UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging

Chapter 45. Doing In-Person Seminars

A GREAT WAY to share your knowledge and position yourself as an expert is by doing local seminars. You have created some great content for your market, so you are ready to share it! It is said that people's number one fear is public speaking, even greater than dying. I think that may be a little far-fetched but I understand the issue.

Your audience members are not really there to see you. They attend to gain useful information. Once you get the realization that it's not about you, it can take a little bit of the pressure off and allow you to focus on sharing great content. Your main goal for seminars shouldn't be to pitch people your service or product but it should be that the audience leaves the seminar with usable practical information. This is what will position you as an expert to them.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing a pull and stay at the end of the seminar, and I don't even have an issue with your pitching something at the end as long as you've given valuable information throughout the session. However, too many sessions are majority pitch and little content.

If you have not built a big platform yet and aren't well known in the area, you need to leverage off somebody else's audience. This could be your local Chamber of Commerce, a business networking group, or any association locally. These kinds of local groups are always on the lookout for quality speakers. You won't get paid a fee to do the sessions for the most part, but when ...