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woman scuba diving
Blog, Business, Ebooks, Faith, Spiritual Gifts, Writing

Sought After Speaker Summit Part 7

adventure

adventure

Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending Caterina Rando‘s Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, CA. This is part 7 of my Sought After Speaker Summit blog series. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, and part 6 here.

I loved attending Caterina Rando’s Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, and learned many things.

On Friday night, Caterina offered an optional Q & A session for anyone who wanted to stay longer to ask her more questions about any subject. Naturally, I stayed to take advantage of learning from her expertise! She dedicated this session primarily to writing your book.

Having a book gives you more credibility as a speaker. It establishes you as an expert in your given topic. A book is a confidence builder for you and the event planner. It is an additional revenue stream for your business, allowing you to sell products from the back table.

stack of books

stack of books

You can repurpose a book’s content into a keynote speaking presentation, workshop, webinar, telecall, telesummit, ecourse, and a new coaching program. Info products are good, but will not give you as much credibility as authoring a book.

Here were some of Caterina’s tips for writing a book:

1. What do you want the book to do for you? She discovered she has brilliant idea syndrome (hearing others’ brilliant ideas and immediately wanting to implement them) and brilliant book syndrome – i.e., you have 25 books inside of you (but not one done!).

2. Make sure the book matches your upsell. If you have no upsell, all you did was just speak to an audience. You can’t run a business on good will! A business makes money (a profit)!

3. Don’t be a “grab and go” speaker (grabbing your stuff and then going right after you speak). If someone is writing you a check, make sure it’s a great presentation and you engage with the audience before, during, and after you speak. One way to do this is interacting with the audience selling your book: autographing her book, taking pictures with her, talking and praying with her.

Karen Wells, Shannon, and me

Karen Wells, Shannon, and me
Doreen Penner’s Women’s Retreat, Canada

4. Be strategic about the talks you give and use your book’s content. When someone wants to pay you to speak, take it – but make sure it’s under the umbrella of what your purpose is!  Mention the book while you speak, quoting from it or using examples from it. This helps to sell your book!

5. Define your audience for your book. It may change. Who is your ideal client? You can’t market to the entire planet! Caterina “helps service-based entrepreneurs to be loud and proud about their business, and to thrive.” Who do you want to serve with all your heart, where it doesn’t feel like work? Who you served before may not be your audience now. If it feels like work you may not have found the right audience yet.

Women laughing

Women laughing

6. Be discerning of your time. Caterina is launching her new book, On Wings of Faith. She has warm leads for this book and is out giving marketing speeches, not just chatting small talk to people. You have so many things that could be revenue-producing. You must be discerning of your time. Don’t go speak somewhere if your message is different than what they want and it’s not the right audience for you. This leads to…

7. Say no! You say no by saying, “Thank you so much. That really doesn’t work for me. Let me refer to another great speaker.” Turning people down is a skill. Do it with the 3 G’s ~ generosity, grace and gratitude. The audience at this event came up with the 3 G’s. Caterina says this is the topic of writing her next article. 🙂

8. BUT, be open to ideas coming in that have nothing to do with the topic, that are focused on uplifting your business. Discover possibilities! Sometimes you will recognize ideas that appeal to you, such as tips for traveling for business women, but you won’t act on it. A wonderful website for women in business who travel is the Stiletto Dash, such as staying hydrated and not having desserts. Have a place to capture your ideas. You have enough projects now, but you may do this later.

Strawberry cheesecake

Strawberry cheesecake
Dining car on train, Canada trip

9. Know what your limits are and prioritize. Caterina was planning a social media marketing summit for October, but realized she already has 9 programs she is working on! The beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is that you can run with an idea.

Like

Woman pressing social media Like button

10. Not everyone will love you, your book, your speaking! It’s hard to be a prophet in your own land. (Luke 4:24) But in San Francisco, Caterina does lots of programs. They are always full, so that’s not always true. Test everything. Test things 3 times before quitting or moving on to something else!

11. Use your book to get booked. 🙂 Generate revenue with your book through speaking gigs, and then selling your book at the back table. Who needs your important message? There are women in this world who need to hear your important story.

The Hands of a Woman

The Hands of a Woman, womensbattles.com

 

12. Think about the framework of your book. How many words do you want? What’s happening in each chapter? Some ideas are stories, exercises, and questions. Pull books off shelves. Look at the format. Do a checklist at the chapter’s end for all chapters. Use boxes. Design your chapters attractively with bold headers and sub-heads, bullet points, visually appealing graphics.

woman scuba diving

woman scuba diving

In the next post, we’ll discuss books more. Do you want to write, are you writing, or have you written a book? Share in the comments below.

Be sure to check out my ebooks and other info products at my estore here.

October 18, 2013 by
Tall poppies
Blog, Business, Coaching, prayer, Spiritual Gifts, Travel, Writing

Sought After Speaker Summit Part 6

Caterina Rando, Sought After Speaker Summit, Los Angeles, CA

Caterina Rando, Speaker, Business Strategist
Sought After Speaker Summit, Los Angeles

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending Caterina Rando‘s Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, CA. This is part 6 of my Sought After Speaker Summit blog series. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, and part 5 here.

What is your compelling vision for your business? For speaking? For writing? At the Sought After Speaker Summit speakers’ training that I just attended in Los Angeles, CA, Caterina Rando said it has to be so powerful it lights you up.

It has to be so big that it makes you uncomfortable!

In other words, it has to be so big that you need God to help you do it; that way He gets the credit and the glory!

This is true for me about speaking at the women’s conference in Kenya, Africa, this December. I need GOD for this big dream to come true! Shelley Valasek’s webinar is one way you can help to donate to this missions trip. Buying my jewelry artist friend Jennifer Whiddon’s beautiful cuff is another way to donate. She is donating proceeds to this Africa trip. Or you can donate directly online at my GoFundMe page.

Decorative flower at summit

Decorative flower at summit

Caterina’s compelling vision is to have a $1 million business. Part of the reason she wants that is to have a big yellow house. But that’s not all! She also wants a $1 million business because she said only 3% of women have $1 million businesses because they don’t set that goal! She wants more women to play bigger!

She is well on her way. For over 15 years, she has made 6 figures a year. In just one month this year, she made $85,000,. That was through events, publishing books, coaching, and speaking as a keynote speaker.

You can do this, too! You need a speaking strategy.

Caterina said that many women do not set ambitious goals. They have hope, prayer, good augmentation, but not a good business strategy!

Here are more tips from Caterina’s Sought After Speaker Summit that I learned (and am expanding on here). Don’t feel overwhelmed with this list. Just choose which ones apply to you and your business, and that you need to implement now:

  • Look at your revenue goals daily. Many women are afraid to set goals because they are afraid they won’t get them. Check where you’re at financially each day. Proverbs 27:23, NIV, says: “Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds;”
  • Challenge yourself. Have a sales blitz, like a January “Goals Gala.” Maybe in your fourth year, you’re not hitting $1 million yet (or whatever your goal is), but make sure each year you’re doing better and better.
  • Visualize success. Get very detailed on this picture! Caterina gave the example of visualizing herself in her $1 million year. She was wearing a Michael Kors gold, sequined dress, red hoopy earrings, and happy.
    Michael Kors gold dress

    Michael Kors gold dress

    Picture yourself a successful speaker. See the big stage with the audience on the edge of their seats to hear your message. Imagine yourself on the cruise ship to an exotic island. See and hear the ocean waves, smell the salt air. Envision the women’s conference, the room filled with excited women. Where are you flying to? What are you wearing? What are you speaking about? Is there a long line of people standing, waiting for you to autograph your book they just bought? Are you receiving a speaking or writing award?

  • Ask yourself who it is in your own life that you can help. You can give in an instant without hesitation. You will have extra in your account to give away, not an empty bank account. Are you giving a big check without even blinking to your family, a homeless shelter, an orphanage, an organization providing clean water in Africa? Caterina gives to many charities including the Giving Tea and the Rose Foundation. She also gives to many people she supports through her business – website designer, graphic art designers, copywriters, etc. This is a great feeling! We are never more successful than we perceive ourselves to be. A compelling vision is scary, but be loud and proud you are a speaker! Give voice to your desires! If we see ourselves as having no clients, then we won’t have any clients! A compelling vision makes you shift.
  • When you speak at an event, look into the eyes of your audience or you will not be with the audience. This is a speaker super tip.
  • Don’t clasp your hands. Have open body language. Project your voice.
  • You get better at speaking by speaking a lot! Author Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers: The Story of Success that there’s really no such thing as natural talent. Talent comes from putting 10,000 hours in something. Yes, that’s a lot of hours. Start now!

    Woman holding megaphone

    Woman holding megaphone

  • Stop getting ready and just do it! Caterina is not a Toastmasters’ fan. She has seen too many people who are getting ready to get ready to get ready to get going to start. Speaking to a real audience is where you learn.
  • Visualize success with your family included. 20% of your brain wants to dream; 80% of your brain wants things to stay the same. It’s comfortable and familiar. Vision engages the conscious and the unconscious mind. Envision being so successful that you can help your family and friends. Caterina’s vision included her husband thanking her for taking him on a dream vacation. This dream came to pass in her life. When your vision includes family and friends, this will make it so compelling to your brain, that you will take action to make it come true. How will you help your family and change the world and have a global community? Prosperity allows you to impact the world.
  • Share your vision with those who support you, not those who are negative and won’t support it. Sometimes family and friends may be the most critical. There may be challenges, but never give up.
  • Accelerate your speaking business through many options: creating your own events, teleseminars, webinars, workshops, telesummits, keynote speaking. Attend events throughout the year and pay attention to what you like and don’t like. Get tips from other speakers and event planners.

    Woman entrepreneur at laptop

    Woman entrepreneur at laptop

  • Who you are is enough. You don’t have to have a tragic story to speak. You have so many stories inside of you to share with others! Pull out all your stories. Stories connect people and help with selling. We are here to transform lives.
  •  Never apologize to the audience about your emotions (tears, crackly voice.) You can be in a powerful place through your genuine emotions because people relate. It makes you human and has an impact.
  • Learn the power of pause. The audience leans in when you pause; the whole room will be with you.. Many speakers speak too fast. Stay connected with them.
  • Are you in beta? If you aren’t speaking all the time when you say you want to, there’s reasons. One is that you haven’t set speaking goals. Another is that you haven’t created products to fund it. One of the easiest things to offer is a 4-week telecalass. We want it to be perfect the first time. One woman told Caterina hers was “in beta.” That meant she wasn’t ready yet, that she was still testing things. Does it have value? Then offer it! It doesn’t have to be perfect! One way to get a product out, is to sell it and then you’ll do it! You can be one step ahead of your customer. If people pay you for a product or program, you will get it done.
  • Tall poppies syndrome. People are often attacked, criticized, cut down, or resented because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers.
    Tall poppies

    Tall poppy

    Others (or even you!) may feel as if they are “not good enough.” Personally I WANT to be a tall poppy, standing above the rest. I don’t want to be like anyone else. I want to be set apart by God, chosen for His glory, inspiring others! Do what works for you. Make your offer a totally different thing than others. Be you, wonderful you!

I hope you’re finding this blog series helpful and motivating! Which tip do you need to start working on today? Leave your comments below.

*****Do you need a dynamic keynote speaker for your women’s conference or event? I’d love to work with you to help make your event a great success! To book me as a speaker, email me at elizabethdjones@gmail.com or contact me here

October 14, 2013 by
Caterina Rando
Blog, Business, Coaching, Faith, Spiritual Gifts, Travel

Sought After Speaker Summit part 5

Caterina Rando

Caterina Rando
Sought After Speaker Summit Los Angeles

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending Caterina Rando‘s Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, CA. This is part 5 of my Sought After Speaker Summit blog series. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here.

Before I went to the Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, CA, this past weekend, I had a Skype call with my mastermind group partners, Tony Robinson and Shelley Valasek.

The idea of a mastermind is associated with author Napoleon Hill, from his study and his interviews of the U.S.’ most successful men over a course of 20 years. “A Mastermind is a unique concept that leverages the collective power of the group, creating a Third Mind.” ~ Napoleon Hill.

In our group, we are leaning on THE Master, Jesus Christ, to be our Mastermind – our business wisdom, our direction, our guide.

Jesus at well with woman
Jesus at well with woman

I started this little group a month ago, because I needed prayer, motivation, and most of all accountability to finish 2013 strong, completing goals I’d set in January. God gave me two scriptures for forming this group:

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” ~ Proverbs 27:17, NIV (I needed sharpening!)

“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” ~ Ecclesiastes 4:12, NLT

Tony and Shelley thought it was a great idea and said they needed this group just as much.

On the Skype call before I flew to Los Angeles this past weekend, Tony prayed for traveling mercies and God’s blessings on me as I attended this speakers’ training and she saw me writing copious notes from the training. Well, as usual, she was right on target and I filled a notebook chock full with notes!dream-notebook

There’s no way I can tell you everything I learned, and you really had to be there to benefit the most from this amazing training. Caterina overdelivers and you come back FULL, ready to take action!

But I’d like to share some of what I learned there about speaking and business with you.

Extract the precious from the worthless. Take just what you need from this list:

  • Stand in the power position when you speak – the center of the room. Don’t have a projector or something in front of you. You want to have the audience’s direct attention.
  • Don’t speak until you look at the audience; take a deep breath.
  • Speak with the audience, not at them. You want to have empathy and feel with them. Have open body language, not crossed arms or standing sideways.
  • No dashing. Caterina said this a lot and it was funny. For some reason, I kept hearing the Christmas song in my head, Jingle Bells, every time she said this: “Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh…”.  Well, whatever helps you to remember what not to do! This tip meant don’t dash from the stage to the audience. Stay on the stage until the applause stops. This is the good part! You’ve earned that applause; revel in it! Enjoy it.
  • Always use all your time on stage. This is not a race. Acknowledge when you’re done, so the audience knows.
  • Another good tips is to ask the event planner for more time than they’ve told you they allow for speaking. The longer time you are on stage, the more of a relationship you can build with the audience. The more they know, like, and trust you, the more likely they are to build a relationship with you and buy from you.
  • Speaking is a vulnerable thing; it’s scary. Even when you speak a lot professionally, things happen. It’s not always utopia. Sometimes you get criticized or even ripped apart by someone in the audience. It’s part of the territory. If you are brave enough to ask for honest evaluations about your speaking from the audience, go ahead. You can learn from constructive criticism. But Caterina dislikes negative comments that aren’t helpful. Instead, she asks for positive feedback from event planners to use as testimonial.
  • You want results after speaking; have an upsell! You don’t want this feedback: “The speaker was incredible! Loved it!” What you want is: “The speaker was incredible and impacted me so much! I can’t wait to work with her as a client!”
  • Sometimes you will be criticized the most from people you love. One example is that a relative said to Caterina: “Making more money than you need is stupid.”  When you know your purpose and you’re all in it, it can still hurt, but it won’t derail you from your mission. When you demonstrate your purpose and your mission, you will eventually get less criticism.
  • Be loud and proud that you are a speaker. What are you waiting for? Do you have value to offer others? That’s it! Keep serving your purpose.
  • If you want to speak more and you’re not, there’s a reason. It’s because you haven’t set goals yet around your speaking. How often do you want to speak? One time is NOT a goal! Don’t say, “One speech a month.” That’s too close to nada. Maybe, do one a week!
  • When you’ve done a speech, that presentation is over! If it was no good, say it was the audience. 🙂 Just kidding! We have so much desire to serve, that when it’s over and we didn’t do well, it hurts. Just go on. Don’t keep obsessing about it. Gain more skills. Speak more. You will improve with every speech that you do.
  • Don’t speak everywhere, The audience may not be a match for you (your niche). There are 2 types of audiences – a voluntary audience, who chose to be there, and a mandatory audience, required to be there, such as at work. It is rare to have a bad speech when it’s your audience (your niche who wants to be there).
  • Your environment impacts your speech. One time Caterina was speaking, when waiters came in from both directions of the room to change the water. It was very distracting for her and the audience. Movement will attract your audience, so if someone is moving, you move to get their eyes back on you! Environment does affect your speech. One time Caterina spoke somewhere and later found out that someone in that organization had committed suicide in that area. My own tip for you would be to pray over the building and/or the area where you’ll be speaking, before you speak there. You might have intercessors join you to pray.
  • Our job is to hold a bigger vision for our audience and/or clients than they have for themselves! Caterina initially worked in a cafe’ business. She made great cappuccino, but food service wasn’t her calling. One time a woman came in with a big smile and thanked her for the business advice she’d given her. This touched Caterina’s heart and she realized this was her “bliss,” what she was to do with her life. She now serves women entrepreneurs who have a service based business, to help them make their businesses thrive. It’s not about what you do, but who you are that’s monetizable. Who you are attracts clients you’re called to serve. The more clear you are on this, the more you’ll thrive.

I have so much more to share with you, but don’t want this post to be too long! These are just a few of the things I learned. I will share more in my next blog post series, part  6.

Don’t you wish you’d been there? It was amazing!

*******

Beth Jonees, International Speaker/Author

Beth Jones, International Speaker/Author

 

Do you need a dynamic keynote speaker for your women’s conference or event? I’d love to work with you to help make your event a great success! To book me as a speaker, email me at elizabethdjones@gmail.com or contact me here.

October 12, 2013 by