own unique spin on an in-demand topic and you have something fresh and new to say.

That’s your position, that’s your umbrella, make it as high and as strong as you possibly can.

When Bob Urichuck wanted to expand his speaking engagements (and his influence) he began by faxing (this was before the internet) hotels in Singapore asking for a free two week stay in exchange for doing customer service training with the staff. Just one hotel faxed back. And one hotel was all he needed.

I’m not sure if even Bob knew at the time what a huge door he had just opened. And that’s the exciting thing about using your influence. You’re never quite sure where it will lead. When you combine a strong intention with a great opportunity, magic can happen. Once in Singapore, Bob did a fabulous job of staff training and in his free time, he hooked up with local business organizations. Taking this great big leap of faith paid off hugely. Bob ended up doing the majority of his work in Asian and middle Eastern countries over a period of years.

He continues to be an inspiration for many other speakers who find that they are much more appreciated in other countries than they are in their own.

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