246: How To Sell From The Stage

<p>Group crowdsourcing has been around since cave dweller days.  Gathering a crowd of prospects and getting them to buy your stuff is a standard method of making more sales or starting conversations which hopefully will lead to sales.  Trade shows provide booths but also speaking events, if you pay more dough to attend.  These days the event will most likely be online rather than in person, but the basics are common.  “We all love to buy but we don’t want to be sold”, should be a mantra all salespeople embrace, especially with selling from the stage.</p> <p> </p> <p>The common approach at events is to provide a lot of information, generally the features of the product and then trot out the sales pitch at the end.  As an audience, we brace ourselves because we see the switch from value to pitch coming. Mentally, we get our sceptic hat out and put it on ready for the sales blurb. When you think about it this is a pretty dumb approach.</p> <p> </p> <p>The giving value first idea is a good one, but why separate the value from the pitch at the end?  Why not integrate the two together, so there is no audience bracing required?  It all comes back to design.  We have all grown up with the explanation, then pitch model, so we tend to just accept that is how it is done.  This is even though on other occasions as audience members ourselves, we are experiencing that “brace yourself” mental switch.  It is a bit strange isn’t it, so why not learn from our own experience and make a change for the better.</p> <p> </p> <p>The talk will be broken down into chapters.  Chapter One is the opening. This is where we have to say something that snaps a distracted, sceptical audience member out of their social media induced coma and gets them to listen to us.  We may share a really surprising piece of high value data or information.  We might tell a gripping story that attracts the audience.  We might ask a devilish question that completely consumes the attention of the audience.</p> <p> </p> <p>Next we start to move into some features of