About 7 or 8 years ago, Dr. Phil (before his big Oprah fame) came to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville to deliver an evening seminar. I forget the title of the session now, but I still have the notes I wrote down during those 3 hours.
During his presentation he stated you could trace back where a person is today and what they’ve become to 10 defining moments, 7 critical decisions and 5 pivotal people. Today, my list of those defining moments and decisions is different than it was then – but one item that was on the list then and will stay on my list of “critical decisions” forever was my decision to learn how to sell from the platform; and tied to that was one very pivotal person who introduced me to the concept, Dan Kennedy.
That decision alone has enabled me to become a real millionaire by 35, grow an incredibly successful and profitable business and have given me a lifestyle that is the envy of many. Yet, what surprises me is this: THOUSANDS of people have seen me in action, closing 30% to 60% of a room, generating $100,000+ for 90 minutes of work…YET very few have ever asked me to actually teach them how to do the same.
Even more puzzling is that many of people I would naturally think would be interested in pursuing this were speaking along side of me at the very same conferences over and over again, watching me consistently walk away with signed order forms at every event. These were vendors (mostly) who were spending $6,000 to $10,000 or more for that speaking spot where the BEST they could hope to go home with were a handful of business cards and a project of having to follow up and play phone tag to actually get the sale from a few of them.
At any rate, now that I’m holding my OWN conferences and selling sponsorship speaking spots, I have a vested interest in teaching this skill to others – particularly those who might end up speaking at one of my events. Why? Because if their presentation is dry, boring and unproductive, it not only fetches me a bunch of negative feedback from the attendees who have to sit through the presentation, but it doesn’t help to sell subsequent sponsorship spots when their unpersuasive presentation falls flat and they generate zero (or very few) sales as a result.
To remedy this, I’m planning on holding a free teleseminar this month to share some of my secrets to closing from the front of the room by delivering an educational, entertaining and persuasive presentation. At first, I thought about only delivering it to the sponsors and vendors we’re working with – but then I thought, why not just share it with everyone on my list? After all, there’s no reason not to. I’m not sure how much interest there will be in this, but it’s worth a test.
Details will be posted soon – but if you ARE interested in attending or learning more on this topic, make sure you leave a comment on this blog letting me know the single most important question you’d like me to cover during this teleseminar on closing sales from the platform.
