Expert Speaker

5 Steps To Grow Your Business With Public Speaking

Majeed Mogharreban

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781642794120
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Communication & Public Speaking

For those looking to become a highly-paid speaker who makes a difference, Expert Speaker reveals how to take the stage by being an expert, not the expert.

The fastest way to build authority, get one's name out to the public, and attract premium clients is by public speaking. The truth is, not just any speech will win stages and attract the right clients. In Expert Speaker, ExpertSpeaker.com founder Majeed Mogharreban draws from his ten years of experience as a professional speaker to help readers build their brands, grow their business, and amplify their message in a way that makes a difference. Expert Speaker teaches those who are serious about public speaking what to say to get booked, how to give a speech that builds authority, how to negotiate their speaker fee, and so much more. Majeed walks readers through every aspect of public speaking so they too can amplify their message and take control over the big stage of their career.

CHAPTER 1

Welcome to the New World of the Expert Speaker

Are You REALLY an Expert?

What do you think of when you hear the word expert?

• •more knowledgeable than me
• •master of a certain topic
• •a leader
• •experienced

Maybe you don’t feel like “the expert” in your field. Or perhaps you don’t feel like an expert at anything. I want to give you a new definition of expert that may fit for you: If you know more than me about something that is important to me, then you are an expert–to me.

I’m not an expert in iPhones and iPads, but to my mother-in-law I am. I can fix her iPad. I am her iPhone and iPad expert because I know enough to be helpful. Conversely, I consider Iris, my mother-in-law, a master chef because her cooking is so amazing. But would she consider herself an expert? Maybe not. She’s an expert to me.

You are an expert to the people you serve, and you are an expert to the people who are searching for your help right now.

Are you the best in the world? Probably not. But you may be the best in someone’s world. Are you two steps ahead of someone? Perhaps you’ve been in the business a few years and you’re helping someone just starting out. Or perhaps you have had a divorce, and you now help people going through divorce. That makes you a relevant expert to the person you are two steps ahead of, because your experience is similar to theirs. It is not uncommon to have an ideal client profile that fits the description of a past version of you. In other words, we tend to be very good at helping people who are currently in a situation that we were able to overcome.

You Don’t Need to Be the Expert You Need to Be an Expert

Here are the facts:

• •you have a gift that can help people
• •you feel called to serve by sharing the message in that gift
• •you are very good at what you do

Are you the best expert in the world? Yes, as long as you define the world to the people who resonate most with you.

If you are like me, you want to share your gift, what you’re good at, with others. You don’t want to spend so much time on marketing and sales; you probably just want to do more speaking. As an expert speaker, here’s one thing to understand: your job is not to be a speaker. You’re already good at telling your story and sharing your message. If you had a speaking opportunity tonight you would crush it. The difficult part of the speaking business is getting the gig. And so, I want you to put on a new hat. You’ve got the speaker hat on right now. Take the speaker hat off and put on a different hat called “speaker marketer.” You are the marketer of a speaker, and you’re the speaker: you’re the brand. Your job is to market yourself.

Marketing Is Communication That Gets Clients/Sales Is the Process of Helping Your Customer Make the Right Decision

Now you are in the business of marketing and selling a speaker. That speaker is you. You are both the speaker and the speaker’s agent. Your job as a speaker’s agent is to find and book gigs for your speaker clients. As you consider yourself the agent and client, you will be that closer to regularly landing speaking gigs and sharing your message to the world.

Don’t Call Yourself a Speaker

Event planners aren’t looking for speakers for their event; they are looking for experts to speak at their event. It’s a subtle difference but important for how you think about your brand. This is especially useful if you are using the stage to drive clients into your business. If your prospects see you only as a speaker, then they can only imagine hiring you to speak and may not be aware of all the other powerful services you offer. Consider yourself an expert who speaks rather than a speaker with a message.

There Are More Speaking Opportunities Today Than Ever Before

Opportunities to speak are all over the place. Whether it’s a keynote speech, a workshop, a seminar, or speaking to a camera or on a podcast, when you speak for multiple people listening “live” or for those who will listen to a recording, no matter the platform, there are ample opportunities to share your message, make an impact, and get paid!

We are going to cover how to define your audience, how to craft your speech, and how to attract people to buy from you without any high-pressure sales tactics, and how to get appointments with decision-makers for training, consulting, coaching or paid speaking engagements.

I will lay out two different sales processes: The first is how to sell yourself to the event planner. The second is selling the audience to hire you for your services or to buy your products. These processes are a proven way to sign clients after you speak and to carry forward the momentum from your talk. You can imagine it, right? People are coming up to you after your presentation, waiting to speak with you directly. How do you make sure that you know what to say in that moment to help them make the decision to hire you?

SUMMARY

• •You are an expert to the people you serve, and you are an expert to the people who are searching for your help right now.
• •You are the marketer of a speaker, and you’re the speaker. You are the brand. Your job is to market yourself.
• •Consider yourself an expert who speaks rather than a speaker with a message.
• •There are two different sales processes: The first is how to sell yourself to the event planner. The second is selling the audience to hire you for your services or to buy your products.

CHAPTER 2

Becoming a Highly-Paid Expert Speaker

Lewis Eisen is a certified expert speaker and an expert in better policy writing for employee policies. His process is similar to the six-figure engagement I mentioned earlier. Lewis says, “We’re going to come in and do a one-hour training on how to write respectful policies,” and this is his foot in the door for ongoing implementation with the organization. He goes in to speak and he is preaching to the choir. The policy writers hear him, and they say, “This is brilliant. I wish my boss was here to have heard what you just said, because that’s exactly what my boss needs to hear,” but the boss is off doing something more important.

The job that Lewis has now is to turn the room of employees into evangelists who go to their boss to say, “We need to hire Lewis.” Lewis is systematically owning that process by saying to them, “Here is a piece of paper to pass around the room. At the top I want you to write down the name, email, and phone number of your boss. Then each of you write down three reasons why you think the boss should hire me. I will follow up with him directly. You can add your name unless you prefer to be anonymous.”

He continues, “And in addition to that, I’m going to offer you a 360-audit of your policy writing as it stands now, and I’m going to make a specific recommendation for you for a roadmap forward at no additional charge.” He provides them with a detailed three-year roadmap. And he says, “Here’s what you do to implement this into your company. By the way, based on my analysis of your current resources, you don’t have the necessary resources and skills to implement this yourself. But the good news is I can implement it for you. It’s only $100,000 a year. Here’s the contract that I’ve already prepared for you. All you have to do is sign here; it’s renewable annually.”

That’s turning a $2,500 speech into a $300,000 engagement. He can do ten engagements like that per year. It’s a $3 million business model.

Lewis knows their procurement processes and their buying processes. He is already on their list of suppliers. Lewis put himself in the absolute best position to take this project because he knows the organization. He just did the audit and the people love him. He’s got a stack of paper from the employees to prove it. This is the roadmap. This is how you get a $300,000 speech. Celebrities can’t do that. An expert service provider like you can.

The Speaker Dream

You’re standing backstage, and the crowd’s going wild. You hear the emcee introducing you and rattling off all your accolades and accomplishments. Then your name is announced and the crowd roars. The music kicks on. You go out onto the stage as the powerful speaker that you are. You rock the house. You’re channeling your wisdom. The jokes are coming, and the words are flowing. At the end of your speech, you get a standing ovation. And when you come off the stage, there is a crowd of people wanting to talk to you and have their picture taken with you.

In the back of the venue you see the event planner, smiling and leaning up against the wall with the knowing look of, “That was the best speaker we’ve ever had. Hiring this speaker was the best thing we’ve ever done.” You walk up to her, and you ask her one question, “Did I exceed your expectations?” She says, “Beyond my wildest imagination.”

She hands you an envelope. You know what’s inside. It’s the biggest cheque you’ve received as a speaker, because they keep getting bigger. You take the envelope and say, “Thank you,” and you’re on your way. You wheel your suitcase out to the limousine that is waiting for you.

You sit in the limousine that’s taking you to your flight home. You open up the envelope and a smile lights up your face when you look at the cheque amount. You take out your phone. You see emails coming in from fans at the event. Your assistant emails you, saying, “We already have three requests to book you at another speech based on your speech tonight; you must have really knocked it out of the park.” You put your phone away and say, “I done good” in the back of a limo.

A speaker’s lifestyle is spending 98 percent of your time on all the things that have to happen to get you on that stage. If you’re lucky, 2 percent of your life is actually on the stage as a speaker. That means you’re making cold calls, creating marketing materials, shooting videos, editing videos, learning social media, and creating online courses.

The glamour and the fame and the gigs are great. But you have to be willing to do the hard stuff because if you’re in the business for the fame and the money, you’re going to realize that’s much less frequent than the struggle and the work. You have to enjoy the journey and the process.

I’m going to share with you my journey and struggle. I will tell you how I grew beyond dreaming of being a speaker and the days of watching speakers on stage, thinking to myself, How did they get this gig? That person just made $10,000 in thirty minutes, like, that’s crazy. If I could do that just once a month. That would change my life!

I am not a born gifted speaker with speaking gigs coming easily to me. If I was, why would you come to me for advice? I started out like you did, with a dream, a message to share, and a desire to learn.

When I was a kid, our family moved around a lot so I developed the skill called “making friends.” I thought telling stories and telling jokes was a good way to do that. I never went to the same school two years in a row until high school. The skill of meeting new people was like a learned survival skill.

I like to act, and I was in theater in school. My first acting experience was the musical Annie. I was Dog Catcher Number Two. Then I was in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, singing, fixing up the lighting, and putting on makeup backstage. These were all fun things for me as a five- and six-year-old little boy in California. When we moved to Illinois, I joined the speech team, which combined my love for performance with my drive for competition. I’ve ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Welcome to the New World of the Expert Speaker
• Chapter 2 Becoming a Highly-Paid Expert Speaker
• Chapter 3 From Pain Island to Pleasure Island: The Process
• Chapter 4 Step One: Define Your Audience
• Chapter 5 Step Two: Create Your Offer
• Chapter 6 Step Three: Craft Your Speech
• Chapter 7 Step Four: Win Stages
• Chapter 8 Step Five: Monetize Your Message
• Chapter 9 What Is Holding You Back from Becoming a Successful, Highly-Paid Speaker?
• Chapter 10 Your Message Matters
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author