You're a speaker.
You've put your hours in behind the dais, learned where the laughs are, and figured out how to always make your meeting professionals and speakers bureaus look good.
You can pack enough clothes for a meet and greet, keynote and breakout workshop all in one roll-aboard. You can get on-line from any hotel anywhere in the world and you have a great system for adding business cards to your mailing list on your return flight and following up immediately after a booking.
You've got it all figured out, don't you?
So how come you don't have all the gigs you want? Why aren't you quite as busy as some of your idols in the speaking business?
Think about any speaker you admire. I mean it. Stop reading this article for a minute and picture some of the speakers you think are tops in their field.
Now write down their names in the margin of this article. Right below their names, write the following phrase:
“Everyone knows they're very good.”
It's true, isn't it? If you wrote down the names of some top-notch speakers – the names that you and I both recognize and admire – then everyone does know that they're very, very good.
So circle the last few words of the phrase – “…they're very good” – after all, it's common knowledge.
But you're very, very good, too. You wouldn't be a member of NSA, reading this magazine and getting paid to speak if you weren't very, very good also. The difference is the first two words of the phrase. The key to their success is not just that they're very good but that everyone knows it. And if you want to achieve their level of success, then everyone needs to know how good you are, too.
That's what this article is all about.
-Bruce Turkel