A good friend of mine recently had the amazing opportunity to speak in front of 3,000 people at a multi-speaking event in Brighton. The seminar was being run by award winning entrepreneur, Andrew Reynolds, and as you can imagine, Shaa Wasmund was incredibly excited by this chance but also didn’t want to mess it up – especially in front of all those people!
Fairly new to the speaking circuit, Shaa has only been speaking professionally for about 12 months but she has a fantastic story to share and is a naturally gifted speaker. However, when it comes to closing sales from the stage, like all of us, she wants to offer great value but without coming across as inauthentic, pushy or fake.
So, before she set off for Brighton, I listened to her presentation. And to tell you the truth, it was incredible in so many ways and I could tell that she’d spent a lot of time on it. But there were also a number of points I thought she could do even better – and in particular on her close. No surprise because closing sales from the stage trips speakers up time and time again.
The truth is you don’t need to use pushy tactics, manipulation or magic tickets to sell from stage. You certainly don’t need to tell lies or make up stories or do anything underhand.
You don’t need any of that to make a good offer.
On the train home from Shaa’s I realised that I have an inbuilt mental check-list I use when I’m creating my own offer.
This is the exact same mental checklist I use when I’m going through my own presentation or when I’m watching someone else’s to help them make that offer even better.
And I thought I’d share it here:
1. Message to Market Match
Who is in your audience and how much experience do they have with what you’re talking about?
Shaa’s audience consisted mostly of start-up business owners. With that in mind, I said the most important message she needed to get across was that the strategy she was offering meant her prospects could make money right from the very beginning.
You see, in most start-up businesses there’s a time lag where you’ve got to invest money before you make money. But the fabulous strategy Shaa was teaching meant they wouldn’t have to spend money to make money and let’s be honest, there’s not many opportunities like that. So, because a lot of them were newbies we wanted to land that message really powerfully and make it into a selling point.
2. Have Rapport With Your Audience
Essentially, this is just about being yourself on your stage. It’s not about trying to copy anyone else. It’s about being authentic. In Shaa’s case she’s a really funny gal so I just wanted to make sure she was comfortable cracking jokes on stage and I encouraged her to do that a little bit more.
3. Overcome Objections
Here it’s a case of looking at the potential objections of your target market and then having stories or teaching points to help overcome them. The biggest objections are time and money. What’s key in any presentation is not trying to overcome them at the end of the presentation, but overcoming them before you even get to the sale. Shaa had done a fabulous job of this.
4. Show Overwhelming Proof
I don’t necessarily use testimonials in my offer but during my presentation I like to share case studies and success stories of people who have applied what I’m teaching and how they’ve run with it.
Shaa was doing a good job of showing overwhelming proof – she had 8 case studies of people who had taken her strategy and used it to create outstanding success. They were also great teaching tools as they showed the audience all the different niches her strategy could potentially work in.
5. Engage Emotion
The audience must go on an emotional journey as you move through your presentation. Shaa was natural at moving and inspiring her audience and taking them on a real journey with her so by the time it came to her offer, they were compelled to take action with her.
6. Include Great Bonuses
You don’t just want to sell the thing. You want to include great bonuses too. You can have anywhere between 1-10 additional bonuses but the key consideration to adding bonuses is not just to add them for the sake of it. They’re not just extra stuff you’ve put in because you can’t sell it!
Shaa had some great bonuses in her package but when she ran through them, they kind of sounded like different versions of the same thing. Her main sell was a workshop and on top of that she had 2 bonus workshop days.
I asked Shaa to get really clear on how her audience were going to leave that workshop. What’s the transformation they will have undergone? And again, at the end of bonus day number 1 what will they be leaving with? And bonus day 2 what will they be leaving with? She then rebuilt the offer, making each of those 2 bonus days sound different which built the value more effectively than just saying now you get an extra day with me.
Remember, people don’t necessarily want more time with you; they want value and actual results.
So, when you’re building your bonus package, don’t just add things in for the sake of it. They should be goodies which compliment and add additional value to your package. I often say less is better with bonuses. You don’t need heaps.
7. Risk Reversal
This was one Shaa had missed. She didn’t have a guarantee on her product. Here’s the thing – Shaa only had a 60-minute speaking slot and in that timeframe it’s really hard to establish enough rapport so that people trust you enough to invest upwards of a £1,000/$1,000 with you.
You can take away that risk by adding a guarantee.
Shaa added a double your money back guarantee. If people hadn’t made their money back within 12 months she would write them a cheque for double their investment and that immediately took away all of the risk.
8. Create Urgency
Shaa was speaking at a multi-speaker event which – and I say this lovingly – is a pitch-fest! There’s a lot of value in these events for people to come along and then choose the right mentor for them. But from a speaker’s perspective the problem is if someone doesn’t buy your program right after your speaking slot then they’re not going to buy your program. Why? Because someone else is going to be on the stage straight after you with another great offer.
One of the key messages you’ve got to get across is a sense of urgency – your audience must take action now. This is true for all closes, but especially so on a multi-speaker platform where you’re sharing the stage with other speakers. When building your offer, ask yourself why they have to register right now.
I suggested Shaa restructure her offer so there was one component of it they only got if they registered within the next 15 minutes. This then created a sense of urgency and invited fast action.
9. Well Timed
It’s crucial you stick to your allotted time on these sorts of stages. It’s true on any stage to be honest. You need to be good with your timing so you don’t end up rushing the end part of your presentation which is the offer. I timed Shaa’s presentation and she was spot on. (In fact much better than me! Timing is my Achilles heel. I’m hopeless at it!)
10. No-Brainer
Does the whole package feel like a total no-brainer? When you look at all of the value and the risk reversal and the urgency – is it really easy for your audience to say YES?
Does your heart say yes and your head agree? If you can say yes, then you’ve got a no-brainer offer!
Shaa took on board all of my suggestions and then she went off to Brighton and then did such an exceptional job she blew everyone else off stage!! It was just amazing.
The truth is, even with limited speaking experience, anyone can create these kinds of results if you pay attention to these 10 keys when crafting your offer.
