Rise to the Top!! By Cathleen Fillmore
Rise to the Top!! by Cathleen Fillmore
I have a sneaking suspicion that you don’t want to join those speakers at the mid-level of the market in terms of fees, of value provided and of impact on their audience. Even though these speakers are doing well enough and might well be happy right there. Let’s say you aspire to more, to going bigger, to max yourself out in terms of achieving your potential. Now what?
Chris Widener took an interesting and highly risky route. He felt that the current spots for top speakers were filled so he determined he’d be the second generation of great speakers. He started by building a relationship with the world’s most sought-after speakers. Here’s where the risk came in. He hired John Maxwell to speak at an event he organized in Seattle, Washington which Chris would MC. He didn’t blink at Denis’s astronomical fee or try to bargain with him. He paid the 50% deposit upfront. He had to remortgage his house to do this. And here’s what happened. The ticket prices were set too high and the turnout was lower than expected. So Chris lost several thousand dollars.
And here’s the upside. He now had a relationship with John Maxwell who added Chris to his roster of recommended speakers when John was unavailable. Chris had the advantage of being much lower priced than the other speakers and ended up getting over $200,000 worth of business through that listing. And now he also had a connection to all the other speakers on John’s roster.
Chris Widener’s risky route is not for everyone. Why not create your own route? And why not aim big? You know it’s in you. Cathleen Fillmore is owner of Speakers Gold bureau, author of five books and marketing consultant to speakers who want to make more money doing what they love. She can be reached at cathleen@speakersgold.com or 416-532-9886.
http://www.speakersgold.com http://www.cathleenfillmore.com http://www.thinkyoucanspeak.com
Take care and I will see you at the TOP!! Deepak