I want to talk about offers today. You know, the offer you’re “supposed” to make when you’re done speaking—the one that provides the people in your audience with a way to continue the conversation.
This is a tricky and often controversial subject in the speaking world. There are some people who view a presentation as one long sales pitch that should be designed to share, but also to inspire people to want to work with you. There are others who believe it’s never okay to “sell” from the stage (although, whether it is or isn’t okay may sometimes be decided by the event planner).
As a subject matter expert, you’re always “offering” a solution to your audience when you’re speaking to them, regardless of whether you’re trying to sell or not. What matters is making sure that in addition to offering them information, you also provide a clear and concise way for them to take some type of action based on the information you’ve shared. Do a good job of providing actionable value while you’re speaking, and the people in your audience are going to be more likely to listen to the offer you’re going to make just before you leave the stage.
The dynamics and finesse of an offer made at the end of a presentation may seem different than the actionable problem-solving solutions being offering during a presentation, but both offers have one very important thing in common: They are both calls to action.
The first calls to action are built into your presentation. They are the result of you sharing your knowledge and expertise on how to solve one or more of your audience’s problems. Your solution is the offer. Providing them with actionable steps they can take on their own to solve their problem is the call to action. Your job is to make sure that the actions they can now take as a result of listening to you are so clear and doable that they can’t wait to see what else you can help them with.
The last call to action—the one we’re used to offering at the end of our time on stage—is offering people an opportunity to keep the conversation going. These offers don’t have to be elaborate. It could be as simple as providing people with a way to sign up for your newsletter. (I covered a whole list of after the podium “offers” in this article.)
The reason this perspective is important is because of the benefit it provides. When you do a good job with your first offers… aka the valuable and actionable content you’re sharing from the stage… coming up with an offer to continue the conversation is going to be a piece of cake. It’s the next logical step someone would take based on what you’ve shared with them so far.
For example, as I was working on this article, I was also thinking about a holiday offer for you. After all, ‘tis the season! One option was to offer a deal on my entire Get Ready! Get set! Go! speaker program. That would be a good offer, but even at a discounted price, a whole program is a big step. So I decided to follow my own advice and came up with a logical next-step offer for people who’ve been reading my newsletter and are ready to start using public speaking to grow their business. (The details of this offer are below.)
Like I said, offers can be tricky. But if you compose your final offer as an extension of what you’ve just shared from the stage, it will make sense, have the kind of continuity people are looking for, and be much more likely to result with the “Yes” response all speakers are hoping for.
‘Til we speak again,
~ Beth
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