Here’s another secret of superstar brokers: They set aside their anxiety and get behind the podium
Top broker secret: They use public speaking to leverage their marketing efforts
Admittedly, the words “public speaking” freak most people out. In fact, there was a survey done asking people what they feared most and surprisingly, most people put public speaking ahead of death as their greatest fear. When you translate the logic in that, if you’re at a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than delivering the eulogy!
With that in mind, why not use this seemingly universal fear of public speaking to your advantage? While everyone else is shrinking back in fear, you can adopt Richard Branson’s mantra and say, “screw it, let’s do it.” Remember, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. Even if you’re not the most “polished” public speaker in the world, you can step out with boldness and use it as a unique advantage to crush your competition. In other words, feel the fear and do it anyway!
Public speaking is one of the highest leverage ways to market your mortgage services for the following four reasons:
It positions you as the expert -- even if you don’t think of yourself as an expert. The mere fact that you are standing up in front of the room positions you as someone who knows what they are talking about.
It gets you free advertising and exposure. For example, in my niche in the mortgage industry, I do speaking engagements at conferences and sales meetings, and I do this several times a year. When this happens, they usually include my name in the promotion of their event and that advertisement often runs for several weeks prior to the event. So I get my name and the name of my company in front of hundreds of people for free, just because I am speaking at the event.
It provides more marketing intimacy. Public speaking allows your prospects to see you face-to-face, belly-to-belly and connect with you on a personal level. In this environment, there is a depth of connection that just simply isn’t available in any other marketing media, short of a one-on-one meeting. Your audience can see your facial expressions, feel the passion in your voice and look into your eyes – the gateway to your soul. When it comes to maximum marketing intimacy combined with maximum reach, there’s really nothing better than public speaking. That’s why some of your very best prospects will often come from your public speaking engagements. They’ve been impacted from a personal and emotional experience with you.
It allows you to market your services to several people at once. You see, when you go to a networking event, at the very most you’ll only get to market your services to two to three people at once. In contrast, when you do public speaking it allows you to market to dozens -- and even hundreds – of people all at the same time, giving more results with less time, energy and effort. Now that’s leverage!
And of course in business, time is money. That’s why I’ll always recommend that you limit the amount of general networking you do and use more of your time for higher leverage activities like public speaking.
Here are a few examples of hot seminar topics that you could use to attract a stampede of qualified mortgage prospects:
For First-Time Homebuyers: “7 Steps to Stop Renting and Own a Home of Your Own Sooner.”
For Real Estate Investors: “8 Real Estate Investor Mistakes That Kill Your Profits (And How to Avoid Them).”
For Home Renovators: “9 Secrets to Make Your Home Reno Pay for Itself.”
As you can see, there are lots of different topics you can cover in your speaking presentations. The key is to determine who your target market it, what questions they have that you can answer and what problems they have that you can solve. Once you’ve determined your “ideal client” and what topics they’re hot to trot for, then you can develop PowerPoint presentation that hits their hot buttons.
This is a slightly amended version of an article written by industry expert Doren Aldana. It has been shortened to make it suitable for web publishing.
