Dave Bricker:
Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence? This is Speakipedia Media brought to you by speakipedia.com. I’m your host, Dave Bricker, bringing you straight talk, smart strategies and amazing stories from visionary speakers and thought leaders. Our guest has written an updated hot off the press edition of her original book on speaking, book more business, make more money speaking.

Several National Speakers Association chapters have adopted it as curriculum for speaker academies. She’s worked in the speaking industry for over 20 years and presents for NSA and the Global Speakers Federation in the United Kingdom, Scotland, Australia, and India. In 2021, the Professional Speakers Association, United Kingdom, and Ireland awarded her an honorary fellowship.

Her entrepreneurial journey began with a dog walking business at age 11. She’s an avid reader and has a yellow lab for an intern. She’s here to help us learn how to book more business and grow our businesses. Join me in welcoming Lois Creamer. David, I’m so honored to be with you today. Great to see you, Fantastic. Great to have you here.

So Lois, what was your journey like? I imagine you became a speaker, which is an odyssey on its own, and then you became an expert in the speaking business. How did that happen to you?

Lois Creamer:
Well, everything happened by accident. I may preface everything I’m going to say by that. I actually, I’d worked in corporate sales and marketing for a number of years after college. Got a great job right out of college working for a Fortune 10 company.

great opportunity, but I left that opportunity when I adopted a little girl. I wanted to raise my daughter. That was my first priority at that time. And then after being home a number of years, I got a call from a professional speaker, a college friend had given him my name. And he was looking for somebody to run his business. And we talked and he offered me some hours that were flexible so I could still be a mom.

And I took the job. That’s how I got into speaking, working with a very successful, now Speaker Hall of Fame speaker. And I was asked to do some programs for NSA, some breakouts at conventions and workshops, Dave. eventually I started thinking, I wonder if there could be a business in this for me. And I’ll tell you, I started my business based on the fact that I thought most professional speakers really suck.

when it came to answering the question, what do you do? And so I decided, okay, I’m gonna try this. I think I’ll try this if I’m not making money in 18 months. This is what I told myself. I’ll just go work for somebody else. And lo and behold, some of the connections that I had made through NSA were gold for me because I sent emails to everybody I’d ever met, let them know that I was starting a job.

And that’s how I got into the speaking industry. Then a client of mine early on asked me to train, do some sales training for his staff in another business that he owned. So I started speaking on sales and marketing to corporate sales teams. Now I don’t do that anymore. The only speaking I now do are the groups of professional speakers. So my business is really niche right now, but really it was, wasn’t anything I had ever planned on having my own business, Dave. just kind of happened.

Dave Bricker:
Well, I figured because how many of us when they’re asking everybody in elementary school, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a fireman. I want to be a professional speaker. Has never happened, right? So on that note, well, look, first everyone decided to appoint themselves a life coach. I’m 19. I’m a life coach. And now everyone has tagged on their LinkedIn description, life coach and keynote speaker. Everyone wants to become a speaker these days.

What are some of the big misconceptions people have about the speaking business?

Lois Creamer:
Well, I’ll tell you, this is a great question because you and I are both approached all the time by people asking us this very question. And I have a definition of a professional speaker that might be a little different than you’ve heard. I call what we do a sales job, where occasionally you get a side gig speaking. Because that’s what it is. People who are looking window shopping,

into professional speaking, think it looks easy. If I can get a speech or have somebody write me a speech, I can throw in a couple of stories. That’s not hard at all, is it, Dave, to come up with compelling stories? And then I can hang my shingle and people will flock to me. And it just doesn’t happen that way. We work very hard for every opportunity we get. And so I think it’s one of the hardest jobs in the world. And whenever anybody comes to me,

saying I wanna be a professional speaker. My answer typically, Dave, is you probably don’t, but I’m happy to talk to you about it.

Dave Bricker:
I take a similar approach. I think people see us on the stage making it look easy and they think, they got paid for that? I can do that. And what they don’t realize is there’s the business side, the sales part of it. And then there’s also the years it takes to acquire the skill. It’s like playing a musical instrument.

You may have that desire to play guitar like so-and-so, but you’ve got to do a lot of listening, a lot of practicing. It takes years, no matter how talented you are. But once you get on that stage, people say, wow, you’re a natural. They make it look so easy.

Lois Creamer:
Yes. And I think if people knew how hard we work for each and every opportunity, they might not be willing to put themselves through it.

And we all know that there is a revolving door because a lot of people walk in and then walk right out once they realize how hard it is. I think it’s almost you have to feel that it’s a calling Dave to persevere the ups and downs. And what is a fact is that if you can’t sell yourself, you may have the best presentation in the world, but it will go unheard if you can’t get an opportunity.

Dave Bricker:
And we’ll get into this later because the same is true for books. I think some of the same misconceptions and you and I have both played in that space. Now, something you alluded to earlier, one of the biggest challenges professionals face, and this is not just speakers, but certainly speakers, is how to communicate our value. And we see it all the time at round robin introductions. It’s one soaring ramble after another. And as professional speakers,

We have an even higher calling to communicate our value. Where are people getting stuck and what kind of help can they get?

Lois Creamer:
Well, I think people are getting stuck, especially speakers when asked what they do, they typically answer, I speak on, and then they insert their topic. I speak on leadership, I speak on sales, I speak on, speak on. That is not a very compelling way to introduce yourself to anybody.

by giving them a vehicle that you use to drive your information to the marketplace and a topic. And it’s why I work on what I call positioning statements with my clients, a concept and outcome statement of working with you that can open the door to a conversation or not. It can qualify somebody who wants to know more about you, but it also allows somebody to say that isn’t a fit for me or I don’t have interest.

And I don’t believe in wasting anyone’s time. But a great positioning statement, a concept and outcome statement can open doors and begin great conversations. And as I said, it’s one of the key reasons why I started my business. It’s always the first thing I work on whenever I work with any client at any level to make sure that they are positioning themselves really well in front of a buyer and can create that conversation.

that will go into more outcomes because I believe very strongly that, and I’ve been in sales all my life, that what people are really buying when they hire us, are the outcomes. They’re not really buying a speech or a consult or a book. They’re buying the outcomes that we can bring to them. What’s the transition before Dave and after Dave? That’s what they wanna buy. And that’s what we have to be able to talk about in a compelling way.

Dave Bricker:
Completely agree with you.

I do a lot of workshops with speakers and I always say, lecturers deliver information, speakers deliver transformation. And I’m amazed at how many people are passionate about a subject, go to school for years to get a doctoral degree in that subject, and then they go into the classroom and dissuade thousands of students from having any interest in it because they lecture about it. They don’t wrap it in a purpose and an objective.

Lois Creamer:
I totally agree. And you know, I often describe how I define a public speaker and a professional speaker. A public speaker is that lecturer. They give you the facts. They read a speech. A professional speaker has the job of giving you information in a memorable and meaningful way to illustrate the points using stories to illustrate points that will make them more memorable and meaningful. And it’s a much harder job.

without reading a speech with a podium in front of you. So, you know, if it were easy, a lot of these window shoppers would be doing it, Dave, but it isn’t easy. And yet people are getting stuck.

Dave Bricker:
And I know you help a lot of them with so many, so many speakers are struggling to find their lane, their experience, their talented. And when you ask them about their speaking topic, you get, well, I speak to these people, but not like that. And it’s kind of like this and it’s sort of like that.

If you look at it this way, it’s this explaining and qualifying. Why is it such a challenge for people to just explain what the heck they do?

Lois Creamer:
Well, you know, I think that being able to explain what you do makes sense in any occupation. But when you put a shingle out saying I’m a professional communicator, the bar is higher. So you need to be able to really express using an economy of words.

what it is that you do to begin that conversation. And as I said, a positioning statement is merely a concept and outcome statement. I say seven seconds or less maximum. That’s the maximum amount of time. You know, if I, if you gave me 30 seconds to explain what I did and you still didn’t understand it, we’d both be in big trouble. And so, but if I can open a door to a conversation, so I’m going to give you an example.

When I spoke on sales, I could have said, when somebody says, do you do? Thanks for asking, I speak on sales, which as we said, would have said nothing about what I do. So I said, I work with organizations that want to fast forward their selling skills so they’ll be better at what they do. Then I shut up. And one of three things would happen. Somebody would say, how do you do that?

And I would say, thanks for asking through my speaking consulting books, courses, whatever it is, tell me more about that. I would say much of the same thing, but I would tell them a little bit more about that. Or the third one you hear sometimes when you’re networking in person, which is always a big flag when this one comes up, how nice for you, which means they have no interest in what we do. But I say that’s a good thing to know.

I think one of our biggest challenges as solopreneurs is being a good steward of our time. So being able to qualify people merely with a positioning statement, I think is a good idea. And then in that ensuing conversation after the positioning statement, I suggest to my clients that they have a target market. I think it makes your life much more interesting. I recently did four chapters, four NSA chapters in the last

I think the last two months. And inevitably when I do it, it happened this time, someone will come up to me and say, I have a great program on customer service. I’m really excited about it. And I’ll say, that sounds great. Where would it make sense? And Dave, they will say, anybody who wants to establish a real culture of service will love this program. And my reply is always, let’s go call everybody and see if they’re interested.

You need to guide people what people are paying most for and money is not the only barometer of success, but the people who are getting the most bookings right now as professional speakers have a clearly defined area of expertise that they plop in a clearly defined target market. And the market is willing to pay more for that. So that’s the route that I eventually want people to go.

Dave Bricker:
Just makes complete sense. many of us, for example, I do storytelling. Well, everybody needs that. But not everybody can afford to bring in a speaker. For which industries is that an expensive problem? Because I think a lot of speakers, and this is the same with the positioning statement. I think they come in thinking, I hope they like me. I hope they want to hire me. And there’s that

desire to please everybody instead of, I hope, four or five people in the room tonight ask for my business card and the rest say, thanks, nice to meet you. And I can really focus my energies on building relationships with the people who are warm prospects.

Lois Creamer:
Yes, it’s much less of a journey if you do that. I remember when I started doing fast forward selling.

I did every chamber of commerce, Dave, around me to get testimonials. That was the economic capital I was seeking from them. And one of the first jobs I got, not even really thinking, given a 20 minute time period and a chicken sandwich for lunch, that I would get any business, but a bank, a local bank said, I’d like you to work with our personal bankers.

And I did, and he liked what I did. And he said, we’ve got banks on the Illinois side. I live in Missouri. I’d like to bring them together and have you speak to them. And I said, what a brilliant idea. And then I looked at associations having to do with banking. Then I looked at credit unions, mortgage houses, insurance companies, and they all resonated with my sales, which was really for selling services more than anything else.

And so every time I put myself out there to a bank credit union mortgage house or insurance company, the next bank credit union mortgage house or insurance company was more interested in it. And so it only makes sense. Now I had a couple of bureaus who booked me. And when I worked for the International Association of Flag Manufacturers, that wasn’t in the financial services industry. It worked.

I did my pre-work and I knew that it would meet the needs that they had. But when I came back to this office the next day, I didn’t start looking up other flag manufacturing associations. I went back into my financial services lane. And it can seem counterintuitive to a lot of people. think especially newer people think if I cast a wider net, I’ll gather more interest. And I’m saying the opposite is true.

So I would tell people to try and decide where do I wanna work? Do I have experience in the private industry and something I did in manufacturing? But I knew from then I didn’t wanna speak in the manufacturing area. But financial services kind of came to me. And so I nurtured that and it worked out well.

Dave Bricker:
Absolutely. Now you’ve mentioned the S word a couple of times, sales. And a lot of…

people have a bad reaction to that. And I always think of, mean, we get all of these crass sales letters and this garbage in our email every day, everybody sending these BMS letters, buy my stuff, or however you want to interpret that acronym. And yet you mentioned, and you’re absolutely correct, being a professional speaker is mostly sales. And many of the people we’re selling to

have had sales training and they’re gonna smell a cheap sales technique a mile away and you’re gonna get a dial tone. So how do our listeners today reframe their prejudices and biases about sales?

Lois Creamer:
Well, I don’t know that it’s our responsibility to reframe everything. I think our responsibility is to communicate well the value that we bring and the outcomes that we bring.

and it either fits into a meeting agenda that someone has, or it fits to meet a challenge that they have. And Dave, I suggest my clients when looking for cold outreach, for example, reach out and give a positioning statement. I’m gonna give you an example using my old sales one, because that’s the example that I want the speakers to hear. I would call you up and I would say, Dave, my name is Lois Creamer. We’ve not met before.

because I don’t want you thinking, well, it’s Creamer, well, it’s Creamer I work with organizations like yours who want to fast forward their selling skills so they’ll be better at what they do. And I’m reaching out to see if one of my programs may be a good fit for an upcoming meeting or answer a challenge that you might have. Do you ever bring in outside speakers to work with your people? Then I’m going to shut up. But I’ve already started qualifying immediately. And you, at any time you can say, this isn’t a fit for me,

I have no need for this. We’ve never brought anybody in. And I’m going to say, you know, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. It doesn’t seem like we’re a good fit.

You know, I always say, Dave, you risk a yes every time you ask for something. Are you willing to take the risk? So being turned down by someone I don’t know, I don’t know about you, but that’s not a huge negative to me. And that’s the frame of mind I want people to be in when they’re selling. Well, I agree. If you’re not getting a yes or a no, you’re not moving forward. If you’ve got a no, well, move down your list. You’re moving. You’re moving.

and you’re going to go through a lot of nos before you get those yeses. So keep building your list and going through it.

Dave Bricker:
Let’s address another myth while we’re doing the straight talk thing here, because many people dream of becoming a million dollar speaker. Now, if you were to try to achieve that with keynote fees alone, you’d have to book 50, $20,000 engagements every year.

Not many speakers have the marketing moxie to pull that off unless they’re famous and the gigs come to them. So how do million dollar speakers make their money?

Lois Creamer:
Million dollar speakers make their money by having other income streams, speaking being merely one of them. And I think whatever I described speakers as not being in the speaking business, Dave, I say you’re in the intellectual property business. That’s the business we’re in.

And to me, it’s how many ways you can drive your expertise, your intellectual property to the marketplace is how you make money. And you need to have other revenue streams, getting on a plane, going to a gig, coming back, getting on a plane. That used to work, I understand. It was before our time, but it doesn’t work anymore. Plus what we’ve learned is people like to learn in a number of different ways, speaking being one of them.

So how can you become that purveyor of information? And how can you provide your expertise on other platforms or in other ways than speaking? So for example, through courses, through consulting, through small group work, through membership groups, through writing, creating books, products, million dollar speakers have their speaking business, but also part of that speaking business is their downline, the other sales that they can make.

the ancillary sales they can make after they do a program. That’s how to become a million dollar speaker.

Dave Bricker:
Yeah, and I love that answer. I kind of set you up for it, but there’s so much hype about that. People start adding up these big keynote fees that are very far down the road for them most of the time and 50 gigs a year. Who wants to do that?

Lois Creamer:
That’s right. You know, now, listen, Dave, I totally agree with you because
I worked with a client, Dave, just a few months ago. And on my first call with him, I said, how much speaking have you done? For example, how many do you have a round number that you did last year? He said, yes, I did 110. And I said, I’m going to ask you to stay right there while I go get some aspirin and a glass of water because thinking about your life. I said, are you married? He said, yes, I’m married.

And I thought, you have to be kidding because every speaking day we know now with travel takes at least two and a half days to three days off of your calendar. That is not sustainable. It’s not realistic. And I think it sounds like a nightmare, quite frankly. I think that the magic, Dave, is in the mix.

Dave Bricker:
Yeah, I actually had a speaker come to me who was complaining about being too busy, high-class problem. And I asked her what her keynote fee was, and I was expecting it to be low, because she was booked, booked, And she was making $35,000 per keynote in the medical profession. And so I thought about, well, you don’t want to work that much. Just raise your fee again. They’re paying for it. But there’s that supply and demand thing. And I’ll tell you, when it comes to traveling for speakers for speaking gigs, I know speakers who love it.

My friend Bruce Turkel loves being on airplanes, going to speaking gigs. And for me, I think there’s a reason airports are called terminals.

Lois Creamer:
So there we go. I think it is so difficult travel that you absolutely, plus if you really want to serve your clients, if you really want to serve them, serve them. So each time you give a speech,

I like my clients to think about how can I take a next step with this client that doesn’t involve me getting on a plane, that does involve them paying for my expertise. And I developed something a number of years ago that I called Aftercare. It’s the new last chapter in my new edition of my book. And Aftercare, Dave, I would like to say I strategically came up with this, but I fell into it on its own.

I had a call with someone who was on, this will be a typical scenario. He was on my mailing list when I was doing sales. Never bought anything but loved every free thing I gave out. And I would always touch base with these people once in a while. So I called him and I said, do you have anything coming up? He said, no, we love your stuff, but we don’t have anything coming up. And then I said this, that changed everything. I said, do you think you should be doing something for your salespeople?

He paused and he said, I do think I should be doing something. Let’s talk. Three weeks later, I was out in LA doing a program for this gentleman. After the event, four of his sales managers came up to talk to me all together, which I thought was very interesting that they all wanted to come together. And when I did my follow-up thank you call, which I always do to decision-makers after the event to make sure that they were happy, get me referrals, things like that.

I said to him, thought it was interesting. Four of your sales managers came up to talk to me. And then I said one of my phrase that pays, do you think it would make sense? Do you think it would make sense for me to work with your sales managers to help them to actually apply the ideas and tactics I talked about on the platform? Because if you do, we can do that without having to fly me out to LA again. Then he said, the question I wasn’t prepared for at all, as you can imagine, he said, what would that look like?

I had no idea because I hadn’t really thought about it before I said it, but I said, I’ll have an email on your desk in the morning with some options.

So I ran to my bookcase, got Alan Weiss’s book on consulting out Dave and made a little offer that had three offers, A, B, and C. And 10 minutes after I sent it, he said, I’d like the second option. And Dave, I had a permanent indentation from doing this. Why haven’t I been doing this every time I work for a corporation or a private business? And believe me, every time after that,

I did offer it, didn’t mean they bought it, but I would offer it. So aftercare, I think is a way to create additional income. And sometimes I was paid more in the backend than I was for the speech. But aftercare also can become a part of a negotiation. If you find yourself in a fee negotiation, which everyone is these days, maybe you can plop out something that you use in aftercare to help shore up that so you don’t have to discount.

So, you know, these are just some ideas that I share in my book. So as you ask, does it make sense? It absolutely does. It’s simple.

Dave Bricker:
So I know you are a person who is advising a lot of speakers and doing a lot of education in the speaking business. So you surely have your finger on the pulse of the meeting industry.

What’s happening in the industry as we roll into 2025? Should we be optimistic? What do we need to keep our eyes on?

Lois Creamer:
I think there has never been a better time to be a speaker than right now, Dave. Meeting planners, I just did a market intelligence report, which people can go to my website, bookmorebusiness.com and see. But what meeting planners are telling us is that 2025 looks to surpass everything that we have done this year, the last two years. They’re more confident. Companies are looking to drive engagement.

You know, this has been really big after COVID. And now engagement looks a little bit different because companies, corporations have people working, some in the office all the time, some part-time in the office, part-time at home, some all virtual. So they are looking to drive engagement. So in-person meetings are going to be highly in demand. Zoom meetings, virtual meetings will still be in demand. They’re a great way to serve, they’re a great part of aftercare for sure.

but there are also a lot of companies and associations, usually on the state level associations that still use virtual meetings and pay presenters for virtual meetings. But the outlook is absolutely terrific. And I think that there’s every reason to be optimistic. And what this says to me is we need to have, be really sharp about who we are, what we do, who we affect, what outcomes can we bring them?

and have a plan for outbound marketing. Because if you do, you’re gonna have a great 2025. And that sounds good to me.

Dave Bricker:
So let’s consider the case of a speaker who has some experience, but maybe they haven’t been able to book a lot of engagements. They’re still doing a lot of rotary clubs and there’s no, I don’t mean to put that down. I’ll still speak at a rotary club. That’s an honor. It’s a service thing. Yeah. in terms of, they’re not,

They’re not getting very high on the ladder and they’re kind of in that awkward place. They’re on their own. They don’t have budget for coaches, consultants, or a virtual assistant. How can they organize their efforts and their schedule to get to that next tier? Because the market’s ready for them. They’re just not visible.

Lois Creamer:
I think that it is easier now than ever to up-level your business using just the internet, things that are available on the internet.

using AI to look for opportunities. I think that, first of all, your first job is to make sure, is my message absolutely the best it can be? And the best way to know that is to get good feedback, what I call well-considered feedback. For people earlier in their careers, I think Toastmasters is a great stop. I call it the off-Broadway of speaking. People who are there are experienced hearing speakers.

They give feedback coming from being able to do it and hearing others and being more trained, quite frankly, in feedback than Joe Public may be. So I think that that’s a good stop. You just have to have a great speech. Then your job is to up-level your sales skills. you know, market intelligence, I think, is the way to improve, Dave. And it’s easier now than ever to do market intelligence. Who’s speaking in your area of expertise? Where are they gaining traction?

What are they charging? How can I plug myself into some of those groups? It’s easy to get this information online. It just takes some dedication to doing it. So I think first and foremost is always the message and the stories that people tell. I think that that has absolutely got to be the first piece of it. Because if you don’t have a great speech, you’re not going to get anywhere. If you can’t get referrals from people who have already heard you, that’s a sign.

it’s a sign that your speech is not where you want it to be. And so I think that’s the first step, but sales help online is easy. And I’ll tell you, I don’t get a fee every time I mentioned National Speakers Association, but I’m gonna mention it because members of National Speakers Association can tap into an incredible educational resource, the vault. Just your membership includes being able to tap into the vault that has

everything you and I are both in it. has speeches from everybody. And it’s a great, I say it’s a college education on the business side of speaking, the presentation side, the content creation in every way. But the reality is we can find a lot of this free as well online.

Dave Bricker:
No question.

And I believe I met you, Lois, when you came to Miami to speak to Florida Speakers Association, our local chapter. those chapters are where you get to connect with top speakers from all over the world and speakers in your local community. And people are surprised when I tell them I’m an active Toastmaster at Dave. Aren’t you advanced for that? It’s like, no, it’s the only place I know I can rent an audience for $2.50 a week.

Lois Creamer:
Absolutely right.

You know, a lot of people don’t realize how sophisticated it is. And I think it’s a great place. You and I have a number of colleagues who would never miss a meeting if they’re in town. They look at that as a great place to practice material, get well, I call it well-considered feedback and to learn, to learn.

Dave Bricker:
And the other thing about that going off on this Toastmasters aside for a moment is I’ve got plenty of professional speaker friends I can go to for feedback, but the people in Toastmasters are much more like the people in my audience. They know a little bit about speaking, but they’re going to give me completely different feedback. And ultimately as a speaker, I need to please the audience, not my hall of fame speaker friends.

Lois Creamer:
I totally agree with you. And the people who are listening to you in Toastmasters, many of them, most of them are business people. And those are the people who are ultimately going to be in your audience. Many of them are executive level business people who are there to up level their skills as well. So they are a good, audience for you. If you’re not clear about something and they let you know that what great feedback, better to find that out in a Toastmaster group than be paid a fee to go in.

and have a disappointed client.

Dave Bricker:
Yeah, or look, I’m 60 years old and if I’m talking to a group and I can get feedback from the millennials, wow, and the Gen Zs, maybe I went right over their head or they didn’t know what a broken record was. Okay, time to change that. So lots of that, great, great resources, NSA and Toastmasters. Let’s touch on books.

because speakers have unique opportunities to sell books that other authors don’t. What are some of those opportunities?

Lois Creamer:
Well, you know, I think a book is, isn’t just a great partner to have in your speaking business. It gives you the credibility. And if somebody wants to read in depth about your area of expertise, it allows them the ability to do that.

Plus my book is a compilation of blog posts that I’ve been writing for years. Now I’ve had to update them, they’re not all evergreen, but it is an opportunity to put your expertise in the marketplace. Selling a book, the best place to sell a book to me is where you’re speaking. People are saying, I have an expressed interest in this area of expertise.

And so it allowed my, what my clients do whenever they book a meeting is again, use my phrase that pays when approaching and they would say, I’m looking forward to coming in to present to your people. Do you think it would make sense to buy the companion book to this program? Because if you do, I’d love to make that available at a discount for you. I’m totally into pre-selling books rather than selling one at a time in the back of the room.

That’s a fallback. I’m not putting that down. If you do that, you need to have someone else doing it so you have time to speak to the people in the audience who want to talk to you about bringing you in to give a speech for a fee. But pre-selling books, I think, is the keys to the kingdom to making money when writing a book for professional speakers.

Dave Bricker:
It’s also a great way to close the fee gap because sometimes they have an educational budget for books that’s separate from the conference budget.

Lois Creamer:
That’s right. That’s right. Plus, I’m telling my clients now, if you can write a book that has the same title as your most requested program, that’s a cool thing. If it doesn’t, you can say, you think it would make sense for everyone to be able to walk away with more knowledge than I have time to give you today?

I have a book that shares a lot of information about this. I think that the whole thing is introducing it. You know, our friend Phil Jones, who wrote exactly what to say, an absolutely great book. What he does is he bundles some books with his fee. So Dave, he would say, my fee includes 50 books. How many people are gonna be in the audience? And they’ll say 500. And he’ll say, well, if you’d like everybody to be able to walk away with a copy,

I’ll give you 50 free and then let’s talk about making sure that how we can make this, how we can make this happen. If they say, well, we don’t want the books. He’ll say, well, congratulations, you have 50 books. You can give them away, you can sell them, you can use them as a fundraiser. You can do whatever you want. But that’s the way he has moved a lot of books by bundling them. But it is a good negotiation tool as well.

Dave Bricker:
Right, that makes sense. And then.

Like anyone forward thinking, you have kept your eye on AI. What’s going on with AI speaking and the meetings industry?

Lois Creamer:
Well, it’s been transformational. It has absolutely been transformational. What it allows you to do is create great content at the snap of a fingers. What used to take us forever. I remember back in the day going to the library.

Can you imagine Dave getting in your car and going to the library to get information? Then the internet comes up and we think, my gosh, it can’t get any better than this. And then AI comes and it allows us to have our finger on the pulse of the marketplace and what’s going on right now, what’s needed, what’s appealing to our prospects, what is it that they wanna know? How do they like to buy information? How do they like to digest information?

So it is great for content curation, but it’s also great for sales, just using chat GPT to find out what associations might be a fit in your target market in certain areas of the country, for example. There are lots of ways you can fast track what you’re doing by using AI. There are so many platforms, they are changing. What I say today will be new tomorrow, will be different tomorrow.

So it’s impossible to predict, but right now I like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Cast Magic. Those are three that I like to use right now. And that I think for people who are content curators will really love its abilities to move you forward and to serve your clients.

Dave Bricker:
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree with you more on that. AI is just fascinating. And that’s become a whole new speaking lane for me trying to demystify that for people. I’m sure. And AI storytelling is just ripe with possibilities.

So Lois, you are the speaking business expert. Any final tips for our listeners?

Well, I would just say make sure that you are good at leveraging. I think that one of the things that we sometimes forget to do is leverage.

And this is what I mean by that. After each speech you give, ask yourself, who needs to know I just did this speech? Who needs to know this company saw value in what I just did? And how can I put that out there? And there are so many ways with social media alone, promoting success that you just had is absolutely essential. Using your social media platforms to let people know where you are, what you’re doing.

and especially using social media platforms to show some case studies of success that you’ve had with clients. To me, the best way to sell. So I think that there are, we’re fast tracking quite frankly, our ability to sell, which is always the hardest nut to crack for speakers, I think. But we don’t have any choice, we have to do it.

Dave Bricker:
So Lois, where can our listeners discover more about you and the programs you offer?

Lois Creamer:
Well, my website is bookmorebusiness.com and you can find out everything you probably ever want to know about me there, Dave. But also I invite people to shoot me an email, lois at bookmorebusiness.com or give me a call. All my contact information is on bookmorebusiness.com. This is my new book, Book More Business, Make More Money Speaking. It’s on Amazon. I’m very proud of it. And so take a look at that. But

anyone can reach out to me. If you have a question, I’d be happy to answer it if I can.

Dave Bricker:
Super. Lois Creamer, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Lois Creamer:
Dave, an honor to be with you, friend. Thank you for having me.

Dave Bricker:
I’m Dave Bricker, inviting you to explore the world’s most comprehensive resource for speakers and storytellers at speakeepedia.com. If you’re watching this on social media video, please love, subscribe and share your comments.

And if you’re listening to the podcast, keep your hands on the wheel, stay safe, and I’ll see you on the next episode of Speakipedia Media.