While it is admirable to invite people to your workshop, it's worth the effort to get yourself invited to speak by sponsors of the right group. This way you don’t have to fill the room; someone else does. A mini-speaker’s bureau – an organized, systematic way to offer contemporary topics and effective speakers to groups looking for such presenters – can help you do just that.

What do you offer?

Showcase your unique situational expertise; that special knowledge and experience you have for solving issues with people facing certain situations. Example: Financial Decisionmaking for Parents of Children Who Cannot Cope

Be different in an appealing way. Humor can work. Maybe use cartoon animals to support your titles. Title an update on annuities "CD Rates Stink" and show a skunk holding its nose.

The Process

Twice annually mail a letter with a second page about your workshops to leaders and program chairs in groups that include your target markets. Include officers in your local Chambers of Commerce and service clubs such as Kiwanis and Rotary; your centers of influence; attorneys; accountants; civic leaders and any others who might also be asked to recommend speakers. Let them know what you are offering; topics, speaking times, brief descriptions of your talks.

Mail your kits in late January and mid-to-late August for best effect. Keep more on hand for anyone else you discover could influence your being invited to address their group.

List your workshop titles with a brief explanation of each. Keep it all simple enough to be read quickly. Sample:
Financial Decisionmaking for Parents of Children Who Cannot Cope – Two kinds of children cannot cope: the disabled who will always need assisted living, and those whose parents know they will never be mature enough to manage money.
*90 minutes. Small group workshop. Audience participation encouraged. Handout provided.

If you send twenty-five announcements twice each year and hand out ten more between each mailing, you greatly increase the opportunity to be invited to present your situational expertise to groups in the market segments you are targeting. This effort is low in cost and high in potential return on your investment. This certainly enhances your promotion of them as well as yourself; lowers your cost of acquiring new business; and raises profits. Not a bad result for a simple marketing effort every workshop speaker should be using.

Questions? Email jhmco@melchinger.com

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This newsletter is designed and distributed by Kirk Lowe of Freedomarketing (faWebProfiler.ca). Content by John H. Melchinger - The Marketing CoachT