How to give a Talk to Market Your Business

One of the best ways to extend your services is to secure coaching contracts after a speech. When you speak, the audience only gets you for an hour. If they really want to learn what you shared with them, coaching is the benefit you provide. Use your speech to inspire them to learn more. Then let them know you can coach them, as individuals and groups, to actually "be" more.

When you have an opportunity to speak to a group for free or for a fee, they are not buying your speech … they are buying your solution that will fix their problem. Be coach-like in your presentation and demonstrate what it would be like to work with you as their coach.

You are not talking about coaching. You are there to demonstrate coaching. Think of yourself as an expert who is addressing the audience's challenge and is providing "how to's" to solve their problem. Here is what some of my clients speak on: direct mail marketing, security issues in the workplace, how to lobby the government for your special interest, ethics in the workplace, follow your dreams, financial planning, a doctor and lawyer who wants to speak about what is wrong with our healthcare system and how we can change that.

Begin each talk by asking yourself 3 questions.

1. What action do I want my audience to take after my speech?
2. What do they need to know to do this (content)?
3. What do they need to feel to do this (emotions)?

Remember, you will get hired as a coach for the power of your content, and get paid (or referrals) for your delivery!

To persuade an audience, we must get in touch with their feelings, and reveal that our own feelings are in harmony with their. When we can do that emotionally, and truthfully, we will have won their trust … and will get repeat business, referrals to new clients, and requests for coaching.

Remember to use stories about your clients so you can subtly remind your audience that you are a coach, and your clients are achieving what the audience would like to achieve.

In addition to platform speaking, you can also be a guest teleclass speaker, conduct your own teleclasses, provide a radio interview, start your own virtual university (I did in 1998 – Speakers University – which I still operate today)

Here are some of the hot topics:
1. Knowledge Management
2. Filling Multiple Roles in the workplace
3. Creating Change skill sets
4. Ethics in the workplace
5. Time / task management
6. Stress Management
7. Increasing worker / employee productivity
8. Blending people and organizations
9. Teamwork
10. Creativity
11. Leading, managing and surviving change
12. Diversity
13. Strategic Planning
14. Humor (as a stress handling technique)
15. Negotiations techniques
16. Handling difficult people
17. Conflict resolution
18. Communication Skills
19. Motivation
20. How to achieve Balance in your life
21. Health and Wellness (to do's)
22. Programs specific to women's issues and family issues.