TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: So Fred it looks like we have now come to the end of this program.

Fred: We have.

Avish: And it’s a lot of information so I am going to tell you some of the key take-aways I got from doing this with you and you can tell me what I may have missed.

Fred: Okay. Sounds good.

Avish: Number one is test small, make sure it works before you go and roll it out big so you don’t lose a lot of money.

Fred: Yup.

Avish: Number two is remember the magic formula which is TR equals SR plus PS plus CB. To break that down, total revenue equals seminar registration plus product sales plus coaching and consulting business. Mail and email your list regularly to stay in contact with them.

Fred: Absolutely.

Avish: Continue to improve your knowledge base. You keep learning and making yourself better. And finally give people great value both in the seminar and in the products and you’ll never go wrong.

Fred: Yeah and the only thing that I would really add to that is that to remember that delivering a great seminar is a very important point. But you can’t deliver a great seminar until you have butts and seats, have people in the room. So understand that marketing is super important and getting people in the room is critical to your success on the front-end. Now if you deliver a great seminar and again remember that we are dividing the seminar into three parts, before, during, and after. If we deliver a great seminar, it will make our ability to sell additional products and services much, much easier.

So I think you have covered all the basic things. But we have covered a very, very complete and comprehensive set of materials having to do with the seminar business. And anyone who listens to this material will be able to succeed if they are patient.

One of the things I always get from people is, wow can I do this you know, and start producing my own seminars virtually overnight? The answer is no. It’s going to take you some time to build a list in your niche and make sure that you have all the people in there and you start providing them with great products. So no one should be impatient because it is not going to happen overnight.

Avish: Alright super! So if they need any more resources, anymore help, any more info, where should they go?

Fred: Well the best thing to do is to go to fredgleeck.com, I’m always adding in new, free information, as well as other paid information there. Or they can email me directly at Fred Gleeck, F-R-E-D-G-L-E-E-C-K@gmail.com.

Avish: Alright. Well thank you very much Fred, this is a comprehensive bit of information and lot of stuff we can act on.

Fred: Great Avish and thanks for being my foil.

Avish: Sure.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Alright Fred, let’s spend a little bit of time now talking about that last piece of the seminar formula, which was TR equals SR plus PS plus CB.

Fred: Yup.

Avish: So let’s talk about that CB which is coaching and consulting business. This is another way you can generate a lot of money as a result of your seminars correct?

Fred: Absolutely.

Avish: Okay. So for people who are unfamiliar with this model, what do you mean by coaching and consulting business?

Fred: Well coaching and consulting is where you help people, either one-on-one or in a group situation to help achieve whatever their goals are business-wise that you can help them get too. Or whatever, not necessarily business-wise if you’re doing a non-business seminar. So coaching I think of as one-on-one and can either be done over the phone or in person, usually it’s done over the phone. And consulting I look at, and again these are part of the books that I offer. There’s one on consulting and how to start your own consulting business in your own field at fredgleeck.comford/ebooks so that they can look more at that if they want if anybody listening wants to check those out. But coaching to me is one-to-one, consulting is more, you know, consulting to organizations which is usually one-on-many.

But the model you can set-up which is one that I keep talking to everyone, you know, one of my protégés like you about, is that you need to offer people product only, which is what we have been talking about in the last couple of sections of how to produce your products. But when you pitch something to people at an event, you offer them something that is product only. Something that is product plus group coaching or something that is product plus individual coaching.

So there are two types of models for consulting and/or for coaching for that matter that you want to offer people at your events. One is the one-on-one which is much more expensive obviously for them or the second option is the group coaching which is less expensive but they don’t get, you know, obviously the personalize attention but they do get a lower price point. So I think it’s important for people to understand that you can make this offer and make it either one-to-one or one-on-many.

Avish: Okay. Got it. So the idea there is someone comes to your seminar they get lots of information but then they are going to want some more customized individual help?

Fred: Yup they might want customized individual help or they want some help. They feel pretty knowledgeable about the topic and all they need is some group coaching because they figured, you know what? I don’t really need individual help because that’s expensive. All I need is some individual coaching from this person.

Avish: Okay. So you say the best way to sell consulting is to not look eager to get it?

Fred: Yeah. I think that when you look like you need to get the business, people are going to be wondering, well if you’re that good a consultant or a coach why would you be so pushy and sales-ly about it? And that’s a good question. I would feel that way.

Avish: So how do you go about it in your pitch — selling that, coaching or consulting service?

Fred: Well one of the things you have want to do is at least a couple of times before you pitch, is to tell a story in which you say, “You know I was recently coaching a guy on blah blah blah and just lay that or drop it in there once or twice. Don’t do it too often or I did a consulting gig once recently where I found blah blah blah.” So you drop it in very casually before the pitch to let people now obviously that you can do it. It’s just you’re not trying to sell it real hard because if you’re trying to sell it real hard, it must mean there is something wrong with you.

Avish: Okay, well along those lines I have this note hear that says, “Never Go Out Looking for It.”

Fred: Yeah and what I mean is, I don’t think that trying to go out, running around soliciting coaching businesses as a good way to go. I would rather offer people, you know, a free consultation or something like that if you are trying to sell it which is to get them to start talking to you and then pitch it. Rather than going out on a crusade to try and land coaching or consulting clients. I think that’s the wrong way to go and it looks sort of like you know, how good can you be, if you got to go out pound the pavement for it.

Avish: Right so you will more have just sheets describing what you do and you don’t really push too hard on it?

Fred: I don’t but I do have specific websites like everybody listening to this program can go check out consultwithfred.com. They can also check out JVwithfred.com and get a feel for how I’m setting these up myself. I have separate URLs to promote each of those and by the way in most cases, very few cases will people go ahead and sign up for the coaching programs right there on the spot unless they are part of a bundle package which I am suggesting is certainly a good idea and worth considering.

So let’s say for example I was doing a one-day seminar, I might pitch something that had the 97 dollar product only, you know, the 397 dollar product plus a couple of coaching sessions and the 777 dollar, you know, product plus individual coaching. So group coaching is always in the middle, private and individual one-on-one coaching is always at the high-end and product only always on the low-end.

Avish: Okay got it. That makes sense. What do you mean by regular and consistent contact but don’t be pushy?

Fred: Yeah well the thing is if you have people on your email list and your contacting them over and over again, especially after they have attended one of your events, what’s going to happen is in your signature or whatever, you may want to put a couple of website links. One of which night be your site similar to consultwithfred.com and so in doing that regular and consistent contact with people, you sort of will let them say to themselves, “You know what? I really use some help on this who do I go too?” And then boom! There you are.

Avish: Okay and one of the areas I know when it comes to coaching and consulting that confuses people or gets them hang up is how do they price their coaching services? You know do you go in low or should you price it higher? What’s the theory there?

Fred: Well it’s funny because there are a lot of people who will give you very sophisticated models of what price to charge and inevitably what it comes down to is just getting in the ball park with people who do similar things that you do. And when you are first starting out though, here’s the beauty, the beauty of it is you don’t have to charge a lot of money for your coaching and consulting because frankly you’ll take it anywhere you can get it. Except you don’t want to make it so cheap that people will be suspicious whether or not you have decent quality information you give them.

So again, I would say that out of minimum, if you are offering a coaching package that costs less than 100 dollars a session, that would make me concerned about you and your quality as a coach. Again, but that 100 dollars a session when you start promoting it and you start to get known in your field, you know, it would not be unlikely for you to get three or four or five hundred dollars per coaching session. So start out low, and then raise it based on demand.

Avish: Okay, and so when you say coaching session, what’s a typical coaching session?

Fred: In terms of length?

Avish: Yeah.

Fred: For me I usually say 60 minutes but if something has to go a little bit over. I am not really a stickler for that.

Avish: Okay, so it sounds like you have, to kind of summarize this, it’s a good way to make money, but you don’t want to be too pushy on it so you included as part of your product offering. And drop some things, and throughout your seminar letting people know this is something you do?

Fred: Yup! And then you may want to have also as a final note on this, is to have some packages developed. So just an introductory session is this. A three month commitment is this and a year of commitment is this, you may want to do that.

Avish: Okay. That makes sense.

Fred: Perfect!

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Next topic — we’ll talk about making products. We have been talking about selling all of these different products, high price and low price. But in order to sell products you have to have products.

Fred: Yup.

Avish: And that can seem very daunting to someone who has never created any but you like to say it is actually pretty simple to create products, right?

Fred: Well specially for people in this particular course who are doing a seminar. Because the ultimate way to create a product and the quickest way is when you are already doing a seminar, is just record it or video tape the program that you are going to be doing and turn that into a product. So it’s a very, very simple and easy thing to do.

And by the way in product creation you have basically three options available to you. Number one is like I just said, record a live event. Number two is what you and I are doing here, even though we are doing it by Skype. We are doing an interview where you ask me questions. The third option is the one that I do not recommend that many people use which I think is dead wrong, which is to sit in a room and talk into a microphone and record a product solo without anyone’s input.

I think this is a bad idea. So you have three options — two of which I recommend, one of which I don’t.

Avish: So why, because like you said many people do that studio-type recording, why don’t you recommend that one?

Fred: I don’t recommend it because I know how I think and I have talked to tons of people that have brought products from me and from other people and here’s what happens. If I sit there and talk into a microphone and talk about a given topic, you know, I maybe marginally effective because I am a good speaker and I can vary my tone of voice and everything else. But it’s certainly a lot less interesting and compelling to the listener who’s hearing one person drone on and on.

In a situation like which you and I are doing here, we are going back and forth and all we’re working from is an outline because you are a smart enough interviewer that you’ll ask questions and follow up and play what I call Mr. Stupid. So I think that you know, in the three options available to you, the number one, doing it on your own, I guess if you have to, it’s a good way to crank out something specially if it’s a free product. But in generally I prefer to see people either do the interview style like what we are doing here or secondly but certainly not less important or less valuable is recording a live event.

But if you record a live event you have to do a few things to make sure that you get it right.

Avish: Okay. And what are a couple of those things?

Fred: Thank you. Thanks for the lead-in. Well one of the things is you have to make sure that if you record a live event and again, I am talking about an audio recording here but it could be a video as well. And the question first is should you record and use the audio or the video? The answer is if you have something that really has a lot of visual components then definitely use video. If you have something that is primarily information that can be communicated strictly by voice and audio then do that. So think about the ultimate goal that your prospect or buyer will have which is how do I understand and get the stuff down and start using it and if audio is sufficient well then fine. The other thing is though when you record live events. It’s a little bit different than you and I sitting here via Skype, my recording this in the Garage Van on my Mac.

In a live event you have a lot of different moving parts and you have to make sure but recently I put up a blog post at fredgleek.com/blog that people can go and take a look at, where I detailed all the equipment that you would need and exactly how to use each one to make sure you get a good live recording. Because there’s nothing worse than having a live recording where you think everything went really great and then you find out your audio system just was, something was screwed up.

So make sure and have and pre-test everything but the most important thing while doing a live program is to make sure and repeat every question when asked. And we talked about this a little bit when delivering a seminar but we also should talk about it when creating products. If you’re going to be creating products and somebody asked a question out of the audience. My biggest frustration as a listener of audio products is when I hear somebody starting to answer question when I didn’t even hear what the question was.

Now sometimes I can figure it out but it’s sort of a pain in the neck not to know, don’t you agree?

Avish: Yeah I try to get myself in the habit of always, no matter what size of the room, just re-phrasing the question, repeating the question before I answer them.

Fred: And that gives people in the audience or whoever asks the question a chance to say no, no-no. That wasn’t what I meant. So by clarifying it and re-stating it in your own words, if the person asking the question who is violently opposed to how you perceive the question they can always correct you.

Avish: Yeah I agree with that absolutely. Okay so these are great tips for recording a seminar and you turn it into a product. The second one we said was the interview so let’s just say someone wanted to do that, what are a couple of tips and techniques that they can use to create interview products?

Fred: Well obviously the best situation is when you can be sitting together live and in person both together. Whereas you and I, you’re in Philadelphia, I am in the LA area right now and we’re recording this via Skype. Now the recording is actually pretty decent. You sound a little bit teeny because you’re coming through but it doesn’t really matter because most of the talking, as usual, is being done by me.

But the thing about it is, is it is always preferable to be together face-to-face if you can do it. Now, it’s not mandatory but if you can do it. The other thing is that with the free tele-seminar lines and everything that they offer. Often times you can record those where the system will record it for you so if you want a cheap way to do a recording like this that’s a great way to do it which is get in to a free tele-seminar line and allow the system to record you and again, free conferencecall.com or free teleseminar.com one of those two I think. Both of them perhaps might have the ability to record your tele-seminars which was really you and another person on the phone at the same time.

Avish: Okay. So that’s a good way to get the great ways to get the recordings. What about the content of the interview, how do you set that up?

Fred: Again base on our old familiar friend, the outline. As long as you have a good outline and you have something that is very savvy, say like you or me, doing the questioning, it’s not going to be a problem, because somebody who knows how to ask questions and follow up with questions and is interested in the material will be able to do a good interview base on outline alone. And by the way when you do your outlines I hate it when people prepare questions for me. I’d rather have the outline and I can come up with my own questions.

Avish: Makes sense. So with those two methods, recording a live seminar or recording an interview, you’re going to end up with some kind of a digital audio file, how do you then sell that whether it’s online or at back of the room?

Fred: Yeah. Well of all that is about taking all that content and information and putting it, uploading it into web marketing magic which we have spoken about before and then cutting it up in small enough chunks and it can be delivered to people in pieces. But then when they order the product they get everything, all the various components and they can go it one, two, three, you know, however many pieces there are.

Avish: Okay. When you are selling products at a seminar back of the room, let’s say you’ve created some of these interviews and things. Do you sell them like a downloadable product that you have to go home and download? Or is it preferable to have a physical like CD or something to give them?

Fred: That’s a good question. I think, to increase your sales you should have a combination as a minimum. Which is if you sold only purely downloadable products it would be difficult to get people to put up their money and buy because they don’t think they are getting anything. They’re not getting a physical product when they give you the order. Whereas, if you make part of the order downloadable or as much of it as possible but you do have one or two CDs or DVDs or whatever it is your selling available at the event that would make it easier for people to justify putting in the order because they can actually see and touch something right there.

Avish: Okay. Do you think that needs to be, and now I’m getting a little bit technical, but does that need to be a CD that’s playable or can it just be a CD with like MP3s burned on it?

Fred: I think it’s better if it’s a CD that’s playable. Just because it makes it such that, you know, frequently you give people on MP3 CDs specially people who are not very sophisticated, you get people calling and saying, this doesn’t work I got a bad CD. So let’s make sure that it’s a standard CD.

Avish: Okay. So let’s say that I have a seminar and I put it together. I have people coming and it is two weeks from today, but I have no products, what would you advice I do?

Fred: What I would have you do is first, create an outline on a topic that you would be covering in a seminar but you’re not going to cover it in depth and in detail. Put together an outline on that specific topic. Find a friend like you or me, sit down and do this either via Skype or in person and record a separate and complete other program having to do with that very in depth topic and then make it available either in CD form or in a downloadable form if it’s a portion of your order. But at least make sure that anytime you’re pitching you have at least some physical product that people can walk away with.

Avish: Okay. Well, that’s great, straightforward, and very simple. Any other thoughts you have on this very large topic of product creation?

Fred: Well it’s funny because if you go to fredgleek.comford/ebooks, there’s another book called “Selling Information” which will give people the full story on any or all of this. So I would refer them there.

Avish: Okay. And again, those are free up there?

Fred: Yup they are free, fredgleek.comford/ebooks.

Avish: Super.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Now to someone listening to this, it may sound really simple to put on a seminar and then you sell a lot of stuff. But you can do a seminar and sell nothing and you can do a seminar and sell a lot of stuff. So there’s a lot that goes into selling from a platform. Correct?

Fred: Yeah absolutely.

Avish: So what are some of the elements? Let’s start with the pitch that you’re going do. How do you craft that pitch for maximum results?

Fred: Well one of the things you have to remember is, when you’re trying to get people to buy your products and materials, the one thing that they have to know is that you got good materials in them. In other words, if you’re trying to sell on something, I got to know and I’ve seen, and be certain in my mind that no matter what price you’re charging, that the stuff that you have is good. And really for many of the people who are at your seminars and events, the only exposure that they may have to is the event itself. So that means you better be delivering a really good damn seminar in order for people to become convinced that you have good materials to sell.

So yes it’s important to craft your pitch, but really crucial and important is to set the stage for when you give your pitch so that people will be sort of pre-disposed to buying it. And they’ll be pre disposed in buying it if they know that you are a person who delivers on your promises because you know you’re going to make sure if you’re going pitch on something they’re already consuming one of your products, which is the seminar itself. So after that, other things have to come into play.

Avish: Okay. First step is that you got a really, really awesome content at your seminar.

Fred: Yeah.

Avish: Okay. So let’s say you got that. Your seminar rocks, people love you. But now you’re getting to that point near the end, where you need to pitch. What are some tips and ways that you can do to create that pitch so it’s really effective?

Fred: Well let me just go back and say it may not be near the end. In fact, at seminars and events that I do. If you are doing a one hour presentation, you might pitch sort of near the end that would may 48 minutes into something you give your pitch. If you’re doing a seminar, let’s say one day seminar, I would pitch before lunch of a one day seminar. If I were doing a multi-day seminar, let’s say 3 days, I might pitch, at you know, before lunch on the 2nd day. So I rarely recommend people pitch anything until they got at least 50 percent through the seminar. So in case of a one day seminar, halfway through is right before lunch. In a case of a 3 day seminar, halfway through is right before lunch on the 2nd day.

Avish: Okay so the advantage on pitching at the halfway mark is that people have time to think about it, ask questions, make a decision, instead of being rushed at the end.

Fred: Yeah, not only that but yeah. So for example, if you’re doing a one day seminar chances are you’re going to have a break in the morning, then one break before lunch. So you give them the order sheet that they take with them to lunch. Have a chance to look it over and make their decision and when they come back there’s still one more break, in addition to at the end of the seminar for them to turn in their order. So in terms of timing that’s probably the way you want to do it.

Avish: Okay. So that makes a lot of sense.

Fred: Now in terms of pitch itself, as to we’re trying to get in here

Avish: Yeah.

Fred: The pitch itself first off, anybody who wants more information on this can go to fredgleeck.com/ebooks and one of the free eBooks I give is an entire book of over a 100 pages on selling products from the platform. So I encourage everybody to, if they’re really interested in this and going to be doing a lot of product sales that they read that book fully and completely because right here obviously we’re giving a very sort of you know superficial coverage of this topic.

First thing is in the pitch itself, the thing that you have to remember is don’t try and disguise the pitch as being content. I always like to say “Ok folks now here comes the two minute commercial.” You know we got some materials here and then I go into it. So I would encourage everybody if they’re serious to this particular topic in this course, that they go to fredgleeck.com/ebooks, download that eBook and really learn everything I have to say about the topic. But in general, the pitch should remain you know. First thing is, you should have two or three options in terms of price. If you do have two probably better than three and if you pitch the two items you always start with the more expensive ones first. You detail what’s in it so that the second option looks really expensive compared to the first one each pitch.

Occasionally, I do a three part pitch which is really high-end, medium-end, and sort of low-end. And by low-end I mean I would pitch products that would be about you know high-end would be something that is 5 to 10 times the cost that they attended the seminar itself. So if you’re doing a hundred dollar event so 500 to a 1000 dollars is a high priced point for a 99 dollar or 100 dollars seminar. The low price event or the low price point for doing a 100 dollar seminar would be somewhere around 50 dollars, or anywhere around 50 percent of whatever the registration price was. I’d consider that low-end. High-end anywhere from five to ten percent. Again sort of a mid-point there would be two and a half to three times the cost to attend. So if I were pitching at a one day seminar right before lunch, I might offer people either two options. One would be maybe at 7.77 and the other would 97 dollars. So that way I would give people sort of a high end option and the lower end option. But when pitching it, I would make sure that I had my order sheet put together and those order sheets handed out right at the time I started the pitch.

Avish: So not in advance as sitting on the table with them?

Fred: No you don’t, you know you really don’t want them there, because when you see something — and also I never do is I never put, I put a listing of all the various items that are included in each of the packages, but I never put then I put the total value and I put your price and I leave it blank. But I don’t put those out in advance, just because I think I don’t want people to really be concentrating on what I’m going to be selling before I get to the point where I sell it. So I want to keep that sort of holding that back.

Avish: Well it’s going to mention the technique really quickly there so would list the value of the products but then you’ll on the order sheet itself you won’t state the sell price. You’ll have a blank.

Fred: In other words, if I have five items under each one of them, I will put the item and then I will put in parenthesis value equal to. But obviously, those are the standard retail prices for those items and then at the end of it I’ll say your price and a blank with a dollar sign in front of it. So that when people pick up that order sheet and start looking and looking through with me, I will go over all the components of the various things and included in terms of what their value is for that in terms of what the actual cost is. I’m going to give the standard retail price.

So it’s going to look like what I offer to people for 777 dollars, usually for a retail sells for 4500or something like that. And the thing that I’m selling for 97 dollars or maybe even 77 dollars, they pay a 100 dollars to be there, that the items that I offered for a total of 77 or 97 appear to have a value at least 400 or 500.

Avish: Okay. That makes sense. So obviously when you go and get the free eBook it got a look of information. Any final thoughts you want to leave people with for right now?

Fred: The only final thought that I’d like to leave people with is this, is that there’s nothing wrong. People would never be grudged you pitching products at an event if you had first delivered value. And I think everybody who sees themselves as selling fair amount of products should definitely go download the eBook literally. It’s over a 100 page book on how to do this, and we’ve just scratched the surface here.

Avish: Great.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: So here we are talking about a seminar and so much work that goes into it, and all the effort of creating an outline and delivering it. But even at this point, you say that we should be thinking about creating our next seminar already?

Fred: Yeah. The reason if you have people in the room and they are delighted with what you have just done, it makes sense to offer them Seminar 101, to immediately offer them 201 on the same topic, because it’s going to be really, really easy sell. So if you don’t have that available and at least ready to promote at your own event makes no sense.

Avish: Okay, so how comprehensively does that need to be completed by your first seminar?

Fred: It will be dependent on how soon you might want to deliver it. I think if you have a good outline of it, that is all you need. I don’t think you have to be super super comprehensive to know it in detail, but you have to know enough to be able to pitch it and have people sign up for that, because this was so good.

Avish: So you’ll, as part of your sales pitch at the end, you’ll up-sell to the next seminar?

Fred: Yeah. Because they have already been at the first one, same topic, they really like it. So think of it as the beginning, intermediate and advance level. So if you have done the 101 version of your topic, you can say “Hey, and for those of you that want to move on to the next level of this particular concept, and its coming up in 2 months. And if you sign up, everyone on the room today, if they sign up get a 50% bonus, or 50% off the normal registration fee, to show up.”

Avish: Okay, so the one challenge I see with this if we follow the program, we have been talking about, where you do a giant brain dump and get every single idea in your head, out on index cards.

Fred: (Police Sirens) Avish, are they coming to pick you up?

Avish: Yes, there are. They know we’re giving away some real good secret information. I’m in Philadelphia downtown, what do you expect?

Fred: So, go ahead, re-ask that?

Avish: Well, basically to create the outline, we said to do a complete brain dump where you get everything out of your head.

Fred: Well yeah.

Avish: So then the problem is if everything comes out of your head for seminar number 1, how do you create seminar number 2?

Fred: I don’t think you need to do a complete brain dump. So I think all you need is an idea, of what you are going to cover, and so basically, you tell people, hey if you like this event, you’ll like the next one because we are going to go deeper into all of the topics but specifically , this one and this one, and this one.

Avish: Now, you also recommend that the seminar leader, the person listening to this, continues to improve themselves as well.

Fred: Yeah, sure. Because if not, it’s going to be difficult to keep moving up and promoting the next event, unless you are getting and giving more information.

Avish: So, what are some of the ways they should be making themselves better?

Fred: Well, I think that they should be reading as much as they can about their topic, attending other events that are related, that help them learn, as much as they possibly can. And just perfecting their craft via looking at the tape of what they have done, and then see how they can improve. And looking carefully at the evaluations to see if there are any obvious areas that the audience feels they need to improve on as well.

Avish: So the more they go out and learn and get better and research and read, the more content they will have for seminars 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on.

Fred: You got it.

Avish: Okay, anything else people need to know about creating their next seminar?

Fred: Pretty much it. Make sure and promote the next one when you are doing your first one, because it is a much easier to sell.

Avish: Super.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Let’s be honest, Fred. Audiotaping, videotaping yourself, are kind of a pain to set-up and do. But you fully believe that you should video and audio tape every time you speak?

Fred: Yeah, and the reason why I do — there are a few reasons. Number one: to critique yourself. Number two: to create products. And number three: to capture what I call “magic moments” that you never know when they are going to occur. And it’s always that time that you forgot or decided not to video or audiotape yourself that something really magical happens in the audience that you could’ve used, like for sure, to promote your business. It’s just one of those things that you don’t want to miss that you usually do miss when you decide not to do it.

Avish: Okay, let’s talk real briefly about those first two, then. You said number one is to critique yourself?

Fred: Yeah, again, maybe after you’ve done this seminar a couple hundred times or a hundred times, you may not want to go through it all and do a post mortem analysis of what happened. However, I almost always will review my pitch. When I pitch the products, to see if I did anything better or different and how that related to sales. So I think it’s a good idea to sort of review the video tape and see what you did right, what you did wrong, what you can improve.

Avish: And I know that’s painful for people, especially at first, watching yourself, but it really is valuable.

Fred: Yeah it is. So get over whatever that hurdle is that you have and do it.

Avish: So the second thing is then, it allows you to create products. It’s a way of creating products?

Fred: Yeah, even if you’re giving the same seminar a month later, it’s the updated, it’s the latest version. It allows you to have, if you have ten of those, to have lots of bonus materials. Because although some of the topics and the content might be the same, the questions from the audience are always different.

Avish: Okay, makes sense. And could you touch upon the “magic moment” thing a little bit more? So you’re saying that sometimes when you’re speaking, you’ll just do something spontaneously or something will happen. And if you don’t capture it, it’s gone?

Fred: Yeah, and if you think about it. If you were to ask a 100 speakers and seminar leaders the question, “Hey, was there ever a time where you delivered a speech or a seminar where there was something that happened that you did, or that something that happened in the group, that you just wished you would have been audio or videotaping at the time?” I bet you’ll get a 100% yes response to that question.

Avish: Uh-huh.

Fred: So why make it an issue? Just video and audiotape everything you do.
Avish: Ok, makes sense Fred.

Fred: Sounds good to me.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Alright. At some seminars, you’re going to deliver all the content at yourself. But sometimes you’re going to want to bring in outside speakers. Correct?

Fred: That is true.

Avish: Okay. So first off, why would you as the seminar person want to bring in outside speakers?

Fred: For a variety of reasons, but the two or three main ones are — number one, you don’t have that particular expertise and you found somebody who does that deliver that type, that section of information. And also another reason is, especially if you’re doing your own self-promoted events that people who speak at the events often have a large lists and they can promote to that list to help you fill the room. So that’s a good thing to use outside speakers for as well.

The other thing is a lot of times you can sort of borrow credibility from someone who agrees to speak at your event who maybe a bigger fish than you, may have more knowledge in the field. So that’s yet another reason.

Avish: Okay. Make sense. So where do you find these people to speak for you?

Fred: Well sometimes you find them from other events. Sometimes you’ll find them by Googling them. Sometimes they may be in your existing group of friends and or colleagues. You’ll find them basically anywhere and if you see them they wrote an article somewhere that you found particularly insightful. Anywhere and everywhere you can find them. It’s possible to find somebody who can speak for you.

Avish: Okay. Now what’s in it for them? We talked about why you want to bring someone, why would someone else want to speak at your event?

Fred: Well, number one if they have products to sell. And usually there’s a 50-50 split between the speaker and the person who is running the event. It also gives them a chance to possibly get a recording of their doing a live event which I always allow them to do and let them have a copy for their own use. It also establishes them as an expert. It gives them practice and let’s some get a word about who they are and what they do.

Avish: Okay. So when you’re talking to these people and asking them about speaking at your event, you can say appeal to their ability for themselves.

Fred: Yeah.

Avish: And so when you talk a little more about that what you just say to a person that how would you try to convince them to speak for you?

Fred: Yeah well I would first off be very honest about the number of people who are going to be coming to your event because the last thing any speaker wants done is to be big time by the promoter where they say, “Oh yeah there will be 3,000 people in the room,” and then you know 200 show up.

Avish: Yeah.

Fred: And but you want to let them know that you have a group that very well matches their target who they are going after because if somebody knows that it’s really effective if they can get to the right group to be talking to them and dealing with them face to face in person at the seminar. So it’s good for everybody if in fact is a good match of speaker to group.

Avish: Okay. So how do you vet these speakers out to make sure that they’re going to be any good?

Fred: Probably the best way to do is to have seen them yourself presenting. If not, you want a video of them doing their thing, and not just sort of the highlight reel. You want to see an entire presentation because people can take a really crappy one hour performance and make it look like a decent seven minute video. So you want the entire that they did and if they’re hesitant to produce that, be careful because chances are they probably suck as a speaker.

Avish: So now obviously not everyone is going to say yes, right? You’re going to come prepared for some people will turn you down.

Fred: Yeah absolutely. There will be people where whatever reason will not you know refuse to speak to your event.

Avish: Alright. One common thing you may encounter is I assume is that some of the people will ask for you to pay them to speak to your event. Is that something you consider doing?

Fred: Well I mean it really depends on what your budget is and how much, your computation should always be this. Well, if I were to pay a speaker, would the amount that I pay them more than make up for the amount of additional registrations or registrants I get and or the product sales that we derive from that. And then usually the answer is no unless there’s a price is right and the speaker is good which very infrequently occurs. So for the most part, speakers make their money at seminars and events by whatever sales that they make of the products although there are some speakers who can only speak and give a fee and then I don’t really care what happens. But for the most part that’s how it works.

Avish: Okay now what about prima donnas, because sometimes a big speaker with a big name would might have a draw. But you know they’re prima donna they have reputations that someone you would still pursue?

Fred: In my case I never will just because it’s really really a lot more energy and effort to deal with. And I know that you have to deal to some of them as well and I think looking back on, it you probably say that if you have it to do over again on balance it probably wasn’t a good idea.

Avish: Yeah it’s just a big headache and you can never make them happy.

Fred: Yeah and it’s not worth, so I would shy away from anyone whose got that kind of diva mentality.

Avish: Well we talk about keeping the speakers happy, you know, what are some of the things to do for the speakers when they’re there to treat them well and make sure they feel appreciated and they maximize their time there?

Fred: Yeah we want to make sure to promote each year’s speakers. If you invited them to do make sure and help promote whatever it is they’re selling. Oftentimes there’s a special little group session maybe a meal just for the speakers who at the event thank them. Sometimes you can give a little speaker gift basket. Doesn’t really matter how much it is just as long it’s something they make them feel more appreciated. A lot of times those things put in the rooms or giving to them some kind of ceremony at the event. All those things are good. Make the people who agree to speak that the good people wanted.

Avish: Okay, follow up question when it comes to helping themselves products and usually when someone sells product and when your event you get a 50-50 split?

Fred: Yeah.

Avish: How do you monitor that? Do you have one of your people to take money or you just going to trust them like give you that would do the right thing?

Fred: Two different ways you can do it. Number one is to let them collect the orders and fulfill the products and rely on their honesty to give you your cut. The other is for you to take orders and process them yourselves and send them to check. I don’t like option two, I prefer option one. Can you burned more frequently? Yes but the problem is, that’s the problem with screening your speakers. So if you screen and get the right people, I personally prefer and let them take orders deal with all the returns if there’s any problems that they had and just check counter check by people whose speaking at my event. But again there are two ways to do this.

Avish: Have you ever had an outside speaker cancel on you with really short notice at the last minute?

Fred: I have. Yeah but you know I never spoke with them and have them speak at one of my events again.

Avish: Well got it. That’s unfortunate for them.

Fred: Yeah but that’s the price they pay for being you know unprofessional.

Avish: Yeah. Great. Any final words of advice on using outside speakers at your event?

Fred: Yeah. Be careful. Just remember that whoever you use at your event, if they have integrity issues, people would think that it’s your problem. So you borrowed their integrity either positive or negative. So when you invite someone to speak, understand something about them and whether or not you know they have any problems. And if they do, avoid them.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: You know when we think about putting on a seminar, we visualize everything going perfectly well.

Fred: Oh yeah.

Avish: But things happen, sometimes things will go wrong. So let’s just talk about some of the more common problems that might occur and how to avoid them or how to deal with them?

Fred: Okay.

Avish: First off, is you know, every so often you are going to get a dissatisfied participant. Somebody’s not happy. So what do you do with that person that’s not happy with the seminar?

Fred: Yeah, what you want to try to do is understand that that stuff is contagious. So you want to try and cut it out like a cancer and get rid of it. So you don’t want somebody who’s unhappy to be bitching and moaning and making everyone around them similarly inclined. So as soon as you notice that, you better pull someone on the side and say, “Hey you know what? What’s going on? And explains that this is probably really not for you,” and try and get them their money back and send them on their way and get them out of there as quickly as possible. So the last thing you want to do is have somebody who is negative. You know, continuing to spew their negative energy to everybody else in the room. Take that person aside. Figure out what the problem is. Give them their money back and send them on their way.

Avish: Okay. Now would you try it last until a break or lunch or would you just kind of stop the seminar so you could talk to that person?

Fred: You probably, it’s going to look a little bit too obvious if you do it you know. A lot of times when I’ve done, there, is some of the things where I’m going through my information I may come up with a reason to create an exercise. And that would be the great time, which is as I notice as the person is getting completely out of hand, find a way that I can create an exercise for people that makes sense and then go over and pull on the side and say “hey come over here” and just get them to leave. Find a way.

Avish: Right. And so, just so we’re clear, what exactly do you mean by dissatisfied participant? Is it someone who’s pushing back a lot asking too many questions or you know just verbally being abusive? Like what is in your mind it means to be a dissatisfied participant?

Fred: Well somebody who is verbalizing and basically fighting everything that you have to say with questions or comments that they are being you know loud or abrasive and their tone is sort of annoying to the group. Someone who is bitching and complaining about anything whether it’s the room temperature, the service, they don’t like the hotel, whatever it is. And those things are coming out for everybody that you hear. There are a lot of varieties of a dissatisfied participants, but the one thing is that no matter what kind of variety it is, it is contagious.

Avish: Okay. So you talked about niches now so what if someone’s not you know dissatisfied but they are complaining about the temperature repeatedly in the room or something like that.

Fred: Yeah. Well one of the best ways to take care of that if you can is to enlist that person to help create a solution. So if the person comes up to you and says you know it’s you know the room temperature is really cold in here and I would say “You know what? I think you’re right if they are. Could you help me out on that? I would love to get you help on that. Here’s what you need to do, here’s my hotel contact. Could you go and grab them?” and then they feel like when they feel like they’re part of the solution of the problem they bring up, then all of the sudden they take responsibility for getting done.

Avish: Okay. So what if you don’t agree with them?

Fred: Well if you don’t agree with them I think that the best way to handle it is you know I would say, to ask the rest of the group and just say “hey quick show your hand folks. You know is the room too cold for you? If anybody feels that way, could you please raise your hand?” Now inevitably they’re going to get a few. And just say, you know, if clearly the person who came up with the comment who is dissatisfied is shown to be in a wrong and say “hey you know then again, if they’re too cold. Is there someone just wanted to see if there’s who might be able to lend your sweater or something to the person sitting next to you?” And so, but like the idea of showing through the group and a show of hands and some of a show that they are in a very, very, small minority.

Avish: Okay. So what about you know we mentioned selling from the back of the room at some point you’re going to have to let people know what else they can buy from you. And some people in the audience are going to be upset of the fact that you’re doing a sales pitch.

Fred: Yeah.

Avish: So what do you do about that?

Fred: What I do is if somebody’s stands up and says “Yeah I don’t want to hear this sales pitch!” Which I can say, “Hey I completely understand how you feel, why don’t you start your break a little bit early. Why don’t you go ahead and take off and I’ll explain some of the resources to the people who are interested in hearing about it.” How’s that? So now, what can I say at that point?

Avish: Yeah — but that’s good point.

Fred: Pretty much game over for them.

Avish: Now what about something about who is not necessarily dissatisfied, but they start to dominate the seminar by asking a lot of questions or constantly adding their two cents?

Fred: Yeah, well, if somebody’s like that what I usually try and do is out of break or a self-created break through an exercise. Pull that person aside and say you know what sounds like you have a lot of valuable information with regards to this topic. I’ve got five minutes sort of later in a day and maybe would you mine putting something together so that you can give this to the whole group? And then that way you get them busy and occupied working on their presentation that they’re going to be freaked out to do. And you so probably you can get them up in front of the group and they can get out of all their energy doing that, rather than especially if they have good comments to make.

Avish: Right now, what if someone who’s just, what if he don’t necessarily feel comfortable that they’re going to have good comments to make but they’re still keep raising their hand that add in their two cents?

Fred: Well then what I would do is I would enlist the audience and I’d say to the audience and say hey do you guys think should we continue down this road and continue to answer these kind of questions or should we move on and inevitably someone will go “Shut up move on!” Let the audience make the person stop, not you.

Avish: So it sounds like for a variety these issues you’re suggesting is to get your audience on your side and get an opinion so you’re not necessarily being a bad guy you’re just trying not to disturb the entire audience.

Fred: Exactly, because for you to sort of dictate policy. Looks like, looks dictatorial and it’s not as effective as getting consensus by other members of the group, who then shout-down or make the decision for the person who’s being disruptive.

Avish: Okay. Any other common problems you can think of?

Fred: Those are pretty much the ones that we need to cover. So if people take care of those, I think they’re well on their way.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Alright, no discussion of presenting would be complete without talking about using visual aids.

Fred: Yeah.

Avish: So, I want to get you opinion on some of these things. One of the first things you say is “You are your own best visual aid.”

Fred: Yeah. You want to make sure, that by virtue of the fact, if you have a PowerPoint or a keynote that you are doing, the number that you don’t want to rely on. You or your physical movement is the most important visual aid that you have. So don’t forget that your movement is important as far as the visuals.

Avish: Okay so are you talking about how you move from the group or are you also talking about your appearance, your dress, things like that?

Fred: Everything goes into it. So yeah, not only how you move or how you present to the group. It’s how you coordinate it. Again, it doesn’t matter if you wear the blue suit and the red tie. I mean you have to think about what is appropriate for your group. Whether it be physical movement or presentation.

Avish: Alright. You and I have both seen speakers who tend to rely on their PowerPoint to the extent they are not good speakers anymore?

Fred: Yeah, basically they are just putting up a fancy outline and going through it point by point. Now this presents a lot of problems. I had this happen just not too long ago, where the audiovisual system just pooped out. You better be prepared. Have a handout which has all you points in there. Technology does screw up. And not only that, technology is there to help you deliver the information, it’s not there to take the place of delivering the information. Which you and I both know is something that a lot of speakers and seminar leaders tend to do sometimes.

Avish: Right. Makes sense. So what you are saying is there is being about to do your program without the visuals and make sure that you have solid speaking skill and content?

Fred: Yeah, exactly. If you don’t have a back up to what you are doing, going to be in big trouble. Because God knows stuff screws up sometimes.

Avish: So how do you got about it? I think we may have touched on this earlier, but how do you go about picking your visual aids to make sure you are not using them as a crutch?

Fred: Well, I think anytime you use any kind of presentation, any kind of visuals. You just have to be looking-the key there is intelligent integration. It’s not substitute for delivery. And so what you have to ask yourself is, “Is this use of this visual aid, or this particular tool, whatever I’m considering using in terms of a visual going to assist people in better learning and understanding the information.” If it is then use it, if its not then don’t.

Avish: Okay. That is a good rule of thumb to follow. And another rule you’d like to use is the 6×6 rule. What exactly is that?

Fred: Yeah. 6×6. this is a rule that has been violated more than any rule that I have ever seen, in terms of visual aids. If you are putting up text on a screen for people can read, maximum of 6 words, maximum of 6 fixed lines, maximum 6 words per line; so no more than 36 words on a slide that has just text. I love it when speakers or seminar leaders put up a seminar slide and say, “I know you can’t read that, but…”

Avish; (laughs)

Fred: So if you are going to do that, give that to me in a handout. Don’t put it up on a presentation slide. It makes no sense.

Avish Okay yeah, that makes sense. 6×6 is the maximum right? If you can get away with using images or fewer words, that’s usually better correct?

Fred: Absolutely…that’s the outside number.

Avish: Correct. Got it. Any other thoughts or words of advice to people on how to use visual aids?

Fred: Well, just try to make sure — it’s always great to stimulate the senses; to use data; we have the ability to use this. Audio, video clips, text, maybe some animation. But don’t, again remember, the content you are delivering is the star of the show, people shouldn’t walk away from your presentation saying, “Wow, did you see how well he used PowerPoint or keynote?” That’s not it. They should walk away saying, “Man, that was great presentation. I really understand it and the visuals really helped me to understand what he or she was trying to communicate.”

Avish: Okay, great advise.

Fred: Super.

TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Alright, Fred. A lot of people think of the start of their seminar as when the event actually begins. But there are some things that you must do before your seminar starts, correct?

Fred: Yeah, there really are. And if you are doing your own events, one of the things that you want to do is get up and be down at your room at least an hour or preferably 75 minutes early to make sure that everything has been posted correctly. And walk into the hotel or wherever you are doing to seminar as if you were a participant. And see if it is easy to find your room without any additional instruction. So you want to sort of do that initial walk to see how easy it will be for a participant if they show up here to find the room and to get to where you want them to be. That’s first thing you want to do. Other things that you have on my list for me there that you can remind me of?

Avish: What about checking on your equipment and systems?

Fred: Well that would be another natural one. Which is that frequently, and by the way I’ve had this nightmare happen to me repeatedly where I tend to use the same equipment over and over again, but there is always problems. So I went recently to an audio and video consulting group. And had them sit down with me and go over everything. And I videotaped and audiotaped everything they were doing with me and I put that into a checklist. So that in the morning, when I set stuff up now, I am just like following a map of instructions given to me by the experts. That has been shown to me and worked so that I don’t have any sort of thinking. And good to put that together into a video or sort of checklist that is physical in terms of writing. So that if you have people that are working with you, you can hand them that sheet or give it to them a couple of days before, so they can study exactly how all that equipment works.

Avish: Ok, so you want to make sure that you check that, get that all set up. So this is a really simple one, but having water with lemon?

Fred: Yeah, I like having water with lemon up front for me because it makes it so that I am constantly hydrating my throat and making it so that I don’t sort of have a problem with speaking as I go through the day.

Avish: Okay. Finally, and we talked about this a little bit before, but meeting and greeting the members as they arrive?

Fred: Yeah, good idea to not just, like I’ve said before, not just show up in the room and act like the big shot, but be there to meet and greet people, because they always feel more comfortable. And it is always better for you to get them sort of knowing who you are before you even start.

Avish: Yeah, I also find that sometimes people just show up absurdly early. Whether it’s because they are commuting or they misguided. And it really stinks if your participants get there before you do.

Fred: Yeah, and sometimes they do get there absurdly early. I was doing something, like you know, a month ago where the start time was 9 AM and somebody was there at 7.
Avish: (Laughing)

Fred: And I, yeah. It’s like, I don’t know if they read the thing incorrectly, or if they were just like eager beavers, or they live two blocks away or whatever, but that’s crazy.

Avish: So maybe you don’t have to get there two hours early, but get there early so you are there before your normal attendees.

Fred: Exactly.

Avish: Great.