One of the greatest fears that people have is public speaking — people would rather deal with snakes, spiders, even death than have to get up and speak to an audience.

It’s too bad, because one of the best business-building tactics is to demonstrate your knowledge to a receptive audience. It pays to be able to speak well in public, and of course it helps if you have a little charm as well.

Public speaking is particularly effective if your business has a service or consulting component (actually if you are not selling services along with products you may be missing a high-margin bet). People like to be educated rather than sold, so if you are an expert in, say, interior decorating or adventure tours, you could hold a seminar entitled, “The Ten Interior Decorating Improvements that Increase Your Home’s Value Most” or “Planning an Adventure You’ll Remember for the Rest of Your Life.” Retail shop owners can offer in-store demos or hands-on workshops like the ones you see at Home Depot and the other “big box” stores.

Naturally you won’t have time to provide all the secrets you have learned about your subject in these sessions; after all, this is your business and you don’t want to make yourself redundant. But if you carefully plan an interesting agenda that informs, educates, and whets the appetite of the attendees, you’ll likely get some inquiries on using your services — not everyone wants to do it themselves!

And what’s more, you will have identified yourself to people who are obviously interested in what you provide; otherwise, why would they even come? If you want to make sure they’re the right people, identify who should attend. You could say something like, “if you are thinking of selling your home in the next six months, this seminar is for you.” Or, “if you have never been on an adventure vacation, this is the seminar for you.”

But whatever you do, be sure to plan your program and do a few practice run-throughs. You’ll need to see how much time it will take – count on it taking longer than planned. Make sure there’s two-way communication with the audience; ask for questions from time to time.

Have some handouts, like a sheet of “tips and tricks,” insider techniques that you use to do what you do. Or give samples of your product.

If you’re going to do this more than once, ask for feedback and hand out a survey form at the end to ask how you did or what could be added.

And if you’re really serious about building business, hold a drawing for a small prize of some kind, and in doing so, get everyone’s name and contact info. Put a check box on the entry form asking if they’d like more information from you. If they say “yes,” you have permission to market to them in the future.

Public speaking can open a lot of doors. Try it and see.

About the Author

Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters (www.MarketingMasters.ca), a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses. Send your ideas on How to Thrive in Times Like These to liz@marketingmasters.ca or ken@marketingmasters.ca, or call 1-866-908-5720.

Web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca

blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/

By Erin Jacobs
Director of Marketing, VerticalResponse

A challenging economy has encouraged many small businesses to test out email marketing with an invitation or announcement. It’s simple, affordable and trackable, after all. But the idea of creating a consistent e-newsletter that you issue on a monthly basis seems daunting.

Well, fear not. You can put a surprisingly compelling newsletter together with a small amount of information. In a recent Extreme Email Makeover session that VerticalResponse hosted, we found that many customers are putting too many offers together in one email and calling them newsletters. The result is that nothing stands out, it isn’t clear to the customer what action they should take, and over time recipients might stop opening the emails. A great e-newsletter can be created with very basic information that is readily available. The key is a balance of information and offers (remember the “what’s in it for me?” factor). Start by testing a newsletter format with three topic areas and then increase to five over a series of a few months to see if you get more clicks. Let your audience decide the right amount of content with open and click-through rates.

Easy e-newsletter content topics:

1. A Message from the Expert – A short paragraph from you to your audience or an introduction that drives recipients to your blog for a feature-length article. Consider offering Five Ways to Improve X in 2009. Include the first two lines of copy in your newsletter as a teaser and link to the full story on your blog for the full list.
2. Customer Testimonial – A simple quote from a happy customer about how your product or service helped them or fixed a problem, a measurable result achieved; or, link to a video testimonial that you host on YouTube.
3. An Offer – Do you have a white paper, discount, or promotion currently running to announce?
4. Event Schedule – Link to the event page on your website or directly to an industry event you plan to attend.
5. Quick Fact – What’s the most popular selling product last month? What do your customers view as the greatest challenge for them next year? Gather important insights and facts with a simple online survey tool and share results in each issue.

The final challenge is committing to frequency so that your audience will come to expect your newsletters. Write your first three issues at the same time. Line up three customer quotes, three notable events worth covering, and three facts to share from a single survey. Remember, this month’s event can become next month’s main article. That’s a formula for successful email newsletters in 2009.

About the Author
As Director of Marketing at VerticalResponse since 2007, Erin is responsible for evangelizing the benefits of email marketing to emerging companies. With over 14 years experience managing global marketing campaigns for technology companies large and small, Erin now shares her Lead Generation and Email Marketing insights with the small business community, helping them increase sales and promote their business online as cost-effectively as possible.