What To Say
Like all other content you provide as a Thought Leader, it’s important that your public speaking is an opportunity to share useful information. And here’s an important point to keep in mind— the information must be useful without a purchase.
I once went to a fantastic presentation, given by a CPA, which was all about important tax deductions for small businesses. Now I know whether I qualify for the home office deduction, how I should account for the business use of my car, and a bunch of other useful things. I didn’t have to purchase this CPA’s services in order to make use of the information provided. That’s a good Thought Leadership activity— it raised the CPA’s reputation within the community (there were a lot of small business owners at this presentation) and it gave people who wanted and could afford the CPA’s services an opportunity to opt-in to the sales cycle. Almost zero time waste.
Compare that to a presentation about the wonders of some Health Juice or Magic Bar. Lots of useful information, right? How to use the juice to lose weight, how to eat the bar instead of french fries. All of which is (theoretically) information… but it only helps if I buy the bar.
That doesn’t make you a Thought Leader, it makes you a time waster.
Here’s the trouble though. Everyone realizes that nobody wants an hour long commercial… except when it comes to my product. My product is so great, so innovative, so exciting, that everyone will love hearing about it, and everyone will buy once they’ve heard about it.
Down boy.
We’ve already heard about your product. Even if it’s brand new, we already know about how it cures cancer, provides multiple streams of income, tastes delicious, is recession proof, ensures customer loyalty, and blah blah.
Getting over that is part of the process of becoming a Thought Leader, and getting over it in your public speaking is one of the harder places— because, of course, you love to talk about your juice or your magic or whatever.
You need to get in the habit of thinking through your customers’ problems and providing useful solutions that DO NOT involve your product or service. Here are three ways of doing that:
- Think of the primary problem your product solves, and come up with five (or more) cost-free ways to solve the same problem.
- Think of the primary problem your product solves, and come up with five (or more) related problems that might be solved without buying your products.
- Think of your primary purchaser, and come up with five (or more) problems they have, which are not in any way related to your product or service.
Any one of those makes a fantastic presentation. Or several.
If your product is words or ideas— you’re a writer, speaker, motivator, or something along those lines— then you already have a store of useful presentation material. You simply need to realize that you should give some of it away for free— the good stuff, not the sales copy.
