Handling those crowds is more effective if you are prepared, and can make them all be comfortable enough to wait in line to speak with you.  Here are some tactics:

• Move away from the podium.  If the room is needed for the next speaker, move into the hallway or the speakers lounge (if it is nearby) with your crowd.
• If you can, set a stack of your business cards a full arm’s reach away from you on a table, so folks can pick one up if they don’t want to speak with you directly at this time, or cannot wait in line for the chance, or if they want to learn more before contacting you.
• Keep more of your business cards in your left hand pocket.
• Acknowledge the line of people waiting to speak with you, with a nod and a welcoming smile at the line.
• Focus on the person in front of you.  Offer direct eye contact and shake hands (with your right hand) while offering your business card with your left (from your left hand pocket).
• Focus on the person’s name so you know it.  Ask for their card.
• If they hand you a laminated card (all the rage just now, but you cannot write on them), pull out a post-it (2 1/2 inch by 1 inch) from your pocket and write your notes on that.
• You must take notes on the cards.  You will not remember what each person said.  Not even later tonight.  And remembering will distract you from the next person in line.
• Set aside high-maintenance talkers who disregard the others in line.  Smile deeply at them, and say “Please, I want to attend to your questions in depth.  Let me speak with these people who are waiting, and come back to you in a few minutes to speak in more detail.”  If that person objects, ask them to phone you the next day (offer specific times you will be at your desk).  If they phone, they are serious; if not, it won’t matter.

If you are wise, you will have offered your URL and email address during your introduction before speaking, so those who did not wait can still contact you.

Allowing yourself to be accessible in these ways will smooth the way to expanding your network of colleagues, contacts, prospects, customers and clients.

And now with easy-to-use-and-distribute video over the Internet, and recorded webinars, you can reach an even larger audience without even showing up!

There are key strategies to effective speaking, if you mean to attract your new clients from the effort.  Here is a topline list:

• Research your industry trade shows and conferences to determine which ones are actually addressing your potential client base (the ones that can hire you). Do not bother with events where there are no prospects in the audience, unless this presentation is pro-bono work.
• Answer the conference’s “call for speakers” and find someone in your network to introduce you to one of the decision-makers.  If possible, write directly to the decision-maker separately.
• Write an effective blurb with a compelling title, a brief summary of the issues and the “take-aways” for the audience.
• Make certain your short bio (less than 200 characters — not words) states clearly your unique value proposition and your URL.
• Show your expertise without telling your audience the tactics to achieve the results.  Stay at the “strategic and results” level in your talk.  Details will lose their interest and give away the value you are offering.
• Do not pitch for work from the stage. Not only is this against the understood etiquette of public speaking (and will result in your not being invited back by the conference coordinators), it undermines your “negative selling” approach to prospecting.
• While you must not pitch, you must ask for a direct connection with those in the audience who may want your services.  This is done by inviting those with specific issues to speak with you after the presentation, or by offering some trinket you will send to them if they leave their card.
• Make certain all your contact information is on your opening and your closing slides.  Speak your name clearly, and state your URL and email address as you introduce yourself, so the recording can capture it for audiences not in the room, and to reach those potential clients who cannot stay to speak with you afterwards.
• State your value proposition early on, and give examples, during your presentation, of one or two stories (presented as case studies) where you had success that addresses the pain felt by the audience on your topic.  People love stories, so embed your successes as stories, particularly those stories with humor.
• Wrap up with your selected invitation(s), and leave yourself at least an hour or more following the conclusion of the presentation to handle those who want to speak with you.
• After you have presented your topic a few times, and received some feedback, refine the presentation into a webinar to be offered to online groups of prospects, and later archived and presented many times to a professional or media group’s membership base.
• Post your slides, video and/or audio presentation on your website (or the link to it on the conference site’s archives), and announce its posting to your database of clients, prospects and colleagues and through your social media networks.

This one-to-many personal, live connection to a group of prospects will attract both potential clients (who will feel they know you because they have watched you for more than an hour), and will create “buzz” among those who are not prospects, spreading your reputation into market spaces you are not even considering.  The wide distribution of the presentation will attract folks you don’t know and couldn’t meet otherwise.  As a prospecting tool for consulting clients, nothing is more effective.

Supporting:

• Once accepted as a speaker, be as low-maintenance as possible.  Send in everything you are asked for as soon as you can – blurbs, bios, photos, and equipment requests.  Do not make the administrators chase you.  A reputation as a cooperative speaker, combined with good evaluations from the audience, tend to ensure repeat offers to present.
• Arrive at least 15 minutes early to your presentation room to make sure you understand the physical conditions and can test the equipment and confer with the tech support and administrative support handling the room.  This early time allows trouble to be detected and fixed.
• If there is nothing to prepare, you will have time to personally greet the early arrivals in the audience, which they will appreciate, especially if you ask them about their specific interest in the topic, or any question they might like you to address.  Many of the audience are shy in front of presenters, and would not speak with you afterwards.   These are particularly appreciative of being welcomed before the presentation.
• When presenting, follow the requests of the organization:  make sure audience questions are repeated or are asked into a microphone, so that the recordings are valuable.   If you are asked to make announcements (for example, to fill in evaluation forms), comply graciously.

Follow up and marketing outreach:

• Write a thank-you email to the host of the conference, reporting on the success of the presentation, your enjoyment of the event, and your interest in presenting at future events.  This should be sent no more than 2 days following your presentation.
• Send a follow up email to your other panel speakers, appreciating their insights.  (If you chaired the panel, then thank them for their expertise).
• Send a follow up email to anyone from the audience who gave you his/her card and/or spoke to you afterwards.  This email must be sent individually to each person, and you must reference what issues they shared with you, which you should have noted on the card during or after your conversation with each one of them.
• Although you can use standard paragraphs in this email, at least one paragraph must reference that you remember the conversation.  Do not send a mass-mail, form email except to those who may have taken your card, left theirs, and did not speak to you.  This email must speak to your regret in not having a chance to speak to them directly.
• In the email’s content:
  • Reference access to your website.
  • Engage them in further conversation about your product or service or consultancy without selling.
  • Send a “trinket” – some blog article of yours, or others’, which extends the conversation and will be of use to them.
  • If you plan ahead, you will offer your audience access to this trinket if they will give you their card after your presentation.  The trinket can be delivered via email or via a link in the email, which drives the audience to your site to access it there with a password, created for this audience.

Much of this is basic etiquette, but it goes far in making your way into new relationships and in creating new loyalties.

Remember,  you only want to speak at events and conferences that will put your targeted decision maker in the room where you are speaking.

Here’s how:

Research:

• List of all the conferences special to your industry.
• List the events and conferences at which your competitors present (search your competitors’ websites).
• Select the ones that put that targeted decision maker in the audience.
• Refine your selection to prefer events that allow you a solo presentation. Panel participation is fine, but often is not as effective due to the limited time to show your expertise, bad moderators, and other conditions beyond your control. Another high priority includes events that allow either solo or panel presentation, but add on a breakout session or workshop as well.

Due diligence:

• Explore each event or conference website to determine if it attracts your target market in its audience.  There will be a list titled “Who should attend.”
• Contact the conference (use an email address not associated with you or your company) to send you the promo package for sponsors or exhibitors.  This should give you a much more detailed demographic and psychographic description of the attendees, by percentage (10% CxO, 25% VP, etc.) of rank.

Pitch:

• If the conference or the Call for Speakers lists its agenda of panels or speaking sessions, select the one or two that fit your expertise.
• Draft an introductory email (or fill in a Call for Speakers form) pitching the topic(s) you can offer for those items on the agenda.  If there is space allowed, drop the names of at least two major conferences where you have presented this topic (or something similar) previously.
  • If the Call for Speakers is open-ended, and no agenda is offered, then study the audience and mission statement of the conference and pitch a series of topics that they might be interested in considering.
  • When offering to present, offer a list of two or three topics that might fit.
  • Attach the Speaking page of your website as a PDF attachment.
  • In your email, add a link to your speaking page and a link to the home page of your website.
    • Your speaking testimonials should be included, usually on the Speaking page of your site.  If they are on a separate page of your website, add a link to that page as well.
    • Of course, if you know someone inside the organization that is hosting the conference, connect with that person to get any inside information you might use, or ask him/her to get your pitch letter to the best decision maker inside.

If you follow these tactics, you can create a loyal following of organizations offering you exposure to your prospective audience.  Check out also Part 2:  Pitching without Pitching (will be posted in a few days this week).