On Tuesday July 10th I hosted a ‘Birds of a Feather’ meeting on Blogging at the National Speakers Association annual Convention in San Diego.

We started the meeting with around ten people in the room. By the end we had an audience of over 35 people interested in blogging. About 70% already had a blog. The panel consisted of myself, Rebecca Morgan and Kim Snider.

The podcast below is the full hour-long audio of the meeting. Since this is a LONG podcast, you might prefer to choose the Download option (right click and ‘Save Link As’) rather than listen to it all now.

The first 30 minutes are the panel explaining their approach to blogging. The last half-hour is a discussion with the audience who raised questions on:

Plus much, much more.

Sites referenced in the discussion include:

To join the Yahoo Group for NSA Bloggers:

Click to join nsa_bloggers

Listen in on a fascinating discussion on blogging by some of the world’s pre-eminent professional speakers. Click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:55 — 14.2MB)

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The value of large conferences like this year’s NSA Convention in San Diego is as much in chance conversations over lunch as in listening to presentations from the podium. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you meet in the hallways.”

I was delighted meet Rebecca Staton-Reinstein over lunch on Thursday. Working as a speechwriter at Hewlett-Packard, I hear stuff all the time about the vision and strategy of large organizations. Technology companies, by their very nature, tend to look to the future and speak in terms of innovation, R&D and the new, new thing. So I was surprised to hear Rebecca explain company strategy in historical terms. Imagine, an American with sense enough to try and understand the present in terms of the past!

Her current project involves interviewing CEO’s about their strategic vision and how this is translated into reality. Her research was stimulated by her understanding of the strategic vision of the 18th Century framers of the US Constitution. She talks to captains of industry about the ways they employ this vision in running their 21st Century businesses.

If you like what you hear in the podcast (click the icon below) then be sure to visit Rebecca’s website and check back when her book is published later this year.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:31 — 1.3MB)

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How to Build an Information Marketing Empire

Fred Gleeck rocked the house at the May meeting of NSA/NC on Saturday.

He was everything the usual NSA Speaker isn’t. He doesn’t dress for success (he is a success). He doesn’t make most of his income selling his system to other speakers (only 15% of his income comes from other speakers). He does not insist on CSP or CPAE credentials preceding him (he has found out that Bank tellers are not impressed by any initials on a check). Finally, he doesn’t believe in making money from each and every tip sheet, eZine or special report (he openly boasts of giving away his best information for free!)

Fred spent two hours giving a taste of the material he usually covers in his three-day workshop. His expertise is in selling information online. In terms of the future of the speaking professional, who must survive in a world which will someday be devastated by Avian Flu, the ability to generate income outside of face-to-face interactions will be crucial. Fred has a system to allow us to maximize income from “products” versus podium speaking.

The four fundamentals of Fred’s Info Products business system are Product; List; Copy and Traffic.

Fred’s strong suit is creating products for himself and others.

He’s built a mailing list of 100,000+ by making sure that when people go to his sites (he has 300+ websites), if they don’t buy a product, they sign up for his list.

Copywriting – especially for the content of the websites and emails he sends – is an area he outsources.

Building web traffic via the search engines is also something he outsources to his webmaster.

Want to know more?

Since a cornerstone of his whole system is to give away the best information, you can do worse than go to his website and download his five 100-plus page information-packed books.

I did. They’re fabulous.

Speechwriters in high technology companies often face the challenge of communicating complexities in a simple manner which audiences can understand. The universe is a complex machine which no-one really understands. Books have been written on the ways we interpret the evidence of our senses. None of them are easy to understand. Are they?

Then along comes a short video which can take you further down the path of understanding how we perceive reality in five minutes than a dozen philosophy books would in a month.

I found it easy to envisage the techniques employed by this video being used by a technology company wishing to communicate complexity in profoundly simple, even provocative, ways.

Take five minutes to check it out and let me know if you think I’m smoking something or if you agree.

Ready? Steady? Go!

Spotted a fascinating article detailing options for professional speakers to sell spoken advice and support via per-minute phone calls. Think of this as a legit spin on the psychic advice and phone sex biz model.

Four services are highlighted.

Ether

Enables you to sign up for a free Ether (1-888) number, which is forwarded to a phone number of your choice, be it cell, home or work. You then decide how much your time is worth, per hour per minute or per call. Customers will only be able to call you when they’ve prepaid the set rate. Ether bills their credit card and sends you this fee minus a 15% commission. There’s no monthly fees, no setup fees, and no connection fees. It would be your responsibility to advertise this service on your website or blog. Of course 888 numbers are only valid in the USA, so you’re limiting your potential market to 300 million Americans (bummer!).

BitWine

Is a Skype-based directory of service providers which offers “Trusted Advice from Real People”. Ideally for bloggers, there’s custom code to advertise the service on your blog. Rankings are posted so customers can see the reputation of the seller (as on eBay). Sellers charge from zero (free) to $3.00 a minute or more depending on category. Since it is Skype-based your services can be marketed globally.

Wengo

Is an on-line expert community, similar to BitWine except everything I accessed seemed to be in French. Maybe I’m missing something. Is there an English-language version out there somewhere?

Skype Prime

The 800-Pound Gorilla of the online telephony world with 171 million VoIP subscribers has launched their beta service which is similar to Ether. You can create a Skype Prime ‘snippet’ to advertise the service you provide on your blog. Billing and the back-end details are handled by Skype for a 30% commission. But you can market to anyone in the world with a Skype account. The calls start as free, then switch to the paid calling plan, with you charging either by the minute or a one-off fixed fee for the privilege.

These four plans indicate the beginnings of a new business model for professional speakers and information brokers. Right now they’re a nice-to-have experimental way of leveraging your time and expertise. But when Avian Flu hits and the conference halls empty, they might be indispensable.

I’d love to hear from anyone with experience of these services. Good or bad. Please leave your comments below.

Professional speakers and information brokers of all kinds can leverage their knowledge into tips booklets and related information products for marketing, motivating and making money.

Paulette Ensign, the Tips Booklet Queen, is the world’s leading expert on the writing, publishing and marketing of tips booklets. She has a full-service website, Tips Products International, filled with proven processes to help anyone create a booklet.

Paulette has sold well over a million copies of her own tips booklet, 110 Ideas for Organizing your Business Life, in 4 languages and various formats, without spending a penny on advertising. Her website hosts over 300 booklets written by others on topics as diverse as 70 Tips To Welcome Your Newly Adopted Cat Into Your Life to 115 Essential Tips For Effective Presentations.

I caught up with Paulette at a seminar she gave in Sacramento this week. Click on the podcast link below to hear her share how she got started in this business and what is involved in producing a tips booklet.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:32 — 1.3MB)

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Enough has been written about the changing fortunes of the major computer manufacturers to fill my hard disk many times over. Analysts have reviewed product mix, features and benefits, distribution models, P/E ratios and more, However, this chart comparing the page views for dell.com, hp.com, ibm.com and sun.com over the past 3 years says it all:

Remember, unlike HP, Dell is a company known for doing most of its business online.

Made to Stick is a must-read for anyone tasked with creating a message people will remember. A message that will stick. You might work on the Corporate Overview for a multi-billion dollar corporation. You might be an independent businessperson who just wants to write an advert people will remember. The challenges are the same. The issues you must face up to include:

The Curse of Knowledge

Happens when you’ve lose the ability, as an expert in your field, to realize how little someone who has never heard of your topic before will grok. You speak in abstractions, all they want is a concrete example. Here’s a case in point:

The mission of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer is to assure the effective management and financial integrity of Department of Energy programs, activities, and resources by developing and implementing and monitoring Department-wide policies and systems in the areas of budget administration, program analysis and evaluation, finance and accounting, internal controls, corporate financial systems, and strategic planning.

Office of the Chief Financial Officer, US Department of Energy

Will you remember that in the morning? Or in five minutes? No way.

Making things too complex

The Heath’s quote a factsheet on the dangers of sun exposure and take the time to craft an alternative message (p.40) that is much simpler. One that eliminates non-essential information. The core of the message is made interesting, unexpected even. Simple messages have a strong core and are compact. Proverbs such “A bird in the hand” are the ultimate in sticky, powerful messages that have spread across the world and survived down the ages.

Being boring and predictable

Repetitive messages can become boring. TV commercials are a case in point. As Roy H. Williams points out, you need to surprise the brain in order to break through the defense mechanisms we have that filters out the predictable.

Fuck!

See, like that Unexpected word. Of course, your challenge in the Multi-Billion Dollar Corporation is to write a memorable message that does not Fuck! with the customers. That’s why they pay the big bucks. And the Heath’s have answers to help.

Giving a message credibility gives it stickiness. Quoting external authorities, using details and testable challenges all work. Create emotional empathy for a specific individual and people will remember what you have told them.

Stories with compelling plot (ones that Challenge, or are Creative or make a Connection) stimulate and inspire the audience, and ensures they will remember what you’ve said.

For an idea to stick an audience must:

1. Pay attention – to the UNEXPECTED
2. Understand and remember – the CONCRETE
3. Agree and Believe – in the CREDIBLE
4. Care – EMOTIONALLY
5. Be able to act – on the STORY

Much of what this book has to offer is useful to speechwriters and professional speakers. Check it out.

Associations across America spend millions on meetings and events.

Dr. Bill Wittich, incoming NSA Northern California President, shared his expertise Saturday on how professional speakers can market themselves to Associations. Bill spoke on the panel of experts at the St Patrick’s Day Pro-Track meeting.

Click on the podcast link below to hear Bill tell us why Associations are such a lucrative market and his secrets for networking your way into a speaking engagement.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:50 — 2.2MB)

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Thanks to Brady for telling me about about an amusing Oddcast demo.

Oddcast does text-to-speech conversion. You can play with the nationality and sex of the speaker. Hear the same words spoken in the voice of Audrey or Charles from the UK. Then skip over to the USA and hear how Claire or Mike would say it. Next, switch to any one of a dozen other nationalities to hear Jolie or Bernard from France; Reiner or Klara from Germany or many others speak.

You could be boring predictable and type in a phrase like “You are so sexy” or more adventurous and cut and paste the text from a Robert Frost poem or the opening words of your next speech.

Beware, you can only play around a few times before the system thanks you for visiting and puts a stop to the fun.

Enjoy!