Ten Steps to Increase Your Bookings
Having booked over 2,000 paid speaking engagements mostly while being an independent contractor, I know when I’ve done what it takes on a daily basis to increase my income. If you’re a booking agent or a sales representative for a speaker, you know what I mean.
There are basically three kinds of work:
Productive - Making contact with organizations who hire speakers to determine if they are qualified leads for your speaker and taking whatever the next step is to make the sale; Researching an organization via the Internet or a periodical to gather the market intelligence to determine whether or not the prospect would be a probable candidate and need your expertise.
Non-productive - This does not mean that the work itself it non-productive. It is an important element of following through with what needs to be done. But non-productive work is work that is administrative or clerical in nature, such as assembling packages, posting and mailing them, sending reinforcing e-mails, checking with the warehouse to make sure all products are available for an engagements, making travel arrangements, making copies of documents, preparing and filing documents, etc.
Unproductive - Answering personal e-mails, refilling the water cooler, making coffee, cleaning the office kitchen, watering the plants, gossiping with others, continuing negative self-talk, talking with friends over the telephone or in the office, doing Internet searches for your favorite perfume… Do you recognize yourself yet?
You may have others to help you, or you may be doing the entire booking process by yourself. If you’re working alone, there are clearly days that have to be spent doing non-productive work and some of every day has to be spent doing non-productive work in order to get the packages out.
BUT…ultimately, the task that’s not related to a viral marketing internet campaign that’s going to produce the greatest results is calling a prospect and introducing your speaker.
Here are ten ways to keep production down:
1. Be inconsistent with all of my prospecting.
2. Keep waiting for my past clients & centers of influence to call me.
3. Continue to not qualify my leads.
4. Wait for a bureau to call me.
5. Keep discussing my problems & excuses rather than working on my solutions.
6. Not practice my sales scripts.
7. Spend more time on-line answering social e-mails.
8. Organize my desk drawers.
9. Refuse to educate yourself about how to position and attract business utilizing Internet marketing.
10. Print all missing enclosures and assemble promotional packages
Do these ten things every day and quadruple your income:
1. Work on creating a positive and productive mind set. Post this sentence close to your station and say to yourself, I keep productive, creative, profitable and fun ideas in my mind at all times.
2. Have a morning exercise routine of walking or working out before you begin your work. Put a long cord on your phone with a headset or use a remote phone, and stand when making your prospecting calls.
3. Call a minimum of 50 prospects a day to create at least 10 qualified prospects.
4. Make contact with past clients to re-book your speaker.
5. Ask for three referrals from all of your past engagements.
6. To attract the attention of those in your industry, have regular conversations with your Internet marketing expert to implement campaigns that will attract meeting planners to your speaker.
7. Focus on short term goals rather than long term goals, such as bookings this week.
8. Get a letter of endorsement or a quote of one sentence from every meeting planner that has booked your speaker and use them as audio links or quotes in your letters and e-mails.
9. Practice your scripts and modify your script with your speaker when necessary. Discuss objections with him/her and ask for the most appropriate response.
10. Stay in touch with other successful agents to discuss trends and gain new insight about the speaking industry.
Mary McKay is a booking strategist for speakers, experts, leaders, top producers and cultural heroes who want to secure paid speaking engagements.
She systematizes the booking process to uniquely position the speaker, optimize the appearance, generate referrals and enable more revenue potential through product sales. Visit http://www.gettingpaidtospeak.com or call 949-429-6646.
