If you want to succeed as a paid public speaker, what would you say if I told you that you should take a lesson from Dunkin’ Donuts? While reading a recent issue of Fortune magazine, I found an article about the coffee and donut chain and the lesson was on the first line:
“Each year, the chain’s chefs come up with new products to keep profits and revenue growing.”
By name, Dunkin’ Donuts is a donut shop, just like by name, a speaker is a speaker. Dunkin’ Donuts should keep making more and better donuts, and speakers should keep giving more and better speeches.
Right?
Don’t fall into that line of thinking. That’s a big reason why so many speakers went under, or at least suffered huge hits, in 2009. They were one trick ponies. They had a trick that worked great for many years, so they kept riding it and milking it for all it was worth. Then the market changed and they didn’t know what to do. Their thriving businesses disappeared before their eyes, and because they hadn’t conditioned themselves to keep innovating year after year, they simply froze.
Same thing with speaker bureaus, by the way. When the market changed, many offices didn’t know what to do. What happened? Some went under, as if they were no longer in the phone book, and many more experienced significant losses.
On the other hand, you have a company like Dunkin’ Donuts that opened 351 new stores (net) in 2009. (In contrast, according to my research, Starbucks closed a net of 299 stores in 2009.) How does Dunkin’ do it? continuous innovation. Never get comfortable.
I can’t help but think of Apple in this conversation as well. Apple has spring and summer events every year, and at each of these events, they reveal something new and/or improved. In 2009, the big announcement was the iPad. By the end of April, they had sold their millionth unit. (That’s a million iPads sold in 28 days, in case you were wondering.) The cheapest device costs $499. You do the calculations.
Now back to your talking business. Do you have new and exciting offers coming out regularly? If not, why not?
Can you imagine getting an injection of income in your business as Apple experienced with the sale of 1,000,000 iPads?
Of course not, I don’t think so, you’ll get nothing exactly like that. But it is not necessary.
The more you talk, the more people will know and trust you and like to hear from you. As you touch more and more lives, and organizations, with your message, you are building a fan base who would love more help from you. What will you have to offer them?
TIP: You need to offer more than just speeches!
As a content creator, you are sitting on a gold mine. Most business owners don’t have that luxury. Dunkin’ Donuts, for example, has to go into the kitchen and experiment with new foods and drinks before it can put something new on the menu. You can do that too, and you should, but once your content is created you can pretty easily put something new on the menu just by reusing that content.
How many ways can people access your content right now? A? (Maybe just from watching you speak live). Two? (You may also have audio recordings available.) Three? (Maybe you also have a book.)
I challenge you to sit down for just 10 minutes today and think of all the ways you could repackage and repurpose your existing content, making it accessible in new formats at new prices…
Maybe it’s a working session to follow a keynote speech. Maybe it’s a DVD series. Maybe it’s an e-learning program. Maybe it’s a training curriculum. You know your stuff… What is it? What opportunities are you missing out on, not only to increase your revenue, but also to be an even more valuable asset to your customers?
When I ask speakers what they’re doing to grow their business, most say they’re either (a) trying to increase their rates or (b) trying to book more dates.
Today I present option “c”.
Get in the kitchen and see what you can cook!
