You work hard for what you know. As an author, public speaker, seminar leader, blogger, or coach, ideas are money.
And then there’s social media – the wide-mouth, gaping suck-hole of content. Social media is where ideas gets shared.
Holding back your best ideas until you get hired is anathema to the spirit of social media—it’s hard to imagine “How to close any sale – hire me to learn how!” going viral on Twitter.
And yet, I frequently get asked by speakers and the like if they should share their “best stuff” in their blog, or YouTube, or Facebook.
In short, the answer is (always) “Yes!” Yes, you should share your best stuff.
Let’s use the example of speaking.
As speakers, we need to understand the mindset of event planners to appreciate, why your free content is more important than ever.
How event planners think
Picture this: your firm has 10 events happening this month – you’re directly in charge of four – and they’re all mini-nightmares.
One client wants gluten-free deserts, a speaker just cancelled, you’re trying to chase down a disco ball for the closing dance and hotel catering has yet to quote on snacks in the green room.
Welcome to the life of an event planner.
Event planners, like pilots, are rewarded for landing a very complicated beast exactly as planned, on time. So, they use lists.
You, the wonderful, gifted, brilliant speaker are but one line-item on a very, very, very long list.
Yup, you’re between ordering table centre-pieces and correct spelling on delegate name tags. In monetary terms, we’re a fraction of the overall event budget (according to ASAE, speakers make up about 10% of the overall event budget.)
So, get over it.
When it comes to vetting and hiring you, the faster, more efficient the process the better. That’s where your content comes in.
Deliver your best stuff
Your content should be your best stuff: best ideas, solutions, frameworks, models – not a teaser.
When I interviewed event planner and owner of Spark Events Management, Anh Nguyen, for our BOSS program, her advice was: “Have an online presence (i.e videos that I can watch). In today’s fast paced world, the best thing you can do is have resources available that I can access quickly.”
There’s a video still circulating on YouTube where I tell my Porsche story. It’s only a few minutes, the quality is terrible, but event planners still tell me they love that video – it’s some of my best content.
It’s like food samples at Costco – a taste of the real thing can turn into a sale.
Examples of sharing your best stuff
One of my favourite (especially when I need to impress my ladies at home) sites for gluten-free recipes is Angela Liddon’s massively successful Oh She Glows site. Liddon (like all recipe sites) freely shares amazing, mouth watering recipes (you have to try the gluten-free, no-bake, Chilled Double Chocolate Torte) but is also a best-selling author (with the same content).
Look at most popular speakers and they freely post their best content on YouTube or in their blog. AND they can still command a princely sum to repeat the same content on stage – go figure.
For many years, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income fame, has been delivering detailed advice on his podcast for on-line start-ups. Despite having hundreds of hours of free content, he was able to take the same content (albeit reworked and augmented) and turn it into a successful best-selling book this year.
If you want to build a following and get hired, give us you best stuff generously and often – don’t hold back. It’s a taste of your best stuff that makes us want to buy your books, hire you as a coach and pay to have you on stage.
So, what’s your best stuff and how can you share it?
