In today's episode of The Speakers Life I show you how to help speaker bureaus sell your speaking programs.

• Training speaker bureaus to sell-up
• Example of German speaking enquiry
• Discovery call
• Dealing with objections

Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript

Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.

Hey guys, James Taylor here, founder of the SpeakersU. Today I want to share with you a piece of advice on how to help speaker bureaus to sell you. A speaker bureaus are an amazing resource. But as a speaker's, I heard a statistic the other day, which said that 75% of speaking gigs at pay over $15,000 are being booked by speaker bureaus. So if you want to be in one of those kind of highly paid speakers, you're going to be doing a lot of work with Speaker bureaus. So one of the things we have to think about is when working with a speaker Bureau, we need to be able to give them the tools and the words to use in order to best sellers, it's called selling up to give that that speak up, you're the agent of that Bureau, all everything that they need in order to help sell you to their prospective client. And I want to give you a little story, and this happened to me last week, and it was something I actually never done before, but actually is going to something I'm going to do a lot more with some of the speak of yours, and you speak of yours I work with. So I received an email came in from a perspective, a client, they were a company, a global company, and they were doing an event in northern Germany. And they contacted me because they were said, Hey, James, we would love to have you come and speak at our event in Germany. And we think you're the perfect speaker, because you speak on this topic. And I noticed you've spoken to some of our competitive companies in the past as well. Great. Now I could easily have just jumped on a call with that client and look to close the deal that way.

In fact, you are always or nearly always your best salesperson, you know, your topic really well. You know, your presentation really well. You know what the problems often of that particular client on how that can relate to what you can deliver the value that you can provide. However, in order to scale, we need to take what's in your head, and help put that into the mind of a speaker appear that speak of your agent. So I received this email from this client in Germany. And instead of just merely jumping on a call with that client, I did something slightly different. So I responded to it. And I said, Hi there. Thanks so much for inquire me inquiring about me speaking at your event, I am available on that particular date. In order to move things ahead. I'd like to set up a call with me, you. And this person from this speaker's bureau is a new speaker beer that had worked with before we just started building a relationship together. They hadn't actually sent any work my way as yet. No problem. The client comes back. Yeah, that'd be great. Let's do it. We do it two o'clock tomorrow. So I contacted the speaker's bureau, we set up a time we did a group conference call was a three way call with me, the prospective client and agent from the speaker's bureau. And the way that we ran that call was very similar to the way that I would run almost any discovery call, the only thing I did slightly different is when it came to talking about pricing, I actually let the speaker's bureau speak on my behalf. So this is how the call went, we started the call, all three of us are on the call. I asked the client about their event, what the theme was for their event, what the length about previous speakers, they booked in the past that kind of common things that we teach our speakers you on how to do a discovery call.

And as I'm speaking them and saying, okay, that's great, here's how I think I can help that event. And I actually go into how I structure my presentations, the value that my presentation gives, what the key takeaways, actionable. Those are how the people are going to feel when you hear me speak on the stage. As I'm speaking to that prospective client, the speaker's bureau is listening in to the entire conversation. Now he's been hearing from me, how I like to sell myself, what the what the often the words and the phrases that I'm using, when when that prospective client comes back and ask well, what about this, we have a particular challenge around this, how can your speech help on that? Then the Bureau's hearing me talk about that, how I can help in that way how I can tailor my talk to really serve this particular client. And then we can go through all the questions I asked I share with them the value that I can bring as a speaker why they should be booking me as a speaker for their event. And then when it gets the thing about Now, can we should we talk about fees, we should have our pricing? And the client says yes, let's talk about fees. And I say, let me hand you over to

the speaker of your agent who can talk to you about that sort of thing. He handles all that and the contracts and everything. And now he on the call starts talking to the client, about me as a speaking why charge and, and all the various things there. Now, this point, the client starts to push back a little bit, they say well, that's, that's a lot of money for, for, you know, this 45 minute speech, for example. But then the bureau really starts coming in and adding the value that they can add. So well. Think about it, you know, you've had previous speakers in the past who haven't worked out so well for you, and you've, and maybe you paid them a little bit less, but they haven't really delivered your event. And then that reflects badly on you as the person is organizing that conference. So I'm standing back, I'm not saying a word at this point. And the the Bureau and the client are talking to each other. And the other thing I'm able to do here is I'm also able to listen to the Bureau and hear how they handle objections when it comes to fees. Very, very useful to be able to just listen in, what the words they using, how the strategy, the way that the the the deal with the client when the client has certain objections. So we do that, that's all great. You get the end of the call, and it will spin up fantastic call, you know, when you're in a position now to confirm the date, or do you need to, you know, confer with some of your colleagues and said, I'm actually going to confer with some of my colleagues, no problem, when when can we set up the next call.

And then what ended up doing is actually the Bureau and the client did client scheduled a call for later that day, as well. So I can now stand out the picture a little bit, and let the two of them just kind of go through some negotiation side of things. And the reason I want to share with you the number of important things happened here. The first important thing is that it goodwill to Bureau to a new bureau I had worked with before, by essentially giving them a cake giving them a piece of work which they can take a commission on. The second thing that happened is the Bureau is able to hear how I like to sell myself what value I add, as I speak, I speak on creativity, innovation, artificial intelligence. These are different areas. So you really got to understand what my presentations all about the value that adds. And the third thing I got to understand was how to deal with objections from a pro This is a speak of your agent who's been in the business for 25 plus years, has had lots of discovery calls with prospective clients, and is very good at dealing with objections, especially objections around pricing. So I'm using this as a learning opportunity. So think about this next time you get an inquiry in instead of immediately jumping on the phone and doing that call that discovery call with that client. What about if you invited a bureau to join on that call? And okay, you you give the bureau that piece of work. But it's a real win win win, because you're learning lots, the Bureau is learning lots. And also, the the client is going to get great service because it's not just us also about the Bureau's able to come in and add value from their side as well. So that's my piece of advice is essentially helping a bureau to sell you to sell up. My name is James Taylor. Thanks for watching.

This episode of the Speakers Life is sponsored by Espeakers. The innovative platform that connects speakers will event organizers and associations. Espeakers provides cutting edge tools that will elevate your online presence. streamline your speaking business and maximize your exposure in the Speaking industry with over 15 years in the business 10,000 speakers in their community and over 20,000 events managed annually each Espeakers is the preferred choice for top speakers. You can create your own profile on a Espeakers today by going to speakersu.com/Espeakers.