Archive for Selling

Always Use a Mic… Even When You Don’t Think You Need One

This was shot live at our live, 3-day workshop called Magnetize Your Audience!

This Workshop Wealth Tip is all about sound… how do you sound on stage?

My recommendation is… no matter the size of the group… always use a microphone. It allows you to use ALL ranges of your voice… you can talk softly… or you can talk loudly. When not using a microphone, you’ll tend to sound like you’re yelling all the time, when really, you’re just trying to project your voice to all parts of your event room.

Using a microphone allows you to speak in a normal conversational tone and volume, which is much easier for your audience to listen to and stay engaged with you.

I always recommend you use a headset microphone. A lot of people like to use a lapel mic (the little ones that clip to the front of your shirt), but the sound it always terrible… it sounds like you’re in a tunnel or a narrow hallway. So I prefer you use a headset microphone, much like the one I’m wearing in the video, as its the type I like the best. I like how it fits around my head.

You can get ones that are much smaller and simply clip over the top of your ear. I don’t use those ones as I find they fall off quite easily. The one I’m using in the video is very comfortable and can be worn all day without any side-effects such as headaches. Keep in mind, there are plenty of varieties… including ones that are skin color, some people prefer these as they’re much more aesthetically pleasing.

So remember… always AMPLIFY!

If you have any questions or comments regarding microphones or sound at your workshops, seminars and retreats please leave it below and I’ll get back to you shortly.

Callan Rush xo

Callan on November 22nd, 2010 in On-Stage Delivery, Presentation Skills, Selling from the Stage

Do You Ever Feel ‘Weird’ When You’re Selling? … Try This…

Selling from the stage can be very tricky at times. A lot of people can be really great when it comes to content but when it comes to the “offer” or the “sales pitch” part of their workshops, they start to tighten up… the audience tightens up and things go very bad, very quickly.

So here’s my Trainer’s Tip for you:

What you want to do is make sure there is congruency between your content and your offer… which means that you’ve got to include valuable information right in the body of your offer.

Educate people right through to the end. Even if they don’t buy something from you, they will get something of value. This will help you relax, it will help your audience relax and I GUARANTEE it will help your conversion!

Below you’ll see a place to leave a comment. I’d love to hear your comments about what works well for you when you sell from the stage.

Callan on September 30th, 2010 in Selling, Selling from the Stage

Do You Demonstrate Your Expertise AND Your Humanity?

What makes a successful workshop, retreat and seminar business?

The success of your business stems from your ability to create trusting intimate relationships with your Specific Audience.

Assuming you are solving their specialized problems, when your Specific Audience feels they are in a trusting intimate relationship with you, they will happily attend your events and purchase products and programs from you on an ongoing basis.

Your top priority then must be to create powerful, trusting, intimate relationships as quickly and effectively as possible!   This is where a solid Turning Point Story can help.

The foundation of all powerful, trusting, intimate relationships is communication, and the best communicators in the world are charismatic communicators.

Charisma is that rare, attractive and charming personal quality attributed to leaders who inspire devotion and enthusiasm.  Charisma creates personal magnetism and enables you to greatly influence others.  Your Turning point Story will help you reveal your natural Charisma – thereby increasing your ability to influence.

Your Charisma, as experienced by others, is directly proportional to your ability to demonstrate your Expertise and your Humanity.
Expertise refers to your ability to demonstrate you are a competent professional or an expert in your field!

Humanity refers to your ability to demonstrate you are a human being just like the members of your Specific Audience, facing the same problems, pains and dilemmas.

Demonstrating ample and equal amounts of Expertise and Humanity allows your Specific Audience to like, trust, and respect you instantly.  When this happens, not only will they be willing to believe what you say – but they’ll also be willing to buy what you sell!

Most workshop and seminar leaders do a good job of demonstrating one or the other (expertise OR humanity) – but most don’t understand how to balance the two.

If you demonstrate only your expertise, you’ll risk your audience feeling like you are indeed an expert in your field – but that they could never achieve what you have. They’ll think you’ve had special training, experience or mentorship that they haven’t.

The result?

They won’t buy from you because they won’t think they can do what you did.  If they do buy from you, they’ll often second guess and cancel shortly thereafter.

If you demonstrate only your humanity, your audience will undoubtedly love you.  They will relate to you, and feel you are just like them.  But, they won’t buy from you because they won’t feel like you have the expertise to take them where they want to go.

An effective Turning Point Story helps you demonstrate BOTH your expertise and your humanity in a balanced way.  It’s the best and quickest way to reveal your natural Charisma and have your audience eating out of the palm of your hand!

In other words, when you express your Turning Point Story well, your Specific Audience will be inspired to connect and bond with you at a deep level, while heightening their respect for you as an expert.  Overall, they will be much more open to receiving the gifts you want to offer them.

What is a Turning Point Story?

Stay tuned to a future blog post!!

Callan on September 8th, 2010 in On-Stage Delivery, Selling, Selling from the Stage

Marketing Doesn’t Make You Money

Having a successful business that allows you to help lots of people, while earning lots of income, depends upon your understanding and application of the following essential distinction:

Marketing vs. Sales

Many folks lump these two concepts together – and wonder why they struggle for cash and clients in their business.  MARKETING is about communicating to as many ideal potential clients as possible about your product, program or service.

Marketing is about getting the word out about what you are up in a way that magnetizes perfect people to you and your business.

Marketing does not make you money.

When done well, it will help attract people to you – but it’s an entirely different function to get those newly magnetized people to hand over their hard earned cash in exchange for your stuff.

That’s where SALES comes in.

SALES is the process of converting those interested potential clients into active, paying, current clients! Sales is about having a step by step, well thought through process by which people are invited, enticed and encouraged to give you money in exchange for value.

Got it? Marketing means sending your message’ to as many people as you can in a way that allows them to ‘SELF SELECT’ or ‘choose themselves’ as being interested in what you are offering.

After you’ve generated a bunch of leads (or people interested in what you have to offer) it’s a selling function to convert those leads or potential clients into buyers.

Marketing = Communication
Selling = Conversion.

Now – ask yourself, “Do I have specific processes and procedures for both marketing and selling?”

Over the next few blogs, I’ll be taking you through the fundamentals of what you need in place to make sure you’ve got the ‘magnetic marketing’ piece down. After that, we can talk about an easy 5-step system to convert those interested people into even more enthusiastic clients.

See you soon!

Callan on August 24th, 2010 in Marketing, Selling