by Ford Saeks

In today’s overstimulated world, your prospects and clients are bombarded with marketing messages, influenced by social proof and impacted by industry and economic conditions. That means it’s more important than ever to position yourself as an expert, understand your value propositions and revenue model and improve your product offerings…to get more bookings, sell more products, attract new clients and make money.

Position Yourself as an Expert

As a professional speaker, author or consultant, you no-doubt think of yourself and refer to yourself as exactly that – a professional speaker, author or consultant. Bu you couldn’t be more wrong when communicating this to your target market! Thinking of your expertise in terms of how you do what you do means you’re focused more on the features and not the benefit solutions you provide.

Your expertise in a topic area or your ability to speak, write or consult is a feature. The benefit is the value your clients get from your products and services. Ask yourself, “What problems do I solve or what solutions do I provide that other people will pay to make go away?” The key is to position yourself and your company as an expert in a specific area and focus on the benefits you offer first.  Always lead with benefits and substantiate your claims with features and social proof.  Benefits are what standout from the competition and cause people to pay attention.

Whatever your unique expertise, you must keep that focus at the forefront and position yourself accordingly.  After all, with today’s information over-loaded society, high competition and fast changing economy, it’s more critical than ever that you are positioned as the ultimate resource and solutions provider in your niche.

So just remember: speakers, authors and trainers don’t get paid to speak, write and train; they get paid to deliver value, entertain, educate and inspire performance improvement.

Understand Your Value Proposition and Revenue Model

Have you ever wondered what marketing really means?  Quite simply,it’s giving people enough information so they can make an informed buying decision; it’s connecting the right message to the right market with the right marketing methods.  In order to do so, you must understand your value propositions and revenue model.

Understanding your value propositions, also known as Unique Selling Propositions (UPSs), means figuring out the unique benefits you offer and communicating them to your marketplace in your promotional and sales efforts.  In other words, why should people do business with you instead of someone else?  What value and benefits do you offer that make you unique in the delivery and results of your products and services?

But what about your revenue model?

A revenue model includes the avenues or categories you use to deliver value and generate sales. For example, in my company, Prime Concepts Group Inc., we have a revenue model that consists of five streams of income:

1. Speaking / Training (keynotes, workshops and public seminars)
2. Coaching / Consulting  (one-on-one, small groups and inner circle masterminds)
3. Products (physical and digital)
4. Professional Services (Internet marketing, website design and website development)
5. Joint Ventures (strategic partnerships)

These streams represent the “how” we deliver our value propositions, not the “why.”  For me, it’s about being, “lifestyle friendly.”

We know professional speakers who make the majority of their income from keynote speaking with some back-of-room sales, while others speak for free and up sell their audience members into mid-tier and high-tier consulting deals or product packages.  You have to define what is best for you and where you are in your career.

In other words, is your revenue model congruent with your current lifestyle or the lifestyle you desire?  For example, if 75% of your revenue is from presenting keynotes all over the country but you only want to travel a few weeks out of the year, your revenue model needs to shift to accommodate your desired lifestyle.

On the other side of the coin, if you’re spending 80% of your time consulting, but 80% of your revenue is actually derived from your speaking, it would only make sense to increase the amount of time you’re speaking and decrease the amount of time you’re consulting or figure out ways to leverage your efforts.

Improve Your Product Pyramid

Whether you have a plethora of products and services, or you just focus on a few main services, it’s important to have a variety of price points from low to high; otherwise, you may be leaving money on the table

Let me explain what I mean with some pricing examples.  The following are not meant to be an absolute as every market, industry and business is unique.

Most information marketers, which is what you are when you’re a thought-leader or expert, create a product pipeline that resembles a pyramid.  At the bottom are introductory products or services that are free or at lower price points.  These may be $10-$20 books or $20-$100 special reports, individual audios or videos.

From there, products or services gradually go up to the midrange.  These could be $150-$5,000 physical products, digital products, public seminars or coaching programs.  Finally, you have the higher-end products or services.  These may be $5,000-$100,000 (or even higher) multi-media information products, coaching or consulting packages.

Does this mean that you need to cover every single price point?  No—the point is to have at least one product or service for each of the main price ranges that fits your specific target market’s needs.  This way, you’re allowing your prospects to engage with you at the level that they are comfortable.  Additionally, the higher price points also help to position all of your other price points.

Stand out above the competition and get the attention of your market by positioning yourself as an expert, understanding your value propositions and revenue model and improving your product offerings.  Using this simple strategy, you’re sure to get more bookings, sell more products, attract new clients and make money!

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