I fly out to Orlando today to attend the NSA Convention that runs from Saturday July 22 through Tuesday July 25.

More than 1,500 speakers from around the world are expected.

The Convention publicity claims:

The 2006 NSA Convention will give attendees the ideas, insight and strategies they need to develop every aspect of their speaking business. In addition to providing networking and educational sessions with seasoned professionals from the United States, Canada and other countries, the Convention includes presentations by a number of accomplished local and national professional speakers.

“This remarkable meeting will feature several innovations and will highlight NSA’s two major strengths—providing education available nowhere else and building community, says NSA President Rick Jakle, CSP. Participants will experience an information-packed Convention designed to provide an immediate return on investment.”

Convention programming is designed specifically for professional speakers, aspiring speakers, speakers bureaus, and industry professionals.

Last July I attended my first NSA Convention in Atlanta. The experience was overwhelming, especially since I had almost no experience of speakers outside of my niche in the technology industry. I was dazzled by a gathering of people with 1,000-watt ego’s when compared to the dim bulbs in the tech industry. I had my first experience of secular preachers, southern gentlemen and ladies of a certain age who were masters of the art of persuasion from the podium. I learned more about the business side of speaking in four days than I had in the previous four years. Now, after a year attending meetings of the local NSA/NC Chapter and seven months of Pro-Track training, I feel somewhat more prepared. I expect to be dazzled.

Nan Andrews Amish summarized Saturday’s meeting and action items. She has given me permission to reprint this:

Some of you may have heard that when you go to a workshop, if you do not apply the learning in the next 48 hours, there is significant loss of the material. It has been 72 hours. Have you completed your one sheet yet?

Nan Andrews Amish
Big Picture Perspective: Big Picture Branding
Consultant, Facilitator, Speaker,
voice: (650)560-9800
e-mail: nan@bigpictureperspective.com

Professional speakers must learn how to market themselves. It’s not enough just being able speak in front of an audience or lead a seminar. To survive in a tough business you need to know how to sell yourself to meeting planners and conference organizers. This means you’ll need a message that must stand out from the other pro speakers (or Rise Above the Noise as Joel at Hyde Park Associates says). Your message must have an element of intrigue, the emotional appeal to grab the meeting planners interest (even if you present to the pocket-protector and short-sleeved-shirt triple-e crowd) and, finally, you must state up-front the benefits you bring as a speaker.

This was the focus of Saturday’s July meeting of the NSA/NC Pro-Track class. Those of us who made it to class (there was a smaller crowd than usual– some were still celebrating Italy’s World Cup win, others were celebrating summer) were given a grand tour of business branding and marketing — from typography to television shows, business cards to blogs.

The core of the day was a review of the single page brochures we’d created to advertise our businesses – commonly called “One Sheets”. It was a sobering experience seeing our original effort torn to pieces and re-cast. My own before and after versions show some of the results – a greater focus on benefits that answer the questions every person who reads it will have at the back of their mind (“Why should I hire this guy?” “What’s in it for me?” “So what?”).

People don’t want to know your name until they know what you have to offer. As with any good marketing, the content should not be about YOU as much as the effect your presentation will have on the audience – what they’ll do differently after they hear you speak.

This deconstruction was ably initiated by graphics designer extraordinaire:

Nancy Webb

Nancy (a graduate of last years Pro-Track) is a graphics designer who teaches small businesspeople how to improve the quality of their own visual communications materials. She is expert on ways to create a Visual Business Identity that carries into the consistent, professional design of the businesses “paper handshake” – letterhead, business cards, mailing labels – in terms of color, typeface, font and paper. One that is appropriate to the market and industry yet unique enough to stand out.

Some important rules:

• Research your market and industry – know who you are talking to and how others communicate in print
• Collect all your current printed materials and examples of other companies materials you love or hate
• Separate your personal and business personalities when considering what you like
• Pick one or two type families and ONLY use these
• Pick one or two colors other than black and only use these
• Be conscious of Page Architecture – make each page easy for the eyes to negotiate
• Don’t crowd or submerge text with boxes and rules
• If you can’t afford a professional logo then create a text-based one from your company name or initials (hey, it works for Coca-Cola, Microsoft and IBM, why not you?)

The results Nancy’s clients have produced – often on their own, following her one-day seminar – are astounding. Stellar examples includes Lee Glickstein’s Speaking Circles. Note that Nancy does not do web sites – the printed matter from these companies is far more impressive than the websites alone.

Nancy was joined by:

Nan Andrews Amish

in a strategic and design review of our One Sheets. As mentioned, this was effective in taking often self-centered content and re-casting as customer-centric benefits. Simply put, state what the clients pain is, state how they will gain from hiring you and say what qualifies you to be able to claim to offer a solution.

The day closed with our host and senior NSA member:

Michael Lee

reviewing effective marketing. Requirement: a clear defining statement

I work with _____________ who want to ___________ and ____________.

I came up with a couple of versions. In general terms:

I work with successful businesspeople who want to embrace opportunities for overseas expansion.

More specifically (for certain clients)

I work with Australian companies who want to do business in Silicon Valley and need to craft a presentation to VC’s.

Or:

I work with middle managers who want to effectively manage overseas teams and need to motivate staff from different cultural backgrounds.

Other tips include:

• Write articles for journals and magazines to establish your credibility
• Request an hour of community access programming from your local cable TV company – no-one watches, but it’s a good source of promotional video to put on your website
• Continually revise your website – make sure benefit statements are stated up front
• Finally, realize your presentation (speech or seminar) is your best marketing tool. Subtly plug your other programs, leave them wanting more and leverage your time in front of the audience into consulting engagements.

This Friday I’m traveling to the NSA Orlando Convention where I’ll be “live blogging” from the convention floor on the presentations, seminars and workshops being given by some of the world’s top professional speakers. Should be an interesting four days.

One, Two, Three, Four.

Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro.

Numbers are such absolutes, the bedrock of what we know, of how we think. We count the ways of loving and measure out our lives in numbers. So it’s only common sense that these must appeal on a similar level (of pure reason) in each and every listener worldwide – no matter if the audience is in St. Louis or Shanghai. Right?

Not so, reports the Chinese People’s Daily Online. Significant cultural differences exist in the way we process numbers.

Despite using the same numerals in computing, English and Chinese speakers displayed different brain activities in processing them, according to a new study conducted by a China-US research team. For example, the participants might have been shown symbols of an erect scythe and a cleaver and asked to figure out the visual orientation of a tilted knife in relation to the first two.

Right there, the dispassionate focus of the researcher betrays a deep cultural bias. While mental images of erect scythes, cleavers and a tilted knives would draw a blank in most westerners (with the possible exception of those of us who live in San Francisco and are habitues of the Power Exchange ) for the Chinese this is a valid area of research where numbers are represented by pictograms.

Since Chinese characters are more visual that Arabic numbers the brain activity required to process these vastly different written codes are significant.

This is yet another reason to eschew text and numbers in your Powerpoint when presenting at home or abroad. Stick to photographs and images that have more universal appeal. The audience will understand you better. You can count on it.

It was Showtime at Saturday’s NSA/NC Pro-Track Meeting. Team 5 took a turn to Showcase our presentations. In addition, we learned the importance of Marketing for Speakers as a way to showcase our expert talents to the world.

Jill Lublin

The best-selling author of Guerilla Publicity and Networking Magic shared her powerful, street-smart, results-oriented tips and tricks to capitalize on media opportunities and get the word out. Jill has seen that the problem with most CEO’s, independent professionals, consultants, speakers and authors is they have a great message but no clue how to craft it so the media will say “Yes! YES! YES!!� They have a lot of good ideas, but lack the focus and clarity to quickly and easily figure out what their main message is.

A sampling of her admonitions:

I experimented with my own media pitch:

The world is changing. Over 50% of businesspeople must deal with overseas customers, partners or staff. Hi, I’m Ian Griffin with Executive Communications and I help businesses bridge cultures by: building your credibility as an outsider who enjoys hidden advantages over native businesspeople; helping you communicate clearly and understandably with foreigners and, finally, by giving you twelve travel tips to ensure your next overseas business trip is stress-free and effective.

Nan Andrews Amish and Michael Lee

Two of the most experienced members of the National Speakers Association shared their insights on developing an effective marketing plan. Some of the highlights:

Al Gore’s new movie opened in this week in Hollywood. I watched it today in a theatre at Sunset and Vine while LA County freeways throbbed with the ceaseless roar of SUV’s, convertibles, sedans and hybrid vehicles. Steeper gas prices have not put a dent in the Southern California lifestyle, any more than they’ve changed American’s driving habits in any of the other 49 states.

Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth aims to change some of these very truths that American’s hold self-evident: the inalienable rights to execute tight right turns on red in a set of wheels that gets the lowest average mileage of any nation on earth.

No matter if you voted for Gore (which the majority of us did) or for the current President (which slightly fewer did, but enough in the right parts of Florida) you owe it to your children to see this movie. It convinced me. And one of the reasons it is convincing is that Gore gives quite simply the best executive presentation I’ve ever seen.

One reason might be is that he knows his content.

He’s delivered the same presentation over 1,000 times – in most American cities and many places overseas. He has seen what works with audiences, and where he saw the need for more compelling content he created it.

One highlight of his stagecraft is when he shows how increased CO2 emissions are literally “off the chart” by ascending 20 feet above the podium on a hydraulic lift to reach the high-point on his graphic where recent increases in pollution have spiked in comparison to the 650,000 year-old records we have (core samples from the polar ice don’t lie).

Time and again a relaxed, tanned, slightly overweight Gore uses compelling images and animations onscreen to support his argument. I did not see one bullet point in the whole thing. What I did see were:

Pictures worth a thousand words

Beautifully executed animations that support the speaker but don’t distract

A little humor

Simple, elegant charts with graphs that explain, not obfuscate

The graphics are simple, compelling, effective. Time and again we see Gore the road-warrior as he jets around the world delivering his speech (shades of do as I say not as I do in terms of his own beefy carbon footprint on the planet this travel schedule must have imposed – but I guess he can be forgiven given the message he carries. At all times he has his trusty Apple (whose Board is he on) laptop open, tweaking a slide or three.

Garr points out that it’s not a “PowerPoint” presentation – he used Apple’s more elegant product, Keynote.

Perhaps Steve Jobs the master of effective presentations schooled him. Someone did. This is not the Al Gore who used t’joke about he being the wooden one in the roomful of Secret Service agents (a joke that itself was so wooden, so scripted, as to be a parody of an effective speaker).

Agree or disagree with Al, if you’re a professional speaker or speechwriter, ya gotta see this film.

Putting a new spin on the old adage, Michael Soon Lee last night shared a secret of his successful speaking business with a dozen lucky members of the National Speakers Association Northern California chapter: “Tell ’em what you’ll tell ’em, tell ’em, and then sell ’em”.

Like many of the plutocracy of the NSA, Michael knows that speaking fees are only one of multiple potential streams of income. What he sells ‘at the back of the room’ on a literature table can easily match the speaking fee he commands. These products — books, CD’s, pamphlets, laminated reference cards and more — also sell themselves from his website while he sleeps.

Michael shared a step-by-step guide — the path to extra income for speakers smart enough to develop products that’ll entice the audience to part with cold, hard cash.

He conducted a simple five minute exercise. Asking each of us to write down topics around which we can create salable product. This exercise was a huge motivation for us newbies to get out in the marketplace with product and ‘just do it’. Paralysis by analysis prevents most speakers from passing GO and collecting $200.

Start your engines by creating simple lists that summarize an area of your subject matter expertise. (“13 ways a Realtor earns their commissions”). Give this away on laminated cards or sell them as desk-sets in perspex holders ($2.95). Add some references, sample forms, interview snippets, salient quotes and presto-chango, you’ve got pamphlets ($9.95); cue cards ($14.95); spiral-bound booklets ($19.95); CD inserts ($29.95) or 4-CD sets ($79.95). Add value to the initial content. Invest in graphics production standards that will differentiate the covers by which they’ll be judged. Pretty soon you’ll have a table of literature and can sell ‘show specials’ for $200-300 and throw in certificates for a free hour of telephone consulting to whip the feeding frenzy at the break.

Just don’t be tempted to invest years of work writing a book with all your content between the covers. Sure, it’ll build your credibility. At a price. It’ll sell for $29.95 and the trade publisher keeps 90% of this. Do the math.

My own list (drafted in a few minutes – the hard work lies ahead – making it content worth paying for):

(In case you’re wondering, this is the significance of 54 and 108. Om Mani Padme Hum, man…)

Time will tell if I have the chops to deliver unique, salable content that my audiences want. The more specific I make it, the better the payback for content they can’t get anywhere else.

Meanwhile, I’ll use this blog to test drive content, gather feedback and refine it before pushing the print button and stocking up on hard copy.

Anyone starting out in the professional speaking business needs to learn how to navigate — from where you are today to where you want to be. Last Saturday, Jim Horan, author of The One Page Business Plan gave members of the NSA/NC Pro-Track training group a personal navigation lesson to guide us on our journey as professional speakers.

Jim left corporate America in the mid-1990’s when he lost his CFO job. By his own admission, he’s an accidental author, an accidental reseller and software creator. He listened to the big and little messages the marketplace gave him. He developed his ‘One Page Business Plan’ company from a simple idea to a $20m global cottage industry. His book and CD costs him $1.95 to produce and retails for $35. It’s generated over $500K income for him. More impressively, his network of over 300 licensed trainers have brought in $19.5m in revenue. Meanwhile, his speaking engagements have paid only $50K in the years since he started. Lesson one: don’t just look to speaking fees as a sole source of income as a professional speaker!

Before working through some of the very practical exercises in his book (creating a Business Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Business Objectives, Business Strategies, and complete Business Plan), Jim encouraged us to realize that “you’re all old enough to already have the customers you want to have” and “to be known by others for something unique”. I realized I am known for writing great speeches for high-tech corporate executives and helping lower the barriers to international business.

Everyone’s business plan is a dialog or conversation that starts inside your own head. Creating the business plan is the first step for a professional speaker who wants to make a living “printing thousand dollar bills with your mouth”. We all already have plans, whether we are the CEO or a Janitor. People who say they don’t have a plan might mean:

Having a written business plan will:

Jim’s genius is in showing how the One Page Business Plan works: it’s simple, focused, readily understandable, versatile, consistent and flexible.

The components of the plan work together to help us navigate the journey of building a business:

Enough theory!

At the end of the day my One Page Business Plan for Executive Communications (rev 1.00001) was as follows:

Vision:

Within the next five years , grow Executive Communications into a successful international consulting company providing business development assistance to companies looking for opportunities to expand overseas.

Mission:

I help successful businesses embrace opportunities for overseas expansion.

Objectives (for my ‘active retirement’ years once I no longer have a W-2 job):

To achieve sales of $240,000 from 24 customers at a rate of one new customer a week for six months of the year with an average dollar engagement of $10,000 comprised of $2,000/day speaking and consulting fees for a total number 1000 of billable hours each year from 2011 onwards.

Strategies:

Plans:

Project 1: Develop this blog into articles and a book.
Project 2: Coach one business into successful overseas expansion.
Project 3: Host overseas companies visiting Silicon Valley.
Project 4: Network with successful international individuals and entities in the corporate world.

Given that this was the result of less than a full day’s energy and attention it’s a good start.

I wonder if there are other folks sharing their business plans on the web? In Blogs? Many people might feel like this is overexposing themselves. That’s so last century. The ascendancy of the open systems approach in the computer world shows the value of networking and sharing. In the business world, The Republic Of Tea is a classic chronicle of the birth of a new business that shows the value in sharing ideas.

With that, I look forward to the comments from my Pro-Track team members about my business plan!

Garr Reynolds recently remarked that stand-up comedy is the most terrifying presentation skill to master. Very few of us want to try doing a set at the local comedy club, no business person really needs that experience on their resume. But knowing the right and wrong way to work humor into a business presentation is a valuable skill for both speechwriter and/or speaker to master.

But surely no mere mortal is funny enough to make audiences laugh in the way Seinfeld, Woody Allen or the talk-show hosts make ’em laugh? Many speaking coaches warn that attempts at humor in a business speech are doomed to embarrassment and failure. Audiences want the facts, just the facts, ma’am. Fun has no place in the business world, damn it! This might be true…in Germany. But in many countries, a little humor goes a long way to connect with an audience. But what to do – if you don’t have the talent or courage? Are there any sure-fire techniques to build a laugh machine to turn ’em on?

The May meeting of the vibrant (and growing!) NSA/NC Chapter was the place to be Saturday to see two masters of the comedic arts share their trade secrets.

We leaned about “The Rule of Three”; “The Call Back”; “The Topper” as well as a bunch of funny lines and plain zany ideas to plant in your next script to wow your audience. These were not the idle suggestions of amateur funny men – they were practical, tried and tested techniques to get any business audience laughing.

David Glickman – ‘Be More Funny, Make More Money’

David is a superb stand-up comic in the tradition of the best of the Borscht Belt. His tips for creating great humor include:

David shared other great insider tips. Such as using a graphics professional to create a glue-on cover that parodies a well known book with a new title the specific audience will find funny – Harry Potter and the Mystery of Hotel Banquet Pricing for a speech to a Meeting Planners Convention.

Business audiences love jokes that are customized for them. Poke fun at the competition, mention product names, use corporate lingo. They’ll love being in on the ‘Inside Joke’.

All this and more in his excellent book.

Brad Montgomery – Got Mirth? Milking Your Material For All The Humor It’s Worth

Wow! A stand-up comic who started in the business when he was 16, is a magician and he has his own blog! What’s not to like!

Brad took an analytic approach to generating mirth in front of the mike. He spent time putting our fears to rest by sharing some groundrules:

Brad gave us great tips for livening up business audiences.

Let the audience see you are having a good time.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, fail and they’ll let you die.

The Fourth meeting of the Pro-Track training sponsored by the National Speakers Association, Northern California, took place on April 22. This month’s focus was on choosing a topic to speak on.

Webster defines a topic as:

Etymology: Latin Topica Topics (work by Aristotle), from Greek Topika, from topika, neuter plural of topikos of a place, of a topos, from topos place, topos
1 a : one of the general forms of argument employed in probable reasoning b : ARGUMENT, REASON
2 a : a heading in an outlined argument or exposition b : the subject of a discourse or of a section of a discourse

The bottom line for professional speakers is that your topic must appeal to audiences willing to pay to hear you speak. We heard from two consummate professionals who had picked topics that packed ’em in.

Adrian Pearson

Ms. Pearson (I state her sex since the British mostly expect Adrian’s to be men – Adrian Mole, Adrian Cockcroft, ‘Adrian’s Wall…) is a market research expert who highlighted the importance of measuring the interest people have in a particular topic before writing the speech. Why choose to develop a topic that will be difficult to sell?

Simply ask a small sample of people to rate your subject on a scale of 1-9. Anything that scores a 6 or higher deserves your attention. Otherwise, fuggedabout it!

My homework – finding what specific topics in the area of international business and doing business overseas people are willing to pay good money to hear about.

Craig Harrison

This craigslist of ways to find your topic included:

– Ask yourself what gives you most pleasure as a communicator (shocking audiences? storytelling? inspiring them?)
– Examine what qualifies you as an expert on your topic – where does your credibility come from?
– Find out what audiences value enough to pay for – what are the hot topics they are interested in?

We then spent time developing an elevator pitch to showcase our uniqueness. He coached us to think in terms of the listener, clearly stating the benefits of what we do and inviting them to connect further with us.

At the end of the day I had the following rough draft for my elevator pitch:

I speak on the secrets of success in international business. I’m Ian Griffin and I’ve experienced first hand how to survive and thrive in foreign lands. If you want to feel at home anywhere in the world I can teach you 35 tips for productive overseas trips. Are you ready to do business, worldwide? Call me.

I’m sure I will modify and refine this over time. And at some point I might actually develop 35 tips that people will pay to hear. Meanwhile, on a scale of 1 to 9 (1 = terrible, 9 = fantastic) tell me how you rate my elevator pitch?