Recently I shared that I am committing to the niche of Coaches, but for 12 years, I didn’t have a niche and brought my business to multiple 6-figures anyway!
So if you’re stressing out because marketing gurus are insisting you niche or perish, take a breath. Let me share when NOT to pick a niche, why this is so important to the growth of your business, and what to do instead in order to get clients faster.
Imagine working with a Virtual Assistant who:
And that means getting you in front of potential clients without you having to do the heavy lifting of sending inquiries, filling out applications and following up.
Wouldn’t that be amazing!?
I often recommend to the business owners in my Simply Get Booked program to hire a VA that will make the process of booking speaking gigs easier for them.
But training a VA can be time-consuming and what’s more, you might not see the results you want.
So how can you make sure the work your VA does gets you the results you want?
Here are 5 tips from Laura Licursi, owner and founder of Elite Virtual Assistants, to help you get the most out of your VA.
Your VA needs to know what moves you. They need to know the real reason(s) you want to speak in front of audiences and what your vision is as a person and as a business owner.
That way, as they reach out to groups on your behalf, they can deliver that message for you. Having a VA that’s an advocate for you and your business makes all the difference.
They also need to know what results you’re expecting to see from their efforts. Without this, there’s a high chance you’ll experience frustration when they don’t get the results you want (remember they are not mind readers!).
The discussion about expectations and results should happen early-on as it will pave the way for successful communications between you and your VA.
And how essential is it for your VA to know what these goals and expectations are?
Let’s say you want to book a certain number of speaking gigs per month. As finding and applying for speaking opportunities is not a one-to-one ratio, it means your VA will need to send a much larger number of inquiries to get the number of gigs booked you want.
Share these types of numbers with your VA. Also establish in what timeframe those inquiries should be sent.
But always remember to set realistic goals for both you and your VA.
A good manager won’t just check-in at the deadline to see if the work has been done. If you want to be an effective manager, you have to check-in regularly.
Based on your goals, you can set up weekly or monthly check-ins to ask your VA:
And depending on the progress, you might need to adjust your goals or the process you have to reach those goals.
When you’re just starting out with a new VA, it’s even better if you can meet with them at least twice a week.
The more time you put in at the beginning, the less time you’ll have to put over the long-run.
When you take the time to build a relationship with your VA instead of just giving them tasks, you’ll see a massive shift in the results you get.
Once you have your goals and you’re checking in on your VA…
What do you do with that information?
You need to be able to adjust the process along the way. That means identifying patterns. It also means evaluating if you’re reaching out to the right groups for speaking and the only way to do that is to look at the details.
How many groups have been contacted?
What kind of groups are they?
What responses have you been getting?
When you can see all this info in one place and discuss it with your VA, course correcting becomes almost automatic. It all starts with making sure they are set up with a proper tracking system.
It’s not about analyzing a mountain of information. It’s about keeping your finger on the pulse and making it easy for your VA to inform you of any roadblocks and possible changes that can be made.
Again, it’s all about investing more time at first so you can save time in the future.
Imagine missing out on an opportunity because your VA doesn’t know your new talk description. Or because they emailed you to get essential info and it took you a long time to reply.
Have all the info they might need in one easy-to-access spot, like a Google Drive folder. Examples of things you’ll need are your speaking topics, headshots, ideal client description and all the other basic information needed to fill out applications.
They should know where to find all this within the first few days of working with you.
Save ‘future you’ some valuable time and give them as many resources as possible from the beginning. But don’t just bury them in a mountain of resources. Take some time to explain that info to them. Remember it’s much easier for a person to advocate for you when they understand you and your point of view.
Laura shared these amazing tips on one of our calls with our clients and VA’s in the Simply Get Booked program. This kind of educational meeting is one of the many benefits of participating in SGB.
If you’re ready to start booking speaking gigs consistently, book a call today to discuss the Simply Get Booked program and how to join.
Are you looking for a super fast way to get more clients overnight?
Then you’ll likely come across easy-fix one-size-fits-all strategies that will leave you exhausted with results that don’t last overtime.
Believe me, I’ve been there.
And what I’ve discovered is that the best way to create a steady stream of great clients is having a system.
A signature system.
Because a signature system is an organized influence on your overall business.
The “6 principles”, “4 pillars”, “7 steps to”, whatever you decide to call it, your signature system affects these 3 areas of your business that make a huge difference in your results over time:
1. Get and give clarity
For you and for your clients.
A signature system outlines how you’re going to work with people, and even if you customize your services as much as possible, there’s a clarity that comes from having that outline beforehand.
The adult brain appreciates a plan, a strategy, a structure that it can follow through a learning process. So by having this system and showing it to your clients, you’re giving them clarity on what they will learn and what they can expect.
2. Gain confidence and market it
When you organize your structure and you have a system in place, you gain a confidence that comes from being able to point to that system and explain your brilliant expertise and their value to an audience that’s more likely to hire you because of that effective messaging.
3. Organized leverage
Now this one is not quite as obvious as the previous two, it it?
But when you understand it, you’ll see how a signature system can be a HUGE time saver.
To see what I mean by “organized leverage” watch this video below (starting in minute 4:11):
I want to give you two questions I use to keep myself centered and stay organized.
Ready to level-down your stress and get focused?? Here we go…
1. The Question that Leads to Better Bottom-Line Results
There’s a tendency to always be looking for what’s NEXT to do or what ELSE you could add to your plate. The questions, “What should I do next? What else should I be doing?” – these create a perfect environment for distraction and overwhelm.
The question to ask instead is, “What’s working?”
This reminds you to focus on what is already bringing results. You’re going to get more traction when you double down on what’s already working, instead of always experimenting with something new.
The biggest challenge to making this work for you, is taking the time out of the busy operations of a business to actually step back and evaluate your efforts so you can uncover the answer to this question.
2. The Question that Melts Resistance to Challenging Work
When you want to accomplish a project or goal that is unfamiliar or outside your comfort zone, your self-talk usually runs along the lines of, “This is going to be difficult, it’s going to be stressful, and it’s going to take forever.”
And that’s absolutely natural.
Your brain is getting you prepared for any potential hardship. The problem is that by doing so it’s also building resistance that will keep you from moving forward.
In order to melt that resistance, the question instead is, “Am I willing for this to be easy?”
Anytime you find yourself overwhelmed, stressed, worried or apprehensive about a project, about marketing, or even about simply having a way too long to-do list: use this question.
Repeat it like a mantra, “Am I willing for this to be easy? Am I willing for this to be easy? Am I willing for this to be easy?”
Your brain will be redirected from focusing on difficulty to instead consciously finding the path of least resistance.
Back in May I did my first in-person speaking gig after 2 years of only doing webinars.
As you can guess, it was not all smooth sailing.
There were some setbacks with logistics, setting up the projector, minor stuff. But things could’ve really gone south for me when I was in the very middle of my presentation.
As I looked around, I noticed interest in the faces of the audience, their body language responding to my content in ways that you could never really see during a Zoom call.
I started going with the flow of that feedback, going deeper into details that I don’t normally cover in my presentation. And suddenly I realized…
I was using the time I needed to get to my call to action! (a.k.a. the single most important part of a presentation!!!)
It hadn’t occurred to me that the audience’s reaction could influence my carefully timed presentation, but it did.
The whole point of speaking as a business owner is to do it strategically, and speaking in-person again after so long made me realize I needed a refresher on what details to look out for.
So here are a few tips to help you get back in front of live audiences and get the best possible results:
1. Help manage the event a bit more. The logistics behind an in-person event are a lot different than for an online one, and the group you speak for might be just getting back to doing them after a 2-year pause. So, helping them out a bit more to keep track of details will save you time and headaches.
2. Regardless of the size of the audience, serve them at the highest level. Don’t let a small attendance keep you from delivering the best value to the group.
3. Remember to apply your usual speaking criteria. Your criteria (which btw I HIGHLY recommend setting if you haven’t already) is something that should be top of mind when accepting a speaking gig. Whether it’s the compensation for the gig, or if it’s for members only, whatever you have figured out works best for you, DON’T ignore it just so you can get the win of booking a gig.
4. Remember to practice your call to action. This is a tremendously important part of your presentation and, because you’re not sitting in front of a screen anymore, you can’t read it off a script! So memorize the wording, practice the delivery (10 times more than the rest of your presentation), and make sure you get all those little details right.
5. Be mindful of your expectations around feedback DURING your presentation. Watching people react to your presentation in-person can throw you off your game, and that can be particularly disruptive if you have a short time to deliver your content.
If you want to know how I bounced back from almost messing up my presentation and expand on each tip, watch these videos:
Tips 1 to 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlMn2wN2Y8A
Tip 5 + the full story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zdOS5c-YhM&t=174s
After two years of virtual events, even very experienced speakers may have forgotten how to navigate speaking at a live event.
Including this girl.
Having knocked out my first 4 in-person gigs, here are my top 5 tips with details about how to get back in the saddle!
Tip #1: Micro-manage in-person events.
Tip #2: Deliver full presentation, no matter what.
Tip #3: Set your criteria for speaking for free (and stick to them!).
Tip #4: Practice, practice, practice your offer!
Tip #5: Be mindful of your need for approval.