Make Marketing Suck Less for Expertise-Driven Solo Businesses

Since coaches can help with your fitness goals, your golf swing and your kid’s baseball team, doesn’t it make sense to hire a speech coach to help you achieve the next level of speaking success? Yes, of course, but before you let your fingers Google “speech coach,” you need to get clarity on few things to know for sure if hiring a speech coach is the right thing for you and your business. The firs...

Is vulnerability the silver bullet to speaking success? Not necessarily. A presentation infused with personal anecdotes can be powerful, but when you’re in the midst of a vulnerability hangover you’re just exposing yourself and giving your audience too much information, rather than leaving them changed. Every time you step on the stage, you must ask yourself if there is a lesson for your audience...

Just like the Force that pulls Luke to the good side and Vader to the dark, persuasion is inherently neutral. It’s how a speaker uses a persuasive technique that makes it ethical (good) or manipulative (bad). When persuasion is used ethically, it is an amazing tool! Persuasion can create incredible results for your speaking and for your audience. It’s powerful, changes lives and truly serves. In t...

Have you heard it? All the hype that you, yes YOU, can triple your income with public speaking in just weeks, “just like I did”? Yeah, right! This marketing message implies that speaking is a quick and easy fix to make all your revenue goals come true. When it doesn’t happen for you, and believe me it won’t happen that quick or at all for most of us, it positions you as a failure. Today, our episo...

Priority No. 1 is to be known for what you do and how your business serves. Your Signature Talk is the key to how you talk about your business and how to crystallize your message for the people who need it the most. And, as an entrepreneur, it’s something that cannot be outsourced—no one can replace you when you need to talk about your business.   The focus of today’s episode is your Signature Tal...

I loved playing Mad Libs as a kid. All you needed to do was fill in the blanks with different parts of speech to create a hysterical story. While this was great fun for me and my mom many moons ago, if you want to book more speaking gigs, you should never use a formula to create your presentation.   Today, we explore: Why Mad Libbing your presentation hurts you as a speaker How originality and pos...

Speakers get obsessed about solving the wackiest things. What should I do with my hands? How do I stop saying “so”? Blue or black suit? (Neither, you want color!) Answers to these questions can help you get better, but none of them are the most important thing to raise the bar on your presentations. To create an epic experience for your audience you need to create a remarkable presentation. We get...

While we might think variety is the spice of life, it turns out that too much variety can paralyze your audience into no action at all. Many speakers make the same mistake with their calls to action. In the excitement to be all things to everybody, they speak about the oodles of things they can do for their clients and audiences. While there is no doubt about their talent and skill-set, they are n...

There are many people who could make a huge difference in the world. They have the talent and the message to share. But these talented people remain invisible to the audiences that need them most, because they keep making a critical mistake that continues to cost them speaking opportunities. They haven’t developed their signature speech. In today’s episode, we will explore: The three reasons why y...

We’re going to pull the last three episodes together and tie them up in a pretty bow to create your unfair speaking advantage. Be sure to listen to episodes TRSP 19 , TRSP 20 and TRSP 21 first, so that you have the building blocks in place to create a statement for speaking success that can serve as the basis of your signature talk. After today’s episode, you will have one statement that describes...

As the next piece of the speaking gig puzzle, we delve into the reason you want to be a speaker (and to get paid to do it). But, as you’ve come to expect from the Communication Rebel, we’re going to turn this discussion on its head so you can stand out in the crowded marketplace to achieve speaking success. In today’s show, we take another step deeper into my signature process to uncover your unfa...

Are you struggling to realize the speaking success you know you’re capable of? You’ve come to the right place, grasshopper. As the leader of the presentation rebellion, I’m on a quest to banish boring and uninspired pitches to help you stand out as a speaker and position yourself better than the competition. In today’s show, we continue the discussion of my signature process that helps you develop...

Do you want to be speaking more? I know it’s a silly question. 99% of the entrepreneurs I talk to want to be in front of more audiences. But how they describe what they speak on isn’t doing them any favors in the quest to book more speaking gigs. When I ask people what they speak on, typically I get a couple of words that describe their topic and not a lot else. If you want to stand out and elimin...

I’ve got a dirty little secret. I HATE practicing my presentation. It’s so weird. Me talking to myself with an audience of cats (side note: cats are tough crowd). But if you’re like me and wondering “Do I really have to practice my presentation?” the answer is YES. The good news is that practicing your presentation doesn’t have to be a huge time suck, boring, or awkward. On today’s show, I’ll give...

“There are no two words in the English language more harmful than "good job".” -Terence Fletcher, Whiplash Whenever someone says to me “Good Job” after a presentation, I know that I didn’t do my best. I know it’s time to start a presentation autopsy and figure out how I can do better. But too many speakers think “good job” means that they did a great job. When actually it’s the audience’s polite w...

Whenever someone tells me that their speaking goal is to be a well-paid motivational speaker, I cringe. Outside the fact that inspiring speakers are a dime a dozen, there’s another problem: Inspiration is everywhere these days. You can get it for free on Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube. Heck, my cough drops have inspirational quotes on them. On today’s show, we’ll discuss why it’s more important...

The most important decision you’ll ever make as a speaker is choosing your speaking topic. You’ll be know for this topic, and you must LOVE it because you’ll be speaking on it for years to come. Choosing your speech topic is one of the most rewarding and most difficult decisions you’ll ever make as a speaker. On today’s show, I’ll take you through a process to discover your most valuable speaking...

Seth Godin once wrote “The only reason ever to give a speech is to create change.” I agree with him 100%. However, most speakers try to change the whole world in just 20-minutes when what is most meaningful to any audience is a small change that really produces the desired result. A small change puts the audience on the path to a larger change and that small change gets you known as a speaker for...

Do you have a plan for how to make money with your speaking? Or are you hoping that someone will hear you speak and want to hire you right out of the gate? Or that someone will hear you speaking and give you your big break as a paid professional speaker? If you don’t have a plan for generating revenue, then you need to make one, big time On today’s show, we’ll discuss the two paths to revenue for...

You’ve heard this public speaking advice before: “Share your soul-stirring story.” But is that that piece of advice costing your revenue, clients, and speaking gigs? Yes, yes it is. The reports about how much your audience cares about your story have been greatly exaggerated. On today’s show, we’ll discuss how to tell your story in a way that matters to the most important people in the room - your...

We are 16 days away from 2016. I’ve been deep into my 2016 planning for about a month now. And one thing I know for sure as a speaker: If you don’t have a plan to speak for 2016, you won’t be speaking at all. How do make a speaking plan that sets you up for success in 2016? You’re in luck! On today’s show, we’ll cover my four part process for planning to succeed, including: Why you need to look ba...

Does booking a paid speaking gig feel more like luck to you? A matter of who you know instead of what you’re capable of as a speaker? If you’re like many speakers out there, you’re ready to get off the hamster wheel of free speaking or you want to charge more for the speaking you’re doing now. There’s a key mindset shift you need to make about your speech in order to make that happen. On today’s s...

Have you sat in the audience watching one male speaker after the next wondering where all the female speakers are? A friend of mine went to a marketing conference last year and every single speaker was a male. How is that even possible? Aren’t there any women who speak on marketing? Well statistically it’s not possible. There are many women who speak and speak well on marketing but weren’t represe...

Please mind the gap. The presentation gap. Too many speakers, step on stage, and fall into the gap. The gap is a trap of giving far too much information to the audience. Once in that trap your audience becomes overwhelmed and never takes action on the message. The gap sucks and must be avoided at all costs. On the show today, I’ll show you how to keep out of the presentation gap and instead write...

How do you create change in your industry by pushing boundaries instead of buttons? Listen up Rebels, you’re never going to change anyone’s mind if you approach your presentation with guns blazing, bound and determined to make change or else. Instead you need to craft a message that establishes your vision and gently guides your audience to your way of thinking. On this episode of The Rebel Speake...