Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending Caterina Rando‘s Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, CA. This is part 7 of my Sought After Speaker Summit blog series. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, and part 6 here.
I loved attending Caterina Rando’s Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, and learned many things.
On Friday night, Caterina offered an optional Q & A session for anyone who wanted to stay longer to ask her more questions about any subject. Naturally, I stayed to take advantage of learning from her expertise! She dedicated this session primarily to writing your book.
Having a book gives you more credibility as a speaker. It establishes you as an expert in your given topic. A book is a confidence builder for you and the event planner. It is an additional revenue stream for your business, allowing you to sell products from the back table.
You can repurpose a book’s content into a keynote speaking presentation, workshop, webinar, telecall, telesummit, ecourse, and a new coaching program. Info products are good, but will not give you as much credibility as authoring a book.
Here were some of Caterina’s tips for writing a book:
1. What do you want the book to do for you? She discovered she has brilliant idea syndrome (hearing others’ brilliant ideas and immediately wanting to implement them) and brilliant book syndrome – i.e., you have 25 books inside of you (but not one done!).
2. Make sure the book matches your upsell. If you have no upsell, all you did was just speak to an audience. You can’t run a business on good will! A business makes money (a profit)!
3. Don’t be a “grab and go” speaker (grabbing your stuff and then going right after you speak). If someone is writing you a check, make sure it’s a great presentation and you engage with the audience before, during, and after you speak. One way to do this is interacting with the audience selling your book: autographing her book, taking pictures with her, talking and praying with her.
Doreen Penner’s Women’s Retreat, Canada
4. Be strategic about the talks you give and use your book’s content. When someone wants to pay you to speak, take it – but make sure it’s under the umbrella of what your purpose is! Mention the book while you speak, quoting from it or using examples from it. This helps to sell your book!
5. Define your audience for your book. It may change. Who is your ideal client? You can’t market to the entire planet! Caterina “helps service-based entrepreneurs to be loud and proud about their business, and to thrive.” Who do you want to serve with all your heart, where it doesn’t feel like work? Who you served before may not be your audience now. If it feels like work you may not have found the right audience yet.
6. Be discerning of your time. Caterina is launching her new book, On Wings of Faith. She has warm leads for this book and is out giving marketing speeches, not just chatting small talk to people. You have so many things that could be revenue-producing. You must be discerning of your time. Don’t go speak somewhere if your message is different than what they want and it’s not the right audience for you. This leads to…
7. Say no! You say no by saying, “Thank you so much. That really doesn’t work for me. Let me refer to another great speaker.” Turning people down is a skill. Do it with the 3 G’s ~ generosity, grace and gratitude. The audience at this event came up with the 3 G’s. Caterina says this is the topic of writing her next article. 🙂
8. BUT, be open to ideas coming in that have nothing to do with the topic, that are focused on uplifting your business. Discover possibilities! Sometimes you will recognize ideas that appeal to you, such as tips for traveling for business women, but you won’t act on it. A wonderful website for women in business who travel is the Stiletto Dash, such as staying hydrated and not having desserts. Have a place to capture your ideas. You have enough projects now, but you may do this later.
Dining car on train, Canada trip
9. Know what your limits are and prioritize. Caterina was planning a social media marketing summit for October, but realized she already has 9 programs she is working on! The beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is that you can run with an idea.
10. Not everyone will love you, your book, your speaking! It’s hard to be a prophet in your own land. (Luke 4:24) But in San Francisco, Caterina does lots of programs. They are always full, so that’s not always true. Test everything. Test things 3 times before quitting or moving on to something else!
11. Use your book to get booked. 🙂 Generate revenue with your book through speaking gigs, and then selling your book at the back table. Who needs your important message? There are women in this world who need to hear your important story.
12. Think about the framework of your book. How many words do you want? What’s happening in each chapter? Some ideas are stories, exercises, and questions. Pull books off shelves. Look at the format. Do a checklist at the chapter’s end for all chapters. Use boxes. Design your chapters attractively with bold headers and sub-heads, bullet points, visually appealing graphics.
In the next post, we’ll discuss books more. Do you want to write, are you writing, or have you written a book? Share in the comments below.
Be sure to check out my ebooks and other info products at my estore here.
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