Expos are another way to get the word out. There are a few keys to making the investment of time and money worth your while. I have listed some criteria that you will want to consider before you invest in having a display booth or table at an expo. These are very similar to the criteria you should have for speaking engagements.
- Cost verses potential sales. Can you recoup your investment through the sale of products or services? Some expos are very expensive to get into. If you are paying hundreds or more for a display booth, will you be able to get that investment back through sales that day or through follow-up sales?
- Are the attendees your target audience? It may be a women’s expo but are they the type of women that will invest in themselves with your product and services? For example: I did a large one day women’s expo just an hour away from home. The investment was steep but I thought it was my target audience… NOT! It turns out that at least 90% of the attendees worked for large companies and it was their bosses that gave them the day off if they attended the event. They had no investment in ticket purchase and just wanted the time off of work. Therefore, they really had no interest in even looking through the expo hall.
- Can you be a speaker? You will find that if you have any time on the stage it will DRAMATICALLY improve your sales. Even if all you can do in terms of promotion at the end of your speech is say “visit me at booth…” If you have been captivating enough or if you offer them something free if they come visit you, your sales will skyrocket!
- How many people will normally show up? This is really important. If it is the first or second year of an event I strongly suggest that you only go if the price is very inexpensive. They may say that they are expecting a certain amount of people but the reality is far from what they expect. If the event has a few years behind them then ask for the previous years’ attendance in sequence. Has the attendance been increasing or decreasing? This will help you to get a clear picture of how many people will actually be there.
- Ask to see a layout of the expo hall in connection to the main event area. This can be a crucial factor in expo success. I had to learn this the hard way. Far too many times I have shown up for an expo and the main hall, where all of the food and speakers were, was far away from the expo hall. Sadly, very few people even went into the expo area. The attendance may have been great to the general event but it was poor in the expo hall.
You may have a few other requirements personally but the above is a great format to start with. When you do an event, just as when you are speaking, make sure you have a way to build your list and capture people’s information. At an expo the best way is through a giveaway or complementary service. MAKE SURE THE GIVEAWAY WILL ONLY ATTRACT POTENTIAL CLIENTS. This is so very important. Again, learn from my experience. When I first started doing expos I would create this super cool basket with fun stuff and chocolates and, well you know, cool stuff that I knew everyone would want and therefore everyone would enter a drawing for it. I always thought that the more names you have the better…wrong! That just means more people to have to call and more people that are not interested in what you have you offer. If you are doing a giveaway, and I suggest that you do, make it for something that will attract only those who would be interested in talking with you further. A nice basket is fine but put in it books or cd’s combined with a complementary consultation for something that ONLY your ideal peeps would want. I would rather have only 10 names that are prequalified than 100 names I have to sift through. Make sense?
Generating Income
Once you have defined and refined your brand, created a web support system for it, and have begun to promote and get the word out, you will need to have products and services to sell. I have already created a number of products and services under the Your Best Mind brand. Remember that you have all of these at your fingertips to resale. You do not need to carry inventory unless you want to have some on hand when you do an expo or speak. You can just place the order and have it directly drop shipped to the purchaser. The items include informational CDs and DVDs, home study courses, assessments, workshops and large events. Be sure to familiarize yourself with all of them. You can generate immediate income by reselling any of the products and holding any of the workshops. All of the work has been done, you just copy and repeat.
Holding your own events is another great way to generate income. Make sure that you have attended as many of the events that I do as you can. Included in your certification fee is the ability to attend at no cost.[1] Once you are certified and are comfortable, you will want to bring this information to the people you are connected with. If you feel comfortable conducting them on your own that is fine, or we can arrange for me to attend and co-present with you (as long as it fits within my schedule). My goal is to have the Your Best Mind signature event…the Mind Blowing, Life Transforming events taking place all over the world on a regular bases. These events can then be a launching pad for the higher programs that you create or we have here through YBM.
The power point presentations have been refined to sequentially walk through the basic information. All of the workshop handouts are already completed so all you have to do is order them to match the number of attendees you have coming. Once you have become comfortable with using these the rest will become natural. Choose a brain friendly location to hold your events. Make sure that the quality of the facility matches the high quality of your brand. Resist cutting corners. People are funny, they will remember the whole experience including how comfortable and clean the room was.
Give yourself at least a 6 week lead time for promotion of the larger workshops and events; then get to promoting. Make regular posts on your social media outlets, blog with related topics, send out announcements and newsletters that contain HIGH CONTENT with links to registration.
No matter how much pre-event marketing you do through speeches and online promotion, nothing beats good old personal outreach. Block-off time in your schedule to pick up the phone and make phone calls. Accompany these with personal emails inviting them to join your event. Resist feeling like you are pestering someone. You have such amazing content and valuable life changing information that you will be presenting that they NEED you to reach out to them.
Preparing for your event is also very important. If the event goes smoothly word will spread and you attendance will grow. If it has a lot of hiccups or problems, it can lead to a bad reputation. That can be the death of your business. In the resources area you will find a list of items to bring to an event. Some of them seem to be no brainers but you would be surprised; it is most often the simple things that you forget.
Before the event be sure you are extremely comfortable with the PowerPoint slides. They are there primarily to help the visuals in the audience. They are not there for you to read from. You should know the order well enough that a simple glace at your computer screen will be enough for you to explain the next point.
Make sure that you order the handouts from us in plenty of time to arrive prior to the event. Lead time is important to make sure the event goes as planned. If you are stressed out the day of the event it will show through in the quality of your presentation. I always include a simple gift bag for all attendees. The cost of each bag is no more than $7-$8. Just a few things that are fun and provide an additional something for them to be impressed with. Whether you do this or not is your choice. I personally feel it is worth it.
During the event, remember all of your brain training. There was a huge amount of valuable information in the Brain Rules book that you read on how to create a brain friendly atmosphere for learning. If you forgot some of it, please go back and refresh your memory. You need to make sure that there is always plenty of water on hand. I also provide coffee and tea and include in my gift bags a little protein snack. Get the group up and moving often. The brain loves movement and fades off within a short period of time if you are sitting. Break often. Please resist the urge to talk for more than an hour, but preferably no more than 45 min before you take a break.
Keep as close to the schedule as you can. Start on time. I know for those of you who are the anterior right BQD this might be a challenge. However, there may be posterior left BQD’s in the group and you will need to honor them by staying on time. This is especially important when it comes to lunch. The brain gets grumpy and inattentive when it is hungry. I have often heard complaints from the back of the room when even the most engaging speaker cuts into the food time. Keep your attendees happy and your business and reputation will grow.
While it is important to finish up on time you will want to be very open as to when you personally leave. Try not to plan on leaving right away at the end of the event. Have the room reserved for a couple hours after. You will most likely need 30-60 min to take everything down but you want to be accessible for the attendees to hang out and connect more. This is especially important for the introverts. They are going to hold back until the commotion dies down and the extroverts have left or are off in a group. This is when they need to have their questions answered, when they can approach you one-to-one with little distraction. This after the event time is also when you will be making your sales into your higher programs. So be cautious not to rush the wrap up.
I suggest that you get a full size wall calendar and schedule out your events months in advance. I have been doing this for years and it is an effective tool to make sure time doesn’t get away from you. Place all of your speaking engagements there where you can see them at a glance. This will help you to know where to plug in your live events based on when and where you are already speaking. Then you can include on it when you will be doing your monthly coaching calls, your teleclasses and webinars, and your live events. Remember the connection between colors and the brain. I always color code my events with the markers that I use to write with on the calendar. Your brain gets used to your color pattern and you really won’t even have to read what the event is your brain will know.
No matter what event you are doing, or you have done, in order to really grow your business you must do adequate follow up. Next are a few tips on that subject.
Many business coaches will tell you that the fortune is in the follow up. For most entrepreneurs this is a daunting task. Why? It is so very detailed, and most entrepreneurs are anterior right BQDs and we do not like details! For this reason it is important that you create systems that will make the job easier. Take time to create basic follow-up templates and keep them in a file on your computer. Then when you are doing email follow-ups it is just a matter of copy and paste and insert the name of the person you are reaching out to. Most of the basic follow-up can be outsourced. In some cases, even phone calls can be outsourced. For your potential higher level clients you will want to be the one doing the outreach.
Having a good email campaign and newsletter system is a great timesaver. Get a Constant Contact, Aweber, or Infusionsoft account. These will allow you to automate a lot of the work and keep track of campaigns you run and new interest that comes in from your website. The cost varies so be sure that the investment matches your needs. Infusionsoft is the most comprehensive and it even will run the shopping cart on your site. However, it is quite costly so until you are generating a good income from your business I suggest you hold off on that investment.
Build Your Team
T…Trustworthy
E…Energy
A…Agreement
M…Match the Task
There are just a couple of areas that can provide you with additional income associated with your position as a Certified Brain Personality Connection Specialist. One is that you can receive a 20% referral fee for anyone who you refer that joins this program. If you know of qualified people, especially in other states, please spread the word. At present the fee is at $4997, so the 20% is $999.40. When the entire program with the back office support and online training platform complete the cost will increase and you will benefit even more.
The second way is by moving into the Brain Personality Connection Expert position. Once you have spent at least a year as a Brain Personality Connection Specialist and have completed a number of events yourself you can apply for the Expert position. As an Expert you will receive additional training on how to process the Brain Personality Assessments yourself, instead of sending them to me. You will also receive additional income as an expert because you will be able to train incoming consultants that have joined the program.
Next, I feel that the most important key to your success in your business is to build your team
Build Your Team
Now that you have a full understanding of your brain personality connection you can clearly see why this is so important for the success of your business. An entrepreneur has to wear so many hats that use so many portions of your brain; if you are not carful you will be brain exhausted! If you are not living true to your brain personality connection not only will your health and wellness suffer, as the last unit made clear, but your business will suffer also. You will procrastinate doing all of the things that are too labor intensive for you to do and this will be the death of your business.
You will need to do an activity similar to that explained in unit 4 and apply it specifically to your business. Start by making a list of every function and responsibility that exists in your business. From picking up the mail to every task involved in caring for clients. Now divide that list up into 4 categories representing the 4 BQDs. Next you need to divide each of those lists into three subsections. The first is the “Everything I can outsource right now” section; these you will get off your plate NOW. The second is for the items that you need to outsource but can’t currently for financial or other reasons. You will want to work on getting this list off your plate as soon as you can. The third is for the items you MUST do yourself; the key here is to be honest about things you CAN let go of. (Sometimes women have more difficulty delegating than do men.) We know so perfectly what we want the end project to look like that it is hard to believe anyone can see it as well as we can. Yes, I just called you out; my advice to you is LET IT GO!
For the tasks that do not match you BQD but you have to take care of yourself be sure that you spread them out throughout the work week as much as you can. Also, remember when you are doing them to take plenty of fun breaks and do them in between your gifted tasks. Then build a team as soon as you possibly can.
Once you have your lists done, you will want to take action. Seek out the people that are going to be on your team. Make sure that you interview each person to build a team that matches your needs. Please do not feel that you have to hire a whole team that is not needed. There are plenty of other entrepreneurs that you can outsource your needs to. I created an acronym for team. It is as follows:
They need to be trustworthy; this is so important. You need to be comfortable that they can provide the services that you need and that they are not just saying they can. Ask to talk with other people they have woeked with and see what they say. I have wasted so much money over the years because I didn’t feel confident enough to question a person’s ability to perform the task. If they are hesitant to give you referral names of satisfied customers move on.
The “E” stands for energy. I don’t mean that they need to be extroverts or have an abundance of energy I means that their energy needs to match yours and must be positive. You need to feel that connection with them, this will mean the two of you will work well together. Clearly this doesn’t mean they need to have the same BQD as you. While that would be fun it would also be counterproductive. You just need to feel that the person is the right fit for you and your brand. Are they positive or are they putting out a negative vibe? If you are preaching the need for upbeat positive thoughts and they don’t have the same energy it will not work. Listen to your gut; remember there is a home of intuition in the brain- do not resist it! If the energy doesn’t feel right it most likely will not be a good fit for what you need.
The “A” is for agreement. When you are meeting with any potential team partners make sure that they agree with the message that you have. Do they get what your brand is about? Do they believe in what you are teaching with the brain personality connection? Do they find what you do interesting and exciting so that excitement will flow through to the work they do for you?
The “M” in team is for match. The tasks that you are outsourcing to them needs to match their BQD. If you need to outsource posterior left tasks, I am sure you will, then you need to bring on a posterior left person to do them or at least a posterior right that can access the posterior left well. This sometimes is the hardest part. We tend to want to work with and have on our team the same BQD as us because, well hey that is just a lot more fun! But this is business and it is very important that we place the right person with the correct BQD to match the task.
As your business grows and you comfortably slide into your natural gifts all of this will become very natural to you. You will not just be talking the talk, but you will be walking the walk. Then as the Your Best Mind brand grows internationally so will your business, your influence, and of course your revenue.
Wrapping it up
This concludes the manual. You have successfully taken in a HUGE amount of data that will result in positive changes not just for you but also for those you touch. Be sure that, no matter what you are doing, you are living true to your brain personality connection! Make sure you are managing and reducing your stress for optimal health and wellness. Allow this information to change your life for the better. Share it where ever and whenever you can. The stories you will begin to hear, of how the lives of people you share this information with are changing for the better, will be heartwarming. Many times I have been brought to tears as someone shares with me the way this information has affected them; the ways that it has improved their relationships and for some even saved their lives. Let’s create a positive movement in the world!
Thank you for sharing my vision and passion.
Unit 9 Assesment
This unit does not really have an assessment to it. However, you should use this time to get acquainted with all of the Your Best Mind products. You should have been provided with one copy of each product when you received the manual. At this time, I would also like to know where you see this information fitting into your current business. Are you using it as an add value to your current business or as a business in a box? Knowing this will help me get a better picture of how to best support you going forward.