Special Event Marketing: Making Your Event GREAT!

Now that you’ve got people coming to your event, you’ve got to delight them with the seminar itself. In your event marketing promotion, you are telling them that this seminar is going toknock their socks off. Accomplishing this is sometimes tougher than it sounds. But there are event marketing solutions- even small ones- that can all contribute to making each event your absolute best.

A few reasons why this is so crucial:

First, you don’t want them to ask for their money back. Second, you want them to buy a lot of product from you. Third, you want them to come back to future events. Finally, you want them to buy your consulting services.

If you blow it at the seminar itself, you’ll lose on all four of these points. When people come to your events, they expect a minimum of two things. First, they want someone who is a good presenter. Second, they

want someone who will give them lots of usable and relevant content. These two are equally important; one without the other is a failure. If you’re weak in either of these areas, get some help. If you need a refer- ral in either the content or presentation skill area, contact us.

Being good is not enough; you must be great!

Many seminar promoters do only the minimum to fulfill their contractual obligations to their attendees and customers. I suggest you significantly exceed the expectations of your audience. Do more than they expect. Doing things this way will increase product sales and increase your enrollment at future events.

Giving you a complete list of specific things that go into making a great seminar and presentation would occupy another book this size. The best advice I can give you in a small space is to concentrate on those things you can do that impress the heck out of people but cost you very little “out-of-pocket” dollars.

The rest of this chapter offers some things to keep in mind when you present your seminar to make sure you do it right!

Your Look

I have a trademark speaking wardrobe. I always wear my famous Coogi sweaters when I present. These are these very bright and color- ful sweaters that I got turned on to in Australia. These work best for me. They fit my personality and my results are always good when I’m wearing them.

Find out what works for you. Note what you’re wearing each time you present and tabulate the results. See what you tend to sell best in. Whatever works best, wear that outfit all the time.

You may find that your most effective wardrobe varies with your target audience. Some kinds of attendees may respond better to a suit- and-tie look while others will buy like mad when you wear jeans and a humorous T-shirt. Within the bounds of good taste, you should experiment and keep track.

Once you find something that works well, don’t mess with success.

Psych Yourself Up

When you are giving a seminar, you are “on stage” for a good part of the day. As you know if you’ve done any seminars (and as you’ll soon find out if you haven’t), there is a combination of exhilaration and exhaustion that occurs in conjunction with such performance. To be at your best, you probably need to “psych yourself up” to get into performance and selling mode before you start your seminar.

There are many ways of doing this. Only you can figure out what works for you. Some people use affirmations, others use meditation, still others use physical exercise. Whatever you use, make sure and put yourself into the right mental state before you start or your prod- ucts sales will suffer.

Be Physically Fit

Giving a seminar is hard work. It can be fun and exhilarating, but there’s no doubt it is physically draining. It’s important that you come into your seminar room in as good physical condition as you can get. This doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of fitness nut or spend hours every day working out in a gym. (If you’re inclined to do those things, of course, they won’t hurt you!)

The night before your seminar, you should consider following a few simple rules that many seminar leaders have discovered over the decades this business has existed.

• First, eat a light but satisfying dinner, as early as you can. Many seminar leaders report that avoiding red meat the night before a presentation helps them feel more energy in the morning. You might experiment with that. Note that this might require you to arrive in your seminar city a day early rather than simply the night before, so that you can get a meal before too late at night, local time.
• Second, get a normal amount of sleep the night before the semi- nar. It’s important to be well-rested, but if you, for example, arrive at your site city exhausted and then sleep two or three hours longer than you are accustomed to sleeping, you might find that works against you.
• Third, avoid sugary or starchy breakfast foods. Fruit plates, egg- and-meat plates (in moderation) or grain and cereal-based foods are a better regimen than donuts, pastries, and waffles.
• Finally, if you are traveling to present your seminar, call your significant other before you go to the seminar room, assuming time zones allow that. This will both provide you encouragement and remove or reduce the likelihood that you’ll be dwelling on home concerns when you should be focusing on the room and your attendees.
• Another technique that helps me greatly in dealing with the stress of staging an event — or even just being in this business! — is meditation. It’s definitely worth you experimenting with it to see how it works for you.

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